Both ‘Moustache’ and ‘Untitled’ got heavily caned back in the basilika love disco days.
I stumbled across their blog a few months back (probably via chris’ ever-heavy another night on earth blog) and it’s just the kind of thing I would love to see more of; artists using blogs to give out real quality unreleased edits and mixes.
To celebrate summertime they have released three Disco mixes to download.
My visits to the latitudes, leaving parcels of goodness at your door are getting fewer and farther between. If I keep going at this rate, l’ll soon be as illusive and as Father Christmas (though with a less predictable timetable) and with the way my belly’s swelling that red suit’s going to fit too.
As mentioned in our excuses for a quiet week last week we’ve got other things on our minds, one of which is spending less time with other people’s new music and more with our own.
This track which I came across whilst scuffing my toes on the internet the other day is kind of a prime example of the ensuing dilemma, its really, really great and this time last year I’d be going loop-de-loop crazy over it and resetting my ringtone - but much like the Wire has ruined regular tv for me by being too too awesome - so has living with one half of London’s greatest assault on boogie.
Tippy Toes seem to be the latest incarnation of New York supergroup with various members of DFA affiliates, Hercvles and Love Affair, LCD Soundsystem and Santogold spreading their funk around with sometime vocals from comedian Reggie Watts. There’s little else to be known about them, except this; that should Ulysses 82 get their ventilated, Kevlar driving gloves on this little beauty - I can only imagine how much more fantastic it would sound.
Like I said, its already great, and sure it’s already furnished with a lilting, heavy-heavy bassline, tremolo guitar, sweeping string, afro drum sound, psyche scrawl and something which sounds like the best noise i’ve heard out of an atari in years but let John-Baptiste and Je Suis C loose on this baby and who knows what damage it could wreak.
Best known for his excursions into the outer limits of scifielectronics and freakyremixes, Joseph Quaid returns this week with a mix highlighting the influences and aspirations of the firemusic sound. It’s a head-y brew of deep detroit flavoured soul and futuristic afro rhythms boding well not just for the deep range series as a whole, but for the ’soon come’ releases of this mighty (yet barely known) collective of musicians.
Being of a certain age, it can a battle not to succumb to easy cynicism. With music (perhaps now more than ever) constantly re-hashing old ideas there can be a tendency to be very suspicious of anything new and to take refuge in the safety of readily affirmed past classics.
Of course rust never sleeps, and every so often a track comes along that sneaks past my retro snobbery and takes me over. And despite the fact that it’s usually my partner in crime who gets all ‘one track on repeat’, this time it’s me who can’t seem to make it through the day without four or five plays of this track.
The band is Her Bad Habit on the wonderfully heavy citinite. (More deets here.) Sounding for all the world like an outake from 1999, it’s that got that sleazy prince vibe that so many people try to emulate and almost no-one comes close to -YOU NEED IT IN YOUR LIFE.
Sometime round about 1984 my dad bought my brother and i a walkman & two sets of headphones to share on a long car journey round europe. He got two cassettes for free too. Some early pre-Now That’s What I Call… compilation and a tape called Motown Chartbusters, I don’t think I’d really heard soul music before.
Hell, I grew up in Warwickshire, my parents listened to Radio 4, Yehudi Menuhin and James Taylor. So it was then I heard Al Green and somehow identified that kind of noise with being grown up.
A slow, longing groove which was utterly alien to me aged 7 but somehow intangibly desirable and sophisticated.
As I grew up, and bought more records, that rack reserved for proper old-school soul singers still managed to illicit the same little girl lost feelings in me.
Like, if I were a proper adult, I’d have a beat-up leather sofa, a taste for good whiskey and this is how I’d feel on a saturday night.
And in the 25-odd years since I first heard the Reverend I might have developed a taste for a nice drop of scotch and even have my own turntable to lower a stylus onto but I still don’t feel I’ve ever achieved that real, lonely, headstrong and heartsick independence which resounds in Al Greens breathy sighs.
Even now, in this, his newest recording, featuring the prodigious drumming and silkily respectful production of ?uestlove, the man still knows more than I ever will.
Lay It Down is out on Blue Note in May (thanks to Sit Down Stand Up for the mp3 too)
This morning I made fluffy banana pancakes from leftovers in the fridge, we sat and drank coffee, drenching our plates, the pancakes and crispy bacon in syrup and meandered through the morning papers with sticky fingers while I played back Vacilando Territory Blues for the tenth, maybe fifteenth time that week.
It was a beautiful morning, despite the grey Thames sky and puddles, our bellies rounded with a slow, sweet & salty, caffeine-laden breakfast (me with a newly kicking child doing little to aide digestion) we let J.Tillman do the talking.
This one’s been brewing for a while. Joseph Quaid’s huge ‘Love from the Sun’set against the timeless cosmic visuals of Kubrick’s 2001.
It’s a classic example of the power of visuals to take music to the next level (and vice versa). Brother Quaid has been making interstellar rhythms for a good few years now, and I guess it’s only now, in returning in part to the inspiration behind that sound, that all that potential feels fully realised.
Personally I can’t wait to see this sucker played out on a big screen with a killer sound system, with the increasing accessibility to video editing and with technology like Serato VIDEO-SL I think visuals are going to play an ever greater role in creative deejaying.
Personally I can’t way till I can hook this baby up and have Quaid provides the beats to accompany it.
In the meantime when it comes to spaced out adventures into a 70s version of the future, you could do a whole lot worse that checking out this mix from fellow *cough* firemusic stable mate ‘Man from Atlantis‘. Man From Atlantis-Odyssey II
It’s the end of an era over at firemusic with Disco Jesus release the final in his epic, and much loved, mix series. As he ventures to unconfirmed (but potentially very exciting) pastures neu-we are left with a classic selection of un-disco-vered gems and ‘only he could get away with this’ epics.
As usual it’s all mixed live and (for extra analog kudos) recorded on c90 (before being EQ’d in the basilika mixing desk). There’s no track listing, but this bio should give you all the info you need;
Psych, synth, left-coast, late-night sleaze with a sprinkling of stoner rock
and underground electro - Disco Jesus weaves another mix of his distinctly
personal take on the underbelly of late 70s/early 80s European
disco-inflected sounds: progressive gems with a classic quality that still
feel fresh today!
To be frank I’m a little Prince-d out. After a long summer gorging myself on concerts, aftershows and unreleased gems my purple-appetite was fully sated. More than that, what with it being the a full 20 years since his last decent album, the long standing rumours (and evidence) of unmetered control-freakery and those ‘PR friendly’ lawsuits against his own fans perhaps it is time to get some perspective.
Next week sees the release of Controversy A Tribute to Prince a collection of hit and miss cover versions. It’s an interesting selection, highlighting the complex relationship between song and songwriter and providing a useful insight into the influence of Prince’s persona has the music he makes.
There is obviously a fare amount of rubbish. It’s probably not in the best interests of most musicians to invite direct comparisons with someone as gifted a Prince. It’s certainly hasn’t made me think any more of Blue States and Peaches who bring nothing to limp versions of Alphabet St and Sexy Dancer respectively, but elsewhere quality prevails. D’Angelo brings his voodoo funk to the lesser known ‘She’s always in my Hair’ and The Broadway Project’s version of ‘Dorothy Parker’ has been a long time favorite of mine (wasn’t it on another Prince cover version alvum ?)- both sound great. The Dynamic bring their patented ’surprising reggae cover version’ schtick to ‘Girls and Boys’ *cough*one trick pony*cough* and Rob Mello does a version of Critical (??) which really wants to be Moodymann’s majestic ‘U Can Dance if you want 2′ ,but clearly isn’t.
Best of the bunch is Susanna and The Magical Orchestra’s take on ‘Around the World in a Day’s’ classic slow-y ‘Condition of the Heart’. Stripping away the psychedelic flourishes and the freaky Prince touches to reveal an intimate and melancholy love song, Susanna takes the song back to it’s wendy & lisa penned (?) origins. It’s a song that works better the more it reveals. Something Prince spends most of his time trying not to do.
this is a toe in the water post. i’ve almost forgotten what to do, its been so long. but before i’m set adrift again in a sea of wrapping paper, roast turkey and mulled ale here’s something i overheard whilst doing a spot of what rather bizarrely feels like last minute christmas shopping even though we’re only 6 days into advent.
anyhoo, courtesy of the dude who looked a bit like jefferson hack djing in the menswear department of my very favourite shop in london; a gallic cover of an anglo-classic (be still my beating heart) the dynamics and their less disco-more reggae version-de-couverture of miss you.
i’m not sure why this captivated me more than the stone-cold surity of the original, though there’s something in this which sounds like it was the source material and jagger/richards just pinched it. but some crackly production values and a jews harp’ll do that to a girl.
