In from the cold

"I like my music very fruity. Lots of percussion, lots of silly effects. But I still need that dubbiness and spaciousness. It's a strange combination." Listen to this great left-field disco mix from Norway’s Todd Terje from the Resident Advisor website. And if you like what you hear and want to find out more about the work of this amazing Norwegian, check out this podcast by Timmy Richardson on Essential Movements Radio, featuring the remixes, edits and rekutts of Todd Terje.

RA Podcast download link ダウンロード　こちら
Filesize: 71.90MB
Lenght: 00:59:53

Tracklist:
01. M.I.A. – Paper Planes (DFA Mix)
02. Sly & Robbie – Triplets
03. Chaz Jankel & Laura Weymouth – Whisper
04. !!! – Must Be The Moon (Emperor Machine Mix)
05. Armand Van Helden – Je T’aime (Simian Mobile Disco Mix)
06. Broke – We Ain’t Got It
07. Mathias Kaden – Rhythma
08. Class Action – Weekend
09. Cole Medina – Red Hot
10. Tron Scott’s Freaks in Space – Prog Rocks And Moon Jocks
11. Mirror Boys – See The Music
12. The Temptations – Law Of The Land (Iskra Edit)
13. Konk – Percussion Jam
14. Mr. Raoul K – Le Cercle Peul
15. Sueno Latino – Luxuria (Cutmaster-G Techno Age Mix)
16. Bruce Springsteen – I’m On Fire (Cousin Cole Mix)

Essential Terje on Essential Movement Radio, Podcast by Timmy Richardson
download link ダウンロード　こちら
Filesize: 164,5MB
Lenght: 02:55:23

Tracklist:
1. Horse With No Shame (Tood Terje aka Wade Nichols Edit) – America
2. Easy Money (Todd Terje Re-Kutt) – Dee Dee
3. You Don’t Know My Moonfloowers (Todd Terje Edit) – Alicia Keys
4. Something’s Gotta Give (Todd Terje Re-Kutt) – Afro Cuban Band
5. Let Love Enter (Todd Terje Tangoterje Edit) – Michael Henderson
6. Piece Together (Todd Terje Spinning Star Mix) – Reverso 68
7. Give Me Your Love (Todd Terje Tangoterje Edit) – Curtis Mayfield
8. Abracadobro (Todd Terje aka Wade Nichols Edit) – The Bottom Line
9. Camino Del Sol (Todd Terje Remix) – Antena
10.Reinbagan – Todd Terje & Prins Thomas
11.Love Vibes (Todd Terje Re-Kutt) – The Emotions
12.Superstition (Todd Terje Edit) – Stevie Wonder
13.Dshungel Liebe (Todd Terje ) – Zaza
14.Black Magic (Todd Terje Tangoterje Edit) – Astrud Gilberto
15.Just An Illusion (Lindstrom vs Todd Terje Dub) – Imagination
16.Dub Like An Egyptian (Todd Terje Edit) – Bangles
17.Willowman (Todd Terje Re-Edit) – Willow Band
18.Like An Eagle (Todd Terje Mix) – Dennis Parker
19.Sjefen Sjefen (Todd Terje aka Wade Nichols Re-Edit) – Turtles
20.Fox On The Run (Todd Terje aka Wade Nichols Edit) – Thin Lizzy
21.Belladonna (Todd Terje Re-Edit) – Andreas Vollenweider
22.Let’s Practice (Todd Terje aka Wade Nichols Dub Mix) – Lindstrom & Solale
23.Magic Number (Todd Terje Edit) – Herbie Hancock
24.I Wanna Dance (Todd Terje Tangoterje Edit) – Claudja Barry
25.Kalimba Tree (Todd Terje Edit) – Earth, Wind & Fire
26.That’s What Friends Are For (Todd Terje Tangoterje Mix) – Madeline Bell
27.Diamonds (Todd Terje Tangoterje Dub Remix) – Paul Simon
28.I, I, I (Todd Terje Edit) – The Osmonds
29.Death Disco (Todd Terje Edit) – Arbeid Adelt
30.I Can’t Help It (Todd Terje Tangoterje Remix) – Michael Jackson

Them Thangs

I've found this really cool blog, no music, no words, just a random collection of photographs spanning a few decades. I've stolen these two shots just to give you an idea of what you will find on it.
THEM THANGS

THEM THANGS

Billy Harper - Capra Black (1973)

Billy Harper (born January 17, 1943) is a Jazz saxophonist, "one of a generation of Coltrane-influenced tenor saxophonists" with a distinctively stern, hard-as-nails sound on his instrument. Harper has played with some of jazz's greatest drummers; he served with Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers for two years (1968-1970); he played very briefly with Elvin Jones (1970), he played with the Thad Jones/ Mel Lewis Orchestra in the 1970s, and was a member of Max Roach's band in the late '70s. He has also been a frequent member of Randy Weston's ensembles. He performed on Gil Evans' 1973 album Svengali, and contributed two of the most-performed tunes in the band's repertoire: "Priestess" and "Thoroughbred".

His 1973 album Capra Black on the Strata- East label "remains one of the seminal recordings of jazz's black consciousness movement--a profoundly spiritual effort that channels both the intellectual complexity of the avant garde as well as the emotional potency of gospel". The Italian jazz label Black Saint was launched with Harper's 1975 album Black Saint. His later releases have mostly been on Steeplechase and Evidence. Source: Wikipedia.org


Billy Harper - Capra Black (1973) Strata-East Records

1. Capra Black
2. Sir Galahad
3. New Breed
4. Soulfully, I Love You/Black Spiritual of Love
5. Cry of Hunger

Billy Harper (sax),
George Cables (piano),
Reggie Workman (bass),
Julian Priester, Dick Griffin (trombone),
Billy Cobham, Elvin Jones (drums)
Warren Smith (percussions)
Jimmy Owens (trumpet)

Download Link ダウンロード　こちら
Download Reference Link: Orgy In Rhythm blog.
Buy from Jazzcares

We've not laughed so much since grandma died

Derek and Clive (Live) is the debut comedy record recorded by Derek and Clive, characters created by comedy duo Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. The double act began as a private joke between the two of them at the Electric Lady Studios, as a way of easing the tension of their 1973 Broadway show Good Evening. Their method is basically a stream of unconsciousness, a mixture of Dylan Thomas and Mae West, with overtones of Goethe. At a time when British influence is declining throughout the world, Derek and Clive represent welcome evidence of what this great country could be. They are a ray of hope on a darkening horizon. Their philosophy is both an inspiration to youth and hope for the senile. On this record they discuss fully and frankly the major problems confronting a confused world. Poets? satirists? philosophers? comedians? social commentators? Derek and Clive sum it up more succinctly. "Just a couple of cunts" is their frank self-appraisal." (Wikipedia.org)

Derek and Clive Live (1976)
1. The Worst Job I Ever Had
2. This Bloke Came Up To Me
3. The Worst Job He Ever Had
4. Squatter And The Ant
5. In The Lav
6. Little Flo
7. Just One Of Those Songs
8. Winkie Wanky Woo
9. Bo Duddley
10. Blind
11. Top Rank
12. Cancer
13. Jump

download Link ダウンロード　こちら

Derek and Clive on the album Derek and Clive (Live), specifically the Bo Duddley sketch, were sampled by one of the first UK house music tracks - 1988's Voodoo Ray by A Guy Called Gerald.

Modern Classics # 01

"Windowlicker" is a 1999 single by artist Richard D. James, released under the Aphex Twin name on Warp Records. The name of the single comes from the derogatory British term "windowlicker", meaning a mentally handicapped person. The term is also a direct English translation of the French term faire du lèche-vitrine, meaning "window shopper", a second meaning played up in the song's video.

The music video directed by Chris Cunningham is a ten-minute long parody of contemporary American gangsta hip-hop music videos. In the video, two foul-mouthed young men (a Latino and an African American) in Los Angeles are window shopping for prostitutes (referred to in the end credits as hoochies).
The single is a masterpiece of modern electronic music and is well worth buying it.

You can check it out Here ダウンロード　こちら

Jorge Ben - Africa Brasil (1976)

This 1976 album is undoubtedly one of the greatest classics of Brazilian popular music, with Jorge Ben mixing funky samba, Afro-Brazilian beats, and crunching guitars to create one of the most fascinating sounds ever recorded in Brazil. The album kicks off with the raw, energetic "Ponta de Lança Africano," and from there on it never slows down, but continues to pile up one fiery, funky gem after the other. The samba soul and samba funk scenes of the '70s in Brazil produced many great artists and many great recordings, fully comparable with the best soul and funk music recorded in the U.S. during the same period. Jorge Ben was the most prominent figure of this scene and África Brasil is probably the most famous of his '70s recordings. For any person who is interested in the music of Jorge Ben, or indeed Brazilian funk in general, there is no better sample of it than África Brasil.

Review by Phil Jandovsky, All Music Guide

Jorge Ben - Africa Brasil (1976)
1 Ponta de Lanca Africano (Umbabarauma)
2 Hermes Trimegisto Escreveu
3 O Filosofo
4 Meus Filhos, Meu Tesouro
5 O Plebeu
6 Taj Mahal
7 Xica da Silva
8 Historia de Jorge
9 Camisa 10 da Gavea
10 Cavaleiro Do Cavalo Imaculado
11 África Brasil (Zumbi)

Download Link ダウンロード　こちら

George Russell - Electronic Sonata for Souls Loved by Nature (1980)

There is no need to verbalize - just play Electronic Sonata for yourself. Like all music, it is perfectly self-explanatory. From the blazing rock guitar of Comer to the pulse oft he African drummers to the gutsy solos of Soloff 
and Moore to the electronic wizardry of the leader to the rock steady rhythm of Copeland and Clark, this is another example of the genius of George Russell. A man who must be adored by nature. but not free of nature. "There's no such thing as free music", says George Russell, "because nothing under the sun is free. There's no such thing as freedom. There may be higher law, but everything is under law, under some kind of law. Even 
chance is under law." Electronic Sonata For Souls Loved By Nature is not 
chance.

LEE JESKE, from the inner CD booklet

Tracklisting:
1. Events I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII (23:45)
2. Events VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV (24:28)

Recorded June 9 & 10, 1980 at Barigozzi Studio, Milano
All compositions by George Russell, except Events VII, XII, XIII by Jan Garbarek.

Engineer - Giancarlo Barigozzi
Producer - Giovanni Bonandrini

Bass - J.F. Jenny Clark
Guitar - Victor Comer
Percussion - Keith Copeland
Piano, Organ - George Russell
Saxophone - Robert Moore
Trumpet - Lew Soloff

Download Link ダウンロード　こちら

The Dubstep Warrior

Dubstep is a genre of electronic music that has its roots in London's early 2000s UK garage scene. Musically, dubstep is distinguished by its 2step rhythm, or use of snare sounds similar to 2step garage and grime, and an emphasis on bass, often producing "dark" sounds, but just as frequently producing sounds reminiscent of dub reggae or funky US garage. Dubstep tracks are generally produced at a tempo of around 140 beats per minute and in recent years have developed signature half time rhythms, often heavily shuffled or syncopated, and usually, though not exclusively, including only one snare drum hit per bar, often on the third beat. Often, the sense of rhythm in dubstep is propelled more by the bassline than by the percussive content.

The earliest dubstep releases, which date back to 1999, were darker, more experimental, instrumental dub remixes of 2-step garage tracks attempting to incorporate the funky elements of breakbeat, or the dark elements of drum and bass into 2-step, which featured as B-sides of single releases. In 2001, this and other strains of dark garage music began to be showcased and promoted at London's club night Forward>>, which went on to be considerably influential to the development of dubstep. The term "dubstep" in reference to a genre of music began to be used by around 2002, by which time stylistic trends used in creating these remixes started to become more noticeable and distinct from 2-step and grime.

Dubstep started to spread beyond small local scenes in late 2005 and early 2006; and it has now become extremely popular also outside the UK.

The following Mix was produced by 20 years old Italian DJ/Producer Samuele Bozzolo (Aka DJ Bozzy) in July 2009. The mood is dark and grime and as you would expect it should be played on a really massive sound system. For DJ Bozzy bookings in Japan, please contact me at mucho.sugoi(AT)gmail(DOT)com

Download HERE

DJ Bozzy - I don't wanna sleep II. Return to dream

Ganja White Night - Bluebarry
N-Type - HP Sauce
Trill Bass & Bro Safari - First Pump (ft MC Kemst)
Skream - The Shinein
MRK1 - Borderline
Technical Itch - Syn
3rdeye &Sjouk - (Apocalypto VIP mix)
Apotheist - The Sane
Kode 9 - Black Sun
Henry & Louise ft Steve Harper - Rise Up (pinch remix)
Henry & Louise ft Steve Harper - Rise Up (RSD remix)
X-Zero - Shotta Dub
Kontext - Plumes (Relocate remix)
X-Zero - Crystalize
Apotheist - The Darkness Inside
Maniac - Ouch
The Widdler - Sensi Samurai
Virus Syndicate - Hijack (instrumental)
Dubtek - Vigilance
DJ Rezidue - Hellfire
Bongore - Mama's Boy
Skism - Back Off
Skism - Rise of the Idiots
Minus - Android
Current Value & Rodell - Requiem (balkansky Rework)
Nero - Act Like You Know
Bongore - Bongor ina Trouble
Tom Encore - Jig
Bongore - Sunday Morning
Trypta - Acid Beat

Source: Wikipedia.org

This is a Madonna-free zone

I am 41 years young, which may seems strange considering the name of my blog. Wakage no itari - the limits of youthful vitality, or in other words, those silly things you do when you're young. Nevertheless, today while writing this post I feel very young. Maybe because I have fallen in love! Yes in love with a record called Midtown 120 Blues and I want to tell the world about it and about the person behind this amazing piece of work.

The name is DJ Sprinkles, better know as Terre Thaemlitz.
Terre is an award winning multi-media producer, writer, public speaker, educator, audio remixer, DJ and owner of the Comatonse Recordings record label. Her work critically combines themes of identity politics - including gender, sexuality, class, linguistics, ethnicity and race - with an ongoing critique of the socio-economics of commercial media production.
His audio projects have found release on a variety of record labels ranging from Mille Plateaux, to YMO founder Haruomi Hosono's Daisyworld Discs, to Bill Laswell's Subharmonic Records, to Universal Music Germany's Classical Division, to the UK dance label Disorient, and so on. Graphic design, photography, illustration, text and video also play a part in Thaemlitz' projects. His writings on music and culture have been published internationally in a number of books, academic journals and magazines.
He has released 15 solo albums, as well as numerous 12-inch singles and video works. Her writings on music and culture have been published internationally in a number of books, academic journals and magazines. As a speaker and educator on issues of non-essentialist Transgenderism and Queerness, Thaemlitz has participated in panel discussions throughout Europe and Japan. He currently resides in Kawasaki, Japan

In May 2008 in Japan and January 2009 in Europe, the gender-queer artist (who prefers either “he” or “she,” while not really subscribing to either) released Midtown 120 Blues, the first full-length album under the DJ Sprinkles moniker. A moniker he took on when he started DJing about 20 years ago. “DJ Sprinkles has always been a signifier of the unheard DJs, un-played records, and undocumented outcasts. The unimportant,” Thaemlitz explains. “Because, ultimately, I think house culture revolves around disenfranchised people attempting to construct a space in which we feel important.”

And what an amazing album.
Midtown 120 Blues it’s about changing perspectives and rethinking preconceived notions. It is over an hour of exquisite deep house music where things are kept instrumental, with no wailing divas but richly textured productions that are warm and enveloping, full of gently tapped pianos and flute notes floating by. For Thaemlitz, deep house is not the music of celebration, but the music of sadness. Perhaps this is sadness for the original context that has been erased, buried and gentrified. Perhaps it's the sadness of the original context itself. Possibly it's a mix of both.
Midtown 120 Blues is an incredibly deep album—not just in terms of the "deepness" of the house on offer, but emotionally and intellectually so, as Thaemlitz maps out the sound in a deeply personal way. A meditation on the "meaning" of house, a critique of the recent deep house revival, an exploration of one man's personal relationship with the sound.
Midtown 120 Blues is all of these things, not to mention being some of the best deep house you'll hear in a very long time. As soon as you here the opening bars of the serene intro, disturbed by the voiceover stating very matter-of-factly, "House music isn't so much a sound, as a situation," you'll realize you're in for a true - and tense - listening experience. Prepare for lilting teardrops of piano, defiant kicks, a Madonna smackdown, apocalyptic yet paradisal Larry Heard landscapes, Moodymann lo-fi productions, beatless movements fashioned from a classic funk break - it's a preternatural "obituary" of house.
In the opener “Midtown 120 Blues Intro” a pair of piano chords diffuses like smoke into diaphanous drones, muted arpeggios mumble, and robot fingers snap as an echo-extended snare keeps crackling time. Thaemlitz faintly lays out his case: Instead of the “greeting card” bullshit notion of house that’s most commonly trafficked – “life, love, happiness” – he insists “suffering is in here, with us.” The facile universalism of mass marketing broadens the terms of house music so vastly its inscription of gay disenfranchisement fades away. Enumerating the crises that lead to house’s emergence, multiple overlapping Thaemlitzes recite, "It's the rhythm of the empty midtown dancefloors resonating with the difficulties of transgendered sex work, black market hormones, drug and alcohol addiction, racism, gender and sexual crises, unemployment and censorship."
The combination of pain and ambivalent nostalgia is expressed not only by vocals which mutter of violence, of Madonna's 'theft' of Vogueing, of being "deep in the bowel of House", but in Thaemlitz's piano chords. Unlike much Deep House, which merely replaces House's disco origins with a vague and soporific jazziness, Thaemlitz's playing works like Nina Simone's, opening up between jazz and modern classical a huge harmonic space in which to articulate complex emotions. Even though these linear tracks seem superficially like conventional Deep and Ambient House pieces, the combination of gently but relentlessly provocative voices and unexpected harmonic left-turns bring what is traditionally high class background music into sharp focus and demand close and sustained attention.
The melancholy is clearest on "Grand Central, Pt. II (72 hrs. by Rail from Missouri)," almost nine minutes of gently drifting ambience, as a piano softly dances over warm gentle tones, the sound of a record crackling and popping, and a woman's voice reflecting on seeing somebody "getting knocked around." The final minute is silent except for the sound of vinyl crackling. More than anywhere else on the album, this track underlines what deep house means to Thaemlitz—sadness, pain, the threat of sudden violence and the fleeting promise of escape in a club.

I transcribe the words of the end monologue of the track Ball'r (Madonna-Free Zone) which narrates the theft of Vogueing by Madonna, as they are a further expression of the emotional statements made in this album.
"When Madonna came out with her hit "Vogue" you knew it was over. She had taken a very specifically queer, transgendered, Latino and African-American phenomenon and totally erased that context with her lyrics, "It makes no difference if you're black or white, if you're a boy or a girl." Madonna was taking in tons of money, while the Queen who actually taught her how to vogue sat before me in the club, strung out, depressed and broke. So if anybody requested "Vogue" or any other Madonna track, I told them, "No, this is a Madonna-free zone! And as long as I'm DJ-ing, you will not be allowed to vogue to the decontextualized, reified, corporatized, liberalized, neutralized, asexualized, re-genderized pop reflection of this dance floor's reality!"

On his Comatonse Records website she writes "Please note that nobody has legal permission from me to sell MP3 downloads of my music - not iTunes, not e-music, not anyone. They are selling my music illegally. They and the distributors they deal with have no contracts with me, and do not pay me a single penny of your purchase cost. They continually ignore my written requests to have my works removed from their profit-engines, knowing that the money at issue is less than the cost of my hiring a lawyer to resolve this ongoing mess. Please do not pay those mainstream corporate assholes for downloads of my music! They complain about MP3 copy protection issues while deliberately and systematically stealing from independent producers like myself - and consumers like you! Make no mistake, they are the music pirates to worry about!

The album has in spades what many a contemporary dance effort lacks: amazingly deep music, a greater purpose and its ensuing range of emotions.

If you want to buy this album (and if you like house music you definitely should) please follow this link
If you want to know more about DJ Sprinkles/Terre Theamlitz (and there is a lot to know and a lot to learn) please visit his label Comatonse Recordings website

Thanks to Terre Theamlitz for this amazing piece of work
Thanks to my Scottish brother Muz for making me aware of it

Most words in this post are bluntly taken from the following sources:

Comatonse Recordings
Wikipedia.org
Cameron Eeles on www.ResidentAdvisor.net
Ken Taylor on www.xlr8.com

Bernardo Rondeau on www.dustedmagazine.com
Joe Muggs on The Wire (UK) Issue 300, February 2009 www.thewire.co.uk

Amar Patel on Straight No Chaser (UK), January 2009 www.straightnochaser.co.uk

MTV is killing music creativity

Before gangsters and bitches, thugs and SUV, money and Tommy Hilfiger, guns and MTV, Puff Daddy and Eminem, four bars rhymes schemes and Majors record deals, ghostwriters and phoney Mcs.... hip hop was as fresh as this. Dig it.