Guest Mix: Max Essa – Twilight Horizontal

Max Essa: Twilight Horizontal
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Test Pressing is growing into a site for anything good that takes our fancy along the way, but we originally started as a home for purely mellow music and the new balearic mellow sound still stays close. Keeping that thread alive we are happy to give you a new mix from our man in Japan, Max Essa.

Max is a man quietly on a mission, collecting and producing wonderful music. He releases the single ‘Drive Time’ b/w ‘Back To The Beach’ (John Daly remix) in the next few weeks with the album ‘Continental Drift’ following soon afterwards. All will be released on the continuously good Bear Funk imprint.

Max has also been working over the seas on two collaborations with Stevie Kotey. First up is the Soiree project on Bear Funk (including party moment ‘Zim Zim’), with their second, Salon De L’Herbe, following soon after on Electric Minds. Look out for those. We asked Max to do us a mix in a low down balearic mixed up fashion a few months back and here it is. Happy listening.

[Apiento]

Radio Show: Massive Attack – Kiss 07:09:94 (Part One)

Massive Attack – Kiss 7th September 1994 (Part One)
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Keeping the Bristol connection alive here’s part one of a four part selection coming your way on Test Pressing. Here we have Massive Attack hosting a show on London’s Kiss FM as they hit the promotional trail before their second album ‘Protection’ was released. I seem to remember staying up late with tapes at the ready for this one as I was such a fan of ‘Blue Lines’ and wanted to hear what was coming. ‘Expectation’ was writ large on this album and it must have been a relief for them to have finally got to the point of ‘done’ on the difficult second album. As we know Mushroom was soon to depart (did he leave with the ‘soul’?) but nice to hear them all together in these sessions.

Hello to our Japanese friends on the image here! Sayonara.

[Apiento]

Mix: Wild Bunch Vs Soul II Soul Soundclash – New Years Eve 1987

Wild Bunch Vs Soul II Soul – New Year’s Eve 1987
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If you want to hear to the sound of West London on NYE in ’87 then it probably doesn’t get much better than this for capturing the vibe (it’s rough though). If anyone has the DJ Milo Wild Bunch compilation this is where the live segments came from. Nice to hear the Wild Bunch and Soul II Soul in full flow in a club setting, especially when Daddy G of Wild Bunch/Massive Attack fame can’t remember the name of their new record (‘it’s so fresh I can’t remember’) and that record is their seminal cover of ‘The Look of Love’. Top man.

Bringing it back to the future, DJ Milo of the Wild Bunch isn’t a man to shout, but I hope he won’t mind me saying his website is here and it’s well worth checking. Proper Bristol legend still moving.

[Apiento]

Radio Show: Andrew Weatherall – Manchester Kiss 102 1996

Andrew Weatherall on Kiss 102: 1996
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Widening the net here at Test Pressing, I’ve dug out a tape (hence bad quality) of an old Andrew Weatherall guest appearance on Kiss 102 in Manchester from 1996. He is interviewed by a bit of a chump if truth be told, but through the hour or so plays some great records, talks a little about life on the road with Primal Scream, what hip hop and dub mean to him, and is pretty slanderous about Derrick May which can be no bad thing considering the dirty donald reputation the techno legend has. Also, he plays the genius ‘UVA’ by Richie Hawtin in Fuse guise which is an excuse to post it below in its full glory (check the whole ‘Dimension Intrusion’ album for some classy minimal techno).

Fuse: UVA
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For our European cousins who don’t get the Weatherall ‘thing’, by way of explanation, he has always moved forwards (a given for a true casual) and it’s been a long journey from putting funk loops on indie records to Gun Club influenced electronica. Seems odd to think he has been producing music for twenty years now. Here are some of my favourite early Weatherall mixes and it should be noted here, as most of you know, that his recent work is pretty tidy (check the mix of ‘Uptown’ by Primal Scream for the full circle). Finally, carrying on the talk of slander, check the ‘Leon Brittan… all nonces’ lyric in ‘Imperfect List’.

Big Hard Excellent Fish: Imperfect List (Andrew Weatherall Mix)
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The Impossibles: The Drum (Andrew Weatherall Mix)
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Finitribe: 101 (Andrew Weatherall Mix)
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[Apiento]

Mix: DJ Alonzo – Earl Grey Special

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Here’s a lovely mix just in from one our good friends in Stockholm, D.J. Alonzo.

Alonzo runs the Stockholm arm of the always good Top Nice night (meet them here on facebook and here on MySpace). He also has a nice facebook group of his own sharing some of his discoveries from along the way. In his own words, ‘I decided on the three first tracks, and from then on I hit the shelf’. Good style.

Mick Karn : Weather The Windmill
Bo Hansson : Wandering Song
Riuichi Sakamoto : Kachakuchanee
Martha And The Muffins : Start To Stop
Yello : She’s Got A Gun (Live At The Palladium N.Y.)
Art Of Noise : Ode To Don Jose
Anna : Systems Breaking Down
Adrian Gurvitz : New World
Eurythmics : Ministry Of Love
Mad Professor : Russian Roulette
Cirkus : Amazonas
New Musik : Warp
America : You Can Do Magic
Hundarna Från Söder : Regn

Dig in.

[Apiento]