“Get rid of that wax in your ear. Now throw some of our wax in your ear. Cratery returns for it’s 27th consecutive month with another hour of musical goodness from the personal collections of myself, Kaewonder and DJ Serious. Cratery isn’t just free. It’s free of mp3’s, CD’s, reissues, and compilations. All vinyl. All dope. Here’s another hour of soul, funk, jazz, psych and soundtrack heaters on us. Cratery 27. Enjoy.” - ARCEE

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“Our 26th edition of Cratery signals another milestone: The intelligent Cratery track list. Up until now, listeners had to refer to the blog to find out what song they were listening to. From now on, each Cratery mix will house and display song titles in iTunes – as you listen. Simply import Cratery into your iTunes as you normally do, then click on “Chapters” in your iTunes menu along the top. You should now be able to select songs within the mix individually. You can also click on the artwork itself, then click the 3-tiered icon on the right to reveal the tracklist and skip between songs at your leisure. Although, with a range of genre-spanning vintage heat like Johnny Harris, Andy Bey, Ultimate Spinach and Vikings de la Guadeloupe, skipping songs is highly unlikely. Join us to celebrate the release of Cratery 26 this Saturday at Red Light Lounge (1185 Dundas Street West) for another edition of Cratery LIVE, our monthly all-vinyl extravaganza, on the first Saturday of every month.” - ARCEE

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“What began as a humble, hour long dig-diary is now a vital, vinyl ritual, complete with it’s own cult following, monthly party and award-winning logo. We begin our 3rd year of Cratery with a 2nd. The 2nd official edition of Dollarate: our post-holiday guide to wallet-friendly digging. Theoretically, the records on this month’s podcast are all records that you should be able to find for $10 and under. Please don’t be that dude that drops $20 on Fancy’s Wild thing LP in the Cosmos beats and breaks section. As usual, Kaewonder, Serious and I go one-for-one on some dollar bin heat that just might have you sifting through a stack of Roger Whittaker/Nana Mouskouri/Mantovani records at the local Goodwill you’d all but given up on. Don’t forget to join us for Cratery Live: This Saturday February 5th and the first Saturday of every month at Red Light (1185 Dundas St west).” - ARCEE

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“I kind of went savage this year.  I probably crossed more key records off my want list than any year past.  And the crazy part is – I can’t see myself slowing. Kae, Serious and I collectively trotted around Rochester. Montreal. Detroit. NYC. And Vancouver. In addition to hitting almost every local record fair and store in our own town. Repeatedly. In short, it was a great vinyl year.  And next year promises to bring more Cratery related madness. More content. More mixes. And a brand new Cratery monthly: The first Saturday of every month at Red Light (1185 Dundas st. W).  Catch Kaewonder, Serious and I lugging our crates down to our monthly vinyl celebration starting Saturday, January 8th. In the meantime, light one up and download our final mix of the year, featuring some of the 2010 finds we haven’t dropped on any Cratery yet. Enjoy.” - ARCEE

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“Cratery 23D marks the final chapter in our four-part Cratery extravaganza. Jason Palma shares more heaters with Kae, Serious and I to close our end of year crate-a-thon. We mentioned Play De. And Higher Ground radio. But you can also catch Palma as part of the Footprints gang banging that afro jazzy goodness year round. Short on length. Long on soul.  Cratery 23D featuring Jason Palma. Enjoy.” - ARCEE

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“When we’re sharing an hour of music among 3-4 DJ’s, each of us ends up only playing 3-4 songs each.  For both our guests this month, 1 hour was simply not enough to share the jewels they had each selected. Both came equipped with stacks sufficient for several hours worth of high-priced vinyl nerdery. And we certainly had no reason to object. Sip, Kae and I happily genre-hop for another hour between French-Canadian breakbeats (Lee Gagnon), Gritty Gospel sounds (Rance Allen) and Boogie artists with puns in their names (Special-T). Cratery 23C featuring Sipreano.  Enjoy.

MILDY INTERESTING CRATERY 23 FACTOID: The roti pictured in the artwork comes courtesy of Ali’s Roti Shop in Parkdale. Sipreano enjoys Roti.  So do we. So we took a picture of it.” - ARCEE

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“Part 2 of our 4-part Cratery continues with one of T.O.’s foremost record aficionados and cool peoples: Jason Palma. Co-owner of Toronto’s vinyl institution, Play de Record. Bump-N-Hustle alumni. And host/creator of Higher Ground radio on CIUT 89.5 FM every Thursday night at 8 pm. It doesn’t matter if he’s selling you a piece of heat. Killing dancefloors around the city. Or blessing the airwaves with the latest. The one thing Jason Palma continues to do so well: PUT YOU ON TO DOPE MUSIC. We at Cratery are no exception. Cratery 23B featuring Jason Palma. Enjoy.

MILDLY INTERESTING CRATERY 23 FACTOID: Both Sipreano and Palma played versions of the song “It was a very good year”. Sip went for Art Snider’s instrumental rendition. And Palma drew for Della Reese’s funky big band 45. Not gonna lie. Record-wise, it was a very good year.” - ARCEE

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“The first of a 4-part Cratery featuring 2 of our favourite record nerds, Vancouver’s Sipreano and Toronto’s Jason Palma. On Session A, Sip goes one for one with Serious, Kaewonder and myself, sharing his love for all things Canadian, funky and undiscovered. Sip is not only responsible for breathing life into Light in the Attic’s “Jamaica to Toronto” compilation, but also the curator of the recently created voluntaryinnature.blogspot.com. He is also credited with creating the phrase “Rock Kokanee Flow”. Cratery 23: Session A featuring Sipreano. Enjoy.” - ARCEE

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“This month, we trade treats with one of hip-hop’s premier producers and a dude I am proud to call a close personal hommrade (part hommie, part comrade): Jake One. A few of you (maybe like 3) might be familiar with some music I did with Jake back in the late 90’s/early 2000’s. Most of you will probably know him from the countless other artists he’s actually had success with: Freeway, De La Soul, 50 Cent, MF Doom and more. As ½ of the Conmen, he built arguably the most well crafted break tape series of all-time. And inspired fellow music nerds like myself and Kaewonder in the process. Jake was in town judging the Sound Battle T.O. finals on Friday night. He only played records he purchased during his visit to Toronto. So to be fair, this is nowhere near the scope of his personal collection. Shout out to Attic, MoSS , Taktiks for bearing witness to it all. Another hour of soul, boogie, rock and a Cuban version of Herb Alpert’s Rise. Enjoy.” - ARCEE

Track list and download after the jump.

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Very little is known about Toronto record aficionado David Bay. David’s undocumented rise to infamy is based on the records he has procured through countless online portals, particularly eBay – earning him the nickname dBay. Bay, is in fact, not even his last name (I’m starting to question the accuracy of “David” as well). Despite his ridiculously low profile, the hommie Kaewonder and I have both ‘worked’ with Bay to secure particularly elusive vinyl pieces over the years.  When we asked David to participate in this month’s Cratery, he refused. But after bribing him with a pair of shoelaces, a pineapple coconut bun from a Chinese Bakery and his 19th copy of Toto’s 1978 self-titled LP, he agreed.  We’d tell you where to find him.  But you’d probably have a better chance of finding a Stark Reality for $1 at Cosmos. We give you Cratery 21, featuring the ever-elusive David Bay (dBay). Enjoy.” - ARCEE

Track list and download after the jump.

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