The Jazz Diaries

Rest in Peas Gil

2011-06-02T23:35:00.001+10:00

Mala - Changes (Harmonimix)

2011-04-22T10:19:00.003+10:00

Realise.

2011-03-31T06:43:00.004+11:00

Keep Your Business to Yourself

2011-03-22T23:12:00.000+11:00

A taste of things to come...

Written and produced by yours truly and Jitwam Sinha

Jitwam Sinha - Nearly in Heaven

2011-03-21T23:41:00.003+11:00

Video fathomed, manufactured and produced by Kush Badhwar

D25: A Night In Review

2010-12-12T12:45:00.001+11:00

I only saw Moody and Theo, oh and some dude from the 70s with an afro.

He was fun.

But Moodymann was good.

Soul Good.

His set traversed through the spheres of what can be loosely defined in the english dictionary as 'soul' music, with Moody joining the dots between Zepplin, Dilla, Fourtet and Larry Heard.

And his style was inimitable. He even had some Wu-Tang wannabe stand next to him with arms folded and head bopping. (Later i saw him on the dancefloor at Theo letting loose trying to shag anything that moved.)

It was nice. But the dance floor wasn't. It was rammed. Often making one feel like they were packaged in a tin of sardines than grooving away on a dance floor.

And then we come to the dancers themselves.

People on fashionista drugs often end up being sucked in this void. Staring endlessly into nothingness or in one persons case, dry humping the sound system for a good hour or two. In real terms they end up either wasting space with both feet planted on the ground, making weird movements with their eyes and mouth, or just simply end being an arsehole.

These are not mutually exclusive.

Speaking of arseholes and the effect it has on the human body.

Kenny Larkin didn't rock up, to little reconciliation on the promoters part. Not a word was given about his last minute cancellation although this fabled attempt at 10pm on inthemix to prove to punters that they are human after all was a nice little aside.

Also the club, called something alley (Brown Alley) have this policy of not serving water. Which in my mind seems to defy both federal law and human logic.

Rather, the club offers the chance for clubbers to hydrate their dehydrated selves with ice in a glass. I'm glad that the upto $80 price tag for the ticket goes a long way in ensuring patrons health and safety.

What was more disappointing was that during my pointless argument with the bar girl about the club's 'no water' policy, a ruffan behind me said i should just buy water and fuck off, implying advocation with the clubs stupid fucking logic and ensuring that such fucking stupidity will be the standard across bars and clubs in the future. (This is not to forget the unnecessary and wasteful use of plastic bottles).

Humans are surprisingly good at letting themselves get trampled over.

So then there was Theo.

He started his set with anger and frustration.

The sound guy responded with incompetence and irreverence at what Theo was on about.

But it was clear... the sound was shit.

Real shit.

The turntables kept on shaking. The sound kept on cutting out. And just empty and void of any substance whatsoever.

This lasted for a good hour or hour and a half until magically, Theo turned some knobs and the sound started to sound good.

And then with even more knobbage it sounded even better...

Until there was an orgy of knobbage and good tunes which laid the foundations for Theo's set from here on in.

But it wasn't until 4am that things took a turn for the transcendental.

After a surprising left turn into an obscure reggae traxx, the rest of the set ventured into the most deepest deep beatdown shizzle you are to ever hear in your life.

Theo's collection is deep, and his skills on the decks go even deeper.

Often just eqing the fuck out of some random edit of some random traxx, his attitude to the eqs and fx carried the spirit of what i imagine Ron Hardy was like back in the day.

It was the best DJing i have seen in a long time.

And long meaning loooooooonnnngggg.

Real long... But maybe i just need to get out more.

And whilst Theo had the crowd eating out of his hand. The time had come for HMC to do his thang. But Theo's insistence for an encore meant this did not come to pass, so i left.

P.S On my way back home at 7 in the morning, the big screen outside the train station showed that Julian Assange has reports of Burma's apparently very well developed nuclear program! Oh how I LOVE DEMOCRACY!

Wake Up (i got nothing to sell but myself)

2010-11-19T23:27:00.003+11:00

Written and Produced by yours truly and Jitwam Sinha

Best In Me

2010-11-15T09:02:00.005+11:00

Written and Produced by Kush Badhwar and J..wam Sinha

Kush Badhwar proudly presented by waydk

Singing In Strange Places: Melody of a Memory

2010-11-03T19:22:00.001+11:00

Singing in Strange Places: Movement002

2010-05-17T16:53:00.002+10:00

Untitled EP

2010-05-02T22:16:00.006+10:00

Tracklisting
1. Untitled001
2. Untitled002
3. Untitled003
4. Untitled004 (And When Your Hearts Stop)
5. Untitled005 (Transitions)
6. Times They Change
7. Untitled006

DOWNLOAD HERE

A Mixtape Between Anticipation and Realisation

2010-04-12T03:19:00.001+10:00

... compiled by Jitwam Sinha

Tracklisting
1. Björk & The Brodsky Quartet - The Anchor Song
2. Antony and the Johnsons - What Can I Do? feat. Rufus Wainwright
3. DJ Shadow - Six Days
4. Jimmy Edgar - LBLB Detroit
5. Portishead - Only You
6. Slum Village - You Know What Love Is
7. Smokey Robinson - Quiet Storm
8. Cymande - For Baby Oh
9. The Beach Boys - Caroline No
10. Charles Manson - Look At Your Game Girl
11. Jon Brion - Phone Call
12. CocoRosie - Candy Land
13. Radiohead - Motion Picture Soundtrack

DOWNLOAD HERE

Singing In Strange Places: A Melody About A Girl

2010-03-15T00:38:00.001+11:00

Rolling Down Hills

2010-03-09T03:11:00.002+11:00

Rolling Down Hills celebrates the joyful wonder of youth and optimism in the face of evil forces made out of plastic bottles collected in Kolkata, whose only aim is to crush the remaining hopes and dreams of a society forced into solitary confinement by the power of the invisible hand...

Roses EP

2010-02-05T17:26:00.004+11:00

Tracklisting
1. Here Comes The Time
2. Doo
3. Nearly in Heaven
4. Catching My Breath
5. Another Galaxy
6. I Could Be Right
7. Outro

Download Here

Singing In Strange Places: Negative Nancy

2009-08-22T17:52:00.004+10:00

Singing In Strange Places: Part I

2009-06-15T17:40:00.001+10:00

DJ Mix - Wrap My Heart in Tissues

2009-05-12T22:28:00.013+10:00

... compiled by Jitwam Sinha

Tracklisting
1. Jon Brion - Little Person
2. King Pleasure - Parker's Mood
3. Marva Josie - He Does it Better
4. Moody - Desire
5. Jens Lekman - The Opposite of Hallelujah
6. Wilco - Jesus etc.
7. The Velvet Underground - I Found a Reason
8. Animal Collective - Leaf House
9. The Supremes - Where Did Our Love Go?
10. The Shirelles - Baby It's You
11. Devendra Banhart - So Long Old Bean
12. David Bowie - Sorrow
13. Timmy Thomas - Why Can't We Live Together?
14. The Beatles - Goodnight

DOWNLOAD HERE

And We All Fall Down

2009-05-07T22:50:00.003+10:00

Ring around the rosy,
A pocket full of posies;
a'tissue, a'tissue
we all fall down!

Dark Matter and Freedom Drums EP

2009-04-16T22:30:00.004+10:00

Tracklisting
1. There's No Other Place
2. Guys and Girls (it's all the same)
3. Yeah, You're Ordinary
4. Bit 8

DOWNLOAD HERE

DAILY.Routine EP

2009-04-05T21:38:00.004+10:00

Tracklisting
1. Lifting the Roof
2. Lord Cant You See

DOWNLOAD HERE

DJ Mix - A Collection of Dusty Memories

2009-03-29T16:38:00.004+11:00

Tracklisting
1. Vashti Bunyan - Diamond Day
2. Devendra Banhart - My Dearest Friend
3. Arthur Russel - Walking on the Moon
4. Nico - These Days
5. Dionne Warwick - Walk on By
6. D'Angelo - the Root
7. Idris Muhammad - Could Heaven Ever Be Like This
8. Andre 3000 - the Prototype
9. Julie London - Laura
10. Jay Electronica - Voodoo Man
11. Lee Hazlewood & Nancy Sinatra - Some Velvet Morning
12. The Beach Boys - Still Believe in Me
13. The Velvet Underground - Ride into the Sun

DOWNLOAD HERE

Greg Wilson Interview

2008-07-08T20:23:00.015+10:00

Today/Tonight we have a very special interview with DJ Greg Wilson from the UK.

Greg was the first UK DJ to mix live on TV with a young, young Jools Holland.

He is widely known amongst disco lovers as one of the finest purveyors of Electro-Funk, a sound he championed long ago to the dismay of the unitiated. (Hence his efforts to give this inimitable sound the recognition it deserves.)

If you haven't heard his critically acclaimed 'Credit to the Edit' series... do yourself a favour and check it out. A highly danceable, yet informative insight into the art of the 'edit' and boogie music...

Thanks for taking the time out to talk to us Greg. How have you been and what have you been upto?
Been busy with DJ dates, plus various remix and edit projects - including the 2020 mix that's due out at the end of June.

I want to get a little bit into the huge popularity with edits of late.
What is your philosophy with the edits you make?
I basically make them to play out whilst I’m deejaying. I wouldn’t bother editing something if I couldn’t play myself. There’s no set way – each edit is approached separately. Some tracks might only need a simple extension, it’s often the simple things that work best, whilst others can be more involved.

Obviously, back in the day you didn't have the convenience of computers and the like...
do you still cut your edits by hand?
There’s no point – I can work so much quicker via computer. I used to love tape editing, found it really meditative, but it’s a pretty basic method given the way in which technology has advanced.

What are the differences between the two?
On tape you’re working with a rigid stereo track, whereas a computer can provide a whole range of additional options. For example, you can crossfade to make the edit point smoother, or overdub other sounds, add fx etc. If you wanted to repeat a single bar section for say 16 bars, you’d have to record it 16 times to tape and then methodically edit all the bars together one at a time, whereas with a computer you just need to record the once, find the start and end points, press copy loop and type in 15, then bobs your uncle, in seconds you have a fully edited 16 bar section!

The fact that you can multi-track edit on computer blurs the lines between a traditional re-edit and a remix. Much of my own work sits between the two.

And what are your thoughts on the influence music software has on the ‘editing’ art?
To quote my Credit To The Edit sleevenotes – “Suffice to say that editing has been a major part of my life. Nowadays my work is computer based and I can do things that would once have taken me hours in just a matter of minutes. Many tape edit effects, which used to be highly complex and time consuming back in those distant days, are now made relatively simple by modern technology. That's not to say that the craft has gone out of editing, you still have to come up with the ideas and that's always the most important thing, no amount of technological expertise can make a silk purse from a sow’s ear. However, the precision and speed of computers undoubtedly makes life a lot easier, allowing so many more possibilities than I could have imagined during those countless hours sat over my Revox, blade in hand. There are also things that were impossible when I started out editing, like changing the tempo of a track without changing the pitch. The tools I had at my disposal back then were undoubtedly primitive when compared to what's available now.”

So how did you guys get access to the party scene that was happening over in New York and Chicago?
Chicago wasn’t really at the races when I was deejaying in the early 80’s – it was all about New York. We didn’t have masses of info, like now, but found out bits here and there. It wasn’t until later that the full picture came into focus. More than anything, I was simply responding to the great underground dance music coming over to the UK on import via labels like Prelude, West End, Streetwise, Tommy Boy, Emergency and others. I picked up on the names of the people producing and remixing the tracks – Tee Scott, Shep Pettibone, Larry Levan, Francois Kevorkian, Arthur Baker, Eric Matthew and Darryl Payne etc – but didn’t know too much about them at first. It’s not like now when you can instantly google them online and get the full in-depth lowdown.

I know a lot of the Italo-Disco artists like Klien & MBO were huge records in the UK...
Klein & MBO’s ‘Dirty Talk’ was a major tune on the black scene, but not that well known outside of the underground clubs. I started playing it in ’82, having picked it up on Italian import (Zanza label) – it was a record I was very much associated with, so it was nice to be asked to re-edit it recently (out pretty soon). There was no such category as Italo Disco back then (the term wasn’t coined until a German compilation of Italian club tracks was released in late ’83 on ZYX). ‘Dirty Talk’ was very much regarded as Electro back then - it was one of the biggest tracks of ’82 at my venues, Legend in Manchester and Wigan Pier, before Hewan Clarke, then the DJ at a new club called The Hacienda, picked up on it and began to play it there. It was as a result of this that New Order, who co-owned The Hacienda, heard it and borrowed it from Hewan. It would help inspire the track they were working on in the studio at the time, which is now World renowned as ‘Blue Monday’.

A number of Italian tracks were played on the Jazz-Funk scene, and later during the Electro-Funk era – stuff like Harry Thumann ‘Underwater’, KID ‘Hupendi Muziki Wangu’, Advance ‘Take Me To The Top’, Kasso ‘Walkman’, Firefly ‘Love (Is Gonna Be On Your Side)’, Electra ‘Feels Good’ and Klein & MBO’s follow-up to ‘Dirty Talk’, ‘Wonderful’. It wasn’t because they were Italian, but because they fitted in alongside the US releases that dominated the playlists of the black music specialists. The gay clubs would generally go for the cheesier Italian tracks, whilst the black scene went for the funkier ones.

How in the world did obscure European genres like Italo-Disco get so well received in

America

and the

?
I think that records, back then, were taken more on their own individual merit, rather than by genre. As I said, there was no such category as Italo Disco, so Italian records were just a part of the overall Eurodisco thing, rather than being viewed as a separate entity. The gay clubs were more Euro based, but the black clubs would cherry pick the tracks that fitted into their vibe. The fact that most of these twelves were either instrumental, or included an instrumental version made them more accessible to the black crowd. I would never have dreamed of playing the vocal version of ‘Dirty Talk’ – it was far too white sounding, if you understand what I’m saying. In a similar way, I would never have played the vocal of Madonna’s ‘Everybody’, which featured as an import on the black scene when she was a complete unknown, but the dub version fitted the criteria.

In your article ‘On the Tube’ you mention:

“I must admit that it was greatly frustrating that so many people believed that what was going on during the late 80’s was something totally new when, in reality, it was a direct continuation of what had been happening on an underground level earlier in the decade.”

... Can you explain a little bit about the era before Manchester blew up?

Manchester clubs had a black music lineage that went back to the 60’s. The Twisted Wheel was regarded as one of the greatest clubs of its era during the Mod period – a truly cutting-edge Soul venue. It would later become the catalyst for the whole Northern Soul phenomenon, but prior to that it had a more contemporary edge to its music. It was this deep love of Soul that inspired the DJ’s there to dig out increasingly obscure records, discovered retrospectively, which provided the DNA for the Northern Soul scene to flourish during the 70’s.

However, it wasn’t Northern Soul that the black kids, generally speaking, were interested in, but the contemporary black music of the 70’s. Clubs like Rafters, which was where the Music Box (home of the Electric Chair RIP) is now, catered for this audience with DJ’s John Grant and Colin Curtis leading the way during the late 70’s, playing Soul,Funk, Disco and Jazz-Funk, along with Mike Shaft, who’d taken over the hugely influential Piccadilly Radio Soul show from Andy Peebles (Stu Allan would later take over from Mike Shaft, championing House and Hip Hop during the mid-80’s).

By the early 80’s, my Wednesday nights at Legend became the big underground dance night with Electro-Funk, in its various guises, pushing at the boundries and laying the foundations for the subsequent Hip Hop, House and Techno directions. It was because of my success at Legend that The Hacienda approached me about their Friday night, which I took over, playing the type of stuff I played at Legend, but to an audience who were more Indie / Alternative based. This led to an exchange between this crowd and the black crowd that would provide the catalyst for what happened at the club later in the decade with the Big Bang that was House.

Without the black scene leading the way, it could never have happened in Manchester the way it did, but it’s only now that this is finally being acknowledged and people are realising that the dance movement in Manchester, and elsewhere for that matter, didn’t begin in Ibiza in ’87. This myth became so strong that the pivotal contribution of black people in this country, when it came to shaping the destiny of dance culture, had been completely obscured.

What were the parties like?

Intense is the best word to describe them. There’s nothing before or since that compares. To use the word ‘party’ would be wrong - they were a weekly ritual of sound and dance. The historical context needs to be taken into account, for this happened during the years following the race riots in the UK, at a time when tensions in the black community were really high. People needed a way of letting of steam and the club scene was essential to this. For many people, the whole week revolved around going to Legend on a Wednesday or Wigan Pier on a Tuesday. They might be unemployed and only have enough money to get into town and pay the entrance fee (a lot of people who came to Legend would only drink tap water, having spent all the money they had just coming out), but they could temporarily escape all the day to day stresses of life on the dancefloor. I’m often asked what drugs the people were taking, but, at the bottom line, the greatest drug was the music itself – that’s what took them outside of themselves. This certainly wasn’t a chemically induced high.

What was the crowd like and what were the main influences on the scene?
They were, quite simply, the most cutting-edge crowd, who were into the most cutting-edge tunes. They were way ahead of the game when it came to music and dancing. We used to use the term ‘upfront’ in connection with these nights, relating to the music you’d hear, which was nearly all either import or UK promo – some of which might become chart hits a few months down the line having broken on the black scene. Once they’d crossed-over to the more mainstream clubs and people thought they were ‘discovering’ something new, the black crowd had already moved on to a whole new set of tunes. They led the way and the rest followed.

Going back a little… what sort of records were you spinning before you embraced the electro-funk sound?
When I started out in the clubs, in 1975, I was playing Soul, Funk and some of the Pop tracks that worked on the dancefloor. The normal type of stuff that was played in most UK clubs and Discotheques at the time. Back then Disco music was music played in Disco’s, rather than being regarded as a specific genre - this only happened later. Soul and Funk was Disco music and, although I wouldn’t regard myself as a fully fledged black music specialist until a few more years down the line, this was certainly something I aspired to be from the off.

Jazz-Funk was a big underground scene at the end of the 70’s and the start of the 80’s and, in a specialist sense, it was as a ‘Jazz-Funk DJ’ that I first made my name. Your status was based on the amount of All-Dayers you played at. These were events held on Sundays, or Bank Holiday Mondays, when the most popular DJ’s on the scene were booked to appear on the same bill, with live bands often being an additional feature. Having made a success of my Tuesday Jazz-Funk night at Wigan Pier, I began to be booked on the All-Dayer circuit, appearing at venues throughout the North (there was very much a separation between the scenes in the North and the South back then, although we were obviously aware of each other, mainly via the pages of Blues & Soul). The reason that things became pretty controversial for me later down the line was because I was an established Jazz-Funk DJ who started to play this new electronic sound at a time when most of the other DJ’s on the scene completely rejected it. It was because I held some power, via my club nights at Wigan Pier and Legend, that my decision to take this new direction caused a schism within the scene, with the purists up in arms about me playing this ‘Electro shit’.

Just to clarify, even though it was called the Jazz-Funk scene, this only related to the predominant music played, for we featured a whole spectrum of black music - Funk, Soul, Disco (especially the side of Disco that would later be termed Boogie). It was the same when Electro came along – even though this was the music I became associated with, I never played it exclusively. At clubs like Legend and the Pier you’d hear the best black music available, be it Electro, Boogie, Street Soul, Jazz-Funk and Fusion, with, as we previously discussed, the odd Italian or European release adding to the overall stew.

In your interview with Fatboy Slim he points out there were only a handful of UK records that you could play out in clubs.

Why was this?
It was a quality issue – US black music was of such a high standard that it was difficult for the UK acts to gain a foothold. Having said that, Norman was talking more about the mid-80’s, rather than the Jazz-Funk period when there were some British releases that were absolutely massive on the black scene. For example:

Atmosfear ‘Dancing In Outer Space’

David Joseph ‘You Can’t Hide (Your Love From Me)’

Freeez ‘Southern Freeez’

Inversions ‘Loco-moto’

Level 42 ‘(Flying On The) Wings Of Love’

Linda Taylor ‘You And Me Just Started’

Linx ‘You’re Lying’

Powerline ‘Double Journey’

Touchdown ‘Ease Your Mind’

TW Funk Masters ‘Love Money’

Hardly a bad list of 10 tunes!

Any DJ Mix you recommend that faithfully pays tribute to the Electro-Funk scene in the 80s?
My Best Of 82 and Best Of 83 mixes document the music of this period. Also the ‘No Sell Out Electrospective’, which I put together a few years back for A Guy Called Gerald’s Samurai FM show. This is probably, for a variety of reasons, the most involved mix I’ve ever done, and is pretty definitive when it comes to the biggest Electro tunes played at Legend and Wigan Pier between the golden era (May ’82 – January ’84).

All the info is here:

www.electrofunkroots.co.uk

I Met The Walrus: John Lennon Interview

2008-07-05T18:23:00.001+10:00

Jay Electronica - Act II Preview

2008-06-24T10:46:00.004+10:00

Ooooooh!

One of my fav rappers is back with a new mixtape in tow;

Act II: Preview
1. When The Levees Broke
2. Extra Extra
3. Not A Disturbance
4. Departure
5. Are You Watching
6. A Prayer For Michael Vick & T.I.

Also in the works for Jay this year is collaborations with Guilty Simpson (Stones Throw) and 9th Wonder as well as his debut album 'Abracadabra: Let There Be Light' out through Eyrkah Badu's newly formed label 'Control FreaQ'.

Click on the pic for the DownLowd.

The Rip Ripped

2008-06-14T13:21:00.002+10:00

Fresh off the tube is Radiohead doing a cover of my favourite song of the new Portishead album...

thank god for the internet...

James Pants Freebies

2008-06-12T21:39:00.003+10:00

Found out about Mr. Pants through my tall friend Diabolik and his dusty new blog.

James Pants latest album 'Welcome' (out on Stones Throw) covers a wide range of musical territory summoning the raw electro boogie of yesteryear with oddball charm and grace.

... so before his album drops

Here's some freebies to sink your teeth into...

James Pants - Were Through

Too Short - I Ain't Trippin (James Pants remix)

Aphex Twin - Windowlicker

2008-06-08T14:50:00.003+10:00

MTV Europe has been fined US$484,500 for playing Aphex Twin's 'Windowlicker' before 9pm for all the kiddies to see...

The video clip is famed for its iconic Aphex Twin faces and obscene language (not to mention the song itself).

If you haven't seen this video clip...

...

....

Directed by Chris Cunningham

Osborne - Outta Sight (Ghostly International)

2008-05-29T01:47:00.007+10:00

Free Freebie Free (click on picturesque)
Using his own music software produced on his own hand-built computer comes Todd Osborne.

Championed by the likes of Giles Peterson, UR and Aphex Twin for his unique twist on electronic pop music.

This track harks back to the days of the Paradise Garage but... not.

thank you Ghostly International for all the freebies! and the good music...

ENJOY .:

Flying Lotus BBC Radio 1 Mix

2008-05-25T20:45:00.002+10:00

Click on the pic.turage.

Also in other related Lotus news, his new album 'Los Angeles' (Warp) is set to drop on June 10th. (thanks anonymous)

Click here for XLR8R interview.

Maestro: Documentary on Early DJ Culture

2008-05-25T10:12:00.004+10:00

This documentary is

It gives a great overview of the DJ Culture happening in New York during the late 70s, which spreads far beyond the dancefloor.

Very much on the Larry Levan tip but informative nonetheless.

Its a nine part series --- so look for the links once the video is finished.

Casco Interview

2008-05-24T18:53:00.016+10:00

Of late, italo-disco has undergone a massive revival in DJ boxes around the world.

... One of the most celebrated and revered tracks of this time is Casco's 'Cybernetic Love.'

On this note the Jazz Diaries caught up with the mystery to give some context to the Italian disco influences that we are seeing today. It was so refreshing to see such enthusiasm and an undying passion and love for the music,,, one which has lasted 37 years...

In addition to this Casco was kind enough to supply us with a special DJ mix very much on the italo-tip.

Once again click on the pic for linkety linkage.

Casco DJ Mix: Italo Session 08
1. Giorgio Moroder “ If you weren’t Afraid”
2. Patrick Cowley “ Mind Warp “
3. Easy Going “ Fear”
4. Telex “Moskow Disco”
5. Giorgio Moroder “The Chase Rmx”
6. Donna Summer “ I feel Love”(Patrick Cowley Rmx)
7. Gino Soccio “Visitors”
8. Lucio Battisti «Il Veliero »
9. Giorgio Moroder “Utopia”
10. Azul y Negro "The Night"

Hello Casco, thank you for taking the time out to talk to us.
How have you been and what have you been up to lately?
Hi Everyone it’s my pleasure! I was having busy time with my Italodisco tour during last year and currently working on new project with my digital music label Music Control and looking for the final touch on new Casco release.

You first started out DJing during the early 70s and still continue to DJ even today. In your eyes how has the role of the DJ changed over the years?
Djs were putting their records in bananas boxes because didn’t exist even proper flight cases. I was lucky: my father, which was a carpenter (musician for hobby real crazy for the Italian opera's tenor Caruso), created for me a sort of heavy wood box that was very similar for the size and design to a sarcophagus , I was closing inside around 500 seven inch still alive and breathing –laughing-

When I started,the mixer didn’t had sliders and pre listener …I had to read in the grooves where was the drum, the vocals and the break…

I was “obliged” to spin (every night 7 hours for seven days per week(as in contract)…but was not so hard job , people were as gentle party animals, plenty of enthusiasm for the new disco’s trend…despite this the DJ was often considered as an human juke-box by the club managers! You had to get everything of everything in order to keep your place of work showing an impressive musical culture spending as well half of the salary just for the news. . Nowadays what u need is over all to express yourself…the real disc jockey is disappearing living the place to the digital deejay . With an Usb key and a laptop no need any longer to carry heavy flightcases with tons of vinyls…and bringing on you zillions of sub genres in your repertory. .no more 7 hours of work per day but ‘DJ sets’ of 2 hours maximum...

Since years the DJ is is getting more and more respect for what is creating and for his own style…no more a juke box, but a real artist. Oh what a beautiful life…finally!

Can you give us a small taste of the kind of records you were playing back then? OK ,Let’s mention the different style of my first month of DJ : Melting Pot by T.Booker and the MGS (most played record during October 1971), “Shaft “Isaac Hayes, “Big Stuff” Jean Knight, “Sex Machine” by Godfather James Brown, Supremes “Stoned love”, Stevie Wonder “Signed sealed delivered” “Get it on” by T Rex, “Co-Co” by The Sweet, “Rock n roll part II” by G.Glitter Band, Joe Cocker’s “High time we went” Deep Purple’s “Black Night”, “Paranoid” by Black Sabbath , “Action Man” Spinach (the duo Moroder –Bellotte )… …From this short list u can get clearly how versatile had to be a professional disco deejay during 70s’...

And how has this changed over time?
I noticed in the mix you gave me Giorgio’s influence is ever present… What kind of records are you spinning today?
As told u above during 70’s and then also in the 80’so a resident was playing all kind of music , ballads as well off course (Elton John Bee Gees and G. Michael absolutely the most played ). The break created between slow time and the fast series was only the pretext to introduce the next tracklist……

The art of mixing was starting to be more enjoyable with the creation of the 12 inch …before that I used to buy double copies of single in order to play the vocal and the instrumental or cutting the tracks suddenly making live remixes even before the remix was existing…the German were the first to produce a vocal on the A side and on flipside the Instrumental on a 7 inch rpm … but didn’t exist the Album yet with the long suite of same song extended..…so when arrived Giorgio in to the market with Electronic Discosuites . All Djs started to buy more Albums . The 12inch format on 1976 was welcome like a revolution, and his inventor Tom Moulton became quality symbol for a good disco track versions. The history says that Moulton invented the ‘extended disco versions’ during 1976 (Ten Percent –Double Exposure) but we should verify the year of the version of 17 minutes of “Love to Love You Baby” - 1975: 1 year before Giorgio invented already the extended discomix…

How to not be influenced by him ?,I had the chance to talk and know Moroder already in 1973 as I was working in his native city Ortisei …and this meeting impressed me for the rest of my life… the best composer of last century for sure. The music I’m spinning today represent the roots of Electrodisco Italodisco at Giorgio flavour. .. Check some sets on www.myspace.com/casco1 .

What are your thoughts of the nu-disco era of producers ie. Lindstrom, Todd Terje, Sally Shapiro etc.?
I like very much the sound Sally Shapiro because is the most similar to the chords of my soul J I could not imagine is made it today. Shapiro sounds to me as the most uncontaminated italodisco style. The best pure Italodisco of our time.

Lately italo-disco has undergone a massive resurgence amongst the new generation of dance music enthusiasts. Why do you think this is?
Wow I m enthusiast too about that…I feel reborn.

This happened thanx to the the webradios as CBS , Magicwave , Discodeath ,Good For Nothing a.m.o.) ,also to all online mags ,besides that thanks to the small but dynamic labels as the Belgian Radius and Flexx which promoted massively the comeback of original italo obscure tracks produced during early 80s .

A special place in the rediscovering of Italodisco deserves the Spanish label Blanco Y Negro (Rafa Camona) : the series of lost 80s tracks called “Disco Diamond”are already history! At last but not least how to not mention the category of DJs that believed in this genre promoting also through the social networks and their sets around the world.

And how different is it to other trends we’ve seen come and go?
There is no difference at my opinion , this is the destiny of all trends: when looks like they disappeared then for one reason or another they are back again still keeping their original roots.

During the early days of your career, how influential was the music scene happening over in Chicago and New York?
Surely a big influence was arriving to Italy from Chicago and New York but happened also the opposite, they were influenced by Italians too…

The different musical platforms around the world they exchanged often the influences between them.. very interesting because this was happening without the help of internet.. and it worked well!

Its obvious that there was a connection between US and

Italy

. A prime example being the Giorgio Moroder/ Donna Summer collaboration. There was a period were a lot of the Chi/NY DJs were playing a lot of “italo-disco” --- did you know that you were being well received all the way over in US?
Honestly it sounded strange to me when I noticed on Billboard during summer 83 a short line talking about Casco vocoder music from Italy between tracks as Kano ,Capricorn, Spacer Woman, Mr Flagio . But because I was working at export department of Gong /Zanza Record first, then at Best Record during the gold period of Italodisco ,this trend was not surprising me while the quantities inquired from US were growing daily.

The Italodisco was becoming a nice reality. Very proud of that obviously…

How was the reception to your music in your home country?What was the party scene like???
There was two kind of Italodisco , the first typically designated to reach the Top of the commercial charts pop songs labelled as italodisco licensed by German Label Zyx (it was in fact the founder of ZYX Bernd Mikulski to invent the name Italodisco).

The second kind of Italo was more futuristic and experimental created just for the pleasure of producing good club tracks ,designated special for djs and export.

Both of the two styles were very well received in Italy. This I can notice listening my mixtapes made during these years…the playlist are containing all italo vocoder classics that are still played today!

The numbers of Maxi Discothèques in Italy during early 80s were more than 5’000…So means also that the party scene was very alive and kicking – To mention that at beginning of 80s the professional djs registered at Italian Dj Association were more than 3’000…

The “italo-disco” sound is quite unique… what where you guys influenced by (musical and otherwise)?
I believe all styles of music are strongly influenced by the culture ,the history and the traditions of Home Country of their composers.

Italy is a the Mediterranean Country with the most tasteful musical tradition of bel canto and melody ,so Its easy to say that the major influence is coming from our origins: … A good italo track is also a real ‘song’ with a classic structure: intro, versus, bridge, chorus, break, chorus, outro (instrumental reprise and chorus)…the rest is up to the creativity of the producers . More sentimental and melancholic it is …much better is . That’s the Italo legacy.

The soundscapes are quite surreal – what machines were you using to produce traxx like ‘Cybernetic Love?’
TR 808
KORG POLYSIX
OBERHEIM OBX-A
KORG VC10 VOCODER (and not a Roland SVC-350 Vocoder as mentioned in some blogs..)
ROLAND JUPITER-8
TB 303

… and what is with the strange love affair with robots? It seems to me (especially from your track ‘Cybernetic Love’), that its something that you desire for, but can never quite attain…
…It is exactly like that. RobotLove (obviously the Cybernetic Love) is a mere utopia. Any kind of robot or android will never substitute a real love. But all of us we have to try one time in the life to feel our own cybernetic love:: ohy-ohy…(E.T.)

How/why did the “italo-disco” sound fall off the face of the earth during the late 80s?
Really? I didn’t notice that because for me is still the 1983 ;)

… So what do you have planned for in the future?
Any plans for a trip down under?
First of all a new release as Casco , the idea is ready, the person that will cooperate with me is very excited about the project as me (an Italian friend which contributed in a very active and succesfull way to build the Italo phenomenon),

The firtst demo is ready but we are not in hurry because we need the right Inspiration to do it…our goal is not to rich the top of the charts but to Enjoy what we are doing with the right feeling…

Regarding other works in progress...
For my digital label Music Control is out now the first “Myspace Top Electro Hits”: 10 tracks produced by Casco’s top friends selected by the Greek Lia Organa and Electric Prince. Then the promotion for the release of “Italodisco hits vol. 3” .It contains tracks mostly produced by the legendary Roberto Turatti and Miki Chieregatto for their historical label Black Hole). ..

On the side of the trips I m scheduled to perform soon in Brasil in Sao Paulo invited by the well known Italo party people Jamille Pineiro and Alain Patrick…Also waiting for the invitation by Casco Club in Sydney :)

Thanks for talking to us. Any last words???
Thanks to you Jitwam !It was an honour to answer to all your nice questions. Sending my Cybernetic Love to the readers of Jazz Diares all over the world.

Enjoy .:

April Top 5

2008-05-18T15:28:00.016+10:00

Que est el no no?
Click on the pic for samples...

Lullatone - Your Snore (Someone Good)

Taken from their new LP 'The Bedtime Beat'. This boy-girl duo from Japan have written the most perfect album to fall asleep to... (in a good way).

This track creatively uses the sound of snores to construct this dream-like beat sequence.

Unfortunately the the album suffers from 'one trick pony' syndrome and this makes for a very dull album experience.

I suggest randomly dropping traxx of the album into various playlists you have on your iTunes for maximum enjoyment.

Mort Shuman - Get It Up Baby (London Records)

A super-cool disco funk record from this amazingly obscure OST Sex'O Clock USA.

I found this record whilst digging through some old soundtrack's from the 70s and found this track on Blaxploitation.com.

Surprisingly, not only is Mort Shuman NOT black... but is also responsible for such trite as this... go figure?

Louis Armstrong - St. James Infirmary Blues

I first discovered this track on an old Radiohead DJ mix on BBC. After it being lost in the world wide web of hard drive failures and computer change-overs i finally came across it by chance whilst digging through some old jazz.

This is very, very dark and minimalist jazz. Hauntingly beautiful, this track was sourced from 'The Unfortunate Rake' which was written early in the 18th Century.

According to Pitchfork this track was a huge influence on Radiohead's 'Kid A/Amnesiac' sessions and its musicianship is all over 'Life is a Glasshouse.'

The Rotating Assembly - Them Drums (Sound Signature)

This is classic Theo Parrish.

Eccentric tribal rhythms, dusty fingers and a machine gun breakdown that would set any head in a spin.

Drexciya - Grava 4 (Clone)

This is Drexciya's finest moment in my opinion.

Shifting away from the hard electro-funk sound they're known for and going into deep, moody terrains that James Stinson explored on his seminal 'The Other People Place' project for Warp.

Check the notes from the record sleeve.

Drexciya presents Grava 4. Earth has finally discovered Utopia. (Drexciya Home Universe)
Earth scientist discovered the home planet of Drexciya on 2-14-2002. Within moments Dr. Blowfin was given the orders to initiate the seven dimensional cloaking-spheres to hide the other three planets from earths view. The star chart is authentic; you will be able to find the star by using the coordinations on the star chart. The planet Drexciya can be found in the international star vault in Switzerland & recorded in the astronomical compendium. (your place in the cosmos, volume 6) copyrighted in the USA available 2003.

Bruce Haack: The King of Techno

2008-04-26T16:37:00.008+10:00

Bruce Haack was a pioneer in the electronic music world and sadly his contributions often go unnoticed.

I first heard of him through the documentary Bruce Haack: The King of Techno and after that discovering 'Mr. Rogers Neighbourhood' through which he introduced his electronic wizardry through the format of a childrens TV show.

Utilising largely modified synthesizers, Bruce Haack's work was a precursor for the electronic pioneers that are widely celebrated today.

Here's a brief intro on the man and his work.

Also check out one of his only singles 'Party Machine'. Very much on the psychedelic hip-hop tip.

Ghostly Swim

2008-04-24T17:20:00.006+10:00

The lovely folks at Adult Swim (responsible for the most awkward cartoons to hit TV 'Harvey Birdman' and 'Sea Lab 2021') have teamed up with Ghostly International to provide us with a free compilation of new music and art.

Much love for the FLYamSam track (a collaboration between Flying Lotus and SAMIYAM), Osborne's vocoder workout and Matthew Dear's wonky joint (also known as Audion to you techno freaks).

Click on the pic for download link.

Tracklist

01 Michna - Triple Chrome Dipped
02 Dabrye – Temper
03 The Chap – Carlos Walter Wendy Stanley
04 Dark Party – Active
05 Tycho – Cascade (Live Version)
06 JDSY – All Shapes
07 Deastro – Light Powered
08 Matthew Dear – R+S
09 FLYamSAM – The Offbeat
10 Cepia – Ithaca
11 Aeroc – Idiom
12 The Reflecting Skin – Traffickers
13 School of Seven Bells – Chain
14 Ben Benjamin – Squirmy Sign Language
15 Kill Memory Crash – Hit + Run
16 Osborne – Wait A Minute
17 Milosh – Then It Happened
18 10:32 – Blue Little
19 Mux Mool – Night Court

March Top 5

2008-04-23T15:15:00.006+10:00

You know the drill :. Click on the pics for all the jazz .:

Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson - Bridges (RCA)

A slice of the deepest funk and soul grooves from one of Detroit's finest.

Gil Scott-Heron is a word-smith of the finest calibre and much of it is on display here. With such a seductive and soulful charm to his voice this album is a beautiful insight into the mind of this Delta Man.

Great instrumentation from Brian Jackson sets this album apart from other Gil Scott records with the interplay between his musicianship and Gil Scott's poetic flair being a match made in heaven.

Snoop Dogg - Sexual Eruption (Geffen)

Snoop Dogg's new record is another perfect pop product from the Doggy Dogg.

With an amazingly retro video clip, in vogue vocoder use and channelling the sexual charm of Marvin Gaye, its edgy enough to be claimed as innovative but familiar enough to appeal to the RnB tween market.

Orgasm.

Portishead - Third (Island Records)

Portishead's new album isn't revolutionary, it's not ground breaking... but it's damn good.

Taking the best bits of the sound experiments they've been conjuring up since they first burst onto the scene over a decade ago, they have really perfected the art of "organised noise."

Point in case is the visceral attack of lead single 'Machine Gun,' utilising 808 kicks and industrial noises to sound exactly as the title infers. My favourite track has to be the barber shop stylings of 'Deep Water.'

An awesome, awesome, awesome long player, which has been way too long between drinks.

Laurent Garnier - Back to My Roots (Innervision)

It's been five years since French techno ambassador Laurent Garnier has dropped a dancefloor 12", and it's been well worth the wait.

The traxx is a very tribal affair with a glitched out jazz freak-out which is sure to set dancefloors on fire.

Lots of hype... and it's well deserved.

Flying Lotus - Los Angeles (Warp)

I very sneakily downloaded this album of the net. Who know's when its going to come out...

The moods and soundscapes that Flying Lotus evokes are nothing short of breath-taking. If you've heard his previous output you'll know what to expect.

Future Alien Sex Funk.

Alex Smoke (Live) at Chinese Laundry 2007

2008-04-22T17:54:00.006+10:00

This went down as one of my favourite sets from last year.

And thanks to the lovely folks at Soma Corp the set is now available for download in promotion for his pending tour down under.

Get in quick before the link disappears into the world wide web of oblivion.

Thursday 24th April - Minimal Fuss @ Civic Theatre, Sydney
Saturday 26th April -Blow Your Own Way @ Colonial Hotel (aka Brown Alley), Melbourne
Friday 2nd May - Ampt & Colours @ Empire Hotel, Brisbane
Saturday 3rd May - Lost Baggage @ The Cross, Sydney

Metro Area 'Spinner RPM Dizco Mix'

2008-04-22T14:40:00.004+10:00

Found a new Metro Area DJ Mix whilst trawling the net along with a brief interview.

Pretty obscure disco shindig.

Tracklist
1. Dan Hartman - 'Vertigo'
2. Neon - 'Skydiver'
3. El Coco - 'Afrodesia'
4. 202 Machine - ''Rock Your Body'
5. Azoto - 'Any Time or Place'
6. Pierre Perpall - 'Them Changes'
7. Rainbow Brown - 'I'm the One'
8. Parris - 'Never Take Your Love'
9. Five Special - 'Why Leave us Alone'

Apparently we should be expecting a new Morgan Geist album very very shortly... here's hoping.

Deepchild Interview

2008-03-24T13:27:00.003+11:00

How art thou Deepchild? Can you inform us of what’s been happening with you lately?
Today, I’m terrifically well! Finally, a little of the NYE/NYD madness has subsided, and I’m settling back into a steady production rhythm before heading overseas again for a a 6-month European residency, based in Scotland! 2007 was fairly busy for travel (4 separate long-haul return flights to the UK/EU) but a wonderful personal indication of how things are progressing well. Finally, venues are paying to get me over to play, which is a real treat! I had the honour of playing my two favourite clubs in Berlin (Watergate and Panorama Bar) as well as wonderful mega-shows like the Exit Festival in Serbia. As always, being treated far better than I deserve and enjoying every minute…(well, aside from a particular insident in Serbia where I was holed up with 5 large semi-naked coke-addled men at 6am. Humorous in retrospect, but I’d rather not make a habit of it. Lets just say that the Serbs go hard. There was the also the curious incident where we were run out of a club in Kuala Lumpur for lude dancing – but you can read all about that on my blog. Very rock’n’roll…)

It seems like you’ve just blown up in recent months getting high profile gigs with RICHIE HAWTIN!
Do you feel like you’re getting on par with the big boys?
And what lessons have you learnt from their company? Ie. What makes these guys sooo special?
I’ve definitely had the honour of being billed alongside some of my heroes. Richie Hawtin, Green Velvet (twice!), Jeff Mills, Booka Shade and MANDY (both here and in Berlin), Jesse Rose (nice when you get a booking request from him!) and several others. This is not to forget the joy of playing with some of my fav LOCALS both here and abroad – Dave Slade, Sick Figures, Jimi Polar and Jamie Lloyd, Phil Smart and the Junkbeats and Bread and Butter guys!

There’s certainly no shortage of talented producers/djs here, but Australia suffers from a general malaise/attention-deficit in terms of support for the less-obvious side of techno/house/minimal. I’ve found that Europe, on the other hand, has a more support for new talent and sounds. It’s been so reassuring to know I can be booked for something like EXIT on merit, rather than struggling to win the PR-war here! It’s really just the result of hauling myself over there regularly over the last 3 years and waving my tattered Aussie flag! Finally it’s paying off, literally! I think being an Australian dj/producer has the effect of really focussing you – it’s just so hard to make a career here in Aus; in some ways, less of a ‘middle’ ground where you can survive. You either go hard, or you go home…or burn out. Producing largely in isolation has certain benefits, I guess – it reminds you that the process its it’s own reward. There’s just not enough local cash to make anyone really rich!

Am I on par with the likes of Richie?! Unlikely. As a dj I’m solid, but still learning so much. As a live performer I’m getting there. I just do my thing, and am fairly confident that it’s engaging and entertaining enough to warrant booking. Like so many Australian musicians, I’m the product of a very hybridised music culture, with a subtler socio-political narrative than you find perculating through the sound-systems of a place like Berlin. I’m just trying to ‘get away with it’ as honestly and energetically as I can, and it’s a love-affair with music and the uncharted future of electronica which keeps me excited. If I can be an active part of the culture in one way or another, I’m generally pretty satisfied!

I think that Richie H is an interesting case-study, actually. Not only is he an exceptional dj and producer, but he’s stuck to his guns over the years, and has invested so much in the ‘scene’, rather than being merely his own little show pony. It’s terrific to see someone like himself really firing on all cylinders after all these years. We shared a hotel and transport at the EXIT Festival, so I had the pleasure of a few conversations with him and Magda. His enthusiasm and transparency were really striking – really an ‘anti-star’ in many ways, and an extremely hard-working one at that. Unlike some major-league playas I’ve heard about, Hawtin is not going to look down his nose at you if you’re an unknown producer. Quite the opposite, infact. I’d say that individuals like him are primarily concerned with the evolution of the form, and the temporal space of the dancefloor – which is what attracted me so strongly to electronic music in the first place.

Are their plans of moving overseas seeing as majority of your gigs are booked
abroad?
After several years of frequent country-hopping, I’m experimenting this year, for the first time, with an extended stay in Europe. The plan, if all goes well, is to split the year roughly in half between here and Europe (for the next few years). It’s taken me some years to build up a network of contacts and friends overseas so that this is actually viable, so speak to me in 6 months time…☺ Really though, 2007 was a major turning point for me – landing some primo club shows, rather than having to do the whole ‘start from the bottom’ thing that has defined the Australian path. I have some successful 12” records and remixes to thank for this – in Europe, it’s your catalogue that gets you good bookings, as much as anything else. Berlin, in particular, is uber-protective of it’s scene. I’ve seen djs who’ve done really well in the UK met with brick walls over there. In a strange way, it’s a place where if you’re ‘too commercially successful’ it can work against you. On the flip, having been so warmly received in Berlin has meant that it’s been a great deal easier for me to get bookings in the rest of Europe. I’m just starting to get bigger shows in the UK, which has surprised me – places like London and Manchester would not have been my destinations of choice, but thanks to music I’ve been exposed to a really wonderful music ‘family’. It’s nice to be surprised!

It seems as though you’ve come out of nowhere, but what many people may not know is that ‘Lifetime’ was actually your 4th studio album.
What has the journey been like from your beginnings to where you are now?
And what lies ahead in the future?
It’s been a loooong, slow road for me. My ‘overnight success’ has taken around 12 years, to date. Primarily due to the fact that I’ve been in no rush to achieve success for it’s own sake, and thus taken a long time to arrive at a sound people tend to be taking notice of at the moment. Most of my early releases are experimenting with a far more dub-heavy, downbeat sound, which isn’t overly popular in this country! It’s also been a journey which I’m happy has been protracted – I’ve had the joy of meeting and forging lasting friendships with both the ‘old guard’ and ‘new guns’ of the scene, and seen how electronic music has changed and evolved in a global sense as culture has changed. I remember going to Clan Analogue (Sydney electronic collective) meetings in the mid-90s at the “Evil Brotherhood of Mutants” warehouse, and being impressed because they had internet which was not dial-up! Stuff like this was revolutionary! People like myself, Infusion, Telemetry Orchestra, Severed Heads, B(if)tek, Sub Bass Snarl and co would have weekly meetings to discuss gear and nerd-related stuff. This was before there were really any soft-synths or computers available on a domestic level which were beefy enough to drive them well. And it was certainly before the proliferation of mp3s! It was largely new and very exciting territory to be charting in Australia. We’d meet up and listen to Chain Reaction, Pole, Maus on Mars, Black Dog, Future Sound of London, Autechre, Aphex , rants my psychodelic pioneer Terrance McKenna and that sort of stuff! In this sense, Clan was pretty formative for me – a little oasis of fellow nerds and experimentalists, all so far removed from the prevalent rock culture. It gave me a deep and precious notion that we could shape and create our own culture, our own language, our own politicised was of engaging (and more importantly, challenging) contemporary culture. Dance music was always about more than just ‘dance music’. It was sort of a cultural mirror through which we could reflect and reframe a lot more. It was of it’s time, and always in flux.

So…Clan was the start of a great many things for me. It helped to solidify a continual fascination in my teens (the early 90s!) with emerging post cold-war culture. But that’s another story…one which goes deep, and contributed to what led me eventually to Berlin a few years back.

To cut a long story short, though, I’ve always worked in new media, digitally-mediated media. Firstly as an illustrator/animator, and now full-time as a music producer. The manipulation of sound and image – montage and recontextualisation – is what I’ve always done in one way or another. After the massive dotcom bubble burst in the late 90s, I took some time out to re-assess where I wanted to focus my energies. Digital music had been gnawing at my heels for some time, so I took the risk of experimenting with methods of making it a ‘full-time’ gig. Thousands of boring bar-gigs and studio hours later, and here I am. As I often say, “Im not as smart as I look, just stubborn”.

From your travels overseas how does Australia compare?
What makes the clubbing scene in places like Berlin so vibrant than that of Australia?
And who/what do you think is and will continue to push Australia forward?
Berlin’s club scene is so vital because it has to be. It’s a lifeline for sanity during 9 months of terrible weather every year. It’s born from inside the culture, rather than being a ‘lifestyle option’ imposed from the UK or abroad. I think that it’s something that Berliners hold very dear, especially given their history. It’s a writhing, evolutionary mass of sounds – from drum’n’bass to the ubiquitous minimal-tech sound you’ll hear everywhere. Berlin is like a womb that grows all manner of strange little people – and there’s room for most of them in there. It’s a cheap place to live, and a heavily government regulated place – there’s no rental crisis in effect there, in the way that there is in Sydney or certain places in the UK. There’s a high degree of unemployment, but it’s cheap to survive – trips to the Stasi Museum probably don’t rate highly on the ‘fun-loving winter tour guide to Europe’.

Australia has the weather, the wealth, the lack of conflict and immigration to contend with. We are our own little bubble of paradise – for the general populus here there’s neither the impetus for release in the form of club experience, nor the same fascination with the subtle evolution of club sounds en mass. We are a bbq and beer culture – clubs here are les of a funnel for discontent and catharsis, and more generalised spaces where young people go – something strikingly different in Berlin, where clubbers tend to be a far broader and older range of age.

Techno is Berlin’s “roots culture” in a similar way that reggae/dancehall might be in the Caribean.

What will push Australia forward? Hard for me to say. There was a time, say 6 or 7 years ago when electronic music and culture seemed to be pushing ahead in fantastic ways….and then things cooled off greatly. At the moment, there’s a somewhat increased fascination with all things ‘electro’ or ‘minimal’, but I see this subsiding as well. What seems to be missing, to me, is an investment in the culture at a deeper level – for example, 10 years ago, electronic music and ‘rave’ culture was synonymous with counter-culture and left-wing politics, feminism and use of public space. These bigger picture concerns have the effect of mobilising a number of people – from cultural producers to promoters, writers etc. It feels like many of the ‘old guard’ (of which I suppose I am one) are settling down, raising families and taking more conventional paths forward. Many are most definitely not, though...

Perhaps the music of the ‘new pioneers’ is different. Less cerebral. Of course it is, at least in this country. One thing that’s been continually vital for me is the force which is community broadcasting – stations like 2SER, Fbi Radio…these are the places we might look to find the individuals experimenting with new sounds and ways of thinking on a popular level.

Of late, Australia perceives the German techno scene as ketamine induced minimal scene where the party never stops...
How would you describe the scene and the musicians that comprise it???
Does it live up to the hype that it receives... especially here in Australia?
Yes and no. I’ve had the priveledge of spending time with a lot of the ‘bigger cats’ at labels like Get Physical Music, whom I’ve found to be both affable and very professional, as well as being well established partyers!

Typically, the German temprament is very organised, and I’ve seen this in their party culture also – individuals who will go uber-hard for 12 hour benders on weekends (interestingly enough, it’s not a massive drinking culture compared with, say Aus or the UK), and then hold down demanding jobs during the week. But then, places like Berlin are an anomaly compared with the rest of Germany. Munich is a lot more like Sydney – plush bars and higher cost of living…Saarbruecken (where the Booka guys grew up) is more like a traditional German town near the French border – lakes and Schlager Music and strudel and green fields! I’ve never heard as much snorting in the bathroom at any gig as I did in Saarbruecken. Germany has all sorts.

In general, I’ve found my fellow producers in DJs in Berlin to be very open, extremely hard-working and attitude-free. You don’t move to Berlin to make a fortune – you go there to work and contribute and soak up the emerging culture. It’s not a glam city in the same way that New York or Paris might be seen to be. It’s a hothouse.

Hype? Well, if you expect Berlin to be like an urban version of Ibiza, you’ll be sorely disappointed. It’s a functional German city, and one that doesn’t flaunt it’s jewels. Infact, it tends to be rathe protective and understated abou them. If you want hedonism, you can find it. If you want stunning music and honest discourse, you can find it. If you want hype and glamour, look someplace else. It’s a city still coming to terms (actively) with it’s recent history – you can’t avoid it’s darkness surfacing in it’s creation.

You’ve received great praise for your very distinct production style.
What gear do you use in the studio and who or what have been great influences on your sound?
Influences? SO many. Lots of US hip-hop and r’n’b. J Dilla, Madlib, Mos Def, Common, Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, Justin Timberlake, Michael Jackson, Sade, Slum Village productions. Stalward German digi-dub sounds – Rhythm and Sound, Maurizio, SCSI 9…Moodyman, John Tejada, Tigerskin, Akufen, Luomo, Burial, Prefuse 73, Funkstorung, Modeselektor. Parliament, Sly and the Family Stone, King Tubby…Stevie Wonder.

Gear? Always changing, tho’ I’m a still use hardware playing live and for a lot of sound-generation. Core to the process is a Roland SH-101, Elektron Machinedrum and a crapped-out cheap AM/FM pocket radio. I use a lot of elements of found sound – Edirol ER09 is my portable recorder of choice. I try to make use of whatever sound sources I can find lying around, all thrown together and sequenced in Ableton Live and Propellerheads Reason (a lot of people say it’s a ‘toy’ software, but I like toys). As long as it’s portable, I’ll generally make use of it.

What are your DJ sets consisting of lately?
Best answered with a typical set-list:

1. Wortkabular - Luciano Wortkabular Remix - Robag Wruhme
2. Amon – Jona
3. Manta – Kudok
4. Monday – (Dusty Kid Likes Maski Remix) – Maskio
5. Zleep - Original Mix – Samim
6. Work That Chao - Discoflux - Original Mix - S-Max
7. Helicopter - Original Mix - Dub Taylor
8. Norwegian Calculus – deepchild
9 Black Bananas - John Tejada & Justin Maxwell
10 Mash - Donk Boys Techno Remix - Frankie
11 Stickee Fingaz – Antilope
12 Donut Hound – deepchild
13 Alfetta Shift – Alfa Romero

Who and what artists/labels are pushing your buttons?
Contexterrior, Pallette Recordings, Circus Music, Dynamic Music…all of the artists listed above.

Any locals that you’ve been digging (DJing or production wise)?
Jamie Stevens, Stick Figures, Kriece, Mako, Adam Jace, Telefunken…

Your latest body of work seems to be squarely aimed at the dancefloor (Funktional Booty onwards).
Is this something we can expect from in the future???
Most definitely! It’s the wave I’m riding at the moment, for a couple of years – jaunty, spazzy, a little-bit ‘wrong’ tech.

... and also is a new album in the works?
Just completed. “Departure/Droid_Musik” out mid-year on Future Classic. More spazzy jaunty wrongness.

Explain the songwriting process... do you go into the studio with preconceived ideas or do things just happen naturally?
Sit down. Turn on machines. Let them natter amongst themselves. Make beat. Over-produce, over-detail. Let rot and die. Make cup of tea. Begin again minus convoluted elements. Big broad brush-strokes, focus on bass/kick/snare. The rest is just gravy. Submit to the fact and enjoy the ride. It’s only music.

You’ve collaborated with many singers, how does it differ to compositions produced on your own?
By and large, vocal stuff takes a lot more time and care. If I work with a singer, I really want to showcase their voice, rather than making it a token addition to a song (well, unless it’s me doing vox!). With vocal work, I’m more intent on shaping an arrangment to support a voice, rather than the opposite. I’d much prefer a singer (eg Ras Ronni) to do ‘their thing’ than to try to sing for a ‘dance track’, which I think is harder to do and a little less genuine. I want any vocal work I do to stand the test of time. Collaborations/remixes are an honour, so it’s important for me to try to focus on the strong elements of the collaborator as central to the production.

I jumped onto your myspace and started reading your blog entries.
You really should do more of them, you have a wonderful command of the English language.
Why thank you. The challenge is to turn verbal diahorrea into digestable nourishment. I enjoy writing almost as much as music production – the challenge, as always (and the art?) is in the edit.

Explain your relationship with Future Classic.
They appear to be one of the few Australian labels pushing a worldwide standard of quality...
How are they being received internationally???
Future Classic have done fantastically well to build a solid local and international profile. I’ve just concluded a 2-album publishing relationship with the label, after the delivery of the new album. They’ve been successful as a boutique label because of the real focus on quality production and delivery aesthetic, as well as a reputation built on key artists who are regular dj/performers in the scene. Like any small indi, FC are feeling the pressure of decreased record sales and budget issues. Manager, Nathan Maclay, does have a long-standing passion for electronic music and dj culture – he’s not about to pack things in any time soon! And of course, at his side is his incredible wife Jay, who’s responsible for so much of the ‘behind the scenes’ work for the label, and most of the artwork. Then there’s Chad, the hardest-working right-hand man it the industry. Watch out for this boy, an asset to any label…

What are the perceptions of the Australian music scene overseas???
It’s kinda wierd because on the one-hand we have guys dominating the commercial charts with Dirty South/Wolfmother receiving Grammy nominations, the Modular crew keeping the nu-ravers happy over in London and people such as yourself doing the deep house/techno thing.
Is our profile being increased and to what extent is quality being perceived???
I think the Australian profile is definitely rising, as it has in the film industry over the last decade. I think that Australia produces very hard-working, dedicated artists across the board. You just have to be, if you want to make it here, let alone get yourself over to Europe. The physical distance challenge is its own sort of ‘filter’ for dedication! Aus rock and pop/electro-pop has always been strong – perhaps this is just a natural Australian irreverent exhuberance? Still, for techno/house I think we’re small players, because (as mentioned previously) of the nature of our club culture.

Perversely, I think that I have Australia’s relative obscurity to thank for some of the breaks I’ve received. Promoters tend to take a second listen when they hear you’re from Australia, simply because they don’t associate an electronic music culture with this country. “Your from Austria?” No. Australia. Tie me kangaroo down.

What has been the highlight of your career so far?
Every gig really needs to be its own reward…having said that, my first gigin Berlin (at Watergate) was so special to me. I found out that my mum had cancer that night, and it was a strange and surreal evening. To find myself later in a club I’d admired for some time, playing after Phillip from MANDY was pretty special. I just sort of lost track of time, mixing was on-point, and the crowd were wonderful. It was the gig that got me booked by Jesse Rose, later in the year. Playing EXIT in Serbia was also special – primarily because of what it represented, spiritually, being invited to a country really trying to move on from years of real struggle.

And how does the hectic schedule (from Kuala Lumpur to Berlin in 4 days!!!) affect your music and your lifestyle?
My sleep/rest patterns are terrible, and I still struggle with these. I’m so often really tired. The up-shot means that I have a very regular fitness/meditation regime, to maintain some semblance of normal function. I drink far less than a lot of mates, just because I can’t afford to get wasted or unfit. I read a great deal and have had to establish strategies to break the cycle of studio-time, to get ‘out’ amongst the real world. There’s more to life than music, and people like me need reminding of this fact.

Do you work whilst on the road?
Always. Hotel rooms, busses, in transit in random ports of call between flights.

Has there been any planning with your career or has it just been a ‘take it as it comes’ approach?
There’s no particular career-goals I’ve set myself aside from maintaining a steady release of music that I’m happy with, and opportunities to hone my craft. It’s only in recent years that it’s actually been financially sustainable. I’m more interested in sustainability than stardom. I’ve had to learn a degree of pragmatism I would have lacked 5 years ago. Going through the motions of self-promotion and management don’t come easy for an artist – but I think that the era of being ‘just an artist’ is both dead and unrealistic.

Thanks for taking the time out to talk with us.
Any last words?
Last words? My last words probably should have been about 1500 words ago…so I’ll stop now.

February Top 5

2008-03-16T09:41:00.017+11:00

Top 5 time once again. This time I've listed some older favourites... click on the pics to hear samles of the traxx. ENJOY

Eyrkah Badu - New Amerykah [Motown]

This album has been really hitting all the right spots. Deep, funky, soulful and done with so much class and sincerity.

Where many artists who prophesise a highly urban and political message often fall into the traps of mediocrity, Eyrkah injects so much soul and honesty into her music its hard not to be touched.

With help coming from many quality artists (Sa-Ra Creative, Madlib, Questlove just to name a few) this album is a MUST listen to.

Hercules And Love Affair - Hercules And Love Affair [DFA]

You knew this was coming. This album hasn't really lived up to the hype that has surrounded its release (when does it ever?) but it's a worthy mention nonetheless.

Andrew Butler and co. really know how to conjure up emotional masterpieces. With beautiful songwriting and production skills, the album has many memorable moments and covers much musical terrain.

It's not just a straight up disco affair with the NYC collective going through early Chicago house ('You Belong'), Philly disco ('Hercules Theme') and even restrained downtempo ballads ('Iris') but all done with a Love Affair twist. I really hope that once all the media hysteria has settled we'll see more of Andrew Butler in years to come.

The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground [Capitol]

Of late i've been digging through all the old records that have shaped my musical journey so far. And whilst their have been many shameful moments (Limp Bizkit anyone???) their have been some real golden moments.

This album from the Velvets is Lou Reed's most personal affair. The mix i have is called the 'closet mix' due to Lou's insistence that the vocals have prominence over other parts.

And it's well worth it with Lou taking us through an insightful tale of the trials of tribulations of the human mind. His ability to transcend the English language is a gift that only few humans have in this world.

Burial - Untrue [Hyperdub]

This is another album which has recieved universal hype and praise around the world. I for one, have been fairly naive about it all and am grateful for it as it I get to appreciate the album for what its worth.

Burial has such a unique and distinct production style. Grimey aesthetics, time-stretched vocals, brooding, twisted, emotional landscapes... really makes for an otherworldwly listening experience.

But this makes for a tiring listen after the first couple of tracks, as all the tracks on 'Untrue' prescribe to this rigid formula. And whilst this may dampen the future-classic status of the album, it doesn't detract from the greatness of the standout tracks on this album (check 'Archangel').

The Salsoul Orchestra - Salsoul Orchestra [Salsoul]

Picked this up at Egg Records the other week in Newtown and boy does it have some gems.

The Salsoul Orchestra (who played backing band on most Salsoul records) masterfully fuse together Philly Soul, funk and jazz stylings in a highly danceable way.

With beautiful instrumentation and songwriting you can feel their influence in many 'nu-disco' artists like Daniel Wang and Hercules And Love Affair.

Dixon Interview

2008-02-04T11:47:00.000+11:00

I caught up with Dixon for a quick Q+A in light of his recent tour down under.

Check it out.

Hercules & Love Affair

2008-01-30T12:23:00.002+11:00

Since the last time i mentioned this act,,, they have been garnering a lot of hype namely due to their awesome 12".

News has just surfaced of their debut album and to celebrate i thought i'd post some freebies that i've found on the net.

Hercules Theme free download

First single to be taken off the album is 'Blind' (videoclip below) featuring the wonderfully strange vocals of Antony Hegarty from Antony and the Johnsons.

The single also comes with remixes from Frankie Knuckles and Serge Santiago.

ENJOY!

Tracklist for the new album
01 Time Will
02 Hercules Theme
03 You Belong
04 Athene
05 Blind
06 Iris
07 Easy
08 This Is My Love
09 Raise Me Up
10 True False/Fake Real

Kelley Polar Interviewed

2008-01-22T10:30:00.000+11:00

Kelley Polar turned heads with the triumphant release of his debut album 'Long Songs of the Hanging Gardens.' The album successfully married melancholic pop music of yesteryear with the disco touches he's known for (from playing strings with Metro Area).

In the midst of releasing his sophomore album 'I Need You to Hold On While the Sky is Falling', the Jazz Diaries was fortunate enough to catch up with the elusive pop star to talk about out... jazz.

So Kelley, when’s the next album due?

03/03/08

And how does the new album compare to that of your debut?

Well, I tried hard to learn how to sing between the first album and this one. By trying hard, I mean not taking lessons and just singing alot randomly, in the car and when close to strangers. Have you seen the movie Robocop? It's awesome. Anyway, I read this interview with the guy that wrote that movie, and it made a bunch of money so they said, ok, write a sequel. So this guy writes this incredibly cool new movie where in the first 30 seconds Robocop gets totally obliterated, and then they recreate his mind digitally and it is like some weird version of Tron or something. TOTALLY different. So of course they fired him and hired someone else to remake the first movie again. Anyway I say all this, because I had a completely different concept, but there was enough from the first album's world that I wanted to keep fooling around with, so this album and Love Songs are brothers, or sisters, only this sibling is a little older and jaded and has been sent to reform school for bad behavior related to his obsessive relationship with the hot twentysomething science teacher. Album three, that will be like the Robocop that didn't get made. This album, it's same kind of concept as the first, but taken farther: shorter songs, changing faster, more elaborate sound worlds, more complicated construction.

Upon listening to Crsanthymeum I couldn’t help but feel a sense of Armageddon. Especially considering the lyrical content and its homage to nuclear nightmares…Is this something you feel is a reality especially in the hustle and bustle of New York City?

It's really more of a product of both an overactive imagination and growing up in the mid-80's, when all art, especially geared to kids for some reason, seemed for a year or two to be about nuclear annihilation. Like, didn't you guys have The Day After over there? They sent a flyer home with all us 8th graders saying that having shit like this on TV was totally going to fuck us up. And it did, I guess....I think half of the irony/sarcasticness/snarkiness in art now is because everyone thought we were going to die when they were growing up. You guys are probably different over there-- in all the sci-fi I read, Australians are always the ones who survive-- TO DIE AN EVEN SLOWER, MORE HORRIBLE DEATH, CAUSED BY AMERICANS. But that said, I did move from New York City a week before September 11, and I was living only a few blocks from the Twin Towers, so maybe that stuff is in my head all the time. It's somewhat part of each generation's ego to think that they are the ones living in the End Times, but between nukes and global warming, hey, at least we can offer a reasonable scenario......

What made you pack up and leave to the countryside?

This is a question I answer a lot of different ways not because I am fibbing per se, but my last year in NYC I was running a film scoring company that did mostly commericals, and in the internet boom times we were making money and had a marble and red velvet penthouse on the top of a Times Square skyscraper, and could look down on the MTV building and the screaming girls outside of the TRL studio...so for better or worse it was a time for partying and debauchery, and for better or for worse there are MANY STORIES that one could pick out for being the time when the next day I thought about what had just happened and thought "while this may have resulted in an excellent story, really it is not a method for sustainable living, at least not if one has any kind of moral conscience". So ususally I just tell one of those stories, but they all amount to the same thing.....So I left and removed myself from temptation, and went to the country, to do some Thinking.

Have you found what you’re looking for?

No, not at all, I was just as messed up and just got really lonely. So recently I have taken steps to move back to a city. In the early twentieth-century, when the medical establishment was just becoming interested in keeping hospitals sterile, they kept all the sickly newborn babies in perfectly hygenic little bubbles, and the babies all started dying mysteriously. And they realized, the babies needed actual human contact to survive, they needed to be touched and held. Hm...now it sounds like I am saying I am a Giant Baby.

Do you read a lot? What sort of books are you into...

Yeah, I do read a lot, but not as much as I used to or should, I play video games too much and watch awesome sci-fi television series all at once in groups of 12 hours. I read all the good science fiction I can find (China Mieville The Scar and Alistair Reynold's Chasm City) and when that is gone I read bad science fiction (the new Dune books which suck and others about elf princesses that Morgan Geist makes fun of me for, that have very embarrassing covers that you should cover with another book jacket like The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene), it won't do you any dating favors but at least people will leave you alone and not heckle) and when that is gone I read books just about science in general (a lotof natural history, also cosmology for stupid people that went to music school). I also read books of 18th-century French Poetry and everything by Flann O'Brian. I like books about insect physiogomy and the lite-philosophy of Alan Watts. Aaron Copeland's books about listening to music and Arnold Schoenberg's books about writing music. If I could have everyone on the planet read one book it would be The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan. I very much like that this question was asked and thank you for it.

A lot of your lyrical concepts are very strange and otherworldly despite being centred on something which is so natural to all hans... love.Can you talk a little bit about the concepts on the new album and how they were inspired?

There is a song about someone who is trying to commit suicide and then thinks better of it and tries to save themselves with advanced math, there is a song about a satellite in space waiting for a signal, in love with the thought of receiving its signal, because that is its purpose, songs about reclsuive math geniuses and some about space and some homilies/sayings if you were a robot that lived in the future, some about parties that never stop and become hellish, etc etc. The usual stuff, all inspired by real life and actual events. I was lucky enough to get to do some traveling off-planet in between albums, so a lot of it is inspired by the things I've been able to see.

I assume you make most of your music in your farm in New Hampshire… what does your studio look like?

I have a two-room shack and there is a trapdoor above one room into a loft which is where guests sleep over. In one room is a bed made out of wood, there is a small refrigerator and a hot plate. There are a lot of lamps, rugs and objets that I have collected from my travels abroad playing classical music-- I end up going to a lot of places other people don't, Syria, Burma, Azerbaijan, Amalthea. The ceiling is low and everything is wood and handbuilt in the 70's, the effect is half being in a ship belowdecks, the other half in a bedouin tent. There are some big glass windows that look out onto the forest outside. The other room is my studio, it is medium-sized and has a large wool carpet in the Palestinian style and a lot of synthesizers. The walls are covered with instruments I've collected from the travels, bodhans and Zarbs and duduks and neys. There is a large gas-fired heater in one corner. There are some shelves with all my classical sheet music on it and a music stand that I use to practice viola. There is no running water. There is a screened-in-porch outside that is not used now, it's too cold.

At first, you came out with what could be classified as 12” dance singles… is this something that you would like to explore again?

I'd love to, I wanted to do a whole Kelley Polar Quartet album, no vocals, just tracks like those EPs. But nobody buys records anymore, one of the last two big vinyl distributors in the US just went out of business, so now there is only one more, I think it's mostly hip-hop. The future has arrived, file-sharers. No more indie dance music for You. I might make it and just send it to my friends for christmas, only to people I know who wouldn't rip it and upload it. They would be like paintings.

So how were you introduced to disco?

It's in my bio and no one thinks it's true, but it is. My sister Bevin and I spent our earliest years with a red-white-and blue plastic Fisher-Price turntable and our library consisted of strange obscure Disney B-list records about talking hats and operasinging whales, and LPs from the last days of disco. I really don't know how we ended up with those records, our parents didn't listen to them, that's for sure. Perhaps it was one of the servants.

And what sort of disco do you listen to?

Rinder and Lewis, I love Rinder and Lewis, Patrick Crowley, some Salsoul but not all, some Italo,

I have a sick penchant for bad symphonic-disco transcriptions of classical music, the one of Strauss' "Also Sprach Zarathusthra" is a favorite. I hear a lot of amazing stuff when I happen to play with Metro Area DJing, but I couldn't name it, I'm a rank amateur.

I’ve heard you’re not really in tune to new music but is there anything that has caught your eyes or ears of late?

It's not new, but I'm obsessed with the Piano Quartet by Ceasar Franck. It's from a time when people were trying to figure out what was going to happen to push tonality further, and he is a genius. The second movement-- you should listen to it, it's him being a spiritual being and being in love with one of his students while he was married and not being able to handle it. It's new to me. Maybe it's new to you too.....

It would seem obvious to link your love of disco with the strings section but i don’t find this apparent in your song writing...Often i find that your strings evoke strong feelings of melancholy as opposed to the soaring nature that we find in most disco records...Is this a conscious move on your behalf or something that comes naturally?

I use the strings in composing more like a lead vocalist, which is why I end up having to sing all these crazy three-ocatve things, which doesn't really do me any favors! The viola hardly ever gets to play melodies, so it's probably my way of compensating. But then I will replace those string melodies with me singing, and use the strings more like a rhythm guitar or something (I hate guitars). I just have the most facility at it, so I can use it to do something that's in my head, that maybe I can't get to do anyway else. I wish I could make them sound happy though...it's harder to make good happy music than good sad music. That's why I have such distain for nerdy white-boy composers making their angsty music. Relatedly, it's also why I have such distain for myself. Not sure if I answered the question at all..

Also a lot of your music seems to be more like electronic folk music.

I hate folk music, too.

What was your musical upbringing?

I learned violin from an early age and then switched to viola when I was about 17.

Was there a lot of pressure from your parents to follow the classical route?

No, but it was something I did from an early age. My dad would have preferred if I had become a major-league baseball pitcher or, barring that, perhaps a hockey player. But he didn't mind.

Coming from a musical background with such a strong focus on music theory what is your impression of dance music today?

I don't know much about dance music today, I don't go out much. Maybe if we have another conversation a year from now, I could tell you more. What I hear on the radio in the US, dance music or otherwise, is like some kind of musical wasteland, like what they walk into in the last third of the movie Mortal Combat. That's what the radio world of the United States looks like. Ugly-ass monsters that want to kick your ass and steal your soul. Oh, except for sports radio in the New England area. That is great, great radio and it is what I listen to exclusively.

There has been a lot of discussion of late about the ease of which anyone can produce music and as such song writing has taken a back seat in the music making process. In your own experience do you find that the electronic instruments lull you into becoming less musical in your compositions?

I don't think electronic instruments do; I think presets and premade loops and templates, etc. do. That's why I had such admiration for what Metro Area was doing when they were doing it-- don't quantize the shit out of everything, use live instruments, live drums mostly, or just sample a kick or a snare, like the old producers did. There's a lot of people who make music fast and without too much angonizing, but I like the craft element-- so does Morgan Geist, and I learned about making electronic music from him. It's good to take the time to make things sound good. And the people who really like music, they can tell the difference. I get easily bored and hate boring things so I try to make my music, both the electronic and the classical art-music I write, not-boring. But I also just got rejected from the one composition school I applied to, so what do I know. And there is simple dance music, all the detroit tracky jacky stuff that is SUPER simple and also just mindblowingly amazing.

I’ve heard you are loosely affiliated with the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music.
Can you talk a bit about this and some of the stories you’ve seen in your travels?

I actually don't talk about my classical life in my electronic interviews and vice versa, I like to keep them separate-- one world is very conservative, the other not so much, so it helps keep me Out of Trouble. But Apple Hill is a wonderful, wonderful organization and anyone who cares about increasing peace in the world and, just as importantly, high-level classical chamber music, should think about donating to the cause (www.applehill.org).

Our last interview was with NY funk/disco band Chin Chin… Torbitt Schwartz would like to know if you would like to exchange remixes with him?

Fuck, I hardly ever do remixes, I'd rather spend time making my own music. But I mean, his name is Torbitt. I might do it just because of that. That's incredible. Torbitt. If he can send me a copy of his birth certificate, it is a deal.

And i’m not sure if you’ve heard of Glass Candy from New Jersey (from the label Italians Do It Better) but if you have, would you like to pose a question for them?

Have they had the pani puri from Bombay's Dimple in Iselin, NJ? Best pani puri in this world. And off of it, actually.

Thanks so much for talking to us...Can we expect you to do a tour down here in Australia?

Sure, if someone asks me-- especially if it's right after a US-targeted accidental Nuclear First Strike.

DJ Mix - The End of a Love Affair

2008-01-20T17:30:00.004+11:00

Artwork by Shazia Sikander

1. Radiohead - Kid A (EMI)
2. Bjork - Possibly Maybe (One Little Indian)
3. Carl Craig - Darkness (Planet E)
4. Capracara - Opal Rush (Soul Jazz)
5. Matias Aguayo - De Papel (Kompakt)
6. Three Chairs - Dreams (3 Chairs)
7. Closer Musik - 1,2,3... No Gravity (Kompakt)
8. Henrik Schwarz - Walk Music (MoodMusic)
9. James Holden - Lump (Border Community)
10. Kritical Audio - Krup (Detroit Underground)
11. Claro Intelecto - Peace of Mind (Ai)
12. Radiohead - Motion Picture Soundtrack (EMI)

DOWNLOAD HERE.

Henrik Schwarz Interview

2008-01-20T11:46:00.000+11:00

My interview with Henrik Schwarz is now up through inthemix. Check it out

I think Henrik Schwarz is one of the few Berliners who is actually imprinting his own unique take on what can be loosely referred to as the Detroit Techno sound, and I think he'll be around for many years to come...

His mix for 'DJ Kicks' got many plays on my hi-fi (and the vinyl edition includes many rare and hard to find tracks) and his remixes for Mari Boine and Coldcut were among my favourites from last year.

Mari Boine - Vuoi Vuoi Me (Henrik Schwarz Remix)
Henrik Schwarz - Walk Music
Kraak & Smaak - No Sun in the Sky (Henrik Schwarz Remix)

What is House?

2008-01-18T15:47:00.001+11:00

Summed up in 100 records by Robert Ford and Trent Adkins, foreword from Daniel Wang.

This is a must read for any house aficionado. Click on Ron Hardy below for the link.

December Top 5

2008-01-17T19:42:00.000+11:00

Once again... click on the pic to hear a sample.

1. Metro Area - Read My Mind [Environ]

Metro Area's anticipated return doesn't dissapoint. A slight change in direction for the NYC crew retaining the classic Metro Area warmth but focusing on more tighter electronic rhythms.

Featuring the wonderful pipes of Owusu from Owusu & Hannibal you can't go wrong.

2. Jay Electronica - Voodoo Man (???)

My favourite track from his hip hop opus the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Unlike anything i've heard before...

3. Flying Lotus - Tea Leaf Dancers [Warp]

Some more L.A futuristic hip-hop shit. This time from Warp's latest signing Flying Lotus whom you may have heard in many of the segue's on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim.

Relative of the late, great Alice Coltrane this EP really explores the possibilities of hip-hop as we know it. (Check out the promo video game to support the album if you're looking to waste some time.)

Hopefully his new album will drop sometime this year... Here's hoping.

4. Underground Resistance - Hi-Tech Dreams [UR]

Okay,,, so i'm late on this but found this the other day at Spank Records and this is Mad Mike back on top of his game.

Great energetic, late 90's house music... Perfect for those sweaty dancefloors.

5. Theo Parrish - The Chemistry is Meant to Be [???]

Heard this on his recent mix for RBMA (opening track).

Recently found out it was produced in part with Australia's very own Sofie Loizou (its recording process can be read on her blog.)

Hopefully it will get a release date soon.

Jay Electronica

2007-11-22T18:12:00.001+11:00

This guy is a real fresh take on the hip-hop genre... Probably the only rapper i've heard to rap without a beat and allow the rap to be the rhythm.

I highly, highly recommend downloading his mix tape opus Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. (Beware of the extra long intro)

And check out this beautiful interview with him here.

I first heard him of Jay on the ever tasteful Giles Petersons Worldwide show with Moodymann, which is also a real treat featuring a rare and insightful interview with the elusive Detroit producer (who's touring as part of the Sydney Festival, check the Mad Racket website).

Metro Area new 12"

2007-09-24T15:30:00.000+10:00

Last week, Metro Area were special guest DJs for Tim Sweeney's beatsinspace radio show (highly recommended for all your disco shizzle).

On the program he let loose that after two years there's another Metro Area 12" to be released featuring the wonderful vocals of Owusu from Owusu & Hannibal fame. This will be the first Metro Area track to feature actual singing as opposed to other Metro Area tracks which use voices merely as another instrument in their wide sonic palette.

The record should be out in November but until then Environ's highly mysterious new signing Baby Oliver (who i suspect is a Morgan Geist side project) will release his second 12" after his highly successful Primetime/Hypochondriac 12".

Get excited (((!)))

September Top 5

2007-09-22T11:14:00.000+10:00

Another top 5 for y'all (((!)))

Click on the link or pic for samples.

Hercules & Love Affair - Classique #2 [DFA]

After dedicating a whole post to this track you knew it was coming...

A beautiful homage to Chicago aimed squarely at the dancefloor for those soulful moments.

Shocking Pinks - Shocking Pinks [DFA]

Two DFA records in the top 5 this week... Its hard not to when the quality is this good.

The Shocking Pinks is New Zealander Nick Harte whose adventures into lo-fi electro-acoustic experiments is a pleasant surprise to the ears. Channeling the eeriness of My Bloody Valentine with the melancholy charm of Erlend Oye, Nick Harte has forged a unique sound of his own that perfectly complements his beautifully simplistic songwriting prowess.

Remastered and repackaged by DFA after it first came out on Kiwi label Flying Nun, look out for the Glimmers avant-garde re rub of Smokescreen.

Glass Candy - Miss Broadway [Italians Do It Better]

Glass Candy do a more than worthy cover of disco classic Belle Epoque's 1978 disco hit 'Miss Broadway.'

As soon as the vocal hits you, you know you're in for something special. Gorgeous disco strings and a chugging disco rhythm reminds me of a time when disco balls were the in thing... sadly i wasn't alive to see the day.

Kevin Saunderson - Till We Meet Again (Carl Craig remix) [Planet E]

For mine, Carl Craig has been producing too much of late and his recent output all seem to based on the same concept.

But when he gets it right (ala Relevee), it's good... This is a lot dirtier than his recent work but pretty much more of the same. Appregiated bass line hypnotizes you over and over again until a sweeping synth line comes in to take you to another plateau.

Italo-Techno.

Devendra Banhart - Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon [XL Recordings]

Devendra's latest album harks back to his earlier records but with the knowledge of his big band efforts with 'Cripple Crow.'

Genre hopping like a kangaroo running away from capitalists hunters, this album sees genre touch on blues, samba, reggae all tied in with Devendra's unique voice and lyrical concepts.

It seems like Devendra has grown up in terms of his lyrical content, leaving the childish wonder to favour that more of contemplation and reflection...

But the album as a whole feels terribly lazy... A lot of the ideas are just not thought through well enough... take for example 'Seahorse.' A beautiful idea which just meanders on and on, until the 5 minute mark where it just sounds like your next door neighbors jamming on their egos.

There are some beautiful moments on here which do get realised,,, such as 'Bad Girl,' which makes the effort of listening to this album in its entirety all worthwhile.

Kerri Chandler and his Lasers

2007-09-19T18:00:00.000+10:00

Came across this interview with house legend Kerri Chandler.

The man has been around for twenty years making electronic music and is still at the forefront in the DJing world...

His current live show incorporates Star Wars like technology where lasers are used as some sort of midi control device to trigger samples off... its very very cool, check the video below.

"There's a screen on the wall and I can actually walk out in the middle of the room and control everything from there. I bring a pair of cordless headphones with me, and there's a couple of instruments I use from the middle of the room and I can DJ with that.

You can see the turntables on the screens and I control all that stuff from there. Then there's another system that I use that I just built, it's a laser system and I can actually remix everything from lasers as I'm DJing out. There are eight beams that are put up and I'll sample stuff as the records are going live and I'll go back and I'll stand in front of the lasers and I'll remix it from there."

Âme Interview

2007-09-15T20:10:00.000+10:00

Âme have been at the forefront of the emerging house and techno sounds coming out of Germany, and with their label Innervisions moving from strength to strength the production duo have some big plans for the future.

In the wake of their upcoming tour down under, I caught up with Frank (one half of the duo) through local dance music website inthemix to talk all things music, culture and everything else…

JD (The Jazz Diaries): Your Australian tour has been organised in liaison with the Goethe Institute. Is that an institution set up in Germany?Yeah it’s like a cultural thing; Goethe is the guy that founded it…

FW (Frank Wiedemann): Initially it was all about literature but now I think it’s all about cultural exchange but it’s not like a club specifically.

JD: Are their a lot of those sort of initiatives going on in Germany and how does this influence Germany’s cultural scene in terms of art, music etc.?

FW: I don’t think that it’s too much… We just have a lot of producers living here especially Berlin and Cologne and it’s not like we have special support for everybody but I think its just that many people support it in a way… I don’t know what it’s like in Australia but for me it’s not special… it’s just okay.

JD: But do you think you think like that because you’ve lived there your whole life and from an outsider looking in…

FW: Exactly, exactly…

JD: So how has the local scene changed since so many foreigners with diverse interests from all over the world have packed their bags and moved over to Berlin… How has this affected the local scene?

FW: The vibe that’s happening in Berlin at the moment,,, for years actually.
It is also a really cheap city (in terms of living expenses)… to be honest I don’t know why people move there because I also don’t live in Berlin.

JD: Oh okay… so where do you guys live?

FW: We actually live at the opposite of Berlin in Germany. For Australian people it’s not a really long distance but for people living in Germany it’s like the other side of the world.

JD: I was reading your interview with RA and you guys were quoted as saying that the “deep house” sound has no place in Germany, has that changed since the rise of artists like yourself, Henrik Schwarz, Dixon etc.?

FW: I think for us, it all started to get bigger with ‘Rej’ for sure and in the meantime it was a lucky chance that we found the Innervisions label and it all fits together. And the people also felt that we are honest about our music and we’re very serious about what we do… and with Dixon who does his popular club night with Innercity. It was maybe just the time for this sort of music, and we were lucky that’s all.

JD: So you would say it’s moving towards a much more house orientated sound?

FW: I'm not sure if its going far at the moment but for us… we do house music, you can take it or leave it but at the moment some compilations from Dixon and some tracks from us have found a way for house music in Germany or the places that we play and I’m often asked when I play somewhere that people book me because of Rej and they think that I play minimal and they’re surprised when I play some deep house tracks and they often ask me why I play this and they’re really surprised that it also works and that you don’t have to play minimal all over the world to get people dancing… it’s just how you play the stuff.

JD: You’ve said that you’re not the biggest fan of the minimal sound but many would argue that ‘Rej’ was the catalyst for the minimal explosion. Are you still proud of that track despite all the politics that come with it?

FW: Yes, I really like the track still… I don’t play it that much but for me ‘Rej’ was not minimal. The sound was comparable to some actual productions but we didn’t do the track with some minimal thoughts this is just one of the shades of our production and also one of the shades of our DJ sets. I don’t say that I hate minimal i play some minimal tracks but I’m not that kind of guy that plays an 8 hour DJ set only with sounds like this.

JD: Well it sounds to me that ‘Rej’ is more like classical music than anything else…

FW: I think there are a lot of influences in it… I can’t say. You produce a track and you never know what happens to it. Maybe you get lucky and you produce a track like ‘Rej’ or… not.

For us when we produced it we thought this is a nice track let’s try to play it. And then we saw the reactions of the people and thought this might be bigger than the other ones and after a year it is quite bigger.

But you can’t say this is the way we have to produce tracks like ‘Rej’ and do five other tracks like that to hold on to our success.

JD: So what’s your philosophy in the studio? Do you guys have a strict idea of what music is and you work towards that?

FW: We’d say its more like trial and error.

Kristian is more the producer and I’m more the musician. Because Kristian doesn’t play any instruments and he’s also not really common with electronic stuff… so his job is to sit beside me and listen to the music after five hours exploring one basic sound he has the ability to say “that’s the right sound.”

It’s something I could never do alone. Kristian could never work without me and I could never work without him so it’s the perfect combination maybe.

JD: So what instruments did you grow up with?

FW: I was playing piano since I was 8 and still playing synthesizers and all this stuff… nothing else.

JD: With a lot of your tracks it seems to me that you guys are very patient in the studio…

FW: First, we don’t really work fast because we always trrry to put the maximum into one track or remix.

And it happens we have a track and we think it’s finished and then we decide its not really good enough and then we have to change it completely, which by the way with track ‘Rej’ we started with a completely different track and we decided to hold the melody and produce a completely new track around this.

This is what happens sometimes and I think this is what makes us really slow but I think it’s not a problem because you see many producers, in my opinion, who release too many tracks and then you can say that this is a good release and these are too bad releases and that’s what we don’t want to do… In our opinion we are really happy with nearly every release that we’ve had and are still happy with it so we cant say that this was just a remix we did in two hours and not give a shit about it.

JD: So how do you think that producing more tracks affects the quality of your work? Do you think producers who are in this position use the same idea over and over again and is the reason why you see yourself as more quality because you have different ideas going on for each track?

FW: Yeah maybe that’s one reason but I don’t want to say that people who produce many tracks are doing worse music than us.

For us we decided we don’t want to be our own copycats. We’re interested in so many different styles of house music so we can’t just do one thing. Every time we start with a new track we think, “ok, let’s do something different.” It’s always the trial.

JD:Is there a philosophy behind Âme when you guys are working in the studio?

FW: I cant say… just be careful with what you’re doing and try to be thoughtful. But that’s not to say we only do 125bpm tracks with one synth sound in the middle of it. Nothing like this… it’s just what happens.

JD: So how does Âme as producers relate to Âme as DJs?

FW: We produce and DJ quite the same. I mean maybe we play some tracks that we would never produce but at the end the spectrum we try to put into our productions is the same spectrum we play when we DJ.

We always try to combine many styles of electronic house and techno music in our sets and it’s the same kinda thing we try to put into our productions.

JD: Do you guys DJ together frequently?

FW: Rarely. Promoters don’t want to book two flights and pay for two hotel rooms and all this stuff. Also, we can play in different parts of the world in one day.

JD: So what records and producers have you been listening to a lot at the moment and what can we expect from your sets when you come down to

Australia

?

FW: Well it’s always quite hard to name a few producers for the moment. But it sounds silly because they’re also on our label, but I’m always surprised by Chateau Flight and I:Cube, what he’s doing is really amazing. Also what Henrik Schwarz is doing and for sure we are always listening to what Mr. Carl Craig’s doing but I can’t really say “wow!”, this is the producer of the moment and I need everything from him.

What you can expect, like I said that I always try to play different styles. From deep house to harder Detroit techno stuff… it just depends on the location.

JD: Do a lot of older records fill up your bag?

FW: You might not know but I started listening to house music when I first met Kristian. I was more into new jazz and all this stuff but a few years ago when I met Kristian he brought me into this specific house and techno sound that I love now so I still have to explore a lot of old records, which is maybe the reason why I like to carry some older tunes.

I also like the mix-up to show the people that there are some old tunes that perfectly fit into a new sound. Minimal for example, you can play “original minimal tracks,” from the early to mid ninetines, Dan Bell for example and mix it up with some actual things or Robert Hood classics… For me it’s always interesting to play some old stuff and new stuff. I’m also not a fan of “Okay, I’ve got this record now for four weeks in my record box; it has to go out now.” I don’t know why is should buy a record when I only play it five times.

JD: So how many records do you buy a week?
FW: Around ten records a week maybe… it’s divided into old stuff, new stuff and also some completely non-electronic stuff.

You also got lots of downloads at the moment… a lot of input.

JD:Do you play strictly vinyl?

FW: No. For me it’s impossible because I don’t want to carry 200 hundred records everywhere and also you’ve got a lot of new stuff to play and for me its always a mixture between vinyl and CDs because I don’t want to leave the vinyl at home… I really love to play vinyl and I don’t want to carry the classics with me that you buy at the record store for $50 and you don’t want to carry it around and think that maybe at the next airport it will be gone.

I always have like 50 records with me and a CD case. That’s what I do.

JD: Do you play many records that originate outside of

America

and Europe?

FW: The older records I play are mainly American. And the new ones are more and more from Europe.

JD: What’s the techno and house scene in other parts of the world? I heard

Japan

and South America are really into their techno…

FW: At the moment a lot of things are happening all over the world. I also get some new stuff from Lithuania and other Russian countries.

I think the possibility that it’s so easy to produce records with one laptop and produce perfect sounds and all this stuff with one laptop brings a lot of productions from all over the world.

It’s so easy to produce at the moment, the influences are high you can listen to everything on the internet. But for me it doesn’t matter where the music comes from, more, “how is it?”

JD: As the head of Innervisions (along with Dixon and Kristian) what criteria do you have when selecting music you are going to release?

FW: This is one of the hardest questions, because it always has to fit for the three of us. We all have to like it. The second thing, it has to have something special that goes away from the mainstream.

If there’s a hit that’s offered to us and we know it’s going to be a hit, why shouldn’t we release it? It’s all about the feeling all three of us have.

JD: Of late, a lot of the releases such as the new Marcus Worgell and Tokyo Black Star have a distinctive Innervisions sound. Is this a conscious thing or does it just happen to be?

FW: The main producers on Innervisions are people like Alex Tokyo, Marcus Worgell, Chateau Flight and we know them all quite well and they also know what we love. I think its always important for a label to have acts like maybe us, who have a high profile and also hbave people like Alex Tokyo who are doing quite interesting, experimental music. If you listen to the Still Sequence track (not our version but his original version), for me its quite experimental and I really love this. These records are more to define the Innervision style which is not 100% orientated to the dancefloor.

For example, at the moment we’re working on an ambient CD which should be released early 2008.

JD: Through Innervisions?

FW: Yeah. This is our first own CD project. There were some compilations that came out through Sonar Kollectiv last year but this one should be our first own CD.

12” should be for the club and CDs should be for home listening in a way. This is our concept at the moment. This ambient CD would be something completely different to the club tracks we release but is also a part of Innervisions.

JD: When you talk ambient are you talking more ‘Fiori,’ the track you released on the ‘Shut Up and Dance!” compilation?

FW: It should be a CD with less beats. If you know the older Brian Eno records for example, it’s really the definition of ambient and it’s going more in this direction.

JD: The artists on this compilation are they going to be from guys like Dixon, Henrik Schwarz etc.?

FW: For sure, but also we have some specials which were talking about at the moment. I really cant say too much because its not fixed yet… we also have a promised track from I:Cube who wants to do something for us and some special artists who are not from Innervisions but we really like and we really appreciate.

JD: In the scheme of things you guys are a small independent label… How has the mp3 revolution affected labels such as yourself and other labels in a similar position?

FW: What I can say is that the number of official downloads through Beatport and platforms like this are amazing. If we sell 5000 records then you know we’re going to sell about 5000 downloads…

Maybe in earlier times you would have sold 10,000 for the same product but in the end, the official side of things of the mp3 thing is not bad for a label. It’s even cheaper in the end. You can produce and release tracks only on mp3, I don’t want to have this but its possible… and many labels are doing this now. Mp3s aren’t such a bad thing, especially when you look at countries like Russia where record shops are quite rare. But as a DJ there you have the ability to get the freshest tracks in time. But the bad side of mp3s, for sure, is illegal downloads but you can’t say how much money you’re losing through this.

The mp3 thing is also something which has to do with collecting stuff and just collecting… not for the music, it’s more about “I have this new Innervisions record,” “I have this new Warp record” and its not so clear what many people are doing… its just collecting. I can’t say if one guy who has all the illegal mp3 downloads is the same guy that would have bought the record…

One other thing about mp3s is that the quality of the sound is getting worse. I still think that the record sounds much better than the mp3, that’s why I also play records…

JD: You don’t think that this will change in time though? That the quality of mp3s will continue to get better and better and better and better?

FW: Of course, you look at Beatport for example you can download uncompressed files like .aiff or .wav. At the end if you look at younger people at the moment sitting around in the streets and listening to music through their mobile phone you can see what’s going to happen in the future. People aren’t really interested in the sound quality of what their listening to, it’s more they’ve got the coolest device to play the music… its not that young people are interested in good sound quality. If you also look at the clubs, there’s so many clubs around who have really bad sound systems and nobody cares about it, but I think its getting worse in this case… its not just about mp3 quality.

JD: But that’s more to do with people not loving music as much these days with so many competing entertainment products like the Playstations and Xbox…

FW: Yeah maybe… its more fashion victims I guess.

JD: What would you say is the key to the success of the Innervisions label?

FW: I think it all fits very well at the right time. There were the Innercity parties from Dixon who started it a bit, which is quite famous for “deep house” sounds… really slow, not too fast. And thousands of people are dancing to this and reacting like crazy! There were also some compilations that formed the way for us, and Dixon’s ‘Body Language,’ its all about Dixon…

But I think it was just the right time you know? We did our thing… and it was luck. I don’t think it’s a higher plan or something.

JD: What are your roles in Innervisions? Is one guy positioned in finance, one guy to look after the artists or does everyone just do everything?

FW: We have one guy Matthias who does all the office stuff for us and the other three are just like A+R’s… one is working and the other three are just listening.

JD: So what advice would advice would you give to up and coming producers coming through the ranks these days?

FW: It’s important to listen to many styles of music and make your own mix of what you like… and don’t copy too much. I mean, we also copy things but we always try to put it in our context.

JD: I was wondering with Marcus Worgell’s latest record ‘Spellbound’ he’s got Mr. White on vocals… do you know much about him? He’s a beautiful singer…

FW: I’ve never met him unfortunately but I’m really happy with the tune and also that he did this for our label. But I’ve never met this guy before so I can’t say too much about him but I really love what he’s doing... ‘The Sun Cant Compare’ track.

JD: Do you know if he has any other releases scheduled?

FW: I only know from an email yesterday that he’s coming to Berlin this year for a few months but I don’t know if there are any other collaborations planned at the moment.

JD: Also, in the RA interview you hinted about a project outside of Âme… has this got off the ground and what can we expect from it?

FW: We’re planning to do this thing called ‘Innervisions Orchestra’ which is Dixon, Hernik Schwarz and us. And it all should start with a live performance… all laptops and maybe one singer, which we haven’t decided yet. And we also want to do a live album for this which should come out at the end of 2008 and go on tour with this.

We’re also working on the ‘Where We At part 2’ at the moment which should be the same combination of producers with two versions on it.

JD: Is that going to be a house project or more funk, soul, disco?

FW: No, no, no. It’s an electronic project. But what we’d like to do in the future is get more into ‘song-orientated’ house and techno stuff. If you see for example the remix that Henrik did for Coldcut ‘Walk a Mile in My Shoes.’ This is what we call song-orientated house music. If you listen to this track on the dance floor it really works well but you can also listen to this at home and like it, so maybe this could be a direction that we are getting into but I can’t say this you know, you can never tell.

JD: I’ve never heard that track played out in a club before… Not many DJs have the balls to play that sort of song.

FW: That’s right!

When this came out it, for me it was the perfect set opener. It was also at the time when everybody was booking us because of ‘Rej’ and everybody was like “these guys playing minimal” and so the DJs before were always playing a minimal warm up set and I never wanted to just play on top of this so I had to bring the people down and listen to the music and this track was perfect for this… there were a lot of sets that started with this track.

JD: So any last word for your Australian fans?

FW: Ah well… just buy the new Innervisions record! I don’t know, we’ll see...

If your unfamiliar with the Innervisions sound head on over to their myspace featuring the beautiful Mr. White and other assortments of goodies.

Also, September 30th you can check em out at Mad Classic Fuss which is set to be the party of the year featuring fellow Berliners Trickski and one half of Dirtybird Justin Martin.

Hercules & Love Affair (DFA Records)

2007-09-09T16:29:00.000+10:00

This has to be the most fascinating record i've heard in a long, long time.
I first heard it on Tim Sweeney's RA Podcast awhile back and now it finally gets a release on vinyl!

Paying homage to the sounds of early Chicago house, this record typifies the idea of emotionally dancing... Really beautiful stuff.

"Hercules is the brainchild of NY resident, producer and DJ Andrew Butler & The Love Affair is one of the most inventive and original collaborative studio projects in many years, where beautiful, bruising harmonies and tensile rhythms collide in resurgent soundscapes and emotive dancefloor workouts. Hercules & Love Affair is co-produced by Andrew Butler with Tim Goldsworthy of DFA at Plantain Studios in the midst of Manhattan, New York City."

Click on the image to listen to their traxx.

August Top 5

2007-09-06T09:26:00.000+10:00

Click on the links for short samples...

ENJOY.

ESG - Moody (Spaced Out)

I only just figured out who these guys were. After hearing them being flogged on loads of disco compilations and namechecked by nu-disco heads such as LCD Soundsystem and The Glimmer Twins, these guys are definitely proper on point.

An all girl trio growing up in the ghetto of the Bronx.

Rolling bass lines, sexy vocals... life couldn't be funkier.

Aesop Rock - None Shall Pass

The latest album to be pulled from the Def Jux label. It did take me a couple of listens to get used to Aesop's unique rapping style,,, but once your hooked... your in line and sinker.

Featuring the beautiful production mastery of Blockhead, this traxx lends itself more to the house side of things than hip hop... definitely not a bad thing.

Cool video clip too,,, click on the link.

VA - After Dark

WOW!

Italo Disco never fit so splendidly with Joy Division. A really great album featuring the lo-fi electronics of chromatics, glass candy and other wierdos i've never heard before on this obscure label from New Jersey.

My favourite definately has to go to the Chromatics - Hands in the Dark (demo)... she has the most hauntingly sexy vocal since Nico (RIP).

Stay tuned for an interview with the band in coming weeks.

Lindstrom & Solale - Let's Practise!

In my opinion, Lindstrom's greatest work for awhile now.

Appregiated synthesized madness and softly sung vocals very reminiscent of the great love affair between Giorgio Moroder and Donna Summer.

Moodymann - I'd Rather Be Lonely

A different version that the one found on his myspace, going crazy on the live percussion...

Tech House with proper black soul featuring Amp Fiddler on vocal duties.
One of Moodymann's best in a long time.

Chin Chin Interview

2007-09-05T20:30:00.000+10:00

Chin Chin have been a band who has gained heavy rotation on my turntable for some time now... Combining elements of jazz, funk, disco, soul and whatever else you care to mention, the band have been making waves with the release of their LP through Dialect Records and their amazing live shows (see pics below).

Fortunately for us through the powers of the world wide web, Torbitt Schwartz (drummer, backup singer, songwriter) was nice enough to take the time out and answer some questions for our lucky selves...

JD: (Jazz Diaries): Where does the name Torbitt Schwartz originally come from?

TS: (Torbitt Schwartz): Well, Torbitt is a family name from my mother's side. It's an old Kentucky name. Schwartz is from the German Jewish side of my dad's family.

I'm a typical American mutt. I'm a Lebanese /W.A.S.P./Jew that was baptized in the Episcopal church!

JD: What is your history prior to forming the band?

TS: I grew up (with my brother , who's also in Chin Chin) going back and forth from Louisville, KY and Brooklyn, NY. I didn't start playing music till I was 17, at which point I stopped doing everything else. I went to the New School of Jazz and Contemporary music where I studied with Bernard Purdie, Chico Hamilton, Junior Mance, etc..

I co-led a couple bands with Jaleel Bunton (now he's in TV on the Radio) in the 1990's. One of them was really great. It was called the Pleasure Unit. Tada Hirano was also in that band. He usually plays guitar with Chin Chin.

JD: What is the Chin Chin philosophy?

TS: Chin Chin's philosophy is fairly simple.

Make great music and have loads of fun playing it for other people!

JD: ‘Chin Chin’ seem to blend the electronics and the acoustics in such an organic manner…
What other bands have influenced you with this approach?
And is this a reaction to the current state of electronic music and its incessant need to quantize and robotosise?

TS: I don't think it's reactionary at all (at least not consciously). I make some music that gets quantized and some that doesn't. Even when I do quantize stuff I make an effort to do it in a musical way. When we record, we sometimes use a click track, but whenever possible we go without it. With Chin Chin, at this stage, everything is done with live musicians playing real instruments. There are actually very few electronics on this last record. That makes it harder to sound "modern". Which is a tough challenge. But, that's a choice.

JD: What do you prefer… robots or aliens and why?

TS: Tough to say! Aliens make some of the best food. But look at the Roland TR 808. That's one hell of a robot.

JD: Who is involved in the production side of things?

TS: Me, and Jeremy Wilms (he's Chin Chin's bass player) handle the production for the most part. We have a production company called Its the Sound. Watch for our next project. It's called BIG MONO.

JD: And what equipment was used in the recording of your album?

TS: We have a great little Trident sidecar that we use a lot. Also some nice outboard stuff. My favorite "secret weapon" is an old four channel telefunken v676 mic pre (it's the only one I've ever seen). We did this record in Digital Performer with some serious help from an Apogee AD16x. I could prattle on about this nerdy shit forever.....

JD: You have a lot of session musicians appear on your album…
Is this environment different to having actual band members?
And what are the advantages to this?
Is this something you will continue to explore with later albums or are you trying to cement the band as a consistent line up?

TS: Well...First off, it's a lot easier when two or three people are making the decisions. The guys on the record are all good friends that play with us frequently. The core of the band is the three piece (me, Jeremy, and Wilder). We've been doing it since 2000. Tada's the closest thing to a fourth. It's just way easier and more flexible to keep it as is for mow. Things might change, but there aren't any immediate plans.

JD: Most of the band is highly educated in various forms of music, with you and Wilder (singer) being trained in jazz and Jeremy with his bachelor of music degree. How do you think the band environment would be without these relevant degrees/education?

TS: I think the school is just a means to an end. I play with tons of extremely well versed, educated musicians that have never been in a classroom. The degrees are worthless. It's the knowledge that's key. With out that, we could still make music, it'd just be harder to communicate with each other.

JD: As a DJ yourself…
What can we expect from your DJ set?

TS: I go all over the place. Typically, I've not played much new music, but that's changing with groups like Metro Area.

JD: And how is the American club scene going and more specifically is it conducive to the type of gigs you play?

TS: I suppose it's fine. It's been easier to find success (at least monetarily) as a DJ. I have no need to complain.

JD: What about the scene in New York?
Despite hearing stories of absurd legalities that make it hard for electronic musicians to play out,,, they still seems to produce quality acts like yourself, Escort, Kelley Polar etc.
What magic is in the air???

TS: Wow. Magic? Tough to say. I grew up in New York, and I have to say, it feels pretty dead here right now. Maybe it's changing. Keep in mind the Escort, like us is actually a live band. I can't speak for them, but it's still really hard for us here. Things are way better for us in Europe right now. I can feel a shift happening now but it's very slight. The thing that NYC has going for it is the sheer quantity of great musicians. That's bound to make for some interesting sounds.

JD: From your photos on your myspace it looks like your live shows are a pretty wild affair.
What can we expect from a Chin Chin gig and how does the live show relate to the body of work found on the album?

TS: Yeah, We definitely go for it live. We try to give tons of energy! right now most of our live show is from the newest record. We just extend stuff and improvise more. There's also a lot a crowd interaction, particularly care of Wilder. I have to say that he's one of the best frontmen I've ever seen.

JD: Do you see yourselves more as studio musicians or as performers?

TS: BOTH!

JD: I’ve seen you’ve played with Theo Parrish.
Is he a fan of your music?

TS: Theo's the shit! We played with him at the Paradiso in Amsterdam.

He said he really liked it. I think he meant it.

JD: How is your production company with Jeremy going? Has it raised in profile since the release of your album and does it tie in with the Chin Chin body of work?

TS: The company, Its the Sound is moving along nicely. Yeah, there are a couple things in the works that probably wouldn't have happened without the Chin Chin record, but those are secrets for now!

JD: How did your association with Dialect records come about?
What made you sign with them?
And what advice would you give to up and comers looking for a record deal?

TS: Dialect found us on Myspace! Crazy. We had a few offers at the time, and though they weren't the biggest fish around at the time, they just seemed the best fit. We knew they really believed in the project, and we liked their version of the "big picture".

Basically my advice is to just keep making the music you love, and send it out everywhere!

Try not to get discouraged. Just keep making music, At this point most record companies are fucked! People aren't buying records. The way deals get done is going to change radically soon. The internet is changing everything. Soon you wont necessarily need a label. You'll just need a publicist and a good accountant.

JD: The album artwork is very similar to Hot Chip. Who is the artist behind it and what was the design brief?

TS: The artwork was done by Check Morris. They're from Paris and they're the shit!

It's the first time I haven't had anything to do with the artwork for a record I've made.

What they did was totally different than what I would have done, and I totally love it.

JD: Thanks for taking the time out to talk to us.

TS: No problem!

JD: Any plans for a trip down to Australia???

TS: None yet, but we're working on it!

JD: Our next interview is with Environ's Kelley Polar,,, do you have any questions that you would like to ask him?

TS: Yeah, Ask him if he wants to trade remixes?

If you haven't checked out Chin Chin yet,,, check out their myspace.

Highly Recommended.

A Conversation with Omar-S

2007-08-07T19:49:00.001+10:00

This is the first interview i believe Omar-S has ever done.

Its an interesting read, especially considering how elusive and intriguing the whole FXHE catalouge is.

If you haven't heard of Omar-S he is the self proclaimed "Grand Son of Detroit Techno."

His sound is a gritty, urban take on soulful Detroit techno. And his musical asthetics are nice surprise in today's electronic music scene.

These are my favourite traxx from his body of work so far...
Oasis 13
Set it Out

note the casual placement of gun and cash... Omar-S is a true American.

Death Skate. Jake Brown.

2007-08-05T23:21:00.000+10:00

Is there are a real point to this?
I thought skateboarding was about getting trashed and "expressing yourself."

Now it just seems to be a cheap spin off of that TV show... where people do stupid things... and get rewarded for it...

The Guiness Book of World Records.

... i remember seeing this when i was younger and thinking it was amazing.
I also remember living my skateboarding dreams through Tony Hawk on the Playstation but thats a different story...

The Chromatics

2007-08-05T20:46:00.001+10:00

The Chromatics...
In the City.

If your into your italo disco I highly recommend Portland trio 'The Chromatics.'

Marrying gothic tendencies (think Joy Division) with electronic soundscapes (think Giorgio Moroder), the band, and the label have carved themselves a unique path in what could be called italo-disco or alternative rock... but isn't.

It's not surprising that this sort of electronic music has gained such a resurgence of late... considering the mechanic, lifeless minimal/electro house trend that has swept the world over, it's only natural that people start to appreciate the more 'human' and 'organic' sides of electronic music...

and thank god for that.

For more italo bizz:
Cybernetic Broadcast System
Environ Records
Italians Do It Better

Ricardo Villalobos - Fabric 36

2007-08-04T10:09:00.000+10:00

Always one to go against the norm, Ricardo's new mix CD for clubbing institution Fabric sees him blur the lines between DJ mix cd and artist album.

The "DJ Mix" features fifteen tracks all produced by Ricardo and friends with Ricardo proposing a more "dancey, summery and housey" vibe with the album.

Whilst i haven't really been a real fan of his latest productions (remix of Depeche Mode, Shackleton remix and his own Fizheuer Zieheuer), all trademarked by long, drawn out, subtle changes in timbre and effects... Ricardo always has a knack for keeping us entertained.

What seperates Villalobos from the rest of the pack is his that his music neccesitates a new way to listen to the music, changing the way we view and consume it.

I believe this is the sign of a true artist/innovator (just look at Apple and iTunes) and no matter what Ricardo puts his hands on, you can trust that it will be worthy of attention.

Interview
Myspace

Devendra Banhart and his Smokey Friend

2007-07-29T15:59:00.000+10:00

Devendra's new album 'Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon' is set for release in September and he's put two tracks from his forthcoming LP on his myspace.

If you haven't heard of the long bearded wonder, he can be described as Nick Drake speaking stories from the mind of fantasy wandering psychedelic hippie child.

The new tracks seem to hark back to his earlier output, featuring simpler production and songwriting techniques and I feel are all the better for it.

Brian Eno Made the Windows Ding.

2007-07-28T11:13:00.001+10:00

Brian Eno, synthesis extraordinaire, founder of the seminal 80s group Roxy Music, responsible for some of David Bowie and U2's most successful album... the list goes on.

A chance encounter with the Microsoft Corporation also led him to create the Windows 95 start up sound.

"The idea came up at the time when I was completely bereft of ideas. I'd been working on my own music for a while and was quite lost, actually. And I really appreciated someone coming along and saying, ``Here's a specific problem -- solve it.''

The thing from the agency said, ``We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah- blah, da-da-da, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional,'' this whole list of adjectives, and then at the bottom it said ``and it must be 3 1/4 seconds long.''

I thought this was so funny and an amazing thought to actually try to make a little piece of music. It's like making a tiny little jewel.

In fact, I made 84 pieces. I got completely into this world of tiny, tiny little pieces of music. I was so sensitive to microseconds at the end of this that it really broke a logjam in my own work. Then when I'd finished that and I went back to working with pieces that were like three minutes long, it seemed like oceans of time."

Check out an interesting interview with him on computers and their influence on contemporary music. (Note this interview is circa 1996, but still holds relevance in today's electronic music scene)

N.B Circled instruments are pieces he actually sold as he moves into the new digital world. He even sold his DX-7, the machine used to make the windows ding.

Li Wei... Into the Obscene

2007-07-24T14:46:00.000+10:00

I came across this Chinese artist while venturing into Lifelounge's online website.

If you haven't heard of Lifelounge Magazine, i highly highly reccomend them. They cover a broad range of topics, from art to music to the abstract and all done with a humility and DIY attitude that makes you wonder why people fork out big bucks for magazines at all.

You can find their magazine FOR FREE! at record stores and various clothing shops around Australia.

Back to the topic at hand, Li Wei is one of China's leading artists to come out of Asia.

I've noticed that a lot of the art i put up here has some strange link to other-worldly qualities and strange fantasy worlds, and Li Wei is no different.

Due to the majority of his work being largely conceptual, he has had various encounters with the Chinese Government (haven't we all?). And alot of his work is NOT retouched in photoshop (look at the first photo below), they are done in front of a live audience.

Welcome to a world not made of man.

Wahoo - Make it Personal

2007-07-24T13:59:00.000+10:00

Wahoo, the brainchild of singer-songwriter George Levin and Dixon (Innervisions) are just to drop their debut album in August through Fine/Four Music.

The Berliners take a significant shift away from the minimalism that has engulfed their hometown and express a more funk/soul approach which can be seen through their latest track 'I'm Your Lover' featuring Felix Burton from Basement Jaxx.

But what i'm really excited about is the list of collaborations for the album.
- Carl Craig!!!
- Paul Randolph (Innerzone Orchestra/Mahogany Music)
- Robert Owens

From the fine form Mr Planet E has shown on just about every remix he's put out in recent times, it will be nice to see his return to the jazz/funk he explored with his 'The Detroit Experiment' album.

Drum Machine. Jomox XBase09

2007-07-23T17:26:00.000+10:00

Last week I ventured into the world of the Drum Machine madness with the German made Jomox XBase 09.

The XBase09 is an analog drum machine. Combining the emotion from the machines of yesteryear with the technological advancements that digital has to offer.

The thing that strikes me about this machine is it ease of use. You literally just have to press buttons and knobs to turn yourself into a world-class techno freak.

But the Jomox allows you to do so much more. Unlike its grandfathers (the Roland TR909 and 808), the machine allows you to assign different sound paramaters for each individual note allowing you to make walking basslines, paranoid bleeps, irritating noise sequences and whatever else you care to imagine. The amount of possibilities are endless!

Fortunately, i've been lucky enough to find one that still incorporates the illuminated step buttons as I've heard the new production runs will wipe out this feature due to the rise in costs (and petrol).

There's a good review of this machine in SoundonSound which runs through all the specifics and heres a list of sound samples courtesy from Jomox themself.

Whilst i've only just scratched the surface with this machine I can feel a whole new world awaits me in my musical journey. The thing that I appreciate most with this machine is the freedom it provides you by taking you away from the mindless puzzle game of creating drums with a mouse and keyboard...

And it sounds amazing!

Condition: USED
Price: $700
Rating: TBA

Escort - All Through the Night

2007-07-22T22:37:00.001+10:00

Escort is the musical brainchild of guitarist Dan Balis (who has played on various Metro Area tracks). It is a 15 piece disco band straight out of Larry Levan's Paradise Garage, combining elements of jazz, funk, soul and... DISCO!

Having been namechecked by luminaries such as Morgan Geist, Trevor Jackson and even German minimal hipsters M.A.N.D.Y, expect to hear more from this party crew in the near future. (I hear rumours of a DJ tour in Australia early 08)

For their latest 12" "All Through the Night," they have given us a nice little video... Check out the muppets in all their disco glory!

It's really really cool to see independant artists like Escort putting out their own videos.
What was once a game played by the big leagues is now open to everyone. Crosstown Rebels video for Hitchhiker's Choice actually made it into MTV in Europe and America... pretty good for a faceless techno track.

Pan's Labyrinth

2007-07-20T23:39:00.000+10:00

One of the best movies I have seen in a long, long time has to go to Guillermo Del Toro's 'Pan's Labyrinth.'

The beauty about this film is rooted in its simplicity and ability to convey social truths whilst letting our minds wander into a world full of fantasy and wonder.

It kinda reminds me of Mark Ryden's body of work, with one of his paintings definately used as a reference for the "plant that wishes it could be human."

Beware though, whilst it may be a children's tale it's not for the faint-hearted.

Magical.

Sydney Graffiti

2007-07-20T21:48:00.001+10:00

There's some cool shit out there... seek and you shall find

Shackleton - Next to Nothing (Crosstown Rebels)

2007-07-20T10:33:00.001+10:00

Shackleton and his label Skull Disco have been making huge waves in dance music of late. With the help of friends like Ricardo Villalobos, their music has transcended beyond dubstep and is being picked by minimal chorts as well. Check out this interesting interview with him here.

His new release on Damian Lazarus's Crosstown Rebels furthur blurs the lines which also features a generic remix from minimal stars Exercise One. Also of interest, all proceeds go to UNICEF.

Crosstown Rebels have been a real enigma of late. After releasing such classics as Hiem, Pier Bucci, Andre Kraml, it seems to me that Damian is clutching at straws to satisfy the labels prolific release schedule.

That being said, they still do release some amazing stuff, even though they are few and far between. Check out this quirky video clip by minimal prog animals Minilogue (Directed and Produced by Kristoferstrom).

Matthew Dear as... Matthew Dear

2007-07-20T10:19:00.002+10:00

You may know him as Audion, igniting dancefloors the world over, but Matthew Dear's latest offering 'Asa Breed' shows signs of a true artist at play in this world of repetitive, pointless dance music.

The new album covers a diverse range of musical terriority taking influences from Jonny Cash, BRMC to Death in Vegas type moodscapes.

Check out this really cool, in-depth interview with him i found on his myspace.

Moodymann... who's being Misled?

2007-07-19T14:37:00.001+10:00

In line of his recent live performance at DEMF (which was shocking by all reports), Moodymann is now giving interviews to whoever wants it.

Next Stop... The Daily Telegraph

Check out his interview and karaoke performance here

... Now here's Moodymann on one of his better days.

A friend of a friend informed me that a show of his in Glasgow was met by the drunken pulling down the sheets and finding out that Moodymann was in fact a short middle aged white business man! (this may or may not be true)

Also check out his latest 12" 'Technology Stole My Vinyle'.
Real Detroit goodness.

Mark Ryden - Fushigi Circus

2007-07-19T13:40:00.000+10:00

One of the world's most beautiful ugly artists is Mark Ryden.

Mark Ryden was born in Medford Oregon.

He received a BFA in 1987 from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and currently lives and works in Los Angeles where he paints slowly and happily amidst his countless collections of trinkets, statues, skeletons, books, paintings and antique toys.

His new book Fushigi Circus "is a hardcover, 128 page, clothbound collection of the works of Mark Ryden. This Japanese language book features works, including Blood, Sweat, Tears, and The Creatrix, and a survey of 55 of Mark Ryden's works from past shows through early 2005."

Mark Ryden reminds me of some sort of evil Lewis Carrol marrying stark social realities with childhood marvels.

Check him out at www.markryden.com

Computer Music

2007-07-18T22:07:00.001+10:00

The composition 'Mild Und Leise' is said to be one of the very first musical pieces made entirely on a computer.

"This IBM mainframe was, as far as I know, the only computer on the Princeton University campus at the time. It had about one megabyte of memory, and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars (in addition to requiring a staff to run it around the clock). At that point we were actually using punch cards to communicate with the machine, and writing the output to a 1600 BPI digital tape which we then had to carry over to a lab in the basement of the engineering quadrangle in order to listen to it."

The chord progression at the start of the track was later sampled by some obscure art-rock band named Radiohead on a track called 'Idioteque'. Apparently they're really popular.

Kelley Polar and his Musical Glory

2007-07-18T15:09:00.001+10:00

One of last year's highlights was the disco pop romance of Kelley Polar's 'Love Songs from the Hanging Gardens' released through Environ Records.

Kelley Polar, who now resides as a sheep herder in rural New Hampshire was once a scholar at the illustrious Juilliard School of music in New York.

Previously cancelled for an outlandish program featuring player pianos and Bedouin singers, Polar was able to convince the Juilliard powers that his final solo recital should move ahead as planned. But the program was a mere decoy, and as the basslines of his newest Environ tracks boomed out over Julliard’s recital hall to an audience that included his enraged teachers, Kelley Polar effectively ended his higher education at the world's most famous music school.

With his new album just about to drop the friendly friends at Environ have given us a teaser of what to expect with Directed and produced by Marco Cibola producing this wonderful video for Nove Studio.

Simpsons Movie - Hype or Reality?

2007-07-18T14:53:00.000+10:00

Check this out for a publicity stunt.
A giant 180 ft Homer Simpson brandishing a donut was painted next to the well-endowed 17th century fertility symbol, the Cerne Abbas giant. English pagans have pledged to perform “rain magic” to wash away the cartoon character, which has been painted with water-based biodegradable paint.

Let's hope that the wait is worth it, and the movie will fit nicely into the back catalogue of a series that has shaped a whole generation.

New Radiohead Album Draws Closer and Closer...

2007-07-18T12:50:00.000+10:00

Radiohead's new music has been characterized by the band themselves as "almost embarrassingly minimal" and "sparse with lots of bass."

It marks a significant period for the group. Currently the band are without a recording contract after their deal with EMI came to a close. Also they've spent nearly as much time as they did with Kid A/Amnesiac.

Yorke described the lyrical concept of the album as, "It's about that anonymous fear thing, sitting in traffic, thinking, 'I'm sure I'm supposed to be doing something else"...

Get Excited!

Schneider TM - The Light 3000

2007-07-17T22:54:00.001+10:00

This reinterpretation of the Smith's 'the Light' is an other-worldly experience.

A must listen.

July Top 5

2007-07-17T22:02:00.001+10:00

omarTop 5 for July.
Some tracks may be dated, but worthy nonetheless...

Click on the links for a short sample of the traxx.

ENJOY.

Sa-Ra Creative Partners - The Hollywood Recordings

This record is absolutely amazing.

Sexual Spirituality transferred through aural pleasure.

check out their interview with the Red Bull Music Academy for an insight into the unique minds of the humans behind the myth.

Chin Chin - You Can't Hold Her

These disco cats from New York release the second single from their debut album.

Think Andre 3000 feat. Arthur Russel.

Daniel Wang -Hasishiyama No Autumn

Back after what seems like an eternity, Danny's latest offering comes on Japan's obscure Jet Set Records.

Beautiful production as always with a distinct feeling of melancholy. Reminds me very much of Air's - Lost in Kyoto.

His interview with Red Bull is a real treat.

Oasis - Oasis 13

This is probably the most confusing EP title so far on Omar S's elusive FXHE records.

I've been looking for this track ever since I heard the album and is definately the most funky joint to come from the Oasis Collaboration.

Deerhunter - Cryptograms

These dudes are crazy.

I highly recommend NOT checking out their blog.

Whilst they may be crazy, they still make amazing music. Think Radiohead mixed with Wilco featuring heavy usage of Roland's infamous 'Space Echo' to take you back to "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...."

The Tunnel House

2007-07-17T21:42:00.001+10:00

Now this is just a trip.

Artists Dan Havel and Dean Ruck have created this mind melding installation a few months prior to the houses demolition.

As one person previously commented,,, this is what happens when you divide by zero...

The Tunnel House

Virgin... Comics

2007-07-17T20:49:00.000+10:00

First there was Virgin Coke, Virgin Hookers and now...

Virgin Comics
Virgin Comics is the creative collaboration between Deepak Chopra, filmmaker Shekar Kapur and your knight in shining armour... Sir Richard Branson.

Its operations are based in Bangalore and the website claims to lead the transition of India as an outsourcer to a source of innovative and dynamic creations and creators.

Interestingly enough, they are the first comic books i've seen to go digital and i think this marks a significant shift in what was once a dying industry (do i hear music?).

Hiring your run of the mill celebrities like Guy Ritchie, John Woo and Nicholas Cage amongst others, expect your comic book movie adaption in cinemas soon...

... they look fucking amazing.

The Theremin

2007-07-17T20:35:00.000+10:00

Developed in the 1920s, it was one of the first synthesizers ever built. EVER.

Invented by Russian inventor Leon Theremin it was the first instrument designed to be played without touch.

Its also quite cheap.
On ebay you can build your own for a mere $50

This may get you started...

I was first introduced to this instrument through Daniel Wang's sublime 'Glimmer in His Eyes.' If you haven't heard this song, prepare to fall in love.

Kevin Rudd Invades Your Space

2007-07-17T20:26:00.000+10:00

He's a hansom fellow isn't he?

Kevin likes nice long walks along the beach, a selection of jazz and wait for it...

'The Chaser's War on Everything'

we're rooting for you Kevin... you truly are one of us.

www.myspace.com/officiallaborspace