This is dub broken down into a nebulous suspension. Dub deconstructed, if you will. Coming from Ovatow, the label boss of the excellent Frustrated Funk. The first in a double bill from him, the next coming tomorrow. ‘Phalaenopsis Dub ll’ is the sound of the machines coming around after a log spell of being dormant, Electronic yawns and the slow respiratory beginnings of a new synthetic age. A beat less gossamer thin portrayal of the fragile, but purposeful stirrings of an analogue dawn of time.
Sunday, June 30, 2024
Saturday, June 29, 2024
Track Of The Day: Adultnapper feat. Big Bully) - Low Point On High Ground (DJ Sprinkles Rock Bottom Mix) (Simple)
Elegant in its simplicity, this is the type of dubby, percussive house with an abstract edge the DJ Sprinkles does wonderfully well. What do we have here? A shuffling battery, jarring keys, a repetitive voice intoning “Ignore it”, and sundry disparate sound stabs that open and close along this prowler of a tune. It’s a polyvalent masterpiece: set opener, underlay of choice, peak time low key banger, and spectral anthem. Hypnotic and beguiling, don’t turn it off before the end, and when mixing, let it run its whole length. It’ll enhance anyhting you blend it with.
Friday, June 28, 2024
Track Of The Day: Kraftwerk - Morgenspaziergang (2009 Remaster) (Philips)
Pete Pulford and me stayed up all night listening to ‘Autobahn’ from beginning to end on acid one night at Fort Street many moons ago. Of course the title track is the most played and well-known. However, what often slips under the radar are the peripheral, almost ambient arrangements that make up the rest of the album. I have particular memories of listening to ‘Morgenspaziergang’ while watching an episode of ‘The Legend Of William Tell’, a swords and sorcery fantasy series that has absolutely nothing to do with the real character. The flutes came in and I had a transcendental experience that put me on top of Ayers Rock, right in the heart of New Brighton! You had to be me I guess. 😀
Wednesday, June 26, 2024
Track Of The Day: Eric B & Rakim - Paid In Full [Seven Minutes Of Madness The Coldcut Remix] (4th & Broadway)
Is there anyone who doesn’t think this is one of the definitive hip hop remixes? Taking an already peerless piece of work to another level, Coldcut’s reinterpretation is the seminal mash up. Relying on the languid backing track, littered with vocal samples, of which the original rap is but a bit part, it also brought Ofra Haza to a wider audience. The video is great as well, featuring random Arabic text, (The Qu’ran, apparently), cut up with a variety of images straight out of central casting, but ingeniously juxtaposed, it’s anything but cheesy. And, on a gloriously sunny day like today, it takes me right back to when I first made the move to that London. Living in a squat in the Elephant & Castle and getting my life on track. Apparently Rakim loved this version, but Eric B didn’t. And Coldcut received a pittance for what is one of the first commercially successful remixes. An immortal piece of work.
Monday, June 24, 2024
Track Of The Day: Sterac - Satyricon (100% Pure)
Taken from the immortal ‘Secret Life Of Machines’, Sterac’s ‘Satyricon’ was one of a collection of tracks that heralded an exciting new voice in techno. Matching anything coming out of Detroit at the time, and being obviously influenced by it, but not necessarily of it, this deep, introspective, tranced -out take on machine funk aesthetics is a composition that combined ambience, energy and funk in one transcendent package. It could be music for the end of the world, but then something ushering in a new, golden age. You decide.
Hardway Bros Feat. Beth Cassidy - Murky EP (Incl. Beyond The Wizards Sleeve Re-Animation and Coral Way Dub Mix) (Rekids)
Title: - Murky EP (Incl. Beyond The Wizards Sleeve Re-Animation and Coral Way Dub Mix)
Artist: Hardway Bros Feat. Beth Cassidy
Label: Rekids
Cat Number: REKIDS 245
Genre: Deep House
1: Murky (Vocal Mix)
2: Murky (Beyond The Wizards Sleeve Re-Animation)
3: Murky (Coral Way Dub Mix)
The clue’s in the title, obviously. This track being a hommage on behalf of Sean Johnston to the deep, druggy, low slung sound of Murk, straight out of Miami. The original is all of that. A faithfully realised replication of the roots of dark, spoken word deep house. Erol Alkan and Richard Norris inject the chug and funk up an already impossibly rhythmic template. Slowing the groove down into a rimshot-driven percussive trip. The Coral Way Dub stays closer to the original, stripping it back, sharpening the kick and losing some of the peripheral noise as it does. The vocal is dispensed with and we’re left with a very functional layer of intent. All three versions are very useful with, thankfully, the vocal and Re-Animation offering completely different experiences. Each track is a healthy length as well, spreading its respective wings within its world in order to yield something very special.
Saturday, June 22, 2024
Friday, June 21, 2024
Track Of The Day: Donna Summer - I Feel Love (Patrick Cowley Remix) (Casablanca)
Something for the weekend? There’s no doubting this track’s place in electronic dance music history, it’s influence still continuing to be felt. And enough has been written about it, and this remix, to fill a few books so, there’s nothing really to add other than the only way to make an already perfect track better was, in this case at least, to make it longer. One of the most revolutionary records ever given a new leash of life 5 years after its initial release. The reaction from the dance floor must have been incredible. It sounds great when you’re running as well.
Thursday, June 20, 2024
Track Of The Day: Ardb - Mind Drift (Geodesic)
The sun is out, and summer is here, apparently. So we’re starting the day off with a track that came out in the halcyon days of 2019. This piece of deep electro out of Romania is very typical of a certain aspect of the genre that I really like. I mean I like it all, but some tones resonate more than others don’t they? The artist, Ardeleanu Bogdan, has also put tracks out on other labels, such as Atipic and Fake Society, and when he’s not making records like this, has turned his hands to breaks and deep house, all washed over with an analogue warmth that may, or may not be real. Whatever he’s on, it’s tasty, so dive in.
Wednesday, June 19, 2024
Track Of The Day: Moritz Von Oswald - Watamu Beach (Rework) (Desolat)
Moritz von Oswald is probably the most featured artist in this column on my blog, so it’s never a difficult decision to make to feature him again. This track came out a while back on Locodice’s Desolat, and seems to have passed below most people’s radar. It’s a great composition though. Immersive, as you would expect. As well as being hypnotic and funky. Definitely a track that needs another look.
Monday, June 17, 2024
Radio Slave Ft. Cagedbaby - Amnesia (Lindstrom Remixes) (Rekids)
Title: Amnesia (Lindstrom Remixes)
Artist: Radio Slave ft. Cagedbaby
Label: Rekids
Cat Number: REKIDS 244
Genre: Disco Tex
01: Amnesia (Lindstrom Vocal Mix)
02: Amnesia (Lindstrom Instrumental Mix)
03: Amnesia (Lindstrom Radio Mix)
An absolute monster of a track that is sundry parts blissed out sunset/sunrise Balearic and Barry White. Bittersweet, mind-swelling music blending depth, emotion and momentum. Lindstrom is at the controls so what more do you need? It’s not reinventing the wheel, merely reinforcing hopes on the dance floor. It’s more complicated than that of course. Touching the parts other melodies cannot reach. The drums are quite robust, which serves the tune well as they provide a great foil for the piano and the pervasive synth noodling. There’s no reason whatsoever why this piece of sun kissed Euro disco won’t be filling floors for the forseeable; its panoramic soundscape transcends the moment and reaches the parts others can’t. A great piece that once you get into the groove, like others, is comforting in its familiarity.
DMX Crew - Brain Mutants EP (No Static/Automatic)
Title: Brain Mutants EP
Artist: DMX Crew
Label: No Static/Automatic
Cat Number: NSA007
Genre: Techno/Electro
A1: Mutated Brain Process
A2: Electric Mutant
A3: Non-Euclidean Coordinates
B1: Tunnel Mutant
B2: Depressed Mutant
Ed DMX has been around for a while, and released so much that it’s normal he would be looking to utilise new approaches in order to create his music. So, according to the press for this release, he has been working with “the Aphex Twin created Sample Brain, old disco records and analogue synth notes were fed into the sample mashing web app to create the sounds used on this EP.” With that in mind, the content doesn’t feel any more or less processed than would be expected. Production isn’t compromised. And, the relatively narrow parameters of the prescribed sound are flexed to their utmost. The EP is characterised by a level of whimsey that infuses even the most sinister melodies, perhaps best heard on the bee like signature over the dense techno pummelling on ‘Depressed Mutant’. ‘Non-Euclidean Coordinates’ is a stand out, with its stripped down percussion over a gloomy, bleak backing providing a change from the frictional, and occasionally hesitant first couple of compositions.
Track Of The Day: Gregory Isaacs - Public Eye's (Burning Sounds)
The track that opens Gregory Isaacs’ incredible ‘Slum In Dub’ album, One that puts the listener right in the heart of a sound that was pervasive but also clandestine, at the time. (If you knew where to look, you would find.) A track that contains an apparent rogue apostrophe in its name, and is part of an album assembled at legendary Jamaican studios, Channel One and King Tubby’s. Gregory Isaacs was one of the most famous voices in reggae. However, on this tune it is conspicuous by its absence. This was the rule, rather than the exception, with such releases, most of the time at least. Today’s weather is a call to arms for music like this, and it’s long overdue.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
