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

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.

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

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

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)

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

While you are reading this I will be letting the train take the strain getting the 16:57 from Euston back to civilisation.

I had totally forgotten about today's track until I was scrolling through the posts on Pure Club Classics when I came across a posting for the Brothers in Rhythm remix of Here Comes The Rain Again which I remembered being rather good.

I'm sure that the first time that I heard this was on the radio during a Brothers In Rhythm mix on Pete Tong's Essential mix. I remember trying to hunt the track down only to find out that it was only available as one of the Remix Culture releases from DMC which were exclusively available to DJs and therefore rarer than hobby horse shit.

Anyway, after down loading the track from Pure Club Classics and finding that it has aged quite well I decided to see if I could find a copy on Discogs. After clicking on to what has to be the best and for me probably the costliest website I have as a bookmark I found out that it was actually part of a double pack 12" with other remixes of the likes of Salt n Pepa and Degrees Of Motion. There was a quite reasonably priced copy for sale so I decided to take a punt on it. When it arrived, as I suspected none of the other tracks were as good as Eurythmics remix but I think I still got a pretty good deal as it was worth it for the Brothers in Rhythm mix alone.

Have a good weekend people.

The Eurythmics - Here Comes The Rain Again (The Big Brothers Annual Outing)

It's Friday . . Let's Dance

In anticipation of D's week of Techno Classics over at Acid Ted I decided that we would have some serious heavy duty dance shenanigans this Friday.

Who better then the Baron of Techno, Dave Clarke. Here is Robert Hood's mix of Clarke's seminal Red 2 release Wisdom To The Wise. So you really are getting two legends of techno for the price of one.

Oh, and SA, get your head out of the bass bin it's not good for you.

Have a good weekend people.

Dave Clarke - Wisdom To The Wise (Robert Hood remix)

Well,  that was what you were supposed to be getting, however I  am having technical difficulties with the ripping of vinyl for some reason today, so  instead .  . .

Dave Clarke - Red 1

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

Since it's the Friday before the 31st of October, Max's Halloween party is today and at least a few of you I bet will be following his lead by dressing up and dooking for apples over the weekend I thought that we should maybe have a themed dance track.

Finding scary dance tracks wasn't as hard as I originally thought it was going to be, my first thought, obviously was Spooky with Billie Ray Martin and their version of Persuasion a track I've always found more than a little disturbing. Then there was Organ Donor by DJ Shadow which does send a shiver up my spine. I found quite a few more including more than a couple of unsettling Aphex Twin tracks.

I also found a 12" single called Nightmare by Brainbug which I have no recollection of buying. When I went to put it on it was surprisingly not as bad as I thought but it is still, unmistakeably trance,  a form of music that brings me out in cold sweats just at the thought of how mind numbingly tedious it is.

However, by far the scariest tracks are to be found in Drum and Bass, what with all those amen breaks, tracks like Shadow Boxing, Escobar Blues or Origin Unknown's QED near death experience documentary sampling Valley of the Shadows.

But the daddy for me has to be a remix of the track released in celebration of Moving Shadow reaching it's hundredth release. The original of The Shadow along with Distorted Dreams on the flipside are two of the darkest tracks I've ever heard. Rick Smith, however on his Process mix takes it onto a further level of eeriness which when played at night on the mp3 player while out walking makes you stroll that little bit brisker and you start to view your surroundings differently. It is a most wonderful piece of paranoia inducing music or maybe that's just me.

Have a good weekend people.

And remember, don't have nightmares.

Dom, Rob & Goldie - The Shadow (Process mix)

A suitably scary picture don't you think?

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

Is anybody becoming bored of this?

I'm just asking as I think that it may be time to think of a new Friday feature the only problem being I can't think of one. JC suggested just posting "Sturdy Girl" every Friday but I'm sure everybody bar Anon would soon get tired of that.

As I am persisting with flogging the dead horse for the time being. It's back to 1992 for a bit of Italian House remixed by a Mancunian.

TC1992, were  the same guys as TC 1991, surprise surprise. They were also the FPI Project, responsible for the 1990 remake of Going Back To My Roots. They also recorded under a number of other aliases that I will not bore you with.

Funky Guitar came out in 1992, the clue being in the band's name, on Union City Recordings. The version posted is the Justin Robertson mix. The man responsible for Lionrock and the Most Excellent label amongst a myriad of other things.

Have a good weekend people.

TC1992 - Funky Guitar (Lion Rock Inna Milanese Stylee)

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

Here's a track from probably my favourite band from the early nineties. It was a real bloody shame that they only released one album but what an album Morning Dove White was. Even now after nearly twenty years of listening I still don't get bored of it and there isn't a duff track on the album.

I have seen the album compaired with Screamadelica and I think this is due to a certain Mr Weatherall being in charge of production and it does have a similar kind of feel about it but I'm not sure if the comparisons are all that helpful. To be honest I play this album a lot more frequently than I play Screamadelica but I don't think that anything here is as outstanding as either Loaded or Come Together. That is not to say that it doesn't have it's standout tracks, it does and for me those are Breakdown, Transient Truth and Why Don't You Take Me. I am not as keen on Weatherall's mix of Fallen as the Darkest Hour mix that was on the original Soma release but that is due to me completely falling in love with that single when I first heard it and flogging it to death. In fact that statement above about One Dove having nothing to match Loaded or Come Together is pish, they do, it's just that the version that does rival those two is not on the album.

Sadly the band split up before completing the follow-up long player so we will never know what could have been. But although Dot Allison went on to produce one really good solo album and three that have their moments she never produced anything nearly as good as this quite underrated album

Anyway today's dance track is one of the brace of Secret Knowledge mixes of the third single to be released from the album, Breakdown. Most people will already have this but I was in a One Dove mood yesterday so . . .

Have a good weekend people

One Dove - Breakdown (Secret knowledge light mix)

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

I'm still on a bit of a drum n bass tip at the moment, so today for your delectation we have a bit of Mercury Music Prize winning Jungle from Roni Size and Reprazent.

Size and crew won the prestigious music award in 1997 for the rather bloated but none the less deserving New Forms. It is an album that I will admit I don't think that I have listened to the whole way through since 1997 but I do pull out the vinyl every now and then and play tracks from it. I think that it has dated rather well, I love the mix of programming and use of real instruments including the double bass.

Coming from Bristol, there have always been comparisons of Size and his partner in both music production and label running Krust and Massive Attack. However Reprazent have released even less albums than Massive Attack at two,  granted they were only in existence for 5 years  but still.

Here is a remix by Origin Unknown of one of the highlights of the album. Origin Unknown are themselves responsible for one of the best and most original drum n bass tracks ever, Valley of The Shadows.

Have a good weekend people.

Reprazent - Heroes (Origin Unknown remix)

It's Friday . . Let's Dance

Here is a nice piece of New York  drum n bass from DJ Ani.

I know very little about DJ Ani apart from that she hails from the big apple. The record was released on the Sm:)e Communications label in 1997. Sm:)e was an off shoot of Profile records and released some cracking tunes from Omni Trio, 2 Bad Mice etc and some shit by the likes of Blue Amazon.

I do like a bit of breakbeat.

Have a good weekend people.

dj ani - bio-magnetics

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

It's been another one of those weeks that's found me traipsing up and down this not so green and not so pleasant land and it doesn't look as if they travel will abate for some time to come yet. Still on the plus side I had a week sans air travel and I have decided that the only way to travel to our overcrowded capital city is to take the sleeper and to come back up the road First Class, how long I will be able to get away with this I'm not sure but it is still somewhat cheaper that flying to Heathrow or London City. Another thing that it has in its favour is that there are no surly security staff or even surlier BA Stewardesses to try and deal with.

Just get on with the music I hear the few of you who haven't already lost interest and gone over to The Bagging Area for your weekly dose of Rockabilly or for cocktails and dreams with Mr H.

Today's track comes from Italy and the duo Sultana and was originally released over there in 1993 but which came to my attention in remix form the following year when it was released on the Union City Recordings  label which had already brought us the delights of Metropolis, TC1991 and Mombasa.

This remix was an early attempt by John Digweed,  who along with his partner in crime would turn into two behemoths lording it over the dance music of the mid to late nineties and who would dictate the way that dance music progressed and as a result inflict the shite that trance was on the world. This remix is good though it does hint at what the future held.

Have a good weekend people

Me, I'm off to the pictures with four seven year olds to watch the bloody Smurfs. Life on the edge, eh?

Sultana - Te Amo (Digweed dub)

It's Friday . . . Let's Dance

Well that was a bastard of a first week back at work! 

Although what I had to endure is nothing compaired to the people in those communities where all of that misplaced anger, aggression and down right fucking criminal behaviour came to the fore this week, I am still glad it's Friday and the weekend is nearly upon us.

I need something positve and upbeat to end the week and this track popped into my head during the week. Well actually while sitting at Aldergrove on Tuesday night waiting for another late plane and reading the Guardian the cover of London Hooligan Soul by the Ballistic Brothers came to mind and from there it wasn't much of a leap to this, which I think is the best thing that Rocky, Diesel and Ashley have ever recorded.

Have a peaceful weekend people.

The Ballistic Brothers - A Love Supreme