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.

The obvious but obligatory 'wow, like we've never had snow before' post.

Out the door even before breakfast!

Barbour + Hunter = Winter stylez

Sunday service

Homeward bound

TGI Friday, phew!

Disco Village February Selection

Lot's of older records this time, some all time jams on here though and again, not really a mix although I get busy wrecking a few mangled dubs towards the end. Playlist soon come, ooh, exciting!



Marnimix – Issimo 1 
Killer version of the cheese classic. First heard on Baris K's Eurasia mix series, but obviously a huge cosmic classic with Baldelli et al. Marni was Tutu on DJHistory(.com) He's a lovely austrian fellow who used to run a website selling afro-cosmic music before it blew up following Harvey's Sarcastic mix. I bought a few weirdo records off him and he got quite excited that anyone might be interested and very kindly sent me an absolute bucketload of Loda and other DJ mixes including quite a few names that still haven't surfaced regarding that scene (my lips are sealed).
MC1 – Basic 
Speaking of cosmic, here's a Beppe Loda stormer. I got most of the Typhoon classic bootleg 12"s as orignal presse's from Flexx records in Belgium, but ran out of cash before the last couple and hence had to grab the version with the nasty graphics, boo. Although this 12" has a wicked Depeche Mode cosmic'd Enjoy The Silence.
Geno Jordan - You're A Peachtree Freak On Peachtree Street (Max D Edit) 
Part 3 is a 10 minute disco dubathon. Here Max makes us an offer we can't refuse.
Rhythm Based Lovers – Stargrove 
Remains one of my favourite tracks of the last few years. Lost on a smoky dancefloor at 5am repetition gives way to euphoria.
Metro Area – Nerves 
Overlooked after the initial smash hit's MA Vol 1-4, but check the production, there's everything in there. It's instantly familiar, soothingly comfortable and machine fabricated exactness. Standalone housemusic.
Smith & Hack – To Our Disco Friends 
Devastatingly simple but it's the juddering cuts that make it effective, sampling Bohannon.
Mach – On & On 
It was already a classic but THIS: http://youtu.be/w9CVglCTDnU made it famous.
Soundstream – Rainmaker 
I play all the tracks off this 12", and it never works on a dancefloor. Does Not Compute.
Rick ‘Poppa’ Howard – About Fourteen (Remix) 
Tevo's dad give us Melancholia. Saw that movie the other day (Von Trier) and it was exquisitely shot, stays with you, although not as mental as Anti-christ, but Charlotte Gainsbourg looked prettier.
Roshell Anderson – Wild Dreams 
B-Side to the PPU reissue of Hill's Delicate Rose which I was going to play as it sounded like an 80's version of 'About Fourteen", but though I'd had enough of wailing men.
Innergaze – Perception-Reception 
Dark. As with all the Letkiewicz stuff, there's more to each track than originally appears as it's not simply layers of production but thoughtfully composed electronica. I'm liking the Organs of Love 12" on optimo music too...
Jamie Principle – Waiting On My Angel (Dub Mix) 
L.I.E.S. – Comeback Dust (Max D's Big Top Dustheads Rmx) 
Jamie Principle – Waiting On My Angel (Radio Edit) 
Did Max nick that riff from Octave One? That Jamie dub is sooo gorgeous. Another favourite record, picked up in San Francisco, so extra happy points! 
Hamilton Bohannon – Bohannon Disco Symphony 
HB wrote records to be used as tools by DJ's I reckon, as there's never quite the crescendo such a groove deserves.
The Rapture – How Deep Is Your Love? (Emperor Machine Remix) 
Recent favourite from the London Loft party. Hat's off to Cosmo, you've gotta have balls to drop some Underground Resistance to that crowd, although of course thinking deeper it makes perfect sense.

ancient memories

Growing old sucks. Like, it's not a new discovery or anything, but y'know it really bites, non? At my birthday party this weekend, a couple of mixes of mine were playing (hey, it was my party, I was being a bit self indulgent) and a couple of times during the night a guest leaned over to me and said "hey, I love this tune, what is it?", and I'm like "yeah, of course I recognise it, it's er, er, er, hang on, er, er, it's my mix I obviously recognise the tune, er...". But nope. Of course I had the record, obviously recognised it as it was out of my collection but no, memory failed. They say it starts happening more and more. So it happened again when listening to this Thomas Bullock mix - I own pretty much every record on this mix, but save the really obvious disco songs where the lyrics give the game away, I was getting quite upset that I couldn't name those tunes. And my joints ache. I'm 33 FFS. Anyway, so I should have been at the LN CC screening/moody gathering that Thomas describes in this interview for promoting the Dalston gig this weekend past, but I had an early night coz I'm getting old, right?


SMA16 - Thomas Bullock by nicholasfeel

Natural acid

Nature never ceases to amaze. In my job at a high profile Plant Sciences University department I'm very privileged on a daily basis to work alongside some truly inspirational researchers and world leading scientists. There's also some uber-geeks, toffs and tories but I guess you get that with any walk of life. Anyway, I was walking out of my lab the other day and couldn't help glancing at the wall, the reason being that the image you see below just jumped out at me from a display of current research. A friend and colleague, Fernan has been studying how plant and microbial cells divide using some advanced microscopy techniques. The image that you see below is simply uncontrolled, unedited, naturally occurring bacterial replication. The different colours are just different strains of bacteria and the patterns formed as they multiply. I think you'll agree that this is some pretty trippy shizzle and makes for some quite beautiful psychedelic artwork. For more amazing images and further explanation of this, Scientific American has just written a feature here: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/oscillator/2012/01/17/bacillus-subtilis-for-missoni/
If anyone wants a closer look, do pop round my gaff as a large framed signed copy is just about the be hung in the living room...

fagjazz

It was around the time that Dope Jams (www.dopejams.net) opened that I bought my first record by Terre Thaemlitz. It was "Raw Through A Straw", it was on lovely blue vinyl and the music was comprised of quite ethereal breakbeats and bass-led ambience. It was quite special as it contained the lead track put together by two different recordings of the same song, one through each channel, one left, and one right, and by adjusting the balance you could listen to either perfomance individually, or the combined effort. It was a re-release of the label's first release and contained the original studio productions from 1997 aongside the new live recordings from 2003.

This quirky idea combined with the trippy, dance-y nature of the music made me an instant fan. Terre Thaemlitz's label "Comatonse" was the home for his more dancefloor orientated material, previously releasing on the Mille Plateaux imprint with ambient and experimental compositions. That wasn't to say that the releases on Comatonse were to be completely noodle free, the deep ambient epic odyssey of "Superbonus" being a case in point, complete with amazing 3D artwork (see 1st image).

Recently remixing John Cage continued the cerebral themes running through his output and in fact all releases on the label have a strong rooting in his politics, sexual and otherwise!

Interestingly enough the serious nature of this music is combined with a sense of fun and dancefloor experimentation, of course Terre's knowledge runs deep referencing underground nightlife history with aplomb.

Like many others, a variety of psuedonym's are employed to differentiate between styles, Glorimar, Terre's Neu Wuss Fusion, DJ Sprinkles and so on. The live perfomance aspect seems particuarly important and seems unusual in modern electronic dance, not to say that there aren't plenty of others doing it (although few seem to integrate live and programmed dance music with quite as much fluidity).

I mentioned sexual politics earlier and it's a subject that is proudly displayed on most of the artwork, each release promoting sexual health with tongue in cheek slogans and whole compositions dedicated to raising awareness.

And so back to the music. I put together a few of the Comatonse catalogue here to give a flavour, and although some of these releases may be hard to come across, the japanese imprint Mule Music have recently made available again some of the more seminal dancefloor moments from Terre alongside some of his newer productions and remixes, go seek!

Comatonse label spotlight by fred_naked

Playlist:

DJ Sprinkles - Sloppy 42nd's (Glorimar's Deeperama)
Nina Simone - See Line Woman (Terre Thaemlitz Remix)
Terre's Neu Wuss Fusion - She's Hard (Live @ Hug Parade Minsk/Belarus)
Terre Thaemlitz - Raw Through A Straw (Double Live L=North R=South)
DJ Sprinkles - Glorimar's Whore House
Chugga - Theme for the Buck Rodgers Light Rope Dance (Interstellar Speedskate)
Kami-Sakurobe House Explosion - Stand Up
Kami-Sakurobe House Explosion - Black Is The Colour Of My True Love's Hair

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