Started a while back now, this is a continuation of the series of mixes from Irish djs I think are doing great things on the ones and twos at the moment. Unlike the last few I featured, Phil is also moving into the world of producing/releasing, under the name Slowburn with Dave Hargadon. Their first release is on the upcoming compilation 12″ on the Uzuri label which will also feature ISM faves Chicago Skyway and Juju and Jordash. There are samples up on the Juno website; here. The whole Ep sounds pretty darn good to these ears.
Phil’s mix is on a deep tip, much like his excellent club sets. T/l and link below. Enjoy!
1. Cloudmaster Weed- Come on (and join us)
2. Lowtec-Unknown [OTL]
3. Glen Underground-Ninja
4. Gemini-Snow Drop
5.Theo Parrish- That Day
6. Brawther- Asteroids and Stardust (burst mix)
7. Marvin Dash-Small’s paradice
8. Restoration 10
9. JorGec-Mas musica
10. Terrence Dixion- Room 310 (upperground rework)
11. M. Pittmann-Raz 09
12. Kerri Chandler-shelter
Having moved away from Ireland’s southern capital, Cork, a few years ago, I’m making one of my most anticipated (for me that is) returns to the city since then. There be a-plenty going on down there this coming weekend, and I’m lucky enough to be stuck in the middle of it, playing some records – and buying some! I’ll start at the end and work my way backwards…
2 good friends of mine, Barry Walsh and John Hennessy have been running the Sunday Times party for just over a year – check out their site here -, a day/night that has gone from strength to strength with each passing party, climaxing in it’s first birthday earlier in the summer.
After taking a break for a month it returns again this Sunday (29th) in their usual home of Realt Dearg on Barrack St and they’ve very kindly asked me to come down and play the latest edition. And as of yesterday they’ll also have a special guest flying down (well, getting the train with me) in the shape of ISM’s favourite Italian, Lerosa!
They run the party from 4 in the afternoon until Midnight or so, and going on reports a fun and eclectic musical atmosphere is what they get off on, so I’ll be packing my bag with plenty of stuff that I mightn’t normally get to play in a club atmosphere along with some disco/italo/boogie/house bizness. I’ve not played down in Cork in nearly 3 years – the place where I started playing out properly – so I’m really, really looking forward to it.
The day before is, to be fair, a much more important day for Cork’s music scene. At the end of last year my favourite record shop in the country, Plugd Records, closed it’s doors. I’m pretty sure I didn’t mention it on here as reading about another closed record store is something we didn’t need. But, one re-opening is, in these times, something to shout about from the roof tops.
Moved to a new location temporarily – the Substation venue – before it settles into the renovated Triskel Arts Centre next year, this Saturday the shop will again become a hub for all things musical in the city, kicking off immediately on it’s (re)opening day with bands playing throughout the day in the new shop. Later on that evening – with no doubt some hot new wax in my bag – things move up to the Realt Dearg where a bunch of us will be djing small sets throughout the night, with myself and Lerosa playing along with some locals including Kim Keating and Jack Buckley; who run the Workshop and Moons night respectively (Jack’s night has seen Cork debuts for the likes of Fred P, Kassem Mosse and Jus Ed), all to celebrate the return of a shop that for many years helped shape my musical collection. All in all it should hopefully be a fantastic way to end the summer -and no cover charge or anything for either party. I dunno if any Cork folk read us here much, but if you do be nice to see yis out and about, say hello and then throw things at Lerosa. Or maybe vice-versa. Tis up to you.
If you’re anywhere in the area of New York City (and let’s face it, I know there’s about 20 million people so a decent number of you must be ISM readers ), you want to be checking us out tonight at Bistrouge! Frank Glazer aka Count Zer0 and myself will be representing this here blog, while Bernardo will be representing his own Delicious Records blog; all three of us will be representing beautiful deep dance music all night long. All info is available on the Facebook event page here, we hope to see many ISM readers out tonight!
I’m back on the internets radio waves this evening, joining Mike and Eoin who do the weekly Delicious Mix Sessions on Power Fm, here in Dublin. It was sometime around the beginning of the year that I last did the show with the guys, so I’m looking forward to doing it again. If you got nothing else to do between 6-8pm tonight (Irish time) you can listen to the stream here. Last time I was on in the middle for an hour, so probably the same again. Tune in and leave some abuse on the site
My esteemed colleague Andrew Burger (AKA H.I.M. DJ Mr. Monkey MD), owner of the Harmony Society label that dropped its debut 7″ from Pittsburgh producer BusCrates last summer, has done up a new mix for us to celebrate the release of HSOC-02 by the funky Pittsburgh group Smooth Tutors!
Mr. Burger has been a long-time supporter of underground music of many styles, especially on vinyl. In addition to the label, he has put on shows, been a radio deejay and music director at 88.3 WRCT, and created countless flyers for underground shows and club nights of various types (including the vast majority of events I have done for the past few years!); now he is beginning to put his rather impressive record collection on display in deejay sets around Pittsburgh wherever he can get away with playing the diverse musics he loves.
This mix features many artists that Andrew has gotten me hip to over the years, like Carlos Niño (of Build an Ark), Georgia Anne Muldrow, and Paulinho da Costa, and contains a mix of older and newer cuts that share a similar mood. One standout tune is the B-side cut from the aforementioned Smooth Tutors 7″ on Harmony Society, which features BusCrates on keys. I’ve been playing this one a ton in my sets recently as well! Very high quality from some new Pittsburgh musicians whose sound is influenced by math-rock like Tortoise as well as jazz-funk like CTI Records! Absolutely essential, in my not-unbiased opinion!
Tracklist:
Junior Homrich – River Paradise
Paulinho da Costa – Berimbeau Variation
Dorothy Ashby – Essence Of Sapphire
Bill Walker – Harpanova
Recloose – Paepulsariki (Feat. Jonathan Crayford)
Richard “Groove” Holmes – Song For My Father
Paul Desmond – El Condor Pasa
Build An Ark – World Peace Now
Miguel Atwood-Ferguson – Fantastic (Georgia Anne Muldrow Remix)
Dragons – Sunset Scenery
Smooth Tutors – Untitled Side B
Hypnotic Brass Ensemble – Flipside
Lojack Jahil – Crack It (Unmixed)
Blondes – You Mean So Much To Me
Bobby Hutcherson – N.T.U.
Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus & Max Roach – Fleurette Africaine
In other Pittsburgh news, my man DJ Nice Rec has done up a sequel to his Boogieman mix that we featured on here a few months ago. He has been on a record buying binge that is actually exceeded by his recent spate of insanely dope productions! Seriously, this cat sends me so much good music it makes my head spin. I know I said it last time, and I’ve been dragging ass though not for much longer, but his music will see the light of day on wax on Love What You Feel by the end of the year.
In the meantime, you’re definitely gonna want to check out this mix that features many of my favorite boogie jams! Also, we are trying to get a night together where we can play all of our favorite boogie, electro-funk, roller disco, and 80s R&B jams so keep your eyes on this space for more info on that!
Tracklist:
1.) Marjorie Barnes- Point Blank
2.) First Love- Party Lights
3.) Cliff Dawson- I Can Love You Better
4.) Superior Movement- Wideshot
5.) Chemise- She Can’t Love You
6.) Armenta- I Wanna Be With You
7.) The Jones Girls- Nights Over Egypt
8.) Change- Miracles
9.) Odyssey- Inside Out
10.) Halo- Let Me Do It
11.) Vernon Burch- Playing Hard To Get
12.) Bernard Wright- Just Chillin Out
13.) Charlie Singleton and Stargasm- I Wanna Boogie With You
14.) Charisma ft. Brenda Watts- Love Treatment
15.) Sunfire- Shake Your Body
16.) Komiko- Feel Alright
17.) Goldie Alexander- Show You My Love
18.) The Players Association- We’re Almost There
19.) Finis Henderson- Skip To My Lou
20.) Master Jam- Dancin All Night
The headline says it all really. I recently came across this trailer for an upcoming documentary “To Have And To Hold” which beyond the odd naff bit in the preview looks like it could be a great film about our beloved black gold.
There have been a couple of other films based around records, the aptly named Vinyl which more focused on the nuttier end of obsessive record collectors (if anything it will make you feel less abnormal about your dedication to collecting vinyl; you will seem positively sane) and the wonderfully shot short film about Pittsburgh’s Paul Mawhinney who pertains to have the largest collection of vinyl in the world. Mawhinney also features in the new film but this one looks like it should be better than either, as hopefully it will actually focus somewhat on music and the cultural impact of vinyl and why after all these years it still generates such love and dedication from music lovers world wide. Chuck D, Danny Krivit, Mr Scruff and ?uestlove all feature which means it’s not just about oddball collectors but interesting and/or quality djs and artists who’s musical lives have all been massively impacted by vinyl.
ISM troops are invading New York City next Friday, August 20th! At the invitation of our ally Bernardo over at Delicious Records, elite warriors Frank Glazer aka DJ Count Zer0 and Thomas Cox will touch down armed with heavy vinyl explosives. Expect all kinds of deep detonations sure to get that ass moving.
You can RSVP for the action on the Facebook event page here. Keep an eye on this space before the event for any additional info! I know we have a big NYC crew, I hope to see you all out there!
If you’re one of our stateside readers you’ll probably agree that it has been ridiculously hot lately, both in terms of weather and music. If you don’t concur, well, you’re either lucky to live somewhere pleasant but have been missing out on crazy great tunes, or like me you’re already batcrap insane from the heat. I did a mix a few weeks ago when the daily temperatures were hitting the low 100s which is pretty out of the ordinary even for a New York City summer. The mix starts off kind of cool and laid back but the heat builds from there, until all hell breaks loose and the flames of Hades rise to bust thermometers and raise fevers. Fall can’t come soon enough, but for now keep your heat up with this mix.
Those of you paying attention may have noticed both tom and myself hyping releases on this label over the past couple of years. For those who don’t know, PPU is a Washington DC based label run by Andrew Morgan, specialising in rereleasing obscure private press and unreleased 80s funk jams. I think their first release to really grab my attention was Danger Zone by Midnight Express, a ridiculously dope 80′s synth funk jam rescued from the archives and given a wider exposure than it ever would have had when it was originally released on an obscure private press back in the day, I heard it played out quite a few times in Dublin which certainly illustrates that point.
Danger Zone had me checking everything PPU-related and I ended up putting in an order for about 5 or 6 records direct from the label. Andrew Morgan personally took the order and thanked me for my support which is always a nice touch, shipping to Europe was reasonable too so if you’re thinking of catching up I’d recommend just ordering direct. And, of course, I now check every latest PPU release, perhaps some of the stuff is more incredibly obscure than incredibly good, but the gems far outweigh any such criticisms. My personal favourites so far include; George Franklin Smallwood & Marshmellow’s “Mr. Sunshine”, a super slick funky soul jazz tune, Sir Bentley’s “Street Shuffle”, Tom Noble’s Africa Bump Edit (anyone know the og for that one?), 4 Reel’s “One Life To Live” and the District Maryland Virginia EP compilation, many of which I’ve featured in my mixes, and there’s plenty more too.
They also released some modern electro-funk from Dam-Funk (as Wavelength) on a limited 7″.
As the label has gained momentum and increased support, they’ve even started putting out DVDs featuring rare live footage of PPU artists, 80s funk parties, original videos and more. Andrew Morgan has set up his own youtube channel as madmosaic to showcase all that stuff, so you should definitely check that shit out. Here’s the trailer for the PPU Party DVD…
So I had intended to do a post-DEMF records post, but that never materialized. Then I got a ton of good stuff here in Pittsburgh, but that post never happened either. Last week, I made a quick but fruitful stop through NYC and picked up some good records, and now I will finally try to sum all this awesome music I’ve picked up over the past two months into one post. I’m gonna round up groups of records that go together before getting into individual joints, but everything in here is hot as hell, so read all the way through! (more…)
), you want to be checking us out tonight at Bistrouge! 
