Breakin Bread continues its series of Mix CDs with a live mix from one of the worlds top soul/funk DJ's. Florian Keller resides in Munich, Germany and he's got one of the world's top Black Music record collections. He's up there with Keb Darge, Jazzman Gerald, DJ Shadow and Egon as one of the world's key record dealers.

Background:
To hear Florian Keller on the decks means you can always expect Funk - in an open minded manner, presented on original vinyl with handcrafted mixing-skills. Whether its a super rare and obscure 45, an early Discorap 12" , a nugget from the golden days of Hip Hop, that classic Rare-Groove tune that or a recent banger that just fits right in: Florian stays away from trainspotter-only snobism and plays pure quality all the way...

In Florian's words…"I started to dj and seriously care about Funk 45's from the mid 80's on, back in the days where you could find records for $5.00 that are worth hundreds of times the price today. No surprise then that my record collection seems to be well-respected by the top funk collectors. My passion was always for the music in the first place, so sometimes one great tune had to be given up so I had the budget for five or ten great other records. For example I had to sell Ricky Calloway's "Tell Me" which went to Keb Darge, or Ebony Rhythm Band which went to Malcolm Catto ages ago (with another copy going to Ian Wright later) or Darling Dears' "I Love You" that went Gerald Jazzman"

Some collectors at this level are so snobbish that they wont tell each other about new discoveries, some of them don't even consider brand new music worth buying and some of them wont even play their super rare records. Florian is definitely NOT one of these people, he's not all about records, he just wants to share good music with everybody and he plays in a style that is truly amazing.

We met Florian when he invited us over to play at his clubnights in Munich a few years ago and he blew me away. We'd heard about him and knew him only as a deep funk collector and DJ who put together a few compilations for Compost Records. Most deep soul and funk DJ's tend to play records without the skills you would associate with a hip hop DJ, but Florian changed my preconceptions. When he took to the decks that night he immediately started blending organic and programmed beats, looping up drum breaks on 7"s, dropping amazing selections and making the crowd go wild on the floor. Not your average funk DJ for sure!

Florian's DJ skills were honed in Munich Clubs where he now rules the roost. He was one third of the Into Somethin' Dj-Team from 1991 and in 1993 then he started a pure Funk night called "Funk Squad" along with Jan Weissenfeldt (leader of the Poets Of Rhythm, the world's first proper Nu-Funk Band). This night's still going stong at Munich's Atomic Café but Florian always had the urge to present more different angles of related genres so in 2003 I started Party-Keller where he plays anything related to Black Music.

However not many people outside of Germany know how good Florian is. Someone with these skills and these records deserves to be heard on a bigger scale outside his own country and I am proud to present a live mix from the man himself.

This mix was recorded live at Cafe Spark, Kagoshima during the 2008 Japan tour. It is a 75 minutes live, no tricks mix. Two turntables, original vinyl and a pioneer 600 only. Three tracks were polished after recording due due to low vinyl quality. There are some glitches but hey this is live, done in one take and in this digital age, you need some imperfections.

THESE ARE THE BREAKS!!!

You can check Florian Keller at http://www.myspace.com/partykeller.