Sorry

No posts last week as I've been finalising my best of '09 lists to be started this week.


To go some way towards making up for a lack of any new tracks, here's an epic Sunday morning classic. The photo above is my own picture of Tiergarten at dusk before you wonder why its a bit crap.


Download: Rufus Wainwright - Tiergarten (Supermayer Remix) 

Northern Chill By Nature

Not really any story with this track, just a bit of a down tempo classic to start the week. From the b-side of "Karma Police" and also 1,000 chill out compilations, comes this classic Zero 7 remix of Radiohead.


I guess for a few years around 2000 / 01, anything with "chill out", "down beat" or "Zero 7 remix" would make most people run for the hills as there was a bit of over kill with that sound, too many immitaters, too many crap compilations with the same tracks on and the whole scene seemed to me to get associated with  TV advertised cds. Yet I still think a lot of what Zero 7, Fila Brazillia, Presence, Kruder & Dorfmeister and the like (who must have made a packet off all them compilations), stands up quite well.


Download: Radiohead - Climbing Up Walls (Zero 7 Mix)

Warp-ed

I've been listening to a lot of the old Warp records recently on the back of the recent 20th anniversary box set. I especially love all the early bleep techno ones - LFO, Nightmares on Wax, Sweet Exorcist etc and the series of "Intelligent Techno" albums of Aphex Twin, Speedy J and Autechre.

The later stuff, such as from the 00's, I can dip in and out of, it's not always my kind of thing whether its because it just went too noisy and untuneful or its just not what I expect Warp to sound like and the shock actually takes away from the music, such as with Maximo Park.

The track I have chosen, I first heard through one of those Mixmag Live! compilations mixed by Slam and on the Sasha and Digweed Renaissance mix. It took me a while to track down (although it isn't particularly rare) but I finally got hold of the classic Warp compilation "Tequila Slammers And The Jump Jump Groove Generation". I must have realised I'd got a bargain because I have left the price sticker on it from Oxfam - 99p!

Download: Jaco - Show Some Love http://www.mediafire.com/?wkykjymfbhz

Lil Wayne - The Carter Documentary

The Riley Family album

For no reason whatsoever, I thought today, I would write a little bit about how my family have influence my musical tastes.

I guess sharing a bedroom with my brother who is 5 years older than me as that introduced me to house and indie music. In there I could hear 808 state, Stone Roses, Primal Scream, Happy Mondays and everything else he was getting taped off his friends in the early 90s. When he moved out, he actually became a bit more heavy rock and its actually quite rare that we find records we are both equally passionate about anymore. I guess the alt-country / folk type stuff is our only meeting ground anymore.

My dad was a teenager in the late 60s / early 70s and as a kid I never really liked a lot of his records. I remember he had a Beatles compilation called "Rock 'N' Roll Music" which had a drawing of someone holding the sleeve but you could never place your hands correctly to match how it wrapped around the sleeve. (I guess you have to see it to understand). He also had "Abbey Road" and a Beach Boys Greatest Hits that I liked but then there was far too much Moody Blues and Rod Stewart who I hadn't yet grown to appreciate a little more. But even then it wasn't The Faces, it was actually Rod's solo albums weren't don't appeal that much to me today either.

My mum has never been much of a music fan, generally liking whatever is on the radio she can sing along to with the wrong words and even as a teenager didn't really buy many records. The ones she did were all big chart hits but yet I actually find more gems looking through my mum's 45s than my dad's. Theres more soul and disco stuff - Jackie Wilson, George Mcrae, Motown stuff and the track I have chosen to highlight from Freda Payne. I'll ignore the fact she also loved Donny Osmond and David Cassidy!

Download: Freda Payne - Band of Gold 

Best album of the 00's?

The often controversial (read: wrong) NME has delivered it's top 100 albums of the 2000s, and although instantly forgettable, over hyped and / or brand new records appear, there is no room for my album of the decade.

Now, this may be a very controversial choice, I have a friend who laughed when we were discussing this topic a few years ago and I told him this was my favourite. He didn't even think this was the best album by this band in the last 10 years! I had some sympathy but only because I think they have made two of the greatest albums ever made and anyway his argument wouldn't stand up anymore as the other record came out in 1999 and so is ineligible for this chart.

My choice is from 2002, The Roots "Phrenology". Although I love every track on this album, I particularly can't get enough of the middle section - the flow from the Ursula Rucker "WAOK Rollcall" of honours for the 'architects' of hip hop including Vanilla Ice, the Apache break lead "Thoughts @ Work", the party rocking "The Seed (2.0)", then in starts slowing down with "Break You Off" and wrapping up the section with the epic 11 minute "Water". And that doesn't even include the beautiful "Complexity" with Jill Scott.

A few years later I lent my cd to a friend and when I was picking it up, I was on the bus and could hear someone behind me listening to "The Seed" pumping out of his headphones. After a quick reassuring check in my bag to make sure I hadn't been robbed, I turned and gave a little appreciative smile. She probably though I was insane.

Download The Roots - Water

Read the whole NME list here

The most stressful mix I'll ever do

Yesterday afternoon, when I was expecting Colin cubikmusik to be promoting the Spaceinvader fm show, he announced there had been problems with his computer and he wouldn't be able to make the show that evening. As I kind of had my planned tracklist set for the show I should have been doing a week later, I thought it wouldn't be too much trouble to step in.

So with 6 hours to go before broadcast, I finalised the tracklisting and began mixing the 2 hour show. Then there was issues with not having a huge amount of memory space left on my laptop so had to move things around, clear some crap etc. I had been sent some info about uploading it for broadcast but couldn't really make any sense of it so arranged that I'd upload it and send a link to be downloaded and set up for broadcast - I know, time consuming but the best way in the circumstances. Well that was until after 44 minutes of a 45 minute upload the internet connection died on me! That left an hour to upload again, send it and prepare for broadcast. Messages were flying back and forth across twitter that one person was going out, another was already out and might not be back to download. To say, it was getting a little tense and fraught would be putting it mildly.

Then at 17:50, the message came through, "DONE". We were good to go

Thankfully though, the feedback from the show was all positive, especially the final 45 minutes of some classic reggae and dancehall vibes which had Colin grinding around the kitchen to his Sunday roast - I don't really want to picture it myself, but there you go.

You can listen again or download the show from here: Spaceinvader Mix 15.11.09 by paulr

And here is a track that perhaps conveys some of the urgency and excitement of the day. Download - Flourgon and Ninjaman - Zig It Up 

It's Jazzy Jazzy Jazzy Jazzy

My first introduction to Jazzanova was through their remix of Ian Pooley's "What's Your Number" which was (to me) a surprise choice for Muzik magazine's remix of the year in 1999. I say surprise, because I hadn't heard of it. I assumed it would be like the Daft Punk remix of another Ian Pooley track so kind of housey / techy, that kind of thing. So to find they had taken it it off in a jazzy / broken beat style was both eye opening and very pleasantly surprising.

They then really caught my attention again in early 2001 when Gilles Peterson opened his show with "That Night". I knew from the instant I heard it (plus the repeated wearing out of the tape) that I had just heard one of the records of the decade. This view was cemented a few weeks later when Gilles did a special show from Plastic People with Alex doing a special mix. About the third track in, he started teasing me with those intro vocals for a minute or so over the previous track and then dropped the full version. Although my bedroom was about 6ft square, I am certain the party I was having to that track equalled the atmosphere I was getting over the radio that night.

As I was still collecting only cds at that time, it took me more than a year and a trip to Germany to finally get my own copy of the single and it has been a prized possession ever since.

The Jazzanova boys completed the hattrick in 2003 when they took what, for me, was a slightly underwhelming Masters at Work album track and added their own little bit of magic. On paper the combination looked too good to be true - Masters at Work + Roy Ayers + Jazzanova. Thankfully, the hype was more than justified in my eyes and some of their later work may not have touched me in the same ways these three tracks did, I am certain they will have another surprise just around the corner.

Masters At Work featuring Roy Ayers - Our Time Is Coming (Jazzanova's Guestlist Mix) 

Domu

Change of plan for what I was going to post today since I heard the sad news that Dominic Stanton aka Domu / Umod has decided to quit the music business with immediate effect.

http://www.trebleo.co.uk/domu-weekly-blog/the-end/

I guess like most, I first picked up his music through Gilles Peterson around 2001 with the broken beat scene and over the years have picked up the classics such as the "Enter The Umod" lp, "Up + Down" and remixes for King Britt and Jazzanova.

In the past few months, I had begun following his weekly blog which I always found amusing, insightful and most of all, exceptionally well written. I hope he does find his passion for the djing and producing again but if it truely is the end, he has left a great body of work which will inspire and delight many for some time yet. 

There are many who will know the guy personally or own everything record he ever produced but that's my little piece I'd like to say in respect for the work. This download might be the last track he produced, it was floating around the net back in October but I'm unsure as to when it was made. Either way, it's a goodun.

Domu - Subversion

Live at the Social

As I am making up the rules to this blog as I am going along, I will now introduce a little plan to link every post in some way to the last, which they have so far unintentionally anyway.

So today, keeping on the theme of my favourite mixtapes, I have moved on to Jon Carter's "Live At The Social Volume 2" from 1996. To me it just sounded like the best party tape ever - hip hop, reggae and house all thrown together. This wasn't big beat like Fatboy Slim or Midfield General or the like were playing, it sounded as if it was referencing something older and more timeless, which I guess it was - it certainly wasn't full of contemporary tracks.

So here is the opening track. For years, I thought Carter had actually been mixing in Velvet Underground (or A Tribe Called Quest) samples, but it's actually all the work of Kenny Dope.

Download: Kenny Dope Presents The Mad Racket - Supa (Deep In Brooklyn Mix)

Parlez-Vous Francois

After mentioning Danny Tenaglia in yesterdays post, it got me thinking of the time around 1996 - 8 when my tastes were heavily influenced by whatever Pete Tong was playing on the Essential Selection and Essential Mix. It probably isn't very credible to say that loud now.  Although there was a lot of commercial handbag stuff played, those shows were also my first introduction to some incredible djs and records from Carl Craig, David Holmes and Francois Kevorkian. 

Kevorkian's history is pretty much the history of dance music. From playing at legendary clubs The Paradise Garage, The Loft and Studio 54 to Body & Soul and more recently Deep Space, his styles moving with the times and technological advancements. I won't even bother touching on his extensive work as a producer and remixer but it's safe to say if you have bought records at any point in the last 30 years, you will have something with his name on.

I remember Francois Kevorkian doing a 30 minute mix for the Essential Selection in 1999 and although by this time my tastes had become a little more eclectic, I was amazed by how many different styles he was playing in such a short time - everything from techno and house to jazz. It was only a little later that I found out he had been doing this for more than 25 years (at that point.)

When his Essential Mix cd came out in 2000, it instantly became the greatest mix I had ever heard - in truth, for the strength of the tracks, the mixing and how it flows, I still don't think it has been bettered. Just looking at the tracklisting in the shop, I knew it was going to be a bit special: Paperclip People mixed into Kraftwerk into A Tribe Called Quest? I'm having that! It also introduced me to so many new names such as Maurizio, D-Train and Kyoto Jazz Massive. In theory, it should sound like its jumping all over the place and yet somehow it just sounds perfect, as if each track compliments the last even if they are from wildly differing genres.

So now, you might expect me to pick some Basic Channel or the Wally Badarou track Massive Attack used on "Daydreaming", but actually, if I had to chose a highlight it would be that Kevorkian managed to find a track by a group I thought I already had the measure of and would have otherwise instantly dismissed and yet mixed between all this techno, house and afro beat, that crap slap bass "It's my life" band suddenly made a but more sense.

Download: Level 42 - Starchild 

By special request

While my first show was going out on space invader radio, I was asked by the resident grimestress, andrea3k, why I don't have a blog, so here it goes.  Posting will be irregular and sporadic, often with little to no interest to the majority but so what. 

I thought, this first post would both tie with and round off the first show (which you can grab from both the space invader site above or the link at the bottom of this page) and so I have chosen a track which was picked upon by a couple of listeners. 

Cat Stevens' "Was a Dog a Doughnut" originally came out in 1977 and although the album, Izitso, was seen as a return to form and a commercial success, the single peaked at number 53. I first came across the track in the late 90s after hearing that New York Djs like David Mancuso and Danny Tenaglia refered to it as a disco classic of The Loft and Paradise Garage. Knowing only "Father and Son" at the time, this came as something of a shock and knew it had to be investigated. I wasn't disappointed.

Picked up again by the Creative Use label in 2004 for a re-edit, this version extends the drums and electronics by a minute or so plus I guess it's the first time it was easily available on 12" for a while

Download: 

It seems to still be available here if you move quickly: Phonica
Spaceinvader Mix 08.11.09 by paulr