update #7! (22.7)

Shpongle - Vapour Rumors

starting off ambient, give it a few minutes to get you in the mood, and be hypnotized by Raja Ram's skillful flute playing. soon rhythms start to form and the track starts becoming more 'psychedelic' thanks to fm voice synthesis, followed by a common lead, the obvious samples about aliens/consciousness/drugs/whatever, et cetera. good stuff

Ticon - Back To Basics

and now for some swedish psytrance, of the kind that works equally well in the progressive house sets of yesteryear as it does in so called psychedelic sets. not much to speak of here, honestly. it's not bad, but it's mundane.

Rodamaal - Insomnia (Ame Remix)

Hypnotic deep house on the plate here, with nice whispered vocals, a good modern groove, plus a chorus that screams instant hit. get it.

Simeon - Not Feelin This

jazzy downbeat stuff here, would work great as an opener in a deep house set, has a very noticable groove despite not having kick or dancable drums in general. it's a vocal track with lots of brass, get this too.

Sun Ra Arkestra - The World Of The Lightning

Crazy jazz hits the fan, and i mean really crazy - this is seriously abstract stuff which would really spin you around, enjoy it :)

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update #6! (6.7)

Massive Attack Feat. Mos Def - I Against I

off to a nice start, I Against I opens with a slow groove with an effect chorus, a broken beat joins, soon followed by an fm synth line, and rap vocals, a closed bassline humming in the background, and soon a bunch of lovely smothered strings join to prepare for the chorus. lovely.

Armando - Downfall

fucking sweet. proper oldschool acid house, no beating the 303, 808, and 909. get this, it rules. RIP Armando.

BRS - Lovin' Me (Dubtribe Remix)

some lovely sensual deep house up next, starts out with some casual rhodes, some dubby percussion playing the part of a reverse crash, a sensual bassline joins, the kick is in, some funky guitar playing, some vocal snippets here and there, and somehow it all works together. lovely, deep, sensual, ethereal, dubby, latin, house.

Vitalic - Fanfares

a blippy sound greets us on this piece, rock drums coming from the distance, an electric guitar playing a simple pattern joins, some distorted spoken word vocals, and the kick starts fading in. repeat till the break where the guitar pattern evolves a bit and gets some more distortion going, drums sans kick join, and another bigger break comes in which the guitar is replaced for another, and gets some pad to accompany it. the by now rocking guitar pattern comes back with the kick in a fade in, and we're dancing, some of us perheps wanking on an airguitar, all the same. fun.

A Reminiscent Drive - I Want To Remember This Moment Always

lovely tone to close on, this piece consists of a few elements being faded in an out in a wonderful manner: a guitar playing a sweet melody you wouldn't want to let go of, a pad accompanying it with various chords, a vocal repeating the track title, and a few sound effects, some calmint hats and shakers, a bunch of tonal bells. really a beautiful place and very fitting to the title, hard to let go of the melody each time it fades out. i would indeed want to remember this moment always, and so would you if you experienced it the same.

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update #5! (29.6)

Carl Craig - Technology

w00t, wonderful start for this batch, with a classic from Carl Craig who coincidentlaly preformed here in israel yesterday. starts out with a cool yet simplistic groove and a simple pad sound that starts dim and ends bright, the main motif slowly fades in, followed slowly by the melodic bassline, and pretty soon, you're totally sucked in (if you're hearing this at a dancefloor from the hands of an at least half-decent dj, that is).

Dari Sana - Flashback

onwards to some goatrance. starts out with hihats, soon joined by kick & bass, light arpeggios in the background, another bass layer, and a simple melody. first breakdown = just the melody with an added layer, which later shows itself to be the track's main theme. bass rejoins, track resumes. various simplistic melodic patches play small variants on the earlier mentioned simple melody. some primitive climax follows, et cetera. not a bad track per say - even though from a production aspect this isn't even close to 2002 standards - just not particularily interesting.

Steve Stoll - New Life

tech house - on FAX+?

well, to be fair, we're not talking trendhouse - just tech house, well done tech house at that. an engaging beat modulated by an lfo'd filter (except for the actual kick), soon joined by an ethereal melody which gradually takes more of the audible spectrum for itself. the beat varies slightly here and there - beyond the modulation variation mentioned. not suitable for 'primtetime' by any measure, but if you're warming up - wouldn't hurt to have this in your crate.

Who's Who? - Sexy F**k (Original Mix)

a piece of shit that has and will only be used for it's idiotic lyrics "So fucking sexy, you're a sexy fuck" repeated ad nauseam. the track consists of the above mentioned lyric preformed in a text2speech program, a beat, a dual note bass, and one 'sound effect'. total utter shit.

Ural 13 Diktators - Party Vision

closing with something of higher artistic merit than the former pile of cheese. Party Vision starts out with a disco-type arpeggio and a simple engaging groove, soon joined by lovely oldschool synth strings, and then the track takes a turn to become even more disco-esque by simply transposing the melodies a few notes. good stuff.

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town drunk #4! (23.6)

Steve Roach - This Life

mmmm, first order of buisness is ambient, lovely under my state of mind. i'm finding it kinda hard to tell you whether this song was made by a single highly crafted evolving pad or a few good evolving pads, either way, it's great. to me it's soothing, but some people who are more emotion-sensitive than me might tag it along with melancholy, happiness, fear (i might agree on this one), triumph, or who knows what. to sum up: it's good, and that's all you need to know at the end of the day.

Frankie Knuckles Featuring Adeva - Whadda U Want (from Me) (Frankie's Tittieknocker Mix)

classic house - good for the soul. a simple groove with a slight bit of funk, a semi-whispered-semi-yelled vocal telling me "give it to me!", after a second of respite, we get treated to some singing in a gay voice (though it wouldn't even register on the Darryl Pandy scale), some backing vocals for the male diva here and there, simple synth stabs (this ones), and a slightly improved groove underneath. pure house.

Mumbo Jumbo - Pornogram

some pedestrian psytrance now, rather uninteresting so far (first 2 minutes), 4 minutes later still uninteresting. a truly unremarkable piece - don't get it.

Adamski - N.R.G. Symphony In F Minor

w00t, oldschool acid house, even if of a slightly more mainstream kind, is still oldschool acid house - meaning good. i can totally see myself rocking to this one at the warehouse and/or the musicbox (bit late for the musicbox, admittedly. but i bet ron hardy could make this an anthem for centuries to come, like almost any other piece of wax he ever played /fanboy).

Miles Davis - You Don't Know What Love Is (Miles Davis Quintet)

closing up with some jazz, very melancholic jazz, actually. The Milestone and his trusty trumpet are full of emotion - the kind of emotion that says "the bastards fired me again", which is quite phony (cf: modern hip hop) seeing as he wasn't doing that badly at the time really. i think it'd be nice to end today's edition with a classic Miles Davis quote - "Do not fear mistakes. There are none.”

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third batch (22.6)

Gabriel Ananda - Bye

some tech house to start out our day, a kick, some filtered percussions, a simple synth line functioning as the bass until an unremarkable 303 bassline joins by which time the synth line takes a change of role and starts evolving slowly, and we can hear that it's gonna be the lead for this track. unremarkable yet highly playable.

Didier Lockwood & Marcel Azzola - La Plus Que Lente

and now for something completely different: oboes, flutes, & violins. i have no idea how to critique such pieces of music, but i'll give it a shot anyways: harmonic? check. evolves in a logical manner? check. gives a general elated feeling? check. but most importantly - beautiful? not to these ears and mind.

Chet Baker - My Old Flame

a soothing jazz ballad, a lot more touching than the classical piece above, but that's to be expected with my sensibilities.. that's just what happens when you play me the timbres of such masterfully played saxophones. a delicate piece, and a very enjoyable one at that. though i would love to hear it in an electronic music context.

Germinating Seeds Of Doda - Ooh Bitchy

wow, gotta be honest here - as the beats got in a few seconds after the acidic bassline i exclaimed "fuck" out loud, that's how good this is. psytrance with proper breakbeats. can't type more. must dance!

Gerald Veasley - Deeper

hehe, ok, now that the previous awesomeness is settled, let's move on: more jazz! this time something a little more contermporary, with a smidgen of blues and funk aswell. starts out funky with drums, two or three electric guitar, and a saxophone. impossible not to tap your feet too. an organ and a trumpet soon join, fortunately the funkiness is retained. you know what? this deserves some space in my virtual crate (unless someone can find it on vinyl, which would be even better). pure awesomeness.

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time for seconds (21.6)

Pate No.1 - Shining Star ((Ben Macklin Remix)

starting out with some cheesy mainstream house, and unless that's your kinda thing - don't get it, it's bad

The Jazzinvaders - Sea Of Lies (Original Mix)

onwards to something much better, starts out with a short taste of a tribal groove which quickly dissappears in favor of piano chords and beautiful saxophones, chilled drums join in and the track continues with the saxophone - fortunately - being the focus point for this piece. i'd happily play this tune in a suitable remix, as it is - it's just not danceable enough.

SebastiAn - Shoot

gotta love them crazy Ed Banger boys, though this track is quite timid by their standards, the wild kick and bass seem to be filtered and lightly distorted, as are the spoken word vocals. actually, only the short drama pad he uses here and there cut through that filter unharmed. noisy stuff, not much substance, would be a proper headfuck in a club though.

The Orb - Snowbow

starts out with orchestral-esque strings bundled with a huge reverb tail, soon to be joined by various otherworldly sounds of what i can only describe as insects ingesting foul waste. ends with metalic drums. leaves me with the famous facial expression -

Till Von Sein & Aera - Lesbah

opens with a bitcrushed drumkit and bassline, standard fruity-esque kick drum follows, soon joined by hats, and some lfo'd bubbly sounds. nothing remarkable here, track doesn't seem to go anywhere, but seeing what's trendy these days, it won't stop people from buying it.

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First batch! (20.6)

Afro Novalima - Candela (Faze Action Bump n Hustle Mix) [Mr Bongo]

starting out this section with some afro-latin-tribal-deep house, nice bumping beats and percussions, accompanied by occassional quasi-african vocals. down to sub-bassline accompanied by a metalic lead with a simple melody charataristic to the genre. the drums return in promising to bounce you, and then off to a short nice break with a touching rhodes section, and then back again with those chugging rhythms, rinse and repeat. overall nice work by the Lee brothers on the remix tip

The Montini Experience - Astrosyn [Made In DJ]

onwards to acid trance/techno! this piece comes from the year 1995, it starts with uninteresting beats which are soon joined by a simple acid growl, and oddly enough - the often used vocal "my house is your house and your house is mine" a simple high note string is used for the break, soon replaced by a mundane arpeggio, as it slowly climbs to a peak with the arpeggio, the string, the growl, the vocal sample, and the cliched 1/16ths snare pattern everyone heard at least 500 times in their lives. nothing interesting here really, and i wouldn't recommend you to look for it.

Radiohead - A Punchup At A Wedding (No No No No No No No No) [Parlophone Records]

and now for something completely different - the shrill voice of Thom Yorke accompanied by a bunch of lovely guitars in high production values, semi electronic drums, and a few big piano sounds. occassional cacophony of voices here, occassional lofi part there. standard formula which most of their songs possess. i kinda like it, but that's about all i can say for it.

Aphex Twin - Z Twig [Warp Records]

some lovely chilled stuff from the infamous Richard D. James, highly simplistic, and highly efficient. just one polyphonic synth repeating the same pattern over and over several times slightly modified by delays and filters. good stuff.

Unit Moebius - Interaction [Bunker Records]

lastly, some electro from the Netherlands, starts with a filtered percussion, a standard lo-fi synth generated string, and a sweet bassline, then a round kick comes in accompanied by a 1/16th pattern rim - all nice and easy, rim is replaced with a good snare on a somewhat more innovative pattern than the allmighty twos and fours, suddenly it goes minimal (abolishing the string) and returning that rim, making me want to dance, then a break with just the string and the kick. the track continually switches between these various modes with slight changes, avoiding any form of danceable consistency, making me shun this track from the decks as it's not hypnotic enough to my standards and expectations from these types of sounds

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