Mindblowing Mixes 7

Brandon Hocura and Gary Abugan are Invisible City Soundsystem. They have a record label as well, Invisible City Editions. I get the feeling they've been stockpiling and carefully curating their selections of music for a looong time, before finally emerging into the daylight. I've listened to pretty much nothing else but their mixes for quite some time, and like the afro-cosmic explosion after the re-popularisation of Daniele Baldelli and Beppe Loda in the early 2000's, these guys have detonated the Tropical sound into the internet's ether. It makes perfect sense really, the combination of uptempo soca, calypso and parang with electronic dub and synthesiser music. All born of soundsystem culture so the records sound massive and are built for the dance. I can only imitate, these guys do innovate. Of course the music isn't new, but it's that recontextuallization that makes it fresh, and IC are doing it with panash. Check out the mixes below, and their website here: Invisible City

Possibility of an Island Part One

Possibility of an Island Part Two

Possibility of an Island Part Three

Beats In Space

LN-CC

Mindblowing Mixes 6

After Matt’s tips in parts 1-5 I thought I would weigh in with number 6 (I like 6’s) . Number 6 in this series is brought to you by The Gaff & Factor and is titled “The Trip Beyond”. This mix originally came out as a CD in 2007, and I came across it a few years later. It was created with 100% original Psych, Rock, Folk, Childrens's Records, Spoken Word Vinyl, Prog, Instructional Lp's and 1 funk drum break hidden in there, skills, and MultiTrack only, oh and all the records are from the ten year period of 1967-77. When I first heard it I was unaware of The Gaff or Factor and I have since found out that The Gaff is resident at the “Get Together” Canada’s leading night out and has been supplying and trading records with some of worlds elite collectors for years. Check his website for more info http://thegaff.ca/CMS/

Cosmo Baker (The Rub, NYC) says of The Gaff “Gaff got so many ill records it’s fu$*ing mind boggling. I am in awe”. That statement should prepare you somewhat for all the things you are going to hear on this mix. I still know nothing about the mysterious Factor. Enough of my wittering on, here ladies and gentlemen is “The Trip Beyond” a mix of hippy funk, acid folk, heavy drums, and many more good things. It’s a mix I have never got tired of hearing and I doubt I ever will.

Andy
x

Mindblowing Mixes 5

Well here it is, as promised. The second mix by Tenyu Hamaki in the mindblowing mixes series. This is the one, the face-melting psychedelic gospel selection. How the god-botherers could get quite so tripped out sounding is beyond me, but I guess that's religion for you, they say it takes you places. The plates in this mix are all originals cos' that's how Tenyu does. There's even a few 4-figure records in there. It's not strictly gospel as you'll find some deep soul mixed in there too, but this is serious music compiled with love by one of the heaviest selectors around that rarely gets namechecked unless the serious collectors whisper it amongst themselves. Often here the music is utterly raw, eliciting a home recorded atmosphere that only adds to the wonkiness and seam of psychedelia than runs deep within the grooves. Man, this truly is a mindblowing mix. The only contact I've got for Tenyu is his old website where you can purchase some astonishing records on his label and watch some entrancing video footage of gospel singers in churches and listen to some very, very rare albums: www.hollygroverecords.com Tenyu, wherever you are, I doff my cap to you - truly "blessed" to have had my mind opened and educated...

 

Mindlowing Mixes 4

Okay, so it's time for another one. This one was such a game changer for me as not only did it introduce me to disco, but it helped me dive in to the deep end of "deep disco". I wanted to know what pretty much every track on this mix was, and the tracklisting eluded me for the longest time. It was around the time I'd first been introduced to the website/forum www.deephousepage.com and around the time I went to my first Loft party in London with David Mancuso. The guys at Blackwax Records (as usual) had hipped me to the website and back in those days it was great - there were loads of discussions by cats with serious knowledge and every day was teaching me something new. I started checking the mixes and as I'd heard of DJ Spinna though the house music scene I thought I'd check one of his mixes first (deephousepage or "DHP" carries thousands of downloadable mixes from the greats such as Ron Hardy, Larry Levan, Walter Gibbons to lesser known but equally amazing DJ's like Rahaan, Sadar and Jamie 3:26).

The mix was jawdropping. Flawlessly mixed, perfectly paced, emotional and just built momentum from start to euphoric finish. Maaan, that was the DJ I wanted to be. I couldn't believe how good he was. To this day I'm not sure if he was playing vinyl with FX or was early on the CDJ's, but my god DJ Spinna was out of this world. DJ Spinna is an across the board DJ rooted in hip-hop & disco so it's no suprise he can mix (I remember a session at the southport weekender where Spinna was cutting up mad disco breaks whilst a drummer was playing live over the top - just electric!), but he's also one hell of a collector and this mix for the Rare Radio Show gave a seemingly deep insight into deep disco music but in reality was only scratching the surface of his collection.

After desperately fiending for the all the records off this mix I'd managed to amass them all and it pretty much laid the foundations for my own disco collection. Track I searched the hardest for was Bingo by The Whispers, an album only cut, of course. I was most excited to meet Spinna at another weekender and told him the story of my fandom and how I'd just picked up a copy of Six Million Steps by Rahni Harris & Flo on the back of his mix and continued to gush untill the poor chap had to drag me off him but not before he'd autographed my record...

obligatory geeky, ridgid fanboy pose next to tired, please let me go, artist

Mindblowing Mixes 3

Joel Martin is an avid record collector. He's also a film conossieur who works producing and compiling film soundtracks. He notably compiled the alternative soundtrack for the cult zombie movie Dawn Of The Dead including much of the incidental music missing from the initial soundtrack release like the music from the shopping mall scenes. Curating his own label Moscovitch Music he has unearthed Terror / Prey - The Original Unreleased Soundtracks by IVOR SLANEY, two underground horror movies from the 70's containing my folk/balearic favourite: 'Way Of A Stranger' featuring vocals by Val McKenna. In addition to this he works with the legendary DeWolfe library music who have produced music for Dr Who, Monty Python, Emmanuelle, American Gangster and Brokeback Mountain to name but a few cinematic excursions, Joel recently producing a compilation of musical excerpts from the Shaw Bros. universally acclaimed Kung Fu movies, sampled by everyone from Wu Tang Clan to Quentin Tarantino. In 2008 as DJ Zeus he released the mix cd "Esoteric Disco", a natural successor to Harvey's Sarcastic selection and subsequently achieved huge popularity as one half of Quiet Village with Matt Edwards of Radio Slave, using their shared love of library and soundtrack music to ride the balearic resurgence on the achingly hip Whatever We Want records. Currently working with Gerry Rooney (Harvey's old sparring partner in Black Cock records) as "Velvet Season & The Hearts of Gold" to release on Golden Hole/Lucky Hole records with such catchy titles as 'Camel Toe Central'. 


Obviously he likes disco records. A lot. This radio show recorded in the fledgling days of London radio station Resonance FM is Joel showcasing some quite special disco records that grew into a feature for FACT magazine on Joel's top 20 disco records. It's particuarly nice as Joel shares some knowledge and background and occupies a special place for me as it's the only time I've heard a copy of the extremely rare 12" version of Candido's Thousand Fingered Man with it's more electronic slant than the commonly heard version. Enjoy.

MB Mix 2

Second in the series of Mind Blowing mixes won't be for everyone out there. I was lucky in my musical education that pretty early on I met my friend and mentor, Niki. Any attempt that I make to describe him won't do him justice and will probably elicit a slap. Let's just say that for pretty much everyone out there, he's on some next level shit, and that's an understatement. You have no idea. I can see you, there, thinking that, yeah, you get the idea, but no, you really fucking don't. Anyway, of course it was he who hipped me to Qbico. It was a mad record label, utterly true to itself and deadly serious. It released music, no more, no less. Yeah, there's a lot of Jazz, but there's also Techno, Electronics, Drum tracks and Rock. The man behind this label was probably eating the same thing Niki was for breakfast. The first thing you notice with a Qbico release is the artwork. Often hand made. Sometimes less than 30 copies for the world. Sometime one-off's. Always special, and that was before you got to the music. Anyway, as you might expect, the dude behind the label, Enrique has a pretty damn fine personal collection. To hear him DJ must be something pretty special, but unfortunately the closest I've come to this is a series of radio presentations he made on a couple of obscure internet radio stations, Yellowish radio in Japan, and Borderline radio in Germany. Here is one of his sessions on Borderline radio, put together apparently from only two CD's. Like his label, it's out there, addictive and compulsive, quite indescribable - enjoy!


Qbic-O-Rama 5 Borderline Radio by Disco Village

MB Mix 1

First in a new series of "mind blowing mixes". Tenyu Hamaki is a record dealer based in Brookyln, NY. I first encountered him virtually on www.deephousepage.com where he appeared to divide opinion (to put it politely), and in fact nearly 8 years later when I recently asked after him I encountered a 3 page forum shitstorm at the mere mention of his name (admittedly this was partly down to my lamenting the demise of a once great forum). Well, he sorted me a promo 12" of Love Bug on Red Greg so regardless of everyone else, I'm a fan. He's a conossieur of the black shiny stuff and as he got deeper into the deep soul side of things he appeared to veer towards gospel. Back in the day there was no way I'd touch gospel with a barge pole, bloody god botherers! However it was the mixes that Tenyu put together that showed me just how funky, disco, and downright utterly tripped out to the max facemeltingly psychedelic this shit could get. Praise be! I'm a believer! Soul session 3 will be posted later and is pure pure preaching praying perfection, however I'm starting this series highlighting some of the mixes that have blown my mind with Soul session 4 from Tenyu which is just deep, good music. Each mix will be avalable for a limited time only...


Tenyu - Soul Session 4 by Disco Village

www.hollygroverecords.com