Bio-Digital Jazz, man.: 2011

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

39

http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?release=43966

http://scapeone.com/

http://www.worldelectric.de/

Monday, October 3, 2011

38

http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?release=726212

http://www.zainegriff.co.uk/home.html

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

36

Industrial Town/Gotham City/Machine Planet

The set below is pretty disparate and I wan't to say, “I don't know where that came from?” But I do. I wrote the set list on the 3rd day of a 3 day tech seminar for work. The proposed system we were training for will streamline and give us more accuracy for our job, but will monitor us as well. A bit of technophobia on my part there. Just do a good work, right? I know I'm a bit paranoid.

I could leave it at that but I want to talk about the tracks as well:

26. I want to make nice with Industrial Music cause I never really gave it a chance. So if course I found an Industrial/EBM band with Jeff Mills in it and posted that. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Tony S. Rock reissues the back catalog along with any new Final Cut music. This EP deserves a better fate than dirty torrent obscurity. On the plus side, no matter what happens, he owns the rights to his music I gander. He's an independent and that's a great thing I find as I wander the net searching for music from the past. If the artist stayed independent, to this day they are just that. You can get a lot of these great songs on demand as an MP3 or a Wave. Right now.

27. ...and “System” with it's bubbling, yet strict and disciplined, synth line sounds a bit like an EBM crossover. That is until the major chord riff with the Electro timbales kicks in.

28. This is pretty much expalins itself. Enjoy it while it's happening!!! I do want to thank Miami and UK Electro for getting together and having a baby.

29. “Yellow Smiley offers me X as if he's drinking 7UP.” What? Prince is raving? And he disapproves? Contrasting the naysay, someone had the smarts to enlist William Orbit and S'Express's Mark Moore, who were at the top of their game, for the remix. They made this the most cybertech creation in his royal badness's cannon. For proof of that claim check the “oh” that starts at around the 3 minute mark.

30. My sister walked out of Robocop. And who can blame her? It's not downbeat or a drag, but boy is it violent. and then cynical as all hell on top of that. I was blown away by the music trapped in this club scene and a bit obsessed with the fine print on the credits. No OST appearance, though. PTP's release “Rubber Glove Seduction” did make the rounds...but I longed for a single with “Show Me Your Spine” and an instrumental on the flip. Verhoven...his music advisor?...Jorgenson?..all of them?...had their finger on the pulse. It was one of those moments of youth where I thought, "Something is out there."

31. This Gotham X track underlines the fact that there was a whole Damn Batman Dance Craze, before and after the 1989 movie. Even if this track is DC related in name only. It is “dark,”...a word I am fascinated by and can't quite define. The diva wail herein is the seemingly generic, “Do you want me/Do you need me?” But the singer is so unaffected about the whole affair. That's “Dark” in my book.

32. This one is just a shout out to hip-hop and graffitti(Futura 2000's!) which get's put through the ringer every so often. Most recently-cough cough-at a major museum I went to in LA. This is how I like to envision the original wave of hip hop...with purple solarized video and with an Excorcist sample. Everything you see here is really the tip of the iceberg. And the the underwater part isn't surrounded by sharks.

33. Redshift's no-bullshit Electro track has a rusty flange effect on the high hat that gives it a metallic edge. And then it beeps and shuffles.

34. J. Saul Kane. A name worth google-ing, discog-ing, and reading the fine print for. I can't heap enough praise upon the guy. This one's some sort of promo associated with the Trance Europe Express series. Remember those?

35. Machine Planet. I had to succumb to Dynamix II one more time. They worked on the Borg track. And we come full circle. They kept their music independent and you can buy it right there on the link below.

...Ok I got that off my chest. Whew. Now I'm going to take a bubble bath and write some haiku. The next couple of blog-clusters will most likely be wordless.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

35

http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?release=60070

http://www.dynamixii.com/

Track 8:

http://www.discogs.com/Dynamix-II-Bass-Planet/release/60070

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

31

http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?release=90027

Sunday, August 14, 2011

29

http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?release=98900

http://www.markmoore.com/

http://williamorbit.com/blog/

http://prince.org/

Thursday, August 11, 2011

26

http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?release=64844

www.fulleffectrecords.com

axisrecords.com

Thursday, July 21, 2011

25

Monday, July 18, 2011

22

http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?release=753989

http://www.pilofficial.com/info.html

Sunday, July 17, 2011

21

Seven Ways to Love...Hardcore Techno!

Can't get enough of “Frequency.” So intense. I imagine that if God piddles around on the keyboard while ordering up some horrible natural catastrophe, it probably sounds like the main riff on that one.

I started out with Yolk and 2 Bad Mice, creators of two breakbeat obsessed records...both almost jungle. Cola Boy's “7 Ways to Love” is definitely not 'Hardcore'...but they couldn't resist throwing a funky drummer loop in their poppy take on house. As you can see from the Isotonik clip, a lot of these songs were climbing up the UK charts. Sharing space with standard chart fodder like Wet Wet Wet and—gasp—70's Queen. Over here in Southern California they were all underground, save the few that got play on MARS FM, the only [struggling] radio station to really champion this music--aside from late night programs and college radio. Human Resource's “Dominator” was one of those tracks MARS overtaxed the radio waves with. Then again, it was issued as a single more than 20 times in 1991 alone. That tune and the remix of "Nightmare" by Holy Noise represent Rotterdam in this little gathering. I'd say a 'darker' techno issued from that city at the time...but it's not as if this 'darker' sound is lurking behind an ominous tree making you feel unsettled. It's more like 'evil' attacking you from all directions.

'Hardcore' got written off as repetitive and annoying by non-believers. I think these sample heavy tunes are full of surprises that attempt to raise the energy level and pull the rug out from under you(If anybody ever bothered to put a rug down at a rave). They work very hard to please. Were you expecting to hear a fluffy A-ha sample amidst the hard breakbeats of “Bish Bosh?” Did you think the one and only “Dominator” would actually take the time to kiss himself, lip smacking sounds and all? What about that choo choo train Joey Beltram put into that track's remix...where's that coming from? A lot was pilfered from older dance tracks and hip hop. If you want to, “feel the house music steady steady pounding,” in “Hold it Down” your should probably take the record off the turntable and put on “I'll House You” by the Jungle Brothers. But, musically, that sample fits perfectly. And it's even been re-sequenced and munchkinized...not just thrown in. Hope that satiates any of you who are still shaking your head in disapproval.

Ok. Exciting stuff. Didn't dig too deep there but the old anthems got me all worked up. I'm going into Bio-Digital free form--maybe some love ballads--then I'm going to take a break. Need to come down.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

17

http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?release=142658

http://www.djchrispaul.com/

Sunday, July 10, 2011

14

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Friday, July 8, 2011

12

Intelligent Techno?

Geeze Louise! The label 'Intelligent': Redundant and snobby. Especially in the world of dance music which is chock full of technical complexity, fetishistic studio wizardry and head-spinning innovation. I remember hearing this tag somewhere in the 1990's, and it rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. The Detroit techno pioneers of the 1980's were now relegated to 'Classic' status, with this advent of some new sound. Into its second decade, electro and techno wasn't busting down boundaries, but rather subdividing, and setting up new borders. Hey, that was the 90's.

Yet it's the best term I can use as the “umbrella” for where I'm coming from with this blog right now. Other terms: ambient, acid, just techno, bleep, Detroity stuff, Orb-ish dub, early trance...also apply here. In the first part of the decade, a new idealism and majestic concern for craft emerged...however abstract. It was what my ears tuned to, and what became my obsession. In its defense, 'Intelligent' might have a lot to do with artificial intelligence (and the Warp compilation of the same name). It is the sound of machines thinking and talking...to each other. We are lucky that someone put those sounds on a record for us.

A main reason the term 'Intelligent' got glommed onto was to set itself apart from 'Hardcore'. You know the type of techno I'm talking about: hyperactive breakbeats, whistles, sirens, keyboard riffs that are about to overload, samples that are pronouncements about who is alive or dead, who is leaving and coming into the building at any given time, plus the constant monitoring of the bass bins. You were either terrorized or irritated by it. Or you lost your shit to it. I love 'Hardcore' and the next few posts are dedicated to it...just to set the scene.