highpoint lowlife blog

full & paid

2008-07-02T10:50:00.003+01:00

That Cool Kids mixtape "That's Stupid" went live last night - grab the free download from their myspace. I only started listening to it this morning, but sounds pretty good. Got that same old skool hip hop sound, with phat 808 slow beats, first track has a sorta "Slow and Low" sound, and "Full and Paid" is a pretty good Eric B and Rakim inspired track.

Another excellent discovery, which Roel Funcken introduced me to, was Bretzel Zoo, friends of theirs from Belgium, who also do a really crunchy electronic project by the name of Herrmutt Lobby. I've been listening to these Bretzel Zoo tracks on repeat - on quite a similar sound path as Hayzee, who i posted about yesterday, nintendo inspired lurching hip hop.

dang, so much good stuff going on in hip hop at the moment!

back to the blog!

2008-07-01T11:23:00.005+01:00

this past weeks been a bit too hectic to scribble much on here, but back to work now, tuesday morning, things are ticking along and my boss is on holiday, so i'll have a lazy start to the day while penning about a couple of things i've been listening to this past week..

Frank N Dank "Xtended Play Version 3.13"
When we were doing the Plastic People gig last week, i got talking with the sound man, Slim, about J Dilla, and he asked if i'd heard of Frank N Dank - he described it as hip hop mixed with detroit techno. I hadn't heard any of it, and downloaded an album to check out. The one i grabbed is "Xtended Play Version 3.13" which is excellent, but on further investigation, its not all produced by Dilla, and actually some of the better tracks are done by different producers.
I'll need to find some of the earlier Dilla produced Frank N Dank still, but i would highly recommend Xtended Play. Check the full list of producers at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xtended_Play_Version_3.13

Hayzee - Next Level
Slightly Dilla related - i joined the DILLA group on last.fm, and found a recommendation to check out Hayzee. Their myspace doesn't list the members, but from the photograph, its three guys, from Amsterdam, doing an excellent take on 8-bit hip hop. Easily falling within the current batch of producers from Flying Lotus to Rustie, with skewed tumbling hip hop beats, big midrange synths, and bleepy Mario-style melodies. They have a full 8 track album for free download linked from their myspace page, and its pretty infectious stuff. Some of it is a bit too close to the formula you can imagine just from the description "8bit hip hop", but other tracks are total standout productions, such as "Press Start" and "Last Boss/Final Form".

Mike Dearborn - DJ set from the Smartbar, Chicago, march 2008
Just found this mix this morning via Fun In The Murky. 2 hour deep dubby techno set, starting out pretty mellow and basic channel sounding, working up into some classic old chicago and detroit techno. I wish i had a track listing for it, as theres a bunch of old stuff i recognize but couldn't name, some old classics i remember from Glasgow's Tin Pan Alley, back in '90/'91.
excellent stuff!

Phantom Channel Presents - Part 2
Second release from Phantom Channel, who i've written about a wee while back. 13 tracks of really sublime organic ambience, drone and experimental recordings. Still delving into this one, but so far, all sounds excellent!

Ikonika
Just wanted to say a few words about her DJ set at Plastic People last week - absolutely top notch! Really excellent selection of tunes, hefty bass-weight, but leaning more towards 2step than dubstep, really uptempo and dancefloor friendly, and almost completely stuff i didn't recognise. Her mixing skills are tight as hell and she was constantly working the decks. Everyone was up on the floor for her set and loving it. She's playing Plastic People again at the end of the month for FWD>>, and i'll definitely be along to see her play again.

Ramadanman and Pangea
The day after our Plastic People gig, I took the Funcken brothers out around london to see what was on, and I had spied a free Hessle Audio night down at Cafe1001, off Brick Lane. I usually hate that venue, its so overly crowded with hipsters and scenesters (is there a difference? painfully fashionable anyhoo!), and tonite wasn't much different, but it well worth checking out, as Ramandanman and Pangea's back to back DJing selection was impeccable, lots of their own productions being played leaning towards that same outside-genre as Martyn's productions - elements of techno, dubstep, 2step, mixed together effortlessly and really enjoying themselves.

The Cool Kids - That's STUPID
And.. haven't heard it yet, but The Cool Kids, recent XL Recordings signing, release their new mixtape, That's STUPID", via their myspace later today.

dilla-gence

2008-06-16T12:56:00.002+01:00

rar, what a pretty good weekend...

Friday went along to the Jahtari/Werk nite at Plastic People, which was pretty ace. When i first arrived Lukkid was just starting and did a pretty good chopped up soul/hip hop set. Some other decent stuff over the evening, one guy who i *think* was Newworldaquarium, played an excellent detroit-style set with loads of little recognizable snippets of tracks including a Nexus 21 track which me and Matt/Spendlove got excited about. The total highlight of the evening, and the reason most everyone was there, was for Disrupt - fuck, by that point the volume was up so loud i was almost feeling queasy with the bass thud - it was perfect for his set and everyone was skanking to his 8-bit-videogame-dub.

Saturday i was recovered enough by the evening for the Warp Brainfeeder night which has a massive lineup - Ras G, Samiyam, Rustie and Hudson Mohawke, Kode9, Flying Lotus and Mala. Quite a decent crowd of us out for it, and the whole evening was excellent. That venue, Hearne Street Car Park is great too, spacious enough to relax and not feel cramped, with external areas to the main dance-room, and somehow escaping the non-smoking laws - my guess is that its classified as a private party, judging by the use of drink tickets and the setup.

Finished off sunday with some light-weight movie action to see the new Hulk movie, which was actually better than i expected, sort of in the same league as the latest Iron Man movie - not amazing but tied in enough with the Marvel comics universe to appease comic geeks and enough in-jokes to keep you amused.

Feels like a slow start to the week today though, but i found a few new free downloads to be start the week right:

Theres a download of Flying Lotus' live set for radio one last year, shorn of the radio one bits. Link found via his myspace blog:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VSR24FW5

New mix went online over the weekend from DJ Synflood featuring an excellent mix of the hip hop such as Flying Lotus, Daru, Dilla, Madvillain and more.

Best of all - via J Dilla's wikipedia entry i found a free mixtape of unreleased Dilla production with Busta Rhymes. Grab is from here. Via mickboogie.com

mighy praise

2008-06-13T10:58:00.004+01:00

Warren Ellis is perhaps the best writer in comics these days, certainly one of the most creative and out-there storytellers, with themes and ideas more akin to those explored by the minds of technologists and contemporary sci-fi writers like Bruce Sterling and William Gibson, than your usual comic book author.
Apart from that, he's very into his music, which is a constant topic of his excellent blog postings.
I sent him over a copy of Funckarma's upcoming Dubstoned EP, and was mightily chuffed to receive an email from him yesterday saying that he loved it, and that he posted this review:.

"It's an evil, lurching, jagged piece of science fictional noise that shoves about eight different kinds of music into a centrifuge in order to spit out a life form configured for life in the last city on earth when the next ice age comes. Or something. Any fifteen second stretch of any one of the five tracks can include hip hop, crackle, 1983 videogame noises, industrial grind and dubstep mutations. It evokes the image of mad scientists doing live mixing with DNA. I like it."

Check out some free Warren Ellis goodness at Freak Angels, a weekly webcomic set in a post-apocalyptic steampunk London. its fuckin' great!
Theres a load of his work to recommend, but some of my favs have been his runs on Hellblazer and the Authority, his superhero stuff Ultimate Galactus, Iron-man: Extremis, some of his own creations like Desolation Jones, Fell, and his recent novel Crooked Little Vein. Check his wikipedia entry for even more info..

bristol style

2008-06-10T17:23:00.004+01:00

Had an excellent weekend up in Bristol for the Venn festival. I was fighting a cold off for the whole weekend, but still managed to catch some great music and have a really good time!

Me, mat and lisa all went up on saturday afternoon, and came back on sunday at 6pm, so didn't get to see all of the festival, really just saturday's events.

Philip Jeck was the highlight of saturday afternoon, really nice sound in the auditorium and quite a captivating set. Hauntology seems to be the buzzword of the moment, and i guess Philip Jeck's scratchy records found in second hand stores which evoke all sorts of strange times and places may well fall under such a categorization. Caught Infinite Livez vs Stade shortly after that, which was pretty entertaining too - a very funkadelic inspired sound and look from the whole band, and a lot of onstage energy. In fact that reminds me to try and find some recordings of theirs - its someone whose name i've seen loads but hadn't actually heard - the set was fun enough that i'd like to check out some recordings and see how they differ.

Saturday night was the main reason for going up to the festival - Peverelist and Mortiz Von Oswald, and neither disappointed. The venue for the evening was the Motion skatepark, which as venues go, and being an ex-skater, i thought was fucking excellent. It has a nice outdoor patio garden on the bank of the river, plus three of the rooms were setup for music tonite. Peverelist's set started off slowly with a classic dub skanker, almost just an introduction to get everyone's attention, before dropping into some really good dubtech sounds, from the more familiar tracks such as his own productions, his work with Appleblim (who was dancing around very happily during the whole set), and some 2562 tracks, plus a load i didn't recognise.
He was followed directly by Moritz Von Oswald who had a massive stack of classic dub 45's. Fighting off the cold, i was starting to fade a bit by then, and moved through to bar where you could still hear and feel the bass from his set. Wandered around checking out most of the other rooms after that, but we called it a night around 3am and went back to the hostel to play some pool!

Almost over the cold now i think, and been finding a good few records and downloads these past couple of days..

One of my recent obsessions has been Daru and Rena's 'Turn It On' which i mentioned briefly before on here, i think my description was something like 'flying lotus producing En Vogue' which still kinda fits, but Daru has a load of projects on the go and working with loads of different people. Last night i came across his blog - http://darujones.blogspot.com/. One of the best finds from the blog was a free mixtape you can grab from here and actually, quite a few other places round the net - if for some reason that link doesn't work just google "daru spirit soul-hop sampler". I do warn you tho - its quite on the neosoul tip, not something i go for often, but i dunno, the production is just so good you get sucked in!

Was out with Matt Spendlove recently, and he informed me about the Jahtari and Werk showcase at Plastic People this friday which looks so good! Its got disrupt, Rootah, Mikey Murka, and Actress all playing live. I visited and downloaded quite a load of releases from their site months ago, but went back today to re-explore, and grabbed a bunch of excellent free download releases - been particularly enjoying the Blue Vitriol release. Well worth an explore!

Hessle Audio

2008-06-06T13:29:00.003+01:00

Hessle Audio is a label i've just come across recently - out of Leeds and run by Ramadanman, Ben UFO and Pangaea, according to Discogs.

Those recent downloads i had bought, the TRG ones, and then the Martyn and Ramadanman remixes of TRG, were both on Hessle Audio, however i hadn't actually paid attention to the label. Yesterday i bought another wee batch of new downloads from boomkat, two of which also are on Hessle Audio: Untold's "Test Signal" EP, and Pangaea's "Coiled". Both are super good and show a nice advancement in the dubstep sound, with off-kilter rhythms more akin to 2step than the standard halfstep plod, and I've had both releases on constant repeat for the past 24 hours. Untold's 'Kingdom' is a particular standout, nice low-end sound palette, a slow motorik beat and undulating hypnotic bass, sprinkled with a smattering of on-safari-style samples. Thats definitely in my set for the Plastic People gig coming up!

Check em out on their myspace page

dubTechno2StepAcidBassline mix

2008-06-03T23:55:00.002+01:00

while preparing for DJing at the upcoming Funckarma release parties, i've been assembling a set in Ableton Live. I made a recording this past weekend of the more uptempo tracks which beat-match. I was pretty happy with the results, it seems to have turned out all right - from 2step to bassline via some 303!

Download here.

Tracklisting is:

thorsten's dubTechno2StepAcidBassline mix

1. Ramadanman - Kablammo Eleven
2. Appleblim - Vansan
3. TRG - Broken Heart (Martyn's DCM Remix)
4. 2562 - Enforcers
5. Peverelist - Infinity Is Now
6. Kit Clayton - Aspoket
7. Plastician - Cha
8. Voltaic - Darkhaze
9. Acid Jack - Mookie (Curses! Making You Nervous Mix)
10. Boy 8 Bit - Fogbank
11. Surgeon - Whose Bad Hands Are These (Autechre mix)
12. Ron Hardy - Welcome To The Club
13. Theo Parish - Falling Up (Carl Craig mix)
14. Blaqstar - Shake it to the ground (Drop The Lime remix)
15. DJ Pierre - Box Energy
16. Ron Carrol - Walking Down The Street
17. Ramadanman - Carla
18. Lethal Bizzle - Mr (produced by Dexplicit)
19. Adonis - No Way Back
20. Gescom - D1
21. The Village Orchestra - 2652 remix

dubstoned EP preview

2008-06-02T16:59:00.002+01:00

i have a wee Funckarma mp3, sort of like a megamix of their current Dubstoned project, including the upcoming EP1 plus stuff from EP2. Grab it from here.

slowcoach

2008-05-30T17:52:00.003+01:00

yeah, i know - sometimes a bit late to the party! I've been checking out some Martyn tracks and really enjoying them. I've heard quite a few of them on DJ mixes, especially on the new Appleblim Dubstep Allstars, however i didn't own any vinyl or mp3s. I was searching to buy some tracks this afternoon, and have come across a couple of download stores i hadn't used before, both of which allow purchases by Paypal which is something i've wanted for ages. I usually have some money in my paypal account, and it always feels more like internet money rather than real money, so I kinda prefer paying for things via paypal as its not actually coming out of my bank account.

First download store was junodownload which i actually found late last night while purchasing Joker's 'Kapsize' EP. Its a nice simple clean interface, allows easy previewing, and as i say you can use Paypal. They have a good selection, and its a different selection than boomkat or emusic, although album prices were more expensive than at boomkat.

Second store was Digital-tunes.net which again has a different catalog from boomkat or junodownload. Thats where i found the Martyn tunes i was looking for, and even easier - actually allows you to login via Facebook, weirdly, but yeah, nother nice easy store to use with a clean interface.

While I was searching for the Martyn tracks, i found a forum post linking to Lower Depths which has a load of freely downloadable mixes, including four different Martyn mixes, and also two Dogdaze mixes, which is another pseudonym used by 2562/A Made Up Sound. Theres a load of other mixes by people i don't know, but i'll be having a delve in over the weekend. One of the Martyn mixes was from Skream's Stella Sessions, same as the Joker mix i posted the other day - i said i didn't know what the Stella Sessions were, but i think its just the name of his shows on Rinse.FM.

mr Lotus loves his comic books!

2008-05-30T11:50:00.003+01:00

Just found this Flying Lotus interview where they briefly touch on his love of comics - http://www.prefixmag.com/features/flying-lotus/interview/18753/ - he mentions 'Y: The Last Man' and Grant Morrison's 'The Filth'. rar! comic books and good music go together like Peggy and Al!

pants music

2008-05-29T13:19:00.004+01:00

aiight - first up - Roel Funckarma was in for the record laquer cut yesterday and says it sounds amazing! Still looking like we're on schedule to get it back in time for the UK record launch parties! rar!

Couple of new things on the (virtual) turntables:

With my recent infatuation with all things J Dilla, i've come across a lot of Stones Throw Record releases, the latest of which has been getting a load of hype - James Pants' 'Welcome' album.
It came out on the 27th, and I finally found it on a download store that wasn't some dodgy russian one, and bought a copy on tuesday night from Juno Downloads. I can't say i'm into it all, some of its a bit too synth-poppy, but other tracks are big wonky disco hip hop jams, and are well worth the price of admission alone. One track is particular has been lodged in my head, and requires playing first thing in the morning - "We're Through". You can download a copy of that track from over at RCRD LBL. Its got an excellent thick big synth that carries it along and an excellent little cowbell percussion.

Buckshot and 9th Wonder - The Formula.
I saw a few people talking about this on blogs earlier this year, saying it was one of their most anticipated releases of the year. i saw on it one of the download blogs i follow and grabbed a copy yesterday - had it on repeat a few times. I've been really enjoying it, quite chunky beats and, a load of little pitched-up soul/disco samples and vocal flow is really smooth. Theres nothing ground-breaking about it, production could easily have come from the mid '90s; it's not part of the current crop of synth-midrange-heavy hip hop, it's much more classic sounding than that, but yeah, quite enjoyable.

I got a copy of Voltaic, which is Rustie's project with Martin Patton. All very different from his own hiphop styled productions, its very electro and dancefloor heavy, but yeah, excellent stuff.

I'll leave you with one new download - Joker did a mix for Skream's Stella Sessions (i have no idea what his Stella Sessions are, i'm just quoting!). It's an excellent 30 minute mix, one of the freshest dubstep mixes i've heard in a while. Grab it here.

Oh! one more last thing - that MF Grimm comic book i read was really good - artwork is really nice, sorta exaggerated hyper-reality - the drawing style reminded me of Eduardo Risso from 100 Bullets. The story itself is excellent and Percy Carey/MF Grimm comes across as an eloquent intelligent guy - he doesn't glorify any of the gangsta life, in fact far from it - he was chasing hip hop as his way out from the lifestyle. Theres loads of highlights to his story, from being a child star on Sesame Street to the amount of characters making cameos in the artwork - chuck d, mf doom, dre, snoop and many more.
Check more details at DC Comics. Oh, while searching for a link to the comic there, i just came across a really indepth article about the beef between MF Grimm and MF Doom. read it at http://www.wutang-corp.com/forum/archive/index.php?t-28558.html - i'm off for a read myself!

grimm

2008-05-27T18:51:00.002+01:00

yar! nice long weekend - the Public Enemy show on friday was excellent fun!
Edan and Dagha were on first, like pretty early - just after 7pm. They have a pretty good stage show, with Edan MCing and DJing at the same time, only using one hand for scratching and cutting the records. Anti Pop Consortium were up next and tho they were okay, i wasn't really feeling them too much. Trying to go for my first cigarette break at that point only to discover they weren't letting anyone outside - "come back in an hour" i was told. waaaaaa!
Kool Keith - fuck!!! he was ace - during the first song tho, he barely said a word with the vocals being played back from the record, so i thought he was gonna lipsync the whole thing, but nah, it was only the first track, and after that he was bounding around the stage dropping all the big Dr Octagon tracks. The Bombsquad were on next and played straightup dubstep for their whole hour, which wasn't doing anything for me - you hear so much dubstep in london, i would much rather have heard new US hip hop, or at least have it mixed up, but just playing dubstep kinda lost my interest. (i heard they were also DJing at DMZ the next night). PE finally was pretty class - i mean it wasn't anything you weren't expecting - they were just 40 year old hip hop icons jumping around shouting out all their old hits, but Chuck D and Flavor Flav were stilling oozing stage presence!
Rest of the weekend was mostly spent indoors avoiding the rain, watching movies and smoking out. Its been a busy few weeks so it was actually super nice to chill out, and with the rain i didn't feel guilty about not going out. I've started working on a DJ set for the upcoming Requirements shows and its coming well.

Arriving at work this morning, there was a package waiting for me which i had ordered from Amazon last week: "Sentences: The Life Of MF Grimm" a comic autobiography of MF Grimm which looks pretty good. I'll have a read tonite and see how it is. Artwork looks ace. I could copy and past a lil bit of his bio here, but easier if you go have a read of his bio at wikipedia which is pretty interesting. I don't know too much about him and only have one album "The Hunt For The Gingerbread Man" which is pretty decent, but yeah, being a comic book fan and a hip hop fan, i figured the book was worth checking out anyhow..

nation of millions!

2008-05-23T14:35:00.004+01:00

very cool - my friend is taking me along as her +1 on the guestlist for tonites Public Enemy gig, playing the "It Takes A Nation of Millions" album in its entirety! Support from Kool Keith and the Bomb Squad - should be fucking excellent.

My first ever gig was to see Public Enemy, just before the release of Fear Of A Black Planet. 1988 as i remember - *goes check facts* - huh. according to the Barrowlands website, it says it was in 1990. I guess it could well be, i was 16 and had started going clubbing by that point. I always thought my first gig was earlier, like when i was 14 or so.
But anyhow, yeah, an excellent night, full of excitement and trepidation - me, big gerry, and gordon hamilton all trooped into glasgow to see them at the Barrowlands, however in my mind we were going to Hammersmith Odeon, just like the intro to "Countdown To Armageddon"!
"It Takes A Nation.." was the soundtrack to many skate sessions back then, and a massive influence on us all. Having recently read the RunDMC biography i mentioned before, theres quite a lot about Chuck D in there when he was doing his own radio show and only starting to produce, about how Russell Simmons not liking their music and not wanting them on Def Jam. Chuck D seemed to totally know what he was doing right from the start.

Go reacquaint yourself with "It Takes A Nation Of Millions" at last.fm!

updates and links (boring stuff!)

2008-05-22T17:28:00.004+01:00

loads to be working on at the moment - Funckarma are going along to the pressing plant next week to oversee the laquer cut at RecordIndustry in the Netherlands. That *might* even speed up the process as the plant won't need to send me a testpress if they can approve it on the day. rar!
Hopefully booking their flights today as well which will be one less thing i can stop stressing over!

Been sending out loads of Magnetism vinyl - dropped off a load at Phonica records last saturday and bundled up a batch for our distributor, Cargo, which went out this morning - you should hopefully see it turning up a few more local stores. If your local record store doesn't have it, ask them to pick it up from Cargo - the more orders Cargo get the better for us.

not found anything too amazing to listen to recently. Still digging through J Dilla's back catalog which i'm enjoying immensely, but its not satisfying my craving for new sounds.
Heres a few things i've come across on the interneds lately (Linked to the blog i came across it on):

Flying Lotus interview 1

Benga on how to make dubstep

How to setup your own pirate radio station

rar!

stubdaned!

2008-05-19T17:48:00.002+01:00

aiight, where to start?

The Funckarma 12" is now sent off for pressing - sent it off last week, so should hopefully, fingers crossed, be ready for the two upcoming shows in June! 5 tracks on 180g heavy weight vinyl, which are gonna blow up! Flyers are ordered for the show too, so should get them back this week and start getting the word out - i've posted on all the message boards i frequent, but if you know of any others that it should be on, leave a link in the comments.

I'll be out flyering every show i can find between now and then, so say hello if you see some lad giving out "Requirements of a Modern" flyers - just as well theres a shedload of excellent shows between now and then..

Theres an excellent looking Benbecula showcase coming up at 93 Feet East, and a sheer jaw-dropping lineup for the Flying Lotus album launch for his "Los Angeles", with Samiyam, Digital Mystikz, Kode9, Danny Breaks, Jose James, Hudson Mohawke, Rustie, and RasG. In the same venue (Hearn st car park) as the last Autechre show, and i'm pretty sure its the same sound system as well from D&B Audiotechnik. fucking rar!

Musicwise, been on a somewhat random tip this past week - digging through the back catalog of J Dilla and loving it. I've tried to dip in before and although i've liked what i heard, i just didn't seem to be getting it properly. With me listening to so much Daru and Rena lately, plus loads of Flying Lotus and Rustie, it's totally put me in the right headspace for J Dilla now.

Audiobulb have an excellent new free compilation out which features some stunning works by Calika, Build, He Can Jog and a load of other label regulars. Grab that here. I found that link via http://www.electronicmusicworld.com/ but if you just navigate the audiobulb website its not publicly linked - they say if you sign up for the mailing list you'll be sent a link to the album - so go sign up!

Used up my emusic subscription this month on quite a few nice dronier pieces -
Philip Jeck's 'Sand' which is very lush, Stephan Mathieu's 'Radioland' again very nice, and the latest Strategy LP 'Music For Lamping' which is quite different from Future Rock and Pacific Agenda - much more ambient and introspective.

I'm always writing lists of my current listens on here - I'd be very interested to hear some recommendations from you lot! drop a comment to let me know what other stuff i'm missing out on..

cheers,
thor

openmusicmediablahblah

2008-05-14T23:19:00.003+01:00

yo! just got home from the first "OpenMusicMedia", which i have to say was actually pretty good. The name sucks and the minute i posted an invite on the Wiretap mailing list Mat replied saying "is it going to be full of coked up wankers who listen to Goldfrapp?".

Shortly after getting there i went into the bathroom and some guy came out from the cubicle snorting his nose quite audibly, and then proceeded to take a pee in the urinal, so he obviously wasn't doing what you're meant be to doing in the cubicle! Anyhoo, that guy didn't actually come upstairs to the openmusicmedia thing, so he must just be a regular of the pub it was held in.

It was pretty busy, i'd guestimate about 30 in attendance, and a lot of the crowd were quite vocal over the evening with good articulate questions. The speaker for the evening, tho his position seemed more like chairperson for a vigorous discussion, was a New Yorker, Anthony Volodkin from Hype Machine. He looked slightly nervous to start with, but quickly got into it with a brief description of how the Hype Machine works before the whole room devolved into crazed venting opinions. Don't get me wrong, this wasn't the media portrayed version of the music industry, all the majors in freefall - this was very much the opposite - all people very involved in the front line of the new music industry of the more technological bent, almost everyone working in quite successful music/web2.0 companies and having their own opinion of how things should be working. Anthony did very well in charge of the room (why are Americans just so much more natural and good at public speaking - at least in comparison with british?), and Jonas stepped in a few times to guide the conversation. I think he did well calling time after about an hour and a half, as it was becoming a bit overwhelming, not so much a discussion as a sounding board for all these opinions - all very valid, but not in a constructive sense. I got the sense that almost all of the attendees have had these ideas building up inside them and not having had a chance to vent them, it was all pouring out tonite now that their was a receptive audience of somewhat related minds.

But yeah, certainly for the first of the meetings, i thought this went really well and will definitely be along for the next session to see how the discussions progress. Its all quite academic in a sense that nothing is due to come out of it, but its good to put your own head through the process of explaining your own thinking and/or having the discussion pushing your own thoughts in new ways.

milk factory review and funckarma release + shows..

2008-05-12T23:55:00.003+01:00

yo, bit of quietude on here - just back from a lovely five day trip to glasgow.

straight back in at work today which was like a cold shower wake up call! Actually it was pretty fscking warm in the office, so thats not the best analogy. but aye, loads going on!

magnetism is moving out - lovely review over at The Milk Factory - "Not quite a compilation but more than just a simple roster showcase, Magnetism, That Electricity demonstrates the wide angled approach of Highpoint Lowlife and its utterly modern vision. With only three hundred copies of this double EP pressed on vinyl and a hundred CDRs, this is yet again a released that should be snapped up before it’s gone for ever.". A few others in the pipeline too, which i'll post up as i hear.

Funckarmas' "Dub Stoned EP 1" is now underway. Mat finished the artwork yesterday and i received the audio masters tonite, so i'll check over everything and get that sent off by wednesday. I want to make sure we have that pressed and ready in time for the June show. I've managed to confirm a Bristol show as well at The Cube cinema - same lineup with Ikonika and Fisk Industries too. I'll confirm all detail on it and post more details, date should be friday the 27th June.

aight, well, i've been packing orders all evening and fancy a wee sit down relax for a while now!

brilliant!

2008-05-06T20:15:00.002+01:00

fucking brilliant! I was so relieved when the vinyl turned up today - feels like a long wait though it is pretty much what i guestimated. Very please with how it has come out, the whole package feels ace once assembled with pvc outers, artwork and numbered card.

I'm off up to Glasgow for a few days, so i won't be able to mail out any new orders till monday tho...

When i get back, i'll be getting a move on with the Funckarma 12", need to make sure its ready for the June dates. Quite a few other exciting wee projects bubbling up too!

On Air

2008-05-02T18:13:00.002+01:00

we had a lot of fun doing the Wire show on Resonance last night! thanks loads to Susanna for having us along. We were on for about 40 minutes, talking shite and playing some music! I'll see if i can get a copy of the show from Susanna and post up an mp3 of it at some point.

Got another gig booked for Funckarma today - They're going to be playing in Bristol at the Cube Cinema on June 27th. I'll post more details as i have them..

I downloaded something from Boomkat the other day, which i've been playing obsessively - Daru & Renas' "Turn It On" - its totally R'n'B pop, but the production is awesome, its like Flying Lotus with En Vogue singing over it. Prob not everyones' cup of tea, but yeah, i been bumping it from first thing in the morning and all day at work! It reminds me of Lucy Pearl, an RnB supergroup from back in 2000 that i first heard on holiday in Hawaii and fell in love with. Hmm, need to dig that album back out..

mm, long weekend ahead and then the Magnetism vinyl is due to arrive tuesday! rar!

teh update

2008-04-29T18:46:00.002+01:00

hey! nothing too much to post, just a few wee things:

speaking with SoundPerformance today, and looks like the Magnetism vinyl will arrive next tuesday on the 6th. I was hoping to get it before the weekend, but theres a french bank holiday on thursday (dunno what that has to do with anything, the actual pressing plant is in Holland, but thats what i was told), and with the UK bank holiday, looks like tuesday will be the earliest. I plan to get all the pre-orders mailed out to everyone the same day. rar! If all is good with the finished vinyl, i'll be sending off quite a few new pieces to them over the next few months. Current vinyl schedule is looking like: Funckarma, Tigrics, Fisk Industries. There are more planned but these ones are all pretty much ready to go.

The Wire radio show on Resonance FM will be happening this thursday, May 1st. Same details as before - me and mat should be in with a couple of records to play and speaking about the label - www.resonancefm.com - tooon in!

Been speaking with a new venue opening up here in London, and hopefully sounds like we might have a new monthly night doing a more ambient/drone/experimental evening. fingers crossed on that, as the venue is lovely.

I've been looking around and trying to arrange a few more UK shows for Funckarma in June while they are over for the record release party - if any of you can help or know of something suitable, drop me a mail via the contact address listed on our About page.

current listens

2008-04-21T23:54:00.003+01:00

had a couple of new things on rotation this past week which have been pretty good..

v/a - Dubstep Allstars Volume 06 mixed by Appleblim
been listening to a promo copy of this mix, and its excellent. I've seen Appleblim DJing quite a lot in the past few months and he's been consistently top notch, so i had high hopes for this. Theres a few new 2562 tracks on there, which are a nice appetiser for his upcoming album. The whole mix is really seamlessly put together, really pushing that crossover of the minimal berlin sound with dubstep, and really just forging new territory away from the Wobble.

Ando - Habitat
Ando is a project by Taylor Deupree, and pretty far removed his considered sound art which he's known for. From the lastfm bio page for Ando it says it was a project he had started on in 2004, which was always side-tracked, and these four tracks surfaced in 2007. Quite Sahko/Pan Sonic like in its minimal structure, but having a more pronounced melody than you might expect from having heard Taylor's work under his own name. It's actually kinda similar in nature to our own Recon 'White Label' release, which was of course, done by Chris Motion, who released several albums under the name Motion on 12k, both working on subtly shifting time signatures and repetition.

Flying Lotus - Los Angeles
This is very good, super chunky and head nodding, but i feel a slight disappointment, i was kinda hoping for something a bit more evil and noisey, whereas it leans a bit more on the Nightmares On Wax's 'Smoker's Delight' kinda vibe. Still damn good though, and i noticed today he's playing alongside The Cool Kids at the upcoming Meltdown festival in June. Well up for that.

Phantom Channel
Came across this netlabel on my journey's today and was very impressed by the quality of the music, super deep and considered drones, digital detritus and dense atmospherics. They have one album at the moment, a compilation made up of nine tracks by different artists. You can download the album from their release page.

magnetic news and requirements of a modern

2008-04-19T16:30:00.002+01:00

I received the "Magnetism, .." testpress copies yesterday - they sound marvelous, so i've given the go-ahead to the pressing plant. Assuming it all goes well at that end, finished vinyl should be back in 10 working days, and on schedule to be mailed out end of April. dang, i can't wait. I went round to my friend Bills house to give the vinyl a listen as he has an excellent sound system - the bass is amazing and the production sound of everything has come out really well. rar!

... and Future BIG news - i got confirmation for booking Plastic People. Date is wednesday June 25th, and its going to be a launch party for our upcoming Funckarma release called "Dubstoned EP". I'm really excited - without a doubt Plastic People has the best sound-system in east london, and it was the only place i wanted to host the release party. I have Ikonika and Fisk Industries confirmed for support too. The event will be called "Requirements Of A Modern", a snippet of a sentence I nicked from the pages of a Nikola Tesla book i'm reading - I thought it sounded kind of vague enough to be interpreted as you like, but also has a ring of futurism befitting the music!

Bomb It movie screenings in US

2008-04-16T12:38:00.005+01:00

hey!

first thing actually - the Wire/Resonance show is postponed to 1st May, so not tomorrow as i mentioned..

--

Bomb It, the graffiti documentary, directed by Jon Reiss, which includes 5 highpoint lowlife tracks in the soundtrack is now in Theatrical Release across the US. Heres the dates, if you can make it to one:

April:
4-10th - Grand Illusion Cinema, Seattle, WA
10-14th - Red Vic Movie House , San Francisco CA premiere
(party on the 10th at 111 Minna gallery.)

18-24th - Clinton Street Theater, Portland, OR
23-29th - Ragtag Theater, Colombus, MO
25th-May 8 - Cinema Village, NYC, NY
25-May 1 - Facets Cinemateque Chicago, IL
26th - U of Madison, Madison WI
26-29th - The Guild Cinema, Albuquerque, NM

May
8-10th - Jengo's Playhouse, Wilmington NC
9-10th - San Marco Theatre, Jacksonville, FL
15-22th - Starz Film Center, Denver Colorodo
(Several Parties and all day graff conference on Saturday)

28 - Alamo Draft House, Austin
30th-June5 - Laemmle Sunset 5, Los Angeles

June
7-9th - Eyedrum, Atlanta, GA
11th - Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, LA

Plans are in teh works for European and UK shows, but nothing concrete yet. DVD will be released in the states on May 27th!

I can't wait to see it! I think we'll have a lil' screening party when we get a copy of the DVD!

slow day

2008-04-15T17:40:00.003+01:00

blah! my work day is going slow here, so i think i'll amuse myself by typing some random-ness here.

The Wire magazine have a new blog going called The Mire, over at http://www.thewire.co.uk/themire/
I don't think they officially announced it yet, but Simon Reynolds posted a link on his blog, so at least if anyone gets in trouble for telling you, it'll be him, not me! :)
Their latest piece is about one of The Heatwave refits of Kelis' "Trick Me", which can be downloaded from the heatwave site. It's well worth spending time going through the Heatwave blogs' music section, as theres loads of nice little gems.

I've been listening to a lot of italo and disco this week. Saturday night, after the lastfm gig, i went along with some friends to see Heartbreak play at Lasermagnetic, which is held at a shoreditch club i'd never been to before called Sosho. The actual club is pretty ace, nice and roomy with two floors and a crisp sound system. The two DJ's Neil and Johnny were playing some amazing music, and totally gave me the disco fever again.
I've always loved my Larry Levan and NYC early style disco, but had never really checked out much of this current space disco/italo revival. With my monthly emusic subscription renewed on sunday, i downloaded a bunch of Italians Do It Better releases, the After Dark compilation, Glass Candy and The Chromatics albums. Some of it is excellent, like Glass Candys' 'Rolling Down The Hills', and a lot of it more so-so, but definitely a nice addition to the library.
The other compilation i got was the Clone Classic Cuts album, made up of very similar material to the Serge mix i posted a week or two back. Some of it is incredible, particularly the second half of the album where its all early house/acid classics like Fingers INCs' "I'm Strong", Rodney Barkers' "House Girl" and Mike Dunns' "So Let It Be House".

Other emusic downloads were the two Darkstar releases on 2010 records. I think both releases came out a while back, but are getting a lot more attention due to their recent release on Hyperdub. I had bought the Hyperdub ones recently too, but i must say i'm not feeling any of the releases too much. On the Hyperdub release i really didn't like the vocodered vocals, even tho the music is pretty decent, but yeah, i guess its just the vocals that kill me, just a little too coffeetable like, and very similar to Various Productions material. I also bought the new Kode9 and Spaceape release, Konfusion, which is really good, just not too groundbreaking.

aiight, well, i think its late enough i can sneak off a wee bit early from work now! laterz...

dance to the radio

2008-04-14T17:52:00.003+01:00

hey!

The label mix i put together for Electronic Explorations went live this afternoon. Check out the website and grab the popdcast from http://electronicexplorations.org/the-show/week-020-highpoint-lowlife/.

The whole show is really good and just super well done. thanks loads to Rob Booth for asking to a mix. The tracklisting for the HPLL mix is:

01 - Feld - tut tut
02 - Funckarma - Pable Cath
03 - Fisk Industries - Blood
04 - Mandelbrot Set - Astronomy and Allied Sciences 1b
05 - Erstlaub - Scanning For Daybreak
06 - Erstlaub - Island (TVO's 'Departure (38)' mix)
07 - The Village Orchestra - The King Of All Tears (excerpt)
08 - Production Unit - Single Water Body
09 - Dalglish - dasda
10 - The Marcia Blaine School For Girls - The Ratio

Coming up this thursday, 17th April, The Wire magazine have asked us to come into the Resonance FM studios and join them for the evening on their regular show "Adventures In Modern Music". Me and Mat/Fisk will be going along to play some tracks and talk about the label, which should be a lot of fun! It goes out between 9pm and 10:30pm BST on 104.4FM , or you can tune in via the resonance website