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…

From BBC News:

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…

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.

“…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…

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…

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

Lounge: Smooth Grooves
The Chief

11pm-6am

facebook.com/event.php?eid=120440954635294

Also need to mention how I literally can not wait for this SBTRKT & Sampha tune to drop, taking tooooo long, but the bassline is amazing…

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!

brukmagazine.wordpress.com/u-no-its-tru

1. GIRL UNIT – Temple Keys
2. Hardrive ft. Lynae – Never Forget When You Touch Me (Dubbel Dutch edit)
3. DJ Sdunkero – Choosing Love
4. Ikonika – Dckhdbtch
5. NGUZUNGUZU – Got U
6. Sekta ft. Spoek Mathambo – Peter Pan (Dubbel Dutch remix inst.)
7. Roulet – Kitamanda (GIRL UNIT remix)
8. Rishi Romero – African Forest
9. Marcus Price – Var E Naaken (Bok Bok remix)
10. Jay R. Revlon – The Godzilla Ha
11. Jam City – A/Arpjam
12. DJ Assault – Vandalism
13. K.G. – 808
14. GIRL UNIT – IRL
15. Jagged Edge ft. Trina & Gucci Mane – Tip Of My Tongue (Inst.)
16. GIRL UNIT – WUT
17. Terror Danjah ft. Swindle – Kiss Chase (Inst.)
18. Justin Timberlake – My Love (Inst.)
19. Asia Cruise – Boyfriend
20. Mike V. – Feelings
21. Leatherface – Requiem
22. DJ Solo – Juk3-tron
23. DJ Nehpets – GJM Trax 2
24. J.O.H – Goom
25. Kingdom – RedBaron Juke
26. Aaron-Carl – For The Money
27. DJ Spinn – Breezy
28. DJ Assault – Sometimes (Inst.)
29. Mister Ries – Sugar (Kill Frenzy remix)
30. DJ Rashad ft. DJ Gant-Man – U See Dem Hoes ’09
31. DJ Deeon – I Hope Its U (Juke Mix)

…but the new remix of Bonobo is just something else entirely, don’t really know how to describe it but every time I listen to it it sends me in to a daze, so anthemic yet mellow. It’s like hands in the air chillout, wait for the drop at 1:58!

More people need to be making music like this, proper feel good music with a dash of cool.

Anyway, literally no idea who Sbtrkt is, but considering the relatively impressive amount of coverage he’s getting already, (Benji B is all over him, and he recently played Get Familiar @ Fabric) then I reckon it has got to be an alias of an already established artist, although I could be wrong and he’s just got lucky…

Yea check it out if you want a taste of some lush house and funky, the Jack Penate mix is insane good.
Very big things for Sbtrkt this year hopefully.

Sbtrkt – Fact Mix 66

01: FaltyDL – To London
02: Dimlite – Aurora Stay Close
03: F – Epilogue (Ramadanman Rerub)
04: Karizma – Necessary Madness
05: 2000 and One – Funk That
06: Nepa Allstars – The Way (Sbtrkt edit)
07: Jack Penate – Be The One (Sbtrkt remix)
08: Sbtrkt – Outbound
09: Menta – Sound Of Da Future
10: Sully – Duke St Dub
11: Goldie – Inner City Life (Sbtrkt edit)
12: Sbtrkt – Crashed Out
13: Silkie – Spark
14: Sampha – Summer
15: Little Dragon – Runabout
16: El-B – Express
17: Sbtrkt – Laika
18: Pangaea – Router
19: Ragga Twins – Spliffhead (Ramadanman refix)
20: RSD – Forward Youth
21: Sbtrkt – Soundboy shift
22: Outro

“hello. my name is rick, and i’m a friend/acquaintance of mr james fox. somewhere below this text you will be able to find and (presumably) ‘download’ his latest ‘mixtape’.
you will no doubt be delighted to know that i have done the hard work and listened to it already, my thought process being that if it was awful i could give you fine people plenty of warning to avoid it like the disgusting swine flu james himself is currently infested with. thankfully the ‘mix’ is not unlistenable, turgid dross, it is in fact an immaculately assembled voyage through the creative cranium of someone who probably has much better taste in music than you.
marvel as he gently squeezes your soft, moisturised hand and leads you through the twin peaks-inspired synth-heavy genius of instra:mental’s ‘futurist’, then on to the giddy chunk of swag’s classic ‘them drums’ before promptly and carefully tossing you to the proverbial lion that is zed bias’ epic saving of premium rate, blow job-haired prodigy hanger-on maxim’s frankly dreadful ‘scheming’. and all this before he’s so much as suggested a brief soujourn into the thunderdome of low-end pressure that is the ‘brilliantly-titled’ uk funky genre, squashing roska and rye rye together like a particularly delicious, particularly urban cake mix, then switching things up once more through the undiluted next level brilliance of musical oddball siriusmo, moniker supremo julio bashmore and all-round many-styles kings baobinga & id.
all that wordy toss aside, the glory of sir fox’s latest mix is thus: by day he may be an ambling, mild-mannered picture of northern gentility, but by night he mutates into a slathering, genre-devouring, still-ambling beast with a ‘mixtape’ that puts most every other offering i’ve heard all year to shame with it’s structure, focus and overall deluge of class. so please, download this mix – james doesn’t have long to live.”

Literally couldn’t have said it better myself. Download it instantly, if anything perhaps try and find a time machine and listen to it yesterday just so by today you could have listened to it five times rather than one.

Download Here

Running time 00:52:45

01: Instra:mental – Futurist [Naked Lunch]
02: Jason Fine – Puttin’ It Out (A Made Up Sound Remix) [Kontra Musik]
03: Shed – Another Wedged Chicken (Martyn Remix) [Ostgut]
04: Swag – Them Drums [Version]
05: Nova Lima – Yo Voy (Seiji Remix) [CDR]
06: Maxim – Scheming (Zed Bias Remix) [XL]
07: Karizma – Groove A Kordingly [r2]
08: NB Funky – Riddim Box [Urban Riddims]
09: Roska – Feeline VIP [Roska Kicks & Snares]
10: Blaqstarr – Shake It To The Ground (Acapella) [Mad Decent]
11: Modeselektor – Silikon (Sirius Mo Remix / James Fox Re-edit) [Bpitch Control]
12: Julio Bashmore – Um Bongo’s Revenge [CDR]
13: Bassbin Twins – 80808 Dub [distinctive]
14: Hot City – Setting Me Free [Infrasonics]
15: Jan Driver – Rat Alert (Dub) [Made To Play]
16: Ursula 1000 – iLove (Baobinga & ID Remix) [CDR]
17: Stacy Epps – Floatin’ [Brownswood]

For those of you who felt the wholesomeness of that mix, and need another fix of James’ pink salty crack, his most recent Problems Solve Themselves EP is out now on mmii records

Probably for the best if I stop writing now and let the music do the talking really, so check out the mixes here…

3024world.blogspot.com/2009/05/at-least-one-post-in-may.html

Secondly is a wicked half step Drum & Bass recording of dBridge @ FWD>> in April.
Doesn’t sound that exciting when you describe it, so I’m just not really going to try. But when I listen to it, it just sounds like future music (cliché).
If the Doc drove past you in the Delorean after just visiting Fopp in 2015, this is probably what would be playing pon dem stereo…

dBridge Live @ FWD>>

Download Here

Running time 01:17:57

01: Petter – Left Turned [Border Community]
02: Loco Dice – El Gallo Negro [Ovum]
03: James Fox – Zilch (Demo Version) [Unreleased]
04: Joakim – Come Into My Kitchen (Basement Dub) [Versatile]
05: Switch – Get On Downz [Freerange]
06: Lee Burridge & Andy Page – Do You Smoke Pot [Almost Anonymous]
07: Petter – Robotfood [Border Community]
08: Cagedbaby – Forced (Idiotproof Mix) [Southern Fried]
09: Funkagenda – What The F*ck [Toolroom]
10: Laidback Luke & A-Trak – Shake It Down [Fool's Gold]
11: Thomas Schumacher – Picanha [Get Digital]
12: Dylan Rhymes – I Am Sweet (Tom Real Mix) [Lot49]
13: Popof – The Chomper (LSD Version) [Turbo]
14: Radiohead – Everything In Its Right Place (Andi Müller Mix) [Unreleased]

Everyone should also go and check out James Fox. He’s been getting support from Laurent Garnier for his upcoming EP on mmii, and biased as I may be, I predict he’s going to have a very very good year.

facebook.com/event.php?eid=74172563393

They’ve also got a pretty decent blog on the go over at bassache.blogspot.com with some nice links to some exceptional tunes, well worth checking out. Mad respect

Eclectric Podcast

Excellent mixes from residents such as the ever lovable TJ Hertz and eLDOKO, as well guests including a couple from yours truly.

Get hold of it in iTunes here, or just the regular RSS feed here

Oh yea and they’ve got Diplo & Boy8bit @ The Cellar, Oxford on 14th May, definitely worth checking out if you’re around that way.

PS: Does anyone know a WordPress / php expert? I am having a bit of trouble with the menu highlights at the top of the page showing the wrong highlight when a page is selected. Drop me an email if you have got half a clue more than my none. Thanks

A small slice of the future lies in the palm of Richie Hawtin’s hand. “This will be to dance music what guitars were to rock ‘n’ roll,” he says triumphantly, his eyes blazing with excitement as he offers up a sleek black gadget for closer inspection. This hand-held device, he explains, is basically the iPod of the turntable world, squeezing all the capabilities of a set of decks and a mixer into a device not much larger than a remote control. He discovered the Pacemaker, made by Swedish company Tonium, with his father and fellow geek outside Barcelona’s Sonar festival in June of this year. “I saw a huge growd gathered around a girl DJing with this small black device,” he says. “It was a huge moment.”

It is moments and discoveries like this that make Richie Hawtin’s life complete. Ever since he heard the alien sounds of Jeff Mills’ prototype electronic music show on Detroit radio as a teenager in the 1980s, techno’s reigning innovator has been captivated by the future. Since his early days DJing as a teenager with a makeshift delay effect at Detroit club Shelter, Richie has strived to push the boundaries of electronic music. His “˜Dex, Fx & 909’ tours of the early 1990s (captured on one of the first Mixmag covermount CDs) advanced the idea of what a DJ could do beyond just mixing one record into another. Records like his groundbreaking “˜Spastik’ spearheaded mutant strains of techno that have come full circle to influence today’s thriving techno scene. From his new home of Berlin his Minus record label is unwaveringly dedicated to discovering new ways of creating dance music, and his “˜DE 9 Transitions’ CD rewired the way DJs approach mix CDs (instead of a sequence of tracks Richie spliced his favourite records into individual slivers and reassembled them as one whole new piece of music using revolutionary DJ/production software Ableton Live).

Hawtin’s fascination with new technologies and ways of thinking about club music has earned him a reputation as dance music’s authority on the future, not to mention work as a consultant for pioneering companies like Beatport and Allen & Heath. He can thank his lifestyle as a globe-trotting DJ for granting him a unique perspective on the world. In the past two weeks he’s been to LA, New York, Windsor in Canada, back to Germany and on to London, Tokyo, then Mount Fuji, on to Saporo and back to Tokyo, before flying to Ibiza. He’s been in this constant flux of time-zones and jet lag for almost 17 years. “I distinctly remember a conversation I had with Jeff Mills a few years back about being futurists,” he says. “Not only because we tried to make futuristic music, but because we were living 20 years ahead of the mass population. Travel doesn’t mean anything to us; skipping over to Tokyo and back to New York in twenty-four hours is part of our routine.

Today, firing off a volley of texts from his smartphone at the end of the Ibiza season, Richie Hawtin is as alive as he’s ever been. A blonde mop of hair makes him look far younger than his 37 years. In three days’ time he’ll host his Minus party at futuristic superclub Amnesia. It’s one of the most hotly anticipated dates on the techno calendar and a taster for what’s to come in electronic music “” perfect timing, then, to pick the brains of one of dance music’s fastest imaginations on the future of club culture.

So why do you keep coming back to the future?
Because I don’t want to get old. I want to feel young and connected to the pulse of life. To me, life is an ever- changing, evolving world of travelling, meeting new people and searching for something new or exciting or better. Plus I get bored very easily.

What’s next for clubs?
I’ve been reading a lot about ‘tele-presence’ a £500,000 communication systems designed for the world of corporate America. You sit around half of a circular desk looking at screens showing a group of people on the other side of the world sitting around a similar-looking, other half of a circular desk. Imagine that in a club. To have two rooms, one Womb in Tokyo and the other Womb in London, and a dividing wall that would be a mirror image of the other city. Or imagine if you build a new club and the interior surfaces of that room are made from projections or high resolution displays, so that it can be a black club or it can be anywhere or anything. It could start to become a pseudo-holodeck, like in Star Trek. The technology is already there. Daft Punk’s LED light pyramid is an example of an object built out of a high resolution display whose images can be manipulated to move with the music.

The world is changing incredibly fast. Is it a good or a bad thing?
I have this overwhelming optimism that technology will save the day. My friends are from all over the world. Older people, especially parents, can’t understand how I can have friends like that ““ but physical presence doesn’t make connections between people any more. It solidifies a connection, but you don’t need it to maintain that connection. Social networking technology allows me to feel that I’m connected to my friends when I’m not physically present. Now, the scariest thing for me is that when I get old I won’t be able to travel so much and maintain these connections that I’ve made by travelling physically. But I’m optimistic that there’ll be a new way of connecting when I get to that point in my life. And I hope another advance will come when I really need it: a set of bionic ears!

How has technology changed your life as a DJ since you began playing?
A DJ’s life has changed more than that of any other performer. We’re touring all the time and this lifestyle has only become possible in the last 15 years because of advancements in technology. When I first started playing, we did everything by fax. Travelling was a very lonely experience. Now in airports I have Bluetooth connectivity with my computer so that even when I’m in a taxi I’m ichatting to my mum, dad or brother or sending a file or an email. No matter where I travel, I’m still connected to my world.

It must be weird constantly moving between time zones. Do you ever wake up disorientated, not knowing where you are?
I get disorientated when I’m in one place for too long. If I’m home for two weeks I get this strange, off-balance feeling that everything should change.

Thanks to low-cost airlines the ravers must be catching up!

Definitely. You’re now experiencing what we’ve been doing for 15 years. The advent of low-cost airlines, the creation of the EU and the Euro ““ all these things have made clubland explode again. Quite often these days I’ll do a series of gigs in different countries and see the same people at each one. Now it’s cheaper to go to Berlin for a night without a hotel than it is to travel nationally and drink beer all night. And thanks to social networking there’s more connectivity between people. They’re more open to different ideas, and that’s opening up new musical and artistic ways of thinking.

You’re one of the first DJs to actually do something about global warming. When did the threat start to hit home?
DJs are racking up more air miles than any other musicans. I started looking out at these beautiful sunsets while taking off from São Paolo or wherever, and thinking, “˜This is amazing, but is my enjoyment of this moment going to take away this possible moment for my son?’

So how are you making a difference?
The first idea was offsetting my carbon footprint. It was easy to calculate how many miles I was flying and by extension how much CO₂ I was putting into the atmosphere. We found a carbon offsetting company based in Berlin who calculate how much carbon you produce by flying or driving, and from whom you can buy an offset. The money then goes to environmentally conscious projects around the world. DJs make good livings, and if we can’t put a little bit of that back then perhaps we don’t deserve to live the lavish lifestyles that some of us enjoy.

But will it really help?
A colleague of mine argued that it’s not going to make a difference, so why bother? That’s fucking bullshit. The worst thing that could happen is that OK, maybe it doesn’t make much of a difference. But at least I’ve tried.

You’ve been the midwife at the birth of both Final Scratch [software that allows you to use your laptop to mix records] and Beatport. What’s next?
The Pacemaker is a whole new way for kids to become excited about music. This is something you put in your pocket and when you’re at school in the playground you can pull it out and start mixing tracks.

Does it scare you that a whole generation of kids are growing up not knowing what vinyl is?
For me I’ll always have a fascination with records because I grew up with them, but do I need them? Not really. Not only do they take up way too much space, they’re technically limiting and environmentally unfriendly. We’re moving to a point where vinyl will be a limited specialised market for people who choose to collect records as pieces of art.

Many DJs like your close friends Zip and Ricardo Villalobos argue that vinyl is far superior…
You could choose to sell vinyl to that small, non-expanding market, close your eyes to what’s happening, let everyone copy your music and just be cynical about it. Or you can choose to find a way to appease both of those things. The quality of digital is as good if not better than vinyl. Music begins life as a digital WAV file before it is mastered and turned into vinyl. But as a performer I have to learn new tools and ways of thinking in order to move forward in my art, so these arguments are irrelevant for me.

So is digital technology making music better?
Technology is democratising music and allowing more people than ever to enjoy what we do. I don’t want to explain to a kid in Ecuador why my song isn’t available on the internet if it’s only available on vinyl. I want him to hear my song, get into what we’re doing and maybe that might send him on a new direction in his life.

Now that digital music has taken sound experience close to perfection, can it get any better?
The next step for clubs is to build immersive sound environments. Instead of four stacks of speakers they’ll use, perhaps, 36 micro-speakers to spread the sound around you. This opens lots of possibilities. Now music performance is so loop-based, imagine if you could make one side of the room experience something slightly different from what people on the other side are hearing.

How is technology changing the art of DJing?
I’m a little bit bored by only being able to manipulate things in a record paradigm. When we started Final Scratch [Richie was one of the first investors in the company] we saw it as a technology bridge from the analogue to the digital world, and I feel it’s time to get off the bridge. A further step would be a larger, iPhone-style multi-touch screen. And further from that some kind of wireless hand interaction where you can manipulate different components of sound by changing the movement of your hands. It’s hard to visualise, but imagine something like the screens they use in [sci-fi film] Minority Report. You’re still using your body to interact with something digital, but through moving and pinching and grabbing you’re able to go deeper into the possibilities of how you work it. Technology can only work for a performer if it’s visually interesting fora crowd to watch.

MySpace and Facebook have changed how we make friends and plan our social lives. What’s next for social networking?
I know people working on internet sites that will one day be to music what YouTube is to video. For our scene a really good social network based upon music could be amazing. The next step could also be social networks merging with phones and next-generation GPS systems to create a device that can tell you which of your friends are nearby, and what people in a club you’re in have similar interests.

Will downloading kill music?
Last year Minus wrote our biggest royalty cheques ever because of digital sales. If people can buy stuff digitally at a good price they generally will. People don’t want to rip other people off as long as they don’t feel they’re getting ripped off themselves. To do this properly you need to be able to track what’s happening with a record and bring people into an on-demand service. Why own 100 records when you can have anything you want, whenever you want? There’s a company called Sound Cloud looking at sharing music on a global scale. But you could take things even further. Right now an MP3’s tags can tell you basic information about a track like its name or artist. But what if you could encode more than that? You could break each track down into its individual loops and elements, and each of these elements and loops would be encoded with information about what influenced them or who made them. Then you could start to build a way of tracing how a track came to be. It would work like a genetic code so that in ten years’ time you could trace a track’s family tree, looking at where it came from and the software or machines that created it.

So are you saying we should get rid of ownership of music?
I’d like to get to a place where I don’t even have to carry a computer or a mechanical storage device for music. I don’t care if I have some physical object that contains these non physical assets, I’d like all my music stored somewhere and to be able bring that list down whenever I need it. So imagine if you had this cloud where all these songs were stored and encoded and you could pluck them down in real time during a performance? But what if you want to get deeper and you want to have just the high hats from a track and map them over the sound from another song playing. This kind of interactivity is where I want to get to. Getting down to the molecular level of songs. That would be amazing.

As I said, it’s an incredibly interesting read, with the right attitude to the right points. It completely illustrates the fact that we need to move forward with the technology and times in order to harness the best for music in general, rather than sticking to the tried and tested formulas such as a man in a club playing one record after another.
Perhaps this will lead us down an alley where (god forbid) we no longer have a need for DJs, as the technology becomes cheaper and easier to use. But of course I doubt this is likely to happen, as people will always progress quicker than others, and humans always faster than the technology they can develop.

When Underworld released their last album “A Hundred Days off ” no onethought it would be nearly 2000 days
until the next one arrived. It hasn’t been acase of lazing around in the Essex countryside though as the last 5
years havethrown up the 1992-2002 anthology album, two major film scores (AnthonyMingellas’ “Breaking and
Entering” and Danny Boyles’ 2007 “Sunshine”), a self-published typographic journal “In The Belly of Saint Paul”,
a series of pioneeringdigital-only releases, internet-radio broadcasts, a groundbreaking live web-tvbroadcast and
gig in partnership with Apple and Frankfurts’ techno giantsCocoon and countless gigs around the world.
During all of this action Rick and Karl, with the aid of trusty laptops, a couple ofhome studios, Abbey Roads’
legendary facilities and a Pig Shed, have beencarefully developing ideas for the new album “Oblivion with Bells”,
an album thatwas finally completed in a flurry of activity and excitement in spring 2007.
True to form Underworld tread their own path through modern electronic musictipping a nod to current sounds,
styles and production techniques but neverafraid to let their song writing and musicianship shine out in this
digital world.

“Oblivion with Bells” draws heavily on Rick and Karls’ vast array of musicalinfluences (Nick Drake, Def Mix,
Ricardo Villalobos, Can, James Holden, Eno)and experiences performing worldwide to create a truly unique
Underworldjourney. The album kicks off like Saturday night with Sven Väth, Simian MobileDisco and Frankie
Knuckles all fighting to get on the decks, then takes you overthe flat fields of rural Essex, through Kings Cross
with its olympic dreams and piss stained alleys, ending blissed out in a hidden cove in Ibiza. Epic technonestles
next to frail acoustics, beatific prose next to sharp urban observation,amazing sound texturing mixed with
mobile phone recordings, rarely has theUnderworld palette been so rich.

The Summer of 2007 sees Underworld playing a handful of European festivaldates (where you can expect new
material to be debuted along side deepgrooves and some classics from the Underworld jukebox) ahead of their
tour, which kicks off in North America in September:

2 Many DJ’s – As Heard on Radio Soulwax
I’m sure everyone owns this, or definitely should do. I had it but it seems to have disappeared so I bought it again. I think the only way you can really appreciate this mix is to go and buy it, so yea if you’re interested click Here.
I found it in Fopp, but I’m pretty sure you can get it in Virgin as well.

Ellen Allien – Fabric 34
Shut the door, turn of the light, stick this on and drift in to a minimal techno / tech house coma. Hypnotic as fuck, all other music should be banned and it should just sound like this…atleast for 70 mins if not forever.

Simian Mobile Disco – Suck My Deck
Get a can of acid .
Get some beats.
Get some white noise.
Put it all in a blender on the crush setting.
Record the noise it makes (including the sound of the blender crushing everything).
Tip results over a distorion pedal, into a glass. (like you do with absinthe and sugar).
Put LFO - Freak at the end, to give it a bit of after taste kick.

It’s actually very good mix, just noisy and acidic, but if that’s what you’re into (which obviously I am) then it’ll be right up your street. I’d give it about a 1 on the PH scale, which is apparently stomach acid, it burns on the way up, but it feels slightly pleasurable in the most wrong way. Lemon juice wouldn’t be acidic enough, but battery acid would be unlistenable. Buy it!

UNKLE are back with their third album, “War Stories”, due for release this summer. Once again, it sees a shift in musical direction. Co-produced by UNKLE and Queens Of The Stone Age producer Chris Goss, “War Stories” marries UNKLE’s trademark sound and integrates it with traditional rock influences to stunning effect. Recorded in the desert outside LA at Rancho de la Luna (where the desert sessions have been recorded) studio and in London at James’ new Surrender Sounds studio, the album comprises of fourteen tracks of epic proportions.
In a marked departure from the previous two albums, most of the instrumentation on “War Stories” is played live. Once again, there is a host of guest vocalists including Josh Homme (QOTSA), The Duke Spirit, 3D (Massive Attack), Ian Astbury (The Cult), Autolux, Alice Temple, Lee Gorton (Alfie), Gavin Clark (Clayhill) and long time cohort Richard File. James makes his vocal debut on this album, singing on “Hold My Hand” as well as dueting with Richard File on “Morning Rage”.
“War Stories” opening instrumental salvo “Chemistry” sees UNKLE taking their trademark beats, adding a twist of malevolently paranoid piano and cranking the Led Zep up to 11 with a lorry load of dirty licks and machine gun staccato beats.
“Hold My Hand” ploughs a similar furrow, striking up a lolloping, menacing groove and turning it into a relentlessly ominous tale of wants, needs, obsessions and pursuit.
The rock truly arrives on “Restless”, featuring as it does Queens Of The Age king pin Josh Homme. The chorus ‘follow the light to the love’ is repeated over a dark, indolent bassline and skeletal handclaps that eventually build to an intense funk finale.
UNKLE show their eye for talent through their collaboration with sultry blues band The Duke Spirit, with Liela Moss lending her laconic, coquettish vocals to the glam stomp of “May Day”.
Former frontman of The Cult Ian Astbury, lends his world-weary, whisky soaked drawl to “Burn My Shadow”, which will be the first single to be taken from “War Stories”. Built upon the pulsating, insistent beats for which UNKLE are known, it ebbs and flows between foreboding and abrasiveness. Astbury returns on the albums finale, “When Things Explode”, which begins with the memorable line `you’re a skull fucked little lie’. It’s a bitter lament of love and regret wrapped in sweeping strings that slowly build into a wall of sound.
“Twilight”, featuring the trademark icy whisper of Massive Attack’s 3D, begins as a delicate pulse and slowly develops into something almost hypnotic and unearthly, like the breathing of electronic angels.
“War Stories” will be released on James’ new label, Surrender All, and features a stunning set of specially commissioned paintings by Massive Attack’s 3D; this the first time he has embarked on such a venture. The limited edition CD will contain a gorgeous 50 page booklet, while the main album will have a 32 page booklet, both of which will also contain photographs taken in the Joshua Tree by Will Bankhead while the main portrait photography is by Warren Du Preez and Nick Thornton Jones. The booklets were designed by Ben Drury. Will and Ben were the visual creative team behind Mo’ Wax and have also collaborated on major campaigns for Nike, Answer and All Tomorrow’s Parties.
The label is part of the Surrender All stable which will connect James’ famously broad range of interests – music, fashion and art – through one independently run axis: Surrender All is the record label, which will be a home for exciting new talent, whatever its musical persuasion, with the aim to push boundaries in the same way that Mo Wax did. James has also set up the Surrender clothing line, the Surrender Sound studio.
UNKLE will be going out live for the first time this summer, playing a series of shows and festivals around the world. This promises to be an audio visual experience not to be forgotten.

• Ambient (4)
• Breakbeat (8)
• Drum & Bass (10)
• Electronica (16)
• Hip Hop (4)
• House (12)
• Jazz (5)
• Reggae (3)
• Rock (3)
• Techno (10)
• Trance (21)

I’ve been listening Goldie’s Essential Mix all day, so I definitely reccomend you check that one out, then I’m going to listen to Phil Kieran‘s tomorrow. Excellent stuff.

Newmixes.com
Essential Mix

Download the mix Here

Rockers :: Original movie theme
Version dub :: Yabby You
Please officer :: Talent crew
Breaking up dubwaise :: King Tubby & Prince Jammy
How long dub :: King Tubby And Friends
Horn for I :: King Tubby And Friends
Everybody needs dub :: King Tubby And Friends
Great stone :: King Tubby & Soul Syndicate
Version of class :: King Tubby & Prince Jammy
Dub investigation :: King Tubby And Friends
Reggae music dub :: Barrington Levy
Rock with me dub :: Yabby You
Tubby drums intro :: Fhex edit
Dub Is my occupation :: King Tubby And Friends
From Pablo studio :: King Tubby
Beat them in dub :: King Tubby And Friends
Vengeance in dub :: Yabby You
The right song voice :: Voice edit
Dub ites green & gold King :: Tubby And Friends
Why did you leave me dub :: Barrington Levy
A dancing roots version :: Cornel Campbell & The Aggrovators
No tarry yah version :: Yabby You
Thunder Rock :: King Tubby And Friends
Higher Ranking :: King Tubby & The Aggrovators
Version 78 Style :: Glen Brown & King Tubby
A Living Version :: King Tubby & Prince Jammy
Version edit :: King Tubby and Friends
Wake Up Jamaica :: Dennis Alcapone

It’s a wicked mix featuring tracks from one of the pioneers of Dub, especially good for this kind of weather. Stick this on and have a BBQ, and feel the bassbins kick out.
If you’re not too au fait with Dub, I suggest you check out King Tubby Presents – The Roots of Dub and spend the afternoon immersed in bass.

Today I bought:

DJ Shadow – High Noon
Which has the extended overhaul of Organ Donor on it
Unkle – Rabbit In Your Headlights
With the instrumental & 3D Mix etc
Radiohead – Paranoid Android
Which is ace, because it's  got Polyethelene on it!
Death In Vegas – Dirge
Including Micronauts Mix, filthy electro
Mylo – Destroy Rock & Roll
Riton Mix
2001: A Space Odyssey – Sound Track
DJ Shadow – Midnight In A Perfect World

All for like 15 quid. Deal done, bargain

What is Last.fm?
Last.fm is a service that records what you listen to, and then presents you with an array of interesting things based upon your tastes — artists you might like, users with similar taste, personalised radio streams, charts, and much more.

What is Scrobbling?
Scrobbling a song means that when you listen to it, the name of the song is sent to Last.fm and added to your music profile.
Once you’ve signed up and downloaded Last.fm, you can scrobble songs you listen to on your computer or iPod automatically. Start scrobbling yourself, and see what artists you really listen to the most. Songs you listen to will also appear on your Last.fm profile page for others to see.
Millions of songs are scrobbled every day. This data helps Last.fm to organise and recommend music to people; we use it to create personalised radio stations, and a lot more besides.
You can see what Last.fm users listened to the most last week by clicking the Charts button at the top of the page. Add your musical taste into the mix and help us get some decent music into the top 10.

The best bit though I reckon, is that you can have it output your recently listened to records to a .gif image, so you can whack it on your myspace/website/blog whatever, and everyone can have a good old butchers at what you’re listening to. (it’s always updated automatically, through internet magic)
eg; here’s the last ten tracks I’ve listened to on the old iTunes player thing…

 

So yea, thats pretty much it. Sign up, listen to some songs, everyone elses see’s what you’re listening too, and maybe reccomends stuff that’s similar, and the best bit is that the site will even point you in the direction of people who are into similar stuff to you, so you could end up talking to John Peel’s ghost, or a bloke called Dave who’s into The Village People.

Kids in Tracksuits

“And if you wanna make it hot we make it rock…”

Hospital Records
Evil Nine
Marine Parade
Justice
Trash A definite peice of history…
Knowledge Magazine (will find the url a bit later, or google it)