Okay folks, here it is. Apologies all for the big wind up and delay with this one, I've been on holiday and have only had sporadic access to a terrible old Windows-based clunkbox. Anyway, nuff excuses, on to Kassem.
It's a commonplace of the kind of PR drivel sent out to promote average trance jocks that 'Armin Van Hoogen Boogen's music DEFIES pigeonholing.' And you think to yourself: 'Really? I thought he's just spent twenty years making the same god awful trance track over and over and over and over' (like a monkey with a miniature cymbal). But in Kassem's case the shopworn cliche becomes the most apposite description: Mosse's music shifts between the narcotic womp of low bpm (and extremely mong) deep house, 'Warp influenced' ('cos IDM is a three letter word) micro techno, pop ambient, you name it... The common denominator is GOODNESS: in whatever style or mode Kassem's tracks are just really fucking excellent. Have you heard his EP on Workshop Records? Or the recent Acqueous Haze Mikrodisko (the label Kassem runs with several friends of his)? If not, please remedy this as soon as possible.
So Kassem is definitely one of the producers who gives every inkling of going all the way (here's waiting for his next one on Workshop, due April-ish)... but what about DJing?
Well, we SSGs have got together and decided something. Call it a New Years' Resolution if you wish. On the strength of our experience with Herr Fengler's excellent podcast, we've made a decision to publish the mixes without commentary or tracklisting... for a few weeks. We really enjoyed having a more direct experience of the mix's unfolding without being able to check, identify and therefore 'recognise' what was being presented. So without further ado, here's Kassem's mix: his first podcast, and a real privelege for us to present. Please stay tuned for a Q&A and tracklist in the next few weeks. Enjoy!
mnml ssgs mx18: Kassem Mosse (click to dl)
More info about Kassem Mosse at his myspace and at the mikrodisko site. Next up, Santiago Salazar.
ah finally there it is! i was looking forward to it.
ReplyDeleteexcellent decision to wait with the tracklist for a couple of weeks. we don't need it, we only need good music :)
yeah, i'm looking forward to this. thanks a lot.
ReplyDeletei'm really happy we convinced kassem to put together a mix for us. he came up with something lovely.
ReplyDeleteand this is what kassem had to say about the mix:
ReplyDelete"the mix features some tracks i enjoyed over the last year, old and new stuff at correct and incorrect speed. enjoy!"
as long as there is a tracklist in the end, because i'll doubtless end up buying half of the records ;)
ReplyDeletethanks kassem and ssgs. this'll make up for the missed gig.
Only getting round to checking out the blog now guys. Really excellent music so far and interesting articles. Looking forward to contributing in the future.
ReplyDeleteWill check this mix out when I get home. Good idea for leaving out the tracklisting. No need for it whenever good music is concerned.
i know we said we wouldn't discuss the tracklist, but that track at 42min. is going to bother me all damn day if i don't remember what it is.
ReplyDeletesomeone can e.mail me if they want to keep it secret.
chris...i'm lookin' at you here. ;)
the word mong is an underused descriptor imo.
ReplyDeleteand looking forward to the mix.
eric, i think it's armando-don't take it(thomos edit), which was on ame's fabric cd.
ReplyDeleteor if you want to spare yourself the pain of listening to the Âme CD then you can hear it in this too:
ReplyDeletehttp://bassandsuperstructure.blogspot.com/2008/12/contradictions-of-material-life-vol-1.html
straight after prince, as if in conversation...
Eric, the point is to suspend your need for the tracklist and just listnen ;) but this is virtually impossible to do, no?
ReplyDeleteI'm coming to the conclusion that almost nobody just listens to music. My mum used to do it with classical radio. Massive FM tuner through stereo speakers and the whole house filled with whatever, but she never checked. I remember the broadcaster chiming in after 30 + minutes as if back from a trance, with ' (smacking of dry lips and rasping intake) and that was Beethoven's String Quartet No. 4 in C minor... (long dead air) a lovely piece...' I always loved the silence, the interstice and the announcement, but mum just liked the music. I wonder... who of you 'just listens' to music? I know chris was doing this with live broadcasts from Bar 25.
...the reason I'm wondering this is, you know, how much of or cognition of music is our recognition of it... all day I tried to listen to whatever shuffle on my pod came up with WITHOUT LOOKING... but it was nearly impossible. Then when I found out, it was all 'oh yes, of course it was X...'
Perhaps this is the relation to techno of the dancer I used to be at nineteen. Didn't know, didn't care, just danced and danced and danced. I don't want that back, but all the same, I wonder what I'm missing by constantly recognising and framing things...
thoughts?
Eric, the point is to suspend your need for the tracklist and just listnen ;) but this is virtually impossible to do, no?
ReplyDeletemy dj instinct kicks in and i just want to know / buy!
amazing mix.
ReplyDeletecompletely feel the same way about this statement :
"I remember the broadcaster chiming in after 30 + minutes as if back from a trance, with ' (smacking of dry lips and rasping intake) and that was Beethoven's String Quartet No. 4 in C minor... (long dead air) a lovely piece...' I always loved the silence, the interstice and the announcement"
and eric i can totally understand that mentality to want to know who and what this is when you hear an amazing new and fresh (to you) song.
i can understand that feeling of getting my hands on a track of wich i don´t know anything about. in this case, there aren´t any problems cause i have or know them all...almost. what makes me crazy about this mix is the selection and the mix of certain records. why didn´t i...
ReplyDelete;-B
another thing that i find quite interesting is to get my own records played by a friend of mine who likes digging into the real old ones i didn´t hear for AGES . that made me listen to a lot of great stuff again and combining it with the newer ones in heavy rotation...
cheers.
@ Eric's "my dj instinct kicks in and i just want to know / buy!"
ReplyDeleteI don't want to take what you're saying too much in earnest, but all the same, I think it's interesting how DJing as an art and craft is also about knowledge and strategic consumption. But don't you think this has been undermined by the 'net? Gone are the days when the Jamaican soundsystems could compete with white labels exclusive to their system. In fact, a lot of the new vinyl-only, limited-ed stuff is just away of creating a scarcity where none exists any more.
...the absurd obverse was Kompakt mp3's sale... 'all stock must go!'
...I also wonder how the vinyl economy is going to change over the next five years as it moves even more into the realms of the collector/fetishist...
...does this mean that people who have the collector's impulse will be less inclined to DJ? And will people who heretofore were turned off DJing become DJs? It's going to be interesting to see what happens, no?
wow..deeep mix..
ReplyDeletealways enjoy the moodymann-joint..one of the best tracks ever produced!
wasn't there just something that came out that said vinyl sales are actually way, way up this last year? i think people are getting back to that "there's better shit on wax than there will ever be on beatport" ideal, and most labels are saving the goods for a piece of vinyl instead of blindly throwing them online.
ReplyDeletehell, there's a litany of limited edition records that are blowing minds right now, and i, too, am on the hunt for them (not digitally, either.) i'm longing for a good trip to europe for gigs so i can troll hardwax and word + sound with close friends.
yeah the armando -> moodymann transition is niiice. didn't expect him to actually be able to mix as well as selct!
ReplyDeletethe first track is Heaven 17 - nice to see he loves Sheffield ...
ReplyDelete@ Eric: true there's some great vinyl-only stuff out there. Why manufacture scarcity though? What's the interest in that? And is it any coincidence that luxury brands from LV to BMW have also discovered the value of the LTD ED?
ReplyDeleteAs for vinyl sales, well, I don't have any figures. I have anecdotal evidence from Melbourne that says: most of the record stores that once were thriving are no more, those that are left are struggling, and most vinyl-using DJs are dependent on mail order, which has become wincingly expensive since the financial implosion.
My sense is that the vinyl economy is shifting (not vanishing). Go to second-hand record stores and look in their dollar crate of 90s trance/NRG/prog EPs, and this is an economy which is now MOSTLY digital (and this is a good thing, when you see the piles and piles of grooved dreams made of petrochemicals and become landfill). Groove-based electronic music, which was once predominantly reliant on vinyl, is no longer dependent in this way.
People 'getting into vinyl' are now doing it with different motivations.
...does anyone else get Beatport heeby-jeebies? I really, really, really don't like anything about the experience. There's something very 'black boxed' about the way they present tracks, themselves, even the way the price varies according to jurisdiction...
...but then discogs opens up an opportunity to a world of second-hand records, for those with the means to pay...
...but my big question is: what about DJs (or people who want to DJ) who don't have credit cards and can thus neither mail order nor beatport?
There's a way in which 'being a DJ' just means having a credit card; far more necessary than turntables...
tracklist, credit card number, playlist, popularity, mixed set, tracklist....
I just bought/began listening to 'Aqueous Haze' (Mikrodisko)- the 2 track EP. I'm going to say this is the strongest thing I've heard in January '09.
ReplyDeleteKassem Mosse is a name that was totally new to me; thanks mnml ssgs.
Regardless- it's a great record. lots of vinyl hiss or something in the background but really sharp, crisp hats and shakers in the foreground.
ohh . wow .. last half is brilliant! grind/crunk/shuffle hehe
ReplyDeletemarcellus pittman track at about the 25 min mark, absolutely kills everytime i hear it, such a huge track.
ReplyDeletevery good set. i especially like the moody beginning, chiming tones, symphonic, even. rare, nowadays...
ReplyDeleteheil live kassen mosse my hero one of mine cosmogonic gods....but what about kadebostan..we will kill for his sets....
ReplyDeletethe more i hear that even tuell workshop track, the more i get hypnotised by it.....it's great fun realigning the beat emphasis too. one of the few tracks for which it's easy to do. amazing record!
ReplyDeleteTracklist?
ReplyDelete