Mix: Rune Lindbæk: Rune Lindbæk Flytog Mix

Rune Lindbæk – where to start? He seems like a modest man so we’re not going to blow the trumpet too much but check the discography. He’s a long time maker (and supporter) of mind-bending Nordic electronic disco years before the word ‘balearic’ got pulled back out of the sea at Salinas. Sometimes disco doesn’t cover it and it’s all just straight up good.

On the new release front Diskoism are about to release a compilation of his remix work in collaboration with Kåre Frisvold, Smalltown Supersound are releasing an ambient project, Pechenga (another collaboration – this time with Astralnaut), then there’s a new project coming early in the new year by the name of Metamorfózy together with Øyvind Blikstad (their album ‘Decasia’ will be out in January). Finally, we should give a quick mention to a few 12’s – an edit 12 on Black Disco and his ESP Insititute, Barking Dogs remixes and a 12″ on Fascinating Rhythms that’s worth picking up while you can. That’s a right pickle of a paragraph so excuse that.

Anyway, enjoy this mix. It’s a tight 21 minutes long and all the better for it.

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[Apiento]

Interview: Dave Dorrell (Part Two)

Here’s the second part of our interview with Dave Dorrell moving from the RAW days up to acid house, major label deals with Polydor Records, ‘Pump Up The Volume’ and it’s lack of follow-up. Images by james McLintock.

So going forwards, many of the Soul/Jazz Funk DJs took a while to adopt to the acid house thing whereby you, from what I understand, seemed to jump straight in and feel right at home. What was the appeal to you?

It was at RAW when I played my first Acid House record. I had a copy of ‘Funkin With The Drums’ and I didn’t really know where it fitted. It was kind of an anomaly and no-one was writing about this stuff, no internet, so nowhere to find out what it was about. So it just existed as a bit of vinyl which I had but couldn’t play [out].

There was no scene to attach it to…

There was no scene. There were no vocals. It was just a drum machine. And I think there were at the time early attempts to make similar music going on in Nottingham and Manchester. I say Nottingham specifically as Graeme Park was recreating sounds from these records in the studio. So one of these records I was playing at Raw was T-Coy ‘Carino’ which no-one saw as a house record at the time but you look back on it now and it was obviously an attempt to make a house record.

Yeah it sounds like a Latin tune…

Yeah that whole Latin thing out of NY was also kind of doing stuff that was a bit more hip-hop. It was toying with a scene that was growing up around the Paradise Garage but Chicago probably inspired it. Maurice and Noel were trying to play more up-tempo records at that time. I remember them playing Fern Kinney ‘Groove Me’ on plus 8 because it had a 4/4 beat and if you went really fast on it it sounded like a house record and those were the kind of moments when you thought ‘mmmn – there is something in this’.

And then acid as a sound landed in a pile of records in front of me and I still have all three of them. ‘Land Of Confusion’ was the first one that I heard and I was like ‘what is this?’. And it wasn’t as if I was from a purist background so I was like does it have a German influence? No. Does it have an industrial background? Yes, sort of but not really. And it didn’t sound like anything. I didn’t get it. We were getting most of our records from New York and I bought all three acid house records that day that had come in and I played them back-to-back. Another one was Phuture’s ‘Acid Trax’. I played them early as I wanted to see what they were like on the big system at RAW, we had an amazing sound system there, and they sounded incredible. And everyone just kind of stood there in horror (laughs). I told this story a few times. The club started filling up over the course of playing three acid house records back-to-back and at the end of it I thought ‘where can we go from here?’ so I put on ‘Cross The Tracks’ which was the biggest track in London at the time and everyone ran on the dance floor. And I thought whatever that was before, that is really something. Danny and Jenny (Rampling) came down, they were already doing Shoom, it was running parallel, and they did a Wednesday night at RAW with Kid Batchelor. I think about 80-100 came. You know, smoke was going all night, they had Smiley t-shirts and we were like ‘it’s all a bit weird this’ and something’s happening but no-one could quite work out what it was…

So it was the suburban kids that came along and kicked that whole thing along…

Just like with punk, absolutely, maybe it was about money, maybe they are just out there in the suburbs and they are more adventurous…

Something to do…

But yeah, I knew Oakey and all that anyway and it all meshed.

We like that whole Balearic thing at Test Pressing. What records were your favourite records at that time?

I might have to take another pill to feel the same way about Mandy Smith as I did then, but there was a particular little niggly mix by PWL that took Finitribe and mixed it over Mandy Smith. I still listen to Finitribe. I was going to Rough Trade a lot so I guess Split Second and all of those Front 242 records. I was listening to a lot of electronic music to be specific. The funny thing was my old school friend, Luca Anzilotti (one half of SNAP!) had moved to Frankfurt with his family during his last year of school and we got back in touch about ‘86 and I was going to Frankfurt to the Dorian Grey. I mean that club was like nothing in London at that time. You had to go in through Frankfurt airport, past people with trolleys and suitcases, in through what looked like an outdoor café, and from there you’re in. They had huge strobes built into the floor. So you’d go into the club and DJ Hell was the warm-up DJ for DJ Dag and Dag was a legend in Germany at the time. He played stuff that no-one in England was hearing, though some bits were slipping in from Ibiza, which was the kind of Front 242, Split Second sort of tracks. Skinny Puppy, Severed Heads ‘Hot With Fleas’ and things. KFMDM. So I am standing there looking at the DJ, the sound system is incredible, the music is really industrial and clangy and then suddenly this massive Star Trek laser, super strobe goes off for second and it was like ‘shit’. So those elements were really important to me and I came back with tons of records from Frankfurt. Anyway, for me its Finitribe, Mandy Smith and Split Second. Who would put those three in a box together?

So taking it a step forward again, like a lot of people you went from DJing to the studio, when was that an angle?

I was DJ-ing at the RAW one night and this American guy came up to me at the end of night and said ‘I really enjoyed your set – I’m here setting up a music channel called MTV that you might have heard of’. They were setting up MTV Europe. He asked if I’d like to make a musical identity for the channel and offered me an inordinate amount of money to go in to the studio. He wanted me to create a series of 15-second ‘idents’ to go with the animations but we didn’t have those so we had to make them blind. I had a friend of mine called Martin Young who was in Colourbox, and I asked him if we could get a studio as I had all this money. That was the first attempt to do something and it was hugely influenced by what was going on in New York at the time but with a British slant. We were just taking bits and pieces and just layering them all down and it was soon after that in Spring Summer ’87 Martin called me up and said I am in the studio and its going nowhere, do you want to come back in and go back down the avenue we were mucking about with for MTV. I was like ‘yeah sure’. I think he had this kind of basic rhythm track going and the initial idea (from owner of 4 AD, Ivo Watts-Russell) was that he’d work with AR Kane but they had kind of fallen out so he had to deliver something and so went in there and that became the prototype for ‘Pump Up The Volume’.

How did CJ come into it?

CJ was in the band I was managing at the time – Nasty Rox. He was the DJ. Nellee Hooper was the percussionist, John Waddell on guitar, Leo T on bass and Dan Fox on vocals. I’d just swung them a deal with ZTT I thought this was the best thing that could ever happen…

Of course, Trevor Horn at the time was pretty special…

We did the deal, and I was writing about them, promoting gigs and then Trevor got called into court with Frankie Goes to Hollywood so Trevor didn’t produce the record and Steve Lipson did, and he is great as well, but with Trevor Horn it may well have been a different record.

So back to M/A/R/R/S – why no follow up?

Well we started on it. We did a couple of things. We took studio time. We had a very Acid based track we were working on and a few other things then we got a law suit from Cadburys or whatever and it just got a little weird and it fell to pieces. It was kind of odd and it just ended up as a one-off and probably for the best. I guess if we’d been a little bit more focused but CJ was in Nasty Rox, Martin had Colourbox with his brother Steve and his commitments lay there. There’s demos somewhere but we never gave anyone anything.

On the surface you wouldn’t think 4AD (the label that released ‘Pump Up The Volume’) was a good record label for an out and out dance record but the more and more I listen to music on the label there’s a lot of drum machines going on, they are just better at hiding it under layers of guitars or whatever…

I think the walls of music culture were fairly permeable at the time. I think if you look at what was going on you could see that. People were like what is the difference between New Order and Bobby O and it was basically a northern vocal and that’s it. And then you can kind of see there’s not a big leap between New Order and the Cocteau Twins. So you see its all different micro shades from the same spectrum.

So from there you and CJ went off and you were in the studio a lot…

We got asked to go in. A lot of people wanted to trade on the name. We weren’t really mercenary about it but people were asking if we wanted to remix stuff, so we were like ok.

Who was the engineer on your records?

Robin Hancock was our preferred, he now owns Wright Brothers over in Borough market supplying Oysters to the best restaurants in London…

So what were you remixing at the time?

Well we got to do Nu-Beat records like Jade 4U, KAOS ‘Definition Of Love’, De La Soul, Jungle Brothers….

Whose idea was it to lay Aaron Neville’s ‘Hercules’ under your mix of ‘I Come Off’?

I can lay claim to that. I loved that record but it was a bastard to do. 4th & Broadway had it for the UK and they asked us to do it but they said they needed it by January 2nd. CJ was like I don’t want to do it and I was like ‘nah, I really want to do it’, so we booked time on Boxing Day and the day after that. That Aaron Neville break featured on an NME cassette and Neil Spencer had turned me onto it and I was like ‘ok this is ripe for abuse’. So we asked Andrew Hale (Sade) to come in to play keyboards so he came down with his keyboard and set up and we were like ‘we haven’t got a fucking clue’. Then we were like actually – ‘you know that bit in Once In A Lifetime’, it fits perfectly over this’ and if you listen carefully that keyboard line is nicked from Talking Heads. So we delivered it and they (Delicious Vinyl) hated it and I was like ‘we have given up fucking Christmas to do this’ so Julian Palmer who was the head of 4th & Broadway used it as the last track on the B-side of the American one but when it came to the UK they slapped it on the A-side.

What was happening club-wise for you at that time?

I’d been doing Love at the Wag.

Ah, before we go there I’ve just remembered you had a label as well with Polydor…

Yeah that’s right. I’d met Dave Angel in Berwick Street market one afternoon and we got talking. He’d done a bootleg of Sweet Dreams and I thought you know what I know everyone in the record companies so I phoned up RCA and they said we love that but we can’t put it out and then I managed to ok it with Dave Stewart and they couldn’t find the multi-track so Dave and me went in the studio and that was the birth of my relationship with Dave, who I then signed to Love Records…

So Love (Dorrell’s label with Polydor) was one of the first ‘dance’ affiliated labels?

Yeah I guess so. I got a deal out of David Munns the head of Polydor and I was on my way to ink the contract by the flyover in Hammersmith and I had a mobile phone and London records called me up and said what are you doing? Why are you going to Polydor with this? Bring the contract and we’ll cross out Polydor and write London (Records) on it. The rivalry between the two labels at the time was intense. I probably regret not doing that because David Munns was saying ‘we’re going to put dance music on the map’ so I was like ‘ok… sign the contract’ and then he stuck it to me cause he disappeared after 8 months and got moved upstairs to run the whole group and I got completely screwed. Completely screwed. I remember the first record I put out, which we were told was going to go top ten, went in at 41. Someone tipped me off that the head of marketing, I know who you are and what you did (laughs), had taken the ‘barcode’ off our record and put a Jason Donovan ‘barcode’ across all our 12s. Jason Donovan went in the top ten and we were stranded. It was one of those things, I was suddenly aware of the vicious nature of record companies and a year and a half it all come to an end.

So was it back to DJing then?

No not at all. The last band that I wanted to sign to the label on the back of a three track demo was called Future Primitive, and I knew the singer from the London club scene, Gavin Rossdale. I thought ‘oh fuck this I’m going to manage this instead’. I hated the label so I went off and managed bands again and they became Bush and off we went.

When was the last time you DJ’d?

The last gig I did was for Craig Richards. It had been a really great night and he came up and I said ‘well that’s the last record’ and he said ‘you can play another one’ and I said ‘no that’s the last record I am playing as a DJ’ and I cancelled all my gigs and went to the States with the band. And that was it. I went to chase it.

Do you regret cutting back on DJing to go into management?

The house wave had kind of crashed, Movement 98 anybody? I’d been doing Love at the Wag for two and a half years, a really good run, great DJs coming through the door, Trouble and stuff. Oh and Steve Proctor. (To the dictaphone) ‘What’s with this I was your warm up DJ Steve? It was my club!’ That’s what his website says. ‘I employed you! Big kisses Steve’.

After that I got a phone call from Nicky Holloway asking if I wanted to do the Milk Bar so I thought a Saturday night there would be brilliant. I said to Pete (Tong) do you want to DJ there with me and we called it Hot for the first few months and it had become more Balearic again and House no longer dominated the playlist. You had Soul II Soul and stuff and Italo was coming in and it was a right old mix up and that made it feel like a really good club again. We did it for a couple of years on a Saturday night. The Milk Bar was one of the best clubs I ever did. The bouncers were dancing, the bar staff were on the bar pushing the kids off and everyone singing along to ‘Like A Prayer’. You are in DJ heaven.

They were good nights and then clubbing took this other leap forward and I used to spend my nights running between jelly shots and bottles of Sol at the Milk Bar to go and see Weatherall DJing at Flying across the alleyway, getting knocked out hearing him drop the Primals for the first time down there in a cloud of smoke. I made friends with that whole Flying lot and then all of a sudden I’m dong gigs in Nottingham and Glasgow… I did Boy’s Own in Sussex, one of the best gigs I went to, and I had a nightmare that night and I played Salsoul 3001 (a disco soul version of the 2001 theme tune) and I was so off my head I couldn’t DJ. It was so hot that the sweat was dripping from the roof of the marquee onto the records and the needles were just skidding across but it was a beautiful night. So there were those boys and the Slough posse and Charlie (Chester) had found the next wave really. It was another door opening and another peek into a new world. That period, and the music, were fantastic. You could play what you wanted and the crowd were really responsive…

So it all joins up…

I think I went from RAW to Love to The Milk Bar into the Flying mob for a bit. We did the first gig with Sasha in London, Milk Bar Saturday night. The first gig Sven Vath did, Milk Bar Saturday night. So we had all these connections and bringing them in but there was a point around ‘93 when it all went a bit handbag and by ‘94 I didn’t like the music anymore. I didn’t like the predominant sound at that time. There was no soul in it and it felt extremely white and that was never really what I was for. So at that point it felt time to put it down as I wasn’t as in love with it as I had been over the past years.

What do you think about club reunions?

You know honestly I don’t really like these ideas. I try to avoid them. I’m not really for nostalgia. I don’t think it smells as nice as you think it will. Reunions feel to me like a pair of old shoes. They never feel right even though they were perfect at the time, but when you try and put your feet back in them, they just don’t look right. They don’t feel right.

What do you see the difference between doing things then, making your own flyers compared to now and they way you can get all your information to people in minutes.

The basic elements don’t change. Watching footage of the Dirtbox in Stockwell recently, someone had left a comment that it ‘looks like Dalston today’ and I thought you know what it is like Dalston today. And though it’s probably much easier to make your own flyer on your laptop and print up your own flyer it’s still pretty much the same thing to promote your own night. You don’t have to go round clubs giving out flyers, but if you aren’t actively out there anyway then no-ones going to come. You have to be out there promoting your own thing even if by word-of-mouth and that doesn’t change. I could open a Facebook page and start up a club night but whose going to come unless I actively promote it.

Finally, what’s more important, the art or the money.

The art! I now work as an artist with Melissa Frost and Mihda Koray under the name Slayer Pavilion. We ‘ghost’ Biennales. It’s a lot of work and I probably lose money but ultimately it’s very rewarding. The money? That was never the reason. The crack was the reason. If you could get money out of a label, great, but the things I felt the most connected to were connected to having a good time and meeting people. If it’s good it tends to make money anyway. I don’t think anyone should go without remuneration for their efforts.

Thanks to Terry Farley, Pete Tong and Frank Tope for the additional questions.

[Apiento]

Mix: Al Kent – Al Kent’s Sweet Mix

Al Kent (Ewan Kelly to his ma), for those that don’t know, is a long-time soul and disco DJ from Scotland whose introduction to these sounds came through his discovery of Motown’s ’20 Mod Classics’ (a killer album from start to finish). Along the way he has released albums on BBE as Million Dollar Orchestra and more importantly started his own Million Dollar Disco label (check their site – there’s tons of stuff from a Walter Gibbons discography to articles on Italo as well as a gallery of disco sleeves through time and other related disco business).

Recently there has been a blaze of releases on MDD with the PAJ Disco Mix Volumes 1&2, The First Floor EP and The Other Side EP out on 12″, a 12″ of Million Dollar Disco Edits on All Out War, as well as a new Disco Love compilation for BBE. Studio work currently includes completing the new Million Dollar Orchestra album, another 12 of edits for Stillove4music in Chicago and remixes on the go for Donald Byrd, Katzuma, Kings Go Forth and Deep City Soul. Busy Al. There was also a guest mix for Red Rackem’s Smugglers Inn radio show if you’re feeling this one. Anyway, we asked Al to do us a mix on a slow and low disco tip and he’s delivered perfectly. Here it is…

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[Apiento]

Back In The Pirate Days: Kiss 94 Newsletter

Here’s another great newsletter from Kiss dating to summer 1988. Love the awards part. Thanks to Strictly Kev on this one.

[Apiento]

Design: Tomato – Red Top Haiku (The Return)

Another installment of our very irregular art and design corner. Here’s Dylan from the Tomato design agency (more from him soon) with more red top haiku.

[Apiento]

Other Sites We Like: Loop / Heads Down

Just been checking the rather good Loop blog brought to you by The Pool, who book DJs Harvey, Rub ‘N’ Tug, Greg WIlson, Maurice Fulton, Unabombers, Terje and friends of the family, Matthew and Jolyon. It’s a good source for new charts, exclusive photos and mixes from all their DJs. Have a dig through if you haven’t already.

Also doing the do is Tubbs over at Heads Down who has just interviewed the nicest man in reggae, Soul Jazz/Dynamite DJ Pete Reilly. On site are further interviews with graphic designer and man behind the seminal Boy’s Own logo Dave Little and many others that oil the wheels that keep the records turning. Fine work.

[Apiento]

Review: Coati Mundi – Dancing For The Cabana Code In The Land Of Boo-Hoo

I am guessing if you are reading this you know who Coati Mundi, a.k.a Andy Hernandez, is. Not only the comedy sidekick to the great Kid Creole but also a Latin disco star in his own right with records of the calibre of his cult-classic ‘Que Pasa/Me No Pop I’ for ZE Records. For a man three decades into his career he’s done totally the right thing and hooked up with NYC’s Rong Music crew who knew how to have fun with him in the current setting.

The album has been produced by E-Love with additional bits and pieces by Lee Douglas (who has recently been creating some great music as well as the above sleeve) and ranges from slow rolling Latin grooves through to clean electronic disco beats all topped with Mundi’s tales of life on top. It’s an entertaining ride as an album and it sounds like it was a good time in the studio. It’s also good to see a real character within those disco grooves. Check it.

Dancing For The Cabana Code In The Land Of Boo-Hoo is released on Rong Music on October 14th

Coati Mundi At Rong Music Online

[Apiento]

Review: Twin Sister – Vampires With Dreaming Kids / Color My Life

I invented the Test Pressing review scale to avoid writing about albums, but if I had to describe this one it would be as a very mellow dreamy indie sound with a bit of life in places – soft American male and female voices playing around the layers of sound. This is a 2 CD set combining their first two EPs. If you liked that melodic indie indie sound from days gone by then take a listen to Twin Sister as there’s a couple of really lovely moments here.

Twin Sister Vampires With Dreaming Kids / Color My Life is out now (I think!)

[Apiento]

Producers Series #8: Tony Thorpe

Tony Thorpe, one of the UK’s finest dance producers, steps up to the plate (well Dr Rob does it for him), with a selection of his finest productions to date. From raw house (‘Koro Koro’ is still sounding incredible) to the KLF and some rude boy business. He’s massively underrated, so here we go with some Tony Thorpe specials to try and readdress the balance.

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[Apiento]

Radio: Jon Savage – Savage Music 009 / Dream Within A Dream Pt.3

If knowledge meant power Jon Savage would be ruling the world from his desk in Wales. Here we go with Part 3 of the Dream Within A Dream series.

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Tune in weekly to ByteFM for the Savage Music shows.

[Apiento]

Arthur Jeffes & Penguin Cafe: BBC3 Prom

If you like the original Ibizan balearic sound there is a fair chance you have moved through DJ Alfredo’s record box to Jose Padilla’s Cafe Del Mar sound and along the way been introduced to ‘Music For A Found Harmonium’ by the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. The Penguin Cafe Orchestra, a dream pulled to life by Simon Jeffes, were a band that created pieces that moved from avant-garde to hugely melodic – the idea being to take classical music to the masses and seemingly to have a nice time along the way. My mum likes them, my sister likes them and their albums seem to suit all occasions from early morning to late at night. Simon Jeffes passed away over a decade ago (the anniversary concert at the Union Chapel was suitably special) and his son Arthur now continues the sound with Penguin Cafe which includes a host of new players and some new music, whilst also playing original pieces by the PCO. Here’s Jeffes junior and friends at the BBC prom.

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This is a little bit more illegal than normal for us so if you’ve a problem with us posting this please let us know and we’ll pull it down – Ed

[Apiento]

Mix: DJ Sergio – Island Life

The beach DJs of Ibiza have kept the oiginal mellow sound of the Cafe Del Mar alive over the past twenty odd years. Here’s one of them, DJ Sergio, with a brand new mix for Test Pressing.

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[Apiento]

New Release: Apiento & Co. – She Walks (Inc. Pete Herbert Mix)

Our follow-up to ‘Under Open Skies’ is in at Leng. Here’s a clip if you are interested. Slow smacky piano house on the A side with Peter Herbert taking it to the party on the B. Available from Piccadilly, Juno, Phonica etc… x.

Apiento & Co. – She Walks (Edit)

Apiento & Co. – She Walks (Pete Herbert Mix) (Edit)

[Apiento]

Mix / Tokyo Tracks 008: Haruomi Hosono – Hotel Malabar Upper Floor, Moving Triangle

A hirsute Jonny Nash wrote a short essay on his favourite Tokyo record shops. Handed it to me as he left Japan. Both a blessing and a curse. This was back when I only had two kids and I made it my mission, once a week to head into central Tokyo and find these places. A good excuse to get out, try to get to know my way around and practice the language. I think EAD was second on the list. One Tuesday morning I somewhat stressfully traversed Tokyo’s Metro system, from my language lesson in Harajuku to the shop in Koenji. The journey mildly ambitious for a beginner. The shop was closed. Shutters down. A message daubed something about being closed for the summer. In December. I later learned that this message had been written at least five years before. It took a phone call from my wife to the shop to discover that generally there was no point trying til after 1 PM. I was left to wander the second hand clothes shops and struggle with café menus for the next couple of hours. No such thing as “just a coffee” in Koenji. You have to state your beans.

When I first visited at the end of 2006, EAD excelled in original pressings of New York disco classics. Loft and Paradise Garage playlists. To back this up there was a photo on the wall of Mancuso going through the racks. Does Mancuso still go digging? Would have thought there’d be an army of people doing it for him these days. Humbled when he plays a tune they’ve found. Anyhow, EAD, not cheap, but considerably cheaper than the basement of Disc Union in Shibuya, which was the other place you could find this stuff. I ended up mainly buying favourites I already had, like Melba Moore`s Standing Right Here. Replacing bootlegs.

Back then behind the counter was the owner Yozo and the lovely Nagi, from Dazzle Drums. Nagi DJing alongside Nori at Smoker, at ten years plus Club Loop’s longest running weekly night by far. G had a D-Train 12 in his hand and Nagi told us a story about being at Francois Kevorkian’s birthday party and James Williams singing ‘Happy Birthday’. She seemed to like G. Think it’s because he looks a little bit like Danny Krivit.

After about a year, we’d do a regular tour of shops. Always making sure to hit EAD last. First, and we’d have no money left to spend anywhere else. But it was here that we would plot. Yozo providing hot tea in the winter, umbrellas in monsoon. Restaurant recommendations when we were hungry. Politely correcting my Japanese.

With time, Nagi left (too busy with DJing and production) and the shop’s stock began to change. First, a load of Cosmic-related stuff appeared. I heard a rumour that this was Chee Shimizu getting rid of things he’d learnt and assimilated. Legend has it that he sold all his Italo once he’d been exposed to Baldelli. Then selling the Cosmic to settle on his own sound. Chee now running his own supremely obscurist on-line shop – Organic Music. I think I hovered up most of his cast-offs.

Now, in its 13th year, EAD is still the first place to try if you need a reasonably priced classic 12, but driven either by 1) a mellowing brought on by the birth of Yozo`s son, 2) regular visits to Shelter in Hachijoji (Chee again – DJing his unique mix of fusion and yoga instruction records), 3) the need to supply his customers with new discoveries or 4) the lack of decent dance spots left to dig in New York, the shop is floating towards a more spiritual plane. ECM-like jazz, rare prog, experimental electronics, free folk. It was Yozo that turned me on to the Batteaux LP and got me a copy of Conrad Schnitzler’s ‘Electric Garden’.

In 2008, Jez from Innersounds was over looking specifically for Japanese music. Yozo shrugged. EAD stocked none. Both Me and Yozo told him to go to Recofan. But things have changed again. My Osama Kitajima collection all comes from EAD. And my buying there these days is divided pretty much equally between spiky post-punk dubs and Japanese artists. I don’t know if Japanese music will ever be in vogue, but interest seems to be on the increase and it is something we are both trying to research and promote.

I don’t get into Tokyo so often these days, and when I do I can usually only hit one spot per visit. So once a month, each shop in rotation. Each shop maybe once every four months. But every weekend I get some “Daddy`s time”. Around 4 PM on a Saturday afternoon. The kids watching TV after a trip to the pool. I sit down with a pot of coffee, switch on the PC and go over the records Yozo has just put up. A quick caffeine-fuelled call while making dinner and I’m sorted. I wouldn’t/shouldn’t say it’s a weekend high-light but you could set your watch by it.

At the beginning of the year, I promised Yozo I would write about EAD. It has taken so long even I was wondering if it was just a hollow promise aimed at obtaining discount. I asked him for a list of his top ten Japanese records, again for not entirely unselfish reasons. This was one of them.

Haruomi Hosono – Hotel Malabar Upper Floor, Moving Triangle
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[Dr Rob]

Interview: Hey! Convict Interview Dominik Von Senger

Hey! Convict are Tamas Jones and Jason Evans. Over the last few years they have been forging a relationship with Dominik Von Senger of the Phantom Band, Unknown Cases and a Can cohort (amongst many other things), that resulted in the ‘No Name’ 12 on Golf Channel a few months back. First up we have Jason describing the working process of getting the Golf Channel 12 together and then second we have the interview with Tamas and Dominik discussing Patti Smith, Can recording techniques, drum patterns and more.

Here’s what Jason has to say on the record…

“The original of ‘No Name’ is from Dominik Von Senger’s ‘The First’, a record from ’82 that i found in Melbourne the week before I moved to New York. The whole LP is pretty ace, but this track really blew me away.

Anyway, a short while after i got to New York Tim Sweeney asked us to do Beats In Space and straight away that was one of the tunes I knew we had to put on the mix. Fast forward about six months after the show and we received a really nice thank you email from Dominik. He’d heard the mix and was really happy that people were still playing his record. Naturally, I, being completely blotto at the time, emailed him back asking for the parts with the thought that Tamas and I could fool around with them and maybe do a simple edit.

Dominik responded the very next day, really keen on the idea, explaining he’d just need some time to track down the 24 track tape — which, he said, actually started as an 8 track of bass and drums in Cologne and was fleshed out in London, with many bits and bobs added by Reebop Kwaku Baah and Rosko Gee (both of whom are also both great musicians who played in Can during the years the band recorded ‘Saw Delight’ and ‘Out of Reach’).

A month or so went by and we got another email from Dominik. After a long search that had led him back to Matrix Studios in London, he was sad to inform us that the original 24 track, which had remained in London this whole time, had been wiped clean! In the same email Dominik told me that as a joke Nigel Frieda (the engineer from Matrix) suggested they should record it again…. Of course this sounded to me like a great idea.

So come January, Dominik got together with his new band to record ‘No Name’ for the 2nd time, 26 years after the original. Things were kept loose and it took a few months to get everything down. Dominik would send us demos as he was working on stuff and would allow us, which at this point included Phil South of Golf Channel who had become interested in the project, to offer feedback. It was cool to see the process of how Dominik was approaching the song for the 2nd time… There’s heaps of little things, but for example… Though he was using many of the same instruments this time round he was really excited about trying a different rhythm — as both the Casio Vl.1 and the first Dr.Rhythm machine, which he’d previously used, were pretty limited in what could be programmed.

Anyway, about a month ago Dominik finished his new version, which is the track Phil played on his Beats In Space mix. full circle, right back to Tim’s show, who is the master of all this, because without his show, there would be no Dom vs Con!”

It’s good to read how much time and love goes into some of the music being released at the moment but the long and short of it is that Tamas from Hey! Convict recently did this interview with Dominik and edited it to a soundtrack of his music. Here it is.

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Thank you kindly to Tamas, Dominik and Phil.

[Apiento]

Party: No Ordinary Monkey (NYC) 10/09/10

NYC’s No Ordinary Monkey is happening again this coming Friday with Portugal’s Gala Drop, fresh from supporting Holger Czuukay, playing live. Get there if you can. More information on the forthcoming Gala Drop album coming soon too.

[Apiento]

Mix: Phil Mison – Cafe Del Mar (Summer 1994)

Here’s a nice mix for the end of Summer, Phil Mison of Cantoma fame (check the album on Claremont 56) live from the Cafe Del Mar at sunset from ’94. Ben Turner, ex-editor of Muzik Magazine, recently wrote a piece on the summer of 1994 and listening to Phil at the Cafe Del Mar. Click here to read. Here’s an excerpt…

And here’s the mix…

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[Apiento]

Postcards From Jamaica #6: Strictly Rub A Dub

A cheer came up from the crowd as U-Roy (above) walked on stage and announced: ‘The youth dem don’t understand Stur Gav sound. We don’t play hip hop, we don’t play funky, we don’t play soca. We only play rub a dub.’ Thankfully the last part of that was true, but the first bit was as well: it was hard to spot anybody under 35 at the dance in Kingston in the early hours of Sunday morning. There were ‘nuff pork pie hats and Kangol caps in attendance though, some serious medallions, and a range of amazing embroidered shirts and suits that looked like they had been moth balled for a couple of decades and been brought out just for the occasion.

King Stur Gav Hi-Fi was built by U-Roy in the mid ‘70s after King Tubby’s Hi-Fi, which he started his career on, was destroyed by the police. It became a deejay academy for the best microphone talent and it was quite a sight, all these years on, to see U-Roy, Freddie McGregor, Charlie Chaplin, General Trees, Brigadier Jerry and Jimmy Riley all on stage together. The mike was passed from one to another as they took turns to chat over the stream of Studio One rhythms. U-Roy’s voice still sounds surprisingly fresh and the best bits of the session were when his scat stylings were paired with Charlie Chaplin’s cultural lyrics. There was a poignant tribute section to the recently-passed Stur Gav veteran Sugar Minott and Lincoln, his son, came on and did justice to two of his songs. Freddie McGregor was the only disappointment – his singing style not really working in a deejay setting.

Four stacks of boxes encircled the crowd and the sound was excellent – plenty of bass to vibrate your sternum but no ear ringing the day after. The only drawback of the clarity of the sound was that it seriously magnified the hiss of old Jamaican 7”s.

At 2.30pm, the baton was passed to Metro Media sound and the vibe changed immediately as an improbably fat man took to the stage, removed his shirt and charged around, wobbling his vast girth whilst screaming over the top of ‘Why Must I Be a Teenager In Love?’. Literally stomach-churning. Your correspondent sought refuge at the bar, only to find that they had run out of rum. Things were getting rapidly worse – no rum at a dance in Jamaica? Reckoning that the parts that others can’t reach needed refreshing after that traumatic episode, I reconciled myself to Heineken.

The situation improved when Josey Wales and Peter Metro took charge. They upped the tempo with their faster delivery over some heavy-hitting Roots Radics rhythms. Their lyrics were brilliant, including a devastating put down of the Mavado-Vybz Kartel, Gully-Gaza rivalry and then a hilarious freestyle about Frank Lampard’s disallowed goal in the World Cup.

If Saturday night was a journey back to the dancehall of yesterday, Friday provided a glimpse of what hopefully could be its future. There is a small, developing new roots scene in Jamaica. Artists like Etana and Queen Ifrica are now well on the rise, and Rootz Underground lead a group of young musicians who are breaking through on the back of their energetic live performances. Marcus I played a great set at Redbones Blues Café in Kingston on Friday – check out below his recent single ‘Just A Little Herb’ with Sean Paul and forthcoming album. He was supported by Kai Wakeling, whose lovely acoustic set begged comparisons with Sade.

In a link between the old and new, Rootz Underground and famous Jamaican sound system Stone Love have put together a mix-tape designed to take you back to the ‘80s dancehall, but with newly-versed vocals. I have had a particular fondness for this sound system since the nurses in the Kingston hospital where he was born named my son Stone Love because of his volume at nights. Download or stream it here. Play loud.

[Andy M]

Rant: Ross Allen Gets Verbal

Ross Allen likes a rant and here’s one that we nicked wholesale from his Facebook so it doesn’t get lost in a world of status updates. Here he covers modern day ‘CLUBBERS’, Afrikan Boy, the RAW and Wag, acid house, carnival, requests and Queens Of The Stone Age. If you want more go on your Facebook and search ‘Ross Allen’. You can’t miss him. And have a listen to his show. It’s good.

Morning All. Here we are again… A few days after Carnival and don’t you have the feeling of how did we get here this fast? Summer over? Heading in to winter all too rapidly, wasn’t it sunny June just a few weeks ago – still it’s been pretty decent – well August was a bit drab but lets not forget that September is still here and is normally pretty good, in an Indian kind of way (what is India like in September?) – more to the point the issue is that it’ll be November any time now! Bleak… Still a few more festivals to come. I have my Bestival set times in now and am more than looking forward to that…Warming up for Gil Scott Heron on the main stage 5.30 to 6pm. Then at the Greco Roman/Hot Chip party on Friday night in the Lucky Cat bar behind the main stage. Then again on Sat early eve in Chai Wallah tent. So there you either know where to head or where to avoid. Lets hope its as decent as normal and we don’t drown.

That’s a couple of weekends away, this week its all about The Social Meltdown, an exciting proposition, that lots of you seem to be getting excited about too, I think the timing of it could be part of its appeal – definitely not the music from me ! Starting early means that if you fancy popping down after work you now have a decent spot with quality music straight after work and it goes on till club hours start. I’ll give you the details at the end but its this Friday and Goodhand & Nelson, though I am sure one of them is called Adam, from Glasgow’s Numbers Crew are my initial guests.

Talking of ‘clubbing’ and ‘clubber’s’. Clapham Common was deluged with those types over the weekend. Leading me to post on Facebook that they should all Fuck Off and leave the Common in peace… We got some good responses many levelling the argument that I was of that disposition myself. Well, to the untrained eye, true I have been to a few nighteries over the years. But a ‘clubber’, in ‘club land’?? Use those terms ? No… And this is the difference. And do not forget I am about to embark on a major bitching session but it is a view that I think I can share with you lot, it’s not even my original observation (Cheesr Ted & Iain).

Obviously, I have been to many clubs but would I refer to myself as a ‘clubber’ ? going out in ‘clubland’ ? These types are a different breed. Sort of a mainstream incarnation of what, I think, we do. Yes, I am a snob. I thought that was part of clubbing (ah, I have now done it myself, tricky this bitching lark isn’t it) – to get away from the rif raf. It makes you wish that acid house had never happened! Not that I mind them having a good time but it kind of blurs the line between good and evil… I used to like going out when i was at school as it was a journey into another world – The Wag, The Mud Club, RAW – they were totally different to being down the pub in South London – full of freaks and weirdo’s, Ragga’s and B-Boys. You would wear different clothes and be into getting exposed to new and different sounds. Then Acid House came along and it was great for a while, really great, though you could feel the shift as every one locally swapped pints for pills. The they started to know about stuff and have an opinion on the music and how it should be more banging or uplifting or whatever… You would go to the Wag and not dream of asking for a request, well definitely one that was off that cultural radar… Fast forward to now… that boundary is well blurred. There is money in it now and everyone wants a piece – you gotta keep the crowd happy, pump it up, don’t disappear up your own back side… Well i quite like it up my own backside and though I have enjoyed playing to 10,000’s of people occasionally, don’t want to do it every week as I’ don’t like what you have to do to do that… play shit! You can’t move those vast throngs with deep, quirky records – you need that Pavlov’s dogs reaction – banging beat = dance, ambient break down/wiggly noise breakdown= rest/brace yourself for the beat’s return – drum roll please!! Anyway, they can do what they want I just don’t want them doing it near me, there is a them and us thing in my head. The music I like is right and their is plain wrong. And when they are doing it on my Common they can Fuck Off !! Snobby little shit aren’t I?

Ah that feels better – well apart from nail bombing the place…. Hypocrisy is rife round here and why not. As I like invading other peoples areas for music festivals where they play my kind of music (I did get called Negrofile this week… I think I know what it means, though that element of doubt means I can’t confirm either way) – carnival was a laugh. Though we didn’t hang around for long. Off the tube at Queensway and a whizz through in pretty good time – a couple of hours – and out the other end in Queens Park for a curry. Kind of like popping yourself in to a fast flowing river and getting popped out the other end – a few dodgy rapids on the way but some lovely sights and sounds en route. I never got in to Major Lazer this year as I couldn’t be bothered to queue or suck up to the door girls, or fight to – i think this has been a constant ‘clubbing’ weakness in my ‘clubbing’ career. But Glady Wax and KCC were great, especially when the latter played ‘Gabrielle’ after the near knife we witnessed. KCC was like being in some henched up Prison Yard, nice blokes but you knew that things were on a bit of a knife edge, probably quite literally but 99% of the crowd were just there to bounce in the sun and have hazy fun. The slight fracas we saw never turned into anything and we trotted on on our whirlwind tour. It was a good in and out, though I have heard lots of people bemoaning the state of Carnival these days, yes it’s different but there is a good time to be had if you can hack the crowds and don’t mind searching out its inner sanctum. We were so serene this year, it was almost wrong. Nice curry at the other though…

On Sunday we were in Leeds – I was DJing on stage with Afrikan Boy, which is something that I have never done and did feel I should be doing a bit of Guetta business… Waving and so forth… I didn’t but felt tempted… when you know exactly what is coming next what do you do in the gaps that are the records ? You can’t hide behind the decks desperately looking for that next track and letting indecision reign. You actually know what is coming next and just look into the faces of the crowd pressed up against those barriers. I almost felt like giving them a wave in a non Guetta type of way. I liked it when there was a stage invasion, the chaos created and the look on the securities face was classic, let alone the chasing of the invaders. Anyway it was a good gig and as soon as I can play you the new Afrikan Boy stuff I will. It’s quality. Fresh, funky and, slightly, challenging. I’d give it 2 minutes on Clapham Common… No it’d work there too! You will hear it here first.
Once done with that we got to see Queens Of The Stone Age who were as great as ever. They just have that funk in what they do and that nonchalant attitude that draws you in. ‘We are here, like it? Cool. Don’t like it? Fuck Off’ and I suppose that is the attitude that is most sexy in music. It’s the realist one I suppose. Not please like us we need to pay our rent/buy a big house/drive a shit car and wear shit clothes. More we are gonna do this whether you are here or not (kind of a Meltdown mantra, though its always better if there are people there). Well I like it. They are a great band. You need to see them at some point.

So enough of this frippery, we have a show to try and get you to listen to. It was not done live post Carnival as I had a curry to eat, oh and the Misery studios were shut! It’s a good one though. There are several tunes which are pretty special. I have to get you excited about the new Kanye West track featuring Jay Z and Swiss Beats on the Remix. It’s a great fat beat, slightly busy but funky and the lyrics are actually saying something. J and K sound great and then just towards the end, Swiss beats drops in the beat from Snap’s ‘I’ve Got The Power’ and it all gets a bit housey, almost Photon Inc’s ‘Generate Power’. It’s a great track but also indicative of where things are going and as the circle comes to completion it all feels a bit 1991. I like the fact that the boundaries between house and hip hop are getting blurred – it’s kind of like when they were both underground musics except now they are both mainstream. It’s great because you can once again play all different musics in a main room, well you can if you have the bottle, The other side of that same coin is seen with the new Nick Catchdubs remixes. We Played Greg Nice’s ‘Motherfucker’ last week and this week he is doing it again with his Ethix remix. Sampling the 4th Measure Men and adding an electro beat. Its got that Todd Terry/Kenny Dope kind of vibe and is amazing, well they both are. Energetic and fresh but steeped in the past. Also Phil Asher’s track is in that mode, rough and tough and funky, how he should sound. Other gems are the Janelle Monae remix which takes it to the dancefloor. There are some good funky, future, dubby, garagey things of which Jam City and Quoz lift the cup this week. 80’s Baby is a dubstep track that sounds like it was made in 1984 – not because it’s a horrific vision of a CCTV/Big Brother watching future (we are already there) – just coz it sounds like Mtume or something of a Street Sounds compilation. DJ Distance is fast becoming my favourite dubstep vocal. I cant get enough of it.

On a retro tip Dennis Parker is great and the vocal sample from Par T One’s ‘Lets Go Crazy’ and Linda Di Franco is 80’s balearic goodness. The brilliantly named Tea Spoon and The Waves is a great South African take on ‘Going Back To My Roots’. Also to finish there is a great Hungarian version of The Clash’s ‘Magnificent Seven’, Joe Strummer would have been proud…

Do give it a listen or download it it’s a good one. As diverse as selection as ever and more than likely to tear gas a Clapham Common festival in minutes!!

Check Ross Allen’s show streamed here or download it here. It’s well worth checking.

[Apiento]