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

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

comic books and listening

By late evening last night, i ended up lying back on my bed reading Ultimate Iron Man while listening to that Scuba album. Such an excellent combination!

If you're sitting at the computer working, i find it too easy to ALT-TAB to itunes and change track or album depending on whim, which means not giving the music its full due and listening attention. Lying reading comics however, seems to have the perfect combination of having switched your attention off enough to let the album play out, but also still having enough concentration on the music to let it sink in fully.

I've never been a massive Iron-man fan, but recently read Warren Ellis' Iron Man: Extremis, which was incredibly good. I've been a fan of all of the Marvel Ultimate series so far, and finding Ultimate Iron Man in the library, was quite intrigued to pick it up. Not sure how familiar most of you are with the Marvel Ultimate universe? Its the Marvel universe basically updated to Now, with each character being rewritten as if they were just coming out for the first time, and usually with an excellent writer/artist team. The origins are completely revamped and updated, and the Ultimate Iron Man collection doesn't fail to deliver either. Loads of twists and turns and again beautiful artwork.

Today, just received my copy of Hudson Mohawkes' new 12", "Ooops!", ahead of his upcoming Warp release. Its a bugger i missed the launch party here in London the other weekend, heard it was excellent.

Up on the Heatwave blog today, they posted a live recording of Warrior Queen, live in Manchester. Been seeing Warrior Queen out quite a lot these days, usually with The Bug - she's super good live, and this set gives a good taste of it! read and download it here.

Also - just off the phone from the vinyl pressing plant - due my Magnetism test presses next wednesday and full delivery should be soon after, assuming everything is good with the TPs. can;t wait!

Labels: comics, heatwave, hudson mohawke, iron-man, magnetism, warrior queen