Q-Tip on Ning

Just want to point people in the direction of Q-Tip's Ning site which has been dropping a few nice pieces in the last few days or so. I should really give thanks to Paula Harris of groove parlor tv for introducing it to me. Anyway below are some interesting bits such as a mix of Rock With You which doesn't fuck it up, Reflection Eternal and Don Blackman tracks.

Find more music like this on Q-Tip

Relax..... Here's something a little different.

Since late last year, I have been getting into a bit ambient, drone, noise type music. I am far from an expert on the subject but so far I'm liking a lot of what I'm finding. Its a bit krautrock, a bit like the atmospheric dubstep stuff, I guess its a bit free jazz but again that's a style I don't really know enough about to really comment.

There are only two downsides with these records; first getting in the right frame of mind, in the right place to appreciate them - laidback is obviously good but I can imagine walking alone through a snowy forrest or somewhere, with this on the headphones, would be where the tension and paranoia would lead to all sorts of mind tricks going on.

The second problem is that they seem to be released in about numbers of 150, private pressings or only available directly from the artists. If you miss the news, prices soon rocket to £60 + within days.

As I say I'm no expert but a couple of the names I have found so far have been Imaginary Softwoods, Richard Skelton, Francisco Lopez and (check out below) Indignant Senility. If anyone has any good tips to look out for, please drop me a line.

Songs of Praise 17.1.10

Another fortnight has rolled around again quickly so it must be my turn to inflict some shoddy mixing upon some great tracks for Space Invader FM again.

Anyone wanting to check the shows again on mixcloud should now follow Space Invader, I'll just keep mine for anything else I might do so as is the case here, keep your eyes peeled there for irregular and brief moments of genius but more often than not, long spells of silence.

Songs Of Praise 17th January by Spaceinvaderradio on  Mixcloud

I think most of this show seemed quite well recieved by the twitter fam live listeners so I'll chose to highlight this track from the show, even if it isn't really representative of the whole show (I don't think one track ever really could be though).

Download: Marvin Gaye - A Funky Space Reincarnation

RIP Teddy Pendergrass 1950 - 2010

There goes the hope that 2010 might have been the year we weren't losing legends left, right and centre as I've got home today to hear the devastating news that we have lost Teddy Pendergrass.

As is often the case with me, my entry point is usually when someone covers or samples (read: ruins) a soul classic and this was the case for me with both Pendergrass' solo work and with Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes. Although I wouldn't say DJ Sneak's 'You Can't Hide From Your Bud' from 1996, is a bad record, it didn't stand up once I went back to find the original. I don't think the same could really be said about the Communards take on 'Don't Leave Me This Way' from ten years earlier but everyone needs something to introduce them to greatness.

Looking through the other tributes from the last few hours, this quote stood out as being pretty much spot on:

From Craig Werners book 'A Change is Gonna Come'.

'A surprising number of Philly Internationals biggest hits echo the emotional tone of 'Ship Ahoy'. Featuring the gritty gospel vocals of Teddy Pendergrass, who would become a major star as a solo act, Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes sang about separation, loss, emotional devastation. Although the lyrics of 'I miss you', 'If you don't know me by know' and 'Don't leave me his way' all deal with personal relationships, its not hard to hear them as masked warnings of the chasm opening between black and white, young and old, rich and poor. We've given it our best shot, Pendergrass testifies, and it come to nothing. Pendergrass's gospel moan at the beginning of 'Don't leave me this way' wouldn't have been out of place in the poorest church in the most destitute part of Philly's south side ghetto. The fact that it comes on top of a disco beat simply tells you that the party had a tormented soul'

Read more on his life on his wikipedia entry here

As for a choice of tracks, this 6MS mix is a great place to start including some of these and more:

And of course the aforementioned classic:

I thought I'd put up two edits which don't spoil the originals too much and that maybe one or two people may not have heard to compare against the originals.

Download: 
Harold Melvin and The Bluenotes - Switch Track (Theo Parrish Ugly Edit 2) 

Teddy Pendergrass - You Can’t Hide from Yourself (OOFT Edit) 

Songs of Praise

Last weekend saw another of my mixes go out on Space Invader. I was inspired for the first hour of the show by a mix everyone's friend Orsii had done of classic 90s r'n'b. Using this as a starter and reading some older posts on the brownswood board and a bit of crate digging, I pulled out a few classics by the likes of Toni, Tony, Tone and Jodeci.

However the track which caught the most attention this week was an old remix of the Roni Size / Reprezent classic, 'Heroes' by Peter Kruder. I had actually thought about putting the Origin Unknown remix from the single in but then remembered this version I had on an old Talkin' Loud compilation and felt it went a little better with the feel of the show.

Anyway, if you really want to you can hear the whole show again below:

Space Invader Mix 3.1.10 by Paul Riley on Mixcloud

Download: Roni Size / Reprezent - Heroes (Kruder Powercut Version)

Ustream

With the number of people using Ustream to transmit their music around the world now constantly increasing, I thought this weekend I would have a little go myself as a one-off trial. Well my thoughts that it would be a rare event were proven true as my wifi couldn't cope with it so it crashed several times throughout the short set. However I did use the time to play a couple of my recent favourites and this track beneath caught the attention of the specially selected audience.

As sampled so famously by Mos Def on 'Ms Fat Booty', here's a little re-edit of the Aretha Franklin orginal - with, for some unknown reason, bits of Marvin Gaye thrown in too.

Download: Aretha - One Step (Featurecast Re-edit)