Jacksonville Jaguars Jukebox

I'm off to that London in a few hours as I'm heading to Wembley to see my beloved Jacksonville Jaguars get smashed by the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday.

So I thought I'd post a few videos by bands from Jacksonville, the largest city in Florida - two I knew were from there and two I didn't.

And if you're wondering why I support the Jags, it's because I went to Disney World in 1996 and the bar in the hotel had a ginormous poster for the recently formed Jacksonville Jaguars. My dad supports the Seattle Seahawks because that was the first city in America he went to, so I bent those rules and went for the Jags (technically I should be a Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan).

Anyway here's the two I knew...

Black Kids.



Limp Bizkit.



And the two I didn't...

The Allman Brothers Band - me neither, guessing Lemon Jelly sampled this?



Lynyrd Skynyrd - I assumed they were from Alabama?

Basement Bosh

I can't sleep so here's some pounding pounding techno music from some dude who's signed to Boyz Noize's label...



[Hot link from XLR8R] mp3 >>> SCNTST - Basement Structure

Jo_Def Vs Andrew Buchan

I walked up to Cathays earlier to see my dad in The Andrew Buchan and just before I got there the S4 chucked up this footwork-influeced bumper from Jo_Def.

Well worth a couple of minutes of your time, especially as it's a free download.

[Hot link from XLR8R] mp3 >>> Jo_Def - B_Mine

Bonobo's Flower Power

Due to me getting only one EP to review in October's Buzz (by the rather good Plyci) I got first dibs on November's releases. I went for albums by Omar Souleyman and Guido and the latest Late Night Tales mix, which is helmed by Bonobo and was the finest of a pretty superb bunch of discs.

I'll save my searing seventy words for the magazine but as I've already said on that Twitter...

“@CeefaxOfLife: Bonobo's @LateNightTales Mix is making a late charge into my albums of the year. Stunning.” @sibonobo

— Late Night Tales (@LateNightTales) October 17, 2013

One of the highlights is this deep house/broken beat bumper by Andrew Ashong and Theo Parrish...



Bonobo's Late Night Tales Mix is available for pre-order and comes out on November 17th and is an essential purchase. Below is the teaser minimix...

Oneohtrix Point Never, Oni Ayhun & Too Much Stress

So I was pretty excited about Oneohtrix Point Never's XLR8R mix and Trentemøller's Resident Advisor mix this week...

Got Trentemøller and Oneohtrix Point Never mixes to listen to at work tomorrow - Bangin'

— Sam (@CeefaxOfLife) October 2, 2013

I only listened to each mix once today but gave my 2p anyway...

Trentemøller = shoegaze meh // OPN = shitting ace "Got Trentemøller and Oneohtrix Point Never mixes to listen to at work tomorrow - Bangin'"

— Sam (@CeefaxOfLife) October 3, 2013

One track in particular stood out and that was Oni Ayhun's OAR003-B on the Oneohtrix Point Never mix. Resident Advisor seems to think it's something to do with The Knife, I haven't the foggiest but it is a stunning 11-minutes of shimmering hypnotic techno-not-techno electronic beauty.



I'm sure there are other highlights (and that Trentemøller's mix has its merits) but I was so wracked with stress today (I had a report to do in work before I took a week off... I'm also getting married on Saturday) that I may have missed them.

Alternatively it may say something about the brilliance of OAR003-B by Oni Ayhun that it burst through the clouds of my mind this afternoon.

If you download the XLR8R podcast (and I recommend you subscribe on iTunes for fantastic mixes every week) then it drops around 1 hour and 35 minutes mark.

Dimitar Berbatov, Hip Hop Bangers & The Light

I'm off to watch Cardiff City take on Fulham on Saturday and no this isn't a post about the Michael Jackson statue (though it better still be there when we go).

I'm getting a lift up in a Saab and to stop what happened the last time I was in one (I fell asleep within 10 minutes on the way to Worcester to watch Glamorgan play) and to bridge the differing tastes in the car, we're bringing ten tracks from our sixth form years; for us that's 2001 - 2003. Unity through nostalgia.

I went straight for some hip hop bangers - Pharoahe Monch - Simon Says, ODB - Baby, I Got Your Money, DMX - X Gon' Give It To Ya, Adam F & Redman - Smash Something - but that's pretty revisionist; my mate Huw was the hip hop head, I was into twee electronica and IDM.

A big influence at the time was The Blue Room and in particular Chris Coco's Ibiza By Day cover-mount mix for MUZIK. Aside from Manitoba (now Caribou)'s Dundas, Ontario the highlight is Schneider TM's The Light 3000, a woozy electronic cover of The Smith's There's A Light That Never goes out.

I've revised the ten tracks I'm taking; there's only a couple of hip hop bangers now but there still wasn't space for The Light 3000, as it's not exactly lad's on tour music, so I've posted it here.


[Right-click and "Download Document" for the mp3 of The Light 3000 by Schneider TM]

P.S. 2001-2003 was surprisingly good for music.

The Greatest Mix CD Of All Time

It is of course, Four Tet's Late Night Tales mix from 2004 and for a brief time you could download it for free.

And it wasn't some boo-urns bootlegger, but the man himself. Apparently peeved that Late Night Tales are releasing a re-mastered version on vinyl (they've countered that they're doing this with all their old CDs and he was informed in 2012), Four Tet shared a SendSpace link around (which has now been removed).

You can get a taste of the mix below or just buy it or don't buy it, I don't know but I do know it's a stunningly brilliant mix that is my go-to Sunday morning CD and has never been far from my stereo in the nine years I've had it.



Four Tet also posted a SendSpace link to the track he covered for the mix (one of the USPs of Late Night Tales mixes is that they feature the curator doing an exclusive cover version). In this case, he covered Jimi Hendrix's Castles Made Of Sand and it appears to be still available (NB - it's a WAV not a mp3).

The One That Goes Wom Wom Wom Wom Wom Wom Wom

UK Garage don Sticky has done a short mix for Noisey for some club night (they never included an embed option the buggers) and it's allowed me to find out the name of this tune.



And no, I don't Shazam, it takes the fun and mystery out of life.

P.S. Ignore the label, this originally came out in 1997 and is pure speed garage.

Deep Burnt

I've just got in from a 12+ hour day and I've got a can of Red Stripe on the go, so excuse me if this doesn't link up.

I fired up the laptop and checked in on Twitter, yeah I'm on Twitter - @CeefaxOfLife innit... hey, should I embed a stream thingy on the right of this page? What about Facebook? Been thinking about a fan page, but it might get too close to what I do at work and well, it might get pretty depressing... I mean, does anybody read this shit?

Anyway top of the Who To Follow list tonight was Irfane, who I've posted about before. This sent me spinning back to my Gilles Peterson days and I had to dig out Deep Burnt by Pépé Bradock, featuring as it did on his first Worldwide mix CD (which I may have burnt from Cardiff Central Library's copy). This guy has written far more in-depth about the brilliance and importance of Deep Burnt than I can be bothered or indeed am able to do, but if you want some beautiful deep house action then hit that arrow...



DJ Tenuous in-the-mix, in-the-mix, in-the-mix, in-the-mix, in-the-mix, in-the-mix, in-the-mix...

My 2p On The Mercury

Even though I vowed never to bother with the Mercury after 2008 when Elbow won over Burial... fucking Elbow over the landmark album that was Untrue; even Neon Neon and Radiohead were better choices yet they gave it to fucking Elbow, the soundtrack to every shitty slo-mo montage on terrestrial TV when they exhausted Sigur Rós' equally shitty back catalogue... fuck Elbow and fuck Sigur fucking Rós.

Anyway, despite the clusterfuck of five years ago I still take notice of the Mercury Prize and 2013 threw a few predictable ones up and neglected the best British album I've heard this year, which is Tomorrow's Harvest by Boards Of Canada.

I only own one album on the shortlist - well a dirty CD-R - and that's Disclosure, which is a perfectly serviceable pop-dance album that admirably annoys house purists but isn't anything ground-breaking or forward-thinking, quite the opposite in fact.

Rudimental's selection feels in the vein of Ms Dynamite and Speech Debelle's nods i.e. the desperate attempt to include the British urban scene/box-ticking exercise overriding any artistic merit (compared to Roni Size's and Dizzee Rascal's genuinely important and brilliant Mercury-winning albums).

The rest are just Fulham, y'know? I like Fulham but they're just... there... with one possible exception. With the absence of BOC, I'm going to side with Jon Hopkins - I've only (knowingly) heard one track but it is shitting brilliant...

GWTF 17: Reflektor

GWTF =  Go With The Flow

Arcade Fire's new interactive video for Reflektor is doing the rounds and you can watch and interact with it here if you use Chrome.

You can really hear the influence of producer James Murphy on this, though I'm not sure if I can hear David Bowie (some are claiming he's on backing vocals).

Update: The more conventional Anton Corbijn-directed video is now here...



Their forth album, also called Reflektor, is available for pre-order and if you get it straight from ArcadeFire.com, you get first dibs on tickets for their upcoming world tour.

And on reflection (yeah) that might well be David Bowie around the 5-minute mark.

Legion Of DOOM

IMAGE: Doom Mask by BazNet

Been on a (MF) DOOM tip for the past week or so.

Main thing for this was getting around to listening to the BADBADNOTGOOD megamix of DOOM tracks (you can download from Lex Records' SoundCloud page) that is the perfect length for my walk into town from the Bay.

This has been supplemented by reading this history of MF DOOM by Jo Fuertes-Knight (always had a thing for her since Girl Eats Food) and then this exploration of the rise of beat tapes on FACT. The latter tipped me off about the Special Herbs tapes, which has been my soundtrack for most of this week...



As you can guess, despite liking DOOM for a minute I'm not a bookfiend, so I'm happy to concede that there might be better entry points, yet I think that the BADBADNOTGOOD mix link above is a pretty good introduction to MF DOOM.

And remember - all caps when you spell the man's name.

Lone Trawl

As promised, I've had a quick listen to some of the tracks I picked up on my trawl and the first one to really stand out is Lying In The Reeds by Lone.

I found it over on Waves At Night, one of my favourites, yet it seems to scaling back. It will continue though, which is good news, as it seemed like the whole mp3 blog thing was coming to end. In a sense it probably has - people have moved on to other forms for getting new music (especially after the reformatting of Soundcloud) and the original big blogs have morphed into full-blown websites.

The first one I can remember going was The Ill-ec-tro-nic, which will always have a special place in my heart, as it was the first mp3 blog I visited (after a tip from The Guardian newspaper - not the website - when they had a proper printed music section and was less than a quid) and I downloaded A Number of Names' Shari Vari. Then of course there was the sad news that The Beat was off, which was a real loss for me and probably why the amount of post-punk being posted here has dropped so dramatically.

But let's not mope there's still good music out there and being shared, such as Lying In The Reeds by Lone (full circle!). It came out last year but is heavily influenced by the early 90s acid house sound and I love the switch back every four bars (I think, I know shit all about the structure of music).

MP3 >>> Lone - Lying In The Reeds [Hot link from Waves At Night]

Oh Sheit It's X

Once again displaying my place on the cutting edge, Thundercat's Oh Sheit It's X has been doing the rounds for months and but it's only this past week that I've picked up on it, as he featured on Benji B's show last Thursday and attempted to play Slipknot's Wait & Bleed. I saw 10 minutes of Slipknot at Reading Festival one year; it was one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

Oh Sheit It's X is almost too funky, with its mad bass chops and falsetto vocals but it's all good. It's also on Flying Lotus' Brainfeeder label, so you know it's tidy.

Voight-Kampff

Deft resurfaces with a new video ahead of an EP next month called Voight-Kampff, which is the name of the machine Deckard uses to test replicants in Blade Runner. What's not to like?

Faded is yet another tidy production from Deft, all deep bass, intricate programming and warmth.



The EP is coming out on Project Mooncircle and you can stream another track called Rising Sun on their Bandcamp...



And they've got a taster of all six tracks on their Soundcloud...

Dizzee Rascal, Canary Wharf & The Music Pages On Teletext

The Guardian recently published an excerpt from Dan Hancox's Stand Up Tall: Dizzee Rascal and the Birth of Grime (available as a Kindle Single), which points to the apparent influence of Canary Wharf and One Canada Square in the early life of Dizzee and grime in general.

I've always had a bit of a soft spot for the area of psychogeography, especially the connections with music, perhaps a warped take on the famous quote from Elvis Costello, "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture," (though Martin Mull is credited as the first to say it in print).

The article sent me back to Boy In Da Corner, Dizzee's début, and this was tucked inside...

I bought the album almost exactly ten years ago (ten years ago!) in Our Price (Our Price!) in Falmouth with a voucher from Planet Sound (Planet Sound!), the music pages on Channel 4's Teletext. I was a three-time winner of gig review of the week (that may have made it on to some early CVs), with blistering 100 word submissions on Buck 65, Kid 606 and somebody else with a number in their name (possibly), and a £10 Our Price voucher was the prize.

The booty was well spent, as it is still a raw and interesting listen. Coincidentally, it was Planet Sound's album of 2003. Here's the first single off it...


[Right-click and "Download Document" for the mp3 of I Luv U by Dizzee Rascal]

Stoned & Starving

As well as playing the festival this weekend, Andrew Weatherall popped up on Green Man's radio station.



It's a great hour of music, the pick of which is Parquet Courts' Stoned and Starving.


[The download is a WAV rather than a MP3.]

It also sounds a bit post-punk and a bit droney alt-rock and it's been a long while since I posted something, y'know, with guitars on it.

Don't Know How

I say this blog is based in Cardiff rather than a Cardiff music blog, as I've only covered one Cardiff musician in the five years (!) I've been doing this thing and I'm pretty sure he's from North Wales anyway.

I'm talking about Ifan Dafydd who I posted about last year. And here's another post as his collaboration with Catching Flies (as part of Push & Run's Tings In Boots II) surfaced this week.

It's more of the same from Dafydd (loping, looping, chopped and screwed vocal sample, gently bumping bass and beats, and super-soulful keys and texture) and that's just fine with me.

Lamar In The Limelight

So Kendrick Lamar kicked up a bit of a shit-storm this week? Even The Guardian got in on the act over his appearance on Big Sean's Control (HOF)...



To be fair it's interesting to hear Lamar in aggressive mode.

Coincidentally, I went on a mp3 trawl for the first time in an age and came across another track that Kendrick steals the limelight on and I think is better - Schoolboy Q's Collard Greens (I'm fully aware everyone else on the internet has already heard this)...



Anyway I'll post if I find something interesting from the trawl; I've not listened to any of it yet as I need to write a review of Hjaltalín for Buzz and I can't get a grip on it. Time for a walk to IKEA.

Something About Dornik

The last track on Disclosure's Essential Mix (also uploaded to SoundCloud, naturally) was this excellent chillwave-meets-Jacko 80s R'n'B slow jam from Dornik.



A fitting closure to any mix.

Big Night Out: Gabber

Clive Martin's Big Night Out strand has been essential reading over the past year and now it's essential viewing, as it's switched to a video series.

The first episode about a gabber night Glasgow went up on Thursday...



Delightful. Can't wait for the Cardiff night with a bunch of rugbytards.

Can't Get Close

Benji B is the best DJ on BBC Radio 1 by a country mile (sorry Rob Da Bank, you know I love you but he's killing it at the moment).

Wednesday nights/Thursday mornings 2am - 4pm if you can't sleep, or iPlayer for the rest of us. Anyway, this week he dropped Can't Get Close by Sampha pretty early on and it's the first track in a long time to give me goosebumps.

Shabba!

Finally it has returned. It's felt pretty lonely saying this out loud over the last ten years. But now it's back.

All together now... Shabba!



Bonus points for the appearances of Shabba Ranks and Snoop from The Wire in the video.

Todd Terje On Tape

Everything came up Milhouse for taping Todd Terje's Essential Mix.

If you can't access the show on the BBC iPlayer then it's already on SoundCloud... you're not borrowing my cassette.

Pretty sure it's the first time Men At Work have appeared on the Essential Mix.

Tracklist:

1. Wally Badarou - Voices

2. Riuichi Sakamoto & Robin Scott - Once In A Lifetime

3. Herb Alpert - Rotation

4. Jim Morrison - Ghost Song

5. Guru Guru - Taoma

6. Edu Lobo - Zanzibar

7. Paul Mauriat - From Jupiter With Love

8. Juan Laya & Jorge Montiel - Cumbanchero

9. Traks - Wild Safari (edit)

10. Men At Work - Down Under (Chuck Norris dub)

11. Dennis Brown - Out Of The Funk

12. Tanner Ross - Straight To The Moon

13. Tim Green - Cherry

14. Let's Get Lost - 1002 Nights

15. Nese Karaböcek - Yali Yali (edit)

16. Angelo & Eighteen - Flight 2

17. Status IV - You Ain't Really Down (edit)

18. Lone - Lying In The Reeds

19. Chico Hablas - Los Voladores (edit)

20. Joe - R.E.J. Bit

21. Kitty Winter - New Morning (Prins Thomas edit)

22. Shindai Lovers - A Little Bit Faster (Prins Thomas edit)

23. Linus Loves - Skagg

24. Steve Miller Band - Serenade

25. Sleazy McQueen - Mrs Vanderbilt

26. Guitar Slim Green - Shake It Up (edit)

27. Gerry Rafferty - Right Down The Line (12" mix)

28. Nicolette Larson - Lotta Love (12" mix)

Todd Terje Essential Mix

On Friday night (well, it goes at 1:00am on Saturday 27th July 2013), Todd Terje is doing BBC Radio 1's Essential Mix.

Pretty sure I saw a C120 when I was tearing the flat apart looking for my Mario Kart 64 game cartridge last night. Now I just need to remember how I set the record timer on the Philips MC-200. Screw iPlayer, this should be a keeper.

And I'm still absolutely loving Inspector Norse (#3 on my Top 10 Things I Heard 2012).



Edit: It worked!

Bleeping Hopkins

I've been catching up on some of the Bleep podcasts this week and had to stop everything when they dropped Jon Hopkins' One Eye Signal during #80. Could seriously lose my shit if I heard this out... if I ever went out... and went to places that played buzzing building techno like this...

Hair Jack

Think I've found my favourite video of year in Jack by Breach...

Gatsby, Diet Vimto & A Minor Traffic Accident

Man, it's been a long and eventful day.

I was due down in Neyland in Pembrokeshire this morning. I caught the train to lovely Neath and got picked up for a lift the rest of the way there.

Unfortunately, we didn't make it the rest of the way, as we were duly shunted into the back of on the A477. Thankfully no one was hurt but it does add an extra bit of stress to the day. The car could not continue but I did and delivered some training, which I hadn't done before, so it was always going to a stressful day anyway.

I was kindly dropped off at Pembroke Dock station afterwards but it took a few chapters of The Great Gatsby, two cans of Diet Vimto and the beautiful, shimmering and summery Isolated by Sau Poler to truly calm the fudge down. As XLR8R correctly state, if you like a bit of Gold Panda or Four Tet, then you'll dig this...



MP3 ---> Isolated by Sau Poler [Hot link from XLR8R]

Bang Bang Beerwolf

I was in Falmouth over the weekend as my pink nose and bloated liver testifies.

One of the highlights was a visit to Beerwolf Books, an establishment that combines an interesting selection of very reasonably priced books with a proper cosy pub, a damn fine cup of coffee for £1.50 and some fantastic music on the stereo - including this interesting cover of Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) by Terry Reid during my brief visit...

GWTF 16: DFA's 12th Birthday

Did you know it was DFA's 12th birthday recently? Yep? Well you must have been online in May.

Still it's given us this lovely disco mix from James Murphy...



And this charming and tidily edited short film...



Glosses over the lawsuit between Murphy and Tim Goldsworthy, but hey it's a party right?

In more Murphy news, there's been plenty of chatter about his collaboration with the Dewaele brothers of Soulwax on the Despacio soundsystem in Manchester. 

Not Only Teardrops

Well I've just about recovered from Eurovision.

The years backing Denmark (the low point being Ronan Keating's ballad) finally paid off last Saturday. By paid off I mean the annihilation of my liver, thanks to the drinking games at the heart of our soiree. The Eurohangover morphed into the Eurocold.

It was so bad that instead of singing this...



I insisted on singing this...



Amongst many other atrocities.

Holden On All Week

Aside from finally getting over the hype, embracing Kendrick Lamar and smashing Swimming Pools (Drank), the track I've been listening to the most this week is (James) Holden's wibbly and choatic bumper Renata.



There's been a lot of love for the Daphni remix (one of Dan Snaith's nom de guerres - his most well-known is Caribou) but I'd stick with the fantastic original.

Paranoia In A Day

This was very close to being a Go With The Flow, as Chance The Rapper's Acid Rap mixtape has been doing the rounds this past week or so.

Yet the track that has grabbed me is positioned apart from the album, yep it's on the second track but twenty-seconds of silence after Pusha Man.

I'm of course talking about the hazy and miasmatic Paranoia, produced by Nosaj Thing.



Simply stunning, especially as it seems it was knocked together in a day.

Some Of The Reasons Behind My Complete Lack Of Musical Talent

I've always been surrounded by music and on the whole, I've only been a consumer of it. We always had two radios on in Kent Street, usually both on Galaxy 101, though my first real music awakening was watching Keith Flint flaying about in the video to Firestarter on TOTP.

My mum bought me a guitar when I was 15, which I barely played and LC gave me a bass guitar at uni, which I never played.

The closest I got was messing around with Dance eJay 3 and the in-built sound files of Windows 98, followed by cack-handed attempts to make ambient electronica with a cracked version of Fruity Loops and demo drum machines and basic synths; it somehow always ended up as banging techno. I think the files are still on a tower PC in my grandparents' spare bedroom in Falmouth.

I've always had a passion for music but because I hadn't picked up an instrument by Year 7, Mrs. Murphy, my music teacher in high school, didn't bother with me or anyone else in my predicament. That's not to lay the blame solely at her door; there's nothing stopping me getting back into it, apart from my apathy... and complete lack of original ideas, but if I had someone like Mr Price-Thomas or Mr Hopkin, who were brilliant Physics and Maths teachers respectively, doing Music at my school, I might have stuck it out or at least picked up music-making software a lot earlier.

If I'm honest, I would've learned a lot more and been more inspired if my school had just played this to me every lesson for three years...



Ha! And after five years of doing this, I've finally fallen to the adage that every music writer is a frustrated musician.

P.S. It's well worth following Now-Again Records on SoundCloud, their page is crammed with amazing music.

First Thoughts: Random Access Memories

Finally there's an official stream of Daft Punk's Random Access Memories, available through iTunes.

Admittedly I'm saying this after one quick listen but I think Random Access Memories is a grower not a shower; there's clearly lots of interesting little things and every tiny detail has been wrangled, if not strangled, over. Yet aside from Pharrell's contributions, the bumpin' Doin' It Right and the quite frankly fucking insane Giorgio by Moroder, the album struggles to grab one by the balls.

It'll also perplex anyone who earnestly uses the term EDM, with the widely reported disco influences supplemented by soft-rock and prog-rock touches; I'd say some of it sounds like The Eagles if I had actually listened to any of their songs aside from Hotel California, while some of it sounds like Pink Floyd if I had actually listened to any of their songs in full.

So yeah... still gonna buy it though.

A Half-Arsed Look At The Music Of Tunisia

I was in Tunisia last week.

I was sat on the balcony of our hotel room on the sixth floor, watching the swallows swoop and pink tourists, strapped to the back of speedboats with parachutes, floating. I felt wonderfully isolated.



[Right-click and "Download Document" for mp3 of Leaf House by Animal Collective]

Apart from a couple of thumping French party tracks with accompanying dance moves (one of them I can only describe ineloquently as "doing a spaz shuffle") and panpipe versions of mega-selling ballads, I didn't really hear any music. A trawl of the in-built radio in our room revealed a uniformity of sound, though of course this is down to my uneducated ears regarding Mezwed music.

The most interesting thing I did hear was at a zoo. As part of an "Authentic African Experience" there was a Tunisian folk-band, consisting of a bendir, a tabla-like hand-drum that was kicking out some mad rhythms and a mizwad, this bagpipe that appeared to be made out of a boar's head, with two horns protruding out of the nostrils. A quick look around Sousse's medina for the instrument was sadly fruitless.

When The Going Is Smooth And Gold

Ever wondered what Telex would sound like if they were more Abuja than Antwerp?

William Onyeabor's When The Going Is Smooth And Gold is a good indicator...



As heard on Andrew Weatherall's latest 6 Mix

Digging Gravez

I wrote a quick review of Hooded Fang's new album Gravez for TheSprout, after enjoying Tosta Mista for Buzz last year and this of course...

GWTF 15: Bookfiend

I reviewed Child Of Lov's album for Buzz last month on the strength that it had a DOOM verse on one song.

Thankfully a different track has been doing the rounds, a collaboration with A$AP Rocky's best beatmaker, Clams Casino...



Props for "Netflix to the head" line and extra props for Clams Casino's SoundCloud name.

The 5 Second Rule

Many writers more erudite than me have explored the ways that technology and the internet have altered the consumption of music.

But I think we can all agree there is simply no way of keeping up with the tsunami of tunes. If a song doesn't hook a little after one play then it's lost at sea. That's if it gets played all the way through.

I heard the guy who made the Wonderbra advert talking on the radio a few weeks ago. Trevor Beattie was announcing the death of the 30 second TV advert, proselytising about the 5 second advert (coincidentally the amount of time before you can skip an advert on YouTube if you don't have the right plug-in).

I've been tossing this around in my head and I think it applies to music too. I've only just got around to listening to Mike G's Chanel. I've had the EP for yonks but the intro sounds like some shitty house track that I always skip before he starts rhyming. I'm sure I'm not the only trigger-happy listener.Will this skipping atmosphere, this "tapas experience" as Beattie puts it start affecting how producers compose their music?

One new track that definitely plays all its cards straight away is Computer Jay and Gaslamp Killer's womping Sundial Meltdown (hotlink via XLR8R). It makes its point, wibbles and wobbles a bit but tells you everything you need to know pretty quickly.



Fuck it, maybe prog'll make a comeback.

Mike Tyson, De La Soul & A Huge Yellow Thing

After listening to Daft Punk's Get Lucky for the fifth time on the walk to Gôl, shuffle spat out De La Soul's Keepin' The Faith from 1991's De La Soul Is Dead.

It may have been the sun, it may have been Mike Tyson's Black Energy fizzing through me or it may have been that I was on my way to play 5-A-Side but Keepin' The Faith just felt perfect (despite being on Penarth Road) and that summer might actually exist.


[Right-click and "Download Document" for the mp3 of Keepin' The Faith by De La Soul]

Missing Thunder

I'm ashamed to say that due to my hedonistic Wednesday night, I missed Thunder Soul at Open Cinema Cardiff on Thursday. Hangovers last for days now.

Pretty bummed as it looks like a fantastic documentary on the much sampled Kashmere Stage Band and they even had the director of it chatting on Skype afterwards.

One such record that uses a KSB sample is the fabulous Holy Calamity (Bear Witness II) by Handsome Boy Modelling School feat. DJ Shadow and DJ Quest.



Open Cinema is a free film club held in the Loudoun Square Culture & Media Centre on Bute Street and the rest of their season is as follows...

• Thursday 25th April 2013 = Amreeka
• Thursday 2nd May 2013 = The Artist
• Thursday 9th May 2013 = The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
• Thursday 16th May 2013 = Hope Springs
• Thursday 23rd May 2013 = Life Of Pi

Giddy Before Metronomy

I went down 10 Feet Tall last night to catch Anna from Metronomy's DJ set.

My memory is a little hazy (that'll be the £2 Kraken and cokes) but I remember Millionaire slamming into Try Again, the baffling sight of humanities students trying to bump to Do The Astral Plane, lots of Phoenix and a slight school disco vibe...

Lads, get to 10 ft Tall Anna Metronomy DJ set now, there's only babes on the floor!
— Hannah Cook (@han_louisecook) April 17, 2013

The highlight though was before the night really kicked off, tearing up the empty dancefloor to Giddy Stratospheres by The Long Blondes, a stone-cold indie disco classic that threw me straight back to my first year of university.


[Right-click and "Download Document" for the mp3 of Giddy Stratospheres]

I also have no voice from an overenthusiastic rendition of Thong Song. Good times.

Metronomy DJing @ 10 Feet Tall

I just checked on We Got tickets and there's nine free tickets left for Wednesday.

And it's not Olugbenga but Anna, so I haven't the foggiest what she's going to play at 10 Feet Tall; here's hoping for this cheeky bootleg...

Trying To Get Lucky

I'm pretty sure every man and their dog has seen this by now...



Unsurprisingly, eager fans and chancing producers have started looping, cutting and editing this minute or so of audio. There was a great one that purported to be a rip from France's Fun Radio that has now been pulled, as has one which added some weird strings to the end but if you just want the sanctioned audio on a loop, check out this, probably the most beautiful thing you'll see all week (thanks Jonny).

All of this acts as free advertising of course and FACT have a nice short-ish piece celebrating Daft Punk's promotional activities, though Oh No They Didn't report that not everyone (or should that be everything?) is impressed.

Simon Says Listen To Trap

It's not big and it's not clever but it is good.



Man this tune was everywhere when I started going clubbing.

Marvin

Yes Da Bank!

Rob Da Bank dropped Wayward's Marvin-Gaye-sampling, slow-burning bumper Marvin on his latest Saturday morning BBC Radio 1 show.



And lo and behold you can download it for free in exchange for a like on their Facebook page. No excuse.

History: Giorgio Moroder On Daft Punk

I don't know what to say...

Signal 30

I got Public Service Broadcasting's Signal 30 single to review as part of my bundle from Buzz this month. I don't usual post anything here about that, treading on toes or whatever but yesterday PSB posted a dark, brooding yet pumping remix of said track by Justin Robertson on Soundcloud, so why not yeah?

No signs of a download of it yet but you can grab an mp3 of New Dimensions In Sound from their website in exchange for an addy.

Finally, PSB play Clwb Ifor Bach on Thursday 23rd May.

DJ Rashad's Mix For Benji B

Holy Moly I love a bit of footwork/footwerk/footwurk... or juke/whatever. DJ Rashad said himself before the mix that there's no real difference.

Someone has done the honourable thing and posted a rip from Benji B's BBC Radio 1 show from Thursday on Mixcloud.

Bumpin'.

Pitman Everywhere

Another CD that I found during the sort out was MC Pitman's It Takes A Nation Of Tossers, which my friend Sarah burned for me ages ago.

Coincidentally, I spoke to Sarah on Facebook today while making this owl, as she had posted some old photos from the Falklands.

Further more, I noticed that Pitman scored the only goal of the game for AFC Bournemouth against Firewall FC this afternoon.

Witness the pitness.


[Right-click and "Download Document" to get the mp3 of Witness The Pitness by MC Pitman]

Nights In

I finally got around to alphabetising my CDs; that's how bored and skint I've been this Easter weekend.

During the sort I found Metronomy's Nights In EP, a bonus CD that came with Nights Out when bought from Rough Trade, which nicely bridges the wonky bedroom electronics of Pip Paine to the wonky full band sound of Nights In.

Here's the highlight, the bonkers The Chase (which also featured on the US iTunes release). Well wonky.


[Right-click and "Download Document" to download an mp3 of The Chase by Metronomy]

Multiple Visions On Grangemoor

With an afternoon to kill and some new music to listen to, I decided to go for a wander yesterday.



I had downloaded some mixes of Floyd Campbell after reading a feature on XLR8R and decided to head up the old dump of Grangemoor. It seemed apt as he seems to use a lot of found sound as source material... whatever, fidgety buzzing techno is good walking music.

Once up there I decided to amble on further, popping into The Pumping Station (regretting not buying this sign now)...

and onto the Ely Trail, which was quite nice until you got past Sanatorium Park, where it turns onto the back of a decrepit industrial estate, like something out of Life On Mars. The footbridge at the end of Paper Mill Road brings you out between Ely Bridge and Victoria Park and that's where I left the trail and headed back into town down Cowbridge Road East.



The Ely Trail continues up to St. Fagans for four miles and there are plans to put a proper path in once the mess of the old paper mill is sorted but for now, if you want a nice two hour wander, I'd come off one of the paths in Sanatorium Park.

Cowboy Tamale Wolf

Do you know what is a lovely Saturday morning album? Well it ain't Tyler, The Creator's Wolf, which you can stream on Odd Future's SoundCloud.

Still Cowboy and Tamale sound good whenever.

Flowers Everywhere

I haven't been able to escape Lapalux's Flower this week, not that I'm complaining.



First Flying Lotus Facebooked with news that Nostalchic (Lapalux's new album) is available to stream on Resident Advisor (it's coming out on FlyLo's Brainfeeder label) and then while looking for mixes to listen to at work, came across his FACT mix, which uses it alongside some other killer cuts including De La Soul, Chilly Gonzales and SWV.

So yeah, flowers might not be everywhere in IRL with this sodding weather but they are online.

Daft Punk Coach Trip

I'm off to Glasgow tomorrow to watch Gareth Bale versus Scotland.

I'm getting on the coach at 7.45am and getting off around 6pm. Thankfully someone has looped that 15-second Daft Punk SNL advert for roughly the length of the journey. Soundtrack sorted.

Deft, A Viaduct & IKEA Hot Dogs

After moaning about it yesterday, I decided to go for a walk after work with some tunes on.

I got on the Butetown Link Road (A4232, road number fans) with the intention of dropping down into Hamadryad Park. Unfortunately there were no steps down and I didn't want to turn around on a bridge, especially as there were people behind me. So due to not wanting to look like a plonker, I proceeded to walk the length of the viaduct... like a plonker. Still it gave me a chance to listen to some tunes.

I decided to continue on to IKEA and bought some things that are kind of useful but that I was living without quite comfortably. An expensive habit is walking. I also had one of their hot dogs; I wouldn't care even if they were made out of the eyelids of dogs, one them with that mustard on is the bomb.

Anyway the music! I gave that Bok Bok and Girl Unit live thing another spin on the way there, heard Darius on the in-store (it's no Co-op Radio) and a few interesting bits on the awkward walk home (I bought a laundry basket and a clothes rack).

Firstly there was The Field's loping and melancholic Then It's White as I walked around my old stomping ground of Grangetown...



And also Deft's rather fine Supa Dupa.



MP3 ---> Deft - Supa Dupa [hot link from XLR8R]

I'm really liking Deft's productions; his Jungle Jim track was very close to making my top 10 last year.

So yeah, that's what piqued my interest today... maybe I'll turn this into a music and walking blog... seeing that the Fat Hipster Running strand was so successful and long-running.

Hypocrisy, Excuses & Yet Another Apology

Sorry it's been a bit quiet.

I moved to the Bay, despite what I said back in 2010.

Yeah, I had no internet for a few weeks, but the main thing is that I'm now round the corner from work; I used to have an hour-and-a-half walk every day and I'd have earphones in most of the time.

Now I mostly get my music fix in work, loading up Boiler Room and Just Jam mixes; DJ Ride's had a few plays...



As has TNGHT's Full Uncensored Mix...



But I'm still mainly bumming Rustie's Essential Mix. I've boiled it down to this tune though, its apparent allusiveness only adding to its allure...



Uhhh how good is that?

I don't know if I'm going to snap out of this cycle; I've had at least forty-five-minute commutes on foot since I ditched the bus to school in Year 10. I'm not going to take a huge detour just to listen to mp3s and neither will joining the gym (if I join the gym) change anything as I prefer speech radio and podcasts, well I did when I used to run in Llantwit. It doesn't help that The Beat has gone either.

Maybe I should drop the mp3 tag? Or accept that I'm now an old fart?

Utopia

I've really been enjoying Utopia on Channel 4 (Tuesdays at 10pm); it's ridiculous (but it knows it's ridiculous), it's ultra-violent (which is upsetting all the right people) and it's only six episodes long (so it's not going to do a Lost).

It is also gorgeous to look at, which even its critics have to admit. One thing that may be overlooked is the music used in the show. I'm not sure if you can call this the theme tune but it does crop up regularly and is pretty darn strange. Just like Utopia. 

You can catch up on the series on 4OD.

Memorex

I think this is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen; I want to dream it every night.

Here's a hotlink to the mp3 of Smash TV's Memorex Video Mix [via Percussion Lab]

Tracklist:
Memorex Intro
VHS Head - Ident
Boxcutter - TV Troubles
Cuticle - Towel
Leyland Kirby - Neon Lit Atoms
Peaking Lights - Synthy
Hype Williams - Mitsubishi
Boards Of Canada - On A Rolling Sea
LA Vampires Featuring Matrix Metals - So Unreal
Rene Hell - Bordes Of Heaven
Laurie Anderson - O Superman (Smash TV Rewind)
VHS Head - Seen Enough
Outer Limits Recordings - Julie
Boards Of Canada - Dave (I'm A Real Traditionalist)
Ford & Lopatin - Rock Center Paranoia
Hype Williams - Businessline
LA Vampires Goes Ital - Tons Of Love
Boards Of Canada - Iraq Says / Nine-Rubber Wisdom
Niggas With Guitars - Milky White
Loverboy - When It's Over (Brian E Remix / Smash TV Rewind)
Thompson Twins - If You Were Here (Smash TV Rewind)
Memorex Outro

50005

This enigmatic tweet caused a bit of a flutter yesterday.

50005

— Four Tet (@FourTet) January 22, 2013

Last week he tweeted "0181" and the next day a rarities album of the same name appeared. Lightning didn't strike twice and it turned out 50005 referred to this tidy slab of Basic Channel influenced techno from Shed.

GWTF 14: White Noise

Possibly a pre-emptive Go With The Flow but with over 40,000 plays within two hours of being uploaded on Soundcloud, Disclosure's White Noise (featuring the vocals of Aluna Francis from AlunaGeorge) is bound to be everywhere.



It's easy to hear why, this sweet, garage-influenced house tune ticks a lot of boxes under the heading "Sounds Of Now".

DJ Yoda's One World Mix

You don't get this with mp3s.

Plus One Loo and I are moving next month, which means packing, sorting and sifting. All this needs a soundtrack, so after I found my old box of tapes, I bashed a DJ Yoda mix in my Sharp GF-6000. Said equipment duly mangled the show that I recorded off BBC Radio 1's One World strand, presented by Annie Mac right at the start of her career.

After a quick whine on Facebook, my mate Gez pointed out that it's on Mixcloud. Not a total disaster then.

Four Tetuary

Despite the fear of this becoming Ceefax Of Tet, here's a brilliantly bonkers mix for Just Jam from Four Tet.

DJ Zinc's Minimix

My iTunes spaffed up this week when it updated. After uploading an old library, I noticed Annie Mac's Minimix in the list of podcasts to which I no longer subscribe. After sorting it out, I decided to subscribe again and lo and behold the first one to download was Zinc's classic history of D'n'B mix from 2005.

You can try this hotlink for it on iTunes (I think) or right-click below and "Download Document".


Scary tracklist here.

GWTF 13: Four Tet - 0181

Not only is it a snow day today but I finally got around to listening to 0181, a collection of off-cuts and rarities from Four Tet's "folktronica" days of 97-01 (his Imperial Phase?), which appeared as a free download this week.

An essential use of bandwidth.

GWTF12: Four Tet x Grimes

When is a remix not a remix? When Four Tet says so. He dropped this track that uses a loop from Grimes' Skin in the middle of a Rinse.FM mix last week and it's well tidy.

Nigerian Disco Weather

Did you see the sunshine today? Woof, it's been a while.

This bit of Nigerian disco sounded brilliant in it.



MP3 ---> Joe Moks - Boys & Girls [Hot link from GvB]

GWTF 11: That DJ Shadow Mix

The mix DJ Shadow played at the Miami club, where he got booted off the decks has surfaced and is doing the rounds. It's an interesting listening yet I can understand if the bros thought it was "too future".



Worth a stream just for The Simpsons Theme rejig at 35 minutes in.

More Go With The Flows