just recently i finished a sort of mix battle thing with a young lad from london by the name of ben white. you know, mix some tracks together, send them to him, he’ll mix on a few afterwards and so forth. we did one in june, and then another last month. well really it was september but i only finished it last week. my bad. i thought it turned out pretty well. i was really taken aback by how fresh his tracks were – apart from one or two i had never heard of most of the artists he used, let alone the tracks themselves. he’s also one of the guys behind the squeaky bleeps blog – so he knows his stuff.
a couple of months ago he had a grimey dubstep remix of asher roth’s risible i love college featured on the mad decent blog, and his productions have only come on since then. waves is a chilled out garage track in the old mj cole vein, and while i don’t really think there’s any point in remixing pon de floor (and the winner of the mad decent comp there was pretty dreadful) ben’s effort takes it into a whole new territory – the aforementioned old school garage – and gives it a new lease of life. he’s also put together a mix which is bursting with vibrant energy – everything i listen to at the moment is good, but this is just explosive.
i’m finally getting my interview game back. see here for details of my recent chat with the juan maclean. more to follow later in the year hopefully. watch this space etc.
2001 was a very strange year for me. a lot happened, both good and bad, to change me as a person and i know that i only realised a lot of this much later. it wasn’t always easy, and thinking back on those 12 months i recall more painful memories than happy ones. all through this however, i was lucky to have a rich abundance of absolutely fantastic music to keep me going. in many ways i think it was possibly the richest period for me as far as “dance” music is concerned. this mix was created with a tremendous sense of longing – for what i’m not quite sure, but putting it all together has been extremely cathartic.
unfortunately there were only so many tracks I could include in this mix, so some just didn’t make it. it pained me not to include either the deep dish or john creamer & stephane k remix of iio’s rapture, or creamer & k’s own i wish you were here. most people seemed to favour that duo’s remix of kosheen’s hide u, but that track never impressed me as much as these two, or indeed their love in traffic remix, which did make the cut. x-press 2 hit the pop charts a year later with lazy, but muzikizum and smoke machine were huge tracks in 01. alas neither would fit here – but at least I could include their take on sister bliss’ deliver me, which featured the late john martyn, as well as ashley beedle’s emotive remix of bent’s always.
apart from discovery, basement jaxx’s rooty was definitely the biggest dance album of that year, and I feel a little embarrassed that I couldn’t make room for either romeo or where’s your head at. I’ll pay for it some day. finally, pete heller first came to my attention with the funky house of big love in 99, but it was 2001’s epic sputnik under his stylus trouble alias that really blew me away. that breakdown. what a headf*ck. there’s no other way to describe it. for the sake of anyone listening maybe it’s just as well I couldn’t include that one….
Dubtribe Sound System – Do It Now (Extended Disco Mix)
Daft Punk – Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
Felix Da Housecat – Silver Screen Shower Scene
Bent – Always (Ashley Beedle Mahavishnu Remix)
Silicone Soul – Right On! (Original Instrumental)
Modjo – Chillin (Buffalo Bunch Remix)
Weekend Players – 21st Century
Groove Armada – Superstylin’
Chocolate Puma – Wanna Be U
Smokin Jo – Yanu Beats
Kings of Tomorrow – Finally (Kevin Yost Remix)
Jakatta – American Dream
Satoshi Tomiie – Love In Traffic (John Creamer & Stephane ‘K’ Remix)
Tijuana – Groove Is In The Air (Simon’s Future Dreams Mix)
Zero 7 – Destiny (Photek Remix)
Fatboy Slim – Song For Shelter (The Chemical Brothers Remix)
Science Dept – Breathe (Lexicon Avenue Vocal Remix)
Sister Bliss – Deliver Me (X-Press 2 Remix)
Delerium – Innocente (Deep Dish Gladiator Remix)
Santos – Camels
Depeche Mode – I Feel Loved (Danny Tenaglia’s Labor of Love Edit)
Harry “Choo Choo” Romero – Suck My Clock
The Chemical Brothers – Electronic Battle Weapon 5 (It Began In Afrika)
hmm… well this is great. i’ve been raving about the delancey music service lately, you know, eli escobar and stretch armstrong playing good tunes and interviewing cool people and being generally interesting and hilarious. the show is on mondays at 10pm ny time, which is generally 3am here. like i can stay up till 5am listening to ny radio, even if it is broadcast online. well in the spirit of honesty, i did stay up last week, as our clocks had gone back but theirs hadn’t, so it was only staying up till 4. but i can’t do that every week…
anyway, thankfully, eli’s been good enough to put up a link to the show on his blog the past few weeks, so i (and the rest of the world) can listen to it on my ipod on buses and when walking through town and whatnot. till now.
So the people over at EVR have asked me not to post up the shows. If you guys wanna hear old shows you’ll have to stream them off the EVR website. If someone calls you on the phone or your Chinese takeout comes, don’t pause the stream because it’ll start from the beginning again when you press play.
thanks evr. whatever about anything else, i definitely don’t have the time to listen to the same stream for two hours straight on my internet. i barely even watch films anymore. this is adding to what has so far been a crap monday. eugh.
just had a look at some of my old tweets on the analogue account last year. go follow!
Pukkelpop just kicked off properly with Santogold. In the next tent over, DJ Mehdi is banging out Surkin’s White Knight to mild appreciation from the Belgians 3:11 PM Aug 14th, 2008 from txt
Róisín Murphy is definitely the coolest living Irish person. 10:19 PM Aug 14th, 2008 from txt
If it’s just Sinden on the decks with some added MCs can it really be called “The Count and Sinden (Live)”? We want Hervé! 1:41 PM Aug 15th, 2008 from txt
Let dem know you gon bomb de place Diplo, let dem know you gon bomb de place Diplo… Bangin! 6:36 PM Aug 15th, 2008 from txt
Being at Lovebox is embarrassing… 7:28 PM Aug 23rd, 2008 from txt
Although I must say, N*E*R*D are ROCKING it. Backseat Love sounds great! 8:27 PM Aug 23rd, 2008 from txt
This is the worst festival I’ve ever been to. Oh no a preposition! 9:50 PM Aug 23rd, 2008 from txt
i always get excited when a new track from myd arrives in my inbox. noria, the latest offering from le mec de club cheval starts off before bringing in some cascading synths that remind me of joe and will ask?’s insane the rusty pig. there’s a moment about two minutes in that makes me think of crouching tiger, hidden dragon – a bizarre, minute percussive break that sounds like bamboo sticks being dropped in a courtyard.
this track is trippy and hypnotic, but unlike most tracks that carry such a label, it’s in a major key, so it’s more likely to bring a smile to your face than drive you wild. it’s simple, but it hits all the right buttons.
lately i’ve been trying to be a blogger by day, a sub-editor by evening and a dj by night. i’ve met with relative success. maybe i need a bit more of the blogging, but hey, i’m getting there. i posted a link to my interview with belgian electro-rock outfit the subs on facebook and a friend pointed out the obvious joke.
which i’d missed somehow.
anyway don’t forget that these crazy belgians will be shaking transmission to the ground tomorrow night. as well as that, we’re still looking for any budding producers out there who feel like tackling their latest single, fuck that shit. ahem. finally we’ve got prizes for costumes tomorrow night courtesy of bud ice – they’ll be given out before 12.30am so make sure you get in early.
i’m not mad on halloween to be honest. ever since i got past the age where i could go to people’s houses uninvited and get sweets it’s not meant much to me.
i’m also not always too mad on rex the dog (though his remixes are invariablysublime), but i love the concept and the execution of his marketing. check out this ad for his halloween party in london. it brought a smile to my face.
since i’ve been so busy on this mix thing i’ve not been giving due attention to new music. my bad. in the past few days i’ve been sent some great stuff, and it’s high time i share it with the world.
i’ve been repping for solid bump for a while, so it stands to reason that i should be excited about laberg’s debut release on the label. i had no idea, but laberge is just 22. i hate it when i hear that someone that i really respect is younger than me. anyway the true love ep, available on beatport, comes with three original tracks and a remix. the title track has a low-slung bassline, soft synths and a chipmunk vocal sample that really works. just don’t let go is a more laidback affair, beautiful stuff for a warm up. we don’t know has emotive chord changes reminiscent reminiscent of tee’s happy, and the remix of true love, by meroz, gives the original more oomph to take things into the early hours. all in all it’s one solid release for a label that is solid by name…. well you get me. check out this remix of just don’t let go by dj eq. like meroz’s remix, it beefs up the beautiful original and makes it a little bit more late-night friendly.
chaos dans le cbd consists of two brothers from auckland, and they’re making some damn fine tunes. think brodinski, momma’s boy, renaissance man. my favourite track of theirs is called tesh & maccas – don’t ask me what that means. it’s got high pitched bleeps that seem to be singing something to me, white noise and that hint of tribalism that suggests something more than a little bit wild. rag rats is a little bit angrier, and the wild is more than just suggested. rattling tribal fills and more of those bleeps help this one become something of a banger within this genre – if that’s possible. and, appropriately enough, they’ve remixed noob and brodinski’s peanuts club. while the original is something of a dj tool, they’ve taken the signature riff and built a hazy, smokey new track around it. thumbs up.
no no, it's a different school, who have gone from a choir of beautiful voices to a gaggle of screeching harpies. that's what success does. 2 hours ago
@_schizofonics_ now that would be bizarre. the results are almost in. wonder if the coldplay kids have it. 2 hours ago
