Tuesday, August 01, 2006

good bye blogger.com

hello.
following last weeks pain, can i please introduce you to the latest kid on the blogging block :
rss feed :
the archive has been dragged over, all links are active, and so after a week or so i will delete this one, so please update your bookmarks/rss feeds. unless you care not.
onwards !
mark e

Monday, July 31, 2006

gosh : blowback

well that one got posted !
 
so here's some more.
you know when you wander into cool, beautifully designed clothes/record shops and think, why cant there be magazines like this.
especially free ones.
well, of course, there is : blowback.
blowback magazine is a half size magazine but still packs it all in. beautiful art and design, funked up visuals. all over the place writings and so much more, and yes in the archives are a few words here and there written by yours truly (the akira the don interview was my career highlight !)
until recently, blowback was a printed pleasure only.
however, recently they pulled their fingers and launched a proper website.
admittedly, the use of embedded frames can be a little tricky, but work with it as there is all manner of goodness on offer.
 
next up : drones and thrones. maybe.
mark e

testing the waters: circlesquare

after last weeks disastrous attempt at blogging - here's another one.
a day or two in london has provided all manner of interesting things to absorb some of which may be mentioned here, however, there is probably a lot that wont.
did you realise i was such a grisly tease?
but all of that tittle tattle pales into insignificance when placed alongside the glorious fight sounds ep by the artist known as circlesquare.
deep empty space infultrated by bleeps, monotonic vocals and drum machines on low power never sounded so perfect.
 
i mean really, go find, buy, or otherwise :  now.
circlesquare : website
 
 

Thursday, July 27, 2006

as heard ..

.. .on the chris moyles show this morning of all places !

new signing to the beats label, example gives lily allens 'smile' the old fashioned response treatment.

so being the public service provider i am, here are the details

vile : mp3

myspace hangout

official website

onwards

mark e

ireallylovemusic

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

dance your ass off

people.
if this posts makes it through the blogger.com system i'll be somewhat aghast considering the grief the bloody thing has given me recently.
however todays chunk of words is to tell you that things @ ireallylovemusic hq are in a new mood.
as i have mentioned previously, i go through periods of disinterest. normally when this happens, i fall back on certain forms of comfort music, reggae is a good one, or in my case, my old madness records, though more recently this has been replaced with rachel stevens last cd !
well earlier this week i started to feel a little fed up with the current pile. nothing was really doing it for me.
then out of nowhere i received an email from a techno label, rednetic.
having a dig around their nice and minimal site, i came across the detail that one of their tracks ('life in widescreen' - by mint) has been licenced to the recent steve lawler mix, viva. so i dug the mix out, and gave the relevant disc a spin. wow.
i loved the pure simplicity of the grooves, with modern synthetic ambience, massive widescreen productions and the deeper than deep beats and bass lines.
i didn't have to care about the vocals, there aren't any, nor do i have to respect the variety in cutting edge production, styles etc. tis just a great set of pounding machine made noises (sometimes not so pounding) that work really well. no weird experimetal laptop crunching, no major sonic twists and turns, and so the mix became a wonderful addition to the current pile to work to.
this sonically induced pleasure then made me dig out the other dance mixes i have received recently, and, ever since, i have thoroughly enjoyed them on constant rotation to the point of concern to others around me. it's possibly something to do with the non-human aspect of the groove music, my head aint being battered by blokes and gals telling me all about their problems, or giving cause for their anger. this is perfectly disco-nnected music for the head, pure technology enhanced music where bad moods need not apply.
in fact, a lot of this is almost like ambient music. its just there on the headphones making my head bop, but not really engaging on any other level other than a rhythmic enjoyment. it has been a long time since i enjoyed pure dance music as much as this, but these mixes have totally been spot on this week :
steve lawler - lights out 3
james holden - at the controls
hernan cattaneo - sequential
john digweed - transitions
dave seaman - the masters series - vol 7
damian lazarus/matthew styles - get lost (disc 1 especially - disc 2 gets a little too weird and strange !)
steve lawler - viva (disc 3 is a more ambient set than you'd normally expect from steve)
so, please forgive the lack of updates, i'm off to have a little dance, well in my head that is.
ta.
mark e

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

typically glorious.

that previous post got through !
so with no nonsense. no frills. 
here's the music
band : diefenbach
track : glorious
remix : silent running.
it's good.
enjoy.
mark e
 

alternatives to blogger.com ?

go on then. i give up.
any suggestions - especially if i can suck all the blogger.com postings over ? 
i have emailed so many postings recently - all into the ether.
guess its time to move on.
this party is obviously over.
mark e
 

Friday, July 21, 2006

friday treat - part 1

folks.
another treat to beat the heat to.
this time it's a little special for anyone who chilled out way back in the 90's to the masters of the spaced out instrumental hip hop groove skylab.
matt ducasse, aka skylab, is now involved with the live band for new electro kitten anne booty, aka coco electrik.
so, for the forthcoming single, apple pie, matt has revived his much loved alter-ego, and applied his trademarked sugar dust coating, giving the delicate stripped down electro of the original, a certain widescreen glitterstomp beat, that will make fans of goldfrapp grin like cheshire cats.
more detail : coco electrick :
apple pie : skylab remix :
oh, the coco electrik album, army behind the sun, is due any day now.
fun fun and some more fun.
mark e
ireallylovemusic

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

archive : again : mp3

hello.
in the uk things are hot hot hot at the moment. so much so that it feels unnatural to listen to fast-n-furious disco-electro-punk'd up dance music and the need to keep the groove somewhat mellow. with this in mind, i started digging through my archives when i remembered archive.
a band which originally started out as a trip hop band who released a couple of well received albums on a major (island records) and then from the casual fan disappeared.
however, the story didn't end there. the band changed personal, regrouped, and somehow released a third album, 'you all look the same to me' on hangman records.
the packaging was wonderful, so whenever the album was in the bargain bins i always looked and wondered exactly what the record would sound like. eventually, curiosity got the better of me.
so i cracked the seal on the cd and read the notes. the album consists of 7 tracks, 2 of which are over 16 minutes, and the rest never fall below 5 !
hmmm. something had changed.
within the thank you notes i think there is a clue. 'dave gilmour'. having listened to the awesome 16 minute opener, 'again', recently, the debt to pink floyd is hugely obvious.
the slow build up, the use of sci-fi production, the swelling hammond organ riffs, the timeless epic nature of the music makes this rather special. gone are the trip hop timestamps, gone are the girl vocals, cliched raps, and instead the band have stepped aside from the usual chart bound musics.
the rest of the album has nods towards more experimental noises (ambient, industrial soundscapes are often referenced in the sonic detail), showing that they had a desire to delve into machine based extras alongside their grandiose mix of talk talk and massive attack.
basically, if you see this album looking lonely in the sales racks, i cannot stress enough how you should give this album a try.
so to tease you some more, and to celebrate ireallylovemusic getting a chunkier chunk of webspace, here is the full length version of 'again' : here
kick back, relax, open a magazine and let this slice of excellence help you drift off.
oh, and to finish off. the band are still going. just that no-one uk-side seems to be interested as their latest album has been released on the french division of warners, with no definite plan to release the record locally. so head over to the bands site and practise your french.
thank you.
mark e