blast from the past

literally blasting -- Pearsall with a memorex mix of techstep classics

"here is a group trying to accomplish one thing - to get into the future" - sample on "Amtrak" by Trace + Nico

now, where is that sample from?

first two minutes of this, sublime

rest of it, pretty darn good too

France Joli, "I Wanna Take A Chance On Love", Prelude, 1982 - a David Stubbs Meltdown classic

and here's another

and another

and another

(met Gwen, you know, interviewed her -- never wrote it up, for shame)

and the "title track"

this one i found by myself (well with a little help from barney H and one of his NME singles column)

(yeah put that in yer pipe n smoke it Mr Kirk)

I grew up in Hertfordshire...  and strange to consider, but Herts (long after I'd moved away) was a bit of a hotbed of hardcore. More the Eastern end of the county (Stevenage and Hitchin etc) and the edge-of-London parts like St Albans -- as opposed to the Chilterns-y Western end where I grew up...  So the new town, London overspilly, not-unlike-Essex parts, basically would be where it thrived, logically enough.  But nonetheless, nonetheless: Herts is ardkore....

viz, this FACT TV interview with Herts boys 2 Bad Mice

The Danger Of Being Retro: Revivalism In Dance Music - feature at Attack Magazine

mini-extract from new section of Energy Flash on the rise of retro-dance

on this subject, there are some great tunes on the new Z***by record, inventive and totally distinctively his style. But also quite a few pastiches e.g. the drum & bass replicas "Overdose" and "777". Which as drum & bass replicas go, sound terrific. But like with the Eski pastiches...   one can't help wondering "why?"

fragments of Zeit

Musicophilia blog reactivates after long hibernation for ‘The Gold and the Silver Dream’ (1971-1982) (After Daft Punk’s ‘Random Access Memories’) 

a mix woven out of the kind of stuff that might make up the temporal matrix of interlinked styles into which Daft Punk's album might wish to slide itself, through time-travel 

"I put it together as a way of spending more time in the space ‘Random Access Memories’ occupies.  It’s filled with the same warm, wonderful sounds of funky, melancholic robots skirting around the edges of the discotheque, alternately wondering what life’s about and deciding it’s all about forgetting to worry what it’s all about. There’s space disco, library funk, sophisticated rhythmic orchestrations, savvy art-rock, psych-poppers and proggers gone dancefloor, and a singer-songwriter or two"

85 glistening minutes of names familiar and unfamiliar: Amon Duul II, Zeus B. Held, Munich Machine,  Brian Bennett, Francis Personne , Vuolo & Grande, Roland Bocquet, Beaver & Krause,  Harry Nilsson, OMD, The Jacksons, Cerrone, Gino Soccio, Curt Boettcher, Le Orme, Stardrive,William Sheller,  Space Art, Brian Eno and Cluster

 Musicophilia, incidentally, is Ian Manire, dude behind this legendary 1981 box set of postpunk obscurities

ruffhouse 2013 style

almost too photek-y to be propah nuum

darKside jacKin?

why Settle for less?

damning Disclosure with faint praise - Rich Juzwiak chats with Daily Swarm's Eric Ducker
 
"they seamlessly synthesize their influences, but at the same time aren’t exactly breaking new ground"

"definitely agree that there is no invention with Settle. In that sense, it does have the treading water nature of pop, i.e., “Let’s see what we can do with this stuff people already like!” 

"a solid, enjoyable album"

"Settle is kind of saying, “Those weird, scary, niche sounds? They’re not so scary after all.” It feels like a gateway"

"One thing that does make this particularly pop is its cleaning up of dance music"

"it would be really ballsy to make an actual U.K. garage album; Disclosure are too polite for that."


Got Settle but straaaaaaaaaangely un-enticed to give it a listen.

I suspect they have made an album every bit as good as It's All About the Stragglers.

But a lot less timely.

4 Nuumsake, gimme summadat ruffhouse....

Spotify playlist of classic tunes 1987-2012 I did for the release of the updated/expanded Energy Flash, which is out next week

soon come: news about two UK events for E-Flash/2013 in the last week of June