29 January 2007







So we all love Jackie Chan, and we all loved him just that bit more before he started hanging out in the ghettoes mixing his kung-fu with urban culture a la Rush Hour or Rumble In The Bronx. But what if, just what if he'd made that transition earlier on in his career to go in tandem with say Snake & Crane Arts Of Shaolin or Drunken Master, what would the soundtrack sound like? I'm guessing something like this.





MP3:
DODDODO - Monzoku Akamaru




DODDODO - Every Day DONER Life





Yes, it's DODDODO. Discovered by Ove Naxx, DODDODO now resides safely in that Osaka noisecore scene we keep reading about and she is one of the protagonists of this sound anarchy regime. Low and dirty beats often taken from 1980's hip-hop tracks are mashed with toy melodies; found sounds, country music and banjos, and gut wrenching vocals. Buy some here.




And whilst on the subject of distortion there is this.




MP3:
Diamond Rhodesia - Stage 5, The Stars




Diamond Rhodesia - Time Tomb




Diamond Rhodesia is charity shop keyboards, mini synthesizers, homemade electric guitars, Mr Rhythm machines and other miscellaneous crap all fed through an unlucky computers mic-in socket whilst under watchful supervision from that flying dog Falcor. The sound created is tops.... like Max Tundra thumb-wrestling Think About Life with BMSR refereeing , or CFTPA giving an underwater piggyback to Errors. GR8!!!. More songs on his MySpace.



My friend also kindly pointed out this alluring synth-pop classic from 1982 in the shape of Imagination, the video to "Just An Illusion" is just full of dance moves to learn in time for the weekend, and it's an amazing song to boot! Get those snake hips moving!






24 January 2007






Ever rediscover great albums you heard circa 2004? It's happened to me twice this week in the form of Eyeball Skeleton's self-titled Smoosh smashing kiddycore romp, and then Creative Playthings by Electric Company, glitchtronica in the vein of Stars As Eyes or Team Doyobi.


Eyeball Skeleton is made up of 8 year old JJ Brown (guitar, vocals), his 10 year old brother Charlie Brown (bass, vocals) and their father (drums). The name is a result of the two brothers thinking. JJ thought of "Eyeball" and Charlie thought of "Skeleton" so they combined them. Charlie described their method for writing lyrics as "We draw pictures and then we come up with names and lyrics about what we draw." Could it get any better than this. I THINK NOT!


MP3:
Eyeball Skeleton - Eyeball Skeleton


Eyeball Skeleton - Smokey Turtle





Get the album HERE


Electric Company aka Brad Laner has done like 10 albums, i've not heard them all but Creative Playthings seems to be the most accessible of them, varying styles, beats, genres and techniques don't get in the way of making this a really great listen. File under TV theme tunes from the foreseeable future.


MP3:
Electric Company - The Crab Eating Fox



Electric Company - Early Teeth


Also, Dot To Dot 2007 tickets are on sale now, it is on Sunday 27th May in the city of Nottingham, guaranteed great live acts brought to you by Liar's Club and co. Be there.


picture - shoboshobo




21 January 2007






I'm going to start of slow and sombre with A Silver Mt. Zion, the ever re-inventing descendant of GY!BE led by founding said band guitarist Efrim. Joined by fellow GY!BE members Sophie (violin) and Thierry (contrabass). On that fact alone you can pretty much sum up what ASMZ are about, and it's all good. You may also know that ASMZ are playing for the Dirty Three at their ATP curating in April, i'm lucky enough to be going, and the more I hear ASMZ the more excited I get at the prospect of seeing them live, bring on the wine and the cheese!


MP3:
A Silver Mt. Zion.... - Sisters! Brothers! Small Boats Of Fire Are Falling From The Sky



Next it's time to drop it down another gear with some Johann Johannson whose dad used to work for IBM back when computers were as big as Luxembourg and were as reliable as a Trabant. Luckily his dad had this tape which offered counsel on how to rectify a rebellious IBM, calm slow spoken words, which when Johann Johannson heard many years later thought just had to be set to a lush electro-orchestral soundscape.



MP3:
Johann Johannson - IBM 1403 Printer



And for those of you that can't be doing with 10minute songs that don't really get going til about 4minutes in, there is this. The aptly titled ADHD by Blood Red Shoes, greatly catchy and funfun and I probably like it so much cos it reminds me of one of my favourite songs by The Webb Brothers.


MP3:
Blood Red Shoes - ADHD




19 January 2007





Get these down your Ruud Gullit!





Some Communist-Bloc Rocking Beats from Russia courtesy of Proxy, these beats were then faxed across to a Riot In Belgium where the end product was nothing short of magnificent! You simply must get the Proxy EP out on Turbo, you need it! NEED!





Proxy - Destroy (Riot In Belgium Remix)(REMOVED)(GET IT HERE)





Erstwhile, over in France dDamage melted his messed up techno sound and gave it to Krazy Baldhead to swallow it down like a hot steamin' cup 'o' chai tea. Mental cut up techhhh;; but then what else can you expect off a Tigerbeat6 Compilation called Let's Lazertag Sometime?





dDamage - Ink 808 (Krazy Baldhead Mix)




14 January 2007






Does the weather play a part in what kind of musical mood you are in? I'm thinking yes, the weather has been pretty dismal this past week, and my last.fm stats tell me that Chromatics and Eluvium have made up the majority of songs listened to, now this is no bad thing because Chromatics and Eluvium are both agonizingly amazing, but I dunno, their songs just seem to tie in nicely with rain and cold and breeze. Today however the low pressure and the clouds have vanished, replaced by that ridiculously bright winter sunshine that makes driving a pain in the colonel, and it's really mild too......if I was Michael Fish i'd say the weather was happy! So what am I listening to in this happy weather? Well coincidence or not i've found myself drawn to the likes of ironopopsters Hey Willpower, Sally Shapiro and White Williams. All so brilliant...


MP3:
White Williams - Headlines


Sally Shapiro - I'll Be By Your Side (Rude 66 808 Remix)


That White Williams song is just soooo good, nostalgic yet fresh, firm yet enticing.




12 January 2007






2007 is looking excellent if you love good music. And by good music I mean, Summer Lovers Unlimited records. They've already released the eBay powerseller/noisewaver Dandi Wind and they're going to be releasing Crystal Castles, The Teenagers, Duchess Says and Channels 3x4 stuff! Could it get any better? Well, yeah, add to those guys the likes of Put The Rifle Down and Twin Crystals and it seems this label was made for my ears! Splendid work chaps! Here's some samples of what SLU have to offer courtesy of their site, listen to them because they're great:


MP3:

Put The Rifle Down - My Industrial Park


Crystal Castles - AirWar


Twin Crystals - 4 Minutes


Channels 3x4 - The Queen


Deerhoof - Rrright (Stop Die Resuscitate Mix)







11 January 2007





Shockout is a division of the totally rad Tigerbeat6 label which fuses electronic music together with ragga and dub, now ragga and dub are 34th and 65th respectively in my favourite genres so I would have steered clear if it wasn't for the fact that it was a Tigerbeat6-ish release and that the electronic side of Weed Wid Da Macka (SHOCK15) was played out by Knifehandchop and Modeselektor. Arguably the Knifehandchop stuff on this 12" is better, with beats reminiscent of early 90's rave mixed in with the music off Level 5 of Doom with Ninjaman ragging over the top, techcore for people with big hair.




MP3:
Knifehandchop feat. Ninjaman - Weed Wid Da Macka (Streets Of Frankfurt Mix)






So yeah if you're liking SebastiAn and Justice and all that, you're going to love this, i'm aware this was released back in June but i've only just gots it so it's all new to me, its datA and his Trop Laser EP out on Ekler'o'Shock , 4 tracks of pure dancefloor rocking French electro! Yeeeeeah!



MP3:

datA - Paste Back









9 January 2007






Huzzah, i'm back after some 'technical difficulties'. The electric cooker in my house shorted the electrics which in turn Gary Glittered my modem, then I was too lazy to go and get a new one, plus people were celebrating that end of year thing so nowhere was open like. Plus i've been busy tearing it up on the wheels of steel for some friends, then seeing how it's really done courtesy of Erol, and also printing the above image onto unsuspecting t-shirts.


Music wise, still loving the whole cut up French electro thing, proof is here with the young boy Surkin and his fantastic Ghetto Obsession, then also on Institubes is the first official mixtape from TTC's dj and producer entitled The Rise And Rise Of, it features garden shedloads of quality blends and exclusives etc. I'm particularly loving the Mekon 'Yes, yes y'all' Duke Dumont remix.






MP3:
Surkin - Ghetto Obsession




MP3:
Mekon - Yes, Yes Y'all (Duke Dumont Remix)




His MySpace gots lots of other rad sounds too.




Pluxus have been getting some good play around my house too, they're an electronic outfit from Stockhom and have a new album called Solid State, solid it is. They have developed a unique sound using vintage synthesizers, samples, computers and other machines. Top brass.




MP3:
Pluxus - Bootstrap





MP3 links prior to this post no longer seem to be working, so i've just changed my filehost, so all should be swell from now.