YESSSSSSSS

Not quite in my hands yet… but SOOOOONNNNNNNN….

More Omar Droolin

Here’s a little composite of some mobile phone video I took of Omar Souleyman the other night. I really actually like this mobile video for this, it adds to the grainy 21st century lo-fi aesthetic…

Cos make no mistake – this is proper Blade Runner music except this time is not Vangelis sitting behind the most amazing synths ever, no. It’s some dudes with shop-bought electric keyboards on settings they’re not supposed to have, crazy electrified traditional instruments and then Omar up front all gold sunnies with his mate – the Syrian mad futurefolk version of Bez – just hanging around in jeans and a cheap leather jacket, whispering poetic inspiration into Omar’s ear from time to time and generally enjoyin himself, lookin at the crowd, singing along…

SERIOUSLY heavy.

Much love, BTW, to Faktion for putting this on…

Maaad update

Tiago at the controls

Fark, has been quite a mad week, better bring you up to speed with last weekend!

YES! It was finally time for the mothership to land in Manchester and boy we did in fine style, with Tiago and Cinnaman both bringing AMAZING heat to help the launch of Space Is The Place MCR get off to a great trajectory.

It was great fun putting on a party after a full year of not doing so (last one was the Lovefingers Bodega last May…) – I almost got all teary when I was running round B+Q buying gaffa tape and cable ties… yes, good to be back.

A nice crew to work with here in Manchester as well – beginning with hiring lights from the drummer out of the Durutti Column which was a bit mad; I forget that I’m in a town with a rich musical heritage – there are so many musos here that it’s hard NOT to run into them! Dom the sound guy is, well, a sound guy and he has some wicked gear. Martyn Mooken who’s the SITP co-pilot here in MCR is the MOST fun to work with and has the best attitude. Our CAPCOM is the mighty Samrai who provided critical analysis and colour commentary throughout the night.

And everyone was so friendly, and so encouraging and enthusiastic! Like, a million times more than Sydney/Melbourne. I was blown away by the love shown by everyone to some weirdoes throwing a little party in a pub in Manchester, I figured that same musical heritage which produced rock star lighting hire people would also carry along a degree of jadedness that would be stifling and intimidating but NO! Lots of MCR love for SITP, so another (and another, and another) is for certain!

OUR MISSION CONTINUES…

So the party was great. It was really lovely to hang out with my RBMA alumni, and great to hear what they’re up to. Cinnaman is doing really well for himself, he’s like the Dutch Benji B or some shit…

Of course, there was no rest for us after a great party, as 4 hours later we were caning it down the M6 to get Cinnaman to Rinse FM for an appearance on Alex Nut’s show. It was a fuckin hectic drive, punctuated with an epic blowout in the fast lane (we thought it was a helicopter until we saw the smoke pissing off the back wheel) but we made it to the studio in time – boy it’s proper pirate styles, 2SER is bloody NASA HQ compared to the Rinse FM setup!

The show was great, and Alex and his MC were both gracious enough to give SITP some quality shout outs – the whole thing is podcasted so download it here and check out the sounds of the future - Cinnaman comes on about halfway through and plays mostly what he played at the party the night previous… PROPER next shit, put yourself 20 minutes beyond your rivals and school up on this bizzo…

The rest of London was a bit of a blur really, some nice times with Tiago + Cinnaman, also got to catch up with dear Ed and also lovely Emma who’s just arrived in Londres on an extended stay. I raced back to Manchester on Sunday evening and spent the rest of the week relaxing, recovering and trying to organise the pressing of an Edit 12″…

Cos yes, it’s time to announce RECORD NUMBER 3! I have managed to secure distribution for an Edit 12″, so hopefully it will go well and I can then start up a nice Edit label, a good little hobby to have I think… got some nice future releases lined up…

I did get to one INCREDIBLE gig during the week – Omar Souleyman supported by Group Doueh. The flyer describes the music best – ‘Ultra-vivid street-level folk-pop, over-driven psychedelic meditations, desert blues and Syrian party bangers’ – two incredible groups pushing some fucking super fresh shit… Souleyman got a good writeup in the Wire last month which ensured a great crowd at the gig, oh man, nice to get that 3rd eye cleaned in such a forceful, unusual, FRESH manner… I highly recommend, though I doubt they’ll be in Aus any time soon.

And now it’s the weekend again. Hopefully I’ll get some time in the studio after so many busy weekends, but DMX crew are on tonight and Benji B’s playin tomorrow night so I don’t know how successful I’ll be!

MIND BLOWN

 

Nuage Vert by HeHe

 

At the moment here in Manchester we’re in the middle of the Futuresonic festival, which is bloody marvellous. Loads of spaces across town have been given over to this ‘Urban Festival of Art, Music & Ideas’.

Last night I was at the Urbis for a big party, featuring Daedelus (fucking brilliant), Neil Landstrumm (really good but too banging for the time he was playing), Toddla T (not bad but not good either, and with a diabolical MC) and Hudson Mohawke (I fucking missed him cos they put him on well early but I got to have a nice chat with him).

There was something a little bit cool about partying in a museum, even if the vibe was somewhat lacking.

HOWEVER

The music is just one part of it. There’s also a bunch of talks, and plenty of art and stuff. It’s sort of like the This Is Not Art festival but without so much emphasis on Aussie/Youth/Emergent artists. Today I went to the CUBE Gallery to check out a bunch of the art, which was really great. They had a whole bunch of stuff all focused on the environment and whatnot, including some photos and videos of HeHe’s fantastic piece ‘Nuage Vert‘, where the artists used green lasers to light up the polluting smoke billowing out of an industrial chimney.

The most incredible work, however, was Akousmaflore by a duo from France called Scenocosme. OH BOY. Somehow these maniacs have managed to turn a plant into an electrical switch. They have a bunch of plants hanging from the ceiling. Touch one of the plants and some sound comes out of a speaker. As far as I am concerned, this is done by magic. It’s just mindbending. Check the video to see what I’m banging on about; don’t forget to close your mouth so all the drool doesn’t get over your keyboard.

Time to dash now though – more music tonight. This time it’s Floating Points, Alex Nut, Kode 9, Zomby, Move D, Actress, HATE and much much more… YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Exciting…

A VERY cool thing just happened…

I got an email from Chris Duckenfield with a link to a yousendit.

Clicking the link brought me a zip file with remixes of a track I’d made.

Remixes were by Chris himself, Leozero and the motherfucking Unabombers!

I am a happy man. More info soon enough…

In other news, Budapest is one of the coolest cities in the world… I was lucky enough to go there last weekend where I met up with the always wonderful Vanessa, part of my gorgeous Sydney family… ahh, was so good to connect with the fam once again, especially in such ace surrounds. Beautiful warm weather, breathtaking architecture, dope thermal bath action and the coolest squat bars in the whole wide world… oh and it’s cheap as chips and the goulash is amazing. GO TO BUDAPEST NOW IF YOU CAN…

ALSO here is a video from the squat party 2 weeks ago… what a great night that was (feels like a lot longer than 2 weeks ago also) – witness the bike-powered light sculpture and dancefloor, and plenty other weird stuff…

W O W

Just had a fuckin brilliant weekend, got involved with a killer squat party in Hackney and then raced up to Manchester after 1 hour’s sleep in a carpark to play alongside the lovely Eclair FiFi at Technicolour…

More on that later though, this is just a quick moment to rave about the fact that when I was in Sounds Of The Universe on Friday I was lucky enough to spot a copy of the new Burial x Fourtet 12 that’s disappeared out of every shop before it’s even gone on sale.

Not only that, but I also got to play both sides out, and not only are they beautiful amazing pieces of music, but they also work really well. WOOOOHOOOOO….

Some people are suggesting that ‘Moth’ is Burial’s track and ‘Wolf Cub’ is Four Tet’s, though it sounds to me like there was a bit more collusion going on than that, and in a VERY good way. A wonderful 12 and fuck yeah I got a copy! BUT somebody already youtubed them so have a listen here before they disappear….

YooooHoooo

(sick party that I am playing at)

Hmm, been a little while since a post so time to offer some commentary but no pictures cos even though I got my camera back from the repairshop (YES!) I keep forgetting to take it out (NO!)…

So, no photos from a couple of killer gigs - Gaslamp Killer on Saturday night was great… I have a highly secret recording of his set at Space Is The Place last year and the set he pulled out on Saturday was comparable in energy but the man is clearly TOTALLY in love with Dubstep at the moment cos it was much more heavy on the 140 bpm business… all your favourites, mixed impeccably, new track every 16 bars, hit after hit after hit, just one massive hook mixed into the next one, non-stop, tore our heads off…

GLK @ Space Is The Place… photo by Lina

And last night got to check an early set from good old Flying Lotus. 3rd time I’ve seen him in little over a year, and third continent I checked him on as well (what a good polluter I am)… his set gets better every time – really sounded great, no distortion, plenty of new gear from him that sounds AMAZING, the mad DMT track is just gorgeous, you can hear the hyperspace elves in it… He likes the dubstep too as well…

SOOOO… some great news forthcoming – SPACE IS THE PLACE Manchester is nearly ready to launch, just waiting on some artwork and then we’ll get some proper announcing going on up here…

AND AND AND some more RECORDS! Just waiting on a few confirmations and then there’ll be news on that…

This coming week I’m VERY excited as:

1) This Thursday I am going to see ARPADYS live

2) ON Saturday I am DJing at a secret warehouse party in Hackney

3) ON Sunday I am DJing at Technicolour at Common, together with Eclair FiFi from LuckyMe

YES!!! I AM FUCKIN BACK!!! TIME TO UNLEASH SOME EVIL TUNEAGE ON THESE UNSUSPECTING ENGLISH!

OH yes

4) I bought a bike…

 here is my trusty steed. she/he needs a name.

AND

5) I am going to Budapest next week – hopefully some good obscure Hungarian records to be found wowzers (any recommendations besides Gábor Szabó?)

eeeeeeeee

Yes, it’s been a little while since an update, has been a busy little time… Mad roadtrip around England and Scotland over Easter weekend, fuckin clocked up the miles bigtime… since then been sort of relaxing but checked out two very different and totally brilliant shows – last night was Mark E at Cutloose – plenty of great 108-bpm loopy techy disco-ey club PUMPERS, quite a fresh sound, sort of bangalter/balearic/kompakt all smashing up to one another in a sexy way on loads of drugs.

Tonight was very different, went to check out Earth. Wowzers they are great live… these guys were post-rock before rock got post-ed and 20 years down the line (with a reasonably different lineup) they are playing LOOONG, SLLLLOOOOWWW, HEAVVVVY rock music. It’s REAALLLLLY SLLLOOOOWWWWWW and at that slow speed, everything becomes amplified – each lick and beat is separated, frozen in time, demanding total attention on account of being so isolated… and of course, mistakes become amplified (not that there are any; these guys are TIGHT AS FUCK)…

Earth blew my mind – I was taken away to mystical places, rode on some bizarre trains of thought, the lack of lyrics serving only to enhance the journey experience by removing any sense of narrative to get in the way of this most epic shoegaze…

Yep, I liked. I even bought a poster.

GASLAMP KILLER next week! Can’t wait to finally check him in le flesh…

Vinyl Is NIIICE

See that up there, that’s the sleeve to my first bloody record!

In case you didn’t know, I made a tune a couple of years ago with Andreya Triana (she who sang on FlyLo’s amazing Tea Leaf Dancers, and also on Theo’s amazing Chemistry) and Ritornell. Anyway, it’s finally being pressed, together with some epic remixes courtesy of Dorian Concept and Patrick Pulsinger and Orakel, and release date is looking like 12 June at the moment. Woohoo!

BUT

That’s not all!

It might not, actually, be my first 12″… there might be ANOTHER one coming sooner… but more on that soon!

TOTAL LUST

It’s the Teenage Engineering OP-1. Currently the most erotic vaporware ever, it’s got every music nerd on the net the most moist… those looks! That DISPLAY! The teeny size!

Never mind the fact that it doesn’t really sound spectacular, nor does it actually exist, and that it comes from a company that’ll happily charge you €650 for a fucking desk lamp. I want one. MEEEE PLEEEEASE!!!

In other news, there’s a chat window down the bottom right there, you can have a chat with me if I’m online. How exciting!

xx