A similar selection to last week's breaks, electro, and techno, though this
time at 130. I pulled a bunch of old vinyl (and vinyl recordings) for this
mix, longtime favorites.
Right-click save-as here or on the spectrogram above to download
this mix. This mix is also available at mixcloud.
The second release highlight is the 2x12" EP Just Get On Down by
Intelligent Concept, released in 1998 on Germany's Over-X-Posure
records. I love this record and have played it at the arcade for years,
all four tracks on it are great. The tough 303-driven Bass Mechanic
is the pick for this mix, the last track on the EP. I've been meaning
to write an article about Just Get On Down; maybe I'll get to that soon.
The two Ilian Tape tracks (by Skee Mask and Stenny)
are particularly interesting to me. I just picked those up a few days
ago after spending an afternoon going through Ilian Tape's catalog
on bandcamp. Their fusion of breaks and techno remind me a lot of an
old Go Hiyama track, World Game. An industrial, noisy,
rattling kind of techno-breaks. Love & highly recommend those
ISS Skee Mask releases and that Stenny EP.
Aside from that and the brief diversion into UK Garage (THX Assassin,
Headtop's Matrix) this is a pretty normal selection. Metroneem's
Skip Code EP on Satamile Records NYC seems a bit overlooked
to me, it's a really good break-y electro record, so be sure to check that
one out too.
I think I'll follow my usual pattern this month of getting slower
week-to-week, so next episode will be say ~128 or so. I've been
holding on to some tunes to play around there. I'll be back with that
on Thursday the 8th.
A 90 and 100 BPM grab-bag of downtempo, electro, IDM, instrumental hiphop,
old tracker modules, and other stuff I've been listening to this week. This
mix features a couple recent purchases (Pete Rock's Petestrumentals and
Paul Blackford's Betamax) and a couple tracks from an old favorite of mine,
Red Snapper's Our Aim Is To Satisfy Red Snapper.
Right-click save-as here or on the spectrogram above to download
this mix. This mix is also available at mixcloud.
Just a couple of programming notes this week, first is that track 2 the
Fila Brazillia mix of Freedom is played here from the original
Refried Food CD; that remix is available online now from Fila
Brazillia's bandcamp on a compilation called Remixes 95-99. A version
of Refried Food itself (though without this version of Freedom) is
available at DJ Food's bandcamp page. Refried Food is a classic, of
course, and that Fila Brazillia remix collection looks pretty good too.
I think I picked up Our Aim Is To Satisfy Red Snapper shortly
after it was first released, an impulse buy at the record store.
The copy played in this hour is the US version on Matador Records,
OLE 416-1. Keeping Pigs Together, Don't Go Nowhere, Bussing,
and the whole D side (Alaska Street, Belladonna, and They're Hanging
Me Tonight) are the reason I love this record. All instrumentals,
sometimes chunky, sometimes light, sometimes quick, sometimes not.
Check it out if you're a fan of late '90s early 2000s acid jazz
and triphop.
I'm writing a bit late so the notes are short this week. One last
recommendation, be sure to check out Paul Blackford's excellent
Betamax on CPU Records. Just picked that up yesterday and have
been loving it.
Anyway, I'll be back next week (uh-oh, Thursday April 1st) with an
electro set. Something fast, energetic.
Chill ambient and dub techno for a rainy afternoon. Slow(ish),
105-115. A couple tracks from Deepindub, a couple from
Dewtone Recordings, a couple from Recycled Plastics, an old
ambient tune by Coldcut, and more.
Right-click save-as here or on the spectrogram above to download
this mix. This mix is also available at mixcloud.
The Giant Returns by Dcast Dynamics is from their 2008 EP of
the same name, one of the few Frustrated Funk pieces I have on vinyl.
It's a very spaced out dubby electro EP, similar in some ways to
Dcast's (Gosub's) earlier Low Volume Lovers EP, although slower.
Be sure to check that one out if you haven't heard it before, it's really
good.
That's all I've got today. There's a little sketchy beatmatching in here
and my levels are wonky as usual; hope nobody minds too much. I'll
be back next week (Thursday 25th) with something slower and chunkier.
80/90 BPM downtempo and IDM, something like that.
Techno and dub techno for this second week of March. 120 BPM head-nodding
music. Features a couple tracks from Deepindub, a couple from
Motorlab, and a couple recent purchases from 200 Records.
Right-click save-as here or on the spectrogram above to download
this mix. This mix is also available at mixcloud.
Track 6 Grotesque by Zzzzra and track 7 Unknown II by Organon
are both from the (now-inactive?) dub techno netlabel Deepindub.
There's a lot of good dub techno on Deepindub, some of which I picked
up a few years ago (and am still going through even now). I'll probably
be playing more from them next week. (One of these days I'll have to
read through their blog).
That's a Moby remix of Brian Eno's Fractal Zoom, the
Naive Mix II. I don't know much about Moby's music from this
time period; I've heard he put out more ambient slash techno music
like this (maybe on his album Ambient). In any case this
remix is fantastic. The copy played here is from the CD single; I
believe it was also available on the 12".
I'm pretty happy with this. Some of these combinations are a stretch (I don't
have much techno and dub techno to work with) but it mostly sounds OK.
Good enough for me. I think I'll continue the four-on-the-floor trend
one more week, so check back on the 18th for more like this, but slower.
The first two tracks in this mix are from grad_u's Greyscale label,
part of the Scale Limited group. I picked up a couple of Greyscale
releases a few days ago as my dub techno purchase this year. Ke Thu's
quick ambient techno track is from their distant, thoughtful
Formed Together EP. The second track is from Ohrwert's
Fidelis, Blavus EP, a more accessible and traditional dub techno cut,
here inelegantly combined with Axs's Milieu Interieur from
their Rosewood Secrets album. I like the deeper and dub-ier selections
on Grey- and Redscale and will be paying closer attention to them.
Track 12 Broken Axis (A. Trebor Remix) by Sone and track 16
Shaping Shadows by JX-216 are both from the excellent Seattle
techno label From 0-1. Shaping Shadows is from a particularly
good release, the Life Under Lockdown EP, four tracks of (I
believe I'm using this term correctly) wicked techno. Check out
that EP for the serious business.
Putting Legowelt's Side by Side We Ride... into Shaping Shadows
doesn't really work, but I wanted to hear it. (And maybe I wanted to say
the title out loud too).
This was super fun to mix even if the end result doesn't hold together very
well. Levels are a bit different this time too; this was recorded with
a new audio interface. Anyway, I'll be back next week with more dub
techno and other four-on-the-floor stuff, uploaded at my usual time,
Thursday evening.
