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Friday, June 13, 2008

mighy praise

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..

Labels: comics, dubstoned, funckarma, reviews, warren ellis

Friday, June 6, 2008

Hessle Audio

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

Labels: dubstep, Hessle Audio, label, reviews

Thursday, May 29, 2008

pants music

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!

Labels: downloads, mf doom, mf grimm, mixes, reviews

Monday, May 19, 2008

stubdaned!

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

Labels: gigs, new releases, reviews, upcoming releases

Monday, May 12, 2008

milk factory review and funckarma release + shows..

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!

Labels: dub stoned, funckarma, magnetism, new releases, reviews

Friday, May 2, 2008

On Air

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!

Labels: funckarma, gigs, radio, reviews

Monday, April 21, 2008

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, April 15, 2008

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

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

[re]views

I found out on a forum this morning that the Scuba record, "A Mutual Antipathy", has been delayed a week, however i managed to get an *ahem* listening copy today. I'm on my second listen and enjoying it a lot. Forget any preconceptions about it being a dubstep record, its just a really great electronic record with super sweet production on it. Occasionally The synths and melodies can sometimes tend a little towards the sacharine for my taste, but theres ample low-end and rhythmic/percussive inventiveness to keep interest fully engaged. I really like how its all basically mixed together, one track flows straight into the next and as a whole its a really well thought out album that ebbs and flows in a really organic manner.

Bought a few other downloads this morning too:

Disrupt / Rootah split digital release. Both of these are listed separately as physical 10" releases, but sold together a one digital download which is pretty decent. Both sides are really damn good, but i think the Disrupt side pulls a little higher - production sounds authentically old and analog, big aquatic basslines carefully woven together with 8-bit melodies and bounced seemingly endlessly through echo and delay. Rootah side is slightly more traditional reggae sounding. Both releases feature Mikey Murka's vocal, with a soft rolling singing mc style, which I just found out is called singjay. factoid of the day!

Starkey - Bounce/Prism. Didn't know anything about this guy before, but just readin on his lastfm biog entry that he's an american, out of philly with releases on Slit Jockey and Werk. I really like these two tracks, taking a slow dubstep bassheavy template as a starting point, and applying it to a more slowed down hip hop/bmore/party sound. I might need to check into the rest of his releases too...

My excuse for buying more records than i can afford this week, is that i'm now DJing on saturday. Its the last.fm/presents Boy Better Know party at The Old Blue Last, with JME and Skepta. I'm on early, opening the proceedings, but if yer the neighbourhood, come say hello!

Labels: dj, reviews

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

blooooooc!

first day back at work after Bloc, and don't actually feel too bad!

Friday, we arrived at the Pontins around 8pm, just before the buses arrived with droves of revellers, so we managed to get checked in quite quickly; Thanks to Derek and Lisa, from the Wire, who i was rooming with, we got a pretty decent vip room - when i say decent, i only mean comparitively so!

Already the crowds of people were looking pretty mashed up and messy, which was pretty much how they were for the whole weekend! Musically, on friday night, the only thing i got really into were the Skull Disco DJ sets from Appleblim and Peverelist, but it was a long fun night anyhow.

Saturday, on a little sleep, we somehow made it out of the chalet for 3pm to see Christ playing, which turned out to be excellent, the sound system totally did his music justice and even so early on the day, there was a good turnout. Rustie was also on pretty early, around 5pm i think - he was fscking awesome again. The saturday evening definitely had the best lineup, and I caught a few really good shows - Monolake (with no sign of T++!) played an amazing set, which may well have been one of my highlights; the other highlights for me personally were Kode 9's set, Skream DJ set, and The Bug's live show, and then.. wow.. Juan Atkins was stunning. The second track he dropped was by Redshape, to which i went a bit nuts, but yeah, fully plus8 banging techno and soo good!

Sunday checked out some of Boxcutter, which was better than i was expected, but the decision was made to drive back on sunday eve and have a whole day off on monday rather than travel home on monday.

A great fun weekend, all in all, but on reflection, i think the festival itself was quite lacking - there didn't seem to be much effort put into making it an overall good experience, even down to the festival program being really cheaply designed, and compared to the small collectible packs you get from ATP, didn't seem worth holding onto, just a badly designed four page A5 booklet with adverts. With the abundance of festivals these days, I feel if you want to make something special, you have to make a good deal of effort and think about the details, rather than just a good lineup and bringing 2500 people to a kinda skanky holiday park. still - quite fun!

Labels: bloc, festival, rant, 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

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Pirates Dilema

I just finished a book this past weekend, "The Pirate's Dilema: How Youth Culture Is Reinventing Capitalism" by Matt Mason, which i would highly recommend.
Basic premise is that a lot of new business models start outside the law before they become accepted and adopted by more mainstream culture. It argues that instead of legislating against such new 'illegal' methods, the market should be (and already is in many smarter cases) seeing it as the more cutting-edge competition that it is, and needs to rise to the change in order to remain relevant themselves.
The idea is quite simple, but the book itself is very well written and runs through a whole list of pop culture's origins to illustrate the point. Its a fun read and covers pirate radio, graffiti, the remix, disco, reggae, video games, hip hop/sampling, p2p, and how eventually each of these areas has given rise to whole profitable markets and new ways of looking at and consuming art/music/entertainment etc.
Have a look at Amazon for more of a description. The author also has a blog going at http://thepiratesdilemma.com/ following the same ideas. Theres a link on there today to a new article he has written for TorrentFreak which is well worth reading, dealing specifically with how the entertainment industry has to adapt to survive.

Labels: books, music industry, record industry, reviews

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