Jon Rowett's Soundblog

this blog is moving

Jon — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:51:21 +0000

out and about mix

Jon — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:20:29 +0000

A mongrel mix of Sister Nancy, White Mice, various Basic Replay bits, Soom T, Mungo’s Hifi, Hyperdub and Mark Pritchard. I made this mix for my commute and it’s timed so that I can get a massive power up from Elephant Dub just as I reach my desk.

(image lifted from here)

edit - ok here’s your track list. on reflection I could’ve called this selection "Fifty Quid Bloke Dancehall Mix" but never mind:

White Mice - It’s a Shame
Mungo’s Hifi feat Kenny Knots - Don’t Let Them Break Your Heart
Tenastilin - Burial Tonight
Sister Nancy - Bam Bam
Papa Levi - My God, My King
Mungo’s Hifi - Babylon
Mungo’s Hifi feat Topcat - Herbalist
Mungo’s Hifi feat Soom T - Did You Really Know
Disrupt feat Soom T - Survivor
White Mice - The Youth Of Today
Professor Grizzly - Fight The Professor
Wailers Band - Higher Field Marshall (Dub)
LV feat Dandelion - CCTV
King Midas Sound - Meltdown
Kode 9 feat Spaceape - Ghost Town
Rhythm & Sound feat Jennifer Lara - Queen In My Empire
The Bug feat Flow Dan - Run
Mark Pritchard - Elephant Dub

i’m a Kode9 superfan!

Jon — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:44:15 +0000

He played an absolutely unbelievably good set on Saturday. But I like to think that at some point he looked out over the small dancefloor, glimpsed a lanky dubstep trainspotter looking somewhat mangled and wearing his actual coat (as seen here), and that it put the fear of God into him.

Where shall I take my intense fandom next? I’m thinking of maybe doing a tapestry of his face and sending it to the Hyperdub office.

Drum and bass not all shit shocker

Jon — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:51:52 +0000

I’m enjoying this mix from Doc Scott at the moment. One of my little projects right now is to listen again to drum and bass. It’s been over a decade since I seriously bothered with it at all. Most of the so-called “dubstep-influenced” stuff I’ve heard recently has been HORRID, all midrange wobble/tantrum tedium and too much compression. I really don’t need that in my life. But this stuff is different: there’s real bass pressure, a sense of space, and lots of rhythmic inventiveness despite the age of the template. Check it out: http://soundcloud.com/docscott31/doc-scott-2009-part-12

Sonic Warfare

Jon — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:43:37 +0000

I’ve got new neighbours. I had a “mutually assured cacophony” arrangement with the last lot - they tolerated my subwoofer, I tolerated their teenage son mutilating The Verve on his electric guitar in the adjoining room. But I’m worried the newbies won’t be so accommodating of bass pressure.

When I was at university, I loathed one of my housemates so much - a treacherous, Big Beat playing dwarf - that one afternoon I plugged my Korg MS-10 into my hi-fi amp, positioned the speakers to fire down against the floor (as his room was below mine), set the oscillator to “throb” and went out for the night. What a pathetic, ineffectual dork I was. As far as revenge strategies go, it’s on about the same level as my detailed circuit plans (aged 12) to build a pocket laser with which to scorch the flesh of the briefcase-snatching bullies who lay in wait for me on the long walk home to the vicarage. Why didn’t I punish my housemate with something aggressive and direct? Something with shit, or meat? (A friend tells a story about one houseshare which turned so toxic that a raw steak was nailed to a bedroom door, and not in a friendly way). Anyway…I’ve ordered a copy of Sonic Warfare. I’m worried it’s going to be all fucking academic and I’ll end up alienated and bewildered by it, that I’ll no longer feel a deep fanboy affinity with Kode9 even though I own his exact fucking coat. I’ll let you know.

dub techno

Jon — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:20:02 +0000

…trance’s apology.

sonic resolutions for 2010

Jon — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 12:24:00 +0000

Listen to music radio at least once a week (Rinse, Sub FM, Resonance)
Spend as much time exploring and enjoying my existing music library as I do listening to the latest stuff
Get out more (could be tough as we’re expecting twins in a couple of months)
Keep on messing around with Logic
~~Buy a hifi amp that does justice to the rest of my system~~ (done, my old amp finally died in a terminal raging froth of electrical static and mains hum the other night)
Come up with a better categorisation system for my record shelves

My end of year mix for a mate

Jon — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 10:00:48 +0000

This is in three sections grouped by tempo - a brief 175BPM bit to start with, then 130BPM (the centerpiece of the mix), then 140BPM. They were recorded in three separate sessions on two turntables and one CDJ, then stitched together in Logic. A bit more rambling after the track list. Let me know if you like it!

Instra:mental - Watching You
Breakage - Clarendon
Instra:mental - Sakura
MC Conrad + DJ Furney - Drum Tools
Bok Bok - Ripe Banana
DJ Champion - Motherboard
Bubblez - Ice Rink
Untitled
Scratcha DVA - Nasty Nasty Nasty (Roska remix)
Cooly G - Dis Boy
Untold - Just For You (Roska remix)
Instra:mental - Leave It All Behind
Martyn - Mega Drive Generation
Kode9 + Space Ape - 2 Far Gone
Skream - What Did He Say
DJ Madd - Someone (Breakage’s unspecified remix)
Distance - Nomad
Loefah - It’s Yours
Pinch ft Yolanda - Get Up (Jack Sparrow remix)
DLX - Matter Of Fact (Breakage’s relatively speaking mix)
Kode9 + Space Ape - Time Patrol
Ramadanman - Revenue
Pangaea - Memories
Untold - Nobody Likes A Smart Arse
Naphta - Soundclash (Grievous Angel remix)
Joy Orbison - Hyph Mngo

00:00:00 (tracks 1 - 4): ~175BPM section
Four drum & bass tunes to kick off because I recorded this mix with a mate in mind who’s into it. I haven’t engaged seriously with the genre for a decade but I’ve started to buy the odd bit here and there, and I love the dBridge school of spacious D & B (which caused me a proper “what the fuck is this?” moment when I heard him play at my first Forward back at the start of this year)…as opposed to the tired and tiring “fill every frequency slot” stuff I normally seem to hear. There was a dBridge tune I wanted to include in this but I couldn’t fit it in without buying an extra CDJ. All four of these records are very different (but ace), and mixed together they add up to a genre crime I expect, but never mind! My favourite track is the epic, epic Clarendon which has one of the baddest jungle basslines ever.

00:11:56 (tracks 5 - 14): ~130BPM section
I said before that this is the centerpiece of the set, and musically this is the happy place that 2009 has taken me to. I’ve hubristically thrown in one of my own creations which is a sort of junglist / funky hybrid. Really excited about this direction in 2010!

00:38:44 (tracks 15 - 26): ~140BPM section
Dubstep roundup. More genre crimes but I intended this section as a varied showcase of dubstep sounds to try and steer my mate clear of Chase & Status and all that gormless shite. Mostly these are 2009 tunes but I also threw in a couple of enduring favourites (It’s Yours and Nomad). The mixing is rough in places because this section was recorded with an absolute skinfull of mulled wine in me when I should have been packing to go on holiday. (In fact there were two takes of this, from which I’ve cherry-picked the best bits and edited them together in Logic…) Matter of Fact for me will forever be associated with hearing the Plastic People sound system for the first time. Even though I own the record, in there it sounded like something else…

Enjoy!

seriously uncanny talking piano

Jon — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:08:19 +0000

freaky stuff:

the brostep massive

Jon — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:47:07 +0000

http://www.brostepforum.com - pretty funny. to my mind at least, it’s the dubstepforum community’s ceremonial revocation of “dub” from that lot that’s actually the deepest, cruelest cut. not that the Brutal Electro patch crew give a flying one, i’m sure…