Friday 22 February 2008

Answers and heavy rotation


copyright Alex Cambell 2007


First the (belated) answers to my cryptic quiz


a) Green Velvet - No Sex
b) Junior Boys - Like A Child (Carl Craig Remix) - haven't been able to get this out of my head for days and weeks, absolutely relentless. How one great bass riff can be made to sound masterful for 8 minutes I don't know.
c) Johnny Foreigner - Champagne Girls I Have Known - another track that I can't seem to shake. Saw them a few weeks back and their live show is as good as the EP. So brilliantly driving, never letting you get comfortable, always throwing something new at you, yet never once swaying from catchy pop brilliance.

A few tracks on heavy rotation this week:

Glass Candy - Candy Castle
I gather I'm a bit late on picking up this one but for anyone who hasn't heard this one then grab a listen. Coming on the exciting Italians Do It Better imprint, they take the classic Italodisco sound and a perfectly produced vintage synth and have created something both vicious and haunting. Like disco dancing in treacle. It makes me want to pop over to Portland and have a play with their synths, and to make a track with bass that prominent in the mix.

Another tune of the moment that does a similar bass-centric thing is Ebony Bones - We Know All About You.

It's the first properly blistering pop tune I've heard in a few weeks, and it just makes me very excited. I love the layering up of drums in the opening minute, getting more and more frantic to the point of bursting, and doesn;t allow you not to get your groove on. I also like the latino flavour and experimentation going on in the percussion. Proof that you don't just need a drum machine to make good dance music - this takes some of my favourite percussive elements: hand clapping (ala Etalking), strange little samples, melodic junk drumming (on what sounds like bottles containing different levels of water), counter rhythms.

Also very very worth checking out is the NLLR Mixtape project (unsure if this link will work - if not search for it on facebook- a series of free mixtapes from some big name in electronic music with new mixes posted regularly. It is run by Lee Norman Williams of No Love Lost Records - the blurb explains more:

"
Launched in November 2007 by lifelong dance music fanatic Lee Norman Williams, the NLLR Mixtape Project is a free side-project of his dance music record label No Love Lost Records, featuring masterfully mixed sets by talents of every genre and sub genre of the music we love... dance and electronica. It doesn’t matter if you’re a fan of -- deep breath -- Techno, Electro, House, Drum’N’Bass, Bassline, Dubstep, Trance, Breaks, Hard Dance, Hardcore, Progressive, Minimal, Micro, Blog, Bmore, Garage, Grime, Hip Hop or IDM, I love them all, which means you’ll get to hear them all."

with mixes from OCELOT
LAURA HEATH
MEMEME
THE BLOODY BEETROOTS
TRONIK YOUTH
L.A.O.S.
RUPERT ROMARO
MARAL SALMASSI
TYSKERHAR
CONGOROCK
ARTHUR BARR
MISTRESS DE FUNK
ZOMBIE DISCO SQUAD
CRYPTONITES
ZOLTAR (SPEAKS)
JAHCOOZI
LILLICA LIBERTINE this is exciting stuff, and the quality is up there.

Enjoy. x