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Thomas Bangalter’s Trax On Da Rocks Still Sounds Fresh 25 Years On

1998 was a busy year for Thomas Bangalter – after the explosive success of Daft Punk’s debut album Homework the...

Excited to have pre-purchased our copy of the @mrr

Excited to have pre-purchased our copy of the @mrrichardnorris memoir Strange Things Are Happening from @piccadillyrecords. Can’t wait to read the book and listen to the special edition CD - why does April feel so far away?!?

“The book features many adventures in music, from post punk DIY through the birth of acid house, dance, electronic music and beyond, spanning 40 years of music making…Many strange things happened, and continue to do so. First and foremost, I wanted to create and deliver an engaging piece of writing. A tribute to the power of creativity, collaboration and community within music.”

#richardnorris #thegrid #beyondthewizardssleeve

📸 Photo credit: @whiterabbitbks

On this day in 1982, Prince released his fifth alb

On this day in 1982, Prince released his fifth album, and first with The Revolution, 1999, selling in excess of 5 million copies worldwide, thanks in no small part to the massive Little Red Corvette and title track.

#prince #1999 #littleredcorvette #onthisday #classicalbums

The Judge won’t budge! Happy birthday to Jules O

The Judge won’t budge! Happy birthday to Jules O’ Riordan, better known as Judge Jules, one of the leading lights of the 90s club scene across the UK and beyond. From his early years at Kiss FM to his 15-year stint at Radio One, his end-of-the-night sets at Gatecrasher in Sheffield to the legendary Judgement Sundays at Eden in Ibiza, Jules has consistently remained at the cutting edge of the global electronic music scene, with countless “Best DJ” accolades under his belt.

📸 JoyBeat

#judgejules #legend #dj #radioone #kissfm #gatecrasher #judgementsundays #ibiza

On 25th Oct 2004, John Peel OBE died in Peru of a

On 25th Oct 2004, John Peel OBE died in Peru of a heart attack, aged 65. He was the BBC’s longest-serving radio DJ (a title now held by Annie Nightingale) and the first DJ to introduce The Ramones, Roxy Music, The Smiths, Rod Stewart, Blur, the Sex Pistols, T. Rex and countless others to the masses. Described as "the single most important person in popular music from 1967 through 1978, he broke more important artists than any other individual." (Paul Gambaccini)

Peel was widely known for the Peel Sessions - live studio sessions from an enormously diverse set of artists (during 37 years at the BBC over 4,000 sessions were recorded by more than 2,000 artists), that covered the gamut of electronic music, from Adamski to Benjamin Zephaniah, Aphex Twin to Zion Train, and in particular yielded classic CD releases from New Order, Orbital and The Orb. Peel is acknowledged for promoting artists working in various genres, especially those that received little exposure elsewhere, including drum and bass, hardcore, British hip-hop, techno, dub and ambient.

When asked about his death, Peel once stated that “I’ve always imagined I’d die by driving into the back of a truck while trying to read the name on a cassette and people would say, ‘He would have wanted to go that way.’ Well, I want them to know that I wouldn’t.”

📸 johnpeelarchive.com

#johnpeel #rip #bbc #radio1 #radioone #legend #peelsessions

Happy birthday to Jason Cullen Green, aka Planet A

Happy birthday to Jason Cullen Green, aka Planet Asia. The Grammy-nominated rapper is known for his work with Wu Tang members Cappadonna, Ghostface and Inspectah Deck, but did you know he also featured on BT’s Movement In Still Life album, providing lyrics for Madskillz-Mic Chekka?

📸 etalonhiphopblog.com

#planetasia #caliagents #fivepercentnation #westcoasthiphop #bt #briantranseau

1998 was a busy year for Thomas Bangalter - after

1998 was a busy year for Thomas Bangalter - after the explosive success of Daft Punk’s debut album Homework the year before, he churned out a number of solo releases on his own Roulé label, toured the DJ circuit as a member of Da Mongoloids (alongside Armand van Helden, DJ Sneak, Junior Sanchez, Roger Sanchez, Todd Terry, Ian Pooley and Basement Jaxx), produced the club monster Gym Tonic with Bob Sinclar, and hit the top ten in no fewer than twelve countries with the massive Music Sounds Better With You under the Stardust moniker.

Trax On Da Rocks Vol. 2 was one of the last releases of the year, a five-track EP that eschews the commercial sounds of Gym Tonic and Music Sounds… and instead perfectly encapsulates the underground sound of the time. Worth tracking down for the opening track alone, Club Soda is as effortlessly funky and hypnotic as you’d expect from Bangalter. Extra Dry takes it up a notch, a twisted techno number immortalised in the video game Midnight Club and sampled by J Dilla for Slum Village. Shuffle! is little more than a filler, repetitive and somewhat stale, but soon makes way for the aptly-named Colossus - a beast of a track with insane filtering over a devastating 909 beat, before Turbo rounds things off with a generous nod to Jeff Mills’ Purposemaker.

A worthy entry in the Roulé catalogue, that holds its own alongside Spinal Scratch, Vertigo and What To Do.

#thomasbangalter #traxondarocks #roulé #daftpunk #stardust #damongoloids #frenchhouse

The 1970s were arguably the most pivotal decade fo

The 1970s were arguably the most pivotal decade for electronic music. While artists such as Giorgio Moroder and Kraftwerk experimented with sounds and formulae that would give birth to disco, house and techno, Brian Eno, Jean-Michel Jarre and Tangerine Dream were popularising ambient music.

Released 50 years ago today, Klaus Schulze’s second solo album since departing Tangerine Dream, Cyborg, was a seminal work in abstract experimental electronic music, considered at the cutting-edge in 1973 and remaining as relevant today.

Recorded in a simple home studio, while Schulze worked as a mailman for the German post office, Cyborg was an ambitious and esoteric follow-up to 1972’s Irrlicht. Four tracks, spread over two discs, construct a vast, sprawling and ominous cosmic soundscape, where twisted and modulated cassette recordings of classical instruments are juxtaposed with the shimmering and pulsing of analogue synthesizers. The result is at once intriguing and haunting, blissful and menacing, unique and quintessentially Schulze.

#klausschulze #cyborg #tangerinedream #experimental #ambient #classicalbums

This week in 1972, Curtis Mayfield’s Super Fly s

This week in 1972, Curtis Mayfield’s Super Fly soundtrack, his third solo outing, widely considered his magnum opus, hit the top of the US album chart, where it would remain for four weeks. One of the few soundtracks in film history to out-gross the film it accompanied, Super Fly spawned two million-selling top ten singles, was certified gold within 3 months of release, garnered a Grammy nomination, features in the greatest albums of all time for both VH1 and Rolling Stone, was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and has been preserved by the Library of Congress for cultural, historic or aesthetic significance.

Written in the basement apartment that Mayfield occupied whilst undergoing a trial separation from his wife and children, and recorded in just three days, Super Fly remains one of the most critically praised, politically and socially aware, and financially successful soundtrack albums ever made. Its impact was, and remains, indisputable and far-reaching, inspiring peers such as Bobby Womack, James Brown and Willie Hutch, while the list of artists sampling tracks from the album reads like a who’s who of hip hop and R&B: the Beastie Boys, Notorious B.I.G., Nelly, Alicia Keys, Erykah Badu, Snoop Dogg; Eminem; Chance the Rapper; Ice-T.

#curtismayfield #superfly #soundtrack #blaxploitation #classicalbums #classicsoundtracks

Released twenty years ago today, Frank is a stagge

Released twenty years ago today, Frank is a staggeringly assured debut, accessible yet uncompromising, subtle yet powerful, demonstrating attitude, command, and a preternatural talent.

Initially released with little fanfare, Frank received generally positive reviews, but was far from a sensation, taking four months to dent the UK album chart. Still, the album earned Winehouse an Ivor Novello Award, and nominations for two Brit Awards and the Mercury Music Prize, and features at #57 on The Guardian's 100 Best Albums of the 21st Century.

Where follow-up Back To Black took its cues from the broken-hearted girl groups of the 60s, Frank is characterised by the jazz influences of Winehouse’s youth - Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington, Billie Holiday - and the production talents of Salaam Remi, best known for his collaborations with hip hop artists such as Nas and The Fugees. The result sits somewhere between Nina Simone and Erykah Badu, at once innocent and sleazy.

Lyrically, it is hard to believe that Winehouse was just 19. Partly because her sultry voice evokes the image of smoky jazz bars and aging crooners, but mainly because Frank’s bold, bittersweet and unflinching social observations, and reflections on sex and love, speak to the wisdom of someone who has already lived it all. Later in her career, Winehouse’s lyrics would become morose and soaked in tragic romanticism, but here she’s still just a relatable 19-year-old, making music purely for herself, getting things off her chest, and having the time of her life.

Frank was not without its detractors. Pitchfork, in particular, issued a scathing commentary criticising Winehouse for clinging too closely to her idols, while others alleged cultural appropriation and toxic lyrics. Amy herself was less than thrilled with Frank, lamenting a loss of control over both the creation and the marketing of the album. Despite this, there can be no denying that Amy Winehouse was a once in a lifetime talent, and Frank catapulted her into the limelight, garnering both fame and drama for which she was ill-prepared, and that would ultimately lead to her demise.

#amywinehouse #frank #debutalbum #classicalbum #jazz #islandrecords

Today we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the rel

Today we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the release of Two Lone Swordsmen’s astounding sophomore album, Stay Down, ranked #22 in Pitchfork’s 50 Best IDM Albums of All Time.

Formed in 1996 by Andrew Weatherall and Keith Tenniswood, just a year after the former disbanded the Sabres of Paradise (whose final release inspired the name of this page), the duo released a series of critically acclaimed EPs, including The Tenth Mission and Stockwell Steppas, and a debut album, The Fifth Mission (Return to Flightpath Estate), on Weatherall’s own Emissions Audio Output label, before signing to Warp Records in 1998, where they would remain for six years.

From the eerie and ghostly opener “Hope We Never Surface”, to the hauntingly beautiful closing track “As Worldly Pleasures Wave Goodbye”, Stay Down is a dense and atmospheric concept album, layering intricate textures of dub, electro, house and ambient, alongside the bubbly analogue structures for which Weatherall had become so well known during the Sabres era, and serving as a simulacrum of a murky underwater world, conjuring visions of deep-sea divers, mythical creatures and submerged cityscapes.

Given Weatherall’s prolificacy, it should come as no surprise that Two Lone Swordsmen released six studio albums, three compilations and dozens of EPs and singles, over an illustrious ten-year career, and even less of a surprise that the releases further consolidated his status as one of the 90s’ most exciting and visionary producers.

#twoloneswordsmen #staydown #andrewweatherall #keithtenniswood #idm #warprecords #sabresofparadise #90smusic #electro #ambient #classicalbums #electronicalbums

Remembering José Padilla, the legendary Ibizan DJ

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