Hailing from Brussels, producer ShunGu has been dropping cosmic sounding beats since 2012, with an extensive back catalogue of thirty beat tapes on Bandcamp. On April 19th ShunGu will drop his latest offering, ‘A Black Market’, which will be released on his Sunthings Records label.
Throughout ‘A Black Market’, the production is a fluid representation of his soulful and experimental sound, transcending beats full in flavour and exploding with jazz fusion samples, experimental hip hop and funk. Recorded in his home-studio in Brussels, guests include LA-based rapper Pink Siifu, South London’s MA.MAYO, and Oakland rapper Spote Breeze.
If you’re in Brussels on April 30th you can catch the LP launch party – INFO HERE.
Ahead of the record’s release, ShunGu has given us a track-by-track guide that sheds some light on the thoughts, inspirations and ideas behind each song on the project.
Read on for the full lowdown…
The Room Intro
It took me a lot of time to select that track as the intro of the album. I feel like I do a lot of interlude/intro/outro type of music, so I had a lot of choice, and this one sounded like the beginning of a train ride, and I like trains.
Roll With Me
The sky was very high that day when I made the track. I did another one that day that didn’t come up on the album, but I felt that those two tracks have a specific vibe of that day. I’ve met Pink Siifu in Oakland we were both playing at the Smartbomb party. The man have so much love and energy it’s crazy. Then, when I’ve send demos to him, the guy just jumped on two tracks, it helped me a lot to build the album after that. I’m sharing the studio with an old friend of mine that listens to tons of G-Funk. Being around him, definitely inspired me for this track.
Groove It Baby
I always wanted to do a bouncy track like that, I came up by jammin’ with a new synth. I really feel that this is a beatmaker project because I arranged that track in a simple way and used repetition and loops. That’s all I wanted to do, a very groovy track that makes my ass wanna move.
Drop Knowledge
I wanted to have one rap track on the album, and my bro Spote Breeze felt like the perfect fit for this track since I met him in Oakland thru Jamie from Hot Record Societe. I love his art. I know that this track is very minimal, but that’s on purpose.
Pick Up The Phone
That track was made in such a dirty condition lol, it’s funny how sometimes a good energy is enough. I always try to remind myself that it all comes from the inside; material things come after. Shout out to my friend Gabriel that played bass and guitar on this track.
There’s A War Outside
This track is probably made to get out from the anxiety I had at that time, you know it’s like sometimes you wanna make hard rock to bring out the stress in you, I wanted a hard noisy drum at some point to make a transition in the album, make a balance with the rest that is super smooth-sounding,
Tokyo Express
I feel this one is special for me because it shows another side of all my inspiration. I was trying to touch this dissonant rock vibes. This is all in the title, I made this track right before the tour with the band in Japan. After travelling to different horizons along the years, this one felt a bit different to me.
Let’s Go Outside
It’s a love interlude. In this one, I feel like we can hear a kick and a snare even if there is none. The creative process of this track is a bit different because I removed the original drum on this one to give to the track a feeling that something is missing.
Don’t Really Know
By doing a quest to find myself, I end up with that track. The track is about incertitude in life. Self-confidence is the key to a lot of things in music.I really feel that sometimes my music is a psychological cure for myself. I see my music like a whole world, a peaceful universe for my spirit.
Touch By Sun
I loved spoken word so much, and I was amazed by the words of Mamoyo and her soul when I met her in London. I wanted to do a kind of spoken word beat type with her to finish the project. The dream is now completed.
