Damnation, bollocks and blast. I’ve just noticed that a slightly worn-out fader on my mixer has caused the left signal to drop noticably for a few seconds in two places on that last mix I posted (during Apophenia, and Jah Rain IIRC). It’s not catastrophic, but it’s bloody annoying. Time to order some parts…
Time for some dubstep again….
Much as I’ve loved (really, really loved) the last year or so’s excellent releases on labels like Hessle Audio, Apple Pips and Immerse, if I’m not careful with that stuff I end up listening to nothing but polite-step, running the further risk of taking an accidental turn into dub techno. (Indeed, this is how I ended up liking deep house: my listening entered a cul-de-sac which surprised me by having more than one exit). So without abandoning the dub2stepno axis altogether in this mix, I’ve tried to drop in plenty of bolshier-sounding tunes, whether it’s the brash soundsystem warmp warmp bass of RSD’s productions, Zomby and Joker’s next-level chiptunes or the full on balls-out dubstep of In The Death Car. Mixed earlier this evening on two 1210s, hope you enjoy!
P.S. Yes I know it’s too short!
For more of that techier dubstep I was talking about, check out Grievous Angel’s DubTech mix, where he mixes a whole stack of my favourite records far better than I ever could (the bastard!)
I went down to Forward for the first ever time on Sunday, where Martyn was playing out tracks from his new album (his remix of Shed’s “Another Wedged Chicken” was one of many high points for me). I felt pretty apprehensive going down there on my own, but fuck it I thought, it’s been far too long since I’ve had a music-oriented night out and I’ve been getting seriously desperate to hear some dubstep in an environment other than my home / the office / the train. Since moving to London and producing offspring a couple of years ago, I’ve so far failed to really get to know anyone with similar musical tastes, which made it such a relief to be in a club and be part of such a positive and fun crowd who were there for the same music. It was awesome to hear some of the records I love most being played out over a club soundsystem: seeing and feeling the crowd reaction, and experiencing the music in such a physical way. (Breakage’s remix of “Matter of Fact” by DLX sounds good at home, but on the dancefloor it’s like someone throwing buildings at you). dBridge’s set was brilliant, he played just so many great records and I’ve no idea what most of them were or who they were by - and how exciting is that??
I think I’m going to have to permanently give up going in to work on Monday mornings….
some of the visual imagery I traditionally associate with the genre of house
As someone whose listening in adolescence jumped directly from Kraftwerk and Jean-Michel Jarre to Acen and The Hyper-On Experience, I’ve always been prejudiced against (and ignorant about) house, seeing it as mindless throwback cheese for the nightclubbing hoards. But just as getting into dubstep piqued my interest in dub techno, listening to Deepchord and Basic Channel eventually opened me up a bit to other forms of four-four.
Magnetic by Murmur was my favourite record of last year. It’s got a really stoned sound to it without ever resorting to the washed-out saturated homogeneity of so much dub techno, and it strongly motivated me to seek out music with similar values: crispness and precision alongside weight and warmth. After lots of research (and one or two terrible, terrible minimal techno purchases) I discovered - well fuck me, I like house, specifically (if I’ve got my terminology right) deep house. With all the negative associations I’ve unfairly attached to house music over the years, this feels much - I imagine - like discovering that one’s sexual orientation is not the one you thought it was.
I have, of course, no deep understanding of the music. I spin the records context-free in my dining room, don’t go clubbing and am only dimly aware of its heritage or history. It’s a milestone on my personal quest to locate and purchase a particular sonic: it’s a controllable desire that I can own. I’m still pretty squeamish about the wider genre: vocal samples exhorting me to “move my body” or informing me that I am a “freaky motherfucker” are, to borrow from Bill Hicks, as welcome as turds dropping into my drink. But on the whole I reckon the stuff I’ve taken a shine to can sit on the shelf with my Appleblim, Ramadanman, Pendle Coven and Rhythm & Sound records without causing too much cognitive dissonance.
Here’s another mix I threw together over the Christmas period. I was trying to go for something evocative of winter and “sparklyness”.
More, probably, soon.
Tracklist:
Margaret Dygas: See You Around (Non Standard Productions)
Efdemin: Stately, Yes (Dial)
Lerosa: Triage (Quintessentials)
Sevensol & Bender: Live at Coliseum (KANN)
Lawrence: Miles (Dial)
Cavalier: Deep Rider (Drumpoet)
Move D & Benjamin Brunn: New Horizon (Smallville)
Quince: Omnium (Music Man)
Sten: Daylight (Dial)
Efdemin: La Ratafia (Dial)
Petar Dundov: Sparkling Stars (Music Man)
Fuck, I’ve got a blog. There’s a whole host of reasons I haven’t posted since September, chief among them the fact that as a professional software developer, web advocate, occasional electronic musician and life-long nerd, it’s rather nice to have an offline, analogue hobby, i.e. buying records in actual shops from actual people, listening to them and generally messing about with them without having the whole bloody thing mediated through networked digital technology.
Nevertheless, there is a whole bunch of stuff I want to share with you, not least some of the musical tangents I’ve gone off on in the last four months or so, so I’m going to make another go of this blogging thing. In the mean time, here is a mix of some dubstep tunes that I was sharing with a few mates during my Christmas break up in Grimsby. I had to choose between two mixes: one had better mixing but omitted some important records; the other included more records but was mixed with wrists made of chalk (I really flubbed the mix into Infinity Is Now). I’ve chosen to share the latter here, needless to say, it’s now 2009 and these are 2008 tunes, I have much more to share though so check back soon….
Tracklist:
Peverelist: Clunk Click Every Trip (Punch Drunk)
Kontext: Plumes (Ramadanman remix) (Immerse)
Ramadanman: Core (Soul Jazz)
Pangaea: You & I (Hessle Audio)
Skream: Hitch (Tempa)
DLX: Matter Of Fact (Breakage remix) (Smog)
Luke Envoy: So (Tempa)
RSD: Over It (Tectonic)
Brackles: Glazed (Berkane Sol)
Peverelist: Infinity Is Now (Tectonic)
Geiom: Remenissin (Berkane Sol)
Pangaea: Router (Hessle Audio)
Ramadanman: Blimey (Hessle Audio)
Shackleton: The Rope Tightens (Badawi remix) (Skull Disco)
Shackleton: But The Branch Is Weak (Skull Disco)
Mika Vainio: Behind the Radiators (Touch)
