Ewan Pearson. Enthusiasm...

Groove Column: On speaking the language (June 2008)

So I started Sprachschule again. While other DJs were drinking their mini-bars I sat in my hotel this weekend learning which prepositions are followed by the dative and which the accusative. I enjoyed it. But then, I am a nerd. I should have jumped at the chance to go back to school months ago. Why didn’t I?

My usual answer to that question is to reel off a list of excuses about traveling and working a lot. I rarely admit the real reason that underpins most English-speaking peoples’ linguaphobia: fear. Britain’s colonial past made English the must-have language of the Western world, and continues to let native speakers strut around as if we owned the place. Berlin’s Anglophone DJs and musicians are just the latest in a long line. But we harbour secret feelings of terror and inferiority when we hear just how well everyone else can speak our language too.

There are other reasons for my reticence. I’ve spent my whole life avoiding things I’m not good at and trying to learn a language from scratch means giving up being subtle, intelligent or interesting to appear instead both stupid and boring, at least for a while. Wittgenstein said “the limits of my language mean the limits of my world”. At the moment my world is very cramped and comes to a stop just past the dry-cleaners.

I feel slightly guilty admitting this, but there are also pleasures in ignorance, in not speaking the language. Taxi rides free of the burden of conversation; peace in a room full of chatter; media-babble becomes so much white noise; the news and its woes fall on others’ ears. If you can’t turn the world off exactly, you can turn it down a little.

But you cut yourself off from much life and joy too. In a taxi to London’s City Airport yesterday my Bengali driver startled me by asking in perfect German how long I’d lived in Berlin. “Vier Jahren” I replied and the rest of the journey we talked about his former life in Frankfurt and his new one in England, partly in German and partly in English. Two immigrants chatting about their new homes in the language of both. Looks like I’ve already started talking to taxi drivers again after all. I rather liked it.

Groove Column: On music and memory (April 2008)

In the UK there is a radio show called ‘Guilty Pleasures’, devoted to playing the tracks the you secretly like but are too embarrassed to admit to liking. It’s a way of ironising a love of pop that some people seem to want to renounce as they get older, for hipsters to tacitly admit that the music which burrows its way into one’s head - the greatest word in German is orvorm - which soundtracks the triumphs and disasters of our existence (and gives us more unalloyed joy in the process) is more often Barry White or Fleetwood Mac than it is Sonic Youth or Arthur Russell.

Me, I’m all too happy to admit that the works of Britney Spears or Michael Jackson have given me more pure pleasure than Panda Bear or Minilogue ever will. Like many of us, I have measured out my life in dubious pop records. The first single I ever bought was not 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' or 'I Feel Love'. It was Ray Parker Junior’s theme from 'Ghostbusters'. I learned to play the piano with the help of Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits songbook (I can be persuaded to give you my version 'Just The Way You Are' if you ply me with enough booze). The biggest reaction to any record I can remember as a DJ was when I dropped Rod Stewart’s 'Do You Think I’m Sexy' at a wedding on a beach in Spain. Magic.

Pop music - usually at its cheesiest and least cool - is one of the most powerful means by which we form and cement memory.  Why is it that I can quote very little of any of the books I studied at University, but I can finish the lyric of Vanilla Ice’s 'Rollin' In My 5.0' - a record I  do not own - without even thinking twice?  More potent than Proust’s madeleine it can take you back, instantly, to any number of moments from your past. Play me Bryan Adams 'Run To You' and I am a small child on holiday, driving around Wales with my Mum and Dad, all of us singing our lungs out and as happy as I think I will ever get. Play me Status Quo’s frankly appalling 'Sweet Caroline' and I am at a school disco vying with my friend Dean for the attentions of the cutest girl in my class.

Two weeks ago, I was at the funeral of my Grandma. As the eulogies were spoken, on a loop in my head were the old film comedians Laurel and Hardy singing 'The Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia', which was one of the few records my grandparents owned and one which had my sister and I and them laughing like drains every time we played it. At the reception afterwards my dad asked me if there was anything I wanted to take from the house to remember her by. I smiled and shook my head. Laurel and Hardy will do me just fine.

(published April 2008)

Groove Column: On ears (February 2008)

It's early on a dirty Monday morning in Prenzluerberg, just me and my laptop; I can hear the January rain fall inexorably outside my bedroom window and the tippy-tap of my neighbour's high-heels as she wanders off to work. I can also hear a constant high-pitched whine, a fizziness which has set-up camp permanently in my head. I'm used to it now and I only really notice it first thing in the morning and when I go to bed. My tinnitus.

It's a dirty little secret amongst DJs but I know very few who have not got some kind of permanent problem with their hearing. In the past year two friends have had episodes which have threatened their job altogether - emergency trips to audiologists and periods of enforced rest. I know DJs that can't get to sleep at night without the television or dishwasher on to distract them from the constant whine.

Hearing damage comes in three flavours; tinnitus, the ringing in your ears that you get after a loud concert or club night, except it never goes away. Hyperacusis, where loud noises and sudden changes in volume become very painful. And hearing loss, where you become deaf to certain frequencies, like your grandma except 40 years too soon. Once you've damaged your ears there's very little you can do about it apart from try and take it a bit easier and prevent the damage from getting worse.

I’ve been using earplugs for several years and I’m lucky in that I have no hearing loss, but last year I had an episode of hyperacusis after a couple of drunken gigs where i really blasted my ears and didn’t wear my plugs. The next two months were miserable; car brakes squealing, the banging of plates, even the rattle of my flat keys really hurt. For someone whose other job is sitting in studios listening to electric guitars and cymbals being hit it terrified me. I thought my career as a producer was over.

It’s better again now, thank goodness, but I’m ‘fessing up to all this just to say if you’re spending lots of time (as you should be!) in loud clubs listening to deaf DJs playing great music, think about your ears from time to time. All clubs are loud enough to damage your hearing if you’re not careful. Buy and take plugs with you and make sure you wear them at least some of the time: there are cheap and effective wax and foam ones as well as amazing ones which are custom-moulded to the shape of your ear and actually often make the music in a too-loud club sound better. Give yourselves a rest at regular intervals. Let’s be careful out there.

(published February 2008)

Groove Column: The Supreme Overlord of Dance Decrees... (December 2007)

So, I have elected myself Supreme Overlord of dance music for 2008. Well, benevolent dictator, at least. Here are my decrees:

1. All producers will take a vow of chastity for the first half of the year. Have six months off. Learn to paint or to knit. Take up bird watching. Do some voluntary work in an old people’s home. Make yourselves useful.

2. Further to decree 1, all producers will count the number of remixes completed and records released in 2007 and release a third as many in 2008. Work harder than you did last year, but throw away everything you think is not genuinely going to add something to the world.

3. No releases will be allowed that are generated entirely by laptop or plug-in. All records should contain at least one certified example of someone hitting something real with a stick, yelling into a microphone, wrapping strings around an object and strumming them. That kind of thing. Documentary proof, photos etc, will be required.

4. Vinyl promo is henceforth banned.

5. At least 500 copies of every release must be pressed on vinyl, preferably in an attractive colour sleeve (remember, you learned to paint at the start of the year).

6. Said vinyl will be made available to record shops 14 DAYS before any electronic download release is permitted.

7. No digital download service will be granted ANY preferential treatment, lead-in times, rights or exclusivity in distribution over any other. Further they will mandatorily provide all downloads at no less than 320mbit MP3, AIFF or WAV.

8. EPs are henceforth banned. Two tracks per single release and no more will be permitted.

9. No house or techno record shall exceed 122BPM in tempo, and, further, every other release must contain at least one track that is 118BPM or slower. There will be no exceptions.

10. All DJs will undertake to change tempo at least once and play at least 3 vocal tracks or disco records in every two hour set of music.

11. DJs will undertake to be courteous and name any track they are playing to any member of the public that wants to know.

12. The public will refrain from asking the DJ to play harder / faster / better or “a request for my friend, as it’s her birthday”.

13. The superimposition of live percussion (comprising congas, bongos, timbales etc.) or saxophone over DJ sets is punishable by death.

(published December 2007)

Groove Column: On Gathering Ye Rosebuds While Ye May... (October 2007)

A note on this one; when it was comissioned it looked as though Bar 25 in Berlin was to close at the end of the season in 2007, to make way for the re-development of the last bit of land bordering the Spree that's not currently occupied by flats and offices. It has since been given a reprieve of at least one year, but the overall sentiment of the piece ("grab it while you can, folks") is still pertinent.

ewan
x

On gathering ye rosebuds, while ye may.

Soon Berlin's Bar 25 closes its anonymous little door for the last time. "So what?" you may shrug. In a city which boasts so many clubs, so many options, there is always another party.

Yes, but. In blessed but blasé Berlin it’s important to acknowledge the loss of something really special. For those of us with an unreasonable love for house and techno Bar 25 has become a second home. Wooden cabins nestling in trees overlooking the Spree, crammed with people dancing to amazing sets from local heroes or unannounced superstars: clubbing doesn’t get much more homely. Before you know it Sunday has given way to Monday or Tuesday.

As frequent-flying Auslanders like me know all too well, Berlin’s dance freaks are the luckiest in the world. Places like 25 and Club Des Visionaires are unheard of elsewhere. Relaxed attitudes to licensing and opportunities for around-the-clock clubbing aren't shared by any other city I’ve visited. DJing last week in Belfast the bar shut at half 1 and the place started to empty. I was told it was a great night, but that’s just how it is.

And things are getting tougher. There’s been a clampdown in Spain this year, and the ultra-strict enforcement of New York’s cabaret laws mean that if you dance in a bar that plays music you’ll be asked to leave. Whilst clubbing is more and more popular throughout the world, the opportunities for spontaneous or extended fun outside regular hours have never been fewer. Which makes the closure of somewhere like Bar 25 all the sadder.

Not long after I moved here, and in pretend shock and amusement at a culture that was so shameless about not knowing when to stop, I made a flippant comment on film that has followed me round ever since. I'm taking it back.

Forget home. Stay out for as long as you can, while you can. Do it, before you can't do it any more. Before it becomes inappropriate. Before the demands of family or work become too pressing (because, necessarily, they will). And most importantly, before the powers that be decide that you should be doing something quieter and more healthy, preferably where they can see you. Before all the spaces like 25 are bought up, sold off, closed down, removed for ever and this city becomes just like every other.

For it'll all be gone sooner than you think, and you not so long after.

(published October 2007)

Groove Column: On MP3 blogging (August 2007)

Hi folks,

last summer Heiko Hoffman the editor of Groove magazine asked me to write a bi-monthly guest column. The brief was only that it shouldn't be about records particularly and should instead be more observational / thoughtful. "Four hundred words, every two months, it won't take very much time at all" he said. "A piece of piss", I thought, my ego glowing smugly.

Actually, coming up with something that isn't either dull and worthy or blindly self-regarding DJ twaddle ("so there I was with Richie in Miami, darling...") is quite hard (and keeping it down to such a short length whilst maintaining a proper argument even harder). But some people have kindly said they enjoy reading them so I thought I would post my original English versions here too (before publication they are expertly translated into German by the lovely Heiko).

The first five are coming over the next few days, and then I'll post new ones every two months as they appear in Groove. Keen-eyed readers will notice the first one covers some familiar ground...

cheers m'dears,
ewan
x

Groove Column: On MP3 blogging.

I became really excited when music blogging first started. The passion, the bile, the ranting arguments between bloggers and the sheer hyperbole reminded me of the NME in the 80s, when I fell in love with reading and writing about pop.

Occasionally the NME included a vinyl EP with rare tracks and outtakes from its favourite bands on the cover. These days many highly-esteemed blogs include download links to the tracks they write about. MP3 blogs make me feel very uncomfortable indeed and their popularity says so much about our kid-in-a-candy-store culture, and the crises in music as a profession at the moment. I have three objections; one ethical, one practical and one romantic.

The first is very basic: giving away things that don't belong to you is wrong. Now I know that blogs have become a promotional tool for some bands and record labels, but part of me screams out that we’re adding to the development of a culture in no one thinks that musicians should be paid for what they do - it should just be a gift to society. After all we enjoy our job; how dare we ask to make a living from it as well?

Then there is the bottom line. Most people in dance music are aiming to sell a small amount of a specialist product; a blogger giving away mp3s of that great new single will take away a large percentage of sales. It’s happening now. Record sales have plummeted and it’s largely due to piracy. I’m lucky to have another life as a DJ. But for producers that don't DJ, or people who have spent years trying to run independent labels it's the most difficult time ever and it's just getting worse.

The third reason is romantic; part of me thinks that if the writing on a blog is good enough you don't have to have the music there to back it up. The NME stopped giving away vinyl singles after a couple of weeks - I kept buying it. If you have bribe people to come to your page with sweets you aren’t a good enough writer. If you have to play the damn track rather than evoke it or describe it so that people want to go out and hear it then what are you doing writing a blog in the first place?

If you're a music blogger and you care about music then write about it. If you have to give examples then stream it lo-res and tell people where they can go and buy it. Great music writing should excite the reader enough into going and searching for the music themselves, hunt that record, go to that gig. And maybe even paying for some of it too.

(published August 2007)

11.10.2007

1. Etienne Jaumet - Repeat Again After Me (Âme Remix) [Versatile]

An utter bomb from Versatile, and Âme's very best remix;  all hypnotic analogue polyrhythms and a screaming free sax freak-out over the top. Intense and unmissable, this is the freshest club track i've heard in a couple of months.

2. Mugwump - Boutade [Misericord]

So, it's time for Misericord release number two. Hot on the heels of Al Usher's mighty "Gnanfou", Mugwump deliver their finest work to date I reckon, a 107BPM club monster (for us Balearic grandads this is not a contradiction in terms, kids) called "Boutade".  It may be slow but it's already proving massive with the likes of Ivan Smagghe, Ata and Pete Herbert. Marcato strings and timpani build the drama until a massive bassline drops and everyone goes nuts. On the flip, myself, Sasse and Naughty turn in a chugging Prescription-esque dub for good measure. If you have the guts / sense to change the pace a bit you will be mightily rewarded. Once again, it comes in a beautifully-sleeved vinyl-only limited run too. Slowly, surely!

3. Radiohead - In Rainbows  [Er, Radiohead?]

Very motorik / kraut. Very lush / stringy (verging on Robert Kirby-esque on "Faust Arp"). Very warm / gorgeous. And so much better than the frankly knackered-sounding "Hail To The Thief". "All I Need", "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi" and "House of Cards" are up there with the best they've ever done, but it seems a shame to pick tracks out when the whole album (and it really feels like an album) is so very very good. All that and something to chew on as regards the whole issue of distribution, ethics and how we value music in the digital age. As you may have already guessed, if you choose not to pay anything you're churlish in the extreme, I reckon. Especially for something this great.

4. Partial Arts - Telescope [Kompakt]

The follow up to "Trauermusik" is coming soon (once I've tracked down our errant remixer... luckily he's just moved in up the road). 11 minutes of lush kraut-disco, all badly-played live synths, marimbas and wonky FX,  anchored by the steady pulse of The Rapture's fab drummer Vito Roccaforte. And hopefully backed by a cracking Radioslave remix, once I've been round to Lychenerstrasse with the boys to sort him out.

5. Swayzak feat. Cassy - Smile and Receive [!K7]  / Jori Hulkonnen - Crowd, Get Ready To Be Jammed [Turbo]

There's nothing better than a great dance record with an imperative in the title. And this week we get two at once. The lead single from the new Swayzak album is a moody Basic Channel-ish track with a wonderful vocal from the nicest woman in house, Cassy. You won't get the ascending chorus melody out of your head once you've heard it (the Germans call this an Ohrworm). Plus there's a fantastic electro remix from Richard Davis which re-harmonises the melody and makes it even catchier for some end of the night action. And then Jori Hulkonnen's new single for Turbo is acid burn with mellotrons and quite fab indeed. Repair to the dancefloor, forthwith.

6. Radioslave - Bell Clap Dance [Rekids]

I'm not going to tell you just how very good this is until Matt's delivered his remix for us, dammit.

7. Ada - Barren Space [areal]

At long last a new single from the first lady of Cologne to keep us going while we wait impatiently for the new album. Like last year's wonderful "Living It Up" the B-side here is as strong, if not stronger than the A. "Barren Space" is a techno-house stormer, all stuttering sampled detroit chords and fat claps. (Ada has also done a wonderful remix of Tracey Thorn's "Grand Canyon" which you should check on Ms. T's myspace site).

8. Maps - To The Sky (The Loving Hand Remix) [Mute]

Tim Goldsworthy provides a very beautiful chugging acid disco remix of Mute's Maps. Mixes very nicely with the Prins Thomas remix of Hatchback too.

9. Poni Hoax - Antibodies  [Tigersushi]

Another corking Joakim-produced single from Poni Hoax. Comes in original no-wave disco versions and a fantastic Chateau Flight remix.

10. Supermayer - Save The World / The Art of Letting Go (Remixes) [Kompakt] / Rufus Wainwright - Tiergarten (Supermayer remix) [Polydor]

I'm slightly taken aback by the reaction to the Supermayer album in some quarters. It seems for some Kompakt fans to have been interpreted as some cruel practical joke or worse a plain act of betrayal. Where are the epic emotional neo-trance stormers? Why is Michael Mayer singing? And is that a trumpet?!?

Well, I for one am glad that they've eschewed the po-faced and grandiose, and gone for a mix of wonky pop, wit and drama. It sounds like a record that was enormous fun to make, but is great fun to listen / dance to also.  Not to mention that it contains a couple of almighty club bangers;  'Two of Us' and 'Planet of the Sick' which haven't left my set since I got my promo CD.

Anyway, I'm on the payroll so what do I know?* Just that if I didn't love this record I would be keeping mighty quiet about now. If you've already decided to hate it I'm not going to change your mind, but it's really really worth ignoring the naysayers and making your mind up for yourself.

Those same people will probably hate the Supermayer remix of Rufus Wainwright's "Tiergarten", which starts with 3 minutes of crooning vocals and harp arpeggios, like a beautiful Christmas movie, before settling into another 10 minutes of atmospheric indie-bassed spook-house with plenty of Rufus vocal in there. Their loss.

* I've just remixed 'The Art of Letting Go' for the next single. It comes in two flavours; a re-edit which ups the International Pony wonk-funk-boogie quotient with piles of overdubs, and at the other end of the spectrum a deep acid dub, which verges on the Bar25 afterhours-tastic. I'm not using the m-word though. No sirree.

11. Chloe - The Waiting Room [Kill The DJ]

Whilst Supermayer's LP is all smiles, primary colours and daft funk, Chloe's first album is icy, crystalline, Parisienne alt-cool. The monochrome wood cut of an ice-cave on the cover should have given that away I guess. Anyway, it's another wonderful electronic album to add to this years bumper crop.

12. Raudive

Everything Oliver Ho has put out under the Raudive alias has been mighty good. I'm still playing "Here" (Msr. Smagghe's top tune of 2006) and "Turn If Off" regularly and this year we've had great releases on Musicman and Poker Flat too.

13. Leftroom

Hands down the dancefloor label of 2007 as far as I'm concerned. 4 or 5 tracks in the set for the last 3 months at least. Marcashken, Matt Tolfrey, Ito and Star, Szenario, Glimpse, Andre Krom...  Hit after hit after bloody great hit.

14. PJ Harvey - White Chalk [Island] / Linda Thompson - Versatile Heart [Rounder] / St Vincent - Marry Me  [Beggars Banquet]

There have been glut of great albums from female artists of late. Just in case you haven't heard it yet (are you crazy?) the new PJ Harvey album is stark and staggeringly good. Played mostly on piano, an instrument that she's only recently learned to play, and sung in a much higher register than usual, it's all the more haunting for its austerity. Records like this remind one how very thankful we should be for the few artists of Harvey's calibre we have, never content to settle on formula, instead constantly remoulding themselves to breathtaking effect.

I grew up on a lot of English folk/rock music, in particular the amazing records that Linda Thompson made with her husband Richard. She's only released three solo albums since their parting at the start of the 80's, two of those in the last five years. The new CD "Versatile Heart" features many of the extended family that made "Fashionably Late" so good;  Rufus and Martha Wainwright, Teddy Thompson, Martin and Eliza Carthy, plus the likes of Robert Kirkby and John Kirkpatrick (not a bad troupe to have at your disposal?).  And Thompson's voice is as affecting as ever. The standout moment is "Nice Cars", a brilliant song written by her daughter Kamila, who's inherited a bit of her dad's black humour as well.

Last but not least comes perhaps my favourite album of 2007 so far. A solo record from Annie Clark, former guitarist for the likes of Sufjan Stevens and the Polyphonic Spree, it's a fantistically assured debut album that runs from muscular art-rock to more beautiful introspective pop. Characterful without being kooky, never twee, and executed with incredible musicianship and immaculate production. We're harassing the record company to let us have a pop at a mix. Fingers crossed.

15. Tony Wilson 1950-2007

This is my first blog since the death of Tony Wilson in August and I wanted to write something in memoriam. Don't worry, obituaries aren't going to turn into a regular feature. But as this page is called "Enthusiasm" it seemed appropriate. Wilson was many things - idealist, entrepreneur, fabulist, gobshite - but above all he was an enthusiast.

An apparently effete Cambridge-educated TV journalist he was energised by punk, he embodied its transformative will-to-power - you don't have to stay as you've been labelled - and its first and only law: getting sufficiently excited to get off your arse is the only permission you need to participate in the popular culture. And he did that;  alongside the other Factory heroes Rob Gretton, Martin Hannett, Peter Saville and Alan Erasmus he was a catalyst in so much amazing popular art that it beggars belief. Wilson simply got on with it and worried about the consequences later. He 'put everything down to praxis. We'll just go ahead and do it and steamroll along and afterwards we'll think about why we did it in the first place.' *

In an age which rewards the likes of Simon Cowell - pop moguls who've made millions sucking the marrow from popular culture, inviting the bewildered onto our televisions and ridiculing them for entertainment - Wilson was the opposite. He was the TV guy in love with pop who put himself up for ridicule, who told people he thought had talent what they were capable of and made them believe him, and allowed us to believe them.

A hero for me is someone who does, who adds, who makes, or creates the conditions for exciting new things to be made. Someone who inspires and makes you re-consider what you're capable of. Tony Wilson really was one. At Creamfields Andalucia on Saturday 10th August, told that I had 4 minutes left, I pulled the plug on some stomping Kompakt trance record and played "Love Will Tear Us Apart" to a couple of thousand bewildered Spaniards. A small thank you to someone who'd changed my and many others lives for the better before we'd even realised it.

* New Order's Stephen Morris on The Late Show, BBC2 August 9th, 2007.

16. Also new and damn good.

Luke Solomon - Demons In The Disco (Brennan Green remix) [Crosstown Rebels], Kaorulnoue - The Secret Field / Todd Terje remix [Mule Musiq], Jori Hulkonnen ft. John Foxx - Never Been Here Before (Sasse remix) [fcom], TG - Test It [Infant], Rework - So Cold (Jackmate and Losoul remixes) [Playhouse], GTA - Keep Moving [Persona], TG - Undertones [Fundation].

6.8.07 Lee Hazlewood 1929-2007

"In the end there was nothing. But believe me, it was no fun waiting for nothing to end."
Lee Hazlewood, "Requiem For An Almost Lady".

The ornery pop genius Lee Hazlewood died on Saturday of renal cancer. He was 78. Most people know "These Boots Were Made For Walking", the US/UK number 1 he wrote and produced for Nancy Sinatra, and might be forgiven for dismissing it as kitschy/kinky 60's bubblegum. But those of us lucky enough to have heard all the records he made alongside Sinatra as "Nancy and Lee" and the solo albums such as "Trouble Is A Lonesome Town" and - my particular favourite - "Requiem For An Almost Lady" know better.

Hazlewood was a genuine and downright peculiar talent, as producer, songwriter and artist, who in the last couple of decades has been re-discovered and revered by a generation some 40 years his junior. I first became aware of him when my friend Dewi Davies sat me down in his room at Girton College in 1990 and played me "Some Velvet Morning" from a Nancy Sinatra Best Of cassette. I'd never heard anything like it; after a queasy string intro Hazlewood spits menacingly "Some velvet morning when I'm straight, I'm gonna open up your gate, and maybe tell you 'bout Phaedra and how she gave me life and how she made it end". Sinatra's childlike answer sections as "Phaedra" are in a psychedelic triple time and somehow manage to sound even weirder. The whole thing is as odd and yet as unforgettably brilliant as pop gets. I borrowed the cassette and discovered "Summer Wine", "Sugar Town", "Did You Ever".

A few years later I was working on a remix for City Slang's Wyndham Wallace, who was also Hazlewood's UK publicist (and has for the last few years been his European manager). Some of Lee's solo albums were being re-issued and Wyndham gave me "Requiem For An Almost Lady" which contains "Come On Home To Me", one of the most vulnerable and affecting love songs I've ever heard, with a spoken intro that I've played a few many times for my own liking. "And you wake up one morning and you say 'I feel good, I don't miss her, I can live without her' and you soon learn, that time will come. But it wasn't that day."

Wyndham became a firm friend and I've heard so many anecdotes about Lee over the past few years that, despite never meeting the man, I feel far sadder today than one really should when an artist one admires passes on. Hence this blog. And if you haven't had the pleasure; go and find and buy the Nancy and Lee albums, and if you can, hunt down "Come On Home To Me" too. You're in for an all-too-rare treat.

14.7.07 Fabric 35 Special

Hello folks! My fabric mix CD is in the shops on Monday.ª It's bit all over the place style-wise but hopefully the way it's put together makes some kind of sense. I noticed after I did it that although it's for fabric it starts at the Robert Johnson and ends at Berghain... Still, that's not a bad way to spend an evening.

Anyway, here's a rundown of the lovely music on there.

1. Jahcoozi - Ali McBills (Robert Johnson 6am X-Ray Italo rework) [Careless]

Ata Macias and Sasse Lindblad did this fantastic dubstep meets italo remix for Jahcoozi last year, in the studio next door to me in Berlin. Sasse needs no introduction; 10 years of Moodmusic were celebrated this year with another unassuming purple patch and other killer releases like his "That Side of the Moog" on Sunday Music and The Green Men on Buzzin' Fly. Ata is of course the man that started Playhouse and one of the most brilliant and musical DJs in Europe. He doesn't get into the studio much, although he and Sasse did remix Jurgen Paape for Kompakt a few years ago which was ace. As soon as I heard this I knew I wanted to have it as my opening track.

2. Marcashken - Nimrod (Marc Houle Is A Nimrod Remix) [Leftroom]

Leftroom have been a consistently great label in the past couple of years. This release in particular stuck out for me because of the new wave-ish qualities and the electric bass, which segues neatly into the moody new-wave electric bass of Gui.tar (do you see how I do this? Piece of piss, this DJ lark).

3. Gui.tar - Push In The Bush [Careless]

This Rework-ish piece of sulky house is some 2 years old now; I haven't stopped playing it since it came out and it seems to have been missed by lots of people, which is a shame because it's atmospheric and sullen and bouncy all at the same time.

4. Snax - Honeymoon Is Over (Konrad Black Mix) [Four Music]

Canadian rascal-about-town Todd Shillington on remix duties for Snax and it's turned into a big ole hit which is ace (I think it's number 1 on Beatport as I write folks). It was this or his fantastic demo mix of "Mouth to Mouth" (which got changed before the final release version - boo hiss) but this has the wonderful falsetto vocals too so it won. I always love Todd's basslines which have this rolling italo-ish quality. When listening through to the tracks I'd provisionally selected for the comp I realised that loads of them have a very analogue sound; I am getting a bit tired of bland laptop minimal-electro; luckily there's lots more rich sounding stuff out there.

5. Jens Zimmerman - Tranquilité [K2]

This runs under "Honeymoon Is Over" nearly the whole way through - all the weird vocoder stuff under Snax is Jens Zimmerman. I don't know much about this apart from it's mineshaft-deep analogue techno from Frankfurt and I love the timbales that emerge halfway. Then in comes Liquid Liquid for some full-on percussion frenzy.

6. Liquid Liquid - Bellhead [DFA]

Since most of us in this business live in Computer World, it is easy to forget how people playing together in a room are capable of making incredible dance music. The original version of this record was made in 1981 (the version i've included is the edit from the DFA#2 compilation CD some four years ago). Some 25 years on it still sounds thrilling and radical.

It's difficult to overstate how influential bands like Liquid Liquid (and ESG and the like) have been. Like the acid house that was to follow, they were both pop and avant-garde at the same time. Avant-garde in the sense that their music comprised de-centred enharmonic percussion jams where the only melodies emerge from various patterns of bells, xylophones and marimbas. That might not sound that appealing to some of you (!), and yet the result is so exciting and undeniably funky it makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. That's the pop bit.

7. Lee Burridge and Dan F - Treat 'Em Mean (Exercise One, Remix#2) [Almost Anonymous]

Exercise One are one of the most exciting techno acts to come out of Germany the last couple of years as anyone who has been lucky enough to see them live will know. Their Sebo K remix on Mobilee was one of the biggest records of last summer for me, and this is shaping up to be one of the biggest of this one. Again with the rolling italo-ish bassline (I detect a theme...) but this time in a surging stadium-techno setting.

8. 100Hz - Trustlove [Hi-phen]

Geoffroy from Hi-Phen gave me a CD of this very early last year, which I promptly lost. I then spent weeks guiltily dodging his repeated emails asking for a reaction. Meanwhile I had this amazing track on a white label I had been sent and lost all details of (yup, i am a hapless idiot), with the refrain "I love you but I don't trust you", which was tearing it up whenever I played it out. But I had no idea what it was for ages until finally it came out properly and imagine my surprise... (you guessed it. one and the same). Hopefully, I made up for it by nabbing it for the comp.

9. Samim - Paspd ft. Big Bully [Circus Company]

Another producer going through an amazing run of form over the last few months and heading for another hit with his new single "Heater".

10. Laven & MSO - Looking for God [Klang]

Robust but funky Frankfurt rave-bomb (with a large dose of Wild Pitch in there) that just keeps building and building. And it has a great bassline, something which is lacking from so much "maximally-challenged" techno of late.

11. Simon Baker - Plastik [Infant]

Another track which has blown up into a big old hit in the last three months, and no wonder. Simon's been making good stuff as Liptrick and for his Infant label for the last 3 years; but this is him really stepping up and claiming a place in the front-line (and the singles that have followed in its wake have been great too). Tremendous serpentine swingy techno - and once again (have I hammered this home enough yet?!) it's all about the bassline. We love basslines.

12. Samuel L Sessions ft. Paris the Black Fu - Can You Relate? [Klap Klap]

So Paris the Black Fu's voiceover risks accusations of grumpy old-school rave nostalgia, but the backing is undeniable. Raw and jacking techno-house that kills every time on every big system.

13. Johannes Heil - All For One (Tobi Neumann's Swinging Remix) [Klang]

See my Enthusiasm from a couple of weeks ago for my eulogy to the godlike genius that is Tobi Neumann. In case you haven't had the pleasure of hearing anything of his yet; stop reading, point your browser at Beatport or some other online music vendor and buy this Johannes Heil remix forthwith, then turn up the stereo and wait for the breakdown. Whoop!

14. Kaos - Panopeeps [Lektroluv]

More new-school old-school from Berlin's DJ Kaos. Cheeky Hurley-ish bassline with quite lovely, euphoric chords floating over the top.

15. Beanfield - "Tides" - C's Movement #1 (Carl Craig Remix) [Compost] / Aril Brikha - Berghain [Kompakt]

Someone harrumphed on Resident Advisor when they printed the tracklisting for this CD that Beanfield was far too old and well-known to be on here (some wannabe called Sasha apparently included it on some mix somewhere...). But frankly, I couldn't give a toss. I adored the remix at the time and it marked my falling in love with Carl Craig again after his self-imposed exile in the - erm - jazz wilderness. A love affair which shows no sign of abating judging by his remixes of Junior Boys and Brazilian Girls this year.

But the real reason it's here is not nostalgia. I played it again for the first time in ages at Cookies in March, lined up the Aril Brikha track afterwards and realised they were in the same key at the same tempo, and - even better - they sounded like they were made to go together. Like it was meant to be.

When you luck out with stuff like this it's like a bit of magic, a present from some other place and the only thing to do is make sure that as many people hear it as possible. So here "Berghain" just sits underneath "Tides" for the duration. No trickiness. No fannying around. Just a new whole from some sublime parts. Which hopefully is what DJing is all about.

ª This information is for those of you who've decided that people who have chosen to make music for a living - rather than making cakes or shoes or selling weapons or teaching joga - are still entitled to some kind of financial reward for what they do and so who haven't already downloaded it from some Russian bloodsucker or collector nerd with a blog masquerading as a "fan who's just helping to promote the music they love, man." Your reward is a lovely tin box with my name on it and the ability to sleep at night. I, and much more importantly all the producers and labels included who struggle to survive in what are frankly difficult times, salute you!

23.6.2007

Hey you. Wow! It's been a while, huh? I know. But you're looking great! In fact, you've hardly changed a bit. Maybe a couple more laughter lines around those sparkling eyes of yours, but you know they only accentuate your beauty. And have you been working out?

I guess you deserve an apology. I didn't mean to take such a long sabbatical, and I certainly haven't been ignoring you. Far from it. I think about you all the time. But you know how life gets in the way; the hefty demands of work, the thousand tiny distrations of the day-to-day. Still, I know you're feeling a little hurt, a little neglected. I'm going to make it up to you, I promise. Just be patient with me. I need you. I want you. The only thing that matters is that we're together again. At last.

 1.  Naughty - World of a Woman  [Moodmusic]

Immaculate, touching house music from Naughty and maybe the best thing he's done in 4 years. A deceptively simple melody burrows into your head and your heart, and the whole thing has a sunny, effortless elegance which recalls the very best balearic records of the early 1990s but still sounds absolutely contemporary.  This should be a summer anthem on all discerning dancefloors, in the same way that Locodice's "El Gallo Negro" was last year.

 2.  Hatchback - White Diamond (Prins Thomas Remix Pts 1+2)  [thisisnotanexit]

Fuck me, this is something really special. The oh-so-prolific Thomas delivers 18 minutes of pulsing electronic krautdisco, complete with ambient break and tempo changes. Despite the sprawling Villaloban proportions, it doesn't for one moment flag or grow boring, but deepens and sparkles more with each listen.

 3.  Roland Appel - Dark Soldier [Sonar Kollectiv]

Genre-mangling chamber-house that was probably the biggest tune for me at Sonar this year. Deep, spooky and highly dramatic to boot.

 4.  Chemical Brothers ft. Midlake - The Pills Won't Help You Now  [Virgin]

Midlake's album 'The Trials of Van Occupanther' has been maybe my favourite of the last year. Here their sublime harmonies meld perfectly with the Chems at their trippiest. A proper collaboration with a great song at its heart, rather than a top-line stuck onto an exisiting track. Very good indeed.

5.  Brazilian Girls - Last Call (Carl Craig remix) [Verve]

A bit of a secret weapon this. A US-only promo as far as i can tell, so nobody much seems to be playing it in Europe. But it's a belter as Craig keeps up this incredible run of recent form with a trippy italo-flavoured mix which makes great use of the vocal.

 6.  Gudrun Gut - Move Me (Burger / Voigt remix)  [Monika Enterprise]

The lead track from Berlin post-punk legend Gudrun Gut's solo album "I Put A Record On" gets a nigh-on perfect remix from Kompakt boss Wolfgang Voigt and Jörg Burger. Moody pop-house with atmosphere and panache to burn.

 7.  Shackleton feat Jackson Del Ray - Next To Nothing (Guillaume & The Cotu Dumonts Remix) [Crosstown Rebels]

Ace timbale and clap-heavy remix of Shackleton's new single for Crosstown rebels. It's all about the percussion frenzy at the moment round our way.

 8.  Tobi Neumann

What can I say about Hrr. Neumann? Great DJ. Lovely man. And most importantly a brilliant producer on a fine run of form at the moment. From his Glove releases for labels like Playhouse, his storming electro rub of the filthy Khia in 2002, through his expert production for the likes of Chicks on Speed and Miss Kittin, to his recent remixes for the likes of Unit 3, KLF, Johannes Heil and MANDY, there hasn't been a moment in the past 5 years where I haven't had some record of his with me at a gig. The balearic wonderment of the never-to-be-released (boo!) Glove vs. KLF  "Build A Fire" dub was my favourite bit of "Breakfast At The Villa of Joy" DJ mix from last year and whenever I play it punters and DJs alike (Tiga recently) beg me for the CDR.

9.  Âme - Balandine  [Innercityvisions]

This seems to be splitting people squarely down the middle;  I know several DJs that aren't feeling it at all, and it's not working on every dancefloor (I nearly cleared Cookies with it on Tuesday night in fact - the wrong record for that party, dumb-ass). But deployed with a little care it's a really great new single and a welcome shift in emphasis as Âme take the nu-school Wild Pitch route that's been increasingly popular over the last 12 months (the fact that i haven't written this in ages means that you've been spared my "Wild Pitch is the secret thread linking all the current hits" thesis - from "Mouth to Mouth"  to "The Glitch" to Jamie Jones' "Panic" i've been banging on about this for ages to all those unfortunates in ranting distance). Still immaculately produced, but altogether darker, dirtier and more intense with acid peals that are so Pierre they should be wearing a beret and carrying a baguette under their arm.

 10. Kelley Polar - Chrysanthemum [Environ]

Mike Kelley's new single continues down the off-kilter chamber-pop route that made "Love Songs of the Hanging Gardens" one of 2005's surprise album treats. Spry electro backing combined with multi-tracked 60's vocal harmonising confirms how Kelley is musically streets ahead of most of the post-disco pack (our Alastair excepted). Even more impressively, if you listen to the lyric (and check the brilliant video) you realise it's a disturbing hymn to nuclear-age childhood nightmares. Duck and cover...

 11.  Al Usher - Here Today [Misericord]

It's difficult to remember when wading through white label after white label of increasingly anonymous laptop-rendered minimal-electro blancmange, but there was a time when the B2 track on a 12" was always worth checking. For some an after-thought, the dregs of the DAT cupboard, the runt of the litter but for others a place to tuck away a real gem, something a little more elliptical, not ruthessly designed for peak-time ecstatic abandon, but a musical treasure waiting to be discovered by those who care to look a little more fully.

Several years ago, on Al Usher's "Slipshod" EP [Out of the Loop] that track was "Lullaby For Robert". Beautifully mixing elements of boogie, dub, techno and modal English folk harmonies (no mean feat, that), I have played it at nearly every gig I've ever warmed up at since then. Other fans included DJ Harvey and Prins Thomas who is putting the much-blogged favourite out again this year on his new "Internasjonal" label with a Chateau Flight remix.

And now Al has made a new EP called Gnanfou for me and Sasse's brand-new occasional label, Misericord. In the B2 slot sits a another small classic in-the-making, "Here Today". It sounds like "Coast"-era Sub Sub doing the music for a John Ford western. But trite little pitches can't really do it justice. If you want to hear it this minute then Prins Thomas and Lindstrom kicked off their fantastic recent Radio 1 Essential Mix with it. So go track that down on the 'net. And then march to the shops to buy the Gnanfou EP at the start of July. We're not doing downloads, you won't find it on the blogs, we're just releasing lovingly-made vinyl the way it used to be when people actually made a living from doing this stuff. With owls on the cover.

(NB  Al has also recently completed amazing remixes of Dutch Rhythm Combo's "Bonaire" and Amy Winehouse's next single "Tears Dry On Their Own" which have to be heard to be believed. Ooh, we are proud.)

 12.  More Goodies.

Prosumer and Murat Tepeli - What Makes You Go For It? [OstgutTon], Samim - Heater [Get Physical], Arto Mwambe - Mudhutma! [Brontosaurus], Skåtebard - Marimba [Supersoul Recordings], Will Saul and Lee Jones - Hug The Scary [Aus Music], Parr and Hawks - Gemini [Rekids], The Gossip - Standing In The Way of Control (Playgroup Remix), Danton Eeprom - These Eyes [Fondation].