Gobble Gobble

Before I sit down and enjoy my turkey dinner I would like to share with you a mix I made last week for my good friend Randell's radio show at UCSD. He is a strong ally to the balearic, disco and house contingent, playing great tracks weekly. He is particularly a fan of all things Daft Punk (in fact we attended the church of robots in Vegas last October together), regularly posting their remixes and all sorts of other music that Bangalter and Guy-Manuel have conjured up over the years. A short while ago Randell asked me to put a mix together and so I came up with this downtempo disco-rockish minimix and I thought I would share it with you on this day to give thanks. Randell played the mix on his show on Monday (his show is every Monday at 3-4pm and you can stream it here), but for those of you who missed it or would like to listen again here it is, enjoy and have a lovely turkey day!

Blow It Slow Minimix

Tracklist:
1. Woolfy vs. Projections - Carry On / Permanent Vacation
2. Les Edits du Golem - Pyramide / Golem
3. The Salsoul Invention - Soul Machine (Additional Edits by Dølle Jølle) / Eskimo Recordings
4. Major Swellings - Swingende Bjeller / Noid Recordings
5. Ian Hunter - Bastard (A Mountain Of One Rework) / Not On Label
6. Lovefingers - Kentucky / RVNG Intl.
7. Unknown - Sir Mr Dr Love / Golf Channel Recordings
8. Vangelis - Let It Happen / Vertigo

Most of these tracks are edits or reworkings, and for those interested "Pyramide" is an edit of Ahmed Fakroun's "Nisyan" and "Swingende Bjeller" is an edit of Hot R.S.'s "Slow Blow". I'm pretty sure the Lovefingers track is an edit, but I do not know the original and I am also not sure of the original of "Sir Mr Dr Love", so if you can help with identifying them I would be much appreciated!

Come With Me On A Permanent Vacation

It's finally getting colder here in the city and despite the warm weather of last weekend, it is feeling more and more like fall. I also realized that people here in SF dress in far less colorful a fashion than people in LA. It's all grays, browns, blacks and navy blues, which isn't a bad thing, but contributes to a noticeably more melancholy mood. Something I'll have to get used to I suppose, but what I really wanna do is hop on a yacht and cruise down to the tropics to get away from it all. Would be nice to Anyways, on with the tracks...

In keeping with the more subdued mood, I have selected a track off of the new Woolfy vs. Projections album, The Astral Projections of Starlight. I'm proud to say WvP hail from California, LA to be specific, and that this is easily one of my favorite albums of the year and it's no surprise it comes off of Permanent Vacation, one of the most consistently amazing labels right now. I picked up a 12" by WvP earlier this year, The Return Of Starlight, which absolutely blew me away. This is the best balearic beardo beachy rock vibe I have heard since Studio and succeeds in an entirely different cosmic fashion. This is by and far the most single-oriented track, but the rest of the album is sublime so please be sure to check it out.

Woolfy vs. Projections - Neeve


Hercules & Love Affair have also made a serious waves in the dance community this year with their self-titled album that came out in March. That coupled with their incredible live performances makes them one of my current favorites and the best thing off DFA since LCD Soundsystem. But in addition to their own material they have been racking up some awesome remixes over the last few years, remixes that stay true to their supremely old school house origins. Check out H&LA member Kim Ann Foxman's set on Beats In Space back in September for more from this awesome vein of dance music. This track is off of another awesome Permanent Vacation release from German newcomer Bostro Pesopeo (Florian Peter). All three original tracks on this 12" are wonderful dark tribal house with clever synth work, in particular "Communiquis" but the H&LA remix reworks the original into a quirky dance monster.

Bostro Pesopeo - Falls (Hercules & Love Affair Mix)


Lastly I have something special for those of you who avidly follow. The first of many (hopefully) exclusive edits from artists before they are pressed. Today's edit comes from SirBilly, a DJ hailing from Treviso, Italy who remixes as a solo artist and has collaborated with nurave masters The Bloody Beetroots. This edit of his takes the new wavey electro track "Oh To Be Ah" by Kajagoogoo and cuts out all the distracting verses, spinning out the synth lines and chanting for quite an awesome 80s jam. More edits by SirBilly are available on his myspace, but enjoy this for now.

Kajagoogoo - Oh To Be Ah(SirBilly Reconstruct Edit)

Dungeons & Dragons

So last weekend I moved into my new place in the Mission and I could not be happier about the location. Amazing restaurants all within a short walk and countless bars to explore. I'm still looking for a home to host a disco night, but living in the city will help move things along. I've been putting a few mixes together that I will be recording shortly and posting for your enjoyment. Until then I have a few tracks from records I've purchased over the last month.

Mindless Boogie, the edit label that has featured the names of many of the biggest producers/DJs around at the moment, including Prins Thomas, Skinny Joey, Woolfy, Peter Visti, Wade Nichols (Todd Terje), Maelstrom, and In Flagranti. The latest release has the UK's Bonar Bradberry editing some mysterious psychedelic boogie tracks to create a soundtrack fit for a cosmic journey across jagged landscapes under purple moons, where Heavy Metal babes await rescue by the heroes of nerdom. The three tracks included are a departure from the track that introduced me to Bonar, "Beat The Bed" which is one of my favorite tracks of the year, a super slow-jam rivaled only by Lovelock's incredible "Don't Turn Away (From My Love)". Here I offer the A-side track "Dungeons", whereas the B-side offers my favorite of the release "Tumbledown" and the complementary "Dragons". Sorry I could not locate or recognize the original, but enjoy the edit for now.

Bonar Bradberry - Dungeons (Bonar Bradberry Edit)


Another track from the realm of unknowns comoes off a new label devoted to exposing lost gems, History Clock. Started by Nathan Gregory Wilkins and Jonny Burnip of London, the label now has three releases and Woman is the most recent (a track from one of the two Fitzcarraldo Variations releases is available on 20JFG here). The track featured is quite a peculiar one in that when the track begins it's hard to figure where the track is headed, but gradually it moves along a balearic trajectory from its minimal dubbed out beginnings to a beardo vocal chorus. Perfect for late night train rides spent gazing out upon glittering cityscapes.

It's A Fine Line - Woman (A Makhnovshchina Repossession)


In light of my last Sebastien Tellier post I also wanted to share, for those who haven't seen it, the video for "Sexual Sportswear" as it is one of my favorite videos of late. Dance videos have a tendency to star hot nude women, but the beauty of this video blows my mind. The already epic track is perfectly complemented by the shots that slowly pan across the neon curves of the dancers. Truly incredible video directed by Fleur and Manu.

Divine

This Friday I had the privilege of watching Gang Gang Dance perform at Bimbo's in North Beach. It was easily the best live show I've seen since Hercules & Love Affair. I would recommend attending if they come to any city near you because the Brooklyn-based (and you can tell it from their accents) foursome play a unique brand of dance rock psychedelia that has a severely raw energy that many other electronic acts lack of late. Also as previously mentioned, please go pick up their new album, Saint Dymphna, it is easily one of my favorites for the year.



As for upcoming live performances, Sebastien Tellier is gracing SF with his bearded presence on Thursday, December 4th at the Mezzanine. He will be joined by BEAT ELECTRIC DJs Black Shag, BT Magnum, and Safety Scissors so it should be an awesome party as well. For those of you unfamiliar, Tellier released his newest album Sexuality earlier in the year and it is a French pop masterpiece produced by Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo of Daft Punk. I just found the music video for his single "Divine" which was shot at various locations around LA.



The rest of the album features darker synth-pop infused with piano and tastefully topped with erotic moaning. I have heard quite good things about Sebastien's live performances and if his performance at the 2008 European Song Contest are any indication of what his show will be like there is reason to get quite excited. Bearded backups + golf cart entrance + helium verse... you do the math, it adds up quite nicely.


Also this week our very own SF natives Windsurf (the long-time alliance of Hatchback and Sorcerer) have released their full length album Coastlines. The album is a collection of luscious beach jams in the typically dreamy Windsurf fashion, transporting me to an island oasis where I can enjoy pina coladas, white sand and blue water as far as the eye can see. They truly have captured the soundtrack to paradise. Anyways, thought I'd share an old favorite that shows up on the album, their track "Pocket Check" was released on Internasjonal (PT's other label) on the Windsurf EP earlier this year, enjoy and go check out the album!

Windsurf - Pocket Check

Vamp Fad?

This weekend I caught the new Swedish vampire film Let The Right One In and I must say I loved it. The story follows a bullied young boy who finds his first love in a young girl who happens to be a vampire during a long and cold Swedish winter. But over the course of the weekend I have found out that quite a few of my friends think that there is some sort of vampire fad that is taking place, citing the new series True Blood (which I must say I am addicted to) and the new film Twilight. Maybe it's the horror enthusiast in me trying to protect the artistic validity of a few films and series I have seen of late from the "fad" labeling which seems to instantly disqualify them from serious consideration. Either way, I would recommend both Let The Right One In and the new HBO series True Blood, both for different reasons, but both focusing on vampires.

I also thought it fitting for a track I wanted to post for some while now. It comes off of a new 12" from R&S Records, the hard-hitting famous dance label that began in the 80s, featuring two reinterpretations of classic rave tracks, Outlander's "Vamp" and Capricorn's "20Hz". As I've said before, I'm a sucker for piano house and techno tracks from the 90s, and the hit "Vamp" from 1991 is no exception to the rule. This high energy classic features a piano sample I'm sure some of you will have heard before and was featured in several Justice mixes over the last few years. Here we see it remixed in the Prins Thomas diskomiks style, replacing the drums and bass with more organic instrumentation to give it a truly scandodisco flavor, while keeping the original samples and structure fairly untouched. I must admit I was a little surprised to hear the king of kraut, cosmic, and all things boogie turn to a rave track for inspiration, but then again he has recently remixed the Ricardo Villalobos track "Fitzpatrick" in similar fashion. Rave? Minimal? What could be next for PT? Enjoy this for now.

Outlander - Vamp (Prins Thomas Diskomiks)