jam the box

psyche-d out

the return of balil - aka ed from plaid/black dog - seems to have gone fairly unnoticed, or have i missed something? his remix on the new infine 12 is great, perfect for that ART/AI-loving saddo in your life. on the flip, boy wonder... no, wait, man wonder carl craig, finally shows signs of running out of remix steam. the best thing you can say about his trancey version is that it's pretty forgettable... and that's not what we've come to expect, is it?

i'm as big a c2 fanboy as you can get, and have enjoyed most of the glut of remixes over the past 18 months. but as they keep piling up, i find myself reluctantly agreeing with something prosumer told me in an interview a few months back. he described the b-side to don williams' brilliant 'detroit red ep' release, 'exhibition', this: "true love and understanding for detroit is the basis to this track," before adding: "reminds me of carl craig when he wasn't focussed on delivering hits for the dancefloor but was translating melancholy like no one else." oh carl, why have you sort of forsaken us?

ps: the jury's is currently out on c2's alter ego 'gary' remix, but likely to return demanding retribution. i like the kraftwerk-gone-italo synths, but the rest is quite autopilot...

pps: while i don't like it (at all) i kind of admire alter ego for the increasingly insane direction they are taking.

a bad idea?

or is it?

echospace (and time) part II

as promised, here's a mostly unedited transcript of an e-mail interview with rod modell, dated July 4 2007. (one or two short responses were subbed out).

it's a really interesting read, wide-ranging, honest and, in places, slightly tongue-in-cheek. it's also a little disjointed, but such is the nature of e-mail interviews. a belated thank you to rod for taking the time to answer some fairly inane questions, and - once again - apologies that it never made it further than here.

(oh, in terms of rod's responses, i'm a little out of my depth when it comes to some of his subject matter, but i suppose that's what tomorrow is for... also, i had forgotten about how amazing blake baxter's 'when we used to play' is. i listened to that record so much for a few years, and then forgot about it.)

echospace (and time)

Apart from some random chit-chat at the outset, this is a pretty much unedited transcript of an interview I did with Steve Hitchell (aka Soultek) from Echospace in May 2007 as part of a planned-and-then-aborted feature for someone. Just before 'The Coldest Season' came out. He was a very enthusiastic interviewee, and a very nice chap to boot. I’m cleaning up an e-mail q+a with Rod Modell along the same lines, which I will post soon.

(Steve, sorry this never made it any further than here!)