Track Of The Day: Featherstone -- Morning Star (Who Is Paula)

A great track that I discovered recently when listening to 214’s ‘October Mix’. A mix of ambience, electro and heady emotional content. It comes from the recently released ‘Shapeshifter’, and is one of five excellent tracks. Featherstone comes from Australia, of all places. However, it is also one of those places that is becoming an electro hotbed. This EP isn’t completely composed of B -Boy beats, but shows a sonic sleight of hand which culminates in this, possibly the stand out of the package.

Cabaret Voltaire - Nag Nag Nag - FORGE Warehouse, Sheffield - 25 October...

I will be in Birmingham next month to see this. Can't wait.

Sharlese at Sustain-Release Yr. 11

 

Sharlese · Sharlese at Sustain-Release Yr. 11

Track Of The Day: Circulation - Patterins (Iz & Diz Ghosts In Detroit Wake Up Dub) (Balance)

“It sounds a lot more glamorous than it actually was. We were invited up there by Chez Damier who was basically living at the studio in 1995. So me and Diz drove up to Detroit with the back of my van filled with studio gear. When we arrived, Chez was nowhere to be found (surprise surprise) although we ended up running into him at a show that night. That show was actually one of the last times Ken Collier, a Detroit pioneer, DJ’d. When we got back to the studio the next day, the water had been turned off and there was no equipment set up. We spent three days waiting to get the basic amp and board set up and then only had about 20 hours to finish a track which was “Patterins” on Balance. While we were recording it we could feel all the ghosts of sessions past in the room so we called it the “Ghosts In Detroit Wake Up Dub”. All in all it was a great experience, although I remember Chez initially not liking the track. He still put it out and it is one of my favorite tracks we have ever done.” I love Iz & Dis. Still one of house music’s best double acts, although I recently heard that Diz was ill, which is a pity. I hope he’s recovered. Iz, aka Joshua, has one of the most recognisable styles in what used to be my favourite brand of house music. Something that, while it was indelibly from Chicago, went out on a limb somewhat and embraced dub a lot quicker than most. Anyway, this is a lovely piece of horizontal windy city business which is definitely Balearic. 

Track Of The Day: Federsen - Polarity [Alt Dub]

This just hits the spot. The drive, the tones and textures, the pervasive feels created by those frequencies hammering on the sweet spot. It doesn’t all sound the same, as is often said or inferred. When it’s really on its game it defies description and is a true music of the imagination. It’s difficult to say if anyone currently making music will ever reach the levels of, say. Basic Channel, but Federsen is one of the best out there and his tracks evoke and captivate as much as anything out there.

Track Of The Day: Cabaret Voltaire -- Low Cool (Plastex)

Track Of Yesterday: Pure Science - We Must Feel (Rehab Music)

Track Of The Day: Soft Cell - Memorabilia (Some Bizarre)

These two were impossible to avoid during the early eighties, and they left a mark much more indelible than the sum of their parts. Moreover, even though it was probably Marc Almond who was the face and voice of the group, I would be dancing to them because of their sound which revolutionised pop music forever. We have Dave Ball too thank for that. This is my favourite track by Soft Cell, mainly because of his sterling, driving synth work. Revolutionary then and still ahead of the pack now. 

Track Of The Day: Liaisons Dangereuses - Los Niños del Parque (Roadrunner Records)

In spite of their French name, Liaisons Dangereuses were a German ensemble from Kraftwerk’s home town, Dusseldorf. And, like DAF, who were also from the same city, they crossed over in the 1980s with a piece of dark synth disco which couldn’t be more angular or teutonic. I remember dancing to these tunes in Merseyside’s finest early to mid eighties watering holes. Places like The Chelsea Reach in New Brighton, and the Pyramid Club and State in Liverpool. Tracks like this brought the romance of the cold war closer, minus the threat of nuclear weapons. As far as I know ow this was the band’s only single. Good to begin and end on a high.

The Frontier 018 - Andy Green

Quadrant Soundscape · The Frontier 018 - Andy Green

Voyage de Lux w/ Alex Downey - 22.10.25

 

1BTN · Voyage de Lux w/ Alex Downey - 22.10.25

Track Of The Day: Sweet Exorcist - Testone (Warp)

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.

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.

 

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.