9 in 1 (9)

Oof, been a month since my last list, so here's what I've been enjoying in September...

Simple Minds - Theme For Great Cities

Erol Alkan opened his last NTS show with this spooky electro jam from Simple Minds and I used to use this track as my bed on Sam's Sonic Sandwich back in the Radiowave days. Talking of radio, I'm visiting Bro Radio tomorrow...

Dollkraut - Wie Ein (Slow) Groupie

Another cut from Erol's show, this is some brooding post-punky electronic stuff from an artist I know absolutely zilch about.

Folly Group - Butt No Rifle

Fiddly, fidgety, indie rock, currently on the A-list on 6 Music but don't let that stop you.

Oneohtrix Point Never - I Don’t Love Me Anymore

A relatively - relatively - straight down the line track from OPN, almost indie-rock. Too weird to be proper indie-rock, but normcore for Daniel Lopatin. As featured on the first of Ela Minus's excellent new Radio 1 Residency shows.

Boards of Canada - Sixtyniner

Classic BOC, Sixtyniner is off Twoism. They tweeted for the first time in years a couple of weeks ago, linking to a fan-made video for Come To Dust. So there we go.

Jan Hammer Group - Don't You Know

Proper stonking groove on this, an absolute gem from 1977, loop it for days.

Tyler, The Creator - BOYFRIEND

Only on the physical release of Igor, this is still some tip-top hip hop all the same.

Tkay Maidza - Syrup 

More tip-top hip hop, thicker than syrup bass yes mate, tight rhymes too, nice.

Shy FX & T Power - Feelings

Right, let's sign-off of with some rinsing, rolling, d'n'b. Pure summer sounds, I'm missing it already.

Related post: 9 in 1 (8)

Letts Buzz

Nature is healing and I'm back reviewing the odd album for Buzz Magazine.

And for October's issue, it was the latest in the excellent Late Night Tales series, Version Excursion from the legendary Don Letts.

Read my review yerr or find a physical copy out and about on the streets of South Wales.

Related article: Django Django Buzz Buzz 

Radio 1 Residency Reworked

BBC Radio 1's Residency has reworked its format for autumn/winter 2021.

Gone are the eight DJs a month for six months at a time on Sundays. Now it's two DJs every week for a month on Thursdays. And it looks like it's all change on the DJ front, which means that:

• Amelie Lens
• Anz
• Avalon Emerson
• Carista
• Carl Cox
• DJ EZ
• Joy Orbison
• Sherelle

Have all finished their residencies. TBH, it's only really Avalon Emerson that I'm gonna miss from that list.

Anyway onwards and upwards, first up in the new format is Todd The God (the other one), Todd Edwards, the New Jerseyite god of UK Garage. Yes, mate. Ela Minus follows (not listened to that one yet, but it's up on BBC Sounds) and in the following months, Shygirl and Maya Jane Coles will join the roster. I didn't catch the others as Denise Lewis kept interrupting. 

To clarify, I'm starting Couch to 5k from scratch again after the summer off and for some reason, my man Michael Johnson isn't on there any more. Shame they didn't take my suggestions on board for new coaches, but Denise is OK.

I think #Couchto5K can be improved by including Ric Flair, Gerry Adams, Grace Jones, and Kat Slater as the coach options.

— DJ Sboncen (@CeefaxOfLife) February 4, 2021

Back to Todd Edwards, I'm still working my way through the first show, but already Chris Lake & Armand Van Helden - Work! is a highlight.

Related post: Radio 1's Residency: Spring 2021 Update

Empty blogroll: 404s, Simon Reynolds, and Floridian post-punk

I had a trawl through some old bookmarks last weekend. Yeah, it's pretty rock and roll out here in the rural Vale. 

I was curious to see which of the old mp3 blogs were still up, never mind still posting. I mean I was talking about the decline of the mp3 blog format in 2013, but I was hoping that the sites were still available. 

Yet at the risk of getting all Retromania, I'm saddened by how sites like The Beat!, No Pain In Pop, Waves At Night, Altered Zones, and so many more are either 404s or worse, taken over and hosting VPN or trading spuff. Is this astroturfing? Digital squatting? There's definitely a term for it, Tedium will have something I'm sure. 

Thankfully some are still up with archives you can trawl through rather than go via the Wayback Machine. The Ill-ec-tron-ic (last post 2012), Rose Quartz (2013), 20jazzfunkgreats (January of this year, so maybe will come back?) remain. And would you look at that Simon Reynolds is still rocking with Blogger, posting regularly across multiple strands; blissblog, Energy Flash, and yes Retromania amongst others.

Let's wrap this up with something from blissblog then, something post-punk too as it's been a long while since we had a bit of that. Here's the Floridian post-punk outfit The Stick Figures with the knotty but funky N-Light.

Image credit: SPUI, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons