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.

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.

Random Film Clips Of DJs Playing: 4

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.

Matthew Styles Interview

Here's an interview I did with a man who knows his house. Matt Styles . A recent mix that I uploaded from Matt can be found here.

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.

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.

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.

Fantasy FM 4.90 Pt 1 by Cacophonousbling on Mixcloud

Download Fantasy FM 4.90 part 1 here.

Fantasy FM 4.90 Pt 2 by Cacophonousbling on Mixcloud

Download Fantasy FM 4.90 part 2 here.

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.

Rave FM 2.90 The Second Chapter

Here's another from Rave FM. Not much left to post now. Off on holiday the week after next so I'll post another cassette before I go. More of the same this, as interesting for what's said over and between the grooves as in them.

Rave FM 2.90 2 Pt 1 by Cacophonousbling on Mixcloud

Download side one here.

Rave FM 2.90 2 Pt 2 by Cacophonousbling on Mixcloud

Download side two here.

Alice Coltrane & Surgeon

I should have linked to this ages ago, but didn't. Still, better late than never. Surgeon's excellent Wax Treatment mix from May can be found here. It opens with the sublime 'Journey In Satchidananda' from Alice Coltrane. Sublimely spiritual stuff. Images of the Louisiana swamps crowd my mind when I listen to this. What about youse?

Alice Coltrane - Journey To Satchidananda
Shina Williams and his African percussionists - Agboju Logun
Rhythm & Sound w/ The Chosen Brothers - Mash Down Babylon
Om Unit - Prawn Cocktail
Emmanuel Jal - Kuar (Olof Dreijer remix)
Zomby - Godzilla
RSD - Sugar Plumb instrumental
Martyn - Broken
R-A-G - Rage
Surgeon - Atol
Surgeon - Coaster
Paul Woolford - Let It Go (Kommonazmuk & Appleblim remix)
Linval Thompson - I Love Marijuana
Blawan - Lavender
Peverelist - Dance till The Police Come
Surgeon - Transparent Radiation
Chasing Voices - Acidbathory
Oscar Mulero - After All
RSD - Pretty White Light
Lone - Explorers
Martyn - Suberbia
The Tuss - Rushup I Bank 12
Taz - Future Funk
Ed Chamberlain - Synthia (Surgeon remix)
Surgeon - Right Road To Dubland
Scuba - Ruptured (Surgeon remix)
Inigo Kennedy - Obsidian
Surgeon - Sleep (Ultra Violet)
RSD - Over It
Love Joys - All I Can Say

Linkage

Read my RA review of 'Yangango' by Gregorythme (Cityfox) here, and my Ibiza Voice bit on 'Alex Smoke Remixed' (Soma) here.

July Chart

Atlantic EP - Metope (Factor City)



Lucky Tiger EP - Axel Boman (Glass Table)



Monad Vll - Go Hiyama (Stroboscopic Artefacts)



One Year Later - Arkist & Kidkut (Hotflush)



Subconscious EP - Jesuon (Hypercolour)



Thwack Remixes - Marcel Fengler (Mote-Evolver)



Untitled - V/A (Stockholm Ltd)



X-Trak 1 Remixes - Percy X (Soma)



Carbonated EP - Mount Kimbie (Hotflush)



Rendezvous/Fill Your Coffee - Arkist (Apple Pips)



Kelly Price Weight Gain Vol ll - Hype Williams (Hyperdub)



Dedication - Zomby (4AD)

Here's Julys chart, with two entires from Hotflush, and two from Hypercolour - Glass Table being an offshoot label. Hypercolour is on the proverbial roll at the moment, with each release being extremely well-balanced and full of rigour. A real effort is being made to involve interesting and off-kilter contributions. The third member of the trinity, Losing Suki, is just as good. Meanwhile 'Carbonated' from Mount Kimbie, features three original works: 'Carbonated,' 'Fulx,' and 'Baves Chords,' as well as a Klaus remix of 'Adriatic' and two remixes of 'Carbonated.' One from Airhead, and the cherry on top from Peter van Hoesen. Techno in the shape of the excellent remix package of Marcel Fengler's 'Thwack', 'Untitled' a various artists EP featuring contributions from Pfirter, Skudge, Staffan Linzatti, Oliver Kapp and Tom Dicicco, Go Hiyama's 'Monad Vll' and also Percy X's 'X-Trak 1 Remixes' with a contribution from both Joris Voorn (better than I thought I'd be), and Regis (exactly as I imagined). Zomby has an album out on 4AD, but don't expect The Cocteau Twins or My Bloody Valentine, while Hyperdub delves deep into abstract depths with Hype Williams' 'Kelly Price Weight Gain Vol ll.' As you can see, Arkist pops up twice: once on t6he already released 'Rendezvous/Fill Your Cofee' on Apple Pips, and again, this time with Kidkut, on the imminently appearing 'One Year Later'. Last, but by no means least, Metope's 'Atlantic EP' on the Barcelona-based Factor City is a six track release featuring remixes of two of the originals by Dave Dk, Undo and, perhaps the best of the three, John Daly.

Rave FM February 1990

So here's this weekends instalment. The first of a couple of Rave FM cassettes, again from the first half of 1990. Expect similar vibes to the Centreforce offerings of the past two weeks. There'll be another one next week, then one from Fantasy FM, and then I'm off on holiday for three weeks.

Rave FM 2.90 Pt 1 by Cacophonousbling on Mixcloud

Download part 1 here

Rave FM 2.90 Pt 2 by Cacophonousbling on Mixcloud

Download part 2 here

The download links are higher bitrate than the Mixcloud ones. Still grainy stuff though innit.

Krypton Factor EP - Gavin Herlihy & Delano Smith (Apparel Music)

Read my review of this Leed/Detroit collaboration here.

Centreforce 1990 Part 2

Here's the second Centreforce cassette uploaded for your listening pleasure. This one is from a few months later than last weeks curtain raiser. Rave FM to follow next weekend.

Centreforce Circa 3-4.90 1 by Cacophonousbling on Mixcloud

Download part one here.

Centreforce Circa 3-4.90 2 by Cacophonousbling on Mixcloud

Download part two here.

The downloads are 320kbps.

Random Film Clips Of DJs Playing 3

The Deep House Dilemma

These two photos, of deep house's answer to John The Baptist John Daly, were taken at Manchester's Kraak Gallery at the end of last month. For me they sum up everything I love about clubbing. Of course the underground would love to be making more money but it wouldn't be the same then would it? Reminds me of a gig at Brixton's George lV twelve or so years ago with Terry Francis, only there were probably half as many people in attendance as there are in the photos. The girl at the front clearly doesn't care.

Centreforce FM January 1990 (Apparently)

So, I've finally got around to uploading the cassettes I've been hoarding for the last twenty years or so. This is a two part recording capturing Centreforce Radio, a pirate that emerged at the arse end of the 1980s alongside others such as Rave FM and Sunrise FM, and it's as authentic as it gets. It's not very well recorded, there are occasional drop outs, and there is the sporadic voice of the omnipresent MC. I wish I had tons more of these, but I've only got one or two. They'll be uploaded over the next few weekends.

Centreforce Radio 1.90 1 by Cacophonousbling on Mixcloud

Centreforce Radio 1.90 2 by Cacophonousbling on Mixcloud

Antiz EP - M.A.D.A. & Plankton (Hidden Recordings)

Read my review for I Voice on Hidden Recordings' follow up to 'Wolkenreise' here.