slow day

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...

Labels: blogs, boredom, clone, disco, downloads, heatwave, ramblings, reviews, the wire

Thursday, December 20, 2007

time to kill

It's been an almost lazy week at work as everyone winds down for xmas, and it's given me plenty time to check out a load of new blogs and download way too much new music. It feels like a really good time for electronic music, theres a renewed energy around in all styles of it, which i'm pretty sure is directly linked to the rising popularity of dubstep. I think the greatest thing about dubstep is in this catalystic effect its having, just bringing something fresh to electronic music production, and seeing the basslines and stripped down spaciousness being applied by all sorts of producers from techno to idm to mnml.

One of the biggest mutations I've come across, which is seems everyone is writing about, is the rise of Bassline House, which i first came across a few months back at a recent Rinse.FM night at Cargo in London, except they referred to it as "funky house" - a terrible name! What it seemed to be referring to on that night, however, was a sort of housed up grime/dubstep combination, rough Todd Terry sounding 4x4 rhythms but with that ubiquitous Wub-Wub bassline under it. I'm not sure if this is the sound of "london funky house" rather than the northern, Sheffield born strain, which from what i've heard is pretty fun, but has quite a cheesy overtone to it with almost happy hardcore-like pitched up female vocals. Over the next few days, with the term in my head, i started googling around, and there is loads to read about it, as it really seems to be blowing up now. Theres way more articulate people out there writing about it than me, so i shall point you to a few good articles and threads:

blissout <- the ever excellent Simon Reynolds blog, who seems to be quite fascinated with its rise.
rwdmag.com <- really good article with interviews with a lot of the producers, dj's and vocalists.
Blackdown <- Martin Clark's alway excellent blog
pitchfork <- Martin Clark again in his monthly Pitchfork column

I really liked the idea of Todd Terry style dubstep, and a few weeks after the RinseFm party, i was down at the Wire 25 Metadub special, which was an ace night all round with Appleblim DJing, Shackleton, The Bug and Kode9 all playing live.
The highlight however was Shackleton's live set, which seemed to be operating outside the already formulaic sounding dubstep, and moving in a more dark techno-ish percussive bass-rattling sound - nowhere near bassline house, but still has this sorta Todd Terry new york vibe to it - it was just genius!

One of the recent downloads i've purchased was a couple of the Pole 'Steingarten' remixes - i only bought two of them - the Shackleton mix and the Peverilist mix. The Shackleton mix is super nice, and the production and pacing of it reminds me a lot of Monolake. Peverilist is someone else i have come across on a number of blog postings, and was intrigued to hear his material. What i most like about his mix is the fact it doesnt just sound like another dubsteb-by-numbers track, and forgoes that wobbly bass. It has an obvious lineage to dubstep, but really its just damn fine electronic music. I found an hour long mix online by Peverilist too, which is also really good and well worth tracking down.

I'll wrap up this post with a mention of some of the tracks and albums i've bought recently which i've been feeling.. (most of which are available as digital downloads from Boomkat.com which is where i bought them - Boomkat are evil!! they've made it far too easy and tempting to buy stuff once your account is setup!)

Andy Stott - The Massacre EP and Ceramics. "Unknown Exception" from the Massacre EP is the best track - dirty deep techno sounds in a pulsing driving surge of energy.
Atlas Sound - sorta Animal Collective/Panda Bear like strange pop music by Bradford Cox from Deerhunter. (think i actually got this one on emusic)
Benga - Newstep. Its not bad, but i think its a bit too close to the formulaic dubstep sound.
Leftover - Response EP. Pretty good, but also slightly formulaic, although this time on the Basic Channel style of minimal dub techno.
Mr G. - U Askin'? - picked up on this from Philip Sherburnes' blog. Kinda housey disco, but pretty damn good at it, especially the Marcel Dettmann remix.
Skream's Rinse:02 mix - a prime example of fucking excellent dubstep ruffness.
TwinSisterMoon - When Stars Glide Through Solid. excellent weird lo-fi folk music. Dave/Erstlaub turned me on to this one.
T++ - Worn Down / 100 Bar Vinyl - i think i picked this up from a blog download actually, ripped from someones vinyl - super dirty production (which i'm not sure if thats just how they ripped it!), but yeah, super tight and dirty sounding!
The Bug Ft Warrior Queen - Poison Dart. His set at the recent Wire 25 show was so fucking loud and in your face, it was impossible not to get sucked into it - really ace! Skream remix really kicks ass too. Look out for an upcoming Wire article on Warrior Queen in the Feb issue.
Burial remixes - Thom Yorke and Bloc Party - wtf??? don't even go there - they suck!

aiight, if i don't post again before i head up to Glasgow for xmas, have a great one!

Labels: boredom, ramblings, reviews