Oldschool ambient trance... and why not?

2013-05-10 by The Double K

Nail – Cassiopeia

I’m very much enjoying this right now so thought I’d share, it’s been a while I know. From when trance was still good, this track comes from 1993’s Strictly 4 Groovers, an LP from rave favourites the legendary DiY soundsystem crew.

It’s a slow builder, starting off with some trancey arpeggiated synths, the lush bassline comes in after a minute or so, the spacey atmosphere grows with hints of cymbal until the beat finally arrives three minutes in. even then it’s another minute until the handclaps (my favourite) hit and we’re into full-on gorgeous ambient trance.

Try it, you just might like it.

And if you’re unfamiliar with DiY then there are worse places you could start than the seminal DiY Jack set from 1992’s Castlemoreton festival – check the link below to download the whole set.

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Dave's First

2013-01-20 by Hal Berstram

David Bowie and the Lower Third – Can’t Help Thinking About Me

As a long-term David Bowie fan, the last few years have seen pretty lean pickings. Bowie had a hectic schedule in the early 2000s, with two pretty good albums in quick succession – Heathen and Reality, and a lot of touring. That era came to an end after he suffered a heart attack backstage after a gig in 2004, and since then he’s hardly been seen in public.

So it was a pleasant surprise, to say the least, when I heard that Bowie had released a new single, “Where Are We Now?” It’s a pleasant enough downtempo listen, very much in the mould of his 1999 LP “hours…”, but I wanted to take you back almost 50 years to Bowie’s first ever solo release under the Bowie moniker (previous to that he was recording under his real name David Jones but was suffering confusion with Davy Jones of the Monkees). For this release, inexplicably, he’s backed by “The Lower Third” – what kind of a name for a backing group is that? Sounds like a school class.

“Can’t Help Thinking About Me” is probably the best 1960s single not to become a hit, although there is stiff competition from the High Numbers (aka The Who)’s debut single “I’m The Face”. Classic mid-60s pop and very economical with it, clocking in at under 2-and-a-half minutes. He even namechecks himself, ferchrissakes… “my girl calls my name… Hi Dave!” and also “Question Time” is mentioned, 13 years before the programme actually started on the BBC. This is a bloody time traveller record, and a stunning debut. Sadly Bowie abandoned the mid-60s pop-mod sound soon afterwards, although he continued to be informed by the mid-60s all through the 70s (most obviously on Pin Ups, although arguably the whole Ziggy Stardust thing was just mid-60s beat group rock with the guitars turned up well loud. But then all the best early 70s glamrockers were in that zone (Bolan, Slade, etc.)

Not sure if this is currently available on CD but it’s pretty easy to get 2nd hand or with a Spotify search. My copy came with one of those free CDs that you get with Mojo magazine – this one was called “Maximum ‘65” and was just about the best CD that Mojo has ever put out, worth several times the cover price of the mag in my book. Probably appearing at a charity shop near you as we speak.

More unusual Bowie gems and related stuff over the next few weeks. Dust off the pinstripe suits…

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Happy New Year from 1999

2013-01-01 by Hal Berstram

Barry Gray – Ring Around the Moon: The Captives of Triton/Moonwalk

Greetings to any aliens who have stumbled onto this site thinking it’s the 2013 equivalent of the test card: on this first day of the year I bring you a tribute to the great TV programme-maker Gerry Anderson, who died on Boxing Day last year. Anderson was probably best known for his 1960s puppet-based sci-fi shows such as Thunderbirds, Fireball XL5 and Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. All were commercial and critical successes, but for me Anderson’s best work came in the 1970s with UFO and Space: 1999.

Space: 1999 was a programme about a group of scientists living on the moon, which has become a nuclear waste dump. On September 9, 1999 a huge explosion of nuclear waste sends the moon hurtling out of Earth’s orbit into interstellar space. If you can look past the scientific prepostrousness of the premise you’ll find probably the best non-BBC TV sci-fi series of the 1970s. OK, that sounds like damning with faint praise, but it’s a good ‘un.

This track is from the soundtrack to series 1 of Space: 1999 and was scored by TV music veteran Barry Gray. It’s not a bad piece but is immeasurably better when accompanied with the visuals from the TV episode (see here): the main organ and wah-guitar theme is accompanied by possibly the most ludicrous TV “moonwalk” sequence of all time. It has me in hysterics every time I watch it! Space: 1999 is often ludicrous (and even more so in Season 2, which is a different furry monster entirely) but never did they get it as right as this again.

This is blast-off for me in 2013 as I attempt to counter the inactivity of the blog by posting a track every day for 365 days. Insanity or just blind ambition? You decide…

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Nexus 21 - Real Love(Obsession) [1990]

2011-12-22 by T Pot

Just digging through my old CDs. Found this old one from Network Records 1990. ‘Real Love’ by Nexus 21.

Quite a nice old skool cut. Nice strings.

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Curious Hardcore

2011-07-20 by The Double K

Haute Control – Dream Series

A couple of tracks here from the rare-as-rocking-horse “Future Stylin’ E.P.” from 1993 (only 24 people have a copy on Discogs, 113 want it, including me, and Hard To Find Records haven’t had a copy in since 2001).

Dream Series is an odd track, it’s hardcore but not quite as we know it… The combination of crisp breakbeats and heavy bass with really quirky samples and synths reminds me very much of the Wagon Christ sound. I have no idea who Haute Control are (this rare 12” is their only release), but the production quality on the EP is really very high throughout and I’d be surprised if this is the only release from whoever made it. You never know, it might even be one of Luke Vibert’s many pseudonyms.

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The Sound Of The Future in 1993

2011-07-20 by The Double K

Haute Control – Future Stylin’

Future Stylin’ (as you might guess) is the opening track from the “Future Stylin’ E.P.” and is much more straight up hardcore than Dream Series, probably picked for the A-side as it would more instantly appeal to DJs. The opening bars of mellow piano soon give in to the high-pitched synth hook and a wicked breakbeat that varies beautifully throughout the track.

The super-crisp and intricately crafted beats mark this out as a cut above a lot of the generic hardcore that came out around the time. Quality.

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New Order anticipate the Vickers Commission by 30 years

2011-04-15 by Hal Berstram

New Order – ICB

Apologies for such a long time since my previous posting… only just getting back into some semblance of normal work/life balance after working flat out for about 6 months.

It was this week’s publication of the interim report from the Independent Commission on Banking, chaired by Sir John Vickers, that spurred me into posting action after a long layoff. I realised that the acronym for the commission, “ICB”, was the same as a song off New Order’s first album Movement. I have posted before from Movement, which is a much underrated album, and insofar as I can understand the lyrics (which are mixed low) they don’t seem to have much to do with banking, but here it is nonetheless.

For many of us, New Order’s 1984 single “Thieves Like Us” is perhaps a more appropriate ode to the commercial banking sector… but that is perhaps more an argument for a political blog.

If they ain’t got ya one way, they’ve got ya the other.

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A Lil' More Dance Mania

2011-03-07 by The Double K

Lil’ Louis – The Original Video Clash

How to describe this early (1988) release on Dance Mania? A few things spring to mind:

Raw as fuck
Completely insane
Way ahead of it’s time

Is it house? Is it techno? Or is it actually just some fucked up bleeping and crashing shit?

Somehow the bangs crashes and bleeps, although pretty jarring on first listen, hang together and become catchy. To my ear the massive kicks and abrasive bleeps here make it a very early precursor to the “ghetto house” sound that developed later, albeit without the sleazy lyrics.

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Bass'n'Bleeps

2011-01-14 by The Double K

Mind of Kane – Frequency

Some deep, deep bass-and-bleeps techno here for you from back in 1990. There are obvious similarities to LFO’s LFO... I suspect that this track was inspired by LFO (I’d say it’s an homage rather than a rip-off), but as both records were released the same year it could be the other way round, who knows who heard which track first?

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An Analogue Treat

2010-12-22 by The Double K

The Aphex Twin – Analogue Bubblebath

It’s like the old saying about buses… you wait and wait for one to come along and then two turn up at the same time.

And for this one we’re going way back… to 1991, way before “The Twin” became a household name (well, in selected households at least), and an absolute beauty of a track taken from his very first release on Exeter’s Mighty Force records. (There were a few re-issues in 1993-94, following the success of the Selected Ambient Works LP.)

I can honestly say they just don’t make them like this any more, and it’s a shame…

I could rant here about how the “best of 2010” lists that currently abound are populated by music that I would variously label self-indulgent, directionless, joyless and overly-abrasive… In fact I just deleted a long paragraph doing just like that, naming names along the way.

But instead of dwelling on the negative, why don’t we just sit back and enjoy the majesty of Analogue Bubblebath once more? OK then, lovely.

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