Too Late To...

Aldo Chaparro

Red lit and smoke machine tainted club sounds. This is a bass heavy mix of dark UK house, chunky percussion and filthy electro. The mix features tracks by producers on the verge (South London Ordnance, Jook 10, My Nu Leng), underground heavyweights (Roska, Girl Unit, Boddika), and even a few old-school heroes (The Stickmen ('94 stylee!), Andrea Parker, Aux 88). It also features more instances of the words "bitch" and "pussy" than I have personally uttered in the entirety of my existence, so maybe not for banging at the office.

Too Late To Die Young by Kelcey on Mixcloud

1) Fatima Al Qadiri - Hip Hop Spa
2) South London Ordnance - Fjord
3) DVA - Flute Tune
4) Zebra Katz (feat. Njena Reddd Foxxx) - Ima Read
5) Roska - Bassface (Breach remix)
6) Addison Groove (feat. Spank Rock) - Bad Things
7) Girl Unit - Wut (Claude Vonstroke remix)
8) The Stickmen - The Drug
9) Boddika - Basement
10) Auntie Flo - Oh My Days (Pearson Sound remix)
11) The Pearl - Flesh Eaters (Distal remix)
12) Secret Frequency Crew - Miami Eyes (Andrea Parker remix)
13) Max Durante meets Aux 88 - Body Work (Max Durante lysergic remix)
14) West Norwood Cassette Library - Get Lifted
15) Spank Rock (feat. Big Feedia) - Nasty (Addison Groove remix)
16) Jook 10 - Peng
17) Headbirds - Dead Kingdom
18) My Nu Leng - Croatian
19) Fatima Al Qadiri - D-medley (Ikonika remix)

Download via Mixcrate

Twelve of 11

A list of my favorite tracks of 2011.  No specific order and no claims of completeness, just the tracks I loved over the last year for reasons various and mostly subjective.  

1. Ghostpoet – Survive It (Quest’s Guidance mix)
2. Clams Casino – Brainwash by London
3. Holy Other – Touch
4. Drake – Dreams Money Can buy
5. Dj Rum – Mountains, Parts 2 & 3
6. Floating Points – Myrtle Avenue
7. Falty DL – Mean Streets, Part 1
8. The Weeknd – Wicked Games.
9. Schlomo – Just Us
10. Rick Wilhite – Blame it on the Boogie (feat. Theo Parrish & Osunlade)
11. Julio Bashmore – Battle for Middle You
12. Jamie xx – Far Nearer

Ghostpoet – Survive It (Quest’s Guidance mix)

“I know, Times are hard, You're against the wall, and your head is down…”  The weary, yet determined, optimism of Ghostpoet’s lyrics perfectly captures the dire resilience that colored 2011.  And, Quest’s remix, haunted by both the dread weight of ’06 dubstep and the bittersweet swing of classic UKG amplifies that sense of struggle at the songs heart.

Clams Casino – Brainwash by London

Everything Clams Casino touched this year was gold.  However, this smoked-out sub-base work out was a personal favorite for soundtracking late night subway rides.  The shouty bit at 1:30 is a great reichian sing-along moment.

Holy Other – Touch

A long cold draft of liquid longing and desperation.  The comparison to Burial is unavoidable but here all that late night hum is devoid of skittering beats or nostalgia.  This is the best in a long list of excellent releases of dark electronics from Tri-Angle over the course of the year.

Drake – Dreams Money Can buy

The love/hate relationship with Drake continues.  Yeah, his constant whinging over the melancholy of cars, money, women and fame should be grating, insulting or by this point tired but somehow you find yourself relating to the emotions even if the specifics are absurd.  The touches of self-deprecation and the off-kilter, self-destructing beats certainly help.

Dj Rum – Mountains, Parts 2 & 3

Widescreen, moody, sub-laced atmospherics.  This track should be too noodley, overly melodramatic, disjointed.  Instead, it reclaims and repurposes the emphasis on bass and space that dubstep discarded on its way to mainstream dancefloors.

Floating Points – Myrtle Avenue

Brilliant in every way.   This track is in a constant state of subtle flux, slowly writhing and contorting, the beats growing and tightening until they peek intensity and then, when you expect a huge synth flourish or massive drop, Floating Points simply places you down in new aural surroundings, not entirely unfamiliar but fresh and airy.  Then the process begins again.  The fact that that gorgeous vocal flourish (Fatima?) doesn’t appear until over 7 minutes in, is testament alone to the masterful amount of restraint at work here.

Falty DL – Mean Streets, Part 1

A number of Falty DL tunes from the past year could have made the cut (Hip Love. Lucky Luciano, Here We Go Again remix…).  But this is perhaps the most unique and, pressed in a limited vinyl only run, the hardest to track down.  Lagos by way of Brooklyn and Croydon,  I do not understand how this wasn’t a huge anthem. 

The Weeknd – Wicked Games

No one had a bigger year than The Weeknd.  Doubling down on Drake’s emo-bling and taking the beats edgier and sparser, the result is an addictive brew of filthy late-night R&B from the edge of the abyss.   This track came with an amazing, supposedly unsolicited video (NSFW).

Schlomo – Just Us

I’m on a dawn plane, unslept and hungover, reality lurching and pitching around me like I am out at sea instead stuck on the LGA tarmac.  This song rises through a folder full of random odds and ends on my MP3 player, with no artist or track info, only the unhelpful cover art.  Its frayed, skittering beats and haunted underwater carnival synths are the perfect complement to my state of mind.   It takes more than a week before I track down the info.  

Rick Wilhite – Blame it on the Boogie (feat. Theo Parrish & Osunlade)

"slick rick was in the house, turning it out, the girls were all singing lad di da di, I guess we were having a party…" The official Den of Iniquities party jam.  More fun than a serious Detroit house track should be allowed to be.

Julio Bashmore – Battle for Middle You

The hands down dancefloor anthem of the year.  Classic house and garage (Doomsnight Revisted?) are encoded in its DNA, yet it sounds like nothing else out there.  The call to “stomp your feet and get down” is superfluous.  Like you have any choice.

Jamie xx – Far Nearer

Oh, the steel drums!!  I played this more times this year than all the other tracks on this list combined.  If you stepped in my house or anywhere I was allowed control of the selection you heard it.  In the winter it made you dream of beaches and sunshine.  In the Spring and Summer it compelled you to sip cocktails in the sun and dance under open skies.

Bonus: Azealia Banks - 212 

The most grin-inducing, joyously filthy thing I've heard in ages.  

Summer Mix

A quick little 40min. mix of breezy, unapologetic, sub-laced House music. This one is custom built for the hazy twilight hours, sipping drinks w/ umbrellas, dancing under an open sky.

SMMR MIX (June 2011) by kelcey

1) Groove Theory - Tell Me (George Fitzgerald remix)
2) Photek - Rings Around Saturn (Breach remix)
3) The Martin Brothers - Steel Drums (Julio Bashmore remix)
4) Julio Bashmore - Battle for Middle You
(Maurice Donovan remix)
5) Boddika - Soul What
6) Ossie - Creepy Crawlies
7) Jamie xx - Far Nearer
8) Deadboy - Heartbreaker (Julio Bashmore remix)
9) Jacques Greene - Tell Me
10) ZZT - ZZafrika
11) Caribou - Sun (Midland re-edit)
12) Karizma - Good Morning (Kaytronik remix)

Summer Mix 2011 by Kelcey on Mixcloud

Conjurers' Dub - Vol. 2

above a still from Maya Deren's Divine Horsemen

"The tracks succumb to apparitions, become porous, crackle like the celluloid burning up a the end of Persona. Degeneration = Regeneration. Sound susurrates into an electromagnetic nth world through which ghosts grow, effects superimpose and wraiths congregate."

    
     - Kodwo Eshun: More Brilliant Than The Sun

A new bass heavy mix designed for those magical late-night/early-morning hours when spirits are summoned from obsidian and mad-beautiful ideas are conjured through key strokes. A sequel to last years Conjurers' Dub, to my ears this mix has a little more drive than its older sister but there is still enough bass and space to do the job.

My aim was an elastic mix of drag, doomjazz and dub-techno custom built for long winter nights spent trawling the abyss. Let me know what you think.


Conjurers Dub Vol 2 (mix) by kelcey

1.The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation – Deadly Rehearsals
2.Forest Swords – Rattling Cage
3.Demdike Stare – Bardo Thodol
4.Water Borders – Akko (Petals remix)
5.Roman Lindau – Keppra
6.Fever Ray – Seven (Marcel Dettman remix)
7.Eliphino – I Just Can't
8.Raime – This Foundry
9.Badawi – The Axiom (Andy Stott remix)
10.L.B. Dub Corp. - It's What You Feel
11.Onmutu Mechanicks – Lupus Moon (Xdb remix)
12.Nick Hoppner – Isp
13.Mike Shannon – Under the Radar (Deadbeat remix)
14.Scuba – Tracers (Deadbeat remix)
15.Rhythm & Sound (feat. Tikiman) – Acting Crazy
16.Resoe – Minus & Plus (Sigha remix)
17.Lerosa and Donato Dozzy – Neon Snake
18.Alice Russell – Hurry On Now (Emika remix)
19.Echologist (feat. The Spaceape) – Mercy Beat (Mri vs. UES remix)
20.Bvdub – A Silent Reign
21.Forest Swords – Hjurt (Pariah remix)
22.oOoOO - Sedsumting

Unified Bass Theory Vol. 2

A sequel to my original Unified Bass Theory mix, again I tried to draw from a broad spectrum of underground BASS sounds, mining the fertile margins at the edges of UK Funky, House, Dubstep and West Coast beats.

The mix has a serious summer vibe, custom built for both sun drenched afternoons and sweat soaked late nights.

Unified Bass Theory Vol. 2 by kelcey

1) Gil Scott Heron - New York is Killing Me
2) Eprom - Bubble
3) Free The Robots - Orion's Belt Buckle
4) The xx - Islands (Untold remix)
5) Jose James - Warrior (SBTRKT remix)
6) Grace Jones - Love You To Life (Digital Mystikz remix)
7) Ikonika - Yoshimitsu
8) Pariah - Orpheus
9) Ramadanman - Don't Change For Me
10) F- Energy Distortion (Untold remix)
11) DJ MA1 — High Definition (Deep Teknologi remix)
12) Hardhouse Banton - Rein (Roska remix)
13) MJ Cole - Phoenix Riddim
14) MJ Cole - AO (MJ's Open Your Gob dub)
15) Girl Unit - IRL (DVA's Hi Emotions remix)
16) Karizma - I.C.U.
17) A Made Up sound - Sun Touch
18) Zero 7 - Ghost sYMbOL (Julio Bashmore remix)
19) Altered Natives - Raaatid Einstein
20) Argy & DJ Gregory - Our Drums
21) DVA - Ganja
22) Hypno - Over the Top
23) Kentphonik - Hiya Kaya (Rocco Deep mix)
24) Roska - The Sheppard
25) Hot Chip - I Feel Better (Ill Blu remix)

R.I.P. Rammellzee

All humans are spectators to Art in the second dimension. We are only recording recepticles for energy’s knowledge for the build procedure.

[...]

Death is remanipulation only be electromagnetic knowledge energy leaving disease because of malfunction of inhabited diseaseculture, other deaths are only CHANGE. Electromagnetics’ knowledge disperses back into the course of the Van Allen Belt’s (in purity).

from the ICONIC TREATISE ON GOTHIC FUTURISM


I’m not sure how I originally came across Rammellzee’s Iconic Treatise on Gothic Futurism. The CCRU or Kodwo Eshun may have had something to do with it. The internet surely did. What I do know is that I was in no way prepared for the experience.

While Ramm’s music is excellent and truly foundational it was this pamphlet that really blew my mind. Reading it is one a unique experiences where even as you strain to make sense the text you are convinced the words and symbols are re-wiring your neurons without your consent.

Ramm:Ell:Zee >> Performer of the Equation >> Runner of the Transversus, may his eletomagnetic knowledge return to the Van Allen Belt.




video via @Hyperdub

Conjurers' Dub (mix)

image via The Afflicted Yard

There is no silence in that Abyss: for all that men
call Silence is Its Speech.
- the book of lies

For some time now I've wanted to assemble a mix comprised of the deep, dark, dubby tunes that soundtrack my late night writing sessions and dark nights of soul. This mix rides a thick black night groove through headier Shackleton productions, stripped back dubstep and echo drenched, slow burn dub-techno. It's laced with a haunting Tikiman vocal and The Space Ape's hypnotic delivery and bookended by TKDE's glorious doomjazz.

It's built more for head-nodding meditation than peek time dancing. A sustaining anti-lullaby for babes of the abyss

Conjurers' Dub (mix)  by  kelcey

(00:00) Demdike Stare - Extwistle Hall
(01:40) The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble - Seneca
(05:35) Harmonia '76 - Sometimes In Autumn (Shackleton Remix)
(09:50) Shackleton - Asha In The Tabernacle
(15:35) Vindixatrix - Private Places (Shackleton & Mordant Music Version)
(20:50) Emika - Drop The Other (Scuba's Vulpine Remix)
(25:00) Pangaea - Dead Living
(29:20) CV313 - Subtraktive
(30:35) Rhythm and Sound feat. Tikiman - Na Fe Throw It
(38:00) STL - Checkmate (cv313 Remodel)
(39:35) Fever Ray - Seven (Marcel Dettmann remix)
(44:15) Martyn feat. Space Ape - Is This Insanity? (Ben Klock Remix)
(47:00) Red Shape - Dark & Sticky
(50:00) Pendle Coven -Uncivil Engineering (Calm Mix)
(52:05) Deadbeat - Teach The Devil's Son
(58:00) Beat Pharmacy feat. Space Ape - Ghostship (Deadbeat dub)
(62:00) Appleblim - Within
(65:15) The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble - Embers

End X 10

I've started off the new decade by digitally recreating a 10 year old mixtape. Copies of the original tape were given to a few friends with an early version of Music For End Times.

Nearly all the tracks in the mix were released between '95 - '99. It starts out with a bit of Illbient and Asian Underground sounds easing in to a run of Metalheadz style Drum & Bass rollers and than rolling out through some banging warehouse techno and over the top trance. In the spirit of the original there are still a few dodgy mixes left in.

Some of tunes still sound fresh to my ears (Jamie Myerson, Source Direct). Other tunes make me question the effects of sustained ecstasy use on musical taste (Drop Bass Network, Binary Finary). In the end it's a fun survey of the underground electronic sounds of the late 90s.

END X 10  by  kelcey

1) Toshiro Mayuzumi- The Creation of Eve (1966)
2) Mocean Worker – Detonator (1998) (palm pictures)
3) DJ Spooky – Sum Ill Shit (Clinton Street Dub) (1998) (asphodel)
4) Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan – Nothing Without You/Tery Bina (The Dhol Foundation & Fun-Da-Mental Remix) (1997)
5) Osmani Soundz – Spiritual Masterkey (1997) (mango)
6) Miles Davis – Bitches Brew (1970)
7) Ian Pooley - Vital One (1996) (mille plateaux)
8) Jamie Myerson - Music For The Lonely (remix) (1997) (sm:)e)
9) E-Z Rollers – Soundclash ('99 edit) (moving shadow)
10) Known / Unknown – Rollers Edit (1999) (moving shadow)
11) Adam F – Metropolis (1996) (metalheadz)
12) J Majik – Face II Face (1997) (infrared)
13) Source Direct – Black Domina (1996) (science)
14) Elijah - Chiming Fugue (1995) (home entertainment)
15) DJ Rolando - Shining Path (1997) (Underground Resistance)
16) Luke Slater – Love (loved) (1998) (novamute)
17) Neil Landstrumm – Praline Horse (I Ate The Whole Bag Remix) (1996) (tresor)
18) Goio - Basic Needs (1995) (drop bass network)
19) Speedy J - Pannik (1997) (plus 8)
20) Kai Tracid - Tiefenrausch (Oliver Lieb Remix) (1999) (tracid traxxx)
21) Binary Finary – 1999 (Matt Darey remix) (1999) (wiggle)

Moon Dandies

"Still others thrive , swaggering ex-pats of reality who work the export angle, crafting dreamland bric-a-brac for sale at a considerable mark-up. The oneiric carpet-baggers: artists, writers, sculptors, sorcerers.

Tycoons of fancy, speculating, long on made-up futures. Sauntering the silvery parades. A tall-tale aristocracy.

Moon Dandies with their pockets full of brushes, pens and fireflies. Plumes of imagery are kicked up from their spats at every step."

- from Alan Moore's Snakes & Ladders


Snakes & Ladders: Audio CD w/ Tim Perkins and Graphic Novel w/ Eddie Campbell

I also highly recomend the Disease of Language hardcover, collecting The Birth Caul, Snakes & Ladders and a fascinating interview of Moore by Campbell (edit: sadly it appears to be out of stock).

[actual bloggery will commence very soon I promise. I've been a bit distracted]

SkatePunk: I Don't Wanna Live to be 34

SkatePunk was the first music growing up that I could truly call my own. Distributed through cheap Realistic Concertapes, via skateboard kick & push, peer to peer, hand to hand, it had fuck all to do with my hip parents record collections and even less in common with pop radio or a nascent Mtv. It was instead the product of a particular subculture of skateboarding in the late 80s. A time when the now multi-billion dollar international industry was not only a really fun hobby but a de facto statement of social defiance and in many small towns an act of civil disobedience. It was a strange experience as a young kid to have your favorite past time become a minor criminal act but it totally amped up your inherent youthful rebellion and the music kicked in hard and fast to soundtrack it all perfectly.

Unlike previous post-atomic decades, in the 80s we came to a peculiar acceptance with our own imminent nuclear annihilation. This rather mad respect for the world ending at any moment fed the aggression, urgency and uniquely perverse optimism of SkatePunk. If we didn't have long to live there was no time to learn more than a few chords, no time to wait for a record deal or spend a year in the studio honing your magnum opus. Hell there wasn't even time enough for me, as a listener, to sit through a drum or guitar solo. If you were going to fiddle about prog rock style on the guitar I was out of there. I had girls to snog, ramps to ride, curbs to grind, fights to start. And always there was the feeling that time was running out, that dark international forces were out there working hard against me seeing my 21st birthday. I sure as hell didn't have time for 12 minute songs or three hour concerts sets.

SkatePunk was political in that all powers of authority, institutional or otherwise, were to be rejected and should go fuck off! It was dystopian in that the total collapse of society was taken as a given and therefore we should live for today and for each other and the rest of the mess could go get lost. It was about love and loss in so far as those things consumed with such force that the only remedy was to found in a primal shout, a shower of guitar feedback and a good violent dance. But most of all SkatePunk, unlike Punk's first wave, was constantly in motion. There was no vamping it up on the high street in Vivian Westwood, or wasting time eating White Castle and scoping girls draped in heavy leather. We had something to do, skate, and we did it with the same urgency and abandoned with which we danced, loved, shouted at the night and ran from the cops. You can hear it in the music but the songs are only 2 minutes long so listen sharp.






















SkatePunk Vol. 1: I Don't Wann Live to be 34

1. Dead Kennedys - Police Truck(1980)
"Dispatch calls are you doin something wicked?, No siree, jack, were just givin tickets"
2. Circle Jerks - Live Fast Die Young(1980)
"I don't wanna live to be 34, I don't wanna die in a nuclear war"
3. Dickies - Gigantor (1980)
"Quicker than quick, Stronger than strong, Ready to fight for right, against wrong"
4. Agent Orange - Bloood Stains (1981)
"Someday i'm gonna change my mind, Sometimes I'd rather kill"
5. Minor Threat - In My Eyes (1981)
"You tell me you want to be different, You just change for the same"
6. T.S.O.L. - Abolish Government/Silent Majority (1981)
"Wake up to the same old shit, Live your life to suit their fit"
7. Bad Brains - Big Takeover (1982)
"So understand when I say, there's no hope for this U.S.A"
8. The Faction - Skate and Destroy (1983)
"The cops are coming after me, their sons are BMXers, They always try to stop me but urethane is faster than boots"
9. Social Distortion - Mommy's Little Monster (1983)
"Her eyes are a deeper blue, she likes her hair that color too"
10. Suicidal Tendencies - Institutionalized (1983)
"All I wanted was a Pepsi, just one Pepsi, and she wouldn't give it to me."
11. Black Flag - Slip It In (1984)
"You're getting around, I'm not putting it down, It's just what it is, Getting it while it's around"
12. Butthole Surfers - Wichita Cathedral (1984)
"Wiped out wasted Wichita, Cathedrals on my mind, Last time I got wasted there, My poor dog just went blind"
13. JFA - Pipetruck (1984)
"dumdum dada dumdum"
14. Drunk Injuns - She's Gots A Gun (1985)
"Thoughts of tomorrow, Tear me apart, I think of the past, You’re the pain of my heart"
15. D.I. - Johnny Has A Problem (1985)
"Chippin' every day chipin' for the gipper, Chippin' on chippin' on down the line"
16. Toy Dolls - My Girlfriend's Dad's A Vicar (1985)
"He's a Vicar ya know, works in a church"
17. 7 Seconds - Walk Together Rock Together (live) (1987)
"Why don't I buy you a beer? Because I'm not old enough"
18. Dag Nasty - Excersise (1987)
"I'm irresponsible, I'm irrational, it's irreversible, what are you gonna do?"
19. Descendants - All-O-Gistics (live) (1987)
"Though shalt not partake of the dreaded decaf"
20. G.B.H. - Makin' Whips (1987)
"But you're going nowhere ya missing the whole damn point, lighten up, lighten up and we'll rip the joint."
21. McRad - Weakness (1987)
"My weakness is I can't say no, My weakness is I can't let go, So stay with me I'll let you know that love is something I can show"
22. McRad - McShred (1987)
"McSHRED!!"

I'm sure I've forgotten a bunch of great bands and tunes so drop your faves in the comments box. Vol. 2 will be up in a couple of weeks. I just need to track a few things down.

NJ crew - check out Randy Now's excellent collection of old school City Gardens photos & flyers here.