Crash Test.

We live in a world of information flashes and snippets. Twitter wants you to deliver your momentary story in under 140 characters. 30 second advertisements lose your attention. MP3’s are the standard music delivery format. Give me that song, download quickly, smallest file possible, fit more on my music device.
For those who aren’t aware of how MP3’s work: the music is compressed by essentially “removing” sound that you don’t (think) you hear.  Much in the same way that that was a thorough, accurate and complete explanation of the MP3 format, MP3’s deliver a thorough, accurate and complete representation of a properly produced piece of music.   If listening to a brand new vinyl record on a high-quality sound system is your peripheral vision, MP3’s are you stuck in a strangers low-light basement with blinders on.  You can still see, you just can’t see everything.

This is my long-winded way of telling you that Martin Buttrich’s debut album, “Crash Test”, is your aural peripheral vision… (more…)

Weekly Wrap: Brought to you by the letter B.

What a musical month March was… The Miami Winter Music Conference once again saw DJ’s & Producers from around the world come together to party and showcase, well, something.  So far, lots of interviews – including Seth Troxler on drugs and umm, bats (“bats! fucking bats!”) - but as of yet it has failed to deliver “this year’s hottest track” – unless I’ve completely missed the announcements, which is possible considering I’ve been swept away with a fantastic Massive Attack concert [review] plus new albums from Hollie Smith [my review @ Amplifier] and Erykah Badu [review] … My hits, misses and other moments from the past week or so: (more…)

Weekly Wrap: True silence is impossible.

Massive Attack continue their series of Heligoland short films – the latest is for “Saturday come slow” featuring Damon Albarn on vocals. Directed by Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin who transform the song into a beautiful but horrific piece that explains high-volume interrogation tactics used on a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, Ruhal Ahmed.  View here, and visit zerodb.org for information on music against torture. ¶ “Incense and Poetry” 60-minute deep house mix from Osunlade available here.  He will be playing at Development’s 4th birthday party in Manchester at the end of March, who have an exclusive interview and deep soul mix available. ¶ David Alvarado’s special blend on “One:2010″ keeps it deep and techy with the right amount of soul. Solid house music. Listen on SoundCloud or download/subscribe to his podcast. ¶ Anti-folk singer Jeffrey Lewis performed at Tabac last night (March 20), much to Bob Daktari’s excitement.  Photo’s here.  ¶

Last but not least, congratulations to Hollie Smith whose sophomore album, “Humour and the Misfortune of others”, shot to number 1 on iTunes shortly after it’s release on Monday 15th March, 2010.   A truly useless piece of writing came from Simon Sweetman – a blogger on NZ news site stuff.co.nz.  Despite having the album over 1 week before it’s release, he listened to it once before lazily putting together a post that: (1) over half of it was a re-post of old information pertaining to Hollie Smith’s first album, (2) using those criticisms as a leaning post to degrade the new album, and (3) couldn’t even deliver a decent title for the post.  I openly criticized his lazy efforts, to which he replied and hid behind the excuse that it was “a blog, not an article”.  While that’s true, it’s a blog that is on a professional news publication and should therefore have much higher writing quality.  I would have no problem if there was some decent writing there, but all of his work appears to be full of weak put-downs and questions posed to readers in a way that sounds like he doesn’t have the ability to make up his own solid opinions.  I’d be embarrassed to have his work appear on such as site.

The moody view.

In an event that few ever thought would happen, Kenny Dixon Jr better known as Moodymann participated in an 90 minute interview at the 2010 Red Bull Music Academy.  Interviewed by Benji B from Radio 1 and accompanied by a friend who styles his afro while he lays down his own well-known no-holds-barred perspective on music.

View here or at the RBMA site. (more…)

Weekly Wrap.

The word “underrated” often comes to mind when discussing Doc Martin, who is highly respected by those in the know but also renowned for keeping a tight leash on his status inside the house community. Either way, he is undoubtedly an amazing DJ who has mastered the art of building a complimentary set. Jack The Box has a new interview + set download available now. ¶ Audio interview with one of the house legends, Larry Heard. Listen at Mister Saturday Night. ¶  Josh Wink shows a different side on his mix for Dance under the blue moon on Fritz radio (aired February 20, 2010), kicking it off with some slow and groove-heavy music which draws from multiple influences before peeling off layers to expose some innards of raw, stripped back electronic music with an edge.  Highly recommended. Download here.

Peeled Banana’s.

The final two Josh Wink remix singles arrived today, which completes the collection of 6 limited edition (only 500 of each around the world) 12″s that accompany the When A Banana Was Just A Banana: Remixed and Peeled album.  Line the records up together and they create a piece of art celebrating Ovum’s 15 year anniversary (pictures below).

The vinyl set contains some of the remixes available on the CD version, as well as some other exclusives only available on these 12″s or the Digital download version. (more…)

2006 Music Review

2006 was a great year for music, especially in my preferred genre of House. There was (and will be for a long time to come) the usual cheesy shite that appeared, but that’s true of any musical style. So here’s what did it for me this year… (more…)

Don’t think, don’t speak, just listen…

The X-Press 2 Remix competition has ended… Here is a group of 3 DJ’s who I have respected for over 15 years, they’re new album is done, and the first single, “Kill 100″ is released to the world for them to interpret however they like. I thought I’d give it a go, ran really really close to the deadline (ie: I got my remix sent in 30 minutes before the deadline) and was prepared for it to go no further since I wasn’t overly impressed with it and would’ve done a lot more if I had the time… A week or so passes and I get this email saying my remix is in the top 100 (out of over 3000 entries!), each of which had been handpicked by X-Press 2.

From that point, it was back to each finalist to brag, beg and get as much support as possible. All of the finalists remixes were available for download, and after 10 days, the remix with the most sales was to be officially released, along with a few other nice prizes.

Okay, so I didn’t win, but the final chart put my remix at #27, which I’m pretty pleased with, taking into consideration the short amount of time I had to do it in and the number of entries that went into the thing.

I take it as a sign that I’m on the right track… time to hit the accelerator and see what else can happen.

PS: For anyone interested, a sample of my remix is available at www.myspace.com/_lelo