Yeah, mixes, right!? You wait forever in the rain, then *four* of the bastards come along at once!

Errr, or am I talking about buses?

Well, either way – following a rather long absence in which holidays have been taken, records bought, masks made between buying records, then records played wearing masks (yes, its all rather random as usual) - there's finally been some Dining Room action.

Last month marked one year since i inherited PJ's decks, and if that isn't an excuse to spend some money on an 'anniversary present to self' then I don't know what is .. so finally purchased my own mp3 jiggerypokery in the form of Serato Scratch.

(An aside for anyone looking into that sort of software – its not that I had any particular scratching requirements or anything, but a bit of casting around for info revealed it to be the most stable by some way and - since cheap-n-cheerful Torq regularly seems to take objection to my mp3s and bomb out, and I don't particularly want Traktor Scratch bells n whistles - it seemed the safest option. Apparently the customer service is top notch as well, which is useful for the less I.T.-enabled among us!)

The upshot of this of course is that Kid-In-A-Sweetshop-with-50-Quid Effect – ie: a sort of audio vomitfest where loads of good tracks that have been burning a hole in my hard-drive for years have all splurged their way out at once, resulting in the longest solo mix yet.

So you can expect to work your way from a perky start into a darker section, up though some very choonful, laid back stuff and into a full-on funky house attack near the end! (Oh, and then some geezers talking in French, who I'm quite sure might be saying something rude about your mother at one point, but lets not go into that…)

Here's some Mix Pickins:


S1NGULARITY – RETURN OF THE SAVAGE BEAN.



It's pretty special being able to pluck stuff right off myspace and play it now.
If 'Savage Bean' tickled your fancy, you should definitely pay this fella's page a visit and have a listen to 'A Date With the Night' – it is spanking!

He's been here on MySpazzle all of about twenty seconds, so get in there early and show some lurve!




ORBITAL – YOU LOT



Does that still sound fan-fookin'-tastic, or what?




THE SOFT PINK TRUTH – REAL SHOCKS



We all heart Drew Daniel (no, not the Big Brother one..)!

But with no apparent snifter of a new album on the horizon (he's been busy finishing his dissertation apparently!) we'll have to tide ourselves over with this slightly spooky, vomity, urine-drinking craziness from his website

And have a listen to his re-jig of Subtle's 'Mercury Craze' (officially Most Confusing Song To Mix Ever!)

(On a side-note, while you're at it, also take a peek at this Subtle vid if you've not seen it – great stuff.)




THOSE GUYS – I WALK ALONE [HAJI & EMANUEL DUB]



One to restore your faith in 'bangin' funky house tracks, this one's been burning a hole in my record bag since Smack1, where everybody seemed to want to know what it was.

Its not surprising really – it really manages to keep building up a treat without the usual vocal overkill you tend to associate with this sort of track. It's erm.. punchy, but oooh-soooo dreeeeamy! [insert wet, girly expression]

Altogether now:

"Yaaaaaa-haaaaa,

Yaaaaaa-haaaaa,

Yaaaaa-haaaaaa-aaaaaa-aaaaaaa…"

(Hopefully the overpowering urge to move your feet might distract you from the fact that there's obviously a MASSIVE piece of dirt on the record during the main breakdown – oops!)




REX THE DOG – CIRCULATE



The word that wants to force its way out of my gob when I listen to this is 'sublime' but, since that makes me sound like a right tit, I'll avoid saying it (except I just did, doh.)

Can you think of any other tracks that manage to be sort of kickin' (as the kids say) and mournful at the same time?

And look – there's still some left in stock for some truly *insane* reason – ADDTOCART!!

(yet another great B-side to be had on this one too)




Anyhooo, enough rambling, here be the mix:



Get some moosic for your ears!

Forward-Thinking Tam's Friendly Trainwreck!






And once you;ve finished with that, you'll be pleased to know that Superstar PJ has been getting his hands dirty on Ableton... with sexy results:
..">

Herve -> Brodinski -> Chemical Brothers

And finally, after all that rather rousing stuff, you might like to check out some slightly less frantic offerings from Merf's archives, starting with this Takeover Sound mix (including, o'course, his and Agent Foot's peerless 'Together in the Dark')...



...and winding down with...


Rhythm & Sound -> Carl Craig -> Paperclip People

And finally -since folk keep pestering us about it - we are on the case with some mo' live dates and will keep you posted.

Phew! Thats about it, i think.




Hugs, keeeses, and dj kicks,
~Tam

Yes, as you might have guested from the heading, we now have a fledgling Facebook Group - 'Dining Room DJs', so come and get yourself membered up (arf) right away!

There'll be the usual mix notifications - but also some other goodies not to be found on the podcast, kicking off with Brother's SmackII mix this week.. keep an eye out, cos its first come, first served...

And more importantly, we're on the lookout for everyone and anyones own mixes, tracks, podcasts, events and recommendations - so if you've got something musical you want to pimp, or just bang on about a bit ...


JOIN US!


- - -


Now to this week's mix:

Suppose i could have split this one into two separate bits really, but then i thought 'to hell with all this short mix' nonsense, and left the two halves sort of flimsily attached down the middle like a Kit-Kat.

And like a Kit Kat, its a tasty 'un, with that Wee DJs track (.. if you don't believe 'Fame' could ever sound eerie..), a hat-trick of DJ Funk and the equally awesome 'Final Level' and 'Happy Birthday Mr President' complementing eachother really quite nicely as well, thankyou.

There are some ..er.. less tasty bits as well - for instance, you won't catch me swanning over to Mr De Crecy's MySpazzle page anytime soon to boast about that *wonderful* bit of mixing i did out of 'Bass Programmer' (eurgh! at least redeemed myself a bit with the ed chamberlain stuff later tho) .. oh...and also you might want to watch out for the unexpected nut right at the end of the second finger... a finisher that may well manage to fill you with amusement and ABJECT TERROR simultaneously....

Dive in:



Merf vs Forward-Thinking Tam - Lickit!







~CHEEEEEERZZZ!

------

If you're in a mild panic about the days drawing in and wish to try and squeeze every last drop of summery juiciness out of 2007's mangled up lovepipe by jigging about to some uptempo tunage, this one's for you.

There's that Prince/Alexander Robotnik mash-up, some Supermen Lovers (nooo, not the one with the potatoey guy, and the mouse, and the spaceship) and Precision Cuts' 'Takin Over' – an ultra-reliable workhorse of a track that has the unique attribute of being able to sit happily anywhere in any mix, as far as I can tell.
Try it! Buy It!
It's like having a comfort blanket in yer record bag (providing you don't play the b-side by mistake, that is, which is a bit of an overkill remix of something that was already crisp, clean and perfect..)
Come to think of it, buy two copies, for when the first wears out… and pick up Xylophone
as well, while you're at it.

Anyway, enough side-tracking already! Don your vocoders and dancing shoes…




Forward-Thinking Tam's SlightlyFrenchFluff!






~cheeeeeeeeeeeeers!

Blog-Neglecting Bum reporting for duty, SAH!

First of all,


MIXES/RECOMMENDATIONS


We did, in fact, do one last week but, between me getting my braids tangled up in the headphones about three times in as many minutes, and Merf's Zen conking out after thirty, I'm afraid its ..err… not really available for public consumption.

We're going to try again tonight though - hopefully with less hair and more battery this time round.

There's also a light-n-fluffy mix on standby which includes 'When I Hear Music' (No, no, no, not the Duke Dumont version - Final Level blows that out of the water anyways, if you don't mind me saying) and be expecting to hear some more Ed Chamberlain, Modeselektor and Wee DJs in all their fulsome glory later this week.


In the meantime, though, you could do a lot worse than listen to this fella's latest offering:



There's plenty of ear-pleasers here, Crooker's 'Salmon Dance' remix and the closing Deadmau5
track to name a couple – but my particular favourite is this.

Wheeeeeeeee!!
[Newcomers can find some more dark techno-ey goodness from Kompakt Extra Germany on Breaky Bits
btw, after the Krazy Baldhead track.]

Lurvely neat mixing from Mr Ark too, so props to him..
..a top-hat and umbrella might make a good start and look rather dashing. Boom-boom CHING!

Anyway, staying on a techno-ey slant..



…the original mix of Branon-Vikta on this has been causing my ears much glee this week – possibly cos it's vaguely reminiscent of that Anthony Shakir track on Disco Ball…. but more likely cos I cant stop imagining a club full of people all tripping over their own feet trying to dance to it.


A re-examination of the Kompakt back-catalogue in the wake of that Up track also belatedly uncovered Broke's - 'overthat'. As that cheeky toe-tapping-type techno goes, i reckon it's up there with Monsters.
Also, it sounds like the bloke's making frog noises, and you cant argue with that - ADDTOCART!


And Merf's found himself a new version of Put Your Hands Up for Detroit'



..the difference being that this time it's done by someone who is actually from Detroit. Oh, and also that its more-or-less completely different song. Whowouldathunkit? 'The Dark' is pretty cool too.

[For them wot don't already know, there's more DJ Godfather to be found in Bootyquake btw]

- - -



TENUOUS MUSICAL LINK TIME:



Now, when he's not behind the decks it may surprise you to know that Merf listens to the sort of music that gets him labelled a 'Lesbian!' (by actual lesbians, and they should know..) and that '.. if it sustains a regular beat for more than ten seconds he writes it off as commercialised rubbish'.

So it was in this experimental spirit (as well as the spirit of fancying some ridiculously overpriced fish-n-chips followed maybe by a little light cottaging) that we set off to Brighton a couple weeks ago to see Mice Parade at Audio.


Since Satan and his evil dance music have had my ladyballs in a vice-like grip for quite some time now, I'm not really qualified to review such a thing – except to say that it was ace when Adam whatsisname went ballistic on the drums – but the point I am getting to is: on our way there we became privy to the Best Marketing Campaign that Never Was, and, frankly, it'd be rude not to share.


A friend works for a graphic design company down that way, and told me that their boss had recently returned from a meeting barely able to control his giggles.

He'd been chatting to a marketing guy about ideas to promote a petition to stop animal cruelty – maybe it was against intensive farming or some such – via a viral campaign.

It's not the done thing to name Marketing Guy really, but i will say that he's been behind some massively successful campaigns for Greenpeace, PETA, and the like. All of which makes the following even more bewildering:

Apparently Marketing Guy labours under the conviction that if you throw enough balls (or utter bollocks, in this case!) at a tree, one of them will eventually hit it. Because one of his many 'brainstorms' allegedly went like this:



'We need a celebrity.. someone like…. Billie Piper.

Yes, we need Billie Piper…

…being milked…

…by a cow.

No-no-no-no.. being OVER-milked by a cow.

And in the background there could be rows of animals all dancing to a samba beat, and a rapper going:

'It doesn't have to be like this.'

(By the way, please can you get one of the middle class white boys in your design studio to do the rap on the cheap?)'


That was his idea.
Oh, alright, I might have 'paraphrased' the last line a bit, but that's the crux of it.

All of which raises several burning questions.

Apart from the obvious one of: which part of Ms Piper is this cow milking.. there's the rather more pertinent matter of how the hell a cow is supposed to milk any part of anything with HOOVES FOR HANDS?!?

And, even if we were to find our way around that l'il stumbling block, how is the process of 'over-milking' to be denoted? Does Billie pull a sad face? Maybe she gets a tear in her eye and starts looking a bit red and chaffed round the 'relevant' areas..

And finally, this 'rap'.
'It doesn't have to be like this.'

Erm.. is that because it isn't?

I wish it were though! We can but hope for a utopian existence where no-one has the time or inclination to be bad cos they're too busy pissing themselves laughing at b-list-celebrity-babbage getting yanked about by overenthusiastic-yet-strangely-dexterous Aberdeen Anguses.

But for now it shall have to remain a bee-yoo-ti-ful, unobtainable dream…

*sigh*


So in the meantime I'm going home to ease my crushing disappointment by cutting up some mixes, watching this yet again (because apart from it being funny, I quite fancy the speccy one tbh), and trying to work out for the umpteenth time whether Marketing Guy and his so-bad-its-almost-genius Idea should receive a promotion, or the business end of a P45. Or both simultaneously (Ouch).



BackWithMusicSoonBye!


Oh PS: ..wont even pretend this has even the vaguest connection with music but, while we're on the subject of Brighton, any veggies looking for somewhere that isn't The George should definitely try The Hartington. I had a dirty great bit of awesome pork belly myself (which almost got regurgitated several times thanks to the milking story) but apparently the veggie/vegan options – of which there are plenty – are just as good. DO IT!

...as you may have noticed ..

(...certainly at least one listener already has, cos we just received a right earful on account of it only being 23 minutes long. Good job there'll be another mix along to complement it soon then, innit?)

In the meantime, pour yourself a nice cuppa and enjoy a lurvely, chilled bit of ear-candy...



Merf presents - Sunday Space Funk







Playlist:

Gosub – anthila lost [Device]
Elecktroids – midnight drive [Warp Records]
Influx – snowfall [Isophlux]
Der Zyklus – mathematische modelle [International Deejay Gigolo Records]
DJ T + Booka Shade – played runner [Get Physical Music]
John Davis – flashcan [Citinite]
Gosub – Odessa [Isophlux]


~cheers!

Well, for so-called 'Dining Room DJ's, we haven't spent much time in the bloomin' dining room at all in the last couple weeks. Infact, we've mostly been doing stuff that doesn't involve the obsessive fondling of vinyl at all. Astonishing!

However, we wouldn't want to leave you completely devoid of mooosic-related stuffandnonsense so Merf, kindly taking time out from a back-breaking schedule that consists of baking The World's Most Complicated Cake [this involves an intimate knowledge of 'firm balls' and 'soft cracks' – I am not joking] and bewildering co-workers with his new t-shirt ["Have you heard the good news ..? Jesus is made of peanut butter!"] … has passed on a little sumthin from 20JFGs for all to enjoy …and also cranked out a nicely chilled new mix that has some more tasty Gosub tracks on it and will be up in the next couple days.
And in the meantime, if you like your italo-disco, you might fancy checking out his mate 'The Rare Lowry's latest mix here.

For my own part, I was up in Edinburgh last weekend trying to distract myself from the ever-increasing allure of starting a mix-posting group on Facebook (MySpazzle treachery! Suppose it'll have to happen sooner rather than later though.) and absorb some 'Culchaaar', what with the Fringe being on.

A word about this cos, as well as watching a film about a girl with teeth up her fandango (Good. Tho don't go if you're squeamish.) we also managed to do a Musicky Thing which was to see Reggie Watts at the Green Room.

Reggie Watts, in brief, is more-or-less the lurve-child of Jamie Lidell and Sideshow Bob. You probably knew that already, but if you didn't, please take a moment to acquaint yourself here, cos he's a treat if you aint seen him in action before:



Reggie Watts: Out Of Control from Jakob Lodwick and Vimeo.

Good eh?

Joining him on stage music-wise was a sort of manic-looking poppy-eyed guy with an acoustic guitar, whose name I badly wish I could remember as he delivered the best line of the evening (" I'm just trying to get a little audience participation going here, and everyone's looking at me like I'm raping a swan!") and beatboxer Shockwave, aka Chris Sullivan. Thought it was worth a mention as they all put in a fine performance - the Reggie/Shockwave beatboxing duet was particularly memorable - and deserve a bit of a plug: if you like, you can hear some Chris Sullivan stuff here.
Reggie Watts is liberally splattered all over YouTube, so doesnt need no urls from the likes of me, but - you know what i'm driving at - go see Live if you get the chance.
(And if i find out the name of Mr Swan-Rapist i'll get back to you, cos he was ace.)



In Our Ears this Week:



Merf's boat is currently being floated by this debut from Aphe.. err.. ... i mean ..THE TUSS.


Meanwhile, I'm wondering where Ed Chamberlain has been all my life, as should you be if he's not in yours yet. Particularly check out 'Resistance' and 'A Friendly Warning' from the Fixxy EP part 2, plus, from the album [above] 'Sky Face' and 'The 3rd Fury' (which btw is great for running around pretending you're in the the film of Andromeda Strain to.. :-)


Have also been getting cheap thrills from the bassline inthe LAWGIVERZ remix of Concept of Nature by Son of Electric Ghost


And finally, if you're wearing your 80s hat and feeling a bit funky, have a listen to 'Triple Somersault' and 'Milk' off this ROBERT O'DELL release (that Kelis bird doesn't have the monopoly on Milkshake-themed songs, y'know!).

Right, best run, as Merf is now in da house with records in one hand, eggs in the other, and an overwhelming urge to '..have a crack at an Oniony Tart'.
(Errr, apparently all the 'firm balls' and 'soft cracks' weren't enough, then.)

~cheers...

It'd be nice to be able to say that the title is about something cleverer than 'this mix has a few more disco/funky house tracks in it than usual', but basically, that's what it boils down to.

A good deal of this one ended up on the cutting-room floor and, even after some meticulous snipping, it still veers and lolls randomly around like the town drunk.

But it's usually the slightly wayward ones that are the most fun isn't it? There's some corking tunes apart from anything else and i'm guessing that if you didnt want to hear latin-influenced stuff clumsily cosied up next to electroclash you'd be in HMV purchasing 'Now Thats What I Call Crushingly Mediocre 365' or whatever, instead of here reading this, and bracing your eardrums for a right mess.

So, yes - 'Disco Ball!' is the aural equivalent of that friend we've all got that we secretly suspect might be a bit backwards - but you'd never not invite him to a party, cos any potential embarrasment is far outweighed by the entertainment value!



Here's some Pix of the Mix:






Skream - 'make me'

Awesomely dark-n-trippy. The bit where it eerily looms up from beneath Mossa's 'Town Hall' (also excellent as mentioned last week) and just seems to swallow it whole and change the whole direction of the mix is one of the highlights, i reckon. Didn't see *that* one coming!





Black Strobe - 'shining bright star'

Crowd-pleasaaaaa!





Spiller - 'sola'

When PJ first directed me towards this, i was like, 'Meh.'
After a couple more listens though i decided 'Meh' wasn't really a sufficient tribute to something that's quite the most uplifting thing you could could wish to hear if you're having a downer day, or even if you're not, that still sounds crisp and lurvely four years on, and will probably sound just as good for four more because he kept it simple.

So, yes, that's that settled, then... we dont need no Sophie Ellis-Bextor..

ADDTOCART!!

Sorry about the Modeselektor thing though. That actually worked alright when i first tried it out the other day. No, really.
(Starting it on the right beat might have helped a bit, for a start...)






Johnny Dangerous - 'beat that bitch' (problem 13)

DJ Funk likes playing this one, apparently.
On first hearing it i went all 'English A-Level' and had it down as an allegory for living in the US - whereas Merf prefers to take the more literal interpretation of some put-upon bloke losing his rag and clobbering his naggy-but-unfortunate missus about the head with a sporting implement. Hmm.

For sure the answer's on t'internet somewhere should you care to look, but that would be a bit of a Spoiler so i haven't yet... if you don't already know yourself, have a listen and see what you think.

Either way it seems sort of appropriate - or inappropriate depending on which way you look at it - that it fades in over Dharma's rather shrill vocals, heh. (Merf thought he'd bought the instrumental version of that track. Until he played it, that is.)

~~~


Incidentally, (just in case anyone else gets curious about this sort of thing) a while back i enrolled a couple of French-speaking acquaintances to explain what TTC are saying in 'Dancing Box', cos i'd been listening to it so frequently i felt sort of rubbish not knowing what it was going on about. After several failed attempts, one of them came back with the following:

"They're talking too fast but i hear something about motorways, something about getting a drug fix, and also something about how great cannabilsm is.
Basically, it's a maelstrom of cuntish bollocks'.

Well, glad we cleared that one up. For some reason i like it even more now...

Similarly if anyone wants to enlighten us rubbish-at-languages-Englishers as to what's going on with the Diplo and Stereotyp tracks, please do.
(Cannabilism is going to take some beating, though....)

Now: 'Open up your ears really big...'






DReejays podcast

Get some moosic for your ears!

Merf vs Forward-Thinking Tam - Disco Ball!








Overdrive – space funk (Nick Dare's deep orange remix) [Reform]

C-Mos - 2 million ways (Axwell Remix) [Legato Belgium]

Trevor Loveys – turn it up [Freerange]

- - -

Anthony Shakir – dub in fuzztone (Shake re-edit) [Dust Science]

Lindstrom & Solale – let it happen [Azuli]

Spektrum – horny pony (Greg Wilson mix) [Non-Stop]

- - -

DJ Touche – girl's a freak [Southern Fried Records]

Playgroup – too much [Playgroup]

Mossa - town hall (Eloi Brunelle remix) [Guesthouse Music US]

- - -

Skream – make me [Tempa]

Mu – tell you something [Tigersushi]

Black Strobe - shining bright star (phones industrial version) [playlouderecordings]

- - -

Diplo - percao (feat Pantera Os Danadinhos) [Big Dada]

The Drum Monkeys – batty bacuda [Westway]

Chus & Ceballos – low frequencies [Stereo productions Spain]

- - -

Stereotyp - Jece Valadao (feat. Edu K And Joyce Muniz) [Man Recordings]

Zongamin – double dossiev [XL Recordings]

E-Dancer – pump the move (Kenny Larkin mix) [PIAS]

- - -

Spiller-sola [Nano]

Modeselektor - dancing box (feat TTC) [BPitch Control Germany]

Blendbrank – space horse & force [Bugeyed US]

- - -

Channel Ones – Technicolour [Metroplex]

Dharma – plastic doll [Clone Classics]

Johnny Dangerous - beat that bitch (problem 13) [Hourglass Recordings]

- - -

Lindstrom & Solale – let's practice [dub] [Feedelity Norway]

Playgroup – make it happen [Playgroup]

- - -

Oi-Oi - Merf here - its been a wee while since i managed to give tam a bit of a hand a write something to whap on here so i cant tell what lovely records i told you to buy last time.... heres hoping i dont go for the same ones this time, otherwise this whole exercise is a big waste of both our time... but enough rambling - to the records!





Gary Numan - Cars [dave clarke mix] (beggars banquet)

I first got this on a cd that came free with some magazine - since then ive lost the cd, got a hooky mp3 with no end, and then this week managed to buy a legit mp3 with its end intact. Ive bought a couple of different cars 12"s over the years trying get a version that you could actually play without feeling like a dick, and frankly they are all shite - complete wank 80s remixes that just ruin a great tune (although i think they do have a handy merchandise flyer so you can buy a gary numan scarf and join his fan club). The dave clarke remix is very true to the original - it just beefs up the kick drum a bit and drops a bit of the old 808 click noise from time to time.



ERP - Alsoran (Frantic Flowers)

This one was recommended by his rareness - and its a peach - its the same fella that does the Convextion stuff but rather than dubbed out basic channel style caperings this one is pure techno-soul. Three *deep* cuts that you know you'll be loving for years to come.



Recloose - Cardiology LP (Planet E)

Must admit to not really picking up on this when it first came out - i really dug 'get there tonight' but it didnt make the vinyl version of the album since it had already come out as a single. I think on first listen i kind of wrote the album off as "r&b wackness" - theres no denying that it does heavy leaning in that direction, and on weaker tracks its that aspect that puts me off - but in general its an amazing piece of work, and pretty much without precendent - the only thing i can think that sounds vaguely similar is super_collider and even thats a bit of stretch. Through the album theres so much movement, so many styles, but for my money its those vocals that steal the show - ripped apart, twisted and contorted, but always with a clear sonic intent - its never monkey business for the sake of it...



The Plan - Plan B (submerge)

Hadnt heard of these boys til recently - but if this second EP is a sign of things to come then they are certainly one to watch. Coming out on submerge, as you might expect, the style is classic motor-city - I reckon its really reminiscent of the red planet records (and theres even one on there called 'red shift' so i reckon im on to something there) - driving electro beats, and whirling spacey synths - cant say fairer than that!


~~~

Well look-ee here!

By the miracle of google desktop's caching abilities, Merf's lost Top Five has been restored to us - and it's come back harder, better, faster, stronger with links n all (...a bit like jesus when he turned up for the resurrection all gold-plated, with an in-built grenade-launcher, and anti-slip treads).

~~~


Howdy folks - merf here - figured I should probably pull my weight a bit and add a bit of something on here - so heres a couple of top fives - one for all time classics that i love now and forever, the other for whats tickling my fancy in the here and now...


ALL TIME TOP FIVE:




The Vision – Spectral Nomad (Metroplex)

The epitome of cool – driving hi-hats, the synth line that just keeps mutating and evolving and of course the vocal: "Detroit" – you said it…



69 – Desire (Planet E)

Carl Craigs finest moment, its got that dreamy quality married beautifully with the drive of the beats – heart wrenching Detroit strings, rocking breaks cut up in the classic paperclip people style and plenty of live keys and manipulation by the man himself. This one of quite a few things that were out of print back when I used to play records but are now back in print and easy to lay your hands on…



Plastikman – Spastik (Plus 8)

When I first started playing records the first two I bought were this and 'the stalker' by green velvet – if ever there was a less appropriate first two records id like to see it. This has got to be the most interesting drum track ever made, never stands still, just keeps moving, changing and building.



Moodymann – Shades of Jae (KDJ)

Oh Kenny Dixon – you big tease. Theres only about 16 bars in the whole thing with a kick drum, but fuck me you'd hardly know it – listening to it makes me so excited. Its got everything that makes a good moodymann record (is there a bad one?) – Bit of vocal skat, bit of crowd noise, bit of soulful vocal, bit of live keys and percussion. And then when it finally does kick off – oh my!



Adonis – No Way Back (Trax)

I had to reign myself in a bit as I was playing this on pretty much every mix. Classic Chicago style and I just cant enough of that vocal – "y'all start jacking out there"




CURRENT FAVOURITES:




Telex – Raised By Snakes [Joeseph Watt Remix] (Supersound)

Theres lots of these sort re-edits (or just plain bootlegs) or obscure hard to find things – Id only heard that Moscow Disco thing by Telex before and wasn't too bothered but this is ace – Im not normally super into the real 80s sounding booming drums but on this it just sounds corking – really good pressing an all – when those toms come in - boof!



Metro Area - Miura (Environ)

Its only recently that ive come across all the metro area and kelly polar stuff – and this is the cream of the crop as far as Im concerned – like most Morgan Geist stuff its deceptively simple but it all just works so well together you can't help but love it.



Dopplereffekt – Gesamtkunstwerk LP (Clone Classic Cuts)

This has been out of print for years but I finally got my copy of the repress through the post today and im mightily excited - Probably one of the best Drexciyan offshoots pretty much every tune on here is killer – its all really icy, clinical electro business – grab it while you can!



Mike Dunn – Face the Nation (Clone Classic Cuts)

Another oldie given a repress courtesy of clone. Old school jackin Chicago acid with a bit of ferris bueler "chk-chkaaaa!" action. Think hes making wack R&B these days, ho-hum



UR – Transition (UR)

I think if anyone other than UR tried to put a vocal message like this on a record it would just come off as a bit cheesy but in the hands of the masters you cant avoid getting caught up in the positive message. "People will say you cant mix this with that, and you will say 'watch me' … and make your transition

~~~

The Bad News is that, checking the archives here, MySpazzle seems to have somehow .. errr... eaten Merf's last Recommendations blog - which is a bugger (will re-post it if i can find it cached anywhere)

The Good News though is that he going to be along to blog some more Recommendations shortly (which will make a refreshing change from reading about my pants) and though he speaks rarely, his recommendations are always sound, dontcha know; so stand by.

In the meantime, thought i'd give a little shoutout for this little minimal-house treasure all tucked away at the end of "Mod Cooperate Four" from back in March:



DUBNOODLES - Norman Bats

Twangtastic!

Came across it while looking up more Mossa stuff, after loving his contribution to the Super Secret Squirrel Trax sampler last year (you'll hear that in our next mix btw).. anyway, yeah, the Mossa track here is pleasant enough, but Dubnoodles tune is the clear scene-stealer.

That'll be getting tucked safely away next to my other Housey favourite of the year, Kerri Chandler's Computer Games EP, one of those rare finds where all the tracks are equally strong (imo).

The only thing that remains is to ask ourselves WTF a 'Norman Bat' might be...

(I had it down as a typo to be honest :-)

More from Merf later...