A Bunch of Good Sh*t

In the continuing tradition of trying to post some things while being hectic with holidays and the end of the school semester, I have a few reccomendations for various media that have helped me keep my wits about me….

First up is a nice deephouse mix by the man like Rick Hopkins, one of the circle of extended ISM compadres. He kicks things off with a track from my favorite Lerosa 12″ (the joint on Enclave) and then takes you through the dark and dirty sounds of Detroit, Chicago, and Amsterdam. He and Jonny 5 bang it out as the Gak Foundation, which is also the name of the site where you can find their mixes along with many other classic disco and house mixes.

Next we have an edit of the classic jam “Twilight” by Maze done by Jitterbug (also check out his original productions as well as his deejay mixes) out of the UK. He reduces it to a smooth repetitive atmospheric groove underpinned by a thumping bassy kick. The MP3 is high quality 320 kbps for those of you who fuck with CDJs or whatever. Make sure you go out and buy the original so you can mix into it after the edit! This is essential late night style business right here!

On the blog tip, I am infatuated with American Nights, a new blog (you can find the link in our links section as well!) concentrating on 80’s R&B which is one of my musical loves. They take it deep and obscure, but concentrate on “strong songs” as they put it. The recent mix of ballads is tearing it up on my alarm clock CD player every night while I go to sleep (amongst other things ;), and some of the other mixes push into more uptempo 80’s disco action and even some early house (some of which are on my secret jams list, thanks for ruining them guys! hehehehe, just kidding…). The label and cover scans are ridiculously awesome as well, these guys have me ready to attack my local record shops!

Finally, on Wednesday (the day it opened!) I went to go see the new Coen brothers film “No Country for Old Men” and it was absolutely fantastic. As seems to be the case with most good music, the film seems to inspire anger amongst those who cannot appreciate what makes great art. Don’t read reviews, just go see it whenever you can. The film is very dark, atmospheric, and features no music which really lends itself to the feeling of dread. Check the trailer here. Also on the film tip, if you haven’t seen it I highly reccomend “Liquid Sky” (which is where the picture at the top of the post comes from) which features some drug and sex hungry aliens, a nice gender bending performance by the lead actor, and an awesome synth heavy soundtrack. The new wave club scenes alone are worth the time to watch it, but it is an insane low budget sci-fi classic. I hear it was a favorite of Gerald Donald and Brendan Gillen, which makes perfect sense once you see it…..