When in doubt, reach for Guidance, and what better than this under the radar production form Alton Millar, I have memories of watching him DJ in the final Soma (nothing to do with the still going strong Glasgow based label) party I went to in Paris in 1997 at then Bois de Vincennes. Some pavilion where Andy Weatherall had been booked to play, but he didn’t turn up. The excuse which was doing the rounds was that he’d gone to the dentist to have a tooth out, or something like that.Anyway, Alton Millar was playing in some sort of open area, while whoever had filled in for AW was somewhere else. Millar payed some choice deep house. No funkin’ around, just the good stuff, rather like this piece of percussive goodness.
Cacophonous Bling
Random Ruminations On Dance Music Culture
Wednesday, June 24, 2026
Tuesday, June 23, 2026
Track Of The Day: Honey Bane - Girl On The Run (You Can Be You)
This was bought as a consequence of coming into contact with Crass, and as far as a punk single is concerned, it’s got it all. Wailing voice, great, clipped guitar riff and an overwhelming feeling of dread. I mean what more do you want? It came into my head while I was in Berlin over the weekend. No idea why. Maybe I clocked someone whose appearance took me here. Who knows. It’s a great track though and couldn’t have come from anywhere else but The UK. Great tribal drumming to play it out. Having said all of that, it’s the repetitive siren like motif that sticks in the head the most. It’s a meeting of audio landmarks if nothing else.
Wednesday, June 17, 2026
Track Of The Day: Dollar Brand - Blues For A Hip King (The Sun)
The last one before Berlin. Brilliant from Dollar Brand, aka Abdullah Ibrahim, who has just slipped off this mortal coil.
Tuesday, June 16, 2026
Monday, June 15, 2026
Track Of The Day: Ron Trent - Seduction (Subwoofer)
If there’s one track that typifies Ron Trent’s sound, then for me it has to be this one. It’s not my favourite from him, but it is unforgettable. It manages to be deep, driving, soulful and woozy at the same time. And the percussion, that sounds like a slick, air-dampened batacuda barrage. One of the great deep house tracks and long enough to support two or three lesser tunes on the mix.
Sunday, June 14, 2026
Track Of The Day: Metamatics - Bodypop (Shipwrec)
A great track of weighty, slo-mo electro from Metamatics, aka Lee Norris, who has been releasing stuff from the mid nineties, but nowt since 2024. ‘Bodypop’ is electro suspended in amber. A track to gauge the retro in vitro. Cryogenically frozen beats inhabiting a strange funk hinterland where B-boys breakdance on elevated Persian rugs, levitating above their dreams to decompose and then regenerate, their body parts taking on new meanings and motions in the process.
Tracks Of Yesterday: Erik Satie - Gymnopedies 1, 2, 3
In the nineteenth century ambience with rhythm was being produced. Erik Satie’s ‘Gymnopedies’ are almost certainly the precursor of the type. The first time I heard this was probably while watching ‘Diva’, when ‘No. 1’ is used in the scene in, I think, Le Jardin des Tuileries. Lovely stuff.
