So apparently the new autechre album has already been leaked (or is it another fake?? who knows…), but I am refraining from listening until I have the CD (and digital) copy in my hands. It may still be 6 weeks away from an official release, but part of the anticipation of a new album from a well respected artist is waiting for the official thing in the post. I want to hear the proper quality audio as the artist intended, not some low quality ripped copy with tracks missing. Give them (and the label) a bit of respect!
Their previous album Quaristice was also leaked, as are many studio albums from artists these days as promo copies fall into the wrong hands. It is so easy to copy music in this digital age, which in my opinion has devalued the album release, which I guess is why a lot of music is released as “special editions” with extra tracks / packaging. The fans will always want the best version of something, even if they have already downloaded a leaked copyThe digital release date of Quaristice was brought forward due to a leak, so perhaps Oversteps will end up the same way.
Went for a nice walk today. Started at the site of the old Oswestry race course and followed some way markers through a couple of farm yards and across the hills to the west of Oswestry. Nearly walked into Wales by accident, probably a good thing we didn’t considering the rugby scoreline yesterday, huzzah! There were still patches of snow under some of the sheltered areas, and snowdrops were poking through in amongst the trees, which means Spring must be here at last.
Finally, here is a recent track I put up on Soundcloud. I am still very much experimenting with FL Studio, but I am hoping that I will get some more spare time over the coming few weeks to flesh out a few more ideas I have had. I was given the FL Studio Bible as a Christmas present and it is proving invaluable in getting the full functionality out of the thousands of parameters that you can tweak. it is evident from listening to this that I need to get to grips with mastering the levels, but I think I am slowly improving.
Warp recently announced that Autechre’s next studio album will be released in March, and such events are always highly anticipated / feared amongst the worldwide fan base of underground experimental / electronic music. It is to be called Oversteps (perhaps in response to the surge in popularity of dubstep?), and as always the speculation amongst fans is rife as to how it will sound.
A snowy january afternoon
This is the thing with autechre; you really cannot predict what the next track they release will sound like. They do not have a trademark sound like certain other producers, but they have a distinct style of production which cannot be replicated nor imitated although many have tried. From what little I know about how they produce their music, perhaps they do not even know how the next track will pan out.
This is what makes their music so appealing to me; plenty of creativity and neat ideas sprinkled with a healthy dose of chaos and alien sounds all makes for a challenging yet rewarding listening experience. And to most people I play a bit of Autechre to, it all sounds like a load of old rubbish. This suits me fine.
So I have the album pre-ordered (on CD and download, not opted for the vinyl copy yet…), and also today purchased my ticket for their live show in London on April 10th. Support and venue not announced yet, but it should be a good one.
[edit - a bit more waffle about autechre from me can be found here]
Missed the Elevator music launch party at fabric, but went last saturday instead for the Martyn “fabric 50” launch party which proved to be a rather good evening of music anyway. JB and Tom Green kicked things off in room 2 which a good selection of tech house and acidic techno, whilst over in the main room Kode9 and Martyn played a great blend of techno and dubstep which typifies Martyn’s trademark sound. Kode9 was the highlight of the evening, playing some tracks from his own Hyperdub label (grab this compilation, its very good) and got me dancing very hard. Not sure all of the usual saturday night fabric house/techno crew agreed with the dubstep, but I loved it… No photos im afraid; I was enjoying myself too much….
So anyway… Woooooo
Or, Wowee One to be precise. A fit in your pocket bass speaker that produces fantastic results. Simply stick it on a table (or glass produces good results) and the unit uses the medium to project the sound. Awesome. Really good quality sound, and it boasts a response range from 40 Hz to 20kHz so the bass is certainly clear enough for such a small unit. And it does work! Check out a nifty video here, and I will be taking this baby to festivals this summer with a piece of chipboard as my speaker…
So we had -23.3 degrees in the scottish highlands, and only -17.7 degrees in oxfordshire (RAF Benson), bu its been bloody cold. I love snow and ice! It cheeses me off somewhat how our country cannot cope though, and people panic buy bread and stuff.
Anyway… this little deep dubstep mix should warm things up a bit, courtesy of the awesome gatekeeper (of skull disco fame), a studio mix with MC Dread. Deeeeeeep, with heavy dub and even jungle vibes in there. The Tes La Roc track is hheaaavvvvyyyy….
1 ) One – Headhunter
2 ) Jellyfish – Headhunter & Gatekeeper
3 ) Launch – Bloodman
4 ) Blip – Gatekeeper
5 ) Atmosphere Processor – Gatekeeper
6 ) Love & Unity – RSD feat. Gaddiel
7 ) 1987 Bounce – Gemmy
8 ) Cabot Circus – Wedge
9 ) Gangstas – Tes La Rok
10 ) Which Way – Gatekeeper
11 ) Pathways – Version
12 ) Dope Fiend Lean – Jakes
13 ) S.F.W – Arkist
14 ) Process – Headhunter
15 ) Break You Down – Gatekeeper feat. Grilza & Dread MC
Download it here, and get those feet warmed up by wiggling your toes a bit.
Unfortunately didnt get to go clubbing over the Christmas / New Year break, and also didnt get a chance to play with FLStudio. Bums. Fingers crossed im heading for Fabriclive this friday for the Numbers party – big line-up!
Got the Hudson Mohawke album “Butter” from Santa, and its very cool. Might be a good live-show. With 2562, headhunter, joy orbison and untold in the back rooms, its another difficult night of choosing where to be.
However, I did download a fantastic set by Planet Mu artist Ikonika, which you can also download from here. Nothing really in the way of a tracklisting yet from the usual forums, but if I find one I will post it here. Its just a great live mix of bumpy funky bassy tunes. Nuff said.
It is nearly upon us once again, like the marauding seasonal monster that it is. Talk of snow for christmas is quite nice, but our countries inability to deal with such a torrent of evil weather is laughable and that fact that the AA have warned about dangerously low levels of salt (will they never learn to stockpile???) only adds to the seasonable silliness.
I am not entirely the biggest fan of X-Factor, so I am very much behind the “rage against the machine for Xmas number 1″ campaign. It is a good song, by a great rock band… and I will hopefully get to see them perform live one day. Its not entirely festive, but then neither are the continuous assault of bland X-factor covers which have given us the past 4 years of Xmas number ones in the UK. The point of getting such a powerful heavy rock track to number 1 in the charts proves a few things:
Social networking (and therefore the internet) is now a very powerful media. Even if 17 million people tune into the X-factor to see the final, that does not entitle it to a guaranteed chart smash and a randomly assembled group of music fans can change the fate of the chart.
Christmas has changed! Nobody is actually releasing a “christmas” song that is any good these days. Even if it is cheesy/catchy/ poppy, I have not heard any NEW christmas songs this year, and rather than re-hash the old ones it makes sense to get rage against the machine up there to kick start the new year.
There is a Shelter donation page set up by the facebook organisers, collecting money for the homeless for this wonderful charity. I do not see X-factor (and Mr. Cowell) attempting anything like this, so the Rage group get my vote (and also my donation). I see they are currently up to a very respectable £35,000… nice work! This is very much in the spirit of christmas and giving, even if the song is not in the least bit festive. For this reason alone I applaud the guys who have organised this thing.
May not be a true representation of Simon Cowells tan
So, fingers crossed that this thing can be pulled off… The X-factor winner this year is some guy called Joe and he is covering a track by Billy Ray Cyrus’ daughter. I dont wanna write any more about it, its out there if you want to hear it.
(Whichever track gets to number 1, Sony will be the winners…. they own the rights to both songs… fail…)
Line up looks pretty meaty. I am tempted! www.blocweekend.com. Could be a good viable alternative to Glade Festival, as i have been there 5 years in a row now….
Salt-n-Pepa LIVE
Grandmaster Flash
Adam Beyer
Skream B2B Benga
Roots Manuva LIVE
Derrick May
Anti-Pop Consortium LIVE
Ellen Alien feat. Pfadfinderei VJs
DJ Rush
Luke Slater aka Planetary Assault Systems LIVE
Lindstrom live
Surgeon A/V LIVE
Nathan Fake LIVE
Channel One Sound System feat. Mikey Dread and Ras Kayleb
Ms Dynamite
Wiley
Boy Better Know ft. Skepta, JME, Frisco, Shorty and DJ Maximum
Zinc
Geeneus
Marcus Nasty
Youngsta b2b Ntype
Chef
Katy B
Roska b2b Scratcha
Spyro
MCs Tippa and Crazy D
Autechre LIVE
Congo Natty aka Rebel MC feat. Tenor Fly
Luke Vibert
16:bit
Rob Hall
Loops Haunt LIVE
N>E>D vs Punksi
Mark Ernestus feat. Tikiman (Rhythm & Sound)
Joker
Kode 9
Pinch b2b Distance
T++ LIVE
Mary Anne Hobbs
Mungo’s Hifi feat. Soom T
Appleblim b2b Peverelist
Blazey
MCs Crazy D, SGT Pokes and Dread
Lee Curtiss
Geddes
DJ Hype & MC Daddy Earl
MJ Cole
The McMash Clan
Raffertie b2b Kanji Kinetic
Reso b2b Vent
AGT Rave Cru
Hosted by Bass 6
D:Bridge
Instra:mental
Breakage
SP:MC
Ben Pistor
Dan Beaumont
Damon Martin
Man Make Music
Joy Orbison
George Fitzgerald
MMM DJs
Fenchurch Dome
Billy Nasty
Radioactive Man LIVE
Debasser LIVE
Point B LIVE
Kelpe LIVE
Yimino LIVE
Michael Forshaw LIVE
Luke’s Anger LIVE
Ben Pest live
Al Tourettes LIVE
Subliminal Criminal LIVE
DJ Planet Mu
Lukid
RekOrdah
And also…
Alden Tyrell
DMX Krew new LIVE show
Neil Landstrumm LIVE
Jerome Hill
Bass Junkie B2B The Dexorcist
Noyeahno
Subeena
Lusinda
Girlcore feat. Isa GT & Naomi //
Joe Hart aka Mr. Bodyhammer
Placid
Hiphop Karaoke
Make Me DJs
Human Shield feat. Ali Renault, Casionova, Tommy Walker 3 & Peter
Mangalore
Dutty Girls
Rebel Intelligence
Firstly I must apologize as I present here my take on the “musical round-up of the year” blog posts of which there must surely be thousands of out there.
True, it is only November but I am also planning my review of the decade which might take me a while to process, and December is always full of cool stuff to do. [Note: For added variety, this post is interspersed with photos taken from a recent weekend spent in the wonderful city of Munich for a friends stag do. Nice clean place to hang out, loads of beer, pretty buildings and great weather]
It is quite impressive how over the last 12 months my musical tastes have altered quite drastically. I cannot ever see myself buying another global underground CD. This might be due to the decline in quality of their releases, but its more likely to do with my shift in tastes. As a nation, “traditional” house music has taken something of a back seat to the ever popular trend that is bass music™. Garage is making an underground return, funky bassline music is filling the airwaves of London, dubstep can pack super clubs like Matter and Fabric to capacity and even on Radio1 Annie Mac has stolen the coveted Friday 7pm slot from Pete Tong.
I am not entirely blaming the rise in sub-bass music to my change in tastes. The few house events I have been to this year have left me feeling completely underwhelmed in terms of musical output and atmosphere. A big example is Sasha & Digweed at Gods Kitchen back in May, although to be honest I could blame the atrociously tuned sound system at Air and the expectation of seeing 2 legends play together.
Music progresses; it always has. Quite rightly my attention for new and exciting sounds leads me further afield and out of the comfort zone of my select favourite few. Some music gets re-hashed to oblivion in the name of lining pockets and with blatant disregard for creative identity. The cream definitely gets skimmed from the top in the world where anyone can pick up a laptop and smash out a potential club hit.
So enough rambling, here be my first batch of favourite musical moments from 2009. Be they physical CD releases, net-label downloads, club nights or festival moments. In no particular order…..
Both the album (available here) and the awe inspiring live shows (Glade Festival in July for me) cemented this modeselektor / apparat collaboration as a defining moment of 2009. It sounds like nothing that came before it, yet captures the individual brilliance of the producers behind the work. Tracks like “a new error” and “les grandes marches” sound amazing at home, yet completely destroyed my mind when played live over a funktion 1 soundsystem in the 3000 capacity bloc tent at glade. Hats off to all involved, and in a selfish way im very glad I got to see the live show before they disbanded.
If you can still get hold of it, buy the limited edition version of the album which includes the destructive track “beatswaysick” and a DVD of the films used throughout their live stage show. Mesmerising.
Venetian Snares – “Filth” [April 2009] – Planet Mu ZIQ222CD
Filth is the album where Mr. Snares pulled acid techno into his twisted world of breakcore and made it beg for mercy. The man has released shitloads of music over the past decade (mostly on the ever brilliant Planet Mu record label) and I am scared to delve too deep in case it rots my mind. “Filth” is a firing sonic assault on my car speakers and makes my friends want to disown me. The Planet Mu event at Corsica Studios (small UK venue of the year according to DJMag, and I agree with them on this) was full of cutting edge artists and Snares was the highlight. He turned room 1 into a heaving mosh pit of sweaty ravers, firing scattered drum rolls and acidic bass notes through the bass bins. Someone had been sick all over the floor and people continued to flail around uncontrollably to his music. I was also at his BangFace Weekender gig – another chaotic example of the carnage the man can create on the dancefloor. Here is a clip of the show.. i dont remember much…
The art of producing a finely crafted DJ mix has in my opinion declined over the past few years. Gone are the days of Global Underground’s dominance of releasing a showcase dj/city mix that every house music fan must own; in fact the days of purchasing mix CDs are in decline thanks largely to the advent of downloadable “promo” mixes and live sets from your favourite disc jocks.
This is probably the only “timeless” mix CD I purchased in 2009, and is a testament to the genius of Joris Voorn and also the continued high standards required by EQ of their chosen artists. This is not a traditional dj mix with a couple of turntables, this is a masterpiece of 100+ tracks that have been ripped apart and layered together using Ableton Live, in the style of Richie Hawtin’s inspiring DE9 mixes.
CD1 is my favourite of the two, which runs from its minimal techno introduction to the inclusion of melodic elements and club bangers like Dubfire’s “Ribcage” and System 7’s “Altitude”. The mix is damn near faultless, and certainly does not sound like 51 different tracks – the amount of time and effort that must have gone into producing these is evident from the moment you press play. The inclusion of the introduction to Goldie’s “Timeless” near the end of the mix is a sign that Joris knows he is on to a winner – and clinched it for me. Go and buy this if you have not done so already.
A hectic couple of weeks here in Roo towers. I have been busy at work (recession? what recession?) and a lot of my spare time has been taken up with decorating my palace.
There has been plenty of new music to listen too lately though, most notably the November 2009 promo mix from Jimmy Van M, a well established progressive house dj once nurtured by Sasha & Digweed but now quite rightly a force of his own.
01. Antix – The Hoard (Parts 1 & 2) – Iboga Records
02. Dousk – Keep Your Nose – (Ramiro Puente & Karlos Remix) – Vapour Records
03. Pentatonik – Movements- (Dimitri Nako Remix) – Flat Belly Recordings
04. Mauro Picotto – Love Message (Ramon Tapia First Message Mix) – Alchemy Records
05. Slam – Variance – Paragraph
06. Nhar – Derecto – (Kouala Remix) – Promo
07. Antix – The Hoard (Dousk Remix) – Iboga Records
08. Fiord – Zephyr (Fergie Remix) – Sprout Records
09. Quivver – Rustle Dust – Boz Boz
10. Antix – Box Of Birds – (Erphun Let The Birds Free Remix) – Iboga Digital
The mix can be downloaded from here. I have not followed progressive house for some time; the scene seemed to become quite stagnant to me for a couple of years and the exciting new genre of dubstep took my attention. This mix from jVm however is full of tension and energy, a peak time banger of a set that would sound amazing in a club. Its interesting to see tracks by Antix and Fiord in there, progressive / psychedelic artists from New Zealand, who I saw at Glade festival last year. Hah! and also Fergie.. once UK Hard House guru, now his music is lost somewhere amongst minimal techno and house and I cant recall seeing him on many club listings lately.
So other new music that has taken my fancy lately….
Will Saul has produced a very tasty Balance CD which is a fine addition to the series. I should point out actually that I didnt think much of Jimmy Van M’s take on the series a few years ago, but thats another story. Will’s mix features a great blend of house, funk, soul, dubstep and techno across 3 CDs and its good to see a grass roots english DJ getting involved in such a high profile mix series.
Back to glossing the doors I suppose… I might get a chance to tinker with fruityloops again soon if im lucky….
Strangely, Autumn is clinging on and winter doesn’t seem to have got out of bed yet. Never mind; it means I don’t have to turn the heating on yet and I quite like the relatively warm days.
I am continuing to tinker with FL studio in my (precious) spare time; tonight I created an ambient soundscape entitled “Joph”. It reminds me of something Aphex Twin might have once included on his selected ambient works 2 album, and if you familiar with that works you might agree that this is a good thing.
I chose Joph as it is a soft, ambiguous sound, much like the track which meanders along and never really hits a defined conclusion. It does however conjure up images of slight tension
As always, please let me know what you think.
