Here’s some deeper-than-deep house vibes from Japan for a rainy Saturday afternoon. It’s on Joe Claussell’s Natural Resource label, an offshoot of Spiritual Life, but it’s pretty edgy and abstract compared to some of its more wishy-washy contemporaries. Tough, super-punchy drums and live percussion underpin an ever-mutating orgy of synths and sound effects, floating in… Continue reading Kuniyuki – Precious Hall
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Seiji – Silver Blossom
I could probably start a whole new sub-blog about the early days of broken beat/West London, but for now here’s one of the first jams to really blow me away from that scene. Seiji, like Domu and Nubian Mindz, had a background making drum & bass for Reinforced, but once he broke free of the… Continue reading Seiji – Silver Blossom
Soofle – Thrill
This is the lead track on a brilliant EP by Ludovic ‘St Germain’ Navarre and Shazz on FNAC back in ’93 – a time when Laurent Garnier’s imprint was releasing some brilliant music by French artists straddling the techno and house camps. To be fair all the tracks on this EP are pretty great, from… Continue reading Soofle – Thrill
Theo Parrish – Lost Keys
Possibly not one of Theo’s best known or most celebrated cuts, but certainly one which hasn’t left my box since it came out in 1997, Lost Keys is on the B-side of his first EP for the brilliant Music Is… label. I remember picking this up for a couple of quid at the fortnightly record… Continue reading Theo Parrish – Lost Keys
Chris Nazuka – Joy, Awe, Anguish, Love and Triumph
There were a few years in the mid-90s when Derrick Carter and his Chicago cronies could do no wrong in my eyes, and there’s plenty of great stuff on labels like Blue Cucaracha and Plink Plonk which I’ll feature here one day. But the other Rednail Kid’s handful of solo efforts were always particularly special,… Continue reading Chris Nazuka – Joy, Awe, Anguish, Love and Triumph
Inertia – Nowhere To Run
For all that A Guy Called Gerald is rightly celebrated as a drum & bass pioneer (and for the timeless Voodoo Ray, obviously), it’s often overlooked that he made a handful of excellent underground house and techno cuts early in his career. His first link with Detroit came in 1989 in the form of Derrick… Continue reading Inertia – Nowhere To Run
Luke Slater’s 7th Plain – Time Melts
Here’s another prime cut from the post-Artificial Intelligence glory days of British techno. Luke Slater could be a bit hit and miss – for every great track there seemed to be plenty of banging rubbish – but when he nailed it he was right up there for me. The majestic opening track of his 1994… Continue reading Luke Slater’s 7th Plain – Time Melts
Schatrax – Loops & Samples
Bonus blog post: here's the best video of a cat pretending to DJ with a Schatrax record you're likely to see today.(More serious post about another Schatrax record coming up later in the week...)
DFA – 3/5 Human
Not to be confused with James Murphy's New York operation, this DFA is a Detroiter named James Trammell, and the snappily-titled Microstructural Characterization EP - the only thing he ever released, to my knowledge - made a few quiet waves when it emerged on his own Surveillance label back in 2001. All three tracks are excellent… Continue reading DFA – 3/5 Human
KB Project – Nothing Can Stop You
This is Dan ‘DBX’ Bell on his own rare-as-hen’s-teeth Elevate label back in 1999, with a precision-engineered DJ tool in the vein of Masters At Work’s Kenlou output. There’s nothing to it beyond a jazz-funk Rhodes lick that’s cut up, filtered and looped, a spoken word sample that gives the track its title, and simple,… Continue reading KB Project – Nothing Can Stop You
Nothin' But Magic 