Here's a link to a review of Hive Audio's latest, a double header with remixes alongside.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Smug?
We were having lunch yesterday, music was lazily playing in the background, when out of nowhere the wife got very agitated. "What is this pretentious rubbish" she snarled (or something like that). It's bad tv theme music spliced together in a very smug way. That's what it is, it's smug." I stared back into my tomato salad and pondered my position. Anyway, this is what she was getting so worked up about. Is she right?
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Dopplereffekt In Liverpool
Dopplereffekt from kMike on Vimeo.
I came across this very interesting piece of news the other day. I can't make it, which is frustrating because I've just passed my driving test, but I have alerted ground forces and maybe someone I know will attend. Anyway, it's just an excuse to post some Dopplereffekt videos.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Seasonal Affective Disorder
My long summer holiday is finally coming to an end, as is the season itself, if it hasn't already done so. The nights have been visibly shorter for ages, the weather has, of course, been generally shite, and even the indian summer we often get at this time of the year seems a little shy. I've been searching for inspiration, to write some more stuff and to try and say a few more things, but I just haven't been feeling it recently. I'm sure that once I'm back at work I'll have a few more ideas. The fact that I've been dossing at home, having to take care of the kids has raised apathy levels.
Don't know whether to laugh or cry sometimes. While perusing my Facebook feed this morning I noticed that Seth Troxler had posted a joke, from a friend, on the subject of 9/11. They weren't his words, but it came out all wrong and it certainly sounded like he agreed with the sentiments expressed. Sadder still were the stream of comments from "friends" agreeing with it, no doubt because of Mr Troxler's apparent endorsement. Whatever your politics, it's a shit joke:
"What's the main difference between a cow and 9/11?
...you can't continuously milk a cow for a decade."
Come over to the UK, or England, to be more specific. We won the World Cup in 1966 for the one and only time but you'd think it was yesterday. Not only that. We believe that this success, and the fact that we invented the professional gane, gives us the right to believe we can win it every time it comes around. You guys don't know what milking something is . . .
In any case, it's been a reasonable year for mix cds. Marcel Fengler did one for Berghain, following on from Klock and Dettmann. Damian Lazarus has just released a new 'Get Lost' mix on Crosstown Rebels. Prosumer did an excellent one for Panoramabar, my favourite of the year so far. Jamie Jones has just released his Fabric Mix, which, while being solid, wasn't as good as I'd hoped. On a positive note for Seth Troxler, he's about to release a two cd set for NRK as part 3 of their "Lab" series. It's very nice so far; (I've only listened to the first disc.) Two from Cocoon have surfaced recently. The excellent 'Timeless' mixed by Lawrence, and the latest in the 'Green and Blue' series; again a two-disc set, one mixed by Raresh, the other by Sasha Dive. Another double helping comes in the shape of the excellent 'Ten Years Of Secret Sundaze . . ' Significant Fabric live mixes this year came from Jackmaster, Ramadanman and Four Tet. Finally, the DJ Kicks from Motorcity Drum Ensemble was also worth a listen
While we're on the subject of mixes, here are a few more which are worth your while. First, Dopplereffekt's set from the last Bloc. Grab that here . It's hosted by Mixcloud, so if you want to download, go here. FACT magazine's mixes are always worth checking, even if they are more miss than hit most of the time. The latest though is a definite download. It's a live set by Liverpudlian John Heckle. I rarely listen to artists doing pas, but this is excellent. Get on it here. The latest RA podcast, (there'll be a new one tomorrow), featuring DJ Deep is also worth checking. He hasn't physically changed that much since the mid-nineties, when I used to bump into him at Rough Trade in Paris on a regular basis. Him and Smagghe chatting together at the counter was fine for five minutes until you had to warn the pair of them that they were in danger of disappearing up their respective arses. Great DJ though.
One more before I forget. The post-carnival hoe-down at Rinse. Four hours of the Numbers show featuring Jackmaster, Ben UFO, Floating Points, Joy Orbison, Pearson Sound and Bok Bok. It's here.
Finally, the consistently brilliant Promo Mixes site seems to have stalled. Whoever's behind it could you sort it out, please?
Saturday, September 10, 2011
September Chart
Man Or Mistress - Levon Vincent (Novel Sound)
Untitled Dubs - Unbroken Dub (Rawax)
Seven EP - Untitled Dubs (Rawax)
Who Wrote The Rules Of Love - Omar S feat Colonel Abrahams (FXHE)
Analog Dreams Reworked - Patrice Scott (Sistrum)
Music Institute 20th Anniversary Series Pt 3 of 3 - V/A (NDATL Muzik)
The Second Son - John Heckle (Music For Mathematics)
Analogue Solutions 9 - Analogue Solutions (Analogue Solutions)
Warm Spiral EP - V/A (Roundabout Sounds)
Sample & Hold EP - Matthew Styles (Running Back)
Bit slow off the mark with a few of these releases, but that's what comes of spending most of August in foreign climes with no Internet access. A good thing on balance I think, but a bit of catching up required on returning. In any case, I'm mainly referring to the Levon Vincent and John Heckle releases, both of which have been out for a few weeks now.
On the NDATL release, there's a nice KDJ remix of Alexander Robotnik's 'Problemes d'Amour' which, while hardly breaking new ground, keeps things chugging nicely, as well as an "unreleased Alternate version" of 'Light Speed' by Model 500. Patrice Scott's 'Analog Dreams Reworked' contains versions by Johannes Volk, XDB, and a beatless version frlom Scott himself.The 'Warm Spiral EP' is quite a dubby affair, with a contribution from Dujin & Douglas, who were responsible for the debut release on Feelharmonic, reveiewed a couple of months back for RA. Finally, amongst other stuff, the Rawax releases, appearing simultaneously on blue and green vinyl, are studied exercises in depth and atmospherics.
I've also been putting in some time on Traktor, so I hope to have a new mix up on my tumblr site around the end of the month. Watch this space.
Wednesday, September 07, 2011
Gui Boratto, Waifs & Strays
Saturday, September 03, 2011
A Must-Read
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Late Summer Mix-Down
It's been a while since I've written a post detailing what I've been listening to lately, so here we go. Apart from the monthly chart, which could be a lot more precise, I listen to tons of stuff. Mainly mixes from all and sundry. It's been difficult recently to keep a focus musically so I'll just concentrate on the electronic dm end of things and we'll see where that takes us.
This year has been one of the best yet for Essential Mixes. Pete Tong's rather irritatingly stilted middle-aged bordering on teenage quack still pervades but as his show still proudly trumpets, it's still one of the best, whichever way you care to look. The previous post of convoluted quackery mentioned the very prescient fact that more than for a very long time, sounds are becoming homogenised and the underground is rapidly being consumed by the dark forces of acceptability. Having said that you can't argue too much with a lot of what's passed through Tong's scaly, lizard-like hands recently. The Jamie XX mix from last weekend being a good example. In spite of Mr XX's constant flavour-of-the-month leanings, it's actually a very listenable mix. Get it here. The Jamie Jones half of the Ibiza mix a couple of weeks earlier is also very nice. You can find that here. Stacey Pullen, one of my favourite all-time DJs (I'll never forget one sweaty e'd up night at The Rex in paris) contributed his second installment. Download that here. Download his first, from February 1996 here.
The FACT mixes are always worth a few minutes of your time, if not to judge them by their covers and slag them off before even listening. I've got a few lined up from this month but haven't got around to any of them yet, and if I'm really honest I can't remember the last one I really liked, so there. Get The Curse has a few interesting podcasts to discover, the last two, by Danny Daze and Burnski should be good (as you can tell I haven't got around to them either). Magda, who has always kept her head above the rest of the Minus camp, turned in a goodie for XLR8R recently, while Eric Cloutier showed off his skills during half of John Osborne's TAANSTAFL radio show, as well as contributing a podcast to Evad's Mixture blog. There are a lot of mixes from the blog owner there too, which is nice . . .Rounding off this paragraph in a very comprehensive way is Aesthetic Audio's head honcho Keith Worthy and his recent barnstorming selection for Mnml Ssgs.
I've been listening to a lot of Rinse FM podcasts recently, but mainly those from Alex Nut and Ben UFO, but haven't been able to download any from the last week or so, they seem to be suffering from post-carnival ennui. Ben UFO has a Rinse cd out next month, which you probably already know about, and Scuba has a DJ Kicks cd out soon too, which you maybe didn't.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Glorious Gibberish
Writing this piece immediately puts me in mind of those Bing adverts that were on British TV not so long ago. In case you're not aware of them, they start off with someone asking someone else an innocent enough question which exponentially mutates until the person asking for information has far too much to deal with and not necessarily the answer they wanted when they began. This is an obvious criticism of Google and its (over) efficiency. Acknowledging its own inferiority, albeit in a roundabout way, is the only weapon Bing has. It'll never be as good as Google, but is its admission of defeat one which is borne of rigour or a lack thereof?
I suppose the reason I began writing this post is because of a feeling that's crept up on me recently regarding the intellectual regard that some artists are held in over others. Subjectivity is at stake here as I feel it is under attack from those who use it as an arbitrary weapon when it best suits them. I'm not taking aim at anyone particularly here rather, like nearly everything on this blog, a nebulous feeling that I'm becoming more aware of recently. Hype and bullshit will always be around, there will always be stuff in vogue. I just find it difficult to comprehend why certain parties always feel threatened by this.
At the risk of repeating myself, we're currently standing at a very large crossroads regarding edm. Never before, except at the birth of house and techno, as well as whatever passed for "rave" at the arse end of the 1980s, have styles intersected and cross-pollinated in quite the way they are doing right now. The commercial and the contrived haven't had such a good chance for ages for passing themselves off as something credible. The entrepreneurial end of things has also generated a stand-off of sorts with a reasonable body of DJs, who were once artists but have now started sucking Satan's cock (some of them anyway), generating a lot of antipathy between themselves and what they stand for, and the critical voice.
What they stand for is partying, hedonism and self-consciousness. But it's only accessible to a relative few. They've got their drugs and they're not worried about you. They survive on inflated door and bar prices which keep things sweet for themselves and their mates while those who can't afford to follow them around the globe don't notice the elitism too much, unless they're mingers or not wearing a wide-necked t-shirt or a pair of oversized sunglasses. You can argue that it's always been like this; what's changed though is the level of commerciality that prevails. The underground is being promoted as a healthy alternative as never before, so it's timely that I've just come across Legowelt's 'The Teac Life' album, which is being promoted as a free download. Check out the press release:
Hello
Welcome to "THE TEAC LIFE", This album is free to download and distribute.
Its got a hella lot deep tape saturated forest-techno tracks on it and when I say Techno i dont mean that boooooooooooring
contemporary shit they call techno nowadays with overrated tallentless pretentious douchebag cunt DJs playing a few
halfassed dumb mongo beats and being all arty fartsy about it.
I am talking about: Raw as fuck autistic Star Trek 1987- Misty Forests- X-FILES,- DETROIT unicorn futurism made on cheap ass
digital & analog crap synthesizers recorded in a ragtag bedroom studio on a TEAC VHX cassettedeck in DOLBY C with an
unintelligible yet soulfull vivacity.
if you like it you can donate some $ or Euros, Any donation small or large is appreciated u can paypal to:
wolfers@xs4all.nl so I can buy more crap synthesizers to make stuff like this and repair my Roland Juno 106 which stopped
working during the recording of this album...probably cause this shit is tooo deep and it just can't handle it.
Tracklisting:
1 - The Nightwind
2 - Half Moon 106
3 - The Soul of a City
4 - Forest Conditioner
5 - Metro Airport
6 - Moonmist
7 - Beyond ur Self
8 - Wherever we go
9 - Mystery Cruising
10 - Can U feel the other side of ur soul
11 - Dolphin Day 1992
12 - Dare to Dream
13 - Encounter at Farpoint
14 - U can fly away from the hood
Regards and god bless,
Legowelt
(C)2011 all rights reserved by Legowelt
http://www.legowelt.com
enquiries: legowelt-info@xs4all.nl
bookings: nick@octopus-agents.com
God knows who he's got an axe to grind with . . .but I don't have anyone specifically in my sights, rather the prevalent attitude of today's mainstream which, more than ever before, is hell-bent on assimilation for the sole reason of endless product placement and diluted Grandpa In My Pocket sunny side up idyllic living by the seaside bullshit. The very reason why the riots started earlier this month. Anyway, I digress. From tomorrow I will be publishing random lists of those who are "doing it for me" at the moment. This twaddle will be continued asap, but not now as I'm about to eat a boeuf bourguignon . . .at the end of August . . . a meal which is best enjoyed with the wind howling and the snow falling.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
August Chart
Adrenalin - Scuba (Hotflush)
Eternal Radiation EP - V/A (Atmospheric Existence)
The TEAC Life - Legowelt Free album from Legowelt's website. Download here.
Kissing Booth Criminal EP - Alicia Hush (Siteholder)
Monad Xl - Aoki Takamasa (Stroboscopic Artefacts)
One More EP - Pezzner (RebelLION)
Playdo - Matthew Burton & Nick Lawson (Leftroom)
In Dust - Roll The Dice (The Leaf Label)
Satin Panthers - Hudson Mohawke (Warp)
A Million Horses - Agnes Presents Cavalier (Drumpoet Community)
Welcome to a very hastily assembled August chart. I've been away for almost the whole month and have been culturally isolated for the whole time, my sole connections with anything resembling sanity being occasioanl forays into the world of gastronomy. I haven't had time to listen to much since I've been back, but have tried, and of course I had some of these releases before I went. Expect a more thorough chart next month.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Matthew Styles Interview
Thursday, August 25, 2011
A Mixed Bag
So, back form my hiatus. Great holiday so normality is taking a little longer to settle in. In the meantime, some reviews of mine were published by Ibiza Voice. Here's a link to Pezzner's
'One More' EP on Crosstown Rebels offshoot RebelLION, Death On The Balcony's 'We Need Passion' EP on Airdrop and Silicone Soul's 'Alive From The Opium Den' on Darkroom Dubs.
Tuesday, August 02, 2011
Les Vacances
Start tomorrow. Last communication for a few weeks. No computers where I'm going. See you on the other side, in about three weeks.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Fantasy FM April 1990
The last instalment of the pirate radio tapes takes us to a slightly different place, Fantasy FM. However, the ambience is very much the same as that in the Rave FM and Centreforce studios (or frontrooms). Again, two sides of an ancient C90 cassette digitised for your listening pleasure. Unfortunately, as it's from around the same time as the other recordings, there'll be quite a few tracks that eve already featured. Off on holiday for the next three weeks now. Maybe one or two posts before then. No more music until the second half of August. GThe download links are slightly better quality than what you'll hear on Mixcloud.
Download Fantasy FM 4.90 part 1 here.
Download Fantasy FM 4.90 part 2 here.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
The Next Wave Is Permanently In Our Midst
Another unfocussed ramble, partly inspired by a line I remember reading somewhere a long time ago attributed to Terry Farley (maybe). The subject of which was a lament on the behalf of house music and the lack of fresh blood coming up through the ranks. Of course this wasn't ever going to be an issue, but did things turn out exactly as the person who expressed the worries in question hoped for? Probably not, but did it really matter? Again, we can only speculate. The fact of the matter is though that whoever was worried enough to vent their feelings regarding the supposed lack of talent on its way up was almost certainly ploughing a very narrow furrow of typical music-related conservatism.
This is something that we are all afflicted by, never more so than when slagging off current trends and then remembering what it was like when watching Top Of The Pops and having your mum say that " . . . they all sound the same . . ." It's incredible how this outlook continues to be perpetuated by stealth and how conservative a lot of edm has always been. This is particularly true of house, whose often inoffensive outlook invites such comparisons much easier and quicker than its siblings. Maybe its apparent lack of intellectual rigour which can be put down, in part at least, to its relatively happy-go-lucky mindset - an obvious disco trait. This could be a reason. Far more likely though is its seeming lack of progression and evolution. How ironic that progressive house is anything but, having lifted its sobriquet from rock in order to describe its pompous ambience. How prog came to be synonymous with pomp though is anyone's guess.
What really interests the cognoscenti these days is techno, dubstep (which my Mac automatically rewrites as dustup) and its offshoots, funky, grime, two-step, etc. These show evolution and mutation. They aren't standing still but they can all be traced back to house. One of the most depressing sounds one can listen to at the moment is Derrick Carter on the ones and twos. Not because he's crap, he isn't. He's still, for me at least, peerless on the ones and twos. There are parts of his recent Essential Mix, for example, that completely blow me away, a purple patch about a quarter of the way through when he plays a record with a Bobby McFerrin sample that's as good as I've ever heard him. However, for the most part he plays the same as he did ten years ago. It's a cliche to say a DJ changed your life, but hearing DC on one of his first European tours, at a Soma party, (English party organisers in Paris, not the Glaswegian label), in a warehouse in the Parisian banlieu was one of those moments. He played an absolutely scorching set during a scorching night. The pills were top notch and my memories are crystal-clear. Derrick Carter became my favourite ever DJ that night, which is why it makes me sad that he hasn't pushed the boat out a bit more and remained true to his original spirit of relative eclecticism.
The only magazine I still buy is The Wire but, essential as it is, house is never featured in its pages. Meanwhile, it seems, one only has to sneeze in the British electronic urban underground to make the cover. What's keeping it away? Detroit is often referenced, but rarely, if ever, Chicago or New York, unless it's part of a nostalgia fest designed to contribute to an explanation of some new young producer's technique. House will always be with us, and there are many current takes on it which deserve their own front page but, although it gets its fair share of historical referencing, its current mutations are often dismissed as club fodder and drug-induced, decadent posturing. Until now, that is. I'm not sure why the current crop of (mostly) British artists have managed to stand out from the crowd, but it may have something to do with the current crystallisation of multiple strands of polymorphous permutations all having congealed to form one of the most fertile periods in dance music so far. You've heard it all before, but not quite like this, and it's all new.
To be continued.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Rave FM 2.90 The Second Chapter
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