Back From The Dead

First post proper in a long time, and it would be incredibly remiss of me not to pay my respects to the victims and their families of the crush in Duisburg at the Love Parade yesterday. A terrible accident which may well have been avoidable, but lets not try to score points and blame anybody who didn't realistically have any power to prevent it.

So, the hiatus is over, and I've hopefully got the bit between my teeth once more. Not very much has happened in Blingland since the World Cup started on the 11.6. I took and failed my driving test for the first time last week. One of my boys finished primary school and is looking forward to the challenges that secondary education is going to bring, Liverpool appointed Roy Hodgson as manager, Sonar came and went as has Free Rotation, (I'll be there next year with a wonderfully luxurious tent), Spain of course deservedly won the World Cup, Nadal Wimbledon . . . anything else . . ? Probably. Oh yes. I bought Traktor and the Kontrol X1, had to upgrade my ProBook's RAM and Software and still couldn't get the X1 to work. It has been sent back but Traktor Scratch Duo is on it's way. I need some technoid geek to come around and help me master the hardware, which I may repurchase soon!

So, I haven't been entirely cut off from music. I've listened to lots of new releases recently, most of which have been good. Lee Foss has a new EP out on his and Jamie Jones' Hot Creations, and the Wolf & Lamb/Soul Clap axis continues to represent with Zev and Gadi Mizrahi going their separate ways on wax. Arguably the sound of the summer along with the aforementioned Foss and Jones' Hot Natured. The genius here is making sampladelic r & b - influenced house sound fresh and uncommercial but simultaneously accessible to all strata of the clubbing community. Having said that, I'd like to see these guys take a trip on the dark side. I'm sure it'll happen when they find themselves in an inevitable creative quandary. Also, almost everything that the Pullproxy agency send me links to is at the very least interesting and often exceptional.

Loads of mixes have been listened to. Two that I've particularly enjoyed are Tevo Howard's contribution to the Roof FM series and Magda's 'Forty Fathoms' which was featured a few weeks ago on Mnml Ssgs. Howard's mix is superb with Taffy's 'Radio' a highlight. Magda's mix is a kick in the nuts to anyone who thinks she's just a dry minimal husk. There's a Jamie Jones and Robert James set from Russia doing the rounds, also a Jan Krueger set that is particularly good. FACT remains a great resource for podcasts and they've weighed in this week with one from Blueprint boss James Ruskin, but I download them all as they're invariably great. Oh, and although I haven't listened to it yet the Conforce set is supposed to be the business.

That's it for now. Some weekly opinionated posts coming up with the first one by the end of this week.