check out those dance moves

Prefuse73 & Zola Jesus mix 1

The Misanthrope Meditation; a 40min long psychedelic mix, is the result of a collaboration between Prefuse73 and Zola Jesus. This is the first in a series to come. I thought it was a strange collaboration when I first heard of it, but actually it really works! Looking forward to the next mixes!

Prefuse 73 + Zola Jesus Mix Pt 1.The Misanthrope Meditation by Warp Records

Blu DVD

Blu has put together this 1hr 40mins long DVD that compiles all his animations and works in the past decade, available to buy from ARTSH.it. There were 100 limited edition signed by the artist numbered copies, which are of course sold out...

New Architeq track

Liking Architeq's cover version of Vangelis' Blade Runner score, soon to be released on Nang Records.

Blade Runner (Architeq Cover Version) by Architeq

Mike Dred acid house mix

The last few days it's been all about acid house!

Acid house mix that Mike Dred recorded in 1989 originally onto cassette and then re-released in 2011 to accompany an interview on Spannered.

Mike Dred Acid House Mix Tape from 1989. Download Link here: http://www.spannered.org/music/1737/ by Kosmik Kommando

Plastikman acid house remix

Just came across this Plastikman acid house remix of System 7's Alpha Wave. This is so good!

Steve Poindexter - Computer Madness

Can't stop listening to this track, brings back memories!... can't stop watching the video either, like the moves!

Track of the week

Kutmah at Soundcrash

Saturday 16 April... Soundcrash at XOYO...

I get to the venue around 10.30; so happy there is no queue. I go straight in and just about get to see the last two tracks of Ghostpoet. Such a shame, I even thought I was early... They really shouldn't have put Ghostpoet play so early...

Then... Jehst! Pretty cool actually, such energy and the crowd is loving it! Next on the lineup is Anchorsong, I saw him before a few months ago at KOKO. He was on stage with two or three violinists, playing just befoere DJ Krush. This time it's just him; really cool set, but it was more impressive when I saw him with the violinists, at least visually.



Kelpe live set is next, not much to say about it really, as good as always! Kutmah is the other one after Ghostpoet that I really want to see and is absolutely great! He's mixing all sorts of very different tracks and you can see that he's having such a great time! And last is Lukid, really nice quite dark set, I think Lukid is probably my favorite of all. It's a shame that quite a lot of people have already left and it's not even that late really. At some point while he's playing the sound goes down... then it's up again... and then of course towards the end, the security guy asks Lukid to finish his set. It always makes me wonder when this happens at clubs... how can you have the security harrass the performer to finish, surely it would be better to have the soundman signal to the DJ when the time is up, it just looks really bad and unprofessional ... Really great night though, which was expected with the lineup!

Battles at ICA

The Battles... I have been following them for quite a few years now, I think probably from the very beginning... I first saw them about 8-9 years ago, if I remember well, at the then dark basement gig space, now quite a trendy road level bar; Bardens Boudoir, in Stoke Newington and then again in 2009 at the Warp20 party at The Coronet.

Tonight they are playing their sold out gig at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. This gig marks the long awaited finish of recording their new album; Gloss Drop, which is to be released on 6th June. The last 2 years have seen the band struggling with finishing this album and losing their vocalist, Tyondai Braxton. I think tonight will be very interesting to see how they perform without Braxton and I'm also really looking forward to listening to the tracks they made with guest vocalists and of course to know which these guest vocalists are. Here is one of the tracks of the new album...

Ice Cream (Featuring Matias Aguayo) by BATTLES

Good news for all of us that didn't manage to get tickets for tonight is that... on Saturday 9 April the Battles announced a new London Show! It will be at Heaven on 8 June and it's not sold, that is... not yet! So go grab those tickets, I've already got mine!

And if you are interested in seeing what Tyondai Braxton is doing these days, you can catch him on 7 May at the Barbican, where he will be performing at the Reverberations: The Influence of Steve Reich - Session 3.

East London Observatory Video

Machine...2

Friday 15 April at East Village, I arrive just before midnight.

First it's Kirk Degiorgio, he plays a 1hr set, really good, as expected! I have seen him play a few times and he's always good!

What really bothers me though is that the sound is really low... All I can hear is people talking to each other, so irritating! All I want to do is get lost in the music and all I keep thinking about is that they need to put the volume up... How can you be at a techno night and be able to hear people talking? It's just not right! I also find it a bit weird that it's not as busy as I thought it would be, not sure why... I don't think they should use this venue again for Machine, the sound is not loud enough and it closes early; I think these two reasons should be more than enough! I also miss the visuals they had at the last Machine, they were really cool!

Rolando is next! He plays for around 1.5hr. First time I see him and I quite like his set. It's a little bit more melodic than what I would normally go for, but it's good! It's good having a little bit of variety.

And then Ben Sims! In one word... amazing! I was so looking forward to his set! He plays some pretty hard industrial tunes! I love it! I was getting a little bit restless when Rolando played until about 2.20-2.30am and I knew the party was supposed to be finishing at 3am. Don't get me wrong, Rolando's set was really good, but even if it was just Sims playing, I would be there! Was really happy he carried on playing until I think 3.30am...

Can't wait for the next Machine! Very very very happy to hear it will be back at Islington Metal Works! Not sure about the date or the guest yet... but hey! I'll be there! Even though I didn't think it was as good as the first Machine, it was definitely a super nice night!

Track of the week

Tirk by Night

On Thursday night I went to Tirk by Night, an event organised by Tirk at Favela Chic, where Architeq and Free School played live with DJ set by The Time and Space Machine.

Can't really comment about The Time and Space Machine, as he was DJing inbetween the bands when I was usually outside or wasn't really paying attention when inside, so didn't really listen to what he played... I had never heard of Free School before, so had no idea what to expect, but I was happily surpised! Live band, three of them on stage wearing animal masks... They were actually quite good. And then I saw Architeq, who was the reason I was there. He played a laptop dub set, which lasted I think for a bit less than an hour and I really enjoyed! As always of course!



I expected though that the event would be busier, especially in Favela Chic, which is quite a small easy to fill venue. I think in the future Tirk should be looking at spending a little bit more on promotion and marketing. I only found out about the night when I went on the Tirk website looking for something else a couple of days before the event. Surely if the night had been well promoted I would have seen some poster or advert/insert in some magazine or ebulletin. Anyway, overall a pretty good night

Woodkid Iron Music Video

Yoann Lemoine AKA Woodkid made this pretty cool music video for his Iron EP, featuring top model Agyness Deyn. The track is good although I'm not crazy about it, it's the video I really like!

Woodkid - Iron from WOODKID on Vimeo.

Animal Collective and Keep

Teaser video of the new collaborative project of Animal Collective and Keep; a Los Angeles based ethical shoes company. The collection; launched on March 26th, is in support of the Socorro Island Conservation Fund. Each member of Animal Collective designed a pair of shoes and produced a solo track to go on a limited number 4-track tape available with shoe orders. The tracks can also be downloaded even though it would be great to have the original tape! Deakin's track is doing it more for me than the others, althought I think they are all quite good and more or less what you would expect from each of them.


Keep + AC from Keep Company on Vimeo.

Cyrcle on LACMA

Found this video of Cyrcle hitting the Los Angeles County Museum of Arts on April Fools Day 2011. Thought it was pretty cool!


CYRCLE April Fools LACMA from Dtladesigns on Vimeo.

Children of Berlin

Posthuman

Been listening to some really good tracks from Posthuman this morning, the duo responsible for running I love Acid and co-promoting Machine. Love their industrial sound!

Posthuman - Eclipse by Posthuman

Posthuman - Void of Life by Posthuman

Posthuman - The Grey by Posthuman

Can't wait for Machine this Friday!!!

Yuka - Heart of Darkness

Born in Siberia and currently based in Moscow, Yuka is my new discovery! This is such a great mix, quite rightly called Heart of Darkness... Loving every minute of it!

[nu podcast 027] Yuka - Heart of Darkness by [nutation] records

Track of the week

Dazed Live

Dazed & Confused put on an event yesterday taking over 5 locations in East London's Shoreditch; Tramshed, 18 Hewett Street, XOYO, St Leonard's Church and Village Underground. It started in the afternoon with several art and digital art exhibitions and installations, film screenings and talks and continued into the night with bands, DJs and performers.

Went around a bit, main reason I was there was to see Alejandro Jodorowsky, he gave a talk about one of his films; The Holy Mountain, which was then screened and later on he did live Tarot for a couple of members of the audience who volunteered. He's such an icon, I've seen I think most of his films. I never thought I would get to see him in person and seeing him at this event was just perfect! It was in the St Leonard's Church and it felt really intimate and friendly, with not too many people. Jodorowsky was really natural and genuine, he was exactly as you would expect him to be. One of my favorite quotes was: 'I believe not in political revolution, but in poetic re-evolution.' I wish I had recorded everything he said... He's so inspirational, 81 years old, looking so good and healthy, still working on his stuff, having a beautiful young wife. He must be doing something right! He wants to make a film about famous people's assholes... He believes in a previous life he was a woman priest, because he has the memory of female orgasm... I mean the guy is amazing! If I had a list of 5 things to do before I die, seeing Jodorowsky would definitely be on it, and it's been ticked off! 



Later on I went on to start seeing the bands and DJs. Pretty disappointing I have to admit. Everything seemed to be starting late, both music venues were not particularly busy... not sure where the people were... Stayed at Village Underground to see Darkstar, who have apparently now moved from Hyperdub to Warp. They started setting the stage up and then continued for what seemed to me as at least 1/2hr of having problems with the sound. I felt sorry for the guys, if I were them, I would probably have refused to play; completely unacceptable. And when they eventually got the sound sorted and Darkstar started, the sound in the room was horrible... The bass was too loud, your ears were aching even with earplugs on and the mics kept making this whistling noise. After a while they sorted out the bass, thank god, otherwise I think our ears would have started bleeding... Anyway, I was actually happy to see Darkstar as I'm a big fun. The sound as I said wasn't great, but hey that's life I guess... Things can't always work out to perfection... At least last time I saw them at Hoxton Bar and Grill it was good! I wanted to stay on to see Grimes and Actress, but I kind of gave up at that point...

Shackleton and Vengeance Tenfold's Sonic Journey

'Sonic Journeys is a new collection of aural landscapes that connect creator, listener and music with the world around us.'

Shakleton and spoken word artist Vengeance Tenfold were commissioned by SoundUK to create musical representations of two sections of train lines in Devon. The two tracks are available to download for free along with a map which shows the journey Shackleton and Vengeance were inspired by. Listeners are encouraged to travel on these lines, put their headphones on and follow the journey themselves.

For me there is no question that Shackleton is a genius. His music is as always of high quality and depth with these oriental influences throughout and Vengeance's words fit in just perfectly! Personally, I like more the North Devon line track, I love the way Vengeance reapeats himself both at the beginning and the end. You kind of get lost in the track. Those two should definitely collaborate more often.

SJ Shackleton Vengeance Tenfold South Devon line by sounduk

SJ Shackleton Vengeance Tenfold North Devon line by sounduk

Ostgut Ton at Berlin Next

Last Saturday I found myself in Paris. That night as part of Berlin Next there was an Ostgut Ton label event on at La Gaite Lyrique. Naturally I went!

I get there and Berlin based John Roberts is already playing (he's actually not on Ostgut Ton, he's on Dial). First time I see him, his set is ok, nothing too special, but quite deep and definitely bringing that Berlin sound to Paris! Not sure how long he played for, I get to see only the last 20mins. Then Barker and Baumecker! They play for around 1hr, again ok set, nothing too exciting, but can't really say anything negative either.



And then what I've been waiting for... Marcel Fengler! I've got a few tracks and a couple of mixes of his, really like his stuff! I had big expectations from tonight! Then again a little bit disappointed... I think his set is only 1hr (I say I think.... cause I don't stay till the end), yet it takes him 20mins to actually go for it. Also he's playing really low... Even the soundman goes up to him to tell him he can turn it up, but he's not doing it. The tracks are good, the mixing is good, but there's something not there for me. I wish I was in Berghain next to the Funktion 1 listening to Marcel playing really loud, after a couple of other deep techno DJs, so I can really get in the mood, but that's not the case. I think it's also the crowd that is not helping. The venue is great and the staff are really nice and helpful. The crowd is quite young and somehow really clean and proper. That's probably what impresses me more... this is not the crowd you would normally expect in such an event and it actually makes a big difference.

Overall a good night, but if you missed it, you didn't really miss that much..

Track of the week

Love this track! Been trying to find it on Soundcloud or anywhere else other than You Tube really, as it doesn't go with a video... and I don't quite understand what the case with the car is... but can't be bothered to look anymore...