Thursday, January 31, 2008

thoughts and retorts


i dont think i have enough coherent thoughts to put together a whole post on one issue, but a couple of musings, abusings and the like:

well i think we have found the first super hot album of 2008. and the winner is, unsurprisingly, prosumer and murat tepeli's wonderful effort, 'serenity', on ostgut. to be honest, i think a better name for it would have been 'sincerity'. that is one of the real charms of this release - it is very heartfelt, warm and sincere. it feels like these guys love their music and just want to share it with us. there is not too much else i can say about the album, it is exactly what it appears to be - jacking old school chicago infused house all the way. actually, i wouldn't be surprised if this actually helps introduce a lot of tech heads to true chicago sounds. i guess we shall see. anyway, a fantastic album that warms the insides and brings a smile to the face. make sure to read this interesting interview with prosumer and tepeli over at RA (fellow ssg pete has done an excellent review of their album at RA). the way they come across is exactly what i expected having heard 'serenity'. there is bit of the interview which really stood out to me:

RA: House has been around for twenty-odd years now, does it still need “defending”?
Prosumer: House doesn’t need defending. "House is a feeling", so why should I try to defend the music I love to somebody who is not capable of feeling it? House music is the most real music there is for me. It makes me dance, cry, laugh, party, love.

i read this in the context of two rather unedifying discussions i came across recently here and here. on a certain level both seemed to reflect a basic insecurity in their musical tastes; a palpable need to justify their love in techno/house/whatever. i don't see the point of trying to explain or justify techno music. you either feel it, or you don't. as prosumer rightly puts it. the music doesn't need defending, so don't.

and speaking of RA, hats off for their latest podcast by the modern love boys. wow. that set by andy stott and claro intelecto is fantastic. perhaps the best RA podcast since its opened up with troy pierce. i thoroughly suggest you all go and give it a listen, if you haven't already (also check a new interview with the hard to find claro intelecto). another set that has been getting quite a lot of play in my car has been the appropriately named 'engineered for sunday' mix by butane. i've liked butane's sounds for a while, and have been especially high on him since i saw him knock out a super tight set a couple of months ago. finally, one more to check is this rare set by meat (for the steak lovers), whom i believe is a resident of robert johnson. this is the first i've heard from him and i'm liking it a lot. nothing too fancy, no bells or whistles here. it just sounds like a dj who really knows what he is doing. so give it a rub.

i am sure i had some other thoughts, but they have escaped me for now.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

The Black Hole: Surviving The Cold Dark Months of December and January



I've felt myself falling into a bit of a black hole recently. No, not the 1979 Disney science-fiction classic, but a musical black hole. I'm getting excited about precious few new albums/tracks lately, and it's depressing the hell out of me. Like a junkie searching for a new hit, I'm searching around for new material to get excited about, but very little is coming to hand.

What the hell is wrong with me?

Maybe nothing. Reading the fourth paragraph of Pete's last post (from his Inpress column) I realize that maybe the black hole I'm in is not a personal one (although it impacts on me personally). Perhaps I'm getting excited about less releases at the moment because there are less releases to be excited about. Maybe we're all in the black hole at the moment.

Of course, there are indeed releases coming out in December/January. The Bruno Pronsato album, for example, as Pete points out. But when the "Best of 2008" lists begin emerging at the end of November, will anyone remember it? Will it get the props it deserves? Now, before you say "but of course it will" I recall plenty of critics/reviewers going apeshit over Pantha Du Prince's album "This Bliss" when it came out in January of 2007, but on how many "Best of 2007" lists did it end up appearing?

(Personal aside: I thought "This Bliss" was awesome, and was slightly ticked off that it received very few props at the end of the year.)

If a producer has an incredible release, can they really risk releasing it in the cold dark months of December and January? Will they stand a chance of being able to slap a "Pitchfork's/RA's/Mnml Ssgs' Album of the Year!" sticker on it?

And where does it leave us? Well, for me I'm realizing that maybe it's time to go digging back through my collection, finding those albums I skipped over before, and giving them a serious listen now. Around the middle of the year so much good stuff was coming out that I developed a mild case of musical ADD. I would only give new releases one or two listens to hook me before moving on. I've undoubtedly glossed over heaps of great stuff by doing that. Time to retrace my steps and listen more closely.

Perhaps it's also time to re-discover stuff I loved, haven't listened to in years, and then fall in love with it all over again.

Either way, the cold dark months of December and January seem to be a time for reflection.

PS - The February issue of British music magazine Mojo may be worth grabbing for the free covermount CD that comes with it. Titled "ok_computer" ("no surprises" who the coverstars of the issue are), it's a 15-track collection of electronica reaching back to the mid/late 70s through to 2007. Here's the tracklisting:

1. The Human League: Circus of Death
2. Gary Numan/Tubeway Army: Down In The Park
3. The Knife: Silent Shout
4. Fujiya & Miyagi: Ankle Injuries
5. Matthew Dear: Fleece On Brain
6. John Foxx: Burning Car
7. Arthur Russell: Place I Know/Kid Like You
8. Xela: Afraid Of Monsters
9. Tangerine Dream: Rubycon (Part One)
10. Clouddead: Dead Dogs Two (Boards of Canada Remix)
11. Severed Heads: Dead Eyes Opened
12. Farley Jackmaster Funk: The Acid Life
13. The Peppers: Pepper Box
14. The Gentle Rain: Plastic Man
15. The Sounds Of Tomorrow: Space Child

I haven't listened to it yet, but it looks like a fairly solid selection of electronic music, old and new. Personally I'm quite excited by the early synthpop. Actually, it may make a companion of sorts to Tobias Freund's recent RA mix.

Monday, January 28, 2008

DJ 2018: A Clockwork Vanilli?

We Were Never Mnml (Inpress column, January 08)

What follows is a stone cold paste of the monthly column I write for Inpress:

Ah, January, the month in which the year’s promises and resolutions are still as yet unbroken… or not? I dunno about you guys, but I’m yet to even engage mine. January is also a great month for shit-talking by way of a psychological spring clean, a time for summing up, stripping back, sharpening and polishing – so expect a lot of ‘best of ‘07’ mixes to be doing the rounds on the blogosphere in the next few weeks as well as interminable claims about sleeper tracks that we all, well, slept on. How can anyone keep up with the datasea? Even if you are a download junkie with a private tracker plugged directly into your main vein, it’s nigh on impossible (but we try, we try).

On the mix tip, RA have come bolting out of the flabby post-Christmas gate with a few fantastic podcasts to shake off the cobwebs and kilos, the best of which is Tobias Freund’s excursion through twenty-five years of favourites and influences, including Robert Fripp, YMO’s Haruomi Hosono and Ryuichi Sakamoto as well as Squarepusher and Gary (human?) Numan. It’s broad, it’s deep, it’s the shit – here’s to more mixes like this that enrich our perspectives on the roots of our music. I’ll binge drink to that.

But for all you mnml heads wanting something that kicks on every up-to-the-minute beat (and stays on the money), big props goes to Donnacha Costello, who’s offering a very fine (and well recorded) mix free to download from his Minimise website, including lots of material from Minimise, Liebe Detail, plus a few mid-nineties classics from Plus 8 and the like. It’s called (appropriately for the time of year and content) ‘Looking Back, Facing Forward’, and you can check it here: http://minimise.com/mixes/costello_lbff.zip
The mix even includes a pdf with an exhaustive tracklisting, which makes a refreshing change…

Another weird pattern appears to be developing due to the influence of the blogosphere, one that’s having all-too-real effects on any producer foolish enough to release her new tracks between late November and early February. No doubt it’s compounded by the European winter/off-season, but there is now an undeniable (and very dark and scary) ‘three month black hole’ that a lot of late-year releases have been falling into, and it’s been increasing in gravity, sucking a lot of would-be stars into the void… would the three wise men even have made it to Bethlehem in ‘07? Anyway, don’t let Bruno Pronsato’s Why Can’t We Be Like Us be one such lost light – this is easily the best minimal/house album since Isolee’s We Are Monster, a claim I don’t make lightly. Anyway, you can read (plug, plug) my full review on RA if you need more convincing. But don’t let me hear anyone say they slept on this one. Act like a wise man, dump the feekin’ myrrh, and get on it.

Other sleeping stars from these boozy, sweaty, snoozy months would have to go to some of the following releases: Dettmann and Klock’s ‘Scenario’, which is very much in their typical clean, compressed style, with lots of dampened, rolling bells and subtly pummelling, shifting percussion, but with a kick so uncannily soft it seems to want to mother you… grab a nip and suckle, I say. Their recent work, like a lot of the stuff on Ostgut, is the thinking (she)man’s ‘big room boom boom’ ¬¬- and yes, that’s a good thing. Aside from the Klock, check Sebo K’s remix of Radioslave’s (vastly over-rated, IMO) ‘Bell Crap Dance’, which improves the original to no end. Sebo is charting week after week on Beatport (along with Corey’s faves TV Rock), and no wonder – the guy has managed to sort out a smoothly populist style of tech-house that’s also rewarding for the heads. I guess that means that everyone’s happy? Meanwhile, in the rejuvenated land of neo-dub-techno, Rod Modell continues his relentless series of big, bad, deeeeeep releases with the double EP Grandbend (as Echospace) – yes, it’s more of the same, but when you’ve hammered the formula better than Mr Miyagi knocks nails, who cares? Hypnoheads should also check out Omar S’ ‘Psychotic Photosynthesis’ – it’s as twisted, deep and kicking as his last EP on FXHE… but longer! To bad it’s one sided – hmmm… how many sides to a story if it’s an mp3, riddle me that? Whatever, watch Omar in ’08.

On a recent trip to Tokyo last week I had a whacking chagrin slam my grin with the foot-in-the-teeth discovery of Cisco’s closure. Cisco (RIP) was not only Tokyo’s premier techno specialist, but one of the world’s best record stores, and the hub of a social scene. To celebrate, why not download (illegally) something by Broken Social Scene and live the irony! For a full report and rant on this, check the sausage blog on mnmlssg.blogspot.com/. While you’re snagging, cheer yourself up after the gutting by having a sausage scroll down for links to some off-the-chain mixes by the Mountain People, Move D, Tobias, Lawrence, Marcel Dettmann, Margaret Dygas (gas gas) and the venerable Cassy.

The other day, I heard this nasty share-trading femmebot on the news say something that got me thinking. She said:

‘The best time to buy is when there’s blood in the streets. That’s when you make the most money.’

I’m not urging a bloodbath, but you’d have to wonder… is 2008 the time to begin collecting vinyl? Notice the italics there though. The death of vinyl as a living medium means its rebirth as a collector’s format… the sooner they stop producing it, the more scarce, and therefore (in theory at least) the more expensive it will become… but not most of it, most of it won’t be worth shit. In fact, anything you DJs played out regularly is probably worthless… witness the flatness (and skintness) as you take your beloved second-hand books to the book store and get fiddy bucks for a box full of favourites, then log on to abebooks and balk when you see what a first-edition Nabokov in good nick fetches… yep, it’s the wheat from the chaff, chaps. If I was into vinyl, I’d either get seriously into collecting it, or get the fuck out ASAP (no doubt most of you have already followed option two).

Once upon a time, Melbourne was crowned Techno City… then there was the slump… while we’ll never know how much of the techno wave was just about suburban kids getting into ecstasy, you’d have to say that things are looking up in the local scene. Rumours abound (while DJ Bone, Ripperton, Gui Boratto, Steve Bug and Jeremy Caulfield are all confirmed in the next few months), but it seems like it’s the locals who are really setting the scene week-by-week, with Korova Milk Bar running a weekly minimal/tech/house night (haven’t been, can’t vouch for it), Pretty Simple’s weekly (and reliably delivered) dose, plus consistently great parties from the Nano and Lab crews… here’s looking forward.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

eli cares


time for another set-up, this one is from eli verveine. before continuing i should say that any sets which we post have already had extensive play on our headphones and speakers, so if we put something here, it means you really should download it. there are so many sets floating about now it is hard to separate the keepers from the crap. consider the mnml ssg crew a useful filter to help find the crème.

anyway, this set from eli is a really beauty. it has a great deep and chilled vibe throughout: starting off with rhythm & sound and the perfect 'upekah' by son.sine, before eventually finishing up with classic plastikman. not only is this a fantastic mix by eli, it also is a good representative of two current trends the mnml ssg crew is really happy about at the moment. first, we are getting a serious influx of fantastic female djs and producers. second, there is so much good music floating down from the suisse mountains.

so do yourself a favour and download this 'carebear mix' from eli verveine:

carebear mix (192 kbits, 91.7 mb): feel good and hang-around-mix by eli verveine

1. rhythm and sound "destiny outward" -r&s 05-
2. dean decosta "precoursor" -lo-fi-
3. son.sine "upekah" -nurture-
4. localfields "pico" -zerogrounds"
5. arne weinberg "spectral disease" -aw-
6. vector lovers (claro intelecto rmx)"futures in plastic" -soma-
7. omar s. "detroit" -02-
8. claro itelecto ....... -ai records-
9. donnacha costello "melan" -force inc-
10. omar s. "detroit" -04-
11. maus "find a way" -below-
12. plasticman artifakts -novamute-

Monday, January 21, 2008

Cisco Records - RIP




I've arrived back in Tokyo after my Christmas/New Year's vacation in Australia to receive a real punch in the guts - Cisco Records, undoubtedly one of Tokyo's best electronic music shops, have closed their doors.

Cisco has been an integral part of Tokyo's music scene for years; a report on the closure over at Beatportal says Cisco opened their first Shibuya shop in 1976 (as a progressive rock store), and were the only place stocking Kraftwerk records during the 70s. And Cisco has certainly been an integral part of my electronic music experiences; when I first fell in love with electronic music in 2001, Cisco swiftly became one of my most regular and trusted ports of call when hunting down vinyl and CDs. Mille Plateaux, Force Inc., Basic Channel, Kompakt ... all of the labels and artists I was learning about and getting excited about could be found at Cisco Records.

Before too long Cisco became part of my weekly ritual in Tokyo. I'd walk into the store, check out the new releases, listen to some of them, listen to what was being played in the store generally, and check out the wall of flyers for upcoming parties. Knowing that I won't be able to do that anymore, that a part of my life is now forever in the past, most definitely fills me with a feeling of grief.

Of course, you've probably Googled Cisco Records by now and discovered that they still have a website. Indeed they do. Cisco will be selling CDs and vinyl online. Cisco can still deliver to your door.

But, for me, that's no consolation at all. Because what I felt when I walked into Cisco Records was the sense of community. A real, embodied community, and that I was a part of it. It's kinda hard to feel connected to a community when all you're doing is clicking the order button in the comfort of your own home.

Cisco Records was, for me, an experience, and it's an experience that (for me) cannot be replicated by online shopping. All of the wonderful accidents that happened to me in Cisco, such as walking in and hearing something playing, and asking the clerk what it was, thereby learning something new. Checking out the wall of flyers and discovering an upcoming party that I hadn't heard about. Strangers striking up conversations with me because we were grabbing the same records or flyers, and eventually becoming friends.

(Can the online shopping experience replicate these things? Really?)

All of these things happened to me at Cisco, and this is because Cisco was a focal point for Tokyo's electronic music scene. Cisco was where the community came together. Cisco's passing is a real loss for Tokyo's electronic music community.

Pete's two cents:

A question: what are the broader implications of Cisco’s closure?

About a year ago, I wrote a piece for Resident Advisor about the survival of vinyl. A year on, I remain committed to what I wrote, but unable to support my opinion with any kind of conviction.

In Melbourne, Synaesthesia, Slap, Rhythm and Soul and Substrata, the four best outlets for electronic music of various kinds, have all closed their doors in the last few years. This is understandable in Australia, where an EP sets you back $20 AU (which is about 12 euro at current exchange rates). With the rise of the Australian dollar, it became viable (in fact, often cheaper) to place a mail order (with Phonica, Juno, Hardwax and the like) and have exactly what you like delivered to your door within two weeks, which was often a helluva lot better than the often slim pickings at the local record stores (forced to buy strategically for a small, diverse market). To cut a long story short, I was unsurprised that record stores washed up in Melbourne pretty early in the piece. A city of 3,500,000 in the wrong hemisphere was always going to be a marginal proposition for something as niche-y as electronic music.

However…

Cisco is/was THE techno specialist record store in Tokyo, a megalopolis of 20,000,000 (and counting) and the home of cashed-up middle-class 20-something geeks who overwhelmingly (unlike their Western brethren) have aesthetic and romantic qualms with using digital. Tokyo is one of the homes of digging – maybe the last home? Not being enticed by the beige beauties on offer, digging for records (along with ramen) became one of the key things that kept me keeping on in Tokyo when the reality of living in a neon-lit wasteland got me down. Seeing Cisco closed when I went there was foot in the teeth. Something is really over, and I can’t deny it any longer.

More than that, Tokyo was/is also one of the global capitals of minimalist groove music of all stripes. Maybe the writing was on the wall the day the Shinjuku Liquid Room closed… and then there was the closure of (doggedly minimal techno) club Maniac Love a few years back… no more Metamorphose festival… now no Cisco? It’s no stretch to say that Tokyo more or less kept electronic music alive – or well fed, at the very least. Without their lucrative tours to Japan, many of the artists you know and love would never have been able to quit their day jobs. Berlin is cool, sure, but show me the money. But if you can live in Berlin and tour to Japan twice a year…. but what happens when that becomes impossible, because the only clubs left are the kind that book electro-shouty rubbish to play to e-d up kids who are in it for the image?

Now lets ask a serious speculative question: lets say Fabric and the Panoramabar close in a year of two… what bastion will remain? Which place will have the critical mass to remain the ‘capital of techno’? Ibiza?

In my humble opinion, if Tokyo can’t support Cisco…

… vinyl is definitively dead…

…and techno is on life support…

My deep, deep fear with this is that the music is being hollowed out from the inside. Between Beatport and private trackers, the whole movement is becoming just another computer game with a social networking bent, governed by image (front of shop) and built by and obsessed over by online geeks with no friends (back of shop). Basically, in five years there will be very little difference between Warcraft and Beatport – and in case you have to ask yourself, this is not a good thing.

Clubland will continue in rude health (as an outpost of hedonistic hyper consumption), ‘connected’ to the ‘music’ that feeds it, which will be a collage of patterns swapped and built like Lego blocks or Ikea furniture by geeks on laptops who are uncomfortable buying records off living people (or playing finished pieces of music), and who sell loops instead of tracks (to increase their armor class and grant them privileged access to special plugins and more powerful synth weapons, natch). Meanwhile, the DJ will be some early-adoptor schmo with a wild outfit and an edgy haircut (basically just another geek, but one confident enough to wear designer tights in front of an audience) holding a chrome-plated midi controller designed by Alessi but ‘personalised for each user’ for conducting the action, but with the laptop he carries selecting the best possible tracks to mix and doing the beat-matching for him… the DJ equivalent of Milli Vanilli meets Alex from a Clockwork Orange.

All of which repulses me... it's enough to make me backlash (in the manner of projectile vomiting) all the way back to my noise rock days. Hey, at least the math rock diehards still write songs...

Chris' delayed thoughts on the sorry death of Cisco, aka my first Japanese love.

You like digital, I like bananas, we all should like record shops. I don’t buy records. Never have. The digital revolution is great for me because now I can get all the tracks I used to never be able to get because I refused to submit to the record addiction (from what I’ve seen it is generally more addictive and expensive than nicotine). But. But the death of Cisco greatly upsets me. Despite the fact I would never buy records, I would still go there on a weekly basis. It was ritual. I would buy plenty of cds, find out about all the gigs coming up and get a sense for what is being released. Yes, you can do all this digitally. But it creates a completely different form and sense of community. The comments that have been made so far reflect a similar sense of loss that in the slow (inevitable?) death of record stores you are losing a ‘brick in the wall’ (as one of the comments put it). And I think this really does make a difference – yes we can all still buy and listen digitally, and no I don’t think it means doom and gloom for techno (there are plenty of advantages), but it points towards a fundamentally different, and ultimately not particularly satisfying form of interaction and community. It points towards concepts like ‘silent discos’ where everybody uses headphones on the dancefloor instead – a cute concept perhaps, but also one that completely atomises the crowd and destroys the shared experience of listening to the same speakers and interacting on the dancefloor. So we will all decide digitally and interact anonymously on blogs and boards and so on, but this is a different dynamic and a different form of interaction (these thoughts are also what made me feel strangely uncomfortable about this recent post about the lack of joy from visiting a record store: http://ronanfitzgerald.net/houseisafeeling/2008/01/18/249/). I remember walking into Cisco, hearing something I had never heard before, fumbling in my bad Japanese and asking ‘what is this?’ and walking out with a new cd and a new artist. I can recount plenty more stories from Cisco, most of all which involve my bad Japanese being transcended by a mutual appreciation of good music. And in such an isolating country as Japan, these brief moments of connection are rare and worthwhile. The death of Cisco is a huge loss for me personally, and as Pete rightly notes, not a particularly promising sign for things to come. Cisco is where I first discovered Ricardo Villalobos. Ditto Dan Bell. Ditto plenty others. Sure I will keep on discovering new artists as they appear on my radar, but I am not convinced that the experience will be as personal or satisfying as the kind that a place like Cisco provided. RIP Cisco.

Friday, January 18, 2008

boat floaters



The new year is still only just starting to take shape (in all regards, music included). None of these were released in 2008, but quite a few perhaps slipped under the radar as they came out after ‘best of’ charts had appeared for 2007. Anyway, these cuts are all really floating my boat at the moment. I thoroughly recommend checking them:

Donnacha Costello – Black Bag Job (737)

Donnacha was one of the biggest disappointments of 2007 for me. Why would I say that? Because he didn’t do much. And I love Donnacha’s productions. So much warmth in them. So vibrant. So very alive. And this is exactly what ‘Black Bag Job’ is, his only new release of 2007, which snuck out in December. I’ve really been enjoying this. The 525 version is nice, but it’s the 737 take on the flip that really does it for me – slowed down and stretched out. Donnacha at his best. Let us hope 2008 is a tad more productive…

Radio Slave – Bell Clap Dance (Sebo K mix)

I know it is the original that has been getting all the praise, but it is the Sebo K mix that has been doing it for me. I can imagine the Radio Slave version being a very effective big room number, but, like most of his productions, I just don’t quite feel it. Sebo K’s take is definitely for the afterhours instead; he gives it a really deep, heady vibe. I think the first place I heard it was when I was listening to a livestream from Bar25. Not surprising really. Suits that environ perfectly. The key addition of some very house vocals really makes this remix. Definitely make sure not to get so caught up on the original that you forget to check out the flip.

Dasha Rush – Emotional Emergency

Just starting to discover more about Dasha, and this is definitely a good entry point as this track really, really rocks. I remember the seriously under-rated Donato Dozzy in a RA interview mentioning her tracks are secret weapons and I am starting to see/hear why. ‘Emotional Emergency’ begins rather innocuously, but really starts to build around the 3 minute mark and keeps rising. It kind of feels like halfway between Misc and their Neiderfleur alter ego. Big digital stormer. The other two cuts on this ep are good but this is the one that definitely will be causing some damage on the dancefloor.

Dettmann and Klock – Scenario

Speaking of dancefloor bombs, they don’t come much bigger than this. This is HUGE. Dettmann and Klock have been doing some fantastic stuff both individually and together, but I reckon this is their best effort to date. It is exactly what you’d expect from them – tough, tight, very compressed and powerful. I know this may not be a helpful description for many, but it is so Berghain. I would love to hear this out in that environment… Anyway, definitely, definitely check this. The single best track I’ve heard this year by a long, long way. I know some people lately have been expressing some skepticism about the direction techno is heading, but listen to ‘Scenario’ and any faith lost will be restored. If this is an indication of what is in store for us, I am very excited. Bring it on!

Round Two – New Day (club vocal mix)

Yes, this is not new. But Justus Kohncke’s cover is. And when I listened to it, all I wanted to do was go back and hear the original again. I had two thoughts. 1. Wow. The cover doesn’t come anywhere near the original. 2. The Round Two version is as about as close as you get to a perfect track. After all these years it still sounds amazing. I constantly find myself reflecting on how much brilliance has emerged from the Basic Channel guys. Do yourself a favour and dig it up.

Mikkel Metal – Krudina

I’ve been really getting back into my dub techno lately (thanks largely to the Deepchord output). Amongst all the great releases in this genre in 2007, Metal’s ‘Brone and Wait’ was a touch disappointing by his own high standards and in comparison to what others did. Recently, though, I came across one of the tracks from it – ‘Krudina’ – which is now being played pretty regularly. Metal at his best – the dub influence is strong and it has a very restrained, gentle feel. This is encouraging me to go back and give ‘Brone and Wait’ a second chance. Will keep you posted.

Newworldaquarium – The Force

Last, but certainly not least, is this gem. ‘The Force’ is a simple and somewhat flawed track – at 10 minutes it is probably too long and the bassline is rather ineffectual. But. But it has a perfect melody that completely sucks you in. I’ve had this on repeat since I got it the other day. This has such a beautiful soundscape, drenched full of emotion. I haven’t listened to the rest of the LP yet, as I just keep on playing ‘The Force’. If it is anywhere near as good as this track, then we’ve definitely got a find. Perhaps one of the best cuts of neo-Detroit that I am yet to hear.

Saturday, January 12, 2008

it's a set-up!



here are a couple more really nice sets. the lawrence one is more housey than other pas i've heard from him and includes quite a bit of recent material. the tobias one is, well, very tobias. and the dettmann + fengler is a great set with some really special moments. enjoy.

lawrence livepa @ planet rose 27.10.07

tobias livepa @ watergate 10.11.07

marcel dettmann & marcel fengler @ silent sounds 07.04.07

Friday, January 11, 2008

she's a gas, gas, (dy)gas...




a nice recent dj set from margaret dygas, another femme dj who i've really taken a liking to. i've also ripped recent livepas from lawrence and tobias which i'll upload in the next couple of days.

margaret dygas - you very mix 30.11.07

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=GPMXE5MG

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

this girl has got heart...




over the last year i really have fallen in love with cassy. i am not sure exactly what it is, but both her djing and her productions feel so 'real'. everything she does is genuine. it really feels like she is putting herself into her music. this is cassy. she's got a big heart and i love her. have a listen to this recent set of hers from panorama bar and you'll hear/feel what i mean...

http://rapidshare.com/files/82410117/Cassy___Panoramabar_Berlin_10.11.07.mp3

Friday, January 4, 2008

bringing in 2008 with conan the ravearian...

ok, this may not exactly be the most auspicious way to get the blog going for the new year, but i just came across this video of conan the ravearian and it is seriously funny (apologies if this vid has already done the rounds, but i dont think it has):



we had our first mnml ssg bbq last week which went very well and the new year's celebrations went alright. new year, new music - more on that soon. for the time being rock it out with conan.