I never owned this record, much to my regret. A friend of mine, Colin, who I haven’t seen for a long time, used to have it. I think hue was still living in Fort St. at the time. Fort St. was a place that I lived in for a year in the mid eighties, along with sundry other misfits. It had a reputation as a party house, and I wold often come downstairs in the middle of the night to find the living room occupied by total strangers who had found their way back there from the Chelsea Reach, or some other nNew Brighton hot spot. Anyway, I had left long before this record came out, but through Colin, and others before him, a connection remained. I remember playing tis a lot around the time it came out. I was living in Brighton at the time, my last year at university having just returned from a year at Rutgers in New Jersey. This is the instrumental. All of the mixes are great and I’ll post them soon. Produced by Leftfield.
Thursday, October 01, 2026
Wednesday, September 30, 2026
Track Of The Day- Infiniti Feat. Juan Atkins - Martians at Work (Remastered) (Tresor)
‘Martians At Work’ has that rare quality of being of nothing else but Detroit, but also whimsical and onomatopoeic. If you’ve got an imagination that dabbles in such things, then use it to visualise a 1950s realisation of those weird space aliens engaging in gardening, or some other sort of manual labour. Juan Atkins? A funster? I don’t believe it!
Tuesday, September 29, 2026
Track Of The Day: Talking Heads - Houses In Motion (Sire)
I have no idea why ‘Houses In Motion’ has taken up residence in my head over the past few days. If I’d heard a chug edit of it at Convenanza then there’s where the blame would lie. But I didn’t (next year maybe?), so there. Anyway, what a song, and here it is in all its unfettered, spontaneous live glory. I never saw them live, and they’re right at the top of my wish list. It obviously won’t happen but I’d splurge for the chance. Whenever I post a track by them I always think of being in Berlin in December 1984. The two releases that were postered all over town were '1984' by The Eurythmics, and 'Stop Making Sense', probably the best film of a concert ever. There have been others, but none featuring just one band that had the power to engage so grippingly over the course of the whole transmission. Out on their own.
Monday, September 28, 2026
Track Of The Day: Gary Martin - Interview With An Alien (Delano Smith Remix) (DET313)
Back from Carcassone, which was great as per. And here’s Delano Smith’s superior interpretation of Gary Martin’s ‘Interview With An Alien’. I say superior because I think that this is better than the original. So why? Well maybe it’s because I’m getting older (although we all are innit), but this laid back groove-laden version knocks the socks off the more urgent and slightly more fidgety original. Gary Martin was/is one off the most idiosyncratic producers to come out of Detroit. Here though Basic Channel/Mood ll Swing inspired minimal house wins out over the burlesque. One of the moments at Carcassone on Saturday night was hearing Basic Channel being played within the walls of the chateau. Which very much goes to show that less is more. When a groove is being carried it better hadn’t be dropped. Maintaining the energy with tracks like this is a real skill. There’s nowhere to hide. Play this one loud and let its dynamics ooze out.
Thursday, September 24, 2026
Track Of Yesterday: The Future Sound Of London - Papua New Guinea (Andrew Weatherall Mix) (Jumping' & Pumpin')
Off to Convenanza tomorrow so any remix from AW is appropriate and, although I don’t think this is one of his best, it would sound great within the confines of the chateau in Carcassone. It takes a different route to the original in that while the sound is less dense and less evocative of the landscape it sonically describes, it’s more danceable due to being infused with break beats. Not just your normal linear beaks either. There’s a pitch change shortly after the eponymous spoken word. Breaks have been subtly dominating a lot of modern electronic music recently so I guess what sets this apart are its early nineties analogue production values. It feels a lot more raw than a lot of today’s efforts. The tribal chanting that rise up in the second half of the tracks feel a little odd by today’s standards. However, they also feel very much on the spirit of the cut up. The only bit I really don’t like that much are the symphonic episodes, which feel a little over-produced by comparison. That doesn’t mean to say I won’t have my hands in the air as soon as I hear them though.
Tuesday, September 22, 2026
Track Of The Day: Liquid, Liquid - Cavern (99 Records)
Track Of Yesterday: A Certain Ratio - Shack Up (Factory Benelux)
Probably A Certain Ratio’s break out track. This cover of Banbarra’s release of about six years earlier came after ‘All Night Party’ and the amazing ‘Flight’. It’s this though that ultimately did the most damage. Thanks, no doubt as much to the deadpan vocals of Simon Topping as to the full-bodied, and at times brittle funk of the band itself. This is another slant of the sound of the smoke-filled bedrooms of my youth. And in those days we could find somewhere to dance to it that didn’t mean travelling to a boutique event in some far-flung corner of the country. I must have seen ACR five or six times n the early eighties, and I’m off to see them again in a week or two in London. Should be ace.
