Image : Amy Plant

Just a quick post to point you in the way of a small interview myself and Dean Feeney from Tr One did with Irish website Thumped.com. The usual topics for us luddites; vinyl n’ hardware plus how we feel about the Irish electronic music scene….

Read it here

The Drum Dance 12″ has now hit Hardwax, Piccadilly and a bunch other places etc, enough spam. Nice one.

Today we kick off the week with a mix by a name that is probably pretty new to most of you: Jay Simon from Washington DC. I had the pleasure of meeting Jay earlier this year when he came up to Pittsburgh when Omar-S played here in January. I could tell that he knew what was up, and now he is proving it with his first release on vinyl! Kyle Hall’s Wild Oats label is dropping Jay’s track “Faith”, which is a funky low slung house jam featuring vocals borrowed from the r&b singer of that same name (which is included on his mix of course!), on limited edition 7″. Pretty heavy stuff for a debut record!

We did a little email interview with Jay to go along with the mix. As you will see, he rolls exactly how we like here at infinitestatemachine…

ISM: How did you originally get into deejaying? Production?

JS: I had always been into “beats” (more from a hip-hop perspective) for as long as I can remember, but I didn’t really get introduced to underground hip hop & electronic dance music stuff till I was about 14 or so. Once I figured out that there were entire genres that catered to the sounds I liked I was hooked. I couldn’t stop looking for new music & sounds…I’m still like that. So along the way I amassed a good collection of music, and really took an effort to educate myself on the roots of it, from there I realized other people I really respected (DJs and producers) had similar taste as me, so I decided to share my perspective of it. As far as production again from a young age I realized I really wanted to do it, but I always felt like I never could because I had no musical education, but recently I’m just trying to experiment and do things for myself, if other people like it that’s great too, but I’m really not trying to make stuff for other people specifically.

ISM: I know you’re a younger cat in this scene, are lots of your friends your age into this music?

JS: Definitely not, haha. Although with the internet there are more and more young kids really schooling themselves at a young age. Especially because you can basically make music with just a laptop now, and websites like discogs allow kids to know and hear almost everything an artist has done with just a few clicks on youtube or whatever. But even now nearly all of the “music people” I hang out with and regularly converse with online are an average of 5-10 years older than me. There are a few exceptions though…Kyle Hall obviously, Jay Daniel, SlikTimm, Floating Points, Funkineven and, Space Dimension Controller to name a few.

ISM: What is the dance music scene like in DC? Who are your partners in crime?

JS: The Future Times guys are definitely my closest friends in D.C. Dance music wise they are the only crew consistently pushing things forward while still having knowledge and respect of the past. I don’t really have any “partners in crime” musically, I’m just on my solo dolo as far as that’s concerned. Most parties here are dominated by your typical RA type stuff, most party goers’ & promoters’ knowledge doesn’t really run too much deeper than that. So you get a lot of bullshit hipster post-minimal faux “deep” house stuff which I hate, so I don’t really go to non Future Times related events much at all.

ISM: How would you describe your deejaying style?

JS: The style of no style I guess…I really love a lot of different types of music and really try to incorporate as much as possible, which is usually difficult/basically impossible to do in a 90 minute set… I prefer to play all night if that’s possible. Because of that, you might catch me playing completely different stuff from party to party or mix to mix…to me it’s all the same shit, music that hits me physically and emotionally, I’m not too caught up on sticking to one thing these days at all.

ISM: Does it affect the way you approach making tunes?

JS: Yes and no. I think unconsciously it definitely does, but it just comes out of my own taste I guess. I just try to make what I like to hear, not necessarily something specifically for DJing. A lot of my favorite stuff isn’t so DJ conscious from a production or arrangement point of view, in that sense I see it as a challenge to work it into my own sets, and I like to challenge myself.

ISM: How do you work you love for hip-hop and broken beat, two non 4 on the floor musics, into what you do?

JS: It’s definitely a challenge, but my favorite DJs are the ones who don’t just stick to the modern idea of one genre or style, and I try to approach things that way too. I tend to gravitate more towards warm sounds & groove oriented music… which can be anything from post-punk to techno. Recently more than ever I’m really trying to take my selections to the next level and show people a broader picture of where I come from, not only as a DJ but as a person.

ISM: How did you get hooked up with Kyle Hall?

JS: We originally started talking on Facebook a few years ago, I was into his music and knew he was a young dude with ears beyond his years (haha) so we initially connected on that. From there we started sharing tunes, and a lot of the stuff I was very into at the time (broken beat mainly) was mostly new to him. I knew from his music he was attracted to more abstract rhythms and had a respect for musicality, so the broken beat stuff was like a natural fit. A few months after we met online, he played his first show in D.C. and we met in person for the first time. After that we just kept in touch.

The record came about just from me randomly showing him some of the stuff I did on Soundcloud, and he happened to be into a lot of it. I was never planning on putting that “Faith” track out, I just did it for my own DJ sets mainly, but he was really excited about it and wanted to release it.

ISM: You’re also starting your own label soon, right?

JS: Yeah…it’s called Must Have Records. The first release is a relatively under the radar Finnish producer named Saine. He mostly does hip hop & downtempo/jazz type stuff, but on his albums (he’s already released 2 full LPs) he would have 1 or 2 killer house jams. I contacted him on Soundcloud and he was down to do his first “dance music” oriented EP for Must Have. Stylistically its pretty unique, I call it “modern deep”, it’s definitely not your typical house record. It’s coming on vinyl before the end of the year…test presses sound excellent. The second release is going to be from a friend of mine named Julien Love, I included one of his unreleased tracks on the mix. His music has been heavily sought after by heads in the know for some time now, so its a real pleasure to be able to release some of it. 2012 will be a big year for Must Have Records so stay tuned…

ISM: Do you feel like you’re part of a bigger movement right now coming out of the US?

JS: I never really thought about it that way, but maybe? I’m just trying to do things with knowledge and respect of the founders of this dance music thing, while at the same time putting my own spin on it…anyone trying to do that I fuck with.

———–

Jay’s mix entitled “Swag Swag Woop Swag” can be downloaded HERE.

Tracklist:

1. Slum Village – Forth & Back Ft. Kurupt (Remix) [Ne'Astra]
2. The Shake Up Connection – Let’s Dance [Amplified]
3. Jay Simon – Faith [Wild Oats]
4. The Orb – Little Fluffy Clouds (Cumulonimbus Mix) [Polygram]
5. Rondenion – The Beautiful Memory [Aesthetic Audio]
6. Hunee – Amiadar [Retreat]
7. Trio Zero – Twilight [Capitol]
8. James Mason – Nightgruv [Mighty Fine]
9. Julien Love – Touch [CDR]
10. Steve Arrington – Dancin’ In The Key of Life [Atlantic]
11. Burrell – I Really Like [Virgin]
12. E.S.P. – It’s You [Underground]
13. Theo Parrish & Marcellus Pittman – Night of the Sagittarius [Sound Signature]

You should also check Jay out on his Soundcloud page as well as his Podomatic page.

P.S. BOOTY

Theo Parrish’s remix of About Group’s You’re No Good is his trademark deeply layered grimey house cut, with heavy bass, jazz keys, and vocal samples shimmering in and out. It’s slow and hypnotic but still damn funky, especially when the hip hop beat drops near the end. Staying in Detroit, Andrés has just dropped Andrés III, which is another very strong mini-LP of sample house and short hip hop cuts. The opening track samples the wonderful piano line from Pharaoh Sanders’ We Gotta Have Freedom to good effect, and there’s some really nice Dilla-esque tracks on the b-side.

I’ve been following Recloose since his first EP on Planet-E back in 1998, and over the years he’s steadily developed his own distinct style of electronic music based on Detroit house and techno but with strong roots in soul, funk, disco and jazz, with liberal use of samples and often guest live instrumentation. After going all the way and touring with a full live band between 2006-2008, he seems to have gone back to a more electronic sound recently, and Saturday Night Manifesto EP is his latest offering. The opening track Electric Sunshine is the stand out for me, quirky deep summer sounds, with some great use of samples. The other tracks are more straight up dancefloor focused house/techno jams. It’s got a mixed reaction from some people I’ve talked too but in my opinion it’s one of the best new releases of the year. Keep up with Recloose over on his Hit It And Quit It blog where he posts his excellent weekly radio show from Auckland, New Zealand.

I’ve been getting into the Washington DC based Future Times label over the past year after picking up some nice releases by Beautiful Swimmers, Protect-U and Rhythm Based Lovers. Modern house music heavily influenced by cosmic disco and boogie funk is the general feel. The latest release is a limited 7″ by Beautiful Swimmers, Open Shadow. Slow, cosmic dubbed out disco yacht rock song is one possible way to describe it (badly), I guess a good comparison would be with Jonathan Jeremiah’s Happiness from last year, except a bit more dub.

I also just want to mention Tom Noble’s new(ish) reissue label Superior Elevation Records. There’s been 2 great releases so far, the first was a reissue of a rare 7″ release by Detroit’s Exit from 1982, Detroit Leaning is a slick funk rock jam, sounds more like a 70′s track with only the beat and synths giving it a more 80s boogie feel. That was followed up by an absolute monster disco funk gem, Charlie Clemons And The Might Power Band The Devil Has Made This Land His Playground. This was a very obscure indie disco project from 1980, Tom Noble was given access to the masters in order to “give it the full on Tom Moulton era disco extension” adding, “No new instrumentation has been added, simply a late 70′s disco face-lift for two previous songs which had mad potential, but weren’t fully realized.”

And keeping with the “Tom Moulton era disco” theme, Victor Rosado was in Dublin for a gig recently and kindly accepted an invitation to appear on my man Nic’s weekly radio show Box Deluxe on Power FM. They have a chat about Victor’s memories of the Loft, the Paradise Garage and Larry Levan and pick out some favourite tracks from that era.

box_deluxe with special guest: victor rosado by box_deluxe

We’ve been pretty slack on the interview front here at ISM for quite some time. Don’t think for a second that this post is a sign of us picking up the pace either as none of us had anything to do with it! My man in Tokyo, Andrew Hogan, recently caught up with Rick Wilhite and sat down for an informal chat with him when he was touring over there. He has very kindly given us the interview which we be delivering to you in audio format. Yup, I couldn’t have been arsed transcribing it, but Andrew has edited it for us a little bit – mainly because I believe Rick is a very laid back chap, so this speeds it up a bit, though not much

RIck came in for a bit of criticism for his interview on RA last year with some unimpressed by his old school stance on djing/producing and vinyl with some fools seeing him as a bit too negative and bitter, but there is no sign of that here, where he comes across as a softly spoken, polite dude talking about his history, his productions, and quite fitting for this time of year, the direction the DEMF has taken since it’s inception.

Many thanks to Drew for this exclusive and also thanks to Erica Grainger for the photo from his Tokyo gig.

Grab it here.

OK, this one is gonna be a lil bit long, but instead of making a bunch of separate posts I’m just gonna throw a load of different stuff in together. January isn’t generally seen as that busy a month in music so apologies for the lack of posts. Looking at a bunch of my recent purchases it seems I’ve spent the last few weeks picking up on a few end of 2010 releases more so than 100% hot off the presses 12″s but December ain’t really a time of year that I get to buy records so one tends to miss a few things around then. Before I get to them I’m gonna give a quick heads up on some gig action going on over the next few weeks, throw a couple of links to some top class mixes doing the rounds along with a few other bits n’ bobs.

First up is this Friday (4th of February) here in Dublin with the launch party of Lunar Disko’s latest release, a compilation I reviewed in this post a while back. The party is taking place in new-ish venue The Sweeney Mongrel on Dame St which is a nice lil intimate venue and the party is free, so no excuses! I’ll be opening the night followed by Automatic Tasty, who’s live sets are properly amazing and the man like Lerosa will be closing the night off with a Dj Set. Leo has also supplied a rather brilliant new mix for our boys in Cork, Sunday Times! which is on an italo/new wave tip. Also, over at the Mntothat site, the boys behind Lunar give some insight into their label along with a few words from the night’s 2 guests.

The week after I’m heading back out west to Bap To The Future at the Beirhaus in Galway on Saturday the 12th, where I played along side LA’s GB last year. This time around myself and Noid the Droid will be manning the decks for the night for, well, god knows what sort of mash up of tunes. Between us there aren’t many genres that won’t be touched on. Again, this is free in. For any Dublin based folk, ISM’s Gmos will be in the Twisted Pepper at Discotekken alongside Choice Cut’s Handsome Paddy on the same night. Along with Lerosa, Paddy has delivered one of the best mixes in recent months with his Kick Out The Jams selection which you can find here. He touches on Hip Hop, Electro, modern Bass bizness and all sorts on this highly energetic mix. I challenge thee not to enjoy it!

Back in the Twisted Pepper on Saturday the 19th, Barry Redsetta, one of Dublin’s finest house and techno djs is kick starting a new night, Jam The Box with Donnacha Costello performing a special Color Series live set. This series of 12″s from the middle of the last decade is my favourite work of Donnacha’s and arguably his best, so this should be pretty awesome. Myself and Barry will be on warm up duties for the night. Moving swiftly on…

I was out a few weeks ago when a chap I know came up to me talking about my latest mix and he made a jokey comment about me putting a bootleg on it (regular readers will know that we lot here aren’t huge fans of the bootleg, even though I ain’t gonna deny owning some). I was a little bit perplexed, especially when he said it was this release from Rush Hour’s House Of Trax series. It turns out that on Facebook somebody from Trax Records had made a statement saying that neither Rush Hour or Dj History had consulted or cleared anything with Trax in Chicago over the material they were using.

We know-and we recognize- that this year there are several projects coming out with the TRAX name but we want to let you know that a majority of these projects have not even contacted us-the original Chicago label-or anything. A majority of things such as the Rush Hour re-issues and the upcoming TRAX Re-edits are projects which we had no say in — we were not even contacted for music, let alone any say towards the releases.

I found this quite strange as a) Rush Hour didn’t seem like the sort to go bootlegging b) how could they think they’d get away with such high profile boots, with little else said in the press and c) the sound quality on these releases were generally so good that I couldn’t imagine they were bootlegged…

So has the most revered label of the last 12 months been a naughty boy?? The simple answer is, no. I decided to contact Christiaan from Rush Hour and ask him about these claims and he then passed me on to Demon Music, the company who Rush Hour worked along side on the project. Many of you may be aware that quite some time ago the ownership of much of Trax’s output was transferred over to Casablanca Music, and since then Demon have taken control of the licensing of the music. Now, Discogs does state that there are some current legal wranglings going on between Trax and Casablanca, but rest assured, the Rush Hour re-issues ARE above board..and there will be more old gems to come! And so on to some new musaks…

Phochos – Glaciers/Interface Phrase 1 / House of Jezebel – Love and Happiness Danny Wolfers, aka Legowelt, has been on somewhat of a roll the last 6 months or so. Always prolific under his various different guises, these two latest 12″s include some wonderful input from him. He’s on a tranced-out techno tip on his remix on the Phochos 12″ which sits very nicely along side the aptly titled opener Glaciers. Chances are you are gonna go straight for the dancefloor cut but Glaciers cosmic, cinematic bliss is its equal.

The House of Jezebel 12″ is basically a fairly straight up cover of Ron Hardy’s old unreleased track. Hardy can be a bit of a sacred cow to some but I don’t care, this version is better. He’s not really done anything but add some more drums over the top, but he ramps up the drama something else on it. It went unreleased for quite some time, instead just sitting on his website which neatly brings me on to this unreleased remix, which I hope appears on wax soon. Outstanding acid spiced electro from the mysterious Haddawolf…

Various – Long Slow Heat Death Ep On my yearly round up I gave a quick mention to Slabs of The Tabernacle crew in Scotland. Following on from their night and website, they started a label, Tabernacle Records, the 2nd of which is this first class split ep of darker edged electro featuring Ditone and Fancy & Spook, 2 acts who previously released on Heatray Records (which I’m now going to check out thanks to this 12″) I don’t hear enough of this kind of electro these days, of such high quality.

Cottam – Cottam EP 4 There’s been quite a bit of furore over the Cottam 12″s over the last year or two but up until now I’ve never quite had the urge to pick up any of them. I was sold on this one purely for the A1 cut, which works for me as a sort of guilty pleasure big room disco/acid house growler, coming on like a slightly tamer version of this cracking 12″ that Rush Hour dropped in ’09. Sure there’s nothing wrong with throwin’ yer arms in the air every so often, eh?

Kassem Mosse – 2D – Gunnar Wendal has become a bit of a poster boy in the last year for, well, any genre he cares to touch. Here he’s on a rugged, lo-fi house and electro tip and he once again delivers in spades.

Gatekeeper – Giza The Chicago duo continue on their quest to make the most bombastic EBM/Electro music going with their follow up to 2009′s monstrous Optimus Maximus. This is even better and, unsurprisingly, disappeared off the shelves in what seemed like a matter of hours. It’s about as subtle as an over-sized battering ram, and all the better for it

E.R.P. – Evoked Potentials (Part 3) The enigmatic Gerard Hanson returns for another round of these highly sought after releases on the Spanish label, Semantica, this time a whole 400 getting pressed up, which means it should last in the shops maybe more than 10 minutes. Any new material from Mr Hanson tends to get a fevered reception from his fans due to the scarcity of his output, but they may still be slightly let down by the original composition delivered for this 10″. A “standard” E.R.P. track is still enjoyable fare, and Repose has a solid low slung groove with the usual atmospheric, melancholic ambience we’ve come to expect, but it still feels a little less vital than some of what he’s done. The flipside, on the other hand, places this right back in the essential pile, an invigorating remix of Sensory Process (Off Part 1 of the series) by London’s Plant43. He tones down the drama of the original slightly, and tightens up the bass and percussion and while it still occupies that brooding, dark territory of the original, his own personality is firmly stamped on it.

Semantica have also decided to do a repress of sorts of the first in their ERP series, with a 200 pressing 10″ which contains the original of Sensory Process but not the flipside, Lodestone. Slightly annoying, but better than nothing after the ludicrously small pressing (100) they did for the Ep in the first place. Amusingly enough though, 114 claim to have it on Discogs. Do the bullshitters actually think they are impressing us??

Sfera Celeste Project feat. Fred Ventura – Celestial Stars/Walk With Me This grabbed my attention initially because of Ventura’s name but I’m not really gone on Celestial Stars, the vocal track he contributes to on here. It’s the flip that wins out here, a fine electro number that takes it’s cues from John Carpenter’s trademark spine-tingling keys. It doesn’t do much bar shuffle along in a moody fashion (not in a bad way, mind) and there is a pretty lush pay off near the end with some 80′s style pads.

Some time ago Tom made a post about the decline in quality in a lot of Planet E’s output in the last few years. Well 2011 sees it celebrate it’s 20th Anniversary, and as is the way these things go, there’ll be compilations/remixes etc coming out over the next while. Excited? Not really. He’s picked a number of artists to remix various tracks from over the years and bar maybe Kirk Degiorgio (who’s remixing that woeful Martin Buttrich “Stoned Autopilot” shite) and Mad Mike he’s opted to select some fairly uninspiring names such as Loco Dice, Luciano, Francois K, Ricardo Villalobos, Seth Troxler..ugh I couldn’t be arsed listing off the rest. Whatever about choosing to get big names in on it, the likes of Villalobos, Hawtin, Francois K and, as much I revere the guy, Mad Mike, are generally past their best (irregardless of what you feel about their high points, creatively). ZZZzzzzzz.

Out with the old and in with the new I say! Fellow blogger Kuri of Energy Flash has just announced that he is kick starting a new label this year. The release date isn’t 100% but you can check out some info and samples of the first release here, and I must say I’m really impressed by how the A1 and B1 cuts are sounding. It’s always good to see peeps getting out there past the internet scribing and dipping their toes in the big bad world of releasing music so all the best with things, Kuri.

Aaaand finally, this post is nearly over. We may not cover much in the world of Hip Hop on ISM but that don’t mean we aren’t fans. As a reward for trawling through this fucking long post, here’s a cool interview with Pete Rock and Dj Premier. The info say’s it is just an out-take from some Japanese DVD but this 1hr long chat is pretty impressive on it’s own. The 2 guys just sit there and talk shit on their history and a bunch of the music they worked on. Pretty entertaining stuff.

I first encountered Kirk Degiorgio‘s music a long time ago, when I was first getting into techno and house. It was obvious from his wildly differing production styles that he was a serious music head! Then more recently I encountered him online on the Little Detroit forum, where we had it out a bit in discussions about the use of computers for deejaying. To put it bluntly, Kirk is one of the few people I’ve witnessed doing GOOD deejay sets with a laptop. His set at DEMF this year was a personal highlight, and despite the serious/angry look many of his publicity photos online have, Kirk is as nice and solid of a cat as I’ve encountered in this music. I was quite geeked when he offered to do up a special mix for us at ISM filled to the brim with rare disco cuts! I decided to take this opportunity to ask him a few questions via email about how this kind of disco has influenced him…

ISM: Does disco like you play in this mix have any influence your techno productions? If so, how?

KD: I think so, in so much as everything I enjoy listening to seeps thru to my creative pool from which I can draw. I believe in subliminal influences via osmosis when it comes to music – as opposed to anything specific.

It’s why I called my earliest artist project ‘As One’, as it was a simple way of describing my music as all of my influences coming together.

ISM: Did you notice a difference in how disco culture mutated into house music in the UK vs in the US?

KD: Most definitely, the link between Disco and House was not acknowledged or recognised as much as it should have been in the UK. The early house tracks went fairly unnoticed outside the soul scene, as it was played alongside artists such as Cameo, Colonel Abrams and other mid-80s dance music. But once the ‘acid house’ phenomena started, the drug connotations attracted a lot of people from outside of the dance scene who were completely unaware of the influence of Disco, Ron Hardy, Larry Levan, etc. For these commentators who felt a need to ‘claim’ this music, it was linked to the DIY ethic of punk and its legacy was linked more to bands such as Kraftwerk, and european industrial bands.

ISM: What deejays influenced you before house/techno music really took off in the UK?

KD: I was too young to go to nightclubs – I have been into dance music since I was eleven – so the most influential DJ’s to me were the radio DJ’s and the few DJ’s who made records when electro became popular.

The radio DJ’s would have been Robbie Vincent, Greg Edwards and Tony ‘Shades’ Valance. These three had very similar tastes – they would play a mixture of high quality, yet commercial disco and boogie around the years 79-81. They also played a fair amount of jazz-funk, particularly Robbie Vincent. DJ Froggy was the biggest influence from a creative point of view. He was a regular guest on Robbie Vincent’s show and he would present a 30 minute mix – beat-matching
disco, jazz-funk, etc. He was the first DJ I heard do that in the UK. The Top 30 Disco show on the pirate station Radio Luxembourg – hosted by DJ Tony Prince – was also a huge influence as it was an upfront representation of what was big in the clubs at the time. The cut-up tracks made a few years later by Grandmaster Flash, Bambaataa, Double Dee & Steinski, DJ Red Alert, Marley Marl, etc were the next DJ influence on me. I began making similar mixes using a double cassette deck and one turntable – by using the pause button to link mixes and make edits.

ISM: What modern deejays do you dig?

KD: It’s a difficult question – because after all the years I’ve spent in clubs, what impresses me most is what a DJ is playing. I know that sounds obvious, but I’m not that impressed by mixing technique or turntablism. If a DJ is playing old music – I want to hear tracks I haven’t heard a million times before. I don’t mind the odd classic at the right time, but if you want to impress me, don’t play Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” – there are plenty of other great electronic disco tracks out there. Likewise, if you’re playing old techno classics – play something other than the usual big-hitters. But most of all, if you’re playing old-school disco, funk, boogie then nothing will make me leave a club quicker than hearing the same old “chestnuts” that I was playing at my school disco’s when I was thirteen.

The best moments are when a DJ with the knowledge and bravery to go deep, drops a track that makes you rush to the DJ booth and ask ‘what the fuck is THIS?’

Thanks very much to Kirk Degiorgio for this mix, which can be downloaded HERE. Kirk requested that the tracklist be left in the dark for a while to allow some good old fashioned trainspotting in the comments. So have at it! Also, you can keep up with Kirk’s productions, deejay gigs, online mixes, and other fun stuff at his Planetary Folklore blog.

EDIT: Kirk has provided a full tracklist to complete what we got in the comments section! I’m really embarrassed by how many of these I have but couldn’t recognize, and now I have a few other joints added to my wants list

Timmy Thomas – Africano (TK Disco)
Disconnection – Dead On The Case (Prelude)
Tempest Trio – Do You Like It, The Way That It Feels? (Marlin)
Brooklyn Dreams – Music, Harmony & Rhythm (Millennium)
Fantastic Four – Got To Have Your love (Atlantic)
NYCC – I’ll Keep A Light In My Window (RCA)
Linda Hopkins – In Your Blood (Columbia)
Black Light Orchestra – Touch Me, Take Me (RCA Canada)
The Choice Four – Come Down To Earth (RCA)
James Wells – My Claim To Fame (AVI)
Wish / La-Rita Gaskins – Nice & Soft (Perspective)
Asha Puthli – I’m Gonna Dance (TK Disco)
Pure Energy – Party On (Prism)
Sine – Keep It Coming (Vanguard)
Debbie Jacobs – Don’t You Want My Love (MCA)
Jesse Gould – Out Of Work (P&P)
Kebekelektrik – War Dance (Salsoul)
Billy Nichols – Give Your Body Up (To The Music) (West End)
Ava Cherry – You Never Loved Me (RSO)
Eastside Connection – You’re So Right For Me (Rampart)
Gregg Diamond – Risky Changes (Polydor)
Bill Brandon – We Fell In Love While Dancing (Prelude)
Lucy Hawkins – Gotta Get Out Of Here (SAM)
Tasha Thomas – Shoot Me (With Yout Love) (Atlantic)
Passion – Don’t Bring Back Memories (Prelude)
Joyce – Papa John Creach (Buddah)
Hydro ft. Lorna – Stop Your Teasing (Prism)
Mighty Fire – Love Fantasy (Elektra)
Dazzle – You Dazzle Me (De-Lite)
The Brothers – Are You Ready For This (RCA)
Damon Harris – It’s Music (WMOT)
The Players Association – Goin’ To The Disco (Vanguard)
Jakki – Sun Sun Sun (Pyramid)

Also, much thanks to my ace Matt Cohen for the great photo of Kirk from his DEMF set this year!

Tom did a round-up pretty recently but here’s another glut of D related goodies from some other sites. First, you all have to check out this sick video mix from Terrence Parker, cutting and scratching house and disco with some style for a St Petersburg based radio station. I’m not always mad on DJs doing loads of tricks for the sake of it a la the DMCs, but here it’s adding to the music and cranking up the energy rather than messing up tracks you want to hear more of, at least that’s my own feeling.

Also the good folks over at LittleWhiteEarbuds are delivering the goods as usual with interviews with Kyle Hall and Mike Huckaby. Mike also provided them with an excellent mix of electronic classics to listen to while you’re reading!

Keep up the good work folks!

As you most likely know by now, it was my label’s debut release that unleashed this maniac who calls himself “Disco Nihilist” on the record buying world. Since that 12″ dropped, he has put out two more records on the Construction Paper label, including one that is just dropping now worldwide called “From One Place To Another”.

I’ve personally been banging all four cuts from this one out in the months since I got the white label in the mail. “Easy” is kind of the obvious dancefloor killer, and I’ll forgive everyone for banging it out as long as they check the other cuts as well, each of which is dope in its own way. “Leaving Bull Creek” is the cousin of “Easy”, a deeply submerged and repetitive house joint. “Gallop”, if you couldn’t already guess, is a more hard-edged yet still atmospheric tribute to the greatest acid producer of all time, Armando Gallop. Possibly my favorite (and a cut that almost made LWYF-001!) is “SH101 Acid” which does exactly what it says on the tin: a pummeling acid jam based around a thick 101 riff.

Since it seemed like a kind of weird to interview the Nihilist myself, I enlisted my favorite music blogger, Jacob Arnold from the excellent Gridface blog, to do the business. This interview was done in late 2009, as some issues popped up early this year in getting the new record out in the shops. Now that it is out there, we’re happy to finally drop this interview! Jacob will take it from here…

Mike Taylor, aka Disco Nihilist, is a relatively new producer. His first, self-titled, 12-inch kicked off pipecock’s label Love What You Feel. His latest release is a split EP with Daetron Vargas on Daetron’s label Construction Paper. I interviewed Mike via email over the past month or so.

Jacob: Where did you grow up?

Mike: I grew up in Livonia, a suburb of Detroit.

Jacob: Where are you located now?

Mike: I just moved to Portland, Maine with my wife about a month ago. Our first child is due in April. We just moved from Austin, Texas.

Jacob: When did you move to Austin? Was there a house scene there?

Mike: I moved to Texas on March 9th, 2004. Five days before my 27th Birthday.

There was a house scene there, but I wasn’t a part of it or terribly interested in being a part of it. I had been involved in dance music for about nine years by the time I left Detroit. By that time I had been distancing myself from the scene and I only really went to Wednesday Nights at The Lager House when Mike Clark and the Beatdown Sounds guys would play. I also hit up house gigs at The Johansen Charles Gallery and a few lofts and galleries whose names escape me.

Interestingly enough, I had arranged to buy an Akai S3000xl sampler from a guy in Austin just before I left Detroit. It turned out to be Jim Carlyle from Submersible Machines. We talked about music for awhile and decided to check out the only dance record store in town. It was pretty piss poor. They had a Starski and Clutch record and a copy of Force Universelle on Purpose Maker and those were the only close to good records in the store. The rest of it was breaks, bad west coast house, a little jungle and whatever else. At that point I pretty much decided that Austin sucked and that I was going to tune the scene out.

For the first two years in Austin I made a conscious effort not to make any real friends. I had an empty apartment with a work table, a chair, and a bed. I spent most of my time reading, working in a print shop, making collages, doing graphics work or playing an acoustic guitar. It was the most productive time in my life and it did wonders for my music. I was not very good at music while I lived in Detroit. I didn’t start showing any promise until I moved to Austin. I finally learned scales, chords, and chord progressions. I learned how to put songs together on a 99 dollar pawn shop acoustic in that little apartment.

I needed to be alone and away from Detroit before I could figure out who I was or what I was going to do. It took me a few years to sort myself out, I was pretty emotionally screwed up and directionless by the time I left. I kept in touch with a few close friends from back home and did a lot of mail art. Mail art was pretty much my only social outlet during that time. I looked through my archives the other day and I was surprised by how much work we did back then. I have a box full of collages, handmade zines, letters and posters. We had a busy dialog for about two years.

After I had been there for a couple years I saw that Darshan Jesrani was going to be playing at a club and that Merrick Brown would be playing there as well. I remembered Merrick from the 313 list because he ran Tektite records. I decided that I would go check out the gig and see what Merrick had been up to. I went to the gig and Darshan played a great set of dance classics, it was one of the few truly great gigs that happened during years I was in Texas. Towards the end of the gig I saw a dude in a 430 West t-shirt talking to another guy. I decided I would go talk to the guy in the shirt because you don’t see too many of those in Texas. It turns out that it was Minto George from Down Low Records and that other guy was Merrick Brown. I already knew Minto from a few years back when he and JT Stewart would send me records for a radio show I did on CJAM.

Merrick and I exchanged numbers and stayed in touch, Merrick became my first real friend in Austin. It was nice to be able to talk about Subhead, Cristian Vogel, Neil Landstrumm, old Detroit and Chicago stuff and all those other guys from back then. I used to hang out with Merrick and his wife quite a bit back then. He was also starting a night at the time called Get Broke. It started at a little sushi joint on 6th Street and then moved over to Thursday nights at Plush. I pretty much hit Plush every Thursday for about two years after that. Everybody I know in Austin is through that night. John Angle, John Ousley, Jeff Roye, Billy Converse, Hill Cardwell, and Eric Wallenstein, basically all the guys that would be the vinyl DJs clustered around Backspin Records.

Jacob: Did you go to any dance clubs growing up?

Mike: Yeah, dance music was pretty much my life from 1995 to about 2003. There was all kinds of great stuff happening in Detroit during that time. There was so much going on. I used to go to Poorboy parties, Three Floors of Fun, EXAT at Zoots, Hotbox parties, Better Days, The Sardine Bar, Motor, Alvins, Forans, Family parties, all kinds of different places. There were also a lot of great coffee houses at the time like Zoots, The Zone, and The Green Room. I heard all kinds of great music back then, not just dance music. I would give anything to have Detroit in the ’90s back.

One of the last great parties I went to was the memorial party for Laura Gavoor. It had Rolando, Andres, Moodymann, Theo Parrish, and Derrick May on one bill. The circumstances of the gig could have been better, but it was a great party. I couldn’t tell you the name of the place–it was one of those newer joints near Joe Louis.

That being said, I would like to distance myself from Detroit. You aren’t going to catch me putting vintage photos of African children on my shit and calling my project Funky Black Motor City Ghetto Jungle Booty Perfume. I was around back in the day, but I am not trying to claim that I am part of the 12th wave of Detroit techno or that you should buy my shit because Kenny Larkin is my cousin. New York and Chicago are as big of an influence on me now as Detroit was then. The Detroit dudes have their own thing, I am not trying to bite their shit so that I can sell more records. Detroit definitely shaped my tastes and sensibilities, but I have been gone for too long to feel right about claiming it.

So many people misuse and misrepresent the legacy of Detroit music for their own gain. I don’t want to be one of those people. I will let the people who deal with that shit day in and day out claim it, it is their right, not mine. My records sell on their own, I don’t need to use Detroit as a crutch to get over. That is why I put it down for Texas on my first two records. I didn’t write those tracks near the Lodge, I wrote them a stones throw from MoPac.

Jacob: When did you start producing your own tracks?

Mike: I bought my first drum machine, an Alesis HR-16, from a Trading Times ad in 1995. I paid $60 dollars for it.

Jacob: What other kinds of hardware do you use?

Mike: I would rather not get into specifics. I don’t have very much money, so my studio isn’t very impressive to gear nerds. I don’t have one of those ridiculous Dutch studios with 50,000 dollars worth of vintage analogue equipment and every Roland unit ever made. I use cheap hardware that I was able to find on craigslist for not much money. Austin was good for that, there was a lot of gear floating around that town that could be had for cheap because no one was interested.

I use a lot of late ’80s and early ’90s digital hardware that goes for nothing these days. The average price for a piece of gear in my studio is about a hundred bucks. I only have one nice thing in my studio, and I think people will be able to guess what that is.

I can’t really stand listening to people argue over the technical merits of gear these days. I think you should use whatever you happen to have and do the best you can with it. There is no magical box that is going to make your music better. It all boils down to what is going on in your head and your hands.

I hope to make a few upgrades this year. Hopefully a little money will come rolling in from record sales, licensing and the tour next fall. I would really like to buy a decent multi-track tape recorder, a TR-808, and a small analogue modular system. Those are my three gear fantasies for 2010-2011.

I don’t really want much more than that. I don’t feel any jealousy when I see these guys on the Internet with huge piles of gear in their studio. I just think about what a hassle it must be to have to choose between 20 keyboards, a rack of processors, and five drum machines. You have so many more decisions to make in such a complex system. It is no wonder that most of them never get any work done. I would rather have a few good tools that I really know.

Jacob: Can you tell me about the process of putting a track together? How do you usually get started?

Mike: Guilt, it usually starts with guilt. The gear sits unused in the studio and silently lectures me about my lack of industriousness.

The hardest thing is sitting down. Once I finally sit down to make music, I am usually disciplined about work. I pick a key to work in, and then I start noodling around with the keyboard or the 303 and try and come up with some kind of hook. Sometimes it comes, sometimes it doesn’t.

I have been doing it long enough that I don’t really have to think about it too much any more. If something isn’t sitting in the mix correctly, it usually doesn’t take me too long to figure out the problem. My studio is small and unremarkable, but I know my tools backwards and forwards. I usually work by intuition and let things happen.

Jacob: How did pipecock discover your music?

Mike: Tom is an under-rated music critic. Most of the stuff that is being featured and written up as the hot shit of right now was being covered on ISM a couple years ago. It is still that way. I am amused by people that talk shit about him and then dickride his aesthetic six months after the fact.

He found out about me because I sent him an email that said he was just about the only guy running a dance blog in 2007 who wasn’t a complete dickhead. It was a total fluke that he happened to starting a label around the time that I got in contact with him. I wasn’t looking for a deal, I just wanted to give him props for writing about solid music. A couple months later he tapped me on the shoulder about doing a record. We made a few calls and Tom cut a couple checks and that was LWYF-001.

Jacob: Tell me about your split release with Daetron Vargas.

Mike: Daetron and I were bored and unemployed, so we decided to make a record. We just hung out in my studio for a couple weeks and recorded the tracks. I showed Daetron how to use the gear and we went to work. It was pretty laid back–we worked every day from noon to four.

I just went through the process of cutting a record with LWYF, so I just made the same set of phone calls and set up the record. I knew people at the distributor so I made another set of calls and set up the distro for Construction Paper.

I think we made a solid acid house record. The stores don’t know what to do with it because we didn’t tell them which bin the records should go in. Some of them think it is tech-house, some think it is deep house, some think it is acid. It is getting categorized all over the board. I suppose that is good, I guess that means it isn’t cookie cutter music.

My favorite cut is the A2 that Daetron made by himself. A few months before we made the record I was over at Daetron’s house just after he got the reel to reel. I always ask him how he is doing with music, and he usually hasn’t done anything. I told him he should just take his Electribe and hook it up to the tape machine and make a record with just those two pieces. I didn’t think much of it at the time and I forgot about the conversation.

Apparently he followed my advice and banged out about four or five tracks on the recorder. He made the tracks, recorded them, and just let them sit on the reel. Nobody heard them until he brought the tape deck over to my studio for the record. One night I was bored and I wanted to mess with the recorder, I rewound the tape and listened to all the tracks. I thought A2 was the best of the bunch–I was pretty blown away when I heard it for the first time.

Daetron had completely forgotten about it and had not listened to it since the night it was recorded. He didn’t want to hear it, but I insisted that the track would go on the record. He didn’t actually hear the track for himself until we got the test pressing back from Archer. He was a bit shocked when he heard it for the first time on vinyl.

Jacob: Who are some current producers you admire?

Mike: Oh man, how much time do you have? There is so much good shit out there right now that I can’t even keep up with it. We are in the middle of a golden age of dance music. I think the next few years are going to be really good.

If there is one person I have to give props to, it is Santiago Salazar. He was the first dude to pick up on what I was doing. I wouldn’t be where I am now without his encouragement and support.

This guy is the best producer in Austin:

http://www.myspace.com/submersiblemachines

In no particular order: Larry Heard, Gerald Mitchell, Daetron Vargas, Walt Jones, Tevo Howard, Billy Converse, James Duncan, Jeff Mills, Specter and Lamar, Steven Tang, Basic Soul Unit, Juju And Jordash, Omar S, Rick Wade, Moodymann, Hunee, Scott Grooves, Old School Rider, Dam Funk, Escort, Kai Alce, John Daly, Lerosa, Danny Wang, Jus Ed, Black Jazz Consortium, Bjak, Africans With Mainframes, Marcello Napoletano, Alton Miller, Ron Trent, Anton Zapp….

Jacob: What are your current projects?

Mike: I am looking for labels so that I can cement my 2010 release schedule. My game plan is to drop three or four records on other labels next year. If my finances permit, I would also like to start up my own label. My schedule is open for the summer and fall of 2010. I have some pending deals for the Spring.

I also plan on heading over to Europe for a Live PA tour in the fall of 2010. I would like to rent a car for a couple weeks and hit the whole continent, Spain, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Austria, Greece. I still need to figure out how the visa and work permit thing will work out, but I have a year to straighten it all out.

Jacob: What are your interests besides music?

Mike: Music doesn’t leave room for much else.

Interviews with the one and only Kenny Dixon Jr are as rare as a sober person at BLOC so I’m really looking forward to watching this when I finish work today. The little write up on the post from the Red Bull Music Academy site makes it sound highly entertaining. I hope it delivers!

Watch it here

This is also post no. 313 from us.

I know it ain’t the second half of the ISM interview with Shake from 2.5 years ago (which is still on a cassette tape somewhere in my house!), but it is a brand new interview with the man over at Resident Advisor. I actually did the interview a little while back, but it’s still all good. It’s always fun to get to chat with one of my personal heroes. Also, it was cool to “collaborate” in a way with my man Matt Cohen, whose photos were used for the RA piece and at the top of this post (and in the current issue of Sports Illustrated as well!).

I’ve been waiting for it to go up on RA so I could also mention this radio special our man Recloose did on his radio show about a month ago. On it, he takes an interview with Shake as well as some of his music and combines them into a very nice tribute. Another great episode in what is a great radioshow/podcast.

Shake is such a fantastic musician, it’s about time that he gets his due. I got the Frictionalism box set on Rush Hour in the mail earlier this week, and aside from the plastic sleeve (which was broken on the bottom when I got it!) it’s a very good way to own many of these very hard to find tracks. It would have been nice for some liner notes, photos, and other stuff, but really I think Shake’s music speaks just fine for itself. If you don’t already have all of these tracks, I definitely recommend getting this box set in any way possible, it is that essential.