Away in Devon and probably in the rain for a week. See you on the other side.

And quite right too.

http://hattiecollins.blogspot.com/2007/05/prince-love-continues.html

So last night, after doing what a good journalist does best and blagging myself two tickets to the hottest show in town, I had what could be described as a near-religious experience.

I used to do some work with people who quite literally regarded Prince as a god. It was one of the best things about them. Total love for the purple one here.

deeptime » Blog Archive » Shackleton » Ottawa 07.05.27

Large up Paul Nomos for bringing the mighty Shackleton to the western Atlantic shore. This is how our crew represents – we bring the music makers to the people! Good work…

YouTube – straight cockney

Some of it looks more like Elm Park than Romford to me, think the first bit is round the station somewhere.

Good enough lickle tune tho.

PRANCEHALL
I went and did an interview with Trim the other day in the Isle of Dogs. Good vibes. He played me most of Soulfood Vol. 2, which is sounding about three and a half times better than the first mixtape, which is a good mixtape because its Trim and I like Trim, but isnt actually as good as I first thought, but I thought very highly of it at first, which means it is still good, but not as good as Volume 2, which is really, really great. If you know what I mean.

deeptime
And then this is just insane. Greg from Beatdiaspora has organized a Blogariddims Orgy on WHRB Cambridge, Harvard Radio Broadcasting. (WHRB’s ‘Orgies’ are, apparently, a 40 year old, post-exam tradition – the first was 9 consecutive Beethoven symphonies) This co-production of the Record Hospital (www.recordhospital.org) and The Darker Side (www.whrb.org/tds). A big thank you to everyone who’s made this happen. What a great way to cap off the first (almost) year of an outstanding series. This is my first orgy and I couldn’t have been in better company.

BLOGARIDDIMS ORGY
11 hours (wed 5/16, 10 pm to thur 5/17, 9 am)
12 hours (thur 5/17, 8 pm to fri 5/18, 8 am)
= 23 hours of the entire blogariddims podcast in order of appearance

uncarved.org blog
I’ve upgraded to WordPress 2.2 and started using the Fluid Blue 1.0 theme.
So things look a little different and this blog now supports “widgets”. The first of these is a “recent comments” section at the top of the sidebar.
Feck. No sooner do I update myself to 2.1.3, but they release 2.2 and John is on it already. Bollocks. Well, I’m not doing it again, took ages last time.

Technology Review: Solar Power at Half the Cost
“A new mechanism for focusing light on small areas of photovoltaic material could make solar power in residential and commercial applications cheaper than electricity from the grid in most markets in the next few years. Initial systems, which can be made at half the cost of conventional solar panels, are set to start shipping later this year, says Brad Hines, CTO and founder of Soliant Energy, a startup based in Pasadena, CA, that has developed the new modules.

Concentrating sunlight with mirrors or lenses on a small area cuts the costs of solar power in part by reducing the amount of expensive photovoltaic material needed. But while concentrated solar photovoltaic systems are attractive for large-scale, ground-based solar farms for utilities, conventional designs are difficult to mount on rooftops, where most residential and commercial customers have space for solar panels. The systems are typically large and heavy, and they’re mounted on posts so that they can move to track the sun, which makes them more vulnerable to gusts of wind than ordinary flat solar panels are.

Soliant has designed a solar concentrator that tracks the sun throughout the day but is lighter and not pole-mounted. The system fits in a rectangular frame and is mounted to the roof with the same hardware that’s used for conventional flat solar panels. Yet the devices will likely cost half as much as a conventional solar panel, says Hines. A second-generation design, which concentrates light more and uses better photovoltaics, could cost a quarter as much. He says that a more advanced design should be ready by 2010.

The Soliant design combines both lenses and mirrors to create a more compact system. Each module is made of rows of aluminum troughs, each about the width and depth of a gutter. These troughs are mounted inside a rectangular frame and can tilt in unison from side to side to follow the sun. Each trough is enclosed on top with a clear acrylic lid. Inside each trough, a strip of silicon photovoltaic material runs along the bottom. As light enters, some of it reflects off the inside surface of the trough and reaches the strip of silicon. The rest of the incoming light is focused on the strip by a lens incorporated into the acrylic lid.”

Lots more in this article from the MIT Technology review (thanks to Fraser Clarke’s newsletter for the tip). I’m not a big believer in domestic micro-generation from PV unless you live in a hot desert because PV technology is inefficient with poor ROI. Investing in insulation is a MUCH better option – PV is essentially a rich boys toy in most cases, though it’s good for hot water and underfloor heating. But it’s good to see that the technology is moving on. As a cursory look at the red herring will tell you there is VAST VC investment in PV going on right now. We’ll have to see whether it pans out as a domestic solution – unlike wind, which for most people relies on economies of scale (and tall windmills) to be worth doing. I.e., big wind farms.

Nevertheless I would very much like a rich boys toy in the shape of some PV panels (we won’t have room – or sufficient wind speed – for a windmill) and I am tracking this space closely.

See also this and this:.

I don’t know about you but I think there’s a huge grime renaissance going on right now. Alex Bk Bk has moved over to grime from dubstep almost completely and as you may have noticed, John Eden has been blasting it (a few years too late, but I always told him he’d get into it eventually!). Key to this are the Roll Deep CD Rules and Regulations (which you MUST have by now surely, it’s amazing) and Trim’s Soul Food volume one mix tape. It’s taken me a while to get into it but it’s a real grower and his laid back, spooky yet comic delivery is utterly captivating. There are a good seven or eight tracks that are just brilliant – even though I don’t like the skits and the tributes much, and even though the tracks could often be longer, there’s loads of deep tunes on here. Liar, Liar, In the Ghetto, Wot, and But I Still are just superb.

I also picked up a few bits and pieces on Archive Recordings from Boomkat, including a very nice 10 inch with Junior Reid’s One Sufferation and some Tubby’s versions. I assume it’s a reissue label but some cursory searching has revealed nothing. Doubtless every reggae fan in the country knows all about them but there you are.

There seems to be a Basic Replay re-issue deluge happening at the moment and most of them are TOP so get on it.

ACKIE / CHESSE ROOTS, Call Me Rambo / Rambo Gun Salute
C64 helicopter noises never sounded so good! This is a super-heavy Brit MC plate, very enjoyable, with slightly less acomplished versions.

“This was recorded in 1986 and originally released on the Heavyweight label (an offshoot of the Heavyweight soundsystem, based in the Wood Green and Tottenham areas of north London), featuring Chester Roots at the controls and his nephew Ackie at the microphone; also the helicopter sounds free with a Commodore 64.”

KING CULTURE PRESENTS : CUSS CUSS, King Culture Presents : Cuss Cuss, 12″
This seems to be from last year. It’s a slightly sweeter cut with Barry Brown’s Nice Up the Session probably my favourite and of course it’s amazingly good value – six tracks on one twelve

“Six murderous outings for Lloyd Robinson’s immortal rhythm on this showcase EP collecting singles produced by King Culture in Toronto and Kingston, Jamaica, during 1980-81.
Rod Taylor was voiced in JA; Barry Brown between both cities. Stamma was mic man for the JA sound Taurus: this was his recording debut. Mixing was done at Tubby’s, assisted by his apprentices Professor and Puggy (an expert with the Delta 4 machine tape-delay).
These versions tore up dancehalls at the time. Listen to Gemini at Skateland, with Welton Irie, Plough, Ringo and full crew, all riding dubs [If anyone knows where I can get this, let me know! - p.m].

* Rod Taylor: Lonely Girl
* Lonely Girl Version
* Nice Up The Session Version
* Barry Brown: Nice Up The Session
* Stamma Rank: Taurus Special
* Taurus Special Version”

Grime spree | Urban | Guardian Unlimited Music
“Dizzee’s vision was further than mine at the time, and our manager had to take Dizzee to where he was going, but he left us all behind,” says Wiley

Most Dan in the Guardian writing about Wiley’s new album. Hold tight for the director’s cut version at Lower End Spasm? Lets hope so.

After seeing Youngsta last week I was HYPE for seeing Mala in Sheffield. He’s my second favourite DJ in the world (after Shaka). Sadly I was never likely to get there – I tried to schedule this week’s trip to New York so I could get there but I was going to fly the next morning, so it was going to be a struggle – and then I went down with chicken pox and was quarantined at home. (In fact I should really have been in bed constantly, but until today I’ve been struggling to function normally – big mistake.)

Normally this would mean no chance of a review, but due to the immense power of the dubstep community, I can put together a decent report – and even pictures.

The Tuesday Club put Mala on in the Foundry back room with C90 crew on before and Junglist Alliance on after. This was a student venue, a school night, and it’s exam time, but even so, 500 dubsteppers were crammed in there. Trust me, that’s a result. As I noted in my Youngsta review, Juliun C90 reckons that Sheffield is now “well and truly in the grip of the dubstep virus”.

The difference in the crowd in terms of numbers present and knowledge of the music from when I warmed up for the warrior dubs tour a while back to last night was phenomenal.” This is not such a long time – Halloween last year, when Loefah and Plastician played (and I was also sick. Bloody kids). And Godspeed 120 remembers Juliun doing a dubstep set at a Tuesday Club residents night this time last year, when there were about twenty people on the dance floor – things have changed.

As ever at dubstep events there was a great vibe in the dance, but it sounds like (and looks like) people were really going for it on the dancefloor. C90 crew rocked it with impeccable mixing.

But it sounds like Mala was, as ever, on another plane entirely.

It’s amazing that the two poles of dubstep DJing were representing in Sheffield one after another – the coldness of Yunx, the sweet heat of Mala.

His sound seems to have benefited from the intimate venue, especially with the extra weight brought in for the occasion. Apparently he was pure fire last night – dark, dubby, massive. Jah War, Miracles, Lean Forward and loads of new fairly fresh stuff all dropped.

Looks like people were worshipping the bass…

… getting munted…

… and getting happy…

… and giving some serious “defiant stare”…

Many thanks to the people at dubstep forum for the reports, especially to ikarai for taking such great photos.

Blogariddims 22: Disintegrations « The Rambler
Unlike my previous Blogariddims contribution there was a plan behind this mix. But as I started putting it together I also decided on a different strategy for mixing too. On Voices from Afar the idea was very definitely to keep layering things, filling up the sound space as much as possible; I might have up to 5 tracks running at once. That was fine, but I was always a bit uncomfortable with the fact that I seemed reluctant to let any of the music – all of which I loved – speak for itself, without the friendly support of massive overdubs. Why not let the music do more of the work on its own?

Wow. Neo-classical ardkore mentalism from the man like Rambler. This should be heavy.

Bloagariddims is just incredible! You wouldn’t get another series of mixes anywhere else that would be this varied, yet connected, and above all, HIGH QUALITY. Droid exercises real sound control. It’s always a huge challenge to do a blogariddims podcast… Rambler’s last one was wicked so I’m looking forward to this.

lower end spasm.: FWD>>
It felt very much like a homecoming on Friday down in Plastic People at JME’s birthday party and Serious launch, as grime MCs once again re-addressed the balance.

Top notch review of FWD / JME birthday by Alex Bok Bok.

Sage – WOEBOT
Matt showing us his old Black Dog video. I should really write about Dust Science, the home of tBD…

So, my mum swears blind I had chicken pox when I was little, and that all three of us kids had it one after another. This gives you lifelong immunity right?

Hence I was quite happy to be looking after my two boys over the last few weeks as they suffered through it. So when I started feeling rotten on Friday I thought I’d just got a cold… it was just weird that I had this spot on my neck… Then Saturday morning – boom. A brace of spots. And they’ve just spread like crazy since then.

The weekend was, well, awful, terrible flu symptoms, stabbing pains, and nausea. I’m a bit better today but the spots are still multiplying, including in some very personal places indeed. And at random they will start producing these horrible stabbing pains, especially if you knock one of them. It’s the nerve ganglions protesting at the damage being inflected by the herpes virus. (Chicken pox is a variant of the herpes virus – there seem to be plenty of them – and the virus tends to attach itself to the nerves, which is why the grown up version of chicken pox is, usually, shingles, which I had last year in my eye and is awful).

Anyway, I went to see the doc this morning and he said, yes, you’ve got chicken pox, and yes, you can get it twice, even though most doctors don’t like to admit it. Which is a pain, because I have to stay in all week, which means a) missing Mala on Tuesday in Sheffield, which is of course going to be fantastic, and b) missing a business trip to New York.

On the other hand, my hosting company has managed to fix a few issues, which means that wordpress is running a lot more smoothly now, so blogging is a whole lot easier… as you may have noticed from the flurry of posts today. So there may be a mini-avalanche of posts this week… if the sores on my hands don’t get any worse, and stop weeping so much my fingers slip off the keyboard…

gutterbreakz
I’ll be playing a full hour at H.E.N.C.H this Thursday (17th) along with D1, Blazey and the residents.

Fellow dubstep dad gutterbreakz pon deckle on Thursday. Brizzle crew, yuh know…

wayneandwax.com » Follow Me Now: The Zigzagging Zungazung Meme

Wayne&Wax red hot, as ever, this time on the trail of Yellowman’s infection of US hiphop (and other) cultures.

Ummm… I have Boops, but I can’t remember the Zungazung bit! I am an idiot…

deeptime
Paul totally OTM on my recent Miles Davis orgy at Blogariddims.

STREAMIZM!

Boomnoise (and friends) put a massive effort into the first big dubstep forum event, even to the extent of getting it streamed live – now that’s professional! And from all accounts it WENT OFF. But! You can judge for yourself. Streamizm is putting the archives up ALREADY! Downloads soon. The link above is for the MASSIVE Reso Vs Rusko set but just go to streamizm.com for all the rest (bar Mala, for obvious reasons, and some of Shackleton).

Wicked stuff. Between this, the FWD sets, and (ahem) my vids of Youngsta we have lots of fresh live dubstep coming through online.

As John Eden is wont to say, even if dubstep isn’t that good musically*, the people are amazing!

* obviously I think dubstep is the best scene in the world right now…

dubstepforum.com :: View topic – free MP3 of mine

The increasingly impressive deep’n'melodic dubstep sound of Ramadanman is available as a free release… take a look…

Surely you haven’t missed this… if you have, it’s amazing… big fat chunks of all the key sets from the night. I am overjoyed to be able to catch this since I couldn’t make it – amazingly I don’t think John Eden has posted a review to his blog yet. Naturally I like the Loefah one best but this is absolutely historic… top quality dubstep with top quality grime MCs over the top. Heaven-sent.

01_Joker & Bugsy & Crazy D – FWD 040507 [www.vip2.co.uk].mp3
Size: 11MB | Description:www.vip2.co.uk
http://www.sendspace.com/file/6r6gie

02_Plastician & Crazy D pt1 – FWD 040507 [www.vip2.co.uk].mp3
Size: 14MB | Description:www.vip2.co.uk
http://www.sendspace.com/file/2sn9qh

03_Plastician & Skepta pt2 – FWD 040507 [www.vip2.co.uk].mp3
Size: 13MB | Description:www.vip2.co.uk
http://www.sendspace.com/file/q9v8dp

04_DJ Skepta & Maximum B2B Tubby – JME’s B-Day Bash @ FWD 040507 [www.vip2.co.uk].mp3
Size: 13MB | Description:www.vip2.co.uk
http://www.sendspace.com/file/idoq52

05_Maximum B2B Tubby & MC’s – JME’s B-Day Bash @ FWD 040507 [www.vip2.co.uk].mp3
Size: 14MB | Description:www.vip2.co.uk
http://www.sendspace.com/file/2j48lk

06_Loefa & JME & Jammer – JME’s B-Day Bash @ FWD 040507 [www.vip2.co.uk].mp3
Size: 19MB | Description:www.vip2.co.uk
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ipy9p3

Featuring MC’s:
Crazy D
Bugsy
Skepta
Godsgift
JME
Frisco
Fudaguy
Jammer
Footsie

Kode 9: Magnetic City – who’d have thought the nine would have come out with a deep house-inflected number? Downtempo, well, down to house speeds anyway, clicking off-beat 4×4 hats, only the 3:2 ragga-style kick deviating from the Basic Channel rhythm. The melodica Steve talked about in a recent interview is present in full effect and invites comparison less with Augusto Pablo than with, bizarrely, the Specials. Heaps of echo, an immersive bassline, it’s one HELL of a good record.

Digital Mystikz: Wait – and no, this is not another funked-up Mala banger, or a massive Coki wobbler, but something else again, a really sweet arm-chair dub that would nonetheless be a fantastic mid-set chiller. We are talking extremely finely judged digidub with a low end that is articulate rather than deliberately stiff and subtly modulated descending melody lines. In fact if anything this is the bastard offspring of Mala’s Cays Crays remix, albeit instrumental. It’s really very good indeed, but it’s really much too short and is crying out for some vocalist-versus-MC action over the top. If thats sounds like I’m saying that not enough happens then that’ not quite true for subtlety is the order of the day here.

Overall an excellent 12 and it makes me wonder if I should re-edit the soon-come dubstep sufferah 3 to include one or both of them.

Video from the early part of the set:

Video from mid-set:

Video from late in the set:

I’m not sure I can put into words how good Youngsta and Task were last Thursday. It was a DJ set that simultaneously displayed such awesome power, evil groove and monumental beauty that it was impossible to experience it without an over powering sense of transcendence.

Everything good that Youngsta is famous for was fully present and correct; nothing of the errors Youngsta occasionally displays was in evidence. The technical skill of mixing and transformational EQ was spellbinding, and as ever the selection was not just unique – much of his arsenal of exclusives was deployed – but impeccable: the set unfolded in every sonic dimension to assume ziggurat-like proportions. Dramatic teasers of hits such as Cays Crays, Crunked Up (sadly not present in doubled form) and even Midnight Request Line were seductively dropped into the mix.

Yet at no point did Youngsta descend into faux-techno formalism or blank, funk-less industrial wobble. This is not to say that wobble, industrial tones or techno stylings were not in evidence – they were, and abundantly. What was different was that these were simply elements of the palette with which Youngsta has re-painted garage. For Sheffield is a difficult city for dubstep stars to play in, but an excellent place to see them. Ours is a small city, with a small scene, and few core fans, and therefore it is a punishingly hard city to win over; but as a result dubstep artists have to raise their game to make a night worthwhile. I got the impression Task at least was unimpressed with both the turnout, which I would guess was 200 (though I’d be happy to be proved wrong), and the response; compared with DMZ or FWD the DQ bar must be something of a comedown. What was worse was the system which, due to a visitation by Health and Safety earlier in the evening, was not operating at the peak of its probably fairly limited capacity. Sound was hi-fi-clear and well extended, but there was not a hint of chest rattle. It was a sound to listen to and dance to, but not a sound in which one could take up residence. Bass was boosted heavily ten minutes into Youngsta’s set (as evidenced on the tape by a sudden rush of distortion) which boosted the crowd’s energy nicely.

Even so the people who had made the effort to attend were surprisingly up for it, and the crowd was well mixed too. I had the privilege of going with renowned dubstep promoters the c90 crew, , who are some of the most dedicated dubstep soldiers in the country, but there were plenty of less committed punters who were going for it. Prior to Youngsta, Distinction was really on too early to be able to do anything more than provide background noise for early drinkers, but Rogue State had a fair sized midnight crowd that they managed to utterly make their own. Frankly I didn’t expect much but now I predict great things.

They play a very personal style of dubstep, delivering a set that was maybe 80% their own tunes, creating a delicious variant of 4 x 4 techno-infused dubstep that was very danceable indeed. The crew’s DJing style was confident and had every reason to be; I will definitely be going back for more. They have a record out on R8 records that I need to track down – Alex Deadman, who helped promote the night and is involved in R8, was raving to me about how good it was a couple of weeks ago. I should have paid more attention. I’ve expressed doubts about Peveralist’s work before, but not only did Rogue State manage to turn his The Grind into something spookily funky, but they were easily able to match it with their own productions. Anyone taken with the minimal / techno-influenced side of Bristol dubstep should check out Rogue State immediately. I’d also draw something of a parallel with Cloaks, who seem to be criminally under-appreciated if not almost completely unknown, despite enjoying success on the Werk label, I must write about them actually.

They also dropped TimeBlind’s excellent Copy Copy (to which EP I gave a mixed review a few months back), so if you perceive a certain Hermetic clicky electronicism to their sound, you’d be right, but by god they can bang a party. I notice the redoubtable Foresnics is all over Rogue State like a cheap suit on his (very good) May mixtape – big up the bad man of the monthly mix. Rogue State even managed to rise above the unimpressive MCs, who were I’m afraid nowhere near as good as those usually fielded by Junglist Alliance.

At best they were a bit nondescript and at worst, especially in the climactic final ten minutes of Youngsta’s set, they were actively irritating. Certainly they were a distraction D1 whose set started promisingly with some delicious hazy string driven garage but which was sabotaged by technical problems – it looked like the right hand needle was jumping all over the place. He advanced too rapidly into plodding halfstep for my taste, but by then I was finished anyway.

So the night belonged to Youngsta, but then we expected that to be the case.frmthe first primal, open-ended, effortlessly funky cut, which was expertly doubled, Youngsta was utterly in control of the dance.

The over-powering and entirely unexpected product of Youngsta’s expert transformational EQ and overwhelming selection was that he took you to a very similar place as Mala, but by a completely different route. For Mala famously delivers what is effectively roots music – spiritually-founded, humanistic, yet other-worldly sonic medicine that successfully attempts to elevate the soul – even among people who don’t believe they even have a soul. Mala’s sound is, above all else, one of organic warmth – even when delivering his most punishing, hurting, industrial steppers, there is an abiding presence of sentiment that overflows through the speakers. Youngsta’s artistic is quite different. As Task so frequently and effectively warned us, Youngsta’s aim is to “bring the coldness”. His desire is to explore the texture of sound, unencumbered by any attempt to invoke obvious human feeling – yet paradoxically, that sense of reserve, of emotional humility, serves only to magnify the emotional impact of his sets. Never mind the fact that at around the 20 minute mark he dropped the most monstrous Coki wobbler yet made, cut together with some vast, menstrual electro war machine, a combination that was quite simply the most devastating application of bass science conceivable in mid 2007. That technical perfection is irrelevant compared to the overall pattern of his selection, which combines to take you to a place that is simultaneously utterly transcendent of everyday consciousness, and nakedly rooted in human experience. And, of course, a fantastic night out. Listening back to the tape I am reminded of nothing more than prime period On-U sound, but he was in so many ways better. There can be no higher praise. Youngsta slew dem.