Sunday, February 24, 2013

Thee Kaleidoscopic Rebellion: 23/2/13







Pump & Bounce (Short Mix) - Tevo Howard (Permanent Vacation) from 'What Is Sound'
B2 - Ron Trent/Joshua/Abacus/Chez Damier  (Prescription)
Space Coral - Marco Bernardi (Futureboogie)
Antacid (Wish Mountain Remix) - Link (Warp/Evolution)
Hoover Bag - Luke Solomon (Fullbarr) from 'Beyond Therapy Vol. 1
Freedom Train (No Ears Mix) - Groovestyle (Classic)
Memoir - Lil' Mark (Eclectic Avenue Records)
Paradise (Salt City Orchestra Mix) - Nick Holder (NRK)
Taxi Talk (Urban Tribe No Strings Remix) - Nina Kraviz (Rekids)

True Love - DJ F (AHD)
Techno City '95 - Audiotech (Tresor)
Deep Sea Dweller - Drexciya (UR)
Version 5 - Kevin McPhee (3024) FROM THE 'Dovercourt' EP
Visions In My Mind - Legowelt (Unknown To The Unknown)
Joule - Cassegrain (Prologue)
Search (Tripeo remix) - Samuli Kemppi (Balans)
Haste - Skudge (Skudge)
You Can Do Your Memories - Isolee (Pampa)
08 - Moon B (People's Potential Unlimited)

Last night's show was an enjoyable one, it even featured interaction with listeners, not on the radio itself you understand, but via social media. It''s certainly not the first time that's happened but it's always nice when it does. I also briefly lost the plot during the Kevin McPhee track.I took off my headphones to hear nothing coming out of the speakers. Due to the output lights and sundry other indicators I could tell that the show was still being broadcast, but I hadn't realised that I must have knocked the guest mic slider up a tadge. Anyway, citing "technical problems", I sweated for thirty seconds or so before finally steering things back on course. I'm also not sure if Margaret Scratcher's show was up next, despite saying once or twice throughout the show that it was "coming up at eleven". Annoyingly, Harry's show from two weeks ago wasn't on the hard drive, must ask about that and try and pick it up during the week.

Sunday, February 17, 2013

February Chart




Imbroglios 3/4 - Pepe Bradock (Atavisme)



No Comment 0007 - Albert Van Abbe (Bio Rhythm)



No 50005 - Wax (Wax)



NS-08 - Levon Vincent (Novel Sound)



Raw Code/Junked - Pev & Kowton (Hessle Audio)



History Survivors EP - Lucy & Silent Servant (Mote Evolver)



Double Dawn - The Third Man (EPM)



Third Strike EP - Joel Alter (Bass Culture)


Freefall EP - Strange Attractor (Full Flavor)



Desert Light - Elliot Thomas (Voyeurrhythm)

Tracks Of The Day



Elastic bass in your face.



"Here's a thousand dollars mama, all for you."



Roger S at the controls.



Drift to the centre.



When the synths come in . . .

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Sticks And Stones

The role of the critic isn’t an easy one. Having to continually find new ways to express the audibly obvious may not sound too difficult, but trying to keep it interesting is. Which is one reason why it occasionally becomes boring, at least for a short time. Burnout is a common occurrence as it is difficult to live in a constant state of inspiration which permits easy access to the necessary language. The thing is, writing about the stuff you like is easy, it’s what doesn’t appeal which makes life more difficult, and that’s the principle problem behind writing for a lot of online and printed outlets which don’t set a specific agenda. There are no quota systems, as far as I know, within music journalism, but maybe there should be. Inasmuch as the only news worth reporting is negative, the only reviews worth writing seem to range from the bland to the positive. Unfortunately sometimes there is a reaction against this and it’s not always clear how deliberate the negativity is, whether it’s staged or real. There’s  also the undercurrent of the reviewer wanting to rise above the reviewed. The ratings system is only there to discourage reading, but when certain scores are rare then the opposite is true. Jeff Mills once said that there are two types of music, good and bad, (I’m sure he wasn’t the only one), and that he was always interested to hear new material from the likes of Madonna based purely on her level of ability and, no doubt, popularity. I’m sure a few technoses were put out of joint upon reading that but it’s a simple and effective maxim which paraphrases a desire for greater exposure of the artist. Anyway, not all music writing is about reviewing. Theo Parrish recently gave an interview to Crack Magazine in which he has a go at both the music press and its journalists. Check what he says here.

Some More Stuff

Some marvellous mixes I've recently had the pleasure of listening to are:



Eric Cloutier Live At Les Enfants Terribles #5 Amsterdam 24/11/12



Joey Anderson Hush House Mix #41



Subb-An At Ill Communications, N,Dulge, Dubai 23/11/12



Sonotown Podcast 057 DJ Bone

My time on Earth is short. Adieu.


Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Thunder



Lots of great stuff here from one of the capital's finest nights out. Mixes from the residents abound. Meanwhile, what you see above is a film of recent guest and Chicago legend Gene Hunt's recent Boiler Room appearance. Hunt was a guest at last months installment, while Aybee will be next up in March.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Nostalgia For An Age Yet To Come





I’ve just come back from an afternoon of watching my kids fall on their arses at the Franconville Patinoire and been more impressed by the sound system in there than their primal efforts. The huge space was rocking in the middle of the afternoon to a dodgy commercial mix which numbered beefed up versions of Leo Sayer’s disco smash ‘Thunder In My Heart’ and Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Dreams’, amongst its contributions. I have to say that, for an hour, the sound that filled the ice arena was pretty infectious, not least because the sound was so crisp and driving. We were lucky because there weren’t many people skating so there was little ambient noise, the stargazing equivalent of looking up into the night sky in the Atacama Desert and having zero light pollution. And it got me thinking about having a Function One soundsystem installed there and inviting the Downwards crew to play an impromptu gig, completely unannounced, to combat the league of beach-based libidinous funk which has been pervasive over the past three or four years.

But this is clearly the ramblings of a madman. What brought everything into even sharper focus was that I had just started reading Simon Reynolds’ ‘Retromania’ at the time and was busy ploughing through the introductory chapter’s footnote, entitled ‘The Retroscape’ which is 50%, more or less, of said premier part. It informatively documents how, from the turn of the 21st century, the music business has become consumed with recycling itself and it becomes very evident - long before you realise that it’s not the minor players who are the prime movers, but many of the innovators and consummate artists – that the state of affairs that has been reached is not really because of “Pop Culture’s Addiction To Its Own Past” but that ideas have dried up and cash cows have to be milked. Nothing that wasn’t really already known I’m sure you’ll agree, but I’d rather have read it with the techno lawyer Norman Nodge blasting out of the speakers than Bonny Tyler.

Which brings us around full circle to the recent boom in what has tentatively been described as “outsider house”. Lo-fi reworkings of old dance mania tracks and tropical hot dog-inflected surf-influenced analogue dance tracks may not be everybody’s cup of tea, one glance at the comments which accompany Ron Morelli’s RA podcast should be enough to verify this, but it’s an interesting, if not inevitable route to go down. All of this is because it’s two steps forward, one step back and then one sideways with electronic music. Are its best days behind it? Probably not, but it’s debatable as to whether any more genuine innovation that isn’t a result of cross-pollination is going to make its presence felt. The early standards are still belted out in sets the world over and are still held in such reverence that to not have the same high regard for them is deemed treasonable. Yet the early standard of rock offer such a contrast to what was produced twenty years later, enough to mark out those who were still peddling such sounds as visibly retro. This is nothing new and no doubt Reynolds’ book deals with it in much more exhaustive detail, but its something that I can’t escape and that which bothers me on a daily basis.

Military fighter design reached its apex in the mid-sixties. Has there been anything to surpass the Mig 25 Foxbat, or the slightly later to the table Grumman F14 Tomcat? The answer of course is yes, but not as much as one would rightly expect given the passage of time. Is Madteo’s album ‘Noi No’ actually any good? Only time will tell.

Monday, February 11, 2013

Thee Kaleidoscopic Rebellion: 9/2/13



 Harold Sword curated Saturday's show. I had a relatively early night, as I had to get up at some ungodly hour to drive over to France, from where I pen this post, surrounded by fetid piles of rotting horse meat which are wrapped in burlap and destined for the UK.

Pev and Kowton – Beneath Radar (Kowton version) (Livity Sound)
Ben Klock – You (Klockworks)
Braiden – The Alps (Kaseem Mosse refix) (Doldrums)
Joy Orbison and Boddika – Swims (Swamp 81)
Jon Convex – Convexations (3024)
Jonas Kopp – Anklad (Krill Music)
LAS – Powersurge (Black Box)
Marcel Dettmann – Landscape (answer code request remix) (music man records)
Ramadanman – Blimey (Hessle Audio)
Pacific Blue – Industry (Silent Servant remix) (Pacific Blue)
AnD – Transparent (Krill Music)
Pev and Kowton – Beneath Radar (Peverelist version) (Livity Sound)
Rivet – Meterist (Kontra Music)
Function – Descending (Sandwell District)
Skream – Phatty Drummer (Deep Medi Music)
Surgeon – Two (Dynamic Tension)
Raime – Told and Collapsed (Blackest Ever Black)
Regis – In a Syrian Tongue (Blackest Ever Black)
T ++ - Voices no Bodies (Honest Jons)
Pinch and Shackelton – Rooms within a Room (Honest Jons)
Surgeon – Dark Matter (Dynamic Tension)
AnD – Lights Down (Idle Hands)
Paul Woolford – Pandemonium (Norman Nodge remix)
Ricardo Villalobos and Max Loderbauer Meet Tshetsha Boys (Honest Jons)
AnD – Hydrothermal (Idle Hands)
Shackelton – Bastard Spirit (Woe to the Septic Heart)
Raime – This Foundry (Regis remix) (Blackest Ever Black)
Old Apparatus – Zebulon (Deep Medi Music)
Powell and Karl O Conner – The Ongoing Significance of Steel and Flesh – B – (Diaganol)
Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry – The Way You Should (Mala version) (On U Sound)
G.H – Earth (Modern Love)
Mark Ernestus Meets BBC (version) (Honest Jons)


Thee Kaleidoscopic Rebellion: 9/2/13 Part 1 by Cacophonousbling on Mixcloud

Thee Kaleidoscopic Rebellion: 9/2/13 Part 2 by Cacophonousbling on Mixcloud

Saturday, February 02, 2013

Tunes Of The Day



Primal melting pot.



Preacher pressure.



"If you are a rat head queer?"



Block rocking beats.



Not the first time I've posted this, but that guitar has to be heard.