Been neglecting this blog slightly for the past few weeks, but with more than good reason. At the moment most of my time and energy has been flowing in to the collective blog / magazine I’m also part of; Bass Ache, which I’ve mentioned before.
We’re making steady progress and seem to be garnering a fair bit of respect from various places, DJs, magazines, blogs, have got a decent night on the go as well @ Suju in Swindon. Website is looking great and the podcast is running now.
So if you’ve ever wondering what else I’m up to, that is definitely the first place to look…
The BBC Trust has rejected the BBC’s plans to close the digital radio station 6 Music.
In his initial response to the BBC strategy review, BBC Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons said that the case for the closure of 6 Music had not been made.
He said the Trust – which represents the interests of licence fee payers – would consider closing 6 Music only as part of a wider strategy on the future of digital radio.
But the Trust accepted plans to close the Asian Network, cut 25% of the online budget and close teen service Blast!
To be honest, I’m surprised they even proposed to close it anyway, as I’m sure it has a listener base that rivals 1xtra, and there was never any mention of closure of that?
Both should stay anyway, wicked stations.
Coupled with Rinse going legal last month it seems to be an exciting time for radio…
Got into this yesterday because I am forever coming across news stories, blogs posts, web pages etc I think are interesting, but don’t have time to read them and then forget about them by the time I do…
Just sign up, add the bookmark to your toolbar and then when you’re on a web page you click it and it saves the link to your account for reading later, like a little digital notebook.
Obviously you could use favourites, but I see about 20 things a day I want to read later so it gets a bit much.
I should also mention We Heart It, which does exactly the same thing but for images.
Both are great if, like me you are inspired by everything but can never remember anything.
I only got tipped off on Little Dragon a couple of months ago, not really sure how I missed them to be honest, but I haven’t been able to stop listening to them since, My Step is rapidly becoming one of my favourite tunes of the year I think… ‘tropical times, mmmm‘
Second favourite tune though has to be Never Never, so I’ve been salivating with anticipation ever since I heard SBTRKT had given it a going over, and my god does it not disappoint. Tredding along nicely with sweet homage to the original’s atmospheric synth lead and vocals before tredding into now almost sealed SBTRKT territories of bouncing basslines with funky / two step drums, tune is heavy. On fi dem gyal pon floor.
Can the man do no wrong? Well actually, no… because not content with selling tunes left, right and centre he’s now resorted to giving them away!
This one popped up on his Twitter last night, and is definitely not to be snubbed. A bit housier than the usual offerings but still the same vibe we’ve come to expect…
Definitely one for the late nights / early doors, can’t wait to drop both of these, believe me.
Just a quick post to say that after much deliberation about lost usernames and locked accounts I have finally signed up to Twitter, which means yet more of my life published on the internet and less time actually living it.
When I first read the pervertedly emphatic review of the new Actress LP on Boomkat I couldn’t help but smirk discreetly, wondering if the reviewer had just ingested a concentrated drop of acid and had somehow embedded themselves inside the music itself, which had in turn warped their entire perception into a world they may never be able to truly comprehend…
“…Showing a teflon resistance towards easy categorisation, ‘Get Ohn (Fairlight Mix)’ swerves down a side street into a footwurkin’ face-off by cyborgs sliding to a mutilated mix of Jon E Cash and Chez Damier played underwater. Next we hit the erogenous interzone of ‘Maze’ and that incapacitatingly lush bassline designed to lock into your central nervous system and send shockwaves of piloerection to every f*cking corner of your soul. After that, we’re cynically dumped, cold post-sex style into the Ferraro-esque Prince tribute ‘Purple Splazsh’, and on into the Detroit ghetto stalk of ‘Let’s Fly’…”
But after listening to it pretty much non stop for the past month it’s fairly easy to see where what they are suggesting, as I think this is in firm contention for my favourite album of the year so far.
Entering with the Orb like tones of Hubble, which despite it only being half as long at a mere 9 minutes you can’t help but draw comparison to ‘A Huge Ever Growing Brain…’ as it strolls through a repetitively hypnotic ambient rhythm which teases with vocal snippets and gravelly percussion…
His remix of Various Production‘s Lost is the next track, which for me is where it really gets started, introduced with a simple house groove and distorted bass that trickles into a deep melodic affair with a breakdown to die for around 2/3 of the way in before dropping back in to fuzzy house overlayed with fragmented vocals.
The real treat for me on this LP though is the filtered house cut of Always Human which sounds like the end product of a late night meeting between Jackson and Jamie Jones with it’s deep summery house feeling and chopped vocals, definitely one for the day parties
By no means is the rest of the album to be shirked on though, especially the romantic robot song Maze and the housier Senorita, basically not one track falters. After listening to those you can probably see why I’m touting it so highly, alongside that Boomkat review. Definitely one for the purchase.
Favourite album of the year? It could well be…
I always had a feeling that Pattern was going to be a fairly decent label out of the blocks, solely based on the fact that it’s an offshoot of Ramp, who just happen to have put out some of the most exciting records of the last year or two from the likes of SBTRKT, Zomby, FaltyDL, Shortstuff and the amazing Hot City Bass with Sweat (below) on the flip…
Far as I know, Pattern is going to be on a more house and funky tip and the first two releases are absolute gold. PTN001 is Doc Daneeka‘s Deadly Rhythm EP featuring the more than aptly named BumbleBeeRiddim, that I just can’t stop playing…
I should add that I keep hearing new stuff from Doc Daneeka and getting over excited at the groove and bass at what seems to be at a rate of about three tunes a week, this guy knows how to write tunes like most people could only dream, just pay attention to the drums on that tune above to get where I’m coming from. Well worth watching for big things.
Anyway, I thought little else of it until I checked out the new Hackman EP released this week and, wow. The title track More Than Ever rolls along discreetly with a steady house beat and swung garage percussion, but when that bassline kicks in the tune is just something else. Can’t find a clip to embed anywhere right now which is er, a bit shit, but you can check it out on Hackman’s SoundCloud till I find a clip anyway. The other three tunes are far from shabby either, especially feeling the slung out grooves of Dusk, can see this one doing damage in dem dancehall.
Pretty excited to see what tricks Ramp / Pattern have got up their sleeves next. Supposedly the next Ramp is the SBTRKT & Sampha EP this month, but it’s been put back so many times I’m beginning to wonder shall it ever see the light of day, alas I can dream…
Every now and again you see someone giving way something genuinely spectacular on the internet, for free. Bobby Soloman of Kitsune Noir is just one of these people, and being a bit of a fiend for beautiful art & design, I couldn’t help but be impressed when I stumbled over his desktop wallpaper project…
“First and foremost I decided that I wanted this project to be something that was free. Well, free doesn’t leave a whole lot of options that don’t include me going into debt, so I had to be creative. What I decided to do was start a project based off the of the Radiohead desktop wallpapers I created last year in honor of In Rainbows coming out. But this time around, I decided to write all of my favorite artists and designers, many of which you’ve seen featured on this blog, and see if they’d contribute a wallpaper. As it turns out, my favorite artists and designers happen to be some of the nicest people out there, and so many of them were more than happy to help and be a part of this project, which I’ve called The Desktop Wallpaper Project”
There’s well over 25 pages with four or five wallpapers on each, so there’s plenty to get through and more than enough to fit most people’s tastes. I suppose there isn’t much more you can write about desktop wallpapers other than to say these truly are enthralling illustrations.
Should’ve posted this earlier to give more of a heads up, but I’m pretty damn excited about Bass Ache tomorrow night.
Line up is just the Bass Ache crew this time around, so it should be party effect in full swing for sure…
Main Room: Deep/Funky/Bass/House
Alex Golesworthy
Jung
Pinot & Huw
Carlos & Alexi
If I were to write about Girl Unit without posting a link to IRL and saying massive rave anthem, then it would probably seem like I had been in my Dad’s basement for the past 24 years…
Listening to tunes like this alongside Headhunter’s Addison Groove stuff, it seems to me like juke is going to big things this summer, if you don’t know what I mean check out Footcrab, listen to the 808 groove and then get silly…
Got a feeling it will be one of those things people slate for the first month or so, then everyone goes mental to the drumsonce they hear it on a big system.
So Girl Unit anyway, felt like I needed to post up this brilliant mix I stumbled across on Bruk Magazine and haven’t stopped listening to since.
It rolls perfectly through everything from house to grime, juke and some ghettotech near the end, and is well sticking on the iPod. Please pay close attention to Temple Keys right at the start, huge tune!
Been neglecting this blog slightly for the past few weeks, but with more than good reason. At the moment most of my time and energy has been flowing in to the collective blog / magazine I’m also part of; Bass Ache, which I’ve mentioned before.
