Journey of a Track Part 2 Heart of Glass Retrospective

So, here's another classic track that has had very different beginnings to it's most famous disco version. Blondie's "Heart of Glass" is simply unforgettable as an icon of Disco as well as the late seventies. "Heart of Glass" certainly had it's share of controversy when it's Disco incarnation reached number one in both the U.S and the U.K. soon after it's release in January 1979. Blondie's previous two albums of work had been considered the fore-runners of late seventies New Wave sound. New Wave was a rock genre that grew out of punk music and as such, it was an independent counter-balance to popular music so when Blondie released "Heart of Glass" which shot to number one riding on it's Disco friendly beat, fans were aghast and quick to accuse the band of being sell-outs. Never the less, almost 30 years and many transformations later, "Heart of Glass" remains as ground breaking and pleasing to the ears as it did in 1979.

Here's a clip of the first version of "Heart of Glass" recorded in 1975 and was then called "Once I had a love". The track was never included on either of Blondie's first two albums but was played live when the band toured.



The track was sped up a little and several elements were changed to make it sound less bluesy and more rock, this new version was recorded in 1978. The soon to be famous bass line is prominent in this version and was re-used almost intact in the Disco version.



The most famous version was born when producer Mike Chapman (from Queensland, Australia incidentally) decided to give the track a Disco twist and the rest is history.


What is it about Debbie Harry in this clip that makes her ooze so much sex appeal? I swear, she could make eating a sandwich look sexy. Perhaps its the way she's nonchalantly lip-synching with her now famous casually bored expression in the track's video clip recorded in New York's Studio 54, the famed nightclub for famous people.

Of course, the story of "Heart of Glass" doesn't end here in 1979. There has been a multitude of covers, tributes and remixes since then and some of them are from as leftfield as they can come. I'll write about them in a future post.

Journey of a Track Part 1 Not Over Yet Retrospective

The post last week about Depeche Mode's Enjoy the Silence has got me thinking about other tracks which have had radical make overs through the years and the one that is foremost in my mind is Grace - Not Over Yet which came out on Paul Oakenfold's Perfecto label in the early nineties. Here is the original radio edit.



In 1995, it was remixed by the Dancin' Divas and BT. Although the BT remix is by far the more famous, the Dancin' Divas mix was one I heard a lot personally and came to like despite being completely overshadowed by the notably legendary BT mix.

There are two tracks from the mid nineties that I consider the absolute pinnacle of dance music in that period. One of them is the Brothers in Rhythm remix of Billie Ray Martin's Your Loving Arms. The other is the BT's 12 minute long epic house remix of Not Over Yet. Both of these tracks had 2 minute long intros which were unheard of in tracks at the time. The intros weren't just dead space for the DJ to mix into, they were solid walls of ever building sound, constantly teasing the listener to the great bits to come. The sound engineering is just so good in BT's mix, it's hard to hear any frequency not being put to some use and it's also possibly the best use of flanging I've ever heard in a track.



Epic and life-changing are the two adjectives I would use to describe this track. Truly a zenith of dance music and one that has been hard to match since it's inception.

Jumping forward ten years to 2007, we have the Klaxons' guitar driven re-working of Not Over Yet, a fusion of rock and rave.



Then most recently in February 2008, we have an acoustic cover of a cover by England's Alison Goldfrapp. It was recorded exclusively for Jo Whiley's Live Lounge which can be heard on BBC Radio 1.



Not Over Yet has had a pretty interesting transformation in the last decade or so. From a slightly fluffy dance track to an epic dance floor stomper, from there to electric guitar driven rock single and finally to an unplugged cover. In the years to come, who knows what direction this classic tune will take next.

Joe Smooth - Promised Land

What can one say about this deep house classic? This phenomenal tune from Joe Smooth changed the evolution of House music when it hit the scene in the late 80s. The great use of synths in it's baseline and melody coupled with Anthony Thomas' vocals and the lyrics about dance floor unity made it an instant hit. Revolutionary in so many ways, it still sounds fantastic 20 years later.

Equalibrum - Goinggoinggone Remix

Not much hip hop has been posted on this blog until now so here's a talented yet relatively unknown guy from California who has put together some great tracks. GoingGoingGone is an awesome track with sultry female vocals and a very classy, chilled out sound that softens it up nicely. It's like if Sneaker Pimps and Portishead did some horizontal line dancing and produced a trip hop love child.

Head over to Equalibrum's myspace page to have a listen to GoingGoingGone and other tracks. Big thanks to Haku for this tip.

More music from Okinawa

First up is "Shima Uta", another folk song turned modern pop song. It's name means "Island Song" and it has to be the unofficial anthem of Okinawa so often will you hear it if you spend time there. I think it's quite impossible to listen to this song and not have it linked to Okinawa in some way. Also it has been covered by Okinawans and non-Okinawans many times over. The Ukulele like plucking you can hear is an Okinawan sanshin (called a shamisen in mainland Japan), it is a 3 string instrument traditionally made from Habu (a native snake) skin.

This is Rimi Natsukawa's version which I like best.

Next up is Talvin Singh's "OK" which uses a lot of Okinawan sanshin and singing samples mixed in with groovy break beats, distorted guitars, synths and an Indian Sitar. A very unique track that I still love since I first heard it in 1999.



Lastly there is Ryukyu Underground's Seragaki. The Junkie XL remix was what first got me interested in these guys. No Youtube link this time but You can still listen to a sample of it at AudioJelly.

Well, that wraps up my introduction to Okinawan music. I hope you've enjoyed it and maybe be inspired to visit Okinawa one day. The weather is mostly calm, the atmosphere friendly and laid back, Okinawan people themselves are beautiful and the music, well, you probably have in idea after listening to all these clips but there's nothing like being there, sitting in the shade and chilling to a live performance or even the radio where a lot of Okinawan music is still played.

If you're interested in learning more about Okinawan music from the past until present day, try this great site set up by the Ryukyu Cultural Archive.

Solid Globe - Sahara

When truly great trance tunes were all but drying up in 2004 and the genre had largely turned commercial and was outputting a lot of generic pieces, along came Solid Globe with Sahara to really shake things up. The twangy, sounds like a cat being tortured lead deeply divided people at the time I recall, some people loved it, others found it annoying as. I was one of the former people. In a scene already crowded with a lot of formula tracks using the all but standard saw tooth lead, Sahara was a shining of beacon of hope, a hope that trance wasn't dead and wouldn't be for a while yet.

Tink Tink - Hoshi no Sekai

Time for some more music from Okinawa. Tink Tink is a band where the 2 lead singers like to dress up in traditional Okinawan clothes and perform songs which have been heavily influenced by the traditional lyrics and melodies they heard as kids growing up on the islands. They also like to include some Okinawan dancing but unfortunately you don't get to see much of that in this clip which is probably their most famous track outside of Okinawa (which also has been changed slightly for a broader Japanese audience, it features less Okinawan pronunciations and other cultural differences). There's actually a third guy but for some reason he almost never gets any screen time, poor guy. They are fairly famous in Okinawa having appeared in a series of TV ads but they're not so well known in the rest of Japan. I've been lucky enough to have been able to catch Tink Tink perform live both of the times I've been to Okinawa. They are both are as cute and as bubbly as they appear on youtube.

www.coolearth.org

Just got an e-mail from my good mate Ben in Matsumoto, Japan. When I left Japan last April I gave a lot of my snowboard gear to Ben to re-distribute as he saw fit among the boarders in Nagano. Ben sold one of my old boards to a friend for cash and then went and invested it in about an acre and a half of rainforest at www.coolearth.org. It makes me really happy to know my cast off possessions have made other people happy - the guy has a solid Capita snowboard to shred on and the world has a few more trees.

Vinyl Art

The Second Lives exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York has some interesting pieces made from vinyl records. The above sculpture by Jean Shin is called "Sound Wave".

Here's a short blurb about "Sound Wave" from Jean's site.

Records were melted and sculpted to form a cascading wave, dotted with bursts of colorful labels. The resulting structure speaks to the inevitable waves of technology that render each successive generation of recordable media obsolete. The piece also aims to physically manifest the ephemerality of music as well as one man’s musical tastes, as represented by his personal record collection.

I love vinyl. It's not my favourite medium of music because CDs, let's face it, are so much more convenient and now that digital mediums are standard, they're even more convenient than CDs. You would think that all this convenience would kill something as awkward and cumbersome as 12 inch records.

So why have I lugged around kilo's of records all these years? Perhaps it's the physical feel of vinyl, the nostalgia, I'm not going to get into CDs vs Vinyl but to my layman's ear, vinyl DOES feel warmer to me. These are all good reasons to be passionate about such an obsolete way of storing music but I think the number one reason why I still hold the torch up is the way I felt when I first heard vinyl. From laying around in my dad's study listening to old New Order albums to being surrounded by a possee of friends getting down in a club, I've always had positive vibes from vinyl. That's where the magic lies for me, in that initial connection. I hope that's something I'll keep with me for the rest of my life.

As music mediums march on, all the old mediums become just so much of yesterday's junk. At least that's what I think this sculpture is saying to me. Still, vinyl is as big a part of my life as it ever has been. Here's hoping it will stay that way.

Check out more pictures from Second Lives in this gallery at the New York Times.

White Pegacorn - Barack your World

Big props to Mike Shinoda and Mark Wakefield (both from Linkin Park) for this outrageously funny glam metal throwback in support of Barack Obama's campaign. Some of the lyrics are absolute class.

"You swore me in slowly
into your pentagon
and I showed the meaning of chief of staff"

haha, wth?

"All I know for sure is
Baby if you were my Iraq
I'd never pull out"

that's gold!

First seen by me over at Disgrasian.

Rachael Yamagata - be be your love

Rachael's latest album "Elephants...Teeth Sinking into Heart" was released earlier this month but has only just become available as a download at Itunes. Normally I wouldn't use Itunes to source music but sometimes, it's the only way to get your (virtual) hands on it. Anyway, as you can see from the track play numbers at her myspace page ("be be your love" has topped 1 million plays!), Rachael has been building up a huge cult following since her decision to head out on a solo career some years ago. I guess it didn't hurt that a lot of her songs have been used in a number of U.S. television series.

It's hard to describe her sound exactly. For some reason, she reminds me of Tori Amos, just not quite as quirky or dark. In any event, it's not a very good comparison and people should have a listen and see for themselves what the fuss is about.

Most remixed track ever???

Is Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence" the most covered/remixed track ever with 898 known covers/remixes? I don't know conclusively but I would say it's right up there. And what a worthy track it is to have left such a legacy in electronic music that it would have close to 900 remixes. Here's the original off the Depeche Mode's 1990 album, Violator, which I first heard when I was in high school. I've must have heard this close to a thousand times by now but it's still soooo good.


(Actually this is a made for video version that is a little different to the album version)

In my meager foray into the 898 remixes, I think I've listened to less than 2% of the total so my opinion on which remixes are the creme de la creme, is regrettably one that is based on a very sparse sampling. Anyway, my picks for my favourite two are:

Depeche Mode - Enjoy the Silence (Reintepreted by Mike Shinoda)



Mike, who is better known as the guitarist/rapper for Linkin Park, puts together a great modern rock update substituting crunchy guitars for synths and Mike's re-recorded vocals stay eerily close to the original's. So much, you would swear it was David Gahan from Depeche Mode singing.

Mike Koglin - The Silence (2005 remake)


I first heard this version as the finishing track on Sasha and Digweed's Northen Exposure III Expeditions. Simply put, it's an aural orgasm. The way that the track builds and builds, finally releases and then lets you down gently with a soft afterglow afterward, it's just perfection on a stick. Who was responsible for this masterpiece track? why Matt Darey of course, under his Tekara alias.

There's another cover that I haven't listened to much but it's starting to grow on me. Here's Lacuna Coil's rock cover from their 2006 album Karmacode.

Rickrolling becomes political

We've all been Rickrolled. The first time was funny but it soon wore off when Rickrolling became a huge internet meme and soon it seemed every random link friends sent you was a Rickroll. Now I think Rickrolling has come full circle with this cleverly made video of U.S. presidential candidate John McCain getting the Rick Astley 80's treatment.

Ever wondered what Rick Astley thinks about Rickrolling? Apparently after some bemusement, it looks like even he's over it now, according to Wikipedia.

In a March 2008 interview, Astley said that he found the Rickrolling of Scientology to be "hilarious"; he also said that he will not try to capitalize on the Rickroll phenomenon with a new recording or remix of his own, but that he'd be happy to have other artists remix it. Overall, Astley is fine with the phenomenon, stating that he finds it "bizarre and funny" and that his only concern is that his "daughter doesn't get embarrassed about it." However, a spokesperson for Astley's record label released a comment which showed that Astley's interest with the phenomenon had faded, as they stated "I'm sorry, but he's done talking about Rickrolling."

First seen by me at Mental Floss. The original interview with Rick Astley can be read at the L.A. Times. I assure you, none of the links in this post are Rickrolls.

Sasha/Emerson - Scorchio

It's a hot Sunday afternoon here in Perth and sun is almost ready to go down. Here's a track for those lazy occasions like this.

This is a collaboration between Sasha and Darren Emerson, originally from Underworld (if you have ever heard an Underworld track with vocals, you would immediately recognise Darren's distinct stream of verbal consciousness vocals made famous in tracks like Cowgirl and Born slippy). While it is not quite as famous as Sasha's master piece "Expander", it is nonetheless a very fine track that has organic guitar plucking matched with a bubbly synth lead giving the track a somewhat laid back, summery vibe.

I've also always liked the record sleeve art - pictures of an airplane graveyard in the south west United States.

Wow Trousers

So here's that picture of my wife wearing her spiffy rave pants.

What the cool kids in Japan wear

Hikari is a fashion brand that sprung up when psy-trance started to go really big in Japan in the late nineties. There I was always showing up to parties wearing my daggy clothes and wondering where all the cool kids got their threads from. Hikari was the first and foremost brand that developed solely for the psy-trance scene. To have these clothes back then and to a certain extent even know, gave you all the cred you needed to prove you were a hipster and knew all the ins and outs of the scene. I was always jealous because I never actually owned any.

Hikari just opened a new store in Paris just this October. Check out some pictures of the exterior and interior from the Connected blog, an alternative clothing store in Ebisu, Tokyo where my wife scored her trippy pants (I'll post a pic tomorrow sometime when we have some time to dig those pants up!).

I never thought much about the men's fashions but the women's fashions were some of the most imaginative use of colours, fabrics and cuts I've ever seen. Truly beautiful clothes.

If you're interested in other Dance related fashion from Japan, check out this online shop called Xenorm. Unfortunately they only deliver within Japan and not internationally but they do use environmentally friendly packaging so a big thumbs up to them on that point.

Ladyhawke - Paris is Burning (Sam & Di Angelis Remix)

According to Google Analytics some people have been led to the site after searching for remixes of Ladyhawke's "Paris is Burning".

So, here is a pretty slick electro remix by DJ Sam over at Remixland. Enjoy.

Creative use of a turntable

Just saw this over at Trance Addicts and was blown away. It took me a while to realize how it's done. The guy spins his turntable at 33 rpms, divides the disc into 33 equal intervals and then puts the frame of whatever he wants to animate onto those intervals. Such a simple concept with such incredible results!

Custom Kings - Up Late

Big thanks to Steve for this tip. Here's a new Australian band from Melbourne. They have a nice cushy, laid back sound which is perfect for a warm Friday evening down in a beer garden chilling out with friends. Lucky for Steve, that's exactly what he's doing at their Newcastle gig just as I'm typing this out west in Perth. Here's to you and Sarah man.

Listen to more songs from the Custom Kings at their myspace page. Check out their very chill cover of Don Henley's "Boys of Summer".

Ryukyu Underground - Hana

Ryukyu Underground are 2 English guys who have moved to and subsequently fell in love with Okinawa, a chain of islands between Japan and Taiwan. Ethnically and culturally different to both their neighbouring Chinese and Japanese, traditional Okinawan music has a very distinct sound and singing style. Vocals are often sang by women with distinct guttural shouts (I don't know how best to describe them!) accompanied by shamisen and sometimes Okinawan taiko. Ryukyu Underground takes traditional Okinawan sounds and makes them dance-floor friendly. I was first introduced to them when junkie XL remixed one of their tracks.



This is their interpretation of a traditional folk song from Okinawa.



This is a more traditional version by Rimi Natsukawa.

Download the MP3 for Hana and other tracks by Ryukyu Underground at their site. The video (same as the youtube one above) for Hana is also available from their site as a quicktime .mov file.

Who remembers Angie Hart?

I do. I don't think anybody who lived in Australia in the nineties can quite forget how unique Angie's sweet soulful vocals were and still are.

The first conscious memory of mine has to be of Frente!'s Ordinary Angels from their 1992 Clunk EP.



This quirky and engaging pop song was the perfect vehicle for Angie's pixie like voice. When Clunk proved to be a commercial success (Ordinary Angels being the 20th best selling single on that year's ARIA charts), Frente! began work on their first album "Marvin the Album" with it's ode to urban Australiana "Accidently Kelly Street". Then something unexpected happened. Maybe the constant radio and TV saturation of the single was too much, I can't really speculate but the backlash against Frente! had begun. People who had heard the single were split into two extremes, those who got into the quirky light-hearted nature of the new release and those who absolutely loathed it. The latter was the clear majority at the time.

I too, being a self conscious teenager in the mid nineties, also shied away from Frente!. In between Frente!'s first and second albums, Angie recorded a single with Pop! called Tingly. Pop! was a one-off pop outing that wasn't repeated and once again I was enraptured with Angie's distinct and unforgettable voice. I owned this CD single way back in the 90s but unfortunately it was in one of 2 boxes of CDs which has gone to a certain person's house and never came back (You know who you are Missflea!).

In 1994, The "Lonely" EP was released with it's B-side, a cover of New Order's "Bizarre Love Triangle". The reduction of the largely synthesizer driven original with it's 4/4 beat and prominent baseline to a minimal arrangement of just a guitar arpeggio and a vocal part proved to be a smooth move and and it became an unexpected hit that gave Frente! a lot of international recognition. Angie's female vocals gave the track a distinctly different feel to the original with Bernard Sumner's male vocals and I think this contributed a lot to the song's popularity.



The song's simple and unpretentious treatment of the original 's melody make it, in my mind, the most memorable and emotive of Frente!'s work.

Soon after the release of Frente!'s second album the band broke up and Angie left these shores to pursue a further music career in the United States. So a decade later I thought i would never hear Angie's angelic voice in a song again when I ran across a post in Zeon's blog about her. I soon rediscovered what I loved most about Angie's version of "Bizarre Love Triangle" in her cover of the Cure's "Pictures of You". Those little moments of reflection you have when you find a quiet part of the day to have a nice, slow listen.

Listen to "Pictures of you" and other songs at Angie's myspace.

Andy Duguid - Wasted

So until now, I've posted heaps of links to music that's a few years old. Now this track is a recent one that's really caught my attention. Every now and again there's a track where everything comes together - the vocals, the lyrics, the chords, the percussion, melody, the bass line, the progression, the overall glue holding the track together. This is one of those tracks. It's hook is deceptively simple and it's vibe is absolute class. The atmosphere is great, it has the right balance of happy and sad, anticipation and reflection. It just works on all levels. There's nothing boring about this song. I love it. Can I possibly gush anymore about how much I love this tune?

Big props to Andy Duguid, well done mate.

For some reason I keep thinking the first line is "Wasted so much time.... wasted"

My vote for DJ of the Year

Turntablism

My pick is DJCXL from New Zealand and now based in Tokyo, Japan. I won't wank lyrical about how good this guy is, just have a look at this youtube clip. More videos at his myspace page.



Mixology

Now for the 4/4 genre, I choose Stephen Wiley. Stephen's a progressive/trance DJ based in the mid-west United States. I first found out about him from his sets at Trance Addict.

I love his mixing. He tends to favour subtle transitions that work great with his track selection and are barely noticeable. His sets have a delicate aural synergy and a personal touch I could get use to quickly. On top of these things, he's got great taste in music but that's, perhaps, the most subjective of criteria to judge a DJ on. Anyway, no youtube clip here, but all of Stephen Wiley's mixes are available for download in gloriously high bit-rates from his web-site. He's not a big name like Ferry, Armin or Tiesto, but honestly, I haven't heard anything from those guys lately that impresses me very much. Anyway, download a set and have a listen for yourself or stream his "Tonight is Forever" set from his myspace page.

Lego Album Covers

Found this courtesy of Dark Roasted Blend, it's a flickr album of famous record album covers remade with Lego. One of the coolest things I've seen in a long time.

I thought this Strokes one was absolute gold. Here's the original cover.


And here's the Lego version.


Big props to the people who made these.

Ladyhawke - Paris is Burning

I think it's time for me to jump on the bandwagon. This track from New Zealand's Ladyhawke has been hammered on Triple J for the last few months. I'm surprised I'm still not sick of hearing it. It seems whenever this track slips from my memory I hear it somewhere like a shopping mall and there it is, stuck in my head again.

Check out the myspace page for an alternate remix of Paris is Burning.

For some reason, I keep thinking this song is about Paris Hilton but I'm sure the song is about the city, Paris.

Boy Robot - Live in Vanilla

Boy Robot are three guys from Germany and Live in Vanilla off their 2005 album Rotten Cocktails is probably their most famous song. It's like a classical cross-over with funky out-there percussion. A hugely under-rated band that has a dedicated cult following (me included) that deserves much more recognition than they have.


The album cover for Rotten Cocktails is probably one of the most beautiful I've ever seen. Just gorgeous.

Check out some of their other tunes on their Myspace page too.

Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine

Big props out to Mark for sending me this link. Never heard of these guys before but apparently they do Jazz covers of other people's songs and they are pure comedy gold.

Archie Bell & The Drells - Tighten Up

I don't personally own this record but I wish I did. I consider Tighten Up as the beginning of the modern dance music era. The catchy, upbeat bassline, the great drums, those laid back horns, the bouncy guitar riff that comes in and out and lastly, who can forget Archie Bell MCing his own personal message to the audience. Originally written as a pick me up after Archie got drafted to go to Vietnam in 1967, I think nobody can deny the huge influence this track has made on modern music. 40 plus years on, Tighten Up still rocks my world.

Caia - La Telecabine

This down tempo ambient piece has to be one of my favourite records. Caia is a collaboration between Andy Cato from Groove Armada and Maiku Takahashi. This chilled out tune is perfect for those quiet, reflective moments.

Cool Record Sleeves part 2

Here's some more covers that I like.

Donna Summer - I Feel Love

There's something about Divas on record sleeves that I really like. I think this photo of Donna Summer says so much about her and her music. In fact, everytime I look at this cover, I can hear her singing "I feel love".

Garbage - Milk (Rabbit in the Moon Remixes)

The Inner sleeve is a day glo yellowish-green and the outer sleeve is a textured creamy coloured cardboard with a "G" logo stenciled on it. Very simple but very eye catching.


Josh Wink - Higher State of Consciousness

The original release was just a black sleeve but when this track went huge in the mid 90's, it was re-released with a cooler cover. I don't know for sure if that's really Josh Wink on the cover with his dreads all over the place but it does look like him.



S express - The Return Trip

If there was ever a record sleeve that expressed the cheek and the freedom that was the nature of the 90's dance music scene, this would have to be it in my opinion.

(All images are copyrighted by their respective copyright owners)

Cool Record Sleeves part 1

Record sleeves are the thin cardboard covers that records come in. Usually they are black or white with a small label that has the artist and track information written on them. Occasionally a record label will create some artwork for some artist's individual releases. Here's just a few of the cooler ones I've found in my collection.

Olive - You're not Alone

Smoke City - Underwater Love

Sneaker Pimps - Six Underground

Tori Amos - Hey Jupiter/Professional Widow

Tori Amos - Professional Widow

(All images are copyrighted by their respective copyright owners)

Aha - Take on me, literal video version

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

For those people born in the 70's like me, Aha's Take on Me was a great synth pop song backed by an even better music video. Here's a new reworking by Dustfilms , with their own version of the lyrics. Big props to them and it looks like this video is becoming the next big internet thing.

Amazing Music Clip

I just saw this over at Disgrasian. It's an awesome clip from this band from England called Fujiya&Miyagi.

Click Here

Reminds of the music video that the White Stripes had which was all done with animated Lego. This one if pretty similar except it's all been done with animated dice. Just freaking awesome and the track isn't too shabby either.

The Wine Cellar

This is where I go to listen to my tunes. It's pretty nice being able to blast my music nice and loud and not have to worry about neighbours and such. I think the place would be sweet with some beanbags but I always get caught buying new music and just sitting on the floor.

I guess I should have taken a pic with the lights on and stuff but I didn't think of it at the time.

For those into gear porn, here is my gear list:

American Audio V3000 440watts RMS 8ohms x2 channels
2x Yamaha CX112V SR speakers
Korg Zero8 mixer
Tascam CD302 CD player
1x Technics 1200 Mark3 turntable with Ortofon Nightclub S cartridge

I used to own 3 mark3 turntables but one got stolen and the other I sold to a good friend in Tokyo. It's now being put to good use by DJCXL . The CD player is ancient and not as accurate as modern day Pio's and Denons that everybody else seems to be using but it's served me well and has never died on me, ever in the six years I have owned it. The mixer is probably the most I've ever spent on kit. It lights up like a mutant Christmas Tree, has alot of nice features and, as far as my ears can tell, has pretty decent sound reproduction. The speakers and the amp are really overkill. There's enough sound pressure there for a small party. Maybe with summer on it's way, I'll drag these some where so I can really blast them.

Lightning

Now that's impressive.

Inspirational

I thought this guy's speech about racism in the coming US election was the best speech I've heard in a long time. You can totally feel how passionate he is by the end of it.

Old School Australian Electronica

The early nineties was the period in which electronica exploded into the Australian scene. This was a fresh time in Oz music, a lot of proto-electronica bands were experimenting with digital sampling and arranging tracks on computer, they traded in their guitars for Virtual Analogue synths, the synths that made classic-ish synth sounds so much more affordable. Bands like Falling Joys, Single Gun Theory, Severed Heads and Underground Lovers are the bands that stick in my mind from that period.



Oz music had been dominated by traditional rock band setups for ages and the groundbreaking forays that these bands made into an audience not yet accustomed to these kinds of sounds was simply pioneering and inspired. Have a listen to Single Gun Theory's Fall - a fitting entry to a genre of Australian music whose merits have been largely unsung but not forgotten.

Starchaser - Falling Star

Discogs listing

Forget the vocal track, the instrumental is where this record really shines. So in love with this tune when it first came out, I paid an obscene amount and ordered it directly from Vandit in Berlin, Germany and had it sent out to me in Hokkaido, Japan. To me this track just yells summer is just around the corner with it's catchy baseline and its laid back vibe. Originally released in 2003, I think it still sounds fresh and dripping awesome even now.

Why we blog

So why am I writing this blog? I've amassed thousands of CDs and hundreds of vinyl records. In my collection I have music ranging from Johnny Cash to My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult but enough with the name dropping. I have so many choons, some the pinnacle of human artistic expression, other's not so but they make great coasters and frisbees. There's some tracks that are just too good to keep a secret so I'm taking it on myself to unleash the tracks that have moved me and hopefully, they will move you too.

mel