Eno

Short simple and sweet again, just lie back and let this one float through 
Download: Brian Eno - By The River http://www.mediafire.com/?gmmqojinmma

Shuggie Otis

Time for a classic. Not much needs to be said, just sit back, relax and enjoy 4 minutes of quality


Download: Shuggie Otis - Ah Uh Mi Hed

Brand New Heavies & Gangstarr

Let's go for a bit of acid jazz for a Monday. If all you know of their Brand New Heavies is more successful later albums, then Heavy Rhyme Experience Vol. 1 will come as a very pleasant surprise. It certainly did to me when a friend introduced me to it a few years ago. Featuring collaborations with Black Sheep, Pharcyde and Gang Starr amongst others means it perhaps loses some of its Britishness that I'm sure UK mcs could have brought to it. Off the top of my head though, I can't think of any other US rappers meet UK jazzsters (or visa versa) works. Anyway, I kind of like this one today.

Download: Brand New Heavies with Gangstarr - It's Getting Hectic 

Open letter to someone

I was just going to email this to the person its meant for but I just read it back and although I don't know if any other teenagers actually read any of this crap, I thought I would share it, they might get something out of it too. Hopefully the someone won't mind too much.


Hi mate

Sorry if I came across argumentative before. I know its not really an excuse but you kind of caught me at a bad time just after the match and I think I just went a bit over the top. 

That said, what I was trying to say was actually a fairly valid point - the majority of what I listen to now, I didn't when I was 14. I used to think every record Pete Tong and Paul Oakenfold played was the greatest thing ever and used to collect as many of them tracks as I could. I would guess around about 5% if that have had any durability to them. If I was a normal person I wouldn't keep them but as I'm a hoarder I can't get rid and every once in a while I do very occasionally dig them out for old times sake or when you discover an album track / b-side that you had never noticed back then which turns out to be a classic. 

I know if someone had argued with me that all the Perfecto Fluro tracks were going to a bit of a short lived trend, I would have defended them to the hilt - in fact I still would but thats just because I'm an argumentative bastard. And anyway, just because I personally do or don't like a group doesn't mean its true - its just my opinion. 

I think from our scene its hard to say what would still be viewed as a classic in years without resorting to the obvious standards which have already been set, and anyway all that stuff is already 20 years old. I know for a fact of all these house and techno records I buy today, maybe one will be worth something one day, but thats not the reason I buy them - I'm happy to enjoy them in the moment and then use them as the stepping stone to the next record and if that move is to a bad place, you can always take a step back, maybe take two steps back - see what influenced that record you loved, then move on again from there - always building up knowledge of what you find that works. Then after you think you have got on top of your game, you think you know all there is to know, something completely new and innovative comes along and knocks you sideways.

Anyway, I guess what I'm badly saying is, I'm often wrong about most things. Don't take my opinion as being the truth - it definitely isn't. And if you believe in something, defend it.

Sorry,

Paul

Songs of Praise 27.6.10 with No Requests

The football was shite but at this is very good. Part 2 of the NYC take-over by No Requests.

Songs Of Praise 27.6.10 With No Requests by Spaceinvaderradio on Mixcloud

Naughty By Nature on Northern By Nature

Yes, I should really be saving this track for my last ever post to finish things off - I guess I'll just have to find another Naughty By Nature track, or remember who that Hamburg rap group were that I ripped off for the title and find a good track by them. Anyway, that's getting off the point I wanted to write about today.

I just wanted to say thanks for the feedback I've already had from the Michael Jackson mix that went out on Spaceinvader last night and can now be checked on mixcloud. Special shouts to Paula from Grooveparlour TV for giving me the inspiation and motivation to start doing the whole thing and has since been promoting it on her fb fan page, and to Orsii for putting me and Premo in the same sentence which will obviously never ever happen again in her write up for vitamin water blog.

So just to round off the Michael stuff (for a day or two at least), check Questlove (c'mon, if its not MJ its The Roots every other second round here at the moment!) giving his 100+ wemissmj list, and taken from the list, check the link below.

Download: Naughty By Nature - OPP

Never Can Say Goodbye: Michael Jackson One Year On

Just a little warning, this isn’t anything more than me wanting to put down on paper how Michael Jackson influenced me, made me think about things, brought music into my life. It is not supposed to be any sort of well researched biography - there are plenty of those around, and one or two of them well written and quite informative actually! 

I can tell you exactly where I was 365 days ago today. I could even narrow it down to within a few centimeters as I was in this very same spot (ironically both physically and mentally, but thats another story). I was sat here chatting to my girlfriend when on the twitter stream came up some breaking news of Michael Jackson being hospitalized having suffered a heart attack. We carried on chatting, talk now moved on to just one topic and we watched the reports and rumors kept streaming through in disbelief. 

The gossip sites were going crazy with rumors but there just seemed to be a lack of credibility about it all, it did not seem believable - it’s Michael Jackson, your heroes don’t die, they live on forever. They are meant to still be banging out the old hits until you are old enough to know better like the Stones, living off their former bands glory like McCartney, being a recluse like the blonde one from ABBA, maybe even start spreading whispers of a come back with a modern ueber-cool producer of the day like Neil Diamond but they don’t go and die. But actually now I’ve written that list, and I read it through again, Michael had already done all of that. In fact he had done most of it by about 1987.

In some ways I feel that I was born, and so came to his music, too late to truly appreciate how ground breaking it was at the time. I missed out on all the Motown classics, the Jacksons and the teenage solo albums and Off The Wall. I guess I really missed out on the cultural shockwave that Thriller and the videos to those tracks must have been at the time so I don’t think it would be fair to use hindsight and knowledge gained to talk impartially on just how good all that music is. It must have been around 1985 or ’86 when I first consciously took notice of Michael’s music. Of the mega stars of the 1980’s, Michael, Prince and Madonna, there was only one in our house. My dad has only ever had about three tapes in his car. Thriller was the one we wanted all the time. I didn’t know it at the time of course but those car journeys were the start of my musical journey - everything I have been into since can be traced through Michael, everything that influenced him to everything he influenced after him. 

From the opening stabs of duff-duff-duff here comes the funk, we are going on a journey and you wanna be startin’ something? Too right! What a start to an album. It is clearly the biggest selling album of all-time for a reason. The reason isn’t some clever marketing brainwash to tell everyone to buy it for a fashion. It is because it is the best 40 minutes of hit followed by even bigger and better hit ever. I mean Beat It into Billie Jean into Human Nature into PYT - most artists don’t have that many good tracks in a career. Michael had them all on side two. I even love the corny chatty bit at the end of The Girl Is Mine! Even as a kid though, I always, and still do, wondered how The Lady In My Life made it on as the last track? But I kind of like Michael the flawed genius and anyway the thing good about that track was that it meant I was only a few minutes away from the start of the tape again.

That tape became a right of passage or a ritual for our family. When my older brother got his first car, my dad left Thriller in there. When that car went to the great scrapheap in the sky, the only thing he had to make 101% sure he took out was that tape. The evening I picked up my first car, dad gave me the tape. I purposely drove around long enough to listen to the whole album. 

I think I must have got the Bad tape for my 6th birthday in 1988, there is no way my uncle would have been the sort of person to buy a record on release date, plus as a 5 year old I must have wanted to know all the singles first so given that it came out in August ’87, I think it must have already been just over a year old when I got my copy. Now this wasn’t like the family’s Thriller tape - that was a proper official release version, Bad was a taped copy off my uncle’s lp but I didn’t mind. Just like Thriller, Bad was and still is the sort of album you just put on and listen straight through and then start it again, there just aren’t really any weak tracks. Again, it was the b-side of the lp where all my favourite section of the album is; Another Part Of Me, Man In The Mirror, I Just Can’t Stop Loving You, Dirty Diana and Smooth Criminal. I remember constantly rewinding the tape trying to catch the lyrics to Smooth Criminal. Listening to it again now it isn’t hard at all and I know we have since had super fast rappers like Twista and every juke track out at the moment uses sped up r’n’b vocals, but back then, I just couldn’t believe how fast the verses were.

I remember when we went to see Moonwalker and again I have just had to check the release date because I’m sure we went to see it in the summer holidays yet it was released in October 1988 - it must have either still been on 9 months later or had a re-release for the summer. I must have been the biggest fan at the moment - and the most annoying kid about it. I can still remember to this day me and my brothers were given a choice of a treat day out during the holidays, they wanted to go swimming and I wanted to see Michael Jackson. God only knows how despite being out voted, we ended up going to the pictures - my mind must have blocked out whatever fuss I kicked up! Well despite the fact it had no plot, only the briefest snippets of what were (with hindsight) his best work with the Jackson 5 and some pretty dreadful acting, I loved it. I wanted to dance to Speed Demon with a 6 foot rabbit, I wanted to hear him pay himself the royalties for covering Beatles songs and I really wanted to be able to defy gravity and lean over THAT far!

Then it all went quiet. The late ‘80s and early ‘90s meant new and weird sounds from Chicago, Detroit and Manchester coming via my brothers bedroom. Anonymous, slightly illicit records just seemed to complete opposite of the high production values and mini movies of Michael Jackson. My tastes changed and yet word of comeback still brought levels of hysteria and excitement that something special was coming.

I vividly remember the first time I saw the video to Black Or White on TV. Or more specifically the first two times I saw it as the very first time was on prime time and it stopped at what I think is generally accepted as the standard video edit version these days, after all the faces change on the final chorus. I felt a little underwhelmed by both the song and the video in all honesty - after all I had been waiting four years for this moment and this wasn’t to be my Thriller moment. I soon saw the full version where he smashes up a car and dances on top of it, I think my brother must have taped it but I can’t think now which channel would have shown it, we certainly didn’t have MTV then. Anyway, the dancing told me he still had it.

Yet Dangerous followed on where Black Or White had left me, unimpressed. There were some decent tracks there but nothing even then I felt was up to his exceptionally high (and clearly unrealistic) standards. Then there was the fact that almost every track on the album seemed to be a released as a single. I must have been feeling a little cynical at the time but I just couldn’t believe that one, he needed the money to release every track or two, that he thought all of them tracks were strong enough.

Although I now thought was making the first weak records of his career, if I had dug a little deeper, I would have seen that actually he did have his ear to the ground, utilizing the producers I was now idolizing to remix his back catalogue - Masters At Work, Brothers In Rhythm and Roger Sanchez to name but a few - on the b-sides to singles for the HIStory album.

I don’t really want to speak too much about all the controversies about his private life that began emerging around this time. It did nothing to diminish his crown as the King of Pop in my eyes as it has nothing to do with his music and that is all I love him for - the music. I admired him as a philanthropist and charity worker, I worried about him as a person, his state of mind but the love was never questioned, it was all about the music.

So musically at least, he went quiet again and off my radar. Then as a teenager I began working backwards, checking all the old records as my favourite djs and producers name checked Off The Wall as their most influential record of all time. At the same time bootleg remixes and records based almost entirely on samples of his tracks started floating around. It seemed that momentum was again leading up to something big - rumors abound of working with the most in demand producers of the day, The Neptunes. It all seemed so plausible - they had transformed Justin Timberlake from boy band nobody to the coolest guy in the world by basically ripping off every Michael trick in the book - in fact his best record, Rock Your Body, had been written for Michael. 

As it tuned out, he went for what I felt was a safer option, using Teddy Riley again as on the  Dangerous work. I actually like a lot of Invincible, You Rock My Word and Butterflies are the obvious classics and although it was never likely to be the next Thriller, it is certainly a lot more listenable than a lot of other big budget r’n’b stars make of their albums.

From what I have seen of the rehearsals for the This Is It shows, it looked as he was back on form. I guess that was one of the big reasons it seemed so unbelievable he was gone - he looked better than he had done for a number of years, he was moving better than any 18 year old Pop Idol wannabe and his voice sounded strong. He looked fighting fit. 

I have spent the past few days listening to a lot of Michael’s stuff from across the years to try to find some inspiration to maybe find some unique twist on the conversations and debates that have run throughout his career and intensified over the past 12 months. If you like popular music you will find a Michael at least one track for you; soul, disco, ballads, rock, jazz, house, check, check, check. I think the legacy will unfortunately always be tainted with the controversy but ultimately in the way that, say, Elvis will forever be caricatured in the lost-it Vegas years but no-one in the right mind ever listens to anything but the ’57 rock’n’roll hits up to the ’68 comeback special classics, I guess Michael will always be seen as the guy in the red outfit from Thriller or something from (his own piss-take) Leave Me Alone video but the voice, the music will live on.

Never Can Say Goodbye: Michael Jackson One Year On by Spaceinvaderradio on Mixcloud

Practising

Just a little practice / try out of a few ideas mix. I pressed record so I thought I might as well share it as it has a couple of nice moments and some great tracks.

Bobbi Humphrey - Harlem River Drive

Jill Scott - Slowly Surely Forgotten (No Request Edit) 

Bullion - Caroline, No

Mitch Ryder And The Detroit Wheels - Shake A Tail Feather

The Meters - Cardova

The Roots Feat. Jill Scott - Complexity

Marvin Gaye - A Funky Space Reincarnation

Afrika Zulu Kings - Cars (Instrumental)

Los Amaya - Caramelo A Kilo

SuGaR - Takin' Care of Your Main Man

Carrie Cleveland - Make Love to Me

Sizzla - Di Gyal Dem So Cute Remix (Bam Bam Riddim)

Aretha Franklin - Cry Like A Baby

Unknown - Unknown Beat

InfinitiRock - Flamingo

The Roots - Act Won...Things Fall Apart

JtotheC - Stomper

Thomas Bangalter - Night Beats

De La Soul - You Got It

Ray Barretto - Soul Drummers

The Residents - Diskimo (Music Box Re-Edits)

Rufus Lumley - I'm Standing

The Vibrating - Surprise Party For Baby

Jewel Bass - Tried It

Santogold - Lights Out (Diplo's Panda Bear Mix)

Cookin' On 3 Burners - Cars

The Katzenjammers - Cars

Rev. Carlton Coleman - Rockgospeltime Pt. 2

Willie Mitchell - That Driving Beat

Constrobuz - Don't Fuck With My Car Radio

The Four Tops - If I Were A Carpenter

Nancy Wilson - Spinning Wheel

Johnny Osbourne - Ready or Not

Carlton & The Shoes - Love Me Forever

Rose Royce - Carwash (Onur Engin Edit)

Carol Williams - Have you For my Love 

New Order - I Don't Care

Moodymann - Lake Shore Drive (Todd Terje Re-kutt)

The Jacksons - Music's Takin' Over (Jski Extended FRA Edit)

Cybotron - Cosmic Cars

Was Not Was - Wheel Me Out (Frico Re-edit) 

Depeche Mode - Behind The Wheel (Shep Pettibone Mix)

Listen here:

Practice Makes Perfect by Paul Riley on Mixcloud

Download: Aretha Franklin - Cry Like A Baby http://www.mediafire.com/?wmjjtmmynzx

One for Fabio

How about a bit of d'n'b for Don Fabio? It's a well know fact he loves his liquid funk.... 


Download: Peshay - U Got Me Burnin'http://www.mediafire.com/?ijvmyminzzi

Tinariwen

A little something different today. Let's go back to Africa, this time to the Sahara and Mali for some Tinariwen from 2007. 


Download: Tinariwen - Ahimana

Mood II Swing

As it is officially the start of summer today (although surprisingly it isn't raining yet), I thought I would go for a summery kind of track, the Mood II Swing remix of Lucy Pearl. Always a classic. I don't really know why it makes me think of summer, perhaps the Spanish flamenco guitars. On a side note, can you believe this track is already 10 years old? Where does the time go?


Download: Don't Mess With My Man (Mood II Swing Remix) 

Underworld

I pulled this one again the other day after a friend said they had been watching Run Lola Run. Although the soundtrack was all original pieces made for the film by director Tom Tykwer, Johnny Klimek and Reinhold Heil, I always thought they must have been listening to a lot of Underworld stuff at the time.


Actually, I've just had a quick look on youtube to find a clip which backs up this point but the only one I could find was this - I'd forgotten there was a rock track in there too, most clips seem to use that one for some reason:
Download: Underworld - Dark and Long (Dark Train) 

Let The Beat Hit' Em

The don't make them like this anymore. Cause of recent rave scenes in the car to the girlfriend's bemusement / probably slight annoyance, classic bit of C&C Music Factory on remix duties, a Saturday night classic - download: Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam - Let The Beat Hit' Em (The Brand New Super Pumped Up C+C Vocal Club Mix) 

The Roots

I see The Roots have a new album out next week. Much like this post by Amelia at putmeonit, I agree they are one of the very few bands who just need to tell me there is a record out and I'll buy it blind. Ok, it's very unlikely that it is better than Things Fall Apart or Phrenology but then againif you have made two of the best albums of all time (in my opinion) it is going to be hard to top them.


Get more details and pre-orders etc at the okplayer site and check out the clips below.

However, I want to take you back, not all the way back - that's for another day, but back to this d'n'b classic (no, not the Blu Mar Ten mix - again another day) with Ms Erykah Badu - You Got Me 

Songs of Praise 13.6.10 with guest No Requests

This evenings Songs of Praise is the first of a two part NYC take over from guest host No Requests.


The first things I heard off him was some excellent remixes and edits of Erykah Badu, Massive Attack and a series of Biggie reworks. Add to that some great productions of his own and some deep digging dj sets so I had to request(!) a set for SIR while me and Colin are still up to our eyeballs in it.


Matthew said of the mix: 

I approached the mix a couple of ways. First I wanted the mix to be full of music that I would want to hear on a Sunday night. Music of personal preference where genres and labels have no use. Second it needed to be recorded live; nothing was planned in advance I just imagined myself on a Sunday night playing a normal gig. 

Part 2 in a fortnight.
No Requests soundcloud page


Erykah Badu - Honey (Mark Wayward Remix)
NoRequests - Hutch
LTJ X-Perience - Sound Machine
Cole Medina - I Like It
Andy Ash - Never Give You Up
Alex Wilson - Ain't Nobody (The Revenge Edit)
Rondenion - Blue Canal
Late Invitation - The Late Invitation Theme
Harry Swinger - Rage (Part 2)
Cole Medina - Magic (Cole's Downtempo Mix)
Mudd & Pollard - Vincent (Mark E Remix)
NoRequests - Jonesin' For You
Alex Wilson - Show Me (LTJ X-perience Remix)
Kashif - Help Yourself To My Love (The Revenge New Jersey Soul Mix)
Blacklodge - Broken Promises
Rene & Angela - Love You More (The Revenge Rework)
Marcos Carbal & Shux - Lifetime Groove
Tiger & Woods - Gin Nation
Deymare - Turntable Casanova
Worst Friends - Neve's for None (Eddie C Remix)
Space Ranger - Herbal Cake
Banbarra - Shack Up (The Revenge Edit)
Cole Medina - Burn This Mutha
Benjamin Devigne - Mess Up
Imagination - Changes (Remix)
Sister Sledge - Lost In Music (The Revenge Rework)
The Noodleman - Rural Fun 
Riccio - Street Life
6th Borough Project - Closer


Listen again:

Songs Of Praise 13/6/10 With No Requests by Spaceinvaderradio on Mixcloud

Map Of Africa

The World Cup began in Africa-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca this afternoon and seeing the opening ceremony with people using cloth to make a map of africa, lead me to the very obvious digging out of Map Of Africa, DJ Harvey's occasionally brilliant, occasionally too rocky for my liking, disco-not-disco project from a couple of years back.

Download - Map Of Africa - Map Of Africa  

The Superimposers

Combining two recent themes, what I've been playing in the car and beautiful tracks that amazingly weren't pop hits (one day I will find a proper focus for these pages) comes the opening track on The Superimposers debut form 2005. 

I think it was after hearing it on the blue room on radio 1 that first got me into them, then the follow up kind of sank without a trace and then a couple of months back Cubikmusik played one of their tracks on SOngs Of Praise (I don't think it was this one, but I could be wrong) which made me pull out this album again. I've been listening to it quite a bit recently and although at 35 minutes with a hidden bonus track is short, it is all sweet.

Download: The Superimposers - Over The Bridge

Air and Hope Sandoval

This must be one of the most beautiful songs ever but nobody bought. The b-side to the first single off the third album, Talkie Walkie in 2004, by which point most people had given up hope of another Moon Safari, the album and more to the point the singles from it, sunk without a trace.


Download: Air - Cherry Blossom Girl (Hope Sandoval version) 

Grand Central

Inspired by a brilliant mix by spaceinvader newbie Trustindust, of Grand Central records, I thought I'd dig out one of my personal favourites.

As seems to be the case with a lot the stuff I bought around 2000 -2003, it was due to an album of the month award in Jockey Slut that really brought Aim to my attention (I must have slept on the first album) and I'm going to guess he is still the only artists I've got from Barrow-in-Furness or at least the only hip hop records.

I don't know why really, but I personally preferred the Andy Votel remix on the single although it doesn't really vary too much away from the album version. Plus the fact that the album would be much easier to find these days than an 8year old single, I thought I would chose this cut.

Download: Aim - The Girl Who Fell Through The Ice (Votel Remix) 

Check out Trustindust's Grand Central mix here:

Grand Central Session by Trust In Dust Radio on Mixcloud