Another tune from Richard H Kirk, the dark magus of electronica. One of those that I’m surpirised I haven’t already posted, and that happened because I was triggered by watching ‘Close Encounters . . .’ last Saturday evening, and was reminded of the sample at the start. Of course it’s much more than that. Is it the track that catalysed bleep? Probably. Is it the strongest track of that subgenre? Definitely. An otherworldly piece of music that has it all. The soundtrack to jetting to the dark side of the moon and beyond. All human life is here, or is it? Imagine this being played on analogue stacks, and emitted through vast pyramids of sonic distribution back in the day or into the future. It’ll always sound amazing.
Wednesday, October 22, 2025
Tom Trago - Ignorance (Magnetron Music)
Title: Ignorance
Artist: Tom Trago
Label: Magnetron Music
Cat Number: MAG243
Genre: Electronic Clairvoyance
1: Clairvoyance
2: Champagne
3: Fast Talking
4: Powerstation
5: Sadari
6: Walk The Dog
7: The garden
8: Eagle’s Nest
9: Ignorance Is Bliss
10: Undertaker
11: The Valley
I love the way the title track kicks into gear. It’s all analogue synths on a foundation of bottom heavy percussion. It’s also got a sense of the grandiose about it. The tyoe of track that had the technology been around in the middle ages, knights would have sliced heads off to its undulating riddimz. Very heraldic in flavour. A difficult act to follow. Not impossible though, and what comes next stands up to scrutiny very well indeed. I think its fair to say that Trago spreads himself artistically over the length and breadth of this work. ‘Fast Talking’ explores electro combined with what come off as quite poppy vocals. Everything glistens. There is a strong eighties cold wave feel throughout, but its more animated than normal, bordering on italo. And, although these influences are nothing new, they’re really handled with confidence and panache. ‘Sadari’ is an incredibly punchy three minutes, so it’s definitely crying out for a remix. And again, if there’s one dominant influence, it’s definitely electro, but its put through the centrifuge again and again; ‘Ignorance Is Bliss’ focusing on its disco tendencies, ‘Undertaker’ going harder and darker. Every track on here feels very accomplished and has a narrative with plenty of room for interpretation. Above all else, it’s a dramatic piece of work in which every beat counts.
Tuesday, October 21, 2025
Track Of The Day: The Congos - Congoman (Black Art)
Posting this because I’m off to see these guys tonight in Cambridge. Also, because it’s one of my oldest reggae memories. Not because it was something I listened to, rather that I came across the group while reading a copy of Sounds in 1977, which sent me beyond Bob Marley and into a parallel world of spiritualism and herbs. My now sadly-deceased friend Peter Pulford didn’t own a lot of records, but he had this one. And the production from Lee Perry allows it to sound like the future, as well as traditional. The opening track ‘Fisherman’, probably gets the most plays, but ‘Congoman’ takes us somewhere else, in which we eavesdrop on another time and place. Rastafarians are what the hippies, who all turned into venture capitalists wanted to be. Has their time passed? Let's hope not.
Monday, October 20, 2025
Track Of The Day: Sniper Mode - Homecoming feat. Exzakt (Rawax)
Sniper Mode is Gregor Tresher, someone whose name seemed to be everywhere a decade or so ago. Anyway, he’s back, albeit under a nom de plume. And for this track he teams up with Miami electro upstart Ezakt, for a piece of post – truth electro with a heavy, discordant undertow. The vocals, who I presume are coming from Mr Exzakt, are intoned in a suitably distorted, cyborgean manner. The whole release is great, and this track kicks things off very powerfully. It doesn’t necessarily go anywhere except making a beeline for your cerebral cortex and shape throwing synapses. If you can’t dance to this then you’re dead inside. A definite candidate for the soundtrack to the ‘They Live’ remake. Probably.
Track Of Yesterday: CV313 - Seconds To Forever (Echospace)
Over the weekend, CV313 gave away mosty, if not all, of the content of his Bandcamp site for free. I grabbed all of them, clicking away like it was going out of fashion. Great stuff to own and wonderful to play, particularly as atmospheric embellishment to the Sunday roast being cooked, and some taster roasties being consumed. That would have been a good name for any of these tracks actually. Anyway, I doubt this back catalogue is still on offer, but check it out anyway.
Sunday, October 19, 2025
Saturday, October 18, 2025
Track Of The Day: Phara - Solitude (Fuse Imprint)
A great track that blends dub techno with deep house to devastating effect. The highest comliment I can pay it is that it reminds me of ‘Raptures Of The Deep’. From the ‘Soft Glow, Fierce Light’ release on Fuse Imprint and, while this might be the pick of the bunch, the other tracks are great as well. Haventepe is another comparison I feel compelled to make, which isn’t bad either.
Friday, October 17, 2025
Track Of The Day: Nick Calingaert - Love and Karma (Paper)
I was rewiring my speakers a few hours ago and the first record I pulled from my shelves was this one. Now I’ve sold almost all of my Paper Recordings collection over the last year or two, but I have kept some. Mainly those that are a little bit techier than the others. And it was a pleasant surprise to listen to this for the first time on ages. Nick Calingaert released mainly as Common Factor on, amongst others, Planet E and Soma. And, despite him using his real name for this release, it follows his general plan of action quite closely. This is a great piece of driving deep house. One for the warm up or early on in a main set. Great!
Thursday, October 16, 2025
Track Of The Day: E-Zee Possee - Everything Starts With An E (More Protein)
This track was an early rave staple and owes its existence to E-Zee Possee, headed by the redoubtable MC Kinky. There’s a million and one things we could say in the context of cultural misappropriation. However, this was the dogs bollocks when it was being played on huge rigs in vast warehouses and aircraft hangars full of gurners. I am positive that this was played at the first rave I attended, which was at Biggin Hill airfield in Kent. I definitely remember Sugar Bear’s ‘Don’t Scandalise Mine’ playing as I entered the fray, and this for sure. Anyone out there know who put this party on, May/June 1989? I will do some research.
Wednesday, October 15, 2025
Track Of The Day: Frank Sidebottom's Supergroup - Hit The North
Any words needed? I don't think so. Having just posted 'Living Too Late' on my various socials, this appeared as presciently as The Lady Of The Lake. It's a sign, I tell ye.
Track Of Yesterday: The Fall - Living Too Late (Beggar's Banquet)
I’m sure a lot of us feel that we’re living too late, and I’m no exception. More and more as we hurtle into an uncertain future, looking back at a past that we never knew, but would like to have been a part of. I wouldn’t have to go that far back, just between the wars, or shortly after. I’ve always been attracted to the idea of living in Paris during the time of the surrealists. Failing that, the 1950s nether regions, but I would have to be living in London or New York. These times evoke something strong, but that’s another story. And as far as this track is concerned, beside the predictably meaningful mumbling of Mark E. Smith, it’s all about the bass.
Tuesday, October 14, 2025
Track Of Yesterday: The Economist - Damcase (Exit Strategy)
As far as dub techno goes, this one is a big room bonanza. Stripped down to its bare essentials, it’s a driving piece of deep house with the requisite overtones which serve to highlight the necessary flourishes. What the bollocks is he on about I hear you say? Well, everything is in place, but liberties have been taken with the various motifs. Well, there’s only so much gibberish that can be spouted so it really is a case of letting the music do the talking, and this piece of upfront dance floor divination has all its ducks lined up. Stripped down beats, razor sharp synth swathes and a nice line in between the lines disorientation means that this tune manages to hold its nerve to build and build and build, exstablishing a feeling of familiarity in the best possible taste.
Monday, October 13, 2025
Sunday, October 12, 2025
Track Of The Day: Al Jabr – Those Who Dare (Funk) (Alphaphone Recordings)
It starts inauspiciously, but soon gets into its stride. A simple loop weighed down by its own density, like a musical white dwarf embellished by the tweak of radio waves from a lost world disappearing into the Kuiper Belt. As momentum builds more flourishes are added until we’ve got this piece of rampant cosmic disco which could have been spawned by an unholy union between The Funky Drummer and The Egypt 80. It’s Richard Kirk though, so what exactly did you expect?
Saturday, October 11, 2025
Track Of The Day: Hell - Copa (Disco B)
Hell is DJ Hell and ‘Copa’ is a sleazy glimpse into a parallel world where the housewife’s choice, Barry Manilow, is turned on his head and put through the disco rinser. The last vestiges of the high life are filtered out as the twentieth century shuts down to a collage of divas, muscle Marys and industrial amounts of coke. So much coke that it starts to act in reverse and you’re knackered from excess. It’s all (lip) gloss and polish dancing in the foreground of what is to become an age where all the high ends are sharper and the bass is buried. It’s nostalgia’s last gasp, the comical decadence an interloper. It’s also an incredibly lazy tune which manages to make me think of ‘The Love Boat’.
Friday, October 10, 2025
Track Of The Day: Robert Drewek vs Tomie Nevada - Done In Two Days (Rawax)
I came across this tune very recently. It starts rather innocuously but then develops into some sort of synth monster. Almost electroclash in parts, but with a strong bent. It also sounds much better pitched down to the pace of cosmic chug. It’s at it’s best after the breakdown, when its five or six layers push and pull like rhythmic tectonic plates of disco bliss. All of this wrapped in a gossamer light envelop of phantom synth washes which, at times, sound like a spectral barrel organ.
Thursday, October 09, 2025
Track Of The Day: Alex Tolstey ~& Michael Lawrence - Smoke Seducer (Boshke Beats Records)
I really like this track. It’s a persistent, portentous plodder in the best possible way. It’s also a very good example of a track that mixes techno with electro. “But what’s the difference?” I know in my head, and I could bore you with my take on it, but it would only be used as a chat up line in a meme (you know the one). With that in mind, it’s no surprise at all the release comes with a Carl Finlow remix. This is the original though, and it’s a haunting piece of frictional techno, or off the leash electro depending on your perspective. Great noises throughout, which really bring it alive, give depth and add a tribal element to it. Wonderful.
Track Of Yesterday: Jeff Mills In The Bush (Axis)
It’s just a loop, but there’s so much in it. And if this is some sort of flashback into a distant past, then its credible. Whatever the motives for making this track, it couldn’t sound more evocative and dramatic. According to the most recent comment on Youtube, “The bassline is actually cropped and pitched from Mory Kante - Yeke Yeke (Afro Acid Remix) produced by Martyn Young, released 1987.” Which is interesting. Going back to the source, or a source. When this came out it was a pivotal moment in techno. Mr Mills suddenly went in a different, more functional and funky direction. Which isn’t to say that he hadn’t explored those possibilities before, but now here was a series, designed especially for DJs and their slabs. And what’s more, these are no ordinary tools. The tracks on these releases each step up in their own way and become much more than the sum of their parts. I colse my eyes and I’m back in Rough Trade Paris snapping them up, knowing that they’ll do the business. I think that the first two came out at the same time, which felt like Christmas at the time. Tracks like these set the standards for others to follow, and they still are.
Wednesday, October 08, 2025
Tuesday, October 07, 2025
Track of The day: Trouble Funk - Let's Get Small (4th & Broadway)
I saw Trouble Funk twice. The first time, at the Town & Country Club I caught the encore. Thanks to someone who will remain nameless saying that there was no need to rush to get to the gig. I mean I only wanted to be there when it started. Thankfully the encore was around 45 minutes long. The second time was at the Brixton Academy. Again, I won’t reveal who my partner in crime was. He did think it would be a good idea to approach a group of lads and ask them if they were Spurs fans (they were), and then chant “yiddos, yiddos” at them. Not smart. He thought he was being friendly, they were gobsmacked. In between all this there was the music, which was amazing. Go-Go briefly reigned supreme for a small time in the mid to late eighties and when you were in the midst of a Trouble Funk show it wasn’t difficult to see why. I just wish I could have picked better company.
Monday, October 06, 2025
Track Of The day: Jibaros - Nite Drive (Ban Con Tim)
Ban Con Tim was a short-lived label, but it definitely made its mark. And this track, ‘Nite Drive’ is typical of the groove it deployed. It’s by Eric Cycle, who was the brains behind the label and if he left us with anything, it was how to fill a room with bass, space and rich analog warmth. There’s not much to it, but it’s relentless, funky and intense. Not quite matching the power of ‘Colora (Dub)’, but pruned from a different grade of trance – derived deep house and just as effective in its own area.
Sunday, October 05, 2025
Track Of Yesterday: Jonny Greenwood - One Battle After Another (Nonesuch Records)
I went to see this film yesterday and the soundtrack plays as much a part as anything, or anyone else. Throughout the action, there is a constant undercurrent of music, mostly piano. This accompaniment feels so close to the kinetics of the scenario that it completely blends in. And even though it’s very noticeable it never gets in the way. It put me on mind a lot of music that would be used with lots of fifties and sixties American cartoons. Very jazzy, tipping over into improvisation, but organised in such a way as to feel completely natural.
Track Of The Day: JS - JS-02 (JS)
JS Zeiter has been brining his particular brand of dub techno to the collective ossicles since 1998 and, while what he does isn’t necessarily groundbreaking as far as the genre is concerned, he makes very good tracks. The type that when heard on the mix have a singular presence and have one Shazaming or searching the Internet’s various track id outlets. Anyway, JS Zeiter has made some great tunes, the type that gives you faith in the expectancy that dub techno isn’t the soundtrack to flatworms evolving in the primal sludge. The price of the vinyl on Discogs is starting to get silly though, which is probably because, as the comment on its page says “This record is now in serious demand after being identified on one of Nina Kraviz techno/electro mixes. Its a one sided, limited edition release [only 506 presses] so grab it while you can, the value is only going to rise ;)”. It can be found on Bandcamp, fortunately.
Friday, October 03, 2025
Track Of The Day: Cybotron - Clear (Fantasy)
What is left to be said about this seminal track? Has it ever been bettered? Equalled probably, but there is so much depth in its rhythm that everything since carries echoes of it. Having said that it’s also very much of its time, check other stuff released back then to be sure. It’s doubtful that any of its peers has had as much influence or as much of an impact though. Years ahead of its time. Still is.
Thursday, October 02, 2025
Track Of The Day: Ability II, Dj Steve & Luca Lozano - My Definition of Bass (Deep In Dub Mix) (Klasse Wrecks)
This, a collaboration between Luca Lozano, DJ Steve and Leeds rave pioneers Ability ll, is a straight up piece of dub, albeit with an electronic edge, rather than being a piece of dub techno. Maybe a harder edged version of a lot of what was issued on the likes of Grayhound and Worship by Rob Paine. Anyways, that memory just came to me ad I’m far too lazy to “do the research”, but I trust my instincts. It’s good, and another piece of evidence to prove the longevity and versatility of the artform.
Wednesday, October 01, 2025
Track Of The Day: Autechre - Montreal (Warp)
This track is on ‘Amber’, which came out 31 years ago. An important and seminal piece of work by Autechre. And ‘Montreal’ is quite a funky workout for them. A beat – driven track which sits within the ambient/hip-hop hinterland. It’s almost like an IDM take on G-funk. Definitely one to be pumped from a low rider in a parallel world. One of those tracks whose different layers shift and evolve on multiple levels, like sonic Tetris, but much more melodic. Oh, and I was in Montreal a couple of years before this came out. Does it fit the vibe? Anything does in it's specific time and place.
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