I'm in the mood for techno

Minimal techno might have edged techno towards the mainstream, but I’m talking about the old stuff, proper Detroit techno. Techno has always had a image problem in that the vast majority think it’s the type of awfull music that’s played to a scary warehouse full of skinheads and sounds like having your head smashed against a concrete floor,of course anyone with the slightest knowledge of real Detroit techno knows it can be highly intelligent music both funky and futuristic at the same time ‘Kraftwerk and George Clinton stuck in an elevator’ to paraphrase Derrick May.

In the documentary High Tech Soul detailing the history of the Detroit techno scene, the music comes across a little po faced with lofty ideals of artistic integrity. Can a form of music that while remaining resolutely underground yet fills clubs the world over be considered an artform? Certainly techno more than any other form of dance music has its canonised works, go to see any techno night and I’m sure you will still hear the likes of Strings of Life, Big Fun, Energy Flash played, records that are around two decades old. House reocrds of the same time don’t sound nearly as fresh and indeed futuristic today as the aforementioned Techno records.

Of all the Detroit techno artists striving for artistic credability Jeff Mills stands out a DJ and musician always looking to push the boundaries of what he does. Be that his Detroit radio mixes as the Wizard in the early days or setting up Underground Resistance, following Giorgio Moroder in creating a new score for Fritz Lang’s classic silent film Metropolis or having his work reinterpreted to be played by an orchestra as he did with his Blue Potential project. As a DJ he demands you dance, rapidly cutting from one record to the next, rarely playing anything for over a few minutes treating his techno drum loops like a hip hop DJ juggles beats. As an artist he tries to make you think as well as dance.

Below is an excerpt from Blue Potential that saw Mills teaming up with the Montpellier Philharmonic Orchestra under Alain Altinoglu. Perhaps most effectively with this version of Mills most famous track the Bells.

Jeff Mills & Montpelier Philharmonic Orchestra - The Bells


Jeff Mills & Montpelier Philharmonic Orchestra - The Bells

Here is a Jeff Mills mix originally broadcast on Mary Ann Hobbs Breezeblock radio show in 2005.


Jeff Mills - Breezeblock Mix

Axis Records

I'm in the mood for ska

Not the two tone stuff by the likes of the Specials above, but the original Jamaican flavour. If your down in the southern hemisphere I hope it’s a lovely summer, here in Britain it’s rained all week so here’s a little Ska mini mix (five tracks twelve minutes) to help the sun shine! All these tracks are off the Trojan compilation Young Gifted and Black, a brilliant ska, rockers and reggae primer that was released a few years back. A great investment if your music collections lacking some roots.

Ska Minimix - Tracklisting

Lorn Tanamo - I’m in the mood for ska
Prince Buster - Madness
The Skatalites - The Guns of Navarone
The Ethiopeans - Train to Skaville
The Upsetters – The Return of Django


Skamix

Trojan Records

Essential

Radio One’s Essential Mix is always going to hold fond memories for me. Back in what some call ‘the day’ it was the only place to go for decent dj mixes, tunes didnt have to be licenced like on a mix cd. You could buy rave tapes from record shops in ghastly packaging, normally a huge plastic box that seemed to always fall to pieces and would have some kind of Mandelbrot design on it, with 'live' normally meaning poor quality or there was trading tapes with your mates which meant whichever tunes the local record shop said Sasha was currently playing mixed together on a pair of beltdrives by a friends older brother. Then there was a third option - the Essential Mix. ‘saturday night through to Sunday morning’ the comforting tones of good ol’ Pete Tong introducing the nights entertainment.

The essential mix soundtracked the drive home or the after party, a night in with mates or on making a morning commute seem more bearable. I have tapes that were played to destruction, copies of copies of copies, favourite sets - from the trance of Oakenfold and Sasha, to Daft Punk playing Chicago house and David Holmes mix of funk, soul and sixties psyc to Unklesounds and the Psyconauts mixtapes. In fact away from the Essential Mix live sets from Ibiza or Creamfields etc. the more obscure mixes by the like of David Holmes, digging the crates and introducing a new audience to the likes of Marlana Shaw, Anandra Shankar or Nancy Wilson could almost be seen as upholding the BBC’s Reithian model of informing, educating and entertaining, but I digress - there were some banging tunes an all!

Of course the Essential Mix is still going with an international listenership and mp3’s of each show almost immediately available. Once in a while there might be a more interesting mix, Diplo put out a decent one last year, but it mostly seems to be pretty boring trance or electro house stuff. They still select the Essential mix of the year which brings me to the reason of this post. It didn’t win but you will hard pressed to find a better two hour selection from last year than this mix. For anyone who didn’t get it at the time, here is the excellent Lindstrom and Prins Thomas Essential Mix. We continue….

Lindstrom and Prins Thomas - Essential Mix 05/05/07

Al Usher ‘Her Today’ (Misericord)
Aeroplane ‘Aeroplane’ (Eskimo)
Lindstrøm & Solale ‘Let It Happen’ (Azuli)
In Flagranti ‘Bipolar’ (Codek)
No Theory ‘Devils Dance’ (Sin&Soul)
Lindstrøm ‘Musikal Overtones’ (Feedelity)
Sneak Thief G-String Orchestra ‘My Sullen Mistress’ (Klakson)
Ytre Rymden Dansskola ‘Kjappfot(PT Edit)’ (Full Pupp)
Runaway ‘Shadows’ (Wurst)
Max Mohr ‘Assonja Swynja’ (Playhouse)
Dettman Vs.Moroder ‘Quicksand/Utopia Mash’ (White Label)
Faze Action ‘Stratus Energy’ (White Label)
M-D-Emm ‘Get Acidic’ (Transmat)
Centrific ‘Somebody Went To Detroit And All I Got Was The Itchy Hawtins’ (Drop Bass Network)
Fleetwood Mac ‘You Make Lovin' Fun (Trailmix)’ (White Label)
M E ‘Rnb Drunkie’ (Golf Channel)
Wild Rumpus ‘Musical Blaze Up (Rub & Tug Bitches Remix)’ (Bitches Brew)
Chairmen Of The Board ‘Party’ (Invictus)
(Interlude) Rare Earth ‘Get Ready(Live Version)’ (EMI/Motown)
Niagara ‘Sangandongo Part 1’ (White Label)
Solomun & Stimming ‘Eiszauber(Diynamic’ (White Label)
Still Going ‘Still Going Theme’ (DFA)
Lindstrøm ‘Contemporary Fix (Bjørn Torske Remix)’ (Smalltown Supersound)
Nick Chacona ‘Mariacha’ (Internasjonal)
Lindstrøm & Prins Thomas ‘Nummer Fire En’ (Short Edit)



Lindstrom and Prins Thomas - Essential Mix

David Holmes 1997 Essential Mix from newmixes.com

Dipplo Essential Mix from filter27.com

Scotch Mist

Also over new years Radiohead put out a special live broadcast on line and via Al Gore’s Current TV, in the shape of a one hour film called Scotch Mist. Nice to get an idea of what some of the In Rainbows material played live.

SFA New Years

A belated happy new year to all, the hang over is finally out the way so time to look forward to what will hopefully be a great year. I saw the New Year in at the auspicious surroundings of London’s Royal Festival Hall for a Super Furry Animals gig. The Furries are one of those bands that keep going, are a solid live act and seem to stand for doing thing there own way, last years album Hey Venus didn’t get the attention it deserved despite the band touring pretty solidly. they have a large US tour lined up for this year.

The high light of their live act is always the storming The Man Don’t Give a Fuck, as the song ends it merges into some dirty acid techno. On new years this played out for what seemed like quarter of an hour before the boys came on to finish the song, turning a venue more used to mostly higher brow arts into a bit of a rave. The Furries, Gruff Ryhs last year released a great solo album called Candy Lion that’s a gentle acoustic contrast to some of the Super Furrys more psychedelic adventures. Here’s Candylion from the Gruff Rhys album of the same name and Neo Consumer from SFA’s Hey Venus.


Gruff Rhys - Candylion


SuperFurry Animals - Neo Consumer

S.F.A. website

End of Year Charts - Lists, Lists and More Lists

As Nick Hornby knows lists, apart from shopping ones, are fun and a necessity to the music and film lover. The end of the year is always a good time for lists as you assess the 12 months that has just raced by and although Old Is The New Neu only started up in October I’m still going to look back over the past year.

So here is the Old Is The New Neu end of year charts. I’ve invited along some of my fellow blogers in the shape of Innersounds, Did You See the Words and Planet Mondo to contribute some of their faves and newly discovered wonders of the year gone by.

Old Is The New Neu Albums of 2007

M.I.A. - Kala

M.I.A.’s second album, coming back with power power as she chants on the opening track Bamboo Banger. On first listen Kala seemed disappointing not offering the immediate buzz of her previous album Arula there was not quick fix quite like the Rocky sampling Bucky Done Gun. Diplo again produced several tracks though this time fidgit house master Dave Taylor aka Switch also produced. Tracks such as Bollywood sampling Jimmy and the anthemic Paper Planes showed a fresh, mellower side to M.I.A. while the international feel to the album was even more passport busting than Arular, taking in Brazilian, Indian, African and Aboriginal influences, this was real world music. Uber producer Timberland produced the albums closing track Come Around maybe hinting on M.I.A. breaking into mainstream America but very much keeping things on her own terms.


M.I.A.-Bamboo Banger

The Good the Bad and the Queen

After working with the cartoons for the last few years Damon Albarn wanted to be in a band again and what a band to put together. Enlisting Paul Simonon the bassist from the Clash and Afro Beat pioneer Tony Allen on drums. The band was named after their album full of dark songs set in a post millennium London, with the feeling of a country at war yet often seemingly unaware of it. Live they simply played the album from start to finish but did so perfectly. If Tony Allen’s drumming lacked his afro beat flourish it was because here was a band very much in service to the music they had created together. Hopefully another album will come from this group but it seems more likely this was a one off experiment. An album that will mature nicely and increase in importance in years to come.

Radiohead - In Windows

All the talk was about the innovative distribution method, the pay what you want download, but the music was much more important. Very much a return to form, Radiohead continued to explore electronica yet were very much focused on the songs again. They produced a album of euphoric melancholy as only they know how. The album track All I Need perfectly balanced the varied dynamics of the Radiohead sound, being as good as anything they have previously produced. The chatter across blogs and the media at large showed however they wish to sell or give away their records Radiohead are still more relevant than any of their contemporaries and the have a fanbase that will follow them down whichever road they wish to travel.

Mathew Dear– Asa Breed

If 2007 was the year minimal techno become the new progressive house i.e. drawn out tracks all sounding the same, it was also the year it crashed fully into the mainstream conquering Ibizian dance floors. Prog house DJ Dubfire, of Deep Dish fame, moved into the M_Nus camp and Villalobos released a Fabric mix completely made up of his own production work. Meanwhile the most interesting minimalist Mathew Dear aka Audion and Flase released a song based album, Asa Breed, a sort of minimal goes pop it owes as much to The Human League as Robert Hood. Dear hit the mix just right.

Map of Africa

If the whole Re-Edit, new Balearic, cosmic disco ‘scene with no name’ that has bubbled away on the DJ History board, music blogs and more diverse dance floors throughout the year, has an unelected scene leader it must be DJ Harvey. Harvey is the type of cult DJ whose track selections become canonised, but collaborating with Thomas Bullock of Rub and Tug he has also made one of the albums of the year, not a collection of super rare Black Cock style disco re-edits but a tribute to 70’s coke rock in the shape of Map of Africa. Released on the super cool Whatever We Want Records, in the words of Alan McGee ‘the future of dance music', the vinyl pressings soon became fought over by crate diggers going for £65 a go on Ebay and coursing fist fights in record shops. Mistakenly labelled as a dance record this is mostly sleazy rock at it’s finest, leather pants and moustache territory and all the finer for it. Here’s the Doorsesque instrumental Ely Cathedral.


Map Of Africa - Ely Cathedral

Tinariwen - Aman Iman

Tuareg Blues, beautiful joyful music. Tinariwen’s third album Aman Iman, the title means ‘water of life’, brought them to a wider audience taking in European festival dates through the summer and facing off across the studio floor from the Artic monkeys on an edition of Jool’s Holland’s Later. Still their work is criminally under presented in the media if you have not heard them, of all the music on this list you really should check them out. Tinariwen’s songs often tell of the Tuareg rebels fighting for independence from the government of Mali, but to the non French or Tamashek speaker they just speak as deeply soulful pieces of music. Here is the album’s opening track.


Tinariwen - Cler Achel

Fabric Live 36 – Mixed by James Murphy & Pat Mahoney

James Murphy’s dance rock outfit LCD Soundsystem pretty much ruled in 2007 with their second album Sound of Silver making it to the top of most year end charts, as well as their impressive Nike sponsored 45:33. I wanted to focus instead on Murphy’s DJ mix for the Fabric Live series. Murphy joins LCD’s drummer pat Mahoney to mix a selection of New York underground disco cuts finding the source of the cowbell heard in so many LCD productions. Opening epically with the Love Of Life Orchestra's - "Beginning of the Heartbreak" the mix takes in Chic, Was Not Was, NYC Peech Boys as well as neu disco from the likes of Daniel Wang and of course LCD themselves, all mixed up using a vintage Bozak DJ mixer for that authentic Paradise Garage vibe. The long running Fabric mix series can often fail to impress with well mixed but less than stunning track selections, though the LCD mix looks set to be a future classic.

Mountain of One – Colleted Works

Not really a debut album but a collection of their previous EP’s. Leo Elstob’s group mine a type of Balearica first found in the late sixties, early seventies psychedelic records of Pink Floyd such as More. Add in Krautrock and ambient influences and they create southing yet often melancholic epics. You don’t so much listen to their songs as float through them. I hope an album project is not to far of in the future.

Burial - Untrue

Dubstep aimed very much at the brain rather than the feet. Burial’s second album Untrue had more in common with Aphex’s ambient records or Massive Attack’s darkest work rather than “hold tight London” pirate stations. Although not as dance floor conscious as the work of Skream and Digital Mystics this was just as much about the evolving sound of dubstep as their work.



Burial - Raver