Track Of The Day: Jonny L - This Time (Carl Craig Mix 1) (XL)

 

One of Carl Craig’s finest I think. It reminds me a lot of his version of ‘Domina’. Everything is wonderful; the breakbeats show a real lightness of touch and the backing track feels like muslin on speed. There’s so much going on in this track that it feels rather short at eight minutes. I wish I still had my copy, but it’s “lost in time, like tears in the rain”. The vibes are amazing, and by that I mean both “the vibes” and the glockenspiel, or is it the xylophone, that guides the track in. Amazing vocal, especially the little “ooh, ooh” that comes in just when you think it’s gone forever. Big umbrella statement, but no one is making anything as interesting as this nowadays. I’m not a reactionary btw. I just know. An emotive voyage through the darkness and into the light.

GoodMostlyBad-Baby-3-0-EP (Human Endeavour)

 

Title: Baby 3.0 EP

Artist: GoodMostlyBad

Label: Human Endeavour

Cat Number: HE015

Genre: Eponymous

1: Baby Gurl

2: Cam Gurl

3: Home Gurl

“With Baby 3.0 , GoodMostlyBad explores tech house and electro-leaning sounds with a renewed sense of energy, playfulness and purpose.” Well, we’re already in uncharted territory here aren't we. I guess this comes down to what the listener perceives as ‘tech-house’. A recently much-maligned genre which has estranged anyone who knows anything about its origins from the terminology. Anyway, I’m already struggling with this so lets stick to the sounds. ‘Baby Gurl’ is the pick of the bunch. A solemn stop though the low end undergrowth. Plenty of space between the grooves and a modicum of funk. So far, so good. ‘Cam Gurl’ feels lighter and more airy. BPMs are raised and urgency injected. Both tracks so far are pretty functional, with the upward curve in tempo not doing any favours. And then we’ve got ‘Home Gurl’ which continues to hurry things along, albeit with more force, further sacrificing any residual groove in the name of nimbleness and a lightness of touch. There are some interesting sounds throughout the three tracks here, with ‘Baby Gurl’ being by far the most useful tune, but I’m struggling to hear “tech house and electro-leaning sounds”. Maybe I need to go back to the drawing board.

Track Of The Day: Model 600 - Update Version.ur (Metroplex)

 

It’s awful that on the death of someone the stimulus is to go through the back catalogue in a random way and cherry pick. Such is life though. That said, hen the back catalogue is as rich as that of Juan Atkins its a relatively easy task. Here he slips into his little used Model 600 guise and gets together with Mad Mike to produce a piece of hard-edged electro of the type that only a holy union between the two could produce. “I like your update Model 6-0-0” is the subliminal refrain. And everything falls into place as only a union between two of Detroit’s heavyweights can. One of the YouTube comments takes the biscuit “The vocoder in this is so cold and sick that it must have hypothermia”, and it really can’t be put any better. This is weapons grade electro, and always ahead of the curve.

Track Of The Day: Model 50 - The Flow (R & S)

Maybe not a track that many reach for in the Juan Atkins canon, but, for me at least, an underrated classic. Nad that takes into account this excellent, kitsch video. Visually it’s got the “going back to look forward” aesthetic down to a tee. It looks like it’s walked straight out of the same studios were Gerry Anderson’s much slept on ‘UFO’ was made. There are some great eighties fashions that somehow seeped into the nineties and at some points it feels like you’re watching a version of ‘Mad Men’ on crack. The sound design is incredibly lush and immersive with the synth washes perfectly evoking the aquatic aspects portrayed in the video, and the electro filigrees running over the top are very well defined. All in all, under appreciated.

Dresden (Ivan Smagghe & Manfredas) live at Sweet Spot, Paradise City 2026

Paradise City Festival · Dresden (Ivan Smagghe & Manfredas) live at Sweet Spot, Paradise City 2026

In-studio: Intergalactic Gary (24 Oct 26)

 

SutroFM · In-studio: Intergalactic Gary (24 Oct 26)

Track Of The Day: Vernon Douglas Meets Tyler Lewis - Right, Right (Deepen Discs)

 

One that I thought was lost forever but then reappeared at random in the alleys of my mind. This track makes up in energy what it lacks in bass. Anyone mixing it needs to layer it over something with a great low end. It’s peak time stuff, which is why, in spite of its repetitiousness, it doesn’t get boring. Kirk out.

Poul Verner - Nowawes 2 (Nowawes)

 

Title: Nowaves2

Artist: Poul Verner

Label: Nowaves

Cat Number: Nowaves2

Genre: Dub Techno

A: Choose Your Future

B: Choose Life

Both tracks here offer slightly different takes on the dub techno aesthetic. ‘Choose Your Future’ is sub 120BPM voyage through dense layers of analogue warmth. It’s a track to get lost in and feels lie its been constructed from spider webs, such is its apparent fragility and longevity. ‘Choose Life’ picks up the pace and adds levity to the mix. Both pieces feel like contrasting journeys through darkness and light and they aren’t over quickly, which is good, as their potential for layering other, more lively tunes in the mix can be fully realised. That being said, there is enough imagination and invention in each tune to make them stand out on their own.

Track Of The Day: Cybotron - Alleys Of Your Mind (Deep Space Records)

 

‘Alleys Of Your Mind’ can lay claim to be the first ‘techno’ single. The eternal debate is whether it is really electro, and are the two genres inseparable. Yes to the second question, and no to the first. It’s very much a product of its environment and time. The sounds that are used could be heard if one listened to the likes of Giorgio Moroder, Depeche Mode or Ultravox. And this particular track is rumoured to have been inspired by the latter’s ‘Mr X’. Which it resembles a slowed down version of. Sort of recorded in treacle. The direction that this music was to take though, coming out of Detroit, was completely different than that from its European influences. Tracks like this were the template for electro, hip-hop, house and techno. It’s not overstating things to say that even though it wasn’t the first to utilise such sounds, its probably one of the most catalysing and influential tunes ever recorded. The artists behind it, Juan Atkins and Richard Davies, had this idea and brought their own mindset and backgrounds into play in order to give it life. Juan Atkins went on to establish himself as one of the fathers of a movement which, even though he is now no longer with us, will live on.

Hackney Electronica - Feedback Memory (Dark Entries)

 

Title: Feedback Memory

Artist: Hackney Electronica

Label: Dark Entries

Cat Number: DE-358

Genre: Electronica

1: Feedback Memory

2: Six Foot Seven

3: Lost Trip-Destino

4: Trapped In The Circuit

5: Compressed Air

Hackney Electronica, a trio of “Quinn Whalley (Paranoid London), Unai Trotti (Cartulis Music), and Margo Broom (Hermitage Working Studios)” first released on Dark Entires in spring last year, so this is their follow up which is, it’s fair to say, varied. Electronic muscles are flexed and they deliver, if you like that sort of thing. ‘Feedback Memory’ opens proceedings with a piece of linear funk that does its best to go off the rails even chance it gets. ‘Six Foot Seven’ chugs along but isn’t that different in essence from its predecessor. The BPMs have been slowed down, but the percussion is more emphatic and the sound design more minimal, allowing the spoken word to take centre stage. ‘ Lost Trip-Destino’ feels like electro on crack and, as such, is very good indeed. Haunting even. ‘Trapped In The Circuit’ raises the temperature a little, and comes across as very urgent compared to what has gone before. Two sides of the same electro coin. ‘Compressed Air’ finishes the package by smudging the sonic envelope into halfway between beats and the imagination.

Track Of The Day: Blunted Dummies - House For All (Definitive)

 

Elegant in its simplicity innit. ‘House Music For All’ has an unforgettable hook which rests up three or four core elements, at least that’s what I can identify. The point is that, as one of the Discogs comments goes: “Still sounds fresh as hell today and is a testament to the fact that it doesn't take 1,000 synth lines and build ups at once to fill a floor.” And from another comment: “the original contains samples of the following tracks:

- beats from "Earth People - Dance" (1990)

beats from "Brand Nubian - All For One" (1990)

- synth + rides from "Bobby Konders - The Poem" (1990)

- vocals from "The Blackbyrds - Happy Music" (1975)

vocals from "A Tribe Called Quest - Check The Rhime" (1991) 

maybe also the title was inspired by that Brand Nubian album ("One For All" -> "House For All”).”

In any case, we’ve all been on a dance floor at some time somewhere and heard the omnipresent vocal sample that this tune is built around. It doesn’t get deeper than that because it doesn’t need to. That underlines its existence as a perfect piece of layering that doesn’t need layering. Listening to this track you’re constantly waiting for something to happen, which doesn’t. In the end it’s unnecessary, but the tension and it not getting out of second gear builds and builds until its impossible to ignore. The only thing that would improve it would be to make a longer edit, but maybe the stress of waiting for it to explode would then be too much.

Track Of The Day: Nuages - Move (F Comm)

 

Nuages were Ludovic Navarre and Shazz. Two of the founding fathers of French house and sonic polymaths. This track from their ‘Blanc EP’ is a great piece of protocol wild pitch. So much so that I wouldn’t be surprised that, in some parallel world, DJ P[erre admitted that this is what inspired him. Anyway, it’s possible for more than one person to have the same great idea. ‘Move’ is elegant in its simplicity. Vocal sample which are gents, groans and cries combine with loping percussion, synth washes and that dominant wild pitch stab to create a track that has echoes of techno and garage but which is undeniably house. Pitch it down ever so slightly and give it an extra two minutes and it’s presque parfait. One of the other tracks on this EP, ‘No Work Today’ was featured on these pages almost exactly three years ago. There must be something in the autumnal air.