Feel my Bicep

Finally our plastic homage to Detroit has hit the shelves. BUY BUY BUY. Have a listen, we hope you like it. Instead of describe the track for you we thought it may be better to give you an insight into the production.

Bicep – 313

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‘313’ was basically a melody I recorded of my laptop, my neighbour was getting his Jazz on, so I stuck the mic up to the wall and clicked record. **Note: he will have no credits on the sleeve- His dog shits all over my steps**. We knew the claps were a fundamental part of the track so to add some realism, we set off to Dalston market- inspired by stories of Marshall Jefferson hiring 15 people for the claps on his tunes when he played live. Instead of forming an alliance with the common people we stocked up on meat and what a fine selection there was on offer. On returning to the studio we took turns recording and slapping each other with various types of beef and fish- finally we layered these sounds to give this ‘Real‘ meat thing in action. The chatting you can hear around the start was recorded of my phone while in the waiting room of a very lively brothel, all I can say is that the recording got a little messy towards the end.

Bicep – Winter

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‘Winter’ was just a demo song on our DAW, cant believe people didn’t pick up on this one ;)

Hope this gave you a brief insight into the lengths we take in the strive for perfection! And perfection it is.

Buy the vinyl over at Phonica

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Buy it digitally at Traxsource.com

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Great errie soundscapes and haunting synths. Perfect for 6am, when some of your fellow partygoers are feeling a little tender….

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Continue reading ‘Legowelt – Lunar Maximus’

Any kids born in the eighties will have remembered this Sega Mega Drive classic as a seriously tough guy beat em up. Streets of Rage, or as its known in Japan, “Bare Knuckle: Furious Iron Fist” was released in 1991. Recently I was playing this and realised that long ago I used to love the rolling street beats, without even knowing they were techno, electro disco and freak funk chuggers. The music is so driving while playing it, super urban. Produced by game music hero, Yuzo Koshiro.

Below are a few (there will be more to come and I feel an few edits may be coming out of some of this material). They sound like when speeded up oldschool deep house crashes into synth disco. ‘Boss’ sounds like 90s rave then breaks into some pretty crazy tech synth pump. Interesting.

City Street

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Beachfront

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Boss

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Continue reading ‘Streets of Rage!’

Keeping things deep I’ve got two cracking beautiful soulful house reworks from Motor City Drum Ensemble, who time and time again hit the nail on the head with his signature old school drum patterns and thoughtful pastiche keys.

Over the past few years MCDE has really soared from their humble beginnings to leading the pack with their (previously posted) Raw Cut’s serious getting by absolutely everyone!

Jazzanova feat Phonte – Look what you’re doing to me (MCDE remix)

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Nu Frequency Feat Ben Onono – Fallen Hero (MCDE remix)

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This classic detroit cut reminds us that utter simplicity can often be just as effective as the tightest production! Omar has sampled the 1980’s track of the same name – Midway’s ‘Set it Out’ over rich warm ethereal keys and a very simple drum machine pattern – It works. The E.P ”002” has just received a repress before Christmas and with Set it out being the closing, (and for me the stand out track after Flying Gorgars) I thought it deserved a spot on here. Enjoy (But you’ll have to buy the E.P)

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Ibadan Records has been and continues to be a groundbreaking tastemaker deeply rooted in the influences of colorful New York life as is represented in the range of our repertoire.

”There isn’t really an Ibadan sound. Ibadan has a principle to make high quality music which covers all areas of electronic music, acoustic dance music, ultimately jazz funk, jazz and maybe even hip hop and R&B”. 

Now over a decade doing business, label founder Jerome Sydenham’s artistic ambitions for Ibadan Records couldn’t be clearer. From the earliest years of acoustic, afro-tinged house to the Pan-African Electro of the 10″ series to the more recent explorations into Techno and TechHouse, the sound of Ibadan has always pioneered new directions in dance. 

Here are some of my favourite tracks from Ibadan Records, support the artists and pick the track up on beatport/juno.

Jerome Sydenham and Dennis Ferrer – The WJ

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Jerome Sydenham and Kerri Chandler – 36 degrees (tokyo dub)

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Jerome Sydenham and Dennis Ferrer – Sandcastle (Pete Heller re-edit)

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Only heard this subtle little track for the first time last week, even though it’s 5 years old. Could realy see it fitting it with the likes of James Holden and the Border community stuff. Great thoughtful synths  and an arp’d bass that sounds like a constantly approaching helicopter. Cool wee track. Enjoy

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Continue reading ‘Isolee – My hi-matic’

This is a smoldering killer of a remix, would we expect anything less from Schwarz? It has a beautiful dark analog almost ‘new-age’ feel when Henrik really lets the track rip, the perfect opening track to a later set! I’m afraid this is a relatively new remix and we wanna respect the artists, so you’ll have to pick it up from all the usuals! Enjoy

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The thing i really love about this track (well this recording) is how truly rough and ready it is, little double beats here and there, bass cutting it out and back, hat pitch frequency moving up and down….it really captures the raw live vibe, you really feel as if someone is just twiddling with knobs (which they are)…..Its got a great tough dark beat and i’ve seen this totally destroy Fabric before. Enjoy. 

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Continue reading ‘Luciano – Mi nombre es Juan Pachanga (Esteban Bravo remix)’

This is quite simply a track for little weirdos, kind of elite minimal, for the die hard fans….. Ridiculously repetitive with its twisted little bleeps and bloops, it’ll drive the sanest of us into madness, most likely fulfilling the creators intentions. I’ve been quite a fan of some of Melchior work over the past few years, especially his Cadenza stuff. Anyway, Enjoy!

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Continue reading ‘Thomas Melchior – In the spirit’

Classic 1990’s techno, this kid was 14 when he produced this track! Trent’s father was a disco DJ. He recorded the track “Altered States” while still a high schooler, releasing it on Armando’s Warehouse Records in 1990. The track became a huge club hit among devotees of techno, despite Trent’s grounding in the Chicago house scene.  This classic detroit sound has had an influence on uk labels, especially lots of the earlier  Soma releases etc. Enjoy

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Continue reading ‘Ron Trent – Altered States’

Huge piano house remix of Kevin Saunderson’s ‘The Reese Project’  by underground resistance back in 1992, this helped propel them into the forefront of house and techno music.

Underground Resistance is probably the most militantly political outcropping of modern urban American techno. Combining a grubby, four-track aesthetic, an almost strictly DIY business philosophy, and an oppositional, militaristic ethos similar to Public Enemy without the drama (or the familiarity; the members refuse to be photographed without bandanas obscuring their identities), UR have redirected their portion of the Detroit techno legacy to social activist ends, trading mainstream popularity and financial success for independence and self-determination. Begun in the early ’90s by Detroit second-wave trinity Mike Banks,Robert Hood & Jeff Mills, UR adapted the flavor and kick of early Detroit techno to the complex social, political, and economic circumstances in the wake of Reagan-era accelerated inner-city decline, and was formed as an outlet for uncompromising music geared toward awareness and change.

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Continue reading ‘The Reese Project – The colour of love (Underground Resistance remix)’

808 State are a British electronic music outfit formed in 1988 in Manchester, taking their name from the Roland TR-808 drum machine and the “state of mind” shared by the members. They were formed by Graham Massey, Martin Price and Gerald Simpson, and they released their debut Newbuild in 1988. The band really hit the big time during the “second summer of love” in 1989 when their song “Pacific State” was picked up by Radio 1 DJ Gary Davies. Davies played the record every day for 3 months on his national primetime lunchtime show until it was released as a single. His promotion single-handedly helped propel the acid house group to the top of the UK charts and into the public consciousness.

Totally ahead of it’s time, awesome awesome stuff.

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Continue reading ‘808 state – Pacific State’

Some blistering, relentless, monotonous, jacking and frankly awesome techno from Radio Slave here….can’t get enough of this at sick’o'clock in the morning. 

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This is one of the most in-demand, sought after bootlegs of the past year (not yet released), stirring up a huge fuss with rumors that it was getting a full release on cadenza in October (past), but that wasn’t really likely to happen and finally we got mailed the full 12 minute copy (not the set rip that has been floating around for months) I think we’re the first blog to get it, so count yourselves lucky.

* I’ve been slowing this down a good bit, to around 118 bpm , works a treat!

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Continue reading ‘Pitto’s Bootleg of Feist!’