Month: May 2007

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Basic Replay re-issues – get ‘em while they’re hot

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
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”

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Mala in Sheffield, 16-5-07

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”.

Mala pon dex

Happy crowd

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.

Juliun C90 pon dex

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.

Rich C90 pon dex

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

Mala takes over

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.

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Blogariddims 22: Disintegrations « The Rambler

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.

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lower end spasm.: FWD>>


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.

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Chicken pox…

Random picture of chicken pox on an adult male - not me!

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…

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gutterbreakz back on decks

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…