Number Four in this series off mystery tunes I taped off of the pirates in the early nineteen-nineties - my nickname for this one is "Feel Dis Bassline". Taped off Function FM in 1993, or possibly early '94.
Answers, suggestions, clues, guesses - all welcome!
Postscript:
And the answer comes almost instantly, from you guessed it, JJ at Deep Inside the Old Skool
Eternal Bass - Way Of
The Future
https://www.discogs..../release/208104
^^^^^^^^^^
Mystery Trax series is gonna take a little pause now as I am called away on urgent and upsetting business, but will resume in a couple of weeks - when hopefully i will find SOMETHING to flummox JJ and Droid
although i am v.v happy to get IDs on all so far - indeed that's the whole point of the exercise, so why i would want to flummox the old skool skolars I'm not really sure....
"My purpose was simple: to catch the feel, the pulse of rock, as I had lived through it. What I was after was guts, and flash, and energy, and speed" - NIK COHN - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "When the music was new and had no rules" -LUNA C
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Mystery Track #3
Third in the series of mystery tracks off pirate tapes - track I call "Rough Ride" on account of the words "sounds of the rough ride" or something to that effect, although I've never been able to work out if that voice is on the record itself or a second MC. Taped off Don FM in early '93.
Answers, suggestions, clues, guesses - all welcome!
Postscript: And the answer comes damn quick via JJ of Deep Inside the Old Skool
RTC & NJB - Rough Ride
https://www.discogs..../release/219574
Big up ya chest JJ and big up ya chests RTC & NJB!
Answers, suggestions, clues, guesses - all welcome!
Postscript: And the answer comes damn quick via JJ of Deep Inside the Old Skool
RTC & NJB - Rough Ride
https://www.discogs..../release/219574
Big up ya chest JJ and big up ya chests RTC & NJB!
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
Mystery Trax #2
Second in the series of mystery tracks off pirate tapes - my nickname for this one is "Ooh Aah Aah Ooh Aah Aah".
Answers, suggestions, clues, guesses - all welcome!
update:
and Droid gets the answer, from old skool expert JJ of Deep Inside the Old Skool blog
big up to both of them
The track is
"X" Cert - Rising 2 The Bass
https://www.discogs....release/2698427
Answers, suggestions, clues, guesses - all welcome!
update:
and Droid gets the answer, from old skool expert JJ of Deep Inside the Old Skool blog
big up to both of them
The track is
"X" Cert - Rising 2 The Bass
https://www.discogs....release/2698427
Thursday, March 24, 2016
Mystery Trax - the series begins
Over the next month or so I'm going to be posting clips of "mystery trax" - tunes caught on pirate radio tapes recorded in the early Nineties that I have never managed to identify. Now, in some cases 24 years on from the moment of capture, I ask for your help in identifying these elusive gems.
Here's the first one - what I have come to call "Get Busy Busy Busy". Answers, suggestions, clues, guesses - all welcome!
Postscript: And the answer comes from JJ of Deep Inside the Old Skool blog who in the comments says it's
Suspicious Minds - Sitting Low (Bass Trip Mix)
http://www.rolldabea..._records/12j4m7
Here's the first one - what I have come to call "Get Busy Busy Busy". Answers, suggestions, clues, guesses - all welcome!
Postscript: And the answer comes from JJ of Deep Inside the Old Skool blog who in the comments says it's
Suspicious Minds - Sitting Low (Bass Trip Mix)
http://www.rolldabea..._records/12j4m7
Monday, March 21, 2016
it was 20 years ago today (more or less)
1996 - jungle / drum & bass's last wholly good year?
[pirate clip via Lee Fagan]
possibly they should have got a presenter without a weak 'r' for a doc about piRate Radio featuring prominently a fellow called bRockie....
i would never make any claims for the graphic art of the jungle era, though...
Saturday, March 19, 2016
frantic + frosty (We Buy Gold 02)
new release from We Buy Gold (the label started Jack Jambie + pals) explores "footwork hardcore "
melodically + texturally it sounds quite Cold Rush, especially this track
Friday, March 18, 2016
Haunted House
On the 100% Silk label - Auscultation, "PromiseYou'll Haunt Me"
(Via Josiah Schirmacher)
Ambient house counterpart to this
Friday, March 11, 2016
Sunshine techno
Very interesting reading / hearing of Orbital's "Chime" in terms of its Britishness, from The Compleat Blogger
"The [sunny day elation] Paul Hartnoll was in while jamming ‘Chime’ is a scene which crops up repeatedly in British (or more specifically, English) art through the ages: a summer day drawing in, a particular interpretation of the pastoral mode which in music, drove Vaughan Williams and Delius at the beginning of the 20th century. It seems as if the unpredictable weather inherent to the UK ensures that such moments stick long in the memory and capture a large portion of our collective consciousness....
"'Chime’ kicks off with an insistent one-note ostinato which is so bright, it just feels solar. Very precise synthesised string hits are layered with delay which give it a lingering effect like the sun’s rays over the horizon, and it anchors the song like a pulse. The bass line palpitates with a bravery which marks Orbital out from their peers: the second bar of the bass pattern has brief entrances into higher notes, but tinged with pathos when it comes back down, recognising the inevitability of a sober end. The song is in the key of E Flat Major, which makes it suited to the big-arena-hands-in-the-air mode; a key Beethoven, Holst, and Richard Strauss knew was well suited to heroics when they employed it in the Eroica symphony, the ‘Jupiter’ suite of The Planets, and the tone poem ‘A Hero’s Life’ respectively. Those are big, boisterous pieces of nationhood and ‘Chime’ wears its cultural heritage on its sleeve as well."
More nuts and bolts piece on the making of "Chime" at Sound on Sound.
^^^^^^^^^
Make me think of that thing about the British having to manufacture their own sunshine (UKG and 2step as prime example - "Spirit of the Sun" etc etc).
Living on the east side of Los Angeles as I do now, an extraordinarily high proportion of the days here are like perfect English early summer weather - warm, but dry... clear blue skied... just right...
But when that becomes normality - unremarkable, commonplace - literally every day ... it loses its impact... the exhilaration of good weather in the U.K. that comes from its rarity... the leap of the spirit... the buoyancy...
I do miss the punctuation of rain and grey....
There was some fog here the other day - got very excited as it is an extraordinarily uncommon occurrence here, meaning the desert-y side of LA. Whereas on the West Side, Santa Monica and so forth, on the edge of the Pacific - mist and grey haze skies are very common morning experiences, taking a good chunk of the day to disperse. I think so many Brits live there because it subconsciously reminds them of going on holiday as kids to U.K. coastal towns. Right down to the surprisingly chilly sea temperature - a bracing Broadstairs experience, taking a dip in Southern California, despite the palm trees.
"The [sunny day elation] Paul Hartnoll was in while jamming ‘Chime’ is a scene which crops up repeatedly in British (or more specifically, English) art through the ages: a summer day drawing in, a particular interpretation of the pastoral mode which in music, drove Vaughan Williams and Delius at the beginning of the 20th century. It seems as if the unpredictable weather inherent to the UK ensures that such moments stick long in the memory and capture a large portion of our collective consciousness....
"'Chime’ kicks off with an insistent one-note ostinato which is so bright, it just feels solar. Very precise synthesised string hits are layered with delay which give it a lingering effect like the sun’s rays over the horizon, and it anchors the song like a pulse. The bass line palpitates with a bravery which marks Orbital out from their peers: the second bar of the bass pattern has brief entrances into higher notes, but tinged with pathos when it comes back down, recognising the inevitability of a sober end. The song is in the key of E Flat Major, which makes it suited to the big-arena-hands-in-the-air mode; a key Beethoven, Holst, and Richard Strauss knew was well suited to heroics when they employed it in the Eroica symphony, the ‘Jupiter’ suite of The Planets, and the tone poem ‘A Hero’s Life’ respectively. Those are big, boisterous pieces of nationhood and ‘Chime’ wears its cultural heritage on its sleeve as well."
More nuts and bolts piece on the making of "Chime" at Sound on Sound.
^^^^^^^^^
Make me think of that thing about the British having to manufacture their own sunshine (UKG and 2step as prime example - "Spirit of the Sun" etc etc).
Living on the east side of Los Angeles as I do now, an extraordinarily high proportion of the days here are like perfect English early summer weather - warm, but dry... clear blue skied... just right...
But when that becomes normality - unremarkable, commonplace - literally every day ... it loses its impact... the exhilaration of good weather in the U.K. that comes from its rarity... the leap of the spirit... the buoyancy...
I do miss the punctuation of rain and grey....
There was some fog here the other day - got very excited as it is an extraordinarily uncommon occurrence here, meaning the desert-y side of LA. Whereas on the West Side, Santa Monica and so forth, on the edge of the Pacific - mist and grey haze skies are very common morning experiences, taking a good chunk of the day to disperse. I think so many Brits live there because it subconsciously reminds them of going on holiday as kids to U.K. coastal towns. Right down to the surprisingly chilly sea temperature - a bracing Broadstairs experience, taking a dip in Southern California, despite the palm trees.
Tuesday, March 8, 2016
the future will be fiddly
trak by Iranian futurist Ash Koosha, as profiled in FACT magazine
his mix for FACT
his previous album
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
from a not dissimilar place, new Fatima Al Qadiri tune off forthcoming conceptual-political album Brute
Sunday, March 6, 2016
"I've seen the future, I can't afford it"
Neoliberal premonitions in ABC's "How To Be A Millionaire" from 1985, sampled on Orbital's "Omen" of 1990
I've seen the future, I can't afford it
Tell me the truth sir, someone just bought it
Say mr. whispers! Here come the click of dice
Roulette and blackjacks - gonna build us a paradise
Larger than life and twice as ugly
If we have to live there, you'll have to drug me
Tell me the truth sir, someone just bought it
Say mr. whispers! Here come the click of dice
Roulette and blackjacks - gonna build us a paradise
Larger than life and twice as ugly
If we have to live there, you'll have to drug me
Maybe these luxuries can only compensate
For all the cards you were dealt at the hands of fate
For all the cards you were dealt at the hands of fate
So tell me
Tell me! tell me! How to be a millionaire
Tell me! tell me! How to be a millionaire!
Millionaire! Billionaire! Trillionaire!
Tell me! tell me! How to be a millionaire
Tell me! tell me! How to be a millionaire!
Millionaire! Billionaire! Trillionaire!
Hardly surprising if you might consider
Loyalties go to the highest of bidders
What's my opinion? I'd give you ten to one
Give me a million, a franchise on fun
But there are millions who often get nowhere
And there's just one secret I think you should share
Loyalties go to the highest of bidders
What's my opinion? I'd give you ten to one
Give me a million, a franchise on fun
But there are millions who often get nowhere
And there's just one secret I think you should share
Another phrase from that ABC song -- "you'll have to drug me" - crops up in this darkside tune
I already discussed the strangeness of there even being an a cappella version of "Millionaire" in existence, ABC's blatant heisting of the Shannon sound, and other quandaries here
I suppose "Millionaire" was a sister record to "Everything Counts" by Depeche Mode, wasn't it? But instead of the boys from Basildon (that crucial swing seat) and their desolate melancholy about Thatcher's reelection, this is a brash, outwardly upful and go-getting sound with ironic lyrics - the strategy less critique (as with the failed railing against monetarism on Beauty Stab) than a kind of simulation.
Wall Street was only a few years from coming out
I've almost interested myself enough in How To Be A Zillionaire - which I never bothered with at the time - to pick it up the next time I see it going for $2 here.
Or perhaps there's no need...
I did like the single, though
Another group I had given up on by then - Heaven 17, with How Men Are
Their own Beauty Stab moment had been this tune
One of those albums where the cover warns you off
I'm not honestly sure if I ever listened to this - "Temptation" had been enough of a turn-off to make me steer clear, along with the plodding single "Come Live With Me". Still that is quite fickle given how much I'd caned Penthouse and Pavement only a year earlier. But things moved fast in those days....
Good Christ almighty I have somehow never seen this video or known it existed
This can't be an official video
Actually interviewed H17 in my first year as a music journalist, around this single + the Pleasure One album, by which point they seemed a tentative and vaguely crestfallen bunch, aware their moment had passed.... for that album they'd unwisely switched to a conventional instruments sound. Single peaked at #80, album at #78....
Friday, March 4, 2016
the House Crew, interviewed
Production House, the historical low down
(via Steeve Cross)
Sometimes think this is the greatest hardcore tune
Thursday, March 3, 2016
"A disjointed piece of magpie-hauntology, conjured before anyone else knew you could"
temporally criss-crossing dance-archaeology mix from ghost-rave cru Assembled Minds for Self-Titled - with some nice commentary from Matt Saunders