In a break from his previous mixes for us that spanned genres in the name of mood, this time Scott brings a Detroit-style booty/bass mixup. I’ll let him do the talking on this one….

“First off a note to the listeners: I apologize for the dreadful distortion during some of the filtering I perform in the mix. You would think that after as long as I’ve been mixing I would do simple things like check my levels and make sure that the settings on my filter box were not tweaked to harshly in one direction or the other. I decided I liked the mix distortion or no distortion so, I’m sticking to this original recording rather then doing it over.

Secondly, I was inspired to do this mix for mostly the following two reasons; I recently joined FACEBOOK and also it had plainly been a long time since I mixed these particular records in my collection. Why FACEBOOK? Since joining FACEBOOK I’ve been contacted by some folks from my past that I hadn’t laid eyes on or spoken to in years. You see, FACEBOOK has been a very strange and exciting experience for me, it seems that by simply glancing at a name or viewing a photo I can be almost instantly pulled back into time. I am not much of one for reminiscing but sometimes for short amounts of time its fun and somewhat romantic to think about who, what, when, and how you got to the present time. All this recent reminiscing got me thinking about weekend nights in my early 20’s, going to parties, all night raves, clubs, and early morning after-hours, and also somewhat indirectly (or directly?) the Detroit radio station WJLB. WJLB would always broadcast live Friday and Saturday nights from some club deep within the city limits of Detroit playing House, Techno, Electro, and Booty Bass. We often would listen to J-L-B (as most called it) at the house or in the car before any function we were attending just to put us in the mood. Weekend nights on J-L-B was a large part of my younger days in Detroit and my connection to the cities music. The majority of the records I chose were staple tracks played by great (virtually unknown) Detroit DJ’s like Gary Chandler and Wax Tax’n Dre on those Friday & Saturday nights broadcast live on WJLB-Detroit. With that said, I present ISM::FERGUSON::MIX::4 my tribute to nostalgia and WJLB-Detroit. Enjoy!” - Scott Ferguson

Here’s the tracklist:

01. Percolator [Original Mix] - Cajmere - Cajual Records
02. Walk 4 Me [Original Mix] - Robbie Tronco - Henry Street
03. Blow Your House Down - A Guy Called Gerald - Swordfish Records
04. New Jersey Deep vs. Jackie Moore - Unknown - Two Brothers and a DAT
05. Disco’s Revenge - Gusto - Bumble Beats Records
06. Bubbles - DJ Milton - 5-2-Da-Head
07. House The Groove - DJ Funk - Dance Mania
08. Rollin Through Time - Erik Travis - FACT Records
09. Now Wus Up Wus Up (Moe B Mix) - Mr De’ - Wus Up, Wus Up EP
10. Ass N Titties - DJ Assault - Ass N Titties EP
11. Who U Wit - DJ Deeon - Who U Wit EP
12. The Freaks - Unknown - Back to Haunt
13. Shake It (Remix) - Unknown - Dance Mania
14. Bangin The Beat - DJ Assault - Sumthin 2 Shake Yo Azz 2 EP
15. Keys To The Whip - DJ Profit - Booty Bar Anthem EP
16. Untitled - Dj Funk - Dance Mania
17. Superior Race - Dopplereffekt - Dataphysix Engineering
18. I Can’t Wait [created especially for ISM blog] - Scott Ferguson - white label

You can download this mix here. Watch out for some definitely NSFW lyrics on this one!
Next up from Scott we have part 1 of a 2 part deep house mix which will be posted next week, the second part will be available from our man Kuri’s Energy Flash blog.

It’s October and for Irish electronic music fans that means that DEAF is coming. DEAF (the Dublin Electronic Arts Festival) has been going since 2002 and takes place every year during the Irish October bank holiday weekend, this year it runs from Thursday 23rd until Sunday 26th. It’s independently run by D1 Recordings.

Over the years it has gone through many different changes. In the first few years, it revolved around a large party in the Guinness Storehouse at the famous St James’ Gate site in Dublin city. While I still remember those parties fondly, the venue just wasn’t practical for a large party, so they gave up on that. Since then the festival has been spread out over various different venues around the city, from clubs and pubs to old churches. They’ve also had a few different themes in recent years, all Irish acts in 06 and last year it was an Asian theme. Over the years DEAF has featured performances from Coil, Aux Men, Plaid, Scion, Roger Doyle, Ulrich Schnauss, The Bug, Galaxy2Galaxy & Los Hermanos, Robert Hood, Akufen, Mark Broom, Interstellar Fugitives, Lee Douglas, 4 Hero, Photek and many Irish artists. I think my best DEAF experience was at the Galaxy 2 Galaxy/Los Hermanos live gig in 05 which is still available as a free download (video and audio) on the DEAF archive. Read here what the organisers have to say about how the festival has progressed from 2002 to the present.

While I fully understood the practical reasons for giving up on the Storehouse parties, they never really replaced it, and despite having many great moments since I thought that the Festival lost a focal point because of that. So, I’m quite excited that this year they’re putting on a big closing party again on Sunday night, and it looks like it could be a bit special. The line up features Model 500 live, Moritz Von Oswald Trio, Laurent Garnier, D1 artists such as Americhord and Annie Hall and loads more. And the rest of the festival looks great too with 52 different events on around Dublin city.

The opening night, Thursday 23rd, you can choose from Nurse with Wound with support from Stephen O’Malley SUNN O))) , electro and techno with Ultradyne and DJ S2 in Twisted Pepper, or for disco and house check out Steve Kotey of Bear Entertainment with support from ISM friends TR-One/Broken Audio Movement in Bia Bar.

On Friday, 2 Irish artists that have featured on this blog will be performing as Chymera (live) and John Daly (DJ) play Nightflight at the Button Factory. If you’re looking for something tougher then Regis is spinning for Test in The Underground.

On Saturday DJ Skurge (UR), Rob Hall, Shawn Rudiman, Annie Hall and more! And on the same night Luke Vibert plays the Underground.

There’ll also be DEAF DJs playing in various bars around the city throughout the festival.

But there’s a lot more to the festival than electronic music, it is, after all, an electronic arts festival not just a music festival. This is one area of the festival that has expanded considerably in recent years. Expect workshops, lectures, art installations, films and so on. One of the highlights is a free day and night of films, talks, workshops and music on the Saturday which will feature a talk by Dave Vorhaus and Mark Jenkins of White Noise and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Hip-hop cut ‘n’ paste pioneer Steinski will be giving one of his sweet talks on Thursday. There’ll also be a number of film screenings, including the new Arthur Russel documentary, “Wild Combination - A Portrait of Arthur Russell”, and the Sun Ra doc, “A Joyful Noise”. And DEAF galleries will be open throughout the festival.

So here’s to a great festival and massive respect and thanks to festival directors Eamonn Doyle and Karen Walshe and everyone else involved whose hard work makes this possible.

Go to the DEAF website for full schedule, artist info and archive material http://deafireland.com/blog/

PS, Tom/pipecock did an interview with the Model 500 band for RA a few months back which you can read here.

I finally did some catching up on new releases and had a couple nice digging sessions over the past week. I have this big ol’ Stack O’ Records to show for it! Exciting.

The Moodymann remix of Jose James’ “Desire” is an immediate classic. I knew this would be top 10 of the year material from the soundclips, but hearing it all the way through guarantees this to be a late night soul banger that will be a highlight of many sets in the coming years. Having been on a big Ron Trent kick for the past month or so, I picked up two of his recent jams. First up is his new one as Conjure on Future Vision entitled “Pressure Release” which is a rolling synth heavy house track. The second one is a release on Prescription Classics called “From Above” which originally appeared on a CD only album that dropped last year. This one is super deep wigged out percussive craziness, another ultra-late night kind of cut. Also in a similar live/synthetic vein is Joe Claussel’s remix of Hector Lavoe’s “Alejate”. It’s all about the dub mix on this one, it takes the Latin vibe and applies it to a slow groove that sounds nothing like the original but is quite great in its own right. Keeping it deep for me as well are the Theo Parrish remix of Kuniyuki and Aroy Dee’s newest on M>O>S.

In a more uptempo vein, the new Ican on Planet E is completely ridiculous. I don’t think anybody has been doing techno as well as they have over the past two years. This is their best stuff since “Plastic People” last year, mixing melodic techno with Latin vocals in an epic dancefloor concotion. Carl Craig’s mix is the weak point on this one, unlike on the new Tribe 12″ on Planet E sublabel Community Projects. I already had that mix on a sampler from Giles Peterson’s “In The House” mix (which I used in my mix earlier this year for Trackwerk…..), but it was worth picking up again for the full-side pressing as well as the dope jazz track by legends Marcus Belgrave, Phil Ranelin, and Wendell Harrison on the flipside. Another dancefloor highlight is the new doublepack by Andy Ash on Stilove4music. This one rides the line between edits and sample based productions. I recognize Gary Bartz’ “Music Is My Sanctuary” and one of the cuts off of Erykah Badu’s last album which gets chopped into a nice deep house cut, though I can’t place some of the other things used on it even though they are familiar. Overall a very nice selection of tunes for those who like the sample based house style.

Digging-wise, I hit up one of my favorite local shops that I had been neglecting in recent months due to lack of funds.

I dug up a few things I had been looking for: Lil’ Louis & the World’s “From the Mind of Lil’ Louis” LP, the Blaze produced “One Man” by Chanelle, and Maxine Singleton’s “You Can’t Run From Love”. I already had her “Don’t You Love It” and had been looking for that other one for a hot second. It’s not quite as good, but it has a more early house feeling instead of the disco boogie of “Don’t You Love It”.

A couple trips to my usual spot landed me a few of my long time wants. First and foremost is the promo only 12″ of Rufus and Chaka’s “Any Love” which I have been hunting for for years after hearing it on one of those Garage Classics bootlegs. Now I can finally play that shit to a dancefloor, I can’t wait! Another one that it seems like all my friends had found but it kept evading me is Gwen Guthrie’s mini LP with Larry Levan and Sly and Robbie as Padlock. If you haven’t heard this one, it is essential dubbed out disco boogie that is segued together with echoed vocal interludes and the like. Absolutely awesome, I’m so glad to finally have my own copy. A couple other classics I found were the 12″ of Yellow Magic Orchestra’s “Computer Game” and Mr. Lee’s “Come to House” on Trax. I also came across a small treasure trove of dope 80’s electro boogie shit that seems to be pretty obscure since most of it doesn’t appear on discogs and a few of them are not even mentioned at all online. One that is on there is the fantastic “Let’s Get Nice” by Glory which was written by the all-star team of Arthur Baker, Maurice Starr, and Michael Jonzun. Check it out here on Youtube, now *THAT’S* what I’m talking about! One more for you boogie fiends to hunt down is Essence III’s “The Party Side of Town” which is also on Youtube here. That was quite a productive day at the record shop as I’m sure you can imagine

In other news, I managed to finish up my interview with Rick Wade for Resident Advisor, it should hopefully be going up sometime this week. I’ll make a post when I see it up there! School has been keeping me completely dazed with the amount of work I have (really, I should be doing some RIGHT NOW) so I haven’t been able to do a mix, but I’m going to try to make some time to knock something out later this week if I can. Apologies to my fellow ISM homies and to readers out there for the lack of posts on my part due to school sucking so much!

Ah, the awards ceremony. Do we all secretly fantasize of being at some slavish award ceremony, the spotlight hits us, the crowd errupting as we stroll through the crowd to thrust some sort of golden statue into the air? Wooohhooo!! And going on the pic above, posted originally in this news feed on Resident Advisor, the more retarded looking the statue, the better. It looks like a piece of kryptonite  too shit looking to be used as a prop in Superman Returns (yeah, the really shit Superman). According to this small article,  RA were “proud” to win an award at the (dun dun dduuuuuun) 11th Annual Dj Awards. A ceremony that for some ungodly reason has specific “Ibiza” awards, the home of the complete commercialisation and bastardisation of dance music. They actually celebrate the lowest ebb of the dance community. They also award the most tired and unoriginal big names possible. If I put those catagories in front of my Dad, he would pick those names - and this is someone who it took at least 3 years to realise that, no, I wouldn’t be talking over the records when I’m djing - but I bet before he’d pick any names he’d have a couple of questions; “whats the difference between the minimal, tech house, prog and techno nominees” and “what the fuck is electro-house?”.

The obvious complaint about all this is just how predictable it is. And this goes back to the age old problem, that we here at ISM - and in a few other places - are trying to fight against, the same old fucking names cropping up. Adam Beyer and Dubfire are awarded for dropping their old sounds in place of one that will continue to get them gigs, how about giving some recognition to people who genuinely work at their music, developing and creating a sound that is a true, original progression, one that is not controlled by commercial prospects or by ego. If tomorrow Mnml was to shrink to nothing would Beyer continue to ply at it? Hmmmm. As we have seen so much in the past, and something many have a bee in their bonet over, it is the media’s continued pushing of these staid and predictable acts that means original and exciting music gets sidelined in favour of some cunt with eyeshadow and a wifebeater. So how are RA proud to be celebrated by an awards ceremony that awards the predictable and staid in the scene - and don’t go on about Hawtin and technology, this is music, not electrical engineering 101 - an awards ceremony that reflects the type of acts the lazy and commercially driven mainstream media endorse. While I amen’t bothered with some of what appears in RA, I would have viewed them as being above the likes of Mixmag and the other similar  shite that used to appear on the shelves. Yet these Awards seems far more in keeping with what that ilk publish

And I know the argument that will be thrown back at me; “it’s voted by the public”. Well - and this should come as no surprise to a lot of people - that many clubbers look for a quick fix, they like to get a little bit (or a lot) fucked up and get down on the floor. I’m not being snobbish about this, I’m not some chinstroker at the side of the dancefloor, but the visceral big room thrill of a club going off is a massive appeal to many, they want to see the big names in the big rooms. Sadly, the types who end up in these big rooms are the ones who play best friends with the media, and who don’t always deserve it. It is probably not going to happen any time soon, but maybe someday in the future the likes of RA will discontinue the endorsement of people like Adam Beyer and others who simply aren’t at the height of their game. Them winning an award at such a roll call of shiteness as the DJ Awards shows them to me to be THE media representative of bad dance music that has made it big for the wrong reasons. This is surely a sign that they need to pull their pants up a bit and get stuck in properly to the underground. At times they show that they can, and with the size it has grown to it is now time to push it further, and not sit on their arses sucking champagne out of David Guetta’s asshole.

The couple of times Kraftwerk have performed in Ireland in the last 5yrs or so I had the misfortune of either not having a spare penny to go see them, or being out of the country. These days I do have a few spare pennies so when The Robots announced a while back that they would be performing 3 concerts in Krakow in Poland I got the credit card out and picked up a cheap flight and a ticket to go see them last Friday.  They were the headline act of the week long festival, Sacrum Profanum, which this year would be focusing on German music with the varied likes of Ute Lemper and Paul Hillier also performing. But I wasn’t to arrive until late on Thursday night, and only the 3 night stand of Kraftwerk was left on the programme, the first night of which I would be attending.

Even though I had purchased tickets without thinking much about the venue, it certainly came as an added bonus when I found out that they would be playing in an old steel mill works outside of Krakow in a part called Nowa Huta, a relic from post-war communist Poland. As my mate Jason commented as we queued up outside the gates, what would people who had worked there 30yrs ago think, seeing their place of employment being converted into a concert venue for a group from the old West Germany? It certainly seemed more interesting than the typical concert venue.

When we arrived before 8 o clock there was a small queue forming at the gates the workers would have entered from. This small queue was soon to form into a mass of about 2000 people, and even though the rain teemed down on us, everyone waited patiently until the buses arrived to shuttle us down to the part of the works that was converted for the night’s show. It all added to the excitement, and after an hour we were damn glad to get inside, but maybe they could have just signposted us towards where to go, and we could have walked, seeing more of the area. When we got off the bus we were greeted with a huge massive wall of concrete - without a proper window in sight - at the end of which was a large entrance into the factory floor. A massive rig of scaffolding was built about 40metres in for the seating, on the back of which hung two screens projecting either Kraftwerk images or ones to do with the festival itself. There was moving spotlights lighting up this area, with a few stalls and surprisingly, no alcohol. Strange for somewhere in Poland, and you couldn’t smoke either, but then it wasn’t an everyday venue. All the mechanics of the factory were still in place outside the space cleared for the concert, no stupid decorating hiding what we were in. We walked under the scaffolding into the main standing area of the arena as we had the cheap tickets (which were a mere 25e), with the huge seating area reaching all the way up to the roof of the venue behind us. A small part of the factory had been cordoned off - you could see behind and to the side the factory going on far into the dark - and it really was a unique place to see The Man Machine. I didn’t have a camera sadly, to take photos of it before the lights went down.

After about half an hour the slight hum of bleeps and bass could be heard from the speakers, getting louder and louder before the lights went down and the crowd started clapping and cheering, getting louder and louder once the intro stopped and Ralf Hutter could be heard behind the curtain, chanting the classic refrain “Machine, Machine, Machine…”. After years of frustration and hopes of seeing them, the curtain pulled back and it suddenly seemed…a little bit anti-climatic. Man Machine, Planet of Vision, Numbers and Computerwelt went by in somewhat of a haze. There was a little tweaking of the sound, and while there was nothing wrong with what was going on infront of me, maybe the whole excitement and build up had been a little bit too much. Then Home Computer came out of the speakers and my head was blown clean off. The bass had been adjusted nicely and the on stage lighting and projections were just, well, perfect. From then on I was completely sucked in. A bomb could have gone off right beside me and I wouldn’t have noticed. The sober and mixed crowd - everyone from teenagers to a small group of 50-60 something women who’d been in the queue beside us on the way in - were similarly entranced, nobody uttering a word as they played, something that can be such an irritant at concerts. Due to the fact no one was drinking you didn’t have people walking by you to the toilets or knocking drink on you. Then half way through Pocket Calculator, with a rye smirk on his face, Ralf changed from German to Polish and the whole crowd erupted into whoops and hollering, clapping and even some singing along. It was actually  the only time I paid any attention to the crowd for the rest of the main set, I was completely in a world of my own.

As the show went on, it became increasingly difficult to determine what would be my highlights. Computerliebe rushed out in a flurry of perfect pop melodies, Neonlicht was as beautiful and melancholic as music gets, Radioactivity was just a massive assault on the senses. It’s moments like these that makes one remember just why Kraftwerk are as legendary as they are, how so much music - not just techno - may not be the same if it wasn’t for them. I once had a chat with Akufen in a club in Berlin, and he talked of them and the show being a museum piece. I doubt anyone in Nowa Huta on Friday night would’ve agreed. Tour De France Soundtracks may not be the most revered of works but the version of Tour De France Étape 1 performed last week was thrilling, as it it weaved in and out of itself like the videos of cyclists projecting behind.  The bass was so heavy during it the whole building could be heard shaking in the background, acting like an extra piece of percussion. In a way the performance may be a history lesson but this along with the smart rejigging of older songs prove that this is an act still capable of creating magic many many years after what is viewed as their peak.

The curtains closed at the end of an immense Trans Europe Express and within a minute the building started shaking again, this time from the feet of the crowd stamping impatiently for the arrival of The Robots. Obviously the crowd went off again as the curtains pulled back but it seemed to be over just as quickly as it started, that little bit too short a version to fully bask in the oddity that is the jagged, odd movements of the bands mechanical counterparts. The time it takes to get them on and off, I’d rather they’d maybe ditched the following Elektro Cardiogram for a longer Die Roboter. It’s a minor gripe really though. Similar to  Étape 1 earlier, Aerodynamic really came alive compared with on record before Music Non Stop finished off the night perfectly. I walked out slowly in a daze, with the music swirling around in my head which twinned with some tiredness from lots of walking around Krakow earlier in the day - and a “few” drinks the night before - had me wandering off my bus home in the middle of nowhere a fair few miles outside of Krakow. Once I gathered myself I bought a beer from a petrol station and walked for a couple of miles, taking in the night before jumping in a cab back to my apartment.

Since they started touring again in 04 many have caught the show - some 10,000 over the 3 nights in Krakow alone - but if you haven’t and they come anywhere near your town it’s a must see. And if you have seen them, why not go again, it’s an amazing collage of sound and visuals. The 3 people I went with are far from as big fans of them as I am, but were similarly enraptured by the performance. Some reports on-line of their recent show in Dublin included some hilariously blinkered comments such as “it wasn’t banging enough”. Pay no mind to such ignorance, this is Music. Non Stop.

Sad, my last 2 posts have been to give my respects to 2 giants of soul/funk music who have passed on recently. (I should also take this chance to mention another important figure who passed on recently, Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records)

Read the news the other day, that Motown writer/arranger/producer Norman Whitfield died last week (Tuesday 16th September) aged 65. He was the man (often working with co-writer Barrett Strong) behind “Ain’t Too Proud Too Beg”, “I Heard It Through The Grapevine”, “Cloud Nine”, “Papa Was A Rolling Stone”, “War”, “Smiling Faces Sometimes” and many more classics, working with artists such as The Temptations, Undisputed Truth, Edwin Starr, Rare Earth and later, Rose Royce.

When he first recorded “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” with Marvin Gaye, Motown boss Berry Gordy was unimpressed and refused to release it. Undeterred, Whitfield made another more uptempo Gospel style version with Gladys Night & The Pips. Apparently, it took a lot of badgering and determination to finally persuade Gordy to release this version, but when he did it was one of Motown’s biggest hits to date. After that success, Gordy relented on the Marvin Gaye version and, of course, it was an even bigger hit and has been Motown’s biggest royalty earner over the years. And despite constant mainstream play and countless cover versions this song is as powerful as ever, brilliant eerie arrangements coupled with Gaye’s heart-wrenching voice make it a timeless masterpiece, a work of genius, no doubt. This story illustrates the single-mindedness, determination and confidence in his own vision that made Whitfield such a success.

Of course, there’s much more to his career than that one classic, but I just wanted to post a short piece to mark his passing and show my respect. More detailed obituaries can be found in the links below and you should also take the time to listen to the excellent tribute compiled by the folks at Six Million Steps.

Detroit Free Press

Guardian

All Music

Norman Whitfield Tribute by 6MS

RIP

The other night I fell asleep on the train until the end of the line. I got woken up and jumped on another train that turned out to be non stop straight back to where I started an hour and a half previously. I ended up stranded at Victoria station at 2am, freezing cold and 4 hours before I had to start work.

A soundtrack for when a simple journey home turns into a twisted nightmare.

Download here

01. Kurtlar Vadisi - Altin Hizma
02. Alphatown - Introduction
03. Krzysztof Pendricki - Alsjakob
04. David Lynch - Ghost of Love
05. Wendy Carlos - Wormhole
06. I-F - Il Tramonto
07. Klaus Schulze - Tango Saty
08. Namlook - Subharmonic Atoms
09. IMP Electronics for Defence - Ancient Melodies (Dust to Dust)(excerpt)
10. EOG - Metmex
11. Nimoy - Remix
12. Mirko Ruckels - Subantarctic Phenomena
13. Ben Frost - Theory of Machines

Massive shout out to my brother Frank for comin to pick us up at 3 in the morning.

Thanks also to Cassius Seeley for that real nice shot, check out more good photos at his website.

Louis Haiman’s productions debuted on Transmat’s Time:Space comps, and he has since gone on to start his own label fwdthought to release similarly minded atmospheric melodic techno (including Pittsburgh’s own Chris Schubert’s excellent debut long player). He also had a track on Arne Weinberg’s AW-Recordings compilation “Viewpoints Chapter 1″ earlier this year.

Louis released two versions of what was essentially the same album back in ‘05 and ‘06; it was quite interesting to see how the concept developed over the two CDs. Finally, he has a follow-up entitled “Life After People” ready to go with plans to release it as a paid download and CD in the near future. In the meantime, he has decided to make it available to ISM readers for a short time (basically, until he pulls the plug on it!). You can download the tracks from this page (Link updated. Go to that page for 2 downloadable zip files, the first is the album Life After People, the other is another side project of Louis’!). For me, this is his best stuff so far, especially “Dulce” and “The Night You Were Born”. The intro cut “Gentle” is gorgeously lush in a manner that reminds me of Aphex’s SAW2, though way way too short at only 1:16. You may see a longer remix of that one coming out of the 412 shortly!

We are very grateful to Louis for hooking our readers up like this, remember to support his music when it comes out in a more tangible format! If his older album “Actualization” is still available, I reccomend it highly. You can check Louis out at his myspace page and check out the fwdthought label at its homepage for more info.

I’ve got a bunch of really good records recently that I haven’t had much time to write about until now. This is covering from when I came back from vacation and on, I think!

On the new tip, the only things I’ve picked up recently were the newest Omar-S and Luke Hess 12″s on Fxhe. The Luke Hess is even better than his first EP on Fxhe, which is saying a lot as it was hammered by many deejays last year. I wouldn’t even call it “dubby” despite the title, it is just quality minimal melodic techno. Of course Alex’s new one is ridiculous, in the same epic vein as “Psychotic Photosynthesis”. I will say that as much as I love the clean end of his production (including the Oasis records for the most part), a return to the nasty jacking trax like 006 would be nice to see!

I have some catching up to do on newies as well, as soon as my bank account gets a little refresher I will be buying a bunch of stuff to talk about on here.

On the disco tip, Barbara Mason has been killing it for me. I have had her classic “Another Man” for years, the super lush synths on there remind me of Ron Trent’s production but with an electro disco backbeat. But it was the discovery of the even better “Don’t I Ever Cross Your Mind” (also on West End) on a mix by my man Eric Justin that sent me hunting through the dusty crates for her material. I managed to come across that one just this past weekend (which made me very happy) but not before finding her other 12″ on WYMOT the week before entitled “Let Me Give You Love”. I’m hugely into the downbeat soulful disco boogie shit anyway, but what separates Ms. Mason’s music from others is how deep and synthetic her tracks are while she maintains a very organic R&B vocal style that makes the synthesizer parts in her songs sound that much more heartbreaking. Also on the West End tip I picked up a Sparque 12″ that I didn’t have before, “Music Turns Me On”. The mix is by Tee Scott and it is another smoking soulful boogie joint. He is right up there with Larry Levan, Timmy Regisford & Boyd Jarvis, and Shep Pettibone as one of my favorite of the electronic disco mixers/producers.

In more shameless jacking of my man Eric’s selections on that mix (which can be DLed here), I also grabbed Richard Rogers’ “Can’t Stop Loving You”. Marshall Jefferson produced it in 1990, it’s got his trademark elegant deep stylings that make me wonder why this cut is not more well loved.

Another of my wants list got crossed off on Saturday when I came across a nice copy of Jon Lucien’s album “Rashida” which I had been looking for since Aidano used it on a mix a while back. I really needed to have this album earlier in the summer when I was fiending for tropical sounding soul music, this has to be one of the most atmospheric records I’ve heard in a long time.

That’s not everything I picked up, some things need to be kept secret, you know! Now on to other news:

For you jazz fans out there, an unknown Pittsburgh crew is starting to make t-shirts for various labels. First up is the great Inner City Records:

These are currently available at 720 Records (walk in only, they’re not online as of yet) or on Ebay. There will be more coming in other genres as well, though the next one will be for the classic jazz label Prestige (in the label art’s color scheme no less!)

According to an email they sent out, it seems as though Third Ear had a fun time licensing out one of the Beatdown comp tracks to Sascha Dive for his label:

In 2007 Sascha Dive contacted Third Ear Recordings requesting a non-exclusive license for the track Exodus by Norm Talley (Beatdown Brothers remix) for the In The Streets compilation on the label Deep Vibes.

The terms were acceptable to us except we requested a small advance fee. Sascha Dive told us that he couldn’t pay an advance as he was planning a pressing of only 200 copies of the album. Hardly worth it we thought but he told us it was a very limited release. He told us how he really wanted to license the track. We agreed to license the track.

When the sample copies of the record, which was called ‘In The Streets’ arrived on 9th April 2008, there was no mention anywhere on the record or the sleeve that Exodus by Norm Talley (Beatdown Brothers remix) was licensed from Third Ear Recordings. We were quite specific in our terms and conditions what the label credits were and where they should appear on the record. We wrote to Sascha Dive immediately reminding him that it was wrong not to make explicit the owner of a licensed recording and that it must be corrected on the next pressing, especially when we had made it clear what the credits should be. He did not reply. We wrote again. He did not reply. We wrote a third time. Sascha Dive then replied and told us that the credits were not on the record due to a mistake. He said that the record was going to be repressed as all copies had sold out and the credits would be on the second pressing of the record. This was 18 April 2008. At our request, we received the artwork for the second pressing, which was all white not all black like the first pressing. The credits were now on the artwork. We approved the artwork and requested sample copies again. In June we asked if the record had been repressed. He said it had sold out again but it would be repressed again and he would send copies. In August, having not received any copies, we wrote to Sascha Dive again asking if the record had been repressed. We received no reply. In September, we checked the Word and Sound website to see if the In The Streets compilation was listed. It was available. In black. The feedback from djs and artists and magazines was all there saying what a great record it is. And then there is the info on the record by the label, Deep Vibes, which says that all the tracks are ‘exclusive and previously unreleased’. This is from the press release.

Do you think Sascha Dive made a mistake in forgetting to credit Exodus by Norm Talley (Beatdown Brothers remix) as licensed from Third Ear Recordings? Do you think Sascha Dive intends to pay royalties for the track Exodus by Norm Talley (Beatdown Brothers remix)?

We don’t. So we won’t be working with Sascha Dive in the future.

Will you? Make your own mind up. But we’d advise you against it.

Guy McCreery
Third Ear Recordings.

It’s too bad that such nonsense has to occur over such a good track. Norm is a good guy and a good deejay, I hate to see him or his label getting the shaft.

Also, I just want to give a big old “go fuck yourself” to our main man Ronan Fitzgerald. He thinks it is cute to mock me in a post on his blog (in which he continues to show stunning ignorance of what should be known to just about any house and techno fan, much less someone who gets paid to write about it!!!!), and then go on to review Theo Parrish, Morgan Geist, and Carl Craig tracks like he’s the man. Hey Ronan-come-lately, get off our jock. Or at least don’t be such a pussy that you ban me from commenting on your blog when you decide to pull bitch moves like this. Punk.

It really is getting harder and harder to talk about these mixes of Scott’s. I am a huge fan of mixing things up by feeling, and he manages to do a very good job across many genres every single time. This one is a heavily atmospheric mix, beginning with swirling ambience and scratchy textures before sliding into more structured but still emotive Britpop and shoegaze. He then transitions into some forlorn acoustic shit, including an album cut from one of my all time favorite autumn records, REM’s “Automatic for the People”. I have been sitting on this one a bit, waiting for the cold weather to hit in Pittsburgh a bit more as this captures the essence of this time of year perfectly. I continue to be amazed at how seamlessly Scott can trace lines between 80’s and 90’s rock and deejay music’s formats. Whenever I ask someone to do a guest mix for ISM, I let them know that we are down with going wayyyyyyyyyyyy out of the norm. Scott keeps on doing it and doing it and doing it…..

01. A Tattooed, Rock N’ Roll, Jew [Peter Brandwein Dedication Mix] - Scott Ferguson - For All Days, My Blood, My Brothers
02. Flowering Orphan - Robert Pollard - From A Compound Eye
03. Lucky Cloud - Arthur Russell - World of Echo
04. House Of Cards - Radiohead - In Rainbows
05. Olsen Olsen - Sigur Ros - Agaetis Byrjun
06. Thursday - Asobi Seksu - Citrus
07. Sometimes - My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
08. How Soon Is Now? - The Smiths - Hatful of Hollow
09. The Worst Taste In Music [Extended] - The Radio Dept. - Pet Grief
10. Horse With No Name - Seelenluft - Birds And Plants And Rocks And Things
11. I Don’t Know What I Can Save You From [Scott Ferguson’s Ferris Studio Edit] - Kings of Convenience - Quiet is the New Loud
12. Classic Girl - Jane’s Addiction - Ritual De Lo Hibitual
13. Working Class Hero - John Lennon - John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band
14. Sweetness Follows - R.E.M. - Automatic For The People

Download the mix here.

As always, check out Scott’s website and blog as well as the site for his label Ferris Park. On a more straightforward dance tip, we have a Detroit bass themed mix from Scott coming soon! Big ups.