image via (the amazing) deleted images (obviously)

Regular readers will have no doubt noticed the absence of good friend and longtime Hl contributor jez’s posts recently. Behind the scenes he has been hard at work getting his new project innersounds up and running . As you would expect, the blog (part of a jez’s music consultancy empire in the making) features the kind of unique killer selection that will be sorely missed here at hl.

Hopefully when things are a bit more established, he will find the time to send the occasional extended monologue in this direction, but in the meantime you can go with him on his personal journey to inner-space.

Also worth clicking through and bookmarking, is the fantastic SF Gospel blog, written by Gabriel Mckee. Where else will you find articles on the place of religion in world’s conquered by zombies or a review of the transformers that references Philip K. Dick, Martin Luther and (my current internet obsession) cloverfield. If only he could have worked in a few references to french electronic music, a deep love of cakes, scandy design and mid-eighties prince we could have shutdown hl altogether and replaced it with a rss feed to his site.

Oh well, we’re safe for the moment.

Here’s a track that’s featured on Trev Jackson’s incredible (and mind boggling) Playgroup Party mix which you can find more about on this aladdin’s cave of a mp3 blog that I stumbled upon monday (and haven’t been quite the same since)

It’s one of those records that walks that fine line between being rubbishly 80’s and amazingly 80’s but it’s got a vocoder in it-a let’s be honest that usually swings it.

Nairobi & the awesome foursome-Funky soul makossa

photo by ception

East London head, Disco Jesus is back with the latest of his seasonal mixtapes.

‘Summer Dawn’ takes it back to the more eclectic vibe of the original selections, drawing deeply from the hinterland between disco, early house and eighties electro-funk. It’s a great selection and perhaps more importantly, one that could only have come from the hands (and decks) of Disco Jesus.

It’s up later this week on the ubiquitous firemusic, but seeing as your friends and all, here’s an advance listen.

disco jesus-summer dawn

Props to Quaid The Talented for the amazing art work and the quick turn around. We love you brother.

Had a few requests for track listings so here you go:

The Lovin’ Spoonful – Coconut Grove
James Taylor – Fire & Rain
David Crosby – Traction In The Rain
The Flying Burrito Brothers - Hot Burrito #1
Neil Young – Cortez The Killer
Townes Van Zandt – Dead Flowers
CSNY – Déjà vu
Manassas – Bound To Fall
Gram Parsons – She
Randy Newman – Sail Away
Eagles – Desperado
CSN – Blackbird
Gram Parsons (with Emmylou Harris) – Love Hurts
Randy Newman – Political Science

Crosby Medley –

Crosby & Nash – Song With No Words (Tree With No Leaves)
David Crosby – Song With No Words (Tree With No Leaves)
David Crosby – Orleans
David Crosby – I’d Swear There Was Somebody Here

Stephen Stills – Black Queen

It was a pleasure to make, and seems perfect now that summer is slowly rolling around…
For those that have no clue what I am talking about, check here, pronto.

HL pal and next level world music aficionado, Russ Jones has passed us a fresh new mix to get us in the mood for summer festival season. Drawing heavily on the same rich vein of music that inspired the killer ‘Gypsy Beats and Balkan Bangers‘ compilation (volume 2 coming soon!) the mix blends in a whole host of soca, baille funk and latin influences to create a heady fusion of world-not-world party music.

Not many deejays have the ability to make sense of so many diverse musical scenes without losing all sorts of quality control, so it’s a credit to the man that he is able to consistently cherry pick the goodstuff from the ends of the earth and have time to do anything else but endlessly listen to music!
 
Anyway, for your delictation, here is the aural equivalent to a night in the pub with Phileas Fogg.

Enjoy.

Hackney Globe Trotter Mix

Despite a few unexpected complications, Saturday night was a great little get-together. A bunch of good friends and new acquaintances getting on and getting down. Me and bru, kept it eclectic for the first couple of hours with Disco Jesus taking it up a couple of gears and teacakes taking us home with a killer selection of his own editsand some exclusive newness. Overall it was an intimate yet heavy opening session with all the deejays managing to take the dancefloor down that narrow path between music they knew and grooves they couldn’t deny, it was especially good to see mister mixtape applying the same attention to detail to his live mix as is clearly at work in his 90 minute analog epics. Speaking of which-disco jesus’ latest mix has recently surfaced (via a shady set of underworld connections and complicated deals with untraceable middlemen)-it’s pretty indicative of the selection he played saturday-so if you were unable to make it down (or even if you did) take a little time out this week, close you eyes and imagine you’re in a basement in east london listening to a great soundsystem surrounded your favourite people and you will be halfway to your very own ‘virtual basilika’.

disco jesus-late night spring

I’ve had my head in books about the late 60s and early 70s recently. I fully recommend Trips by Ellen Sander if you can get hold of a copy. She was there…with Joni & Graham at Lookout Mountain…in the room when Stills belittled Young…at Altamont when the bad wine and bad acid was going around and started to create the bad vibes. She floated around the Laurel and later Topanga Canyon sets and her book is real analysis from the inside. I’m With The Band by the Grandmother of all modern groupies - Pamela Des Barres - talks more about the scenes and rock stars in general, as she was over in a different part of LA with Jimmy Page and his special suitcase, but she was a big part of Gram Parsons life until his OD and was a founder member of Frank Zappa’s GTOs…
Finally I recommend Barney Hoskyn’s Hotel California. Looking down the barrel of history at a time we all now know was doomed to consume itself, Hoskyns tells the story cleanly, giving air the dreams of dreamers - of how it could have been.

Reading about all this music I needed to get in and listen to some of it. So I tracked down as much as I could. Trying to piece together the fractured stories and backgrounds of the musicians and bands I was reading about with an aural map. It led me to discover some beautiful music which I felt compelled to put together and share with my friends. So here it is…put your headphones on and sit back - imagine that wherever you are is actually a veranda in Laurel Canyon late 1975, and you are flicking around the radio until you find Miss Lorelei on WKLA…

sounds of the canyons mix

After finishing his epic 2006 mix trilogy, east london music lover Disco Jesus comes back strong for 07 with his first mix of the new year entitled “Winter
Movements”.
“..this mix
explores mid-80s underground sounds with a distinctive Chicago club
flavour touching on vintage house, soulful electro and nu-wave funk.
With a few very rare, early house gems up its sleeve, this is definitely one for lovers of the proto-house melting pot.”

If you understand what that means, you’re in for a treat- if you’re a little confused-give it a try he might well convert you.

Disco Jesus-Winter Movements

ps for some reason the in built hl audio player likes the mix so much it plays it super fast-please download and appreciate on your own system-unless you really like that +8 vibe.