Wednesday 20 June 2007

It's a Beautiful life...

Few things to share on this (post-massive storm) Wednesday morning. The first is simply a single track..

Gui Boratto - Beautiful Life

A stunning track, perhaps even the highlight, from a stunning debut album from Brazillian producer Gui Boratto. Though he's been producing for over adecade or so he only dropped his first long player this year, a rather great mix of slightly minimal techno, with a warm brazilain edge to it and elements of house and electro thrown in for good measure. Beautiful life though, is a slice of pure blissed out indulgance. Imagine Nathan Fake coming up at sunrise on a quiet beach in Sao Paulo and you'ree somewhere close. I'd reccomend it over the new Justice and Simain Mobile releases to be honest, though you should look into those soon afterwardss! On that note, here's a touch of Mr. Fake for comparrison:

Nathan Fake - You Are Here


Secondly, i'd like to point out that everyone's favourtie potty-mouthed little French lady, Uffie, is piosed to drop her debut next month (if word on the 'net is to be believed). She also has a new single released, i believe, at the start of the week. Going by the name "First Love", it comes across as a slightly deeper, more emotive effort than her previous works and certaionly beats the hell out of her recent collaboration with Justice and her track for the Ed Rec 2 compilation which, frankly, just felt ruched. I'd say there definitely seems to be much more of a Mehdi influence in this new track as well. Anyway, it's definitely the best thing she's done since the Hot Chick/In Charge split and i'm rather fond of it.

Uffie - First love

The final thin to mention, bearing in mind this current trend for indie dnace movement, is Gomma Records from Germany. having more akin, i think, to Kitsune than Ed Banger, who concentrate on (somewhat accidentally it would seem) on their roster of electronic artisits who all happen to have an upbringing on instruments, lending a wonderful organic feel to their tracks. Seemingly, and criminally, ignored with the current popularity of the French seen you should go and see for yourselves that Germany is always prepared to step up and fight for it's reputation. A recent cut from artist Golden Bug:

Golden Bug - Barbies Back

Monday 18 June 2007

Summer is here!

Or is it? I'm not sure to be honest... How many good days have we had since April? Not enough by my reckoning. Anyway, to those of you who have been dilligently (thank you) checking up here you, of course, have noticed that there has been little (read: nothing) happening. My apologies. I suppose i could say that i've been busy what with the whole graduation process etcetera, but in reality i've just been enjoying myself a little too much as well as my internet beeing down for a number of weeks now. Dave i can't speak for, i suspect he's just lazy (yeah, how'd you like them apples Dave!). So time for a round up of the exciting stuff we've been up to over the last month or so.

Firstly, there was last month's Dollop, a great round of to a year of great nights with Friendly Fires really outdoing themselves, getting half the crowd on stage and ending up playing "Your Love" twice for that very reason. I certainly wasn't complaining. Brilliant. Mr. Flash then proceeded to wow with his turntable skills for much of the rest of the night. (i have since been told this was acctually Vicarious Bliss, but as most of the Ed Rec crew have longish hair and are fairly beardy, i'm just not sure as to who it really was!). Either way it was fantastic fun and our (mystery) Ed Recker was on fine form, even rolling out Rage Against The machine's "Killing In The Name" which seems to, oddly, be becoming somewhat of a rave classic. Fun stuff indeed.

Friendly Fires - Your Love

Next up, two days later on Sunday 27th (May) was Nottingham's own Dot to Dot festival. In short, this was bascially owned by Late Of The Pier, who fucking killed their set. These guys are on fire at the moment and are easily worth all the attention they're getting. Also, they're nearly as nice as Bolt Action Five and you know how much we like them! Other highlights were Foals, Kate Nash (anyone who slates Caroline's a Victim should hear it live, fantastic!) and my second favourite moment of the day (after LOTP's "Bathroom Gurgle") Was Tapedecks' double set, sandwhiching Bonde Do Role, culminating in their remix of Atlatis to Interzone (tell me you know who it's by!). What a moment! Download it below from an old post. Another great day in Nottingham.

The next few weeks were more or less lost in a drunken haze with many a random house party and drinking through hangovers of various degrees of seriousness. Highlights, off the top of my head, would have been Justice and Busy P demolishing the MArcus Garvey ballroom at Firefly's seventh birthday. Big up those guys for putting on slamming techno nights for seven years now! Justice were great, as always i imagine. The nice surpirse was Busy P, who i thought was just there because of his position as Ed banger boss. Wrong. A talented DJ he was indeed, and worked the crowd well, who were all pumped for Justice when they appeared (after, it must be said, a somewhat unnecesaary set from local beatboxer, Petebox). Once again, props to the Ed Rec crew for being, well, amazing.

The only fault at this stage had been Fresh Out Of Death. Don't get me wrong, i had a great time and Punks Jump Up knocked out a killer set. I was, though, slightly dissappointed by DJ Mehdi. Having a few of his tunes/remixes on record (not to mention he's a big player for Ed Banger) i was really quite exctied, on arrival though he seemed far to intent on mixing too many tuines in too quickly, giving his set a fractured feel as it never allowed and flow or momewntum to build up. Shame. On that note we left, meaning that we missed exciting new prospect d.i.m. (recently signed to Turbo recordings, owned, i believe, by Tiga) who i'm sure was immense, but it was firefly the next day and we were tired and poor. Drat. Thus we ambled home feeling a little dissaponted. Still, kudos to the Fresh Out Of Death crew for the line up, it was a sick one.

Punks Jump Up - Dance To Our Disco (Baseball Furies mix)

d.i.m. - Airbus Baby

All that's left to report after that would be my Saturday in Hyde park over the weekend for the O2 Wireless festival with, excuse my language, motherfucking DAFT PUNK! A few days of crappy weather cleared up in the early afternoon meaning we got to enjoy the likes of Shy Child (better than OK, but nothing special), Datarock (hilarious fun, probably a highlight for sheer comedy value alone, but don't let that detract you from the music. They have an array of absolutely cracking tunes. Go see 'em, you won't regret it), Digitalism (amazing, of course, though the Daft Punkisms can not be denied. It's no bad thing though, look how good they are! I was paticularly glad to hear new single Pogo, probably the best inide track i've heard since Banquet, and written by an electro band. Doesn't say a lot for indie at the moment), New Young Pony Club (i have to say it, i'm really not that big a fan... but they were ok), CSS (well, the end of, wish i'd seen more as it was so much fun, Off the Hook and Music is My Hot Hot Sex in paticular were fantastic, but those drink queues are so long). After that we sat outside the XFM tent having a beer and listening to Simian Mobile Disco (as we'd seen them in the rescue rooms the week before). they sound imbecible and i couldn't refrain from dancing around like a twat on my own, nice. A little bit of LCD Soundsytem (good, i think i need to look into them more, but they didn't sound as good as i expected, in fact there was a distincly un-electronic sound about i was a little dissapointed by, but hey, everyone else seemed to be loving it so i'm probably wrong. Then again, didn't Bon Jovi release something titled something along the lines of, "Shit loads of people can't be wrong"? Well John, yes they can as you're music has always struck me as the aural equivilant of of a paticularly nasty session on the loo after a piss up and a curry. Go listen to Iron Maiden to see how it's supposed to be done, or even Van Halen). Anyway, i digress, Midday through we went to get more beer, abandoning our frined Ruth (who seemed to find the rest of her friends and have a good evening beyond that, so no worries) when i heard Klaxons playing Golden Skans coming from the XFM tent. being quite drunk at this point we, again, sat outside the tent with our beer and sang along loudly to every word of the rest of the set much to the enjoyment/ammusent/annoyance of those around us. I loved every second of it. Do not be put off by things lke their performance on the Jothnathon Ross show, in real gig situations they sound ace. Which leaves us with Daft Punk (myspace) themsleves. Having missed the start due to our antics outside the XFM tent we ended up pushing our way to the middle to the sounds of Robot Rock. Hell, it suited me fine. They spent most of the next hour and a half (or so) knocking out one of the best sets i've ever heard, possibly surpassed by Iron Maiden performing tracks only from their first four albums at Reading 2005 and Isis on the "Oceanic tour" in... 2003 i believe. I may well have fallen strongly in love with Bangalter and de Homen-Christo, but let's keep that hush-hush... So, returning for on encore, complete with lit up robot costumes (the final touch to the greatest light show i've ever borne witness to)i seem to remember hearing "Human After All" (again), "Prime Time of your Life," "da Funk," and possibly a bit more of One More Time... Either way, it's definitely in my top three shows of all time, maybe even top, only time will tell.


Datarock - Fa Fa Fa



Daft Punk - Da Funk


CSS - Music Is My Hot Hot Sex

CSS - Let's Make Love... (Simian Mobile Disco RMX)

And now, in the aftermath, i'm sitting at home missing all my friends deeply, looking forward to catching up with a few back in Nottingham in the last week and a half of June and as many of the rest of you over as many years as possible, with my newly required degree (which i'm not entirely sure i need, but is nice to have) wondering what the hell to do now, hence the rambling in this post, but if anyone reading this happens to run a record store in London and needs an employee it'd be good to hear from you (Ha, if only!).

There are, as always, some downloads for you pleasure. however, as always, we ask that you make some effort to go and see the bands and Djs that you love and make buy some of their merchandise, albums or singles on you favourite format so that they can carry on doing what they love and we can keep writing about them! Some bands i have purposefully not put up downlaods for as they already have some up here. Go search, you might find an interesting piece i wrote a few months back, though probabably not and thus just download the track... I forever live in hope though.

All my love,


Chuck.



P.S. Just bookended my year by finishing John Peel's Autobiography "Margrave of the Marshes" A Fantastic, very emotive read and, i feel, perhaps essential reading for any open minded music fan and i thoroughly recomend buying it, though if you know me, just ask to borrow mine.

P.P.S. One thing I forgot, my surprise find of the day at Dot to Dot, Dolby Anol. They were really quite good. I Believe we were treated to a rare live show, though it may have just been DJing with laptops, either way they are definitely ones to keep an eye on.

Dolby Anol - Vista-Countdown (Freelance Hellraiser Mix)