Phil Mison’s Cantoma album is released soon on Leng/Claremont so we thought we’d put Phil in conversation with Joel Martin of Quiet Villiage to get some thoughts on music, the internet, finding new music and their clubbing pasts.
Test Pressing: Easy one for 5… When did you two first meet each other?
P: We first met properly through Oscar from Trax (London record shop). You gave me some CDs with mixes on and then I think we were doing a party in West Hampstead and you came down and played, Gerry (Rooney) played, and DJ Gareth (friend of Phil’s who live and hung out in NYC for years) played. It was a good party.
J: Gareth! He would tell you a little story about the records he played. Like I remember when he played Dennis Parker ‘Like An Eagle’ and he’d say about everyone in 12 West (an early club in NYC) where Tom Savarese was DJing…
P: Yeah I remember that. Apparently they had some massive steps at the back and loads of dancers would be doing a dance waving their arms like birds.
Test Pressing: You both put a lot of value in hunting down records for yourself, the same as say The Idjut Boys, Harvey, Gerry Rooney etc. How do you think the internet impacts upon what you are trying to do finding new music without everyone else discovering it?
J: I think it stems from people coming to see you and you having exclusive things that only you play and they can only hear you play. I think sometimes people get overtly paranoid about other people finding out about what they play and with re-edits, the internet and bootlegging, you never know whats gong to happen. But you do have to realise that DJs are only playing other peoples records and the artist would think it insane that you wouldn’t want to share their music with other people. It’s not like Scott and the Antarctic but it’s nice to have music that you have found yourself. With the internet now people don’t have to venture out. You can find what you want on the internet and its all about money – if you have it, you can own the record.
P: Maybe the day of clubs with one core DJ who has a core crowd going to hear them every week and hearing music from that DJ is long gone. It was like going to Pure or Glam (Danny Rampling clubs) and that was the only place you could go and hear ‘Come On Boy’ by DJ H featuring Stefy before it was bootlegged. If you’ve got the power and the crowd then that is a justification for not telling anyone about those records.
J: I had this discussion with Gerry Rooney the other day, and I am sure Phil agrees, that for quite a few of us there is as much a buzz in finding something in the field yourself (laughs) , as there is to listening to it and playing it. Finding it, and physically tracking it down is almost a bigger thrill or high than the music contained within.
Test Pressing: It’s definitely true that people used to make more of an effort to go and track records down in the late 80s and early 90s…
P: I heard about a fight in Trax records over a copy of ‘Numero Uno’.
J: (In disbelief) ‘Numero Uno’?! But yeah, there weren’t any record shops where you could get that stuff.
Test Pressing: I miss those days of wandering round Soho with your list of records trying to cross them off…
P: Yeah religiously from about November ’87 I’d go out every week and buy records. I’d panic if I missed a week buying records. Ridiculous.
J: It’s happening again with the small little labels. If you miss that first press and don’t get it within the first couple of weeks of it being out, you can get it on Discogs or whatever, but it will be £30 or £40 as no-one is doing long runs of vinyl anymore. Not on 12 inches.
Test Pressing: It feels pretty healthy at the moment…
P: I agree. There’s loads of good music out there.
J: I speak to certain trusted people as I won’t listen to clips. Mates of mine will listen to clips on sites for hours, and then make a list, and then go and listen to them properly in a record shop and then decide whether or not to buy the record. But for me, if I am going to spend £8 or £9 on a record then I want that record to be something that I’ll be listening to in 10 or 20 years time, and that will also sound good at home, because otherwise I’ll get it on CD.
Test Pressing: There seems to be a select few of you sharing music…
P: You realise how small this scene is sometimes to be honest.
Test Pressing: Have you both done LA?
P: I did a party with Tony Watson on the Hollywood Boulevard and we DJ’d in a bar with George Takei’s star outside and it was a great party. LA is a werid place. It’s hit or miss. You know you have the Sarcastic parties and that’s the biggest thing, I am not sure how big as I haven’t been, but I have been to Candelas and that’s only about 80 people.
Test Pressing: What about Japan?
P: The first time I went to Japan, it was to play at Ageha which is like a superclub over there. They took me up to the booth and it was 8 decks in there. But I wasn’t DJing there, I was in the shed outside (laughs). It was 200 people and me DJing all night. As it was getting a little bit light they pulled the doors open behind me and the sun was rising over a lake outside. I was like ‘fucking hell…’.
Test Pressing: Who was the last DJ you heard that you really enjoyed?
P: I’d say Mark7 at Disco Bloodbath.
J: Frankie Valentine at a small do in Stoke Newington. He was playing, and I thought he’d play house but he was playing serious serious adult music, and I didn’t know most of it. He was playing soul and disco, Euro records, then a boogie record and then a rocky cut… I had to go and say ‘this is serious Frankie’. I love to go out and hear music I don’t know.
P: But you’re a music obsessive. It must be hard to go out and hear records you don’t know…
J: No. Even when I was 17 going out, I was never the one wishing to hear a certain tune, I would revel in hearing music I didn’t know. It would be a real ecstatic rush. I definitely had the mentality of wanting to know what music was though, as once you hear a piece of joyous music you want to repeat that.
P: I remember going on a tour of Portugal with Muzik magazine with Paper Recordings, Danny Tenaglia and loads of others and Elliot Eastwick played Eric Kupper’s ‘Planet K’ and it was like what the hell is this…
J: He did a great mix of Robert Palmer. Do you remember? Rampling played it…
Test Pressing: Is that where you two meet musically?
J: Rampling was one of the first DJs I remember hearing club-wise, as I was always a big radio-head, but Rampling and Trouble I liked for different reasons. Rampling would play Euro and also New Jersey records and then Trouble would play the full on garage madness which is a different lick.
P: Rampling told me the story about how he booked Tony Humphries for Shoom. He had the tapes from Kiss or whatever, so he went to New York on the off-chance of meeting him. He went to Zanzibar and he wasn’t playing, went somewhere else and he wasn’t there and he was like ‘oh no’. So he was like ‘it’s a wasted journey’ and then he had one number and thought he’d have a final go. He dialed from the airport, Humphries picked up, he canceled his flight and went back. He met him, then he came over and played. I love stories like that as it shows the passion for it.
Test Pressing: Finally, what’s the one record you wish you hadn’t played?
J: The first record…
P: All of them (laughs)…
Cantoma’s album ‘Out Of Town’ is released on Leng/Claremont 56 on May the 4th.
[Apiento]
(EDIT: CORRECTED DATE!) First up London… Saturday, the 8th, sees the 5th birthday party as well as the album launch for the forthcoming Cantoma album on Claremont with Phil Mison, Moonboots and Steve Terry playing lovely records in a lovely old pub. See you there.
Now one for our NYC cousins. Stretch out and go…
[Apiento]
This was stolen from Mark Moore’s Facebook page. I think they may have been high.
[Apiento]
Mix: Max Essa – Twilight Horizontal
April 25, 2010
We’ve been doing a bit of housekeeping at Test Pressing towers and realised we have left a couple of mixes out of our numbered list of people who have done mixes for us so time to rectify. First up Mr Max Essa. Max if you’re out there reading, do us another one. This was ace. Top photo too.
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[Original copy]
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]
Vox Magazine: David Crosby On Drug Abuse
April 24, 2010
Taken from Vox magazine July 1993. Interview by Steve Mains, photography (nice image!) by Barry Marsden. ‘I could get drugs delivered quicker than a pizza…’.
[Apiento]
Just Because 011: DJ Harvey Stussy Tee
April 23, 2010
More Stussy here as they team up with DJ Harvey in support of his Japanese Tour for 2010. Apparently these retail for ¥5,250 (about £50) and will be available on April 23th via Stussy Japan stores only.
[Apiento]
Mix: Moonboots – Whirlpool Version 1.5
April 23, 2010
Whirlpool was a party that happened in London a few years back with Moonboots and Balearic Mike DJing. You may remember we posted Mike’s mix a while back and promised we’d try to find the Moonboots one. Well we have, and here it is. Test Pressing back on it after a little spell under the weather. Primavera.
[Apiento]
Mix: Andy Blake – That’s The Night
April 22, 2010
Nice mix from Andy Blake of Dissident, and now Test Pressing, for you all. This one is put together from his collection of 7 inches and first appeared in a short form on the recent Red Bull Radio but we liked it so here it is in full.
[Apiento]
Tokyo Tracks 006: Kotani kozuya – ティンサグの花 (Blueline/Arights)
April 21, 2010
We arrived in Karuizawa to six feet of snow, and a tiny old house with no central heating or air con. Saved by a kerosene heater that mockingly sings ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight’ before it shuts down if you have it on longer than three hours. Kerosene’s quick easy flame. Still, it’s so cold I can taste the blood in my nose when I wake.
So cold, the water in the fish tank froze in the kitchen. 6 AM the fish was a silvered petal floating. At midday I watched in amazement as its tail flickered into life, as the water thawed.
The washing machine is a manual cold water only twin tub. One side washes, the other spins. The likes of which many people may never have seen but I can remember keenly from my childhood. It was my mother’s burden. Mum would break it. Dad would fix it. Mum would break it. Dad would fix it. One step from a rock, a bar of soap and the stream that runs out back, with three kids, I was standing by the fucking thing all day until I discovered the launderette.
I hadn’t been to a launderette since I was at university. Stoned in Leeds Hyde Park. Comforted by the warmth of the tumble-dryers. Hypnotised, dreaming of some Nick Kamen-esque lingerie meets boxer shorts liason. Never happened.
That place was broken old machines and inhabited mainly by the local drunks. This place is more like ‘My Beautiful Launderette’. Spotlessly clean rows of washers and driers. Music, TV, magazines, coffee from Starbucks. Posters advertising classical concerts. But no champagne. No passionate embraces from Daniel Day-Lewis in a Benny-hat. Strangely enough, coincidences and all that, I’m sat there re-reading my copy of The Unbearable Lightness Of Being, wondering if I am Tereza, when I want to be Sabina.
Cutting firewood and burying last night`s ashes at 5:30 AM. I forget to complain. I am transfixed by the mountains. I guess once you’ve been here a while you might take them for granted. They are everywhere I look. I am surrounded by their wonder. At night the wind howls round the basin, while a murder of crows fill the daylight with their laughter. The sound of Hopeton Brown attempting to rid the world of the evil curse of the vampires. Mists unfold and the mountains disappear. Nothing on the horizon. It is as if everything apart from Nagakura has ceased to exist. The world ending at Lawson’s.
I’m just popping out to get some milk. I may be some time.
[Dr Rob]
Under The Radar No.12: Mr Marvin – Entity
April 17, 2010
Lovely track that I was reminded to dig out when I heard it recently on an old Jose Padilla tape. I’ll try and upload that at some point. Mr Marvin made some really interesting music for a while there.
[Apiento]
Piece from The Face in August ’89 by Sheryl Garratt. The party continues to the parks of South London…
Thanks to Matthew J.
[Apiento]
Record Mirror: Acid Daze (Acid House Piece) (February 1988)
April 17, 2010
Taken from Record Mirror, February 1988.
Thanks to Matthew J.
[Apiento]
New Release: Parlour Are Back!
April 13, 2010
We loved the last Parlour 7″, from our twin town of Gothenburg, so it’s great to see the guys back and on fine form once again. The new release, a twelve this time, will be out in all good record shops (Piccadilly Records and Rough Trade being a good place to start) in the next week or so. Get it while you can.
[Apiento]
Jocks: Rave Goes Med (September 1989)
April 13, 2010
Suns out, rave goes med…
Thanks to Matthew J.
[Apiento]
Radio: DJ Premier Malcolm McLaren Mix
April 12, 2010
Producers Series #5: Zeus B. Held
April 12, 2010
Number 5 in the Producers Series brings you Teutonic balearic beat courtesy of Zeus B. Held. Selected by Dr Rob.
[Apiento]
Piece: Postcards From Jamaica #3 – Tribute to Count Ossie
April 11, 2010
Andy’s back with more reportage on life in Jamaica, this time with a report on what looks (and sounds) a perfect night out…
Count Ossie and the Mystic Revelation of Rastafari: there are not many better names for groups. I found some footage on You Tube this week of an amazing Tribute to Count Ossie night that I went to towards the end of last year. It was put on by Nambo Robinson, one of the unsung heroes of Jamaican music. If you pick up any reggae album with a horn section on it there’s a good chance Nambo and his long-term partner, saxophonist Dean Fraser, are on there. Their horns have featured on countless classic albums by the likes of Dennis Brown, Burning Spear, Bob Marley, I Roy, The Light of Saba and Sly and Robbie.
The session was held in the breathtaking setting of the terrace of the old plantation house on Templehall Estate, north of Kingston. Walking across the fields in the dark to get to the house reminded me of the thrill of approaching an outdoor party but with the nyabinghi drums calling you in rather than the throb of bass.
It was a moving and celebratory night of Count Ossie’s music and the incredible influence it had on the development of ska and reggae. Nambo recalled how, “As a youth at about age five or seven, I had just moved to Glasspole Avenue at the foot of Wareika Hills, Rockfort. It was one night during the Christmas holidays I heard the drums of Rastafari for the first time in my life and I could not sleep. I kept wondering who were those people playing. When I asked my Mama ‘a who dem people a mek dem soun’ deh?’ and said I wanted to go see them, she said, ‘no yu cyaan go up deh. Dem a smoke weed an a celebrate fi de New Year.’” He did get to go and listen to Count Ossie and the drummers and horn players, eventually becoming one himself. “I soon found that every emotion I felt could be expressed through the music of Rastafari.”
The evening was in three parts. The first featured the surviving members of the Mystic Revelation of Rastafari, including Count Ossie’s son, and focused on the bare essence of their sound – drumming and chanting.
The middle section brought together Nambo’s band for a blazing selection of Studio One classics including ‘Armageddon Time’, ‘Skylarking’ and many others. Check this version of ‘Rockfort Rock’ with Dean Fraser on baritone sax.
The nyabinghi, horn and rhythm sections combined in the final section showcasing the jazz-influenced side of Count Ossie’s work. I couldn’t find any video of this part, but I did find this beautiful clip from 1974 showing Count Ossie’s group at the height of their powers with Cedric Im Brooks on soprano sax. Almost Balearic…
All in all, one of the most memorable concerts I’ve ever been to. Shame it was only witnessed by 100 lucky heads. The flame is still alive, but it’s flickering…
[Andy M]
Boy’s Own Speakers On Ebay
April 8, 2010
Right, we’re doing our bit in support of Rocky’s (from X-Press 2) efforts to raise money for Contact A Family, a charity for families with disabled children, by selling the speakers that we had in the Junior Boy’s Own office for years. They’ve got that warm, wooly sound system sound.
We don’t ask for help for running costs on Test Pressing so if you enjoy the site it would be great if you could donate a quid at Rocky’s Just Giving Page. If you do he promises to do it in under three and half hours.
The speakers are here on Ebay for ten days and it would be nice if someone took them to a nice home and we raised a little bit of cash, no matter how small, en route.
Nice one and thanks for your ears.
[Apiento]
Party: World Unknown
April 8, 2010
We’ve been chatting to Andy Blake of Dissident for a while so we are happy to say that he is going to be on board as a writer with us, posting pieces from his vault of magazines and books, creating mixes and updating us with news on the parties he is working on, playing at and generally whats making his world spin.
If you don’t know Andy things to know are that Dissident was a label doing the right things, World Unknown is his night focusing on the harder end of the balearic spectrum and he is as happy at home playing house and techno as he is exploring obscure US or European disco and cosmic funk oddities in a smaller space. playing reggae and dub sets at his Dubco nights or simply playing straight-up proper disco and afro grooves anywhere.
He has a new label starting soon going by the name of Cave Paintings, the first release that we heard was the sound of machines. Real live machines. No edits, no fx in Logic or Pro-tools, just straight up keyboards and drum machines. Sounded fresh.
Finally, Andy’s one of the vinyl over digital people. He believes in a ‘kind of sonic voodoo in the grooves of a record cut at the time that the music was actually made’ and thus will only play 12s and 7s. This we like. As for choosing vinyl over digital, it’s that choice that many people involved with the site have made in the realisation that its far more fun, intuitive and engaging to work with a big pile of records than wallets full of CDs or software, laptops and midi controllers.
Anyway, enough from us and over to Andy. Welcome.
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So then, how do i describe my party to you in my first post on test pressing without coming across like some shameless self promoting tool?
World Unknown is a little do that me and my mates, Joe Hart and Duncan Clark, put on every month in a boss little railway arch in Brixton with a nice big old fashioned mis-matched reggae sound system. Although our flyers say stuff like synth wave, ebm, new beat, acid, the music we play includes a lot more than that and could loosely be described as the darker, edgier end of balearic.
Friday 16th of April is our 6th installment and we’ve got a live set from well known techno fast food outlet Subway. In all seriousness this is going to be really rather smart indeed. We’ve already got a very nice vibe going and a genuinely great crowd ranging from wide-eyed teenies to seen it, done it 30 and 40-something veterans of the acid house wars and it seems to get better and better at each one.
We’re also in the process of putting together a pretty tasty optikinetics projector-based psychedelic light show. We’ll have a fair chunk of it ready for the 16th and it should be in it’s full stroboscopic swing by the may edition. Guests so far have included Alex Patterson from The Orb, Ali Renault, Radical Majik, Gold Blood and Con Mun Gos, and future live sets will include Cage & Aviary, Gatto Fritto/Hungry Ghost, Neville Watson and Kink, Snuff Crew and more.
If you are interested in what we are up to we have website with various mixes from Joe and myself, photos from the parties and links to other people and stuff that we like at the World Unknown website and if you fancy coming to the party just email us here and we’ll furnish you with the location details.
All the best then and hopefully see some of you at the party one day,
Andy.
[Andy Blake]
R.I.P Malcolm McLaren
April 8, 2010
I was just thinking yesterday that Madam Butterfly could be my defining modern balearic moment and today we hear the sad news that Malcolm McLaren has passed away due to cancer. If you feel like tracking down some wonderful McLaren footage check the documentary on the making of ‘Fans’ the album that ‘Madam Butterfly’ came from. He was a true, true visionary who has left a massive mark on modern culture – God bless you Malcom.
[Apiento]
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