It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

My postings have been rather pish this week down to spending all of my bloody annual leave painting both boys rooms. The only thing worse than emulsioning in my book has to be glossing and living in an old house with deep skirtings and enough fecking wood around the windows to build a shed it takes forever. This combined with me not being the most patient of people has got me rather vexed.

So I don't care that I have posted this track before, it's good enough to warrant another post. It is brilliant in fact, despite basically being made up of samples from another track and a breakbeat. To be honest with you it is probably on account of the samples that I love the track as nothing else the duo ever did hit the mark, for me anyway.

Have a good weekend people 

Liquid - Sweet Harmony with added crackles and pop

Twenty years ago, bloody hell tempus fugit as my Latin teacher was in the habit of saying.

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

I thought since this week Orbital released there first album in eight years it was as good a time as any and look back at where it all started for probably the finest live techno act ever. I have always been amazed at the atmosphere being created by 2 guys and a wall of technology.

The groundbreaking Chime was first released on Oh'Zone Records in 1989 but was quickly picked up by FFRR,  reached number 17 in the UK charts which earned them an appearance on Top Of The Pops and the rest as they say is history.

This still sounds as good now as it did twenty two, yes twenty, fucking two years ago.

Have a good Easter weekend people.


Orbital - Chime

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

I never got into the Prodigy, Charly just annoyed me and the later stuff like Fire Starter and all that I couldn't understand what all the fuss was about. It all seemed to me rather cartoonish and obvious. The slightly "edgier" other side of the coin to the bland trance of Faithless.

No Good (Start The Dance) I did like so much so that I went to a shop miles away where I was unlikely to bump into anyone I knew and bought the 12" single. Don't ask me why I like this over any of the other Prodigy stuff as it has the breakbeats, the female on helium vocals etc. I have no idea I just do.

Have a good weekend people.

The Prodigy - No Good (Start The Dance)

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

No words that I could write could adequately convey the sheer brilliance of today's track, so I'm not going to bother.

Released in 1993 on the Boys Own label, I don't think that anything else released by Underworld ever came close to Rez.

Have a good weekend people.

Underworld - Rez

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

Bloody iTunes, once again it lost it's way to the bloody external drive and I've had to import the whole of my library again. On the website it's easy,  just follow the steps and voila your whole library appears as before. Not for me, well,  once it did but not on the last two occassions. It's going to take me weeks again to get all my playlists back.

But enough of my tribulations, it's Friday which means one thing.  Yes.  Another in the series that refuses to just give up the ghost and fuck off. Due mainly I must admit to my lack of imagination and effort to come up with something to replace it with.

So, it's back to 1992 and a speaker shaking, structural damage creating if played too loud dub mix from a duo who were consistently on top of their game and probably along with Underworld the biggest names in Progressive House.

Release The Pressure was released in 1992 and was Leftfield's third release. The track posted is from the white label Release The Dubs ep, which helpfully has no track listing on it, side two, track one is my favourite and apologies for all of the crackling at the start, I don't think that the vinyl that it was pressed upon was of particularly good quality, fortunately  it only lasts for the first 20 secs.

Have a good weekend people.

Leftfield - Release The Dubs 3

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

I will be driving up the road from Nottingham when you are reading this, wasn't going to chance a delayed flight home on a Friday night.

Following on from last week, here is another Warp classic from 1992. Kid Unknown, or Paul Fitzpatrick was a dj at the Hacienda. He produced a couple of singles for Warp, the track posted and the equally as good Devastating Beat Creator, a more in your face Rave track before moving on and setting up LCD records and recording under the moniker of DJ Nipper.

Have a good weekend people.

Kid Unknown - Nightmare

Unravelling After The Lottery

Last year my favourite track of the year was a lovely piece of down tempo house from Birmingham. Free School released their follow-up single back in January and although I didn't instantly fall in love with it, it has grown on me over the weeks.

Here is the Mark E remix, not that Mark E. I am still none the wiser as to what the title means.

Free School - Unravelling After The Lottery (Mark E mix)

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

Let's have some early Warp in the form of Coco, Steel and Love Bomb.

Initially released on Instant Records in 1991 and subsequently picked up by Warp the following year. This is a sparse, minimal, House classic which does not sound dated even now. There were so many bloody good records coming out at this time not least on Warp by the likes of Nightmares on Wax, Kid Unknown and the like.

Have a good weekend people.

Coco, Steel and Lovebomb - Feel It

Today's track is another one of those "what the fuck is that?" moments that happened quite often in the early 90s. Unfortunately I can't remember the last time I had one of those, either I'm getting old or nothing is that good anymore. I tell a lie the other week there when I downloaded the new Burial ep I got  goosebumps and shivers down the spine but it didn't really count as a wtfit moment as I knew what it was beforehand as I had just paid for it, but I digress.

Richard D James was responsible for quite a few wtfit?s, whether it be the tune posted, Quoth, or the disturbing video for Come To Daddy to name but three. Digeridoo was released on R&S in 1992 and for me it still sounded as mad and brilliant yesterday as it did back in the day.

Have a good weekend people.

Aphex Twin - Digeridoo

For a more soothing example of Aphex Twin's work go over to Acid Ted, where Ctel has posted a couple of classic ambient tracks by the Cornish tank driver.

Secret Circuit

Here's something which I have no idea how to categorise, synth wave?, possibly.  It comes courtesy Tim Sweeney's  New York label Beats In Space and is the work of Eddie Rushca. The A- side is all analogue synths and sounds reminiscent of the early acid house tracks. The flip side is even further out there.

The 12" single comes with original artwork from Christopher Forgues and a completely pointless removable sticker which will no doubt get lost.

Secret Circuit - Nebula Sphynx

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

Way back in the day before dance music fractured into a thousand genres and sub genres when you used to go clubbing you didn't go to a specific Drum & Bass, Techno, Progressive House etc, etc night. You just went clubbing and hoped that you had a decent DJ who knew his tunes. I tended to avoid anything that was described as "Balearic"as for me that description meant that the DJ didn't have enough good tunes and you were likely to hear any old pish justified by "it gets played in ebeefa, alright". No amount of considered argument will ever convince me that I Can't Wait by Mandy Smith is anything else than pish, no matter the context it was played in or how many doves you had necked.

But I digress. The track posted today has been described as proto drum and bass, contender for the first breakbeat/techno record. To me it is just a brilliant, ahead of it's time dance tune. From the immense bass sound to the breakbeat lifted from Bobby Bird's Hot Pants it is just about perfect, okay the Woo Alright sample started to get on my nerves but that was because it was dropped into everything after this. But twenty two years on this record still sounds the business.

Have a good weekend people.

Meat Beat Manifesto - Radio Babylon

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

I fucking hate February. What a bloody depressing time of year. It's bloody miserable up here about the best thing that can be said for it is that we don't have any snow. Mind you I would rather be looking out the window at snow than the awful greyness that confronts my eyes at the moment.

Also,  I'm about the skintest I've been since, well last year around this time and still two weeks to go before pay day with a couple of gigs and feckin Valentine's Day before then, so I will be starting next month brassic, double joy.

Nothing else for it but to put on a prime slab of influential Techno from one of the originators of the form and jump about like an eejit and kid on your on pills.

Energy Flash was first released in 1990 on the Transmat label in the States. It was picked up the following year by R&S and released in the UK.

Have a good weekend people

Beltram - Energy Flash

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

By the end of 1993 dark forces were congregation and starting to take over the dance floors of clubs all round the UK.  Previous men of good character started to find themselves drawn into this vile phenemnon.  Many a night around this time would be ruined by some protagonist of these dark arts, introducing into the middle of a perfectly good evening . . .  the Breakdown,  you could hear it coming all the way but were powerless to stop it  bang, bang, bang and then maybe some strings knicked off of a Hooked on Classics album or just a crappy little melody. You would then find yourself in a haze of BO due to almost the whole crowd standing there arms aloft worshipping one of the minor deities of TRANCE being either oh so clever or up his own arse depending on your point of view.

Horrible, horrible, horrible.

The stuff would become extremely popular and make superstar DJs out of the likes of Oakenfold, Sasha & Digweed and Warren. If I had my way I would have them up in court on charges of Crimes Against Music with the likes of Knopfler and Cowell but that's just me and my blinkered views on music.

Here is a track that I dug out a few weeks ago intending to post as I remembered it as a throbbing Progressive House track, however when I ripped it and listened to it a few times I think that it closer to Trance than is comfortable to these ears, although still not without merit.

Have a good weekend people.

Opal - The Snake

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

Back to 1999 this week with a bit of funky Big Beat from the Groove Armada with added Gram'ma Funk and Fatboy Slim.

Have a good weekend people

Groove Armada featuring Gram'ma Funk - I See You Baby (Fatboy Slim Remix)

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

Technology, don't you just love it until it fucks up.

My work laptop decided it no longer wanted to connect to the Internet yesterday and due to my reliance on web based systems I'm as much good as a man short. So today I will be tidying up my office and feeling guilty about doing next to nothing, as my laptop gets couriered to Luton to either be rebuilt or scrapped.

But back to the music. Hardcore Uproar is on of those tracks that you heard everywhere in 1990, a Rave anthem before the term had even been used to label certain dance tracks.

The track was written and pressed on white label with the sole aim of being played at the Hacienda. it duly got flogged to death in the club and was picked up by Pete Tong owned FFRR and given a full release.

The bassline and melody are built around a sample from John Carpenter's The End Theme from Assault on Precinct 13. The tune also begins with the famous "More powerful than you can possibly imagine" Alec Guinness sample from Star Wars.

Have a good weekend people.

Together - Hardcore Uproar

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

Back to 1987 today, well it was actually released in 1986 but it came to my attention the following year, for what has to be one of, if not the best sounds to come out of that period of early House Music.

Move Your body for me is synonymous with Saturday nights spent in the Sloe Club in the RGIT Union in Aberdeen getting off my face and trying to dance to this new wonderful music. It was the tune that was hammered each and every weekend for god knows how long.

Jefferson would go on to produce some of the best records coming out of Chicago for the likes of Ce Ce Rogers, Ten City etc. But for me nothing can beat this track with it's simple piano loop and repetitive vocals from Curtis McLean. There is something about it that just makes you want to get up and make a twat of yourself on the dance floor.

"Lost in house music is where I want to be" - indeed.

Have a good weekend people

Marshall Jefferson - Move Your Body (House Music Anthem)

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

By Christ, that was a quick week. I most certainly have over indulged in food, alcohol not so much, although I did manage to arse a bottle of Foxdenton 48% London Gin and very nice it was too.

This Friday sees us back to 1993 and a bit of Gospel tinged House courtesy of the 50 strong Sounds of Blackness with a little smattering of the genius that was Sasha before he disappeared up his own arse. I apologise for the crackles but this was played quite a bit and I think that 1993 was not a very good year for quality vinyl as a lot of the 12" singles I have from then sound worse than they should do.

Have a good weekend people.

The Sounds of Blackness - I'm Going All The Way (Sasha's Chuff Chuff mix)

It's The Friday Before Christmas . . . Let's Dance

We'll that's that then. The closure of the Edinburgh office, a bit ironic that on Radio 4 last night there was a programme detailing how Scotland was leading the way with clinical trials in the UK and today the last presence by a Pharma Company in Scotland closes their Research office and not with a bang but with a miserable, barely discernible fart. I am, to say the least at a bit of a low ebb.

But enough of my woes it's the Friday before Christmas and by this time BC I would already be showered, dressed and down the local having the first of many and embarking upon a night which would inevitably end with a few jigs and then a kebab on the way home. Whereas tonight I will be fretting over Christmas lunch and trying to make Delia's "Famous Chocolate Torte". How times have changed.

No serious dub step or progressive house tonight just the sampletastic delights of the KLF and their guest, the daughter of Sissie Houston.

Have a great weekend people

The JAMS - Whitney Houston Joins The Jams

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

I don't know about where you are but it's "bloody baltic" up hear in the frozen north. I'm not sure why we say this as the Baltic isn't a  particularly cold place b ut we do and it most certainly is.

So here is a track from 1992 which from the name of the band/producers alone makes me feel much warmer. It was released on UCR records and reminds me very much of  Liberation/Liberation 2 which were around about the same time as this.

I'm off to see Jetpacks tonight, on mine and Stiff's Christmas night out.

Have a good weekend people.

Mombassa - Cry Freedom - (Malawi mix)

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

A lot later than normal.

Not had a chance to think about this but this was what I was listening to when I thought that my time had come yesterday while flying on the orange airline from Glasgow to Belfast.

Have a good weekend people.

Primal Scream - Come Together (Farley mix)