current listens

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.

Labels: downloads, netlabel, reviews

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Heatwave / An England Story

Theres a new release out on Soul Jazz which looks pretty interesting, An England Story, charting the history of the MC in the UK, focussing on the particular british inflections and highlighting the connection and extent of the influence of caribean culture.

Its been compiled by the Heatwave collective, and the release is based upon a blogariddims podcast they'd previously compiled, which you can still download for free, and which features a lot of the same tracks. I haven't heard the Soul Jazz release yet, but i've had the blogariddims podcast on a lot this past week and really enjoying it.

The Heatwave website and blog is well worth checking out and subscribing too - news on their shows, mixes/refits, downloads, and general chat. There is also some discussion on the dissensus forums about the background to the process of selecting and compiling the Soul Jazz release from the lads behind it..

Labels: blogs, downloads, links, netlabel, reviews

Monday, February 25, 2008

distraction records / d_rradio album

If you head on over to the Distraction Records website, you can download a free 320kbp/s copy of the new d_rradio album.
Its only up there for the two weeks leading up the album's official launch, and they have a note explaining:

"So why are we doing this? Simply put, we thoroughly believe that, once you hear how brilliant the d_rradio album is, you will want to support both d_rradio and Distraction Records by buying the actual album. We genuinely plough all of our money (and our wages) back into our releases, so if you like it, ensure that we continue to survive (survive being the operative word. . .) by purchasing the album from our web site, buying the album from our preferred, independent retailers, or by donating some money to us.

Can’t afford to? Hey! That’s cool! If you like the album and like the cut of our jib, please spread the word about it by posting messages about what we’re doing to myspace, Facebook, message boards and the like. You can even forward the mp3s onto people if you wish. There’s no such thing as music piracy to us as far as we’re concerned."

Thats pretty ace - they're definitely on the bus!

Labels: downloads, music industry, netlabel, record industry

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

of excitement and downloads..

hey!
this is it! I been flyering, i been spamming forums and mailing lists, i been telling all my friends - now it's just wait and enjoy this coming saturday! "Magnetism, That Electricity.."!

I'm super excited about it! Theres been a lot of shows i have been at recently and have enjoyed, but they've either been dubstep/grime, minimal techno, bmore/breaks, or just weird acoustic. I've been itching for a good original electronic show, and well, i think this is the one! Its been a while since i've seen Village Orchestra or Marcia Blaine play live, and having them on the same bill with Fisk Industries and Mandelbrot, at such a lovely venue as the Luminaire - rar! Ticket sales have been going well, and reception on the lists and forums seems really good, plus my two good friends, gerry and pat, are driving down from Glasgow for it.

Aiight, well - rather than just me gush about saturday, heres some new music too:
On last night's Mary Anne Hobbs shows i heard a total stand out track - Alta Infidelidad's 'Hielo'. It comes from an album called 'cactus y volcanes' on the Thinner netlabel.
Minimal and lush 4x4, kinda dub-wonky and jackin' at the same time. If you like that sort of thing, you can download the whole album at: http://www.thinner.cc/pages/releases/releases_detail.php?id=thn083
It's well recommended, every track is a total standout.

Labels: downloads, gigs, netlabel