DJ Mixes Revisited: Claude Young DJ Kicks

So, if ‘Live at the Liquid Rooms’ was a seminal techno DJ calling card, this was another. Coming out in the same year as Mills’ masterwork, this is, arguably, just as good and, as far as track selection is concerned, more daring. Young eschews his own productions, except as strategically placed bookends and peak, whereas Mills’ productions dominate his mix, as they tend to when he plays any set. Apart from this, we get the obvious deck skillz that Young possesses, coming on like techno’s Hendrix in an age when bouncing two copies of the same release was commonplace. Who’s to say he’s not crossfading with his mouth as well? A true DJ can get you dancing to stuff you either wouldn’t expect to like, or dislike, adding a new dimension as he/she does; and Young is adept at constructing something new and different on the go. Closing with one of Planet E’s finest moments, two tracks from Clark’s ‘Lofthouse’ EP, preceded by Dopplereffekt, before descending into his own piece composed for the occasion. This is real.

Through The Night - Low Tapes (Echovolt)

Title: Through The Night EP

Artist: Low Tapes

Label: Echovolt

Cat Number: EVR023

Genre: House

A1: Through The Night

A2: Numb

B: Untitled

Starting off like a slowed-down, less brittle version of Maurizio’s ‘Domina’, Through The Night’ pushes insistently through regions of liquid dub into acid soaked terrain, while maintaining a pleasing level of intensity. ‘Numb’ is more hollowed out, its burbling, analogue bass offset by high pitched syth stabs and off beat hard hand clapping. ‘Untitled’ finishes things off in a whimsical way, going one better than its precedent and adding a liveliness to the trio, as well as some planetary interplay. A very good floor filler with edge.

The Lightness Of Funk

In which the confrontational is eschewed in favour of the groove. There’s nothing wrong with power, but it can be tempered and distilled so it’s softened and dampened around the edges. Then it can roll on into infinity. Ricardo Villalobos is often, wrongly as far as I’m concerned, regarded as a purveyor of the long, drawn-out wiggler, but the Romanians he influenced surpassed him a while back. Not in the realms of production but as DJs and selectors. I am being a little unfair however, as I haven’t seen Villalobos for some years, and his sets are rarely seen online these days, but my impression is that he descended into a chasm of self-indulgence a while back. He’s always been a little bit larger–than-life, but not too big that he can’t be called out occasionally.

Mind you, I’m not having ago, just marking time by getting some residual froth off my chest. What it all comes down to is an intrinsic understanding of frequency, especially the bass. When DJing, is it more important to have good taste or to be creative? One of the paradoxes regarding playing vinyl and doing it digitally is, of course, the accusation of not keeping it real when indulging in the latter, as if the sound produced by real records is somehow better and more authentic than the alternatives. I’ve never believed this myself; personal preference being the only real criteria here. However, it still seems that  it’s very easy to sucker people in by advertising a lack of digital engagement as a badge of honour. Listen, I wish I had the patience (and the time I suppose), to learn how to manipulate the appropriate software half as well as the vast majority of those who do. CDJs defeat me also. The various buttons and lights confuse me to the extent that when using them I punch away randomly in the hope that something will stick. Has the ever been a better approach than David Mancuso’s, whose insistence on respecting the length of each composition used to be regarded with absolute reverence/ I’m not sure. I do know how to use a pitch slide though.

The reason I’m writing this is, I suppose, because I have had my equipment mothballed since the beginning of June, and it is yet to be liberated. The fateful flood subsided long ago, but the drying of the kitchen only finished last week, because one major supporting wall was holding out against all odds and giving high humidity readings deep into autumn. In spite of this, I’ve still been accumulating records; records which I have yet to play. My taste is reasonably eclectic, but you can’t like everything. As far as my approach to sets is concerned, I’ll try anything once, but I’ll start slow, peak and come back down wherever I’m playing. Following is a top ten of stuff I’ve picked up recently.

Move Your Butty – Thee J Johanz (Ballyhoo)

Self Replication – Versalife (Trust)

Cassandra Remixes – Donato Dozzy (Claque Musique)

Treatment EP – Cottam (Ferox)

Tidally Locked EP – Ekbox (Cabaret)

Baby Craddock – Pepe Bradock (Atavisme)

Illahertz EP – Illektrolab (Shipwrec)

My House Is Not Your House ll – V/A (Acido)

Noah’s Day – Binh (Perlon)

The Jackal Part 2 – Sleep D (Buttter Sessions)

There have been others and, as well as all this I’ve been listening to a lot of classical. Bach’s cello and piano pieces are genius . . . and I don’t feel a compulsion to collect this stuff. I know nothing about it, I just have a deep appreciation of it and, as has always been the case I can have it permanently playing without being distracted. Radio 3, whatever . . . . now I’m starting to get into it and wanting to know a little bit more. It’s the same with jazz, which has always been a big love; having said that I’m far more into the abstract, spiritual side of it than anything else, a sub genre all its own . . .  Coming full circle with this one as I’m rediscovering loads of stuff I started listening to more than thirty years ago, and getting into what I didn’t. The deeper the better, and the connections are made.

Great Evocative Moments Of The Past: 1

The dark nights are drawing in and information overload is simmering nicely. A winter of discontent awaits; a possible Trump presidency (I honestly don’t know what Hillary Clinton has done to warrant such bad press. Surely what she may be capable of is dwarfed by Trump’s narcissistic instability). The old enemy Russia being talked up again as being aggressive and with its fingers in every pie, especially the virtual ones. It’s denial of any wrong doing being something you want to believe, but evidence and policy of disinformation are characteristic of its current direction. The algorithms are throbbing on the desk and we can’t see the wood for the trees, which is why there really isn’t much point in anything else but to be nice to each other while stocks last.

So it’s at times like this that I like to revisit great evocative moments of the past. I can’t pinpoint exactly when it was that I first heard Coltrane’s ‘My Favourite Things’, but it was in the early eighties, and it came courtesy of his ‘Coltraneology Volume One’ which was recorded in Stockholm, 1961. Memories are foggy regarding whether I was still living at my mum’s, or had already gone to live at Fort Street in New Brighton, but money was tight and I had started using Earlston Library for records as well as books.  I remember borrowing a copy of ‘Finnegan’s Wake’, in which various passages were read. Incredible stuff, and much better than reading it; (I’ve still got a thirty-five year-old copy on my bookshelf which I’ve barely opened.) It was jazz that I mainly took out though, the records they had there, mainly comprising what looked like off-cuts from the ball room music centre of a long dead holiday camp. There were some diamonds in the rough though, ‘Coltraneology Volume One’ being the most precious.

It’s all about ‘My Favourite Things’ however. There’s a great feeling of the epoch within its grooves and if a more emotive composition exists then I’ve yet to hear it. I played this whole album to death, and ‘My Favourite Things’ so much that I constantly put it at the top of my list of all time picks. I remember listening to it one morning , with the sun coming up after having stayed up all night on acid, the traces of the drug starting to ebb away and leaving that lovely drained feeling to be supplemented by hash. Nothing could have been more perfect, And to think I first came across the song in a music lesson at secondary school in a songbook for ‘The Sound Of Music.’

This isn't the version from the album, but it's with the same personnel (I think) and, even though Eric Dolphy's flute sounds screwed, the ambience is still there. Pity it's only ten minutes long though.