Thomas Brinkmann - Tanks A Lot
Free with the Tina/Argo ep, this mix of Brinkmanns back catalogue is an important release in its own right (and by important, I mean, stuck in the walkman, on the playlist for several months, in that class of freebie that gets more attention than the release it came with).
Paula Temple Mix Sept 2003
Currently available here, this is apparently (it's not made totally clear, and the mp3 was tellingly finished off in Acid 4) done with a magic music box, and possibly some decks. Software is increasingly becoming part of the DJs arsenal, as processing power increases, and what was rendered offline, becomes available real time. Add a box of knobs and faders, and any open minded DJ can suddenly out-manouver Richie Hawtin. Final Scratch was just a stepping stone, a teaser that did nothing for those without the investment in deck skills. Hmm, I wonder if we'll get a luddite backlash this time. Probably not, it's too soon. Maybe a few fanboys (but if you don't mix it with your hands...). Not soon enough to my mind. The code to do this has been out there for a while now.
The thing is, these magic boxes currently require more work up front than a traditional setup. You have to rip, prep, slice and dice your track before it's useable, otherwise it's all trainwrecks, all of the time, and you don't have the option of laying hands on the spinning platter. Still, nothings stopping you from running decks in parallel.
Oh, the mix? Yeah, it's pretty good. I don't think it's quite up to the standard of the suade mix that was on the Overload site before it wasn't, but then again, maybe it is. It uses that 'right to get down' speech, which is rapidly becoming played out, layered over a couple of tracks I know, but can't name. Finding something like that a while back would really have wet my whistle, but I think the problem now, is that I know what is possible. The gates have been bust open, and (ooh, Seawolf, this should be interesting, I tried to prep this a while back, and it drifts all over the fucking place, ahh, well done, and carefully ditched before it went mental), err where was I? Bladerunner? Ah yes. It's a new thing, it's going to be a little cheesy for a while, as people work out quite how much they can do, and the software adapts to fill the gaps. I wonder just how mental it's going to get. (and how quickly playing five Mills tracks at once is going to get old.)
...but I'm getting ahead of it all, download the mix, taste the future. (when I'm not in the process of pulling it all to bits, it is rather good)
PS I remember why I preferred the suade mix. It's less obvious. Paula packs her set out with big classic techno anthems, suade still uses a few, but nowhere near as many.
[Gratuitous Blashphemy], I really need to sort this mess out. Something a little more appealing than a OOB theme. That said, there's a lot of stuff I need to do. Like buy a new machine... ugg, who cares...
Remarc - Sound Murderer - Planet Mu
Amen, cut, spliced, stuttered, and shreddeded-ed. Old school junglist mayhem from the mid 90s. Fun fun fun. I'm sure some of this is essential, if you were there at the time. I wasn't, I was next door, in the techno room. Don't get me wrong, I like me drum and bass, (is one a subset of the other?) but I could never do a whole night of it. The steady whoomp-whoomp-whoomp-whoomp spoke to me on a number of levels. Jungle speaks to me, but on different ones, and not as many. Plus dancing to jungle was always a lot more work.
LFO - Sheath - Warp
Mark Bell picks up the LFO name. Harder than I expected (although not as hard as Speedy J), but that's a good thing. I dunno, time will tell with this one.
Suburban Knight - my sol dark direction - peacefrog
A mix of old and new stuff. Guess he's not been particularly prolific. Still, the classics (midnight sunshine, art of stalking, noctubuous behaviour) are fine, and the new stuffs not bad either.
Aaaaargh! Too many albums, too little time! What's making it worse is that it's getting easier and easier to acquire mixtapes, and those mixtapes are getting better and better. Currently I have about 14 hours of unlistened material in my winamp queue, having plowed through another 21 in the last couple of weeks. This is time that would previously gone 100% towards albums. Albums that, I should note, are piliing up on my desk. The RU 2 compilation, New York Noise, The Who at the Isle of Wight, Philip Glass - Solo Piano, half of Tackhead - Power Inc vols 1-3, Herbie Hancock, Ghostly International, compilations from Mosquito, and Quatermass, and that's just the stuff within reach. I know there's another couple of piles next to the decks.
I'm used to having a pile of books to be read, even having a couple of games, or a film awaiting my full attention, but music? Music used to be voraciously consumed. I'd get in the door, with a bag of wares, and wouldn't be away from the decks until every last thing had at least been tasted.
Ahh, that's it. My primary listening venue has shifted. It's now at work, with the headphones on, while doing something. Whereas it used to be, in the lounge, with a bunch of other music obsessives, all clamouring to hear everyones new grooves. Even if they made absolutely no sense to anyone.
Do you know what else? I'm not as adventurous in public as I used to be either. I remember and playing that 99 track Straight Up Detroit Shit compo, Panasonic, Plunderphonics, or some other weird shit, and at least getting a hearing (usually in exchange for more easy listening, noodly jungle, or whatever). ... Eh? Hmm, well that's because I no longer live in a shared house full of music lovers, but in a happy married flat with my wife, who knows what she likes, and I guess I should at least be thankfull that her tastes largely overlap with mine. Hmm... I wonder. No, actually, it's not just that, I'm not actually buying as much 'out-there' stuff as I used to either. Quite possibly because I'm having enough trouble drinking from the firehose as it is....
Mosquito Records - bite the sound that feeds you - Mosquito Records
Much better than I'd previously been led to believe. Still, I've seen Vogel mix, and he's funking brilliant, and I've heard some of his records, and they're a mess, but some of them are rather good too, and the same goes for a lot of his mates. So far, this is mostly good, and makes me want to go and rummage through the vinyl again (which is another minor rant in waiting).
Hmm. Y'know it's difficult to write about this stuff, knowing that's there more studied, and more professional writers out there, carefully recording, cataloguing, and generally documenting far more esoteric stuff with far more precision. Well, fuck it, this is what I like, and listen to, and seek to listen to more of, if you know what I mean.
PS This is rather good.
Yay, maybe some sort of return to normal service can be achieved! Expect the possibility of change, or not. Depends on whether I get lost in a game, or a book, or sleep... ah... sleep...
...because I'm hard at work on a behind-closed-doors demo for the Tokyo Game Show.
Also, because I guess I'm in the "gap" phase of a newly minted blog. Still uncertain what I'm doing here, but not quite out of steam yet.
Sherburne tears Petridis a new one.
