jam the box

Lucky break...

an added benefit of the recent techno-dubstep love-in has been the re-emergence of breakbeat techno. the evidence? the excellent equalized no2 b-side, some (other?) shed bits, a couple of ben klock numbers and the interesting release on stuff by the village orchestra, which - thanks to a bassline sample from a hardcore track - traces the lineage right back to the last mass-appeal meeting of the two. although i started buying records just after the sub-genre wheezed its last interesting breath, it's always remained something i've sought out, but not found that much of (the harder-edged birmingham/related sound was always to, er, hard for me). until the last few weeks.

how long will it last? depends on how long certain techno producers keep on listening to dubstep, but not quite finding what they want... i get the feeling there's a few more great records to come though. speaking of which...

ever seen three men wanking each other off?

first time for everything...

last orders

haven't paid attention to get physical in a long time (but 'freemind' by dj t and 'i don't know' by chelonious r jones remain great tracks) but the new compilation certainly catches the eye: 'final song #1' is a selection of tracks that various producers want to hear before they die. or at their funeral, depending on taste.

the guest selectors are pleasingly varied, as are the choices, which you can read here. also interesting are the justifications behind the choices: some take it very seriously (dj t), one didn't comment (richie hawtin) while quite a few have clearly thought about it (ewan pearson, francois k, storm, garnier) and thus offer an intriguing glimpse into their thoughts on that most worrying of topics. dj hell wants to have a party as he heads down south, reckoning the stranglers' ode to the brown stuff "inspires people to dance, even in a cemetery".

when they come along, good ideas nearly always seem effortless. this arguement-proof series certainly feels like one of them.

quiet 'round here innit...

... sorry, real life taking over.

i can't fight the feeling...

tobias. was great on saturday night. a nifty little live set-up - ableton, an 808 (which, he told us later, he bought in 1983, so it's technically his 'child') and a torq trigger pad (i don't know the proper name). he was triggering the drum machine and 'playing' a lot of the effects, vocals, pads etc from the torq - very good.

yuksek was not my thing, but the atmosphere in the upstairs room was top - the new venue works very well, with the soundsystems on both floors being the main talking points: they are superb, and the bassbins are dave redsetta-approved. it begs the question - how have so many dublin venues managed to get away with crummy set-ups for so long?

the new dj box is fantastic too...

here's two nice pictures from the night, courtesy of stevie b.

moving house

as of this week, pogo moves to twisted pepper, on middle abbey street, in somewere called the 'northside'. a bit of a surprise, but - true to form - i am always one of the last to know. thanks to all at the pod for the last three years.

tobias. is live in the basement this saturday, with yuksek in the live room. if you would like to come down, please drop me a mail.

a point of order

i'm (obviously) all for vinyl only releases, but how can you justify charging e12.99 for a single 12" release, like a danish label called lomidhigh are doing in the techno section here? this smacks of... actually, it doesn't 'smack of' anything, it is just plain greedy. given the issues that record companies are having with getting people to pay for any type of music, let alone vinyl, how is a rip-off price tag like this going to convince the ever-dwindling numbers of record buyers to keep on forking out?

this sort of makes sense...

... about two years ago maybe. pet shop boys and the mildly irritating sam taylor-wood are releasing a single on kompakt in the next few weeks. janey mac. as a committed casual pet shop boys fan, i'm not sure how it passed me by. thanks, once again, popjustice.

when bad remixes happen to good tracks

first in an occasional series, this.

No1: osborne 'ruling' (shur-i-kan remix) [nrk]

gah. the original is a delicate delight (and one of our tracks of the year) so why shur-i-kan decided it needed a kick up the arse in the shape of a thudding 4/4 kick is baffling. he hasn't done much, but what he added removes all the subtlety that made the original so memorable. the original EP is still available on juno, do yerself a favour...

true faith

hey! did philip sherburne's recent whinge leave you feeling something akin to apathetic rage? (as in, it annoyed you, but could you actually be arsed thinking any more about it?)

well, here's the remedy: house music's finest fanzine, faith. compared to sherburne's self-conscious, passionless prose, faith is (still) a fucking blast: a (fairly) open-minded approach, pleasingly biased opinions, in-depth interviews, a pile of spelling mistakes and loads of self-aware banging on about how-it-was-better-back-in-the-day-but-things-are-still-pretty-good-now-although-we're-not-sure-about-all-this-mp3-malarkey-even-though-we-all-use-CDs-alroight-mate?. and, yep, the always present mistrust of teds.

it's also a great place to pick up on records you might have missed out on: last issue led to me dj qu's 'airs force', which gets regular rotation 'round these parts. the loss of the over-the-counter-record-shop-culture for vinyl fans is well documented, but publications like faith certainly help fill the gap.

(ps: this issue's cover chap, prosumer, played for the excellent 091 lot in galway last weekend. i'm told he played midnight until close in the club, and then 3am until 7am in someone's house. fantastic. perhaps occasional jamthebox poster (actually, maybe he's the only poster?) tiddlerz can fill us in on some of the records he played?)

(pps: the older he gets, the more terry farley resembles divine. but it's a good look for him, so all is well.)