A guest mix for my friend Mike Long on his Audiodope Podcast

After someone brought up the Eddie Fowlkes track “Move To Detroit” on the 313 mailing list, I found that it was on a Tresor release, and started looking at all the Detroit music that was released on Tresor in the 90s. This got me
thinking — while the primary vector of international dissemination for Detroit techno came from the UK, the Tresor label was crucial, particularly for popularizing the harder side of Detroit Techno. Even in the United States, Tresor releases were an important source of new Detroit music, as Tresor often had wider US distribution than Detroit labels.

The tracks here aren’t all Tresor original releases — many Detroit tracks were licensed from Detroit labels — but I’ve given the Tresor catalog number and date. Two of the tracks are actually by German artists, but that can be misleading as some of Juan Atkins releases were produced in Berlin in collaboration with Mauritz Von Oswald, and Thomas Fehlmann. The influences were by no means unidirectional — just as Detroit artists were hugely influential in Europe, Detroit artists often found new sounds through exposure to European music and culture.

With the rise of the modern ‘minimal’ style centered on Berlin and Richie Hawtin, it’s important to remember the way Berlin and Detroit first formed an artistic affinity, and the way that Tresor in particular helped make the careers and reputations of Detroit artists on the world stage.

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The song itself I’m not quite sure about, though it is a stylish mash up of its 80s influences. But the video really does it for me, taking me back to when music videos were fun, by assembling a genre-bending cast of impersonators to dance with the Dorothy Gale of Kansas heroine.

Prince and Bill Corgan were a slam dunk, but Roxy Music era Eno, early 70s Peter Gabriel, and Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes, all at once? Brilliant.

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This is the set more or less as I recorded it — there was one place where I bumped the ‘track stop’ button, and had to restart a track, and I fixed a track’s beat matching problems this morning.

The highlight of the show is that I was announcing tracks for the first half of the show with the microphone turned all the way down. Once I figured that out I gave up announcing tracks entirely.

Track Listing

http://music.cornwarning.com/audio/2009-11-14-KRUI-DJSet.mp3

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Track Listing

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That is 4AM UCT November 15 — adjust your watches accordingly.

Playing some new Eevolute promos, new dubsteppish stuff & if I get it done a new track of my own. I’ll try and record my mix for posting here later.

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Boomkat’s “14 Tracks” tribute to DJ International

I’d buy this if I didn’t already have almost all these tracks either on vinyl, CD or digital. A few years after House blew up in Chicago it filtered westward into Iowa City, and the Jack tracks were mind-blowing. To quote myself from many years ago, “House music is 5000 years of dance music collapsed down to the booty-bumping eigenvectors.”

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From Black Dog Flickr Feed

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This is from the Orphans CD, it’s a really off-hand spoken word piece, but for some ineffable reason, it gave me such a deep feeling of nostalgia it brought tears to my eyes…

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I was looking at Tom Waits in my iTunes and it says I have 13.9 hours of Tom Waits songs. And I’ve heard them all and there isn’t a one I’d say I didn’t like at least a little and most I love.

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Dust Science, Home of the Black Dog, Sheffield Warriors of Bass, what more do you need to know?

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I don’t know if this sound set, called “Art Of Sounds” is any good — I have too many ways to make sounds to feel like I need to buy someone else’s loops. But the copy that went with this sample set release is amazing in the way it manages to mean absolutely nothing:

‘All „Art of Sounds“ material was produced exclusively for Ueberschall using his [Yvat] unique, inventive means to create a new world of soundscape sculptures. Bionically infused rhythms coupled with soft and harmonic ambiences deliver a homogenous sound setting of seemingly simple yet impressive environments. Only the semantic and syntax of each of the 679 sounds are used to propel elemental formations into evolved structures.’

Now I’ll make allowances for this being a translation of something originally written in German. OTOH, I suspect it’s every bit as ridiculous auf Deutsch.

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I did this accidentally, you can try it on purpose

First, start this track (the new Burial, called “Foster Care”)
Burial – Fostercare by pashoncoop
Then start this video and turn the sound off:

It’s not Dark Side Of The Moon VS The Wizard Of Oz, but it’s cool, at least until she sits down at the piano.

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http://www.cornwarning.com/chaircrusher/Chaircrusher-Antojitos.mp3

I was asked by a woman who wants to make videos about her line of handmade jewelry for some backing tracks that were “fashion show music, you know, runway House, without too much techno.”

She pointed us at an Amazon page for one of those west coast smoove house compilations. I thought “oh jeez…” but then I sat down the other night to make something that was like what I imagined she had in mind. It’s super tracky, with the stupidest bassline ever, but I kinda like it.

I had just installed Native Instruments Komplete 6 so it’s all Battery, Kontakt 4, and Massive. Well that and Dubstation 16, UAD plugs, and TRacks mastering stuff but yeah, mostly Komplete…

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Ever since Blackdown interviewed Kryptic Minds and posted a mix of material from the forthcoming CD in May, I’ve been waiting patiently for the CD “One Of Us” to come out. It’s out now and was worth the wait.

Every so often someone figures out for themselves how to use the spaces between the notes to conveny feelings notes cannot. Kryptic Minds’ take on dubstep with this release is one of those. This is really simple music, though not simplistic. A bare beat, samples that float in and out at their own deliberate pace, and warm sustained bass tones define a moody, meditative sonic landscape. These tracks signify without shouting out; they’re like roiling dark clouds telling the story of the rain and lightning to come.

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Andrew Duke’s Versions release on Beatport includes a remix by me.

For what it’s worth (admittedly not a lot) if you search for chaircrusher on Beatport I now show up!

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I have a lot of friends who are very skeptical of new musical genres, especially when said new musical styles are beginning to be fashionable. They make fun of my willingness — sometimes ill-considered — to jump on new stuff on the slimmest of recommendations. That’s fair enough — there’s always something new coming down the pipe, especially from England, whose primary export these days seems to be new genres, and most of it is crap.

But I’m addicted to new music, always have been. Back when brick and mortar record stores were the only place to buy new music, new release Tuesday found me down at the shop, trying to figure out what newness was also the goodness. Right now, the Internet is here to spread stuff at the speed of light, so the insane recombinant bubbling up of new things is impossible to follow in it’s entirety.

Which is why I think Mary Ann Hobbs is an international treasure. As a radio DJ and media personality she’s the only person I know of currently who brings the adventurous spirit of John Peel forward into the new century. This compilation doesn’t just distill just Hobbs’ own enthusiasm and taste, it pulls together outlandish creative impulses from all over, from the woozy post-hip hop of Starkey & Nosaj Thing, to the new school 2 step of Gemmy, to the chill dubbiness of Hyetal. Some of the artists here barely have any releases out, and some of them I’ve never even heard of. But I’ve no doubt that the artists represented here will all be much better known in a year or two. There really isn’t a weak track in the bunch.

For not having contributed a single note to this release, it’s hard, if you’re familiar with Hobbs’ Breezeblock sets or video reports, not to feel her presence when you listen. Her infectious enthusiasm for new artists is hard to resist. Living in the US it’s hard to imagine there ever being a similar media personality here, combing through hundreds of demos and promos, looking for the best of the new and unknown. This compilation has the scope and ambition of the legendary Warp “Artificial Intelligence” series, and is a worthy successor.

Click to visit Planet Mu

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The way that Tim Exile’s “The Finger” is capable of completely destroying an audio source is intoxicating. I keep trying to use it ‘reasonably’ and end up doing things like this. Believe it or not, this started out as synth pad, a bassline, and a steady beat.

Then I started resampling the output of those things running through the Finger, then running the resampled audio back through the Finger, with the Finger automated with a lot of random keymashing. Then, while the mixdown was being rendered (in realtime, because there’s a juno 60 playing in there) I started randomizing The Finger’s patch, choosing different snapshots, morphing between snapshots …

I used to wonder how Rich Devine used to come up with some of the messed up sounds he did, and now I know: It’s a matter of Piling Things On Top Of Things.

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http://www.cornwarning.com/chaircrusher/Chaircrusher-AndNowForSomethingCompletelyAwful.mp3

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You can listen over the Internet here.

This is 7PM Eastern US, 4 PM West Coast US, Midnight London, 1AM Paris & Berlin!

I’m playing actual records and my box is loaded with classic Techno, House, and Disco. I’ll try and record the set, but it might not be possible…

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Maybe it sounds better in Dutch, but I must say that’s an awful name. On the other hand this track has been killing me this morning. “Believe” seems to have rolled up Katamary-Damacy-style bits and pieces of dubstep, 2-step, Bassline and Detroit Techno, and then topped it off with early-90s ravey synth sounds. It shouldn’t work but it does.

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This track is on the Echodub Loves Vol 1 compilation that I wrote about the other day, download here

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This interview on the indispensible Sonic Router blog tipped me to DFRNT’s Echodub label. I’d heard the DFRNT name but not yet grabbed anything he’d done. So it was great to find out he was running a really high quality net label Echodub.

I’ve been working through the two compilations, Anechoic Changer, and EchoDub Loves Vol 1 this morning, and it’s all pretty lush stuff. Your mileage may vary of course, but I can’t think of a track in the bunch that wouldn’t catch my ear on Boomkat.

The one thing I don’t like is that EchoDub uses those dreadful ‘free upload’ sites to host the files, so I’ve uploaded them to my server for your easy downloading pleasure:

Anechoic Chamber (zip) Original post w/track list

Echodub Loves Vol. 1 (zip) Original post w/track list

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I think they have this backwards.

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So I downloaded the new ITunes last night, and tried out the Genius playlist feature. It is kind of amusing. First thing — it doesn’t know obviously, but it does a pretty good job if a track is in it’s database. For example if I chose Martyn’s “Vancouver” it puts together a playlist which is pretty much all dubstep — Scuba, 2562, Boxcutter, TRG, Burial, Blackdown, etc…

But I tried it on DJ Pierre’s “Box Energy”, and it starts out kinda OK — it grabs a couple Phuture tracks, some disco like Loleatta Holloway’s “Love Selection”, George Krans “Din Daa Daa”… but then it starts adding MGMT(?) Radiohead(??) , The Shins(???), Muse(????) and finishes it off with a healthy dose of Bloc Party.

As it happens, I at some point added my son Lucas’ ITunes library, as it existed about 3 years ago, so there are some things I don’t normally listen to. What the playlist really says is “OK here’s some old dance tunes, but dood that’s so 1989… let me play some shit I like.”

One of these things is not like the other!

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