In the spirit of giving in this season of goodwill, Ed Banger have garmed up Erol Alkan as a contemporary Santa Claus (well potato shopped a red hat onto a picture of young Erol) and launched his quite sought after and simple yet effective edit of Momy by our favourite cigarette smoking Frenchman SebastiAn in the general direction of the internet
Taken by this act of generosity, Damien Harrris aka the nicest man in music, or Midfield General if you live your life by Discogs, got in on the action and put his own edit of So Me‘s remix of Busy P‘s To Protect & Entertain out there for people on the internet to write glowing words about.
One of the rare occasions that too many cooks do not indeed spoil the broth, the complete opposite in this case given the rotten nature of the original track.
Eschewing all notions that Acid Girls trade in splendid boompty boompty music alone, Gregory Acid Girls composed a new mixtape just now that comprises of several shades of 70’s prog rockery, a smidgen of ambient noise, some dubbed out 80’s gothic electro, two of our favourite remixes/edits from this year and plenty more besides.
Makes for perfect listening whilst you’re arguing the merits of early John Carpenter with your non believing current squeeze perched by the fireplace on a chilly winter night.
Snowed In mixed by Greg Acid Girls
Brian Eno – Golden Hours
King Crimson – I Talk To The Wind
Ultravox – I Want To Be A Machine
The Pale Fountains – Unless
801 – That Falling Feeling
Holger Czukay & U-She – Sunday Morning
John Lennon – Nobody Loves You When You’re Down And Out
American Analog Set – Tresspassers In The Stereo Field
Joachim Speith – You Don’t Fool Me
Chris Bell – I Got Kinda Lost
The Motors – Airport
Baffo Banfi – Astralunato
Holger Czukay – Fragrance
David Bowie – Yassassin
Depeche Mode – Are People People (Adrian Sherwood Dub)
Chris & Cosey – October Love Song (Dance Mix)
Elvis – Crawfish (Pilooski Edit)
John Forde – Stardance
Friendly Fires – Paris (Aeroplane Remix)
We might still have a couple of weeks to go before 2009 gets ushered in by a million tearful arguments, inappropriate snogging and Soulwax remixes, but those sensible Danish types WhoMadeWho decided to get the whole thing over and done with last week at a secret party in Copenhagen.
Luckily for those of us not invited to secret NYE parties in Copenhagen they recorded the set and have just put it up for us mere mortals to enjoy. Hopefully with NYE already out the way the trio can now get down to business and finishing off their next album, supposedly due out in March.
Whilst the first fruits of his solo project Lord Skywave was released, rather unjustly, to a near complete lack of critical fanfare back in September, Simon’s Black Ghosts cohort Theo Keating has enjoyed a innumerably more impressive year under his Fake Blood nom de plume .
Remixing all and sundry, getting the internet all in a fluster as to the true identity of Fake Blood and is currently being jetted round the States wowing our American friends with his DJ skills and penchant for face scarfs.
It’s almost like no one remembers The Wiseguys.
We can only presume that Simon currently spends his evenings playing with rusty nails and a James Ford/Jas Shaw conjoined twin-esque voodoo doll for entertainment, counting down the days till Theo gets back and pops round for a cup of tea and a slideshow of the Fake Blood Stateside tour.
Still, all is not lost for Lord Skywave!
No, This Is Music got a cluster of splendid producers to remix his tracks as an early Christmas present.
Fans of Grovesnor can clap their hands and say yeah as Slutty Fringe has his trademark boogiefied take on Lord Skywave’s I Am A Dead Man.
Fans of Andy George, Various Production and TRG will be happy to know Boomkat has the digital dibbs on their remixes of the Lord Skywave track Something. Golf claps to Boomkat for the inclusion of using the phrase neon kappa tracksuit flavour as means to describe these remixes.
Time for a spot of Public Service Blogcasting. Comedy electro act Robots In Disguise were asked to design a bag to help raise awareness of AIDS, presumably amongst the comedy electro scene, and we were asked to tell you about it. Anyway you can see the bag’s design up THURRR, and buy it from HURRR. Only €15 and all the money goes to a good cause. Bonus!
Frankly as someone who came of age in the eighties I find the idea of raising AIDS awareness a curious one as I think my generation had it blasted into our conciousness by some of the most terrifying adverts around. Seriously even today i refuse to hang around with icebergs (though dressing as a giant AIDS slab for an 80’s fancy dress party is a great conversation starter).
Thinking back it was a curious decade, filled with both ridiculous techno utopianism and mind numbing apocalyptic horror. On the one hand you had the space shuttle offering a future of trips to the moon for everyone and the promise of home computers able to create hot nymphomaniacs for us in our bedrooms and then on the other I seem to remember living with a constant fear of mushroom clouds appearing on the horizon and barmy cock rotting dieseases appearing out of nowhere.
Not that I was ever at much risk of contracting the virus though, blessed throughout my teenage years with a shyness that was criminally vulgar, the chance would have been a fine thing. But I’ve watched Skins, so I’m well aware that the youth of today are engaged in one long drug taking partner swapping orgy, the little bastards, and whilst I may be happily married now there is always the chance that my partner may wise up, kick me to the curb and I’ll need to take advantage of being a hugely successful blogger and DJ to score some barely legal tail. In which case it’d be good to be able to do so without having to have my partner in Fringe Tony organise a Freddie Mercury style benefit concert in my name.
Basically kids AIDS is bad, do yourself a favour and bag up, in every sense of the word.
Anyway as this is ostensibly a music blog I leave you with the video to Bruce Springsteen’s haunting ‘The Streets of Philadelphia’, a track I apparently played out whilst very drunk a few weeks ago. Vaguely amusingly I remember taking a girl I really fancied at the time to see the film that this is from. Yes, that’s right I took a girl to see an AIDS film on a date, you can probably see why I was at low risk of infection.
(the more facetious amongst you might claim the former could also moonlight as a Pat Swayze lookalike)
As well as recent remixes of Brodinski and Moby, Clouded Vision should now gain pladits for their exemplary treatment of the new Toob track Dervish Angel which turns the dark pop sound of the original into something akin to a throbbing mass of acid lovliness.
I know I’m heroically late on this, but I’ve been meaning to give West Coast types Rainbow Arabia some love for a while now and this seems as good a time as any.
Having been entranced by the sounds of the souk for several years now, my ears always tend to prick up at any hint of African/Middle Eastern influences, something Rainbow Arabia have in spades. Fusing post punk and psychedelia with middle eastern instrumentation, Rainbow Arabia are, like the sirocco, a breath of fresh desert air.
Think Gang Gang Dance soundtracking Scheherazade’s 1001 Nights and you start to get the idea. The kind of music that if I lived somewhere warmer and more exotic than New Cross, i’d drive out to the desert and stargaze to with just a fistful of peyote and lung full of smoke for company.
The band’s Danny Preston sent over a handful of tracks the other day which have been on constant repeat and here is the pick of the bunch Omar K. Vinyl fetishists like myself will be pleased to hear that it has also just been released over here on 7″ courtesy of those nice people at Merok Records. Rumours abound of a spring European tour which would be magick, till then enjoy this track.
So on Saturday I dragged my phlegm filled corpse out of bed to attend Be at Proud where Brooklyn duo Tanlines were playing the last of four dates on their short UK tour. I’d been meaning to check them out beforehand, but well fundamentally I’m a lazy man so all I had to go on was my partner in Fringe Tony’s word that they were indeed splendid.
Thankfully they were good to that word and the pair were enough to lift my wintry virus ridden spirits. Coming on like the house band at some Caribbean resort which by some curious twist of journalistic license has been taken over by the DFA, they mixed and matched thumping electro disco with touches of afrobeat guitar, sun kissed tropical percussion and the occassional muted chant. All very danceable and nice especially when every now and then a great big filthy bassline reminiscent of something off an old UKG record burst through the mix.
It was probably the medication but if I closed my eyes the music conjured up images of neon palm trees blinking on and off and pipe smoking dolphins frolicing in the surf. Actually it almost certainly was the drugs but still it was a strong look. They have a 12″ out this week on Young Turks and we strongly advise you to buy it for yourself as an early Christmas present, it would definately look good in your Piccadilly basket alongside the new Greg Wilson RVNG twelve.
As an added bonus I grabbed the briefest of words with them after their show and in best journalistic fashion can happily report that they were not assholes (better make space on the mantelpiece for that Pullitzer). Hopefully they will be back over here soon, I know we’d be up for getting them down Last Days next year. Anyway til lthen here’s the video for debut single New Flowers directed by Marisa Olson.
Only fair to give the other band on the bill, the always excellent Chik Budo, a plug too. Their death-jazz-punk stylings have been entertaining me for a couple of years now and they were on fine form on Saturday. Apparently they have a record out as well, which is a good thing, sadly by the time they’d finished I was hiding at the back of the DJ booth as the river of snot exiting my body had begun to turn into a full on flood and I didn’t get round to grabbing a copy off them. Boo.
Whilst we wait upon new Flagrant Fowl material to surface in the new year, let’s bask in the splendid glory that is a woozey acid house rerub of Kanye West’s Champion courtesy of Cousin Cole.
Having been DJ’ing and running clubnights for over a decade now there has been a fair few times when I’ve slumped down onto a sofa at the end of the night cursing the day I first heard a repetitive beat. At these moments there is a good book I turn to, a book filled with faith, hope and joy and guaranteed to lift the spirits. That book is of course Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton‘s ‘Last Night A DJ Saved My Life‘.
If you’ve never read it, do yourself a favour and get a copy right away. Tracing the history of the DJ from the dawn of time right up to the present day (well 1999 in my copy anyway), it’s an essential read for anyone who plans on forcing music on members of the public.
In fact even more so than the duo’s other tome ‘How To DJ Properly‘ it should be made compulsory reading for any aspiring jock. If even one new DJ is encouraged to stop and think about what they’re doing as a result before they open their warm up set with banging low bit-rate 130bpm electro house mp3s then the world will be a better place.
Anyway why the long preamble… Well DJhistory.com the website the pair set-up to provide an essential repository of dance music knowledge has morphed into a record label and as you’d expect the first release ‘Le Disco: Tele Music Remixed‘ is just a bit special.
Culled from the archives of the Tele music library, the original tracks were composed at the end of the seventies and destined for use as background music for film and TV. Written and performed by a tight (in every sense of the word) group of French session musicians these sickeningly hard, if not impossible, to get hold of tracks have been dusted down by the DJhistory team and offered up to some of the best re-editors around today.
Featuring edits from the likes of Ray Mang, Idjut Boys, Unabombers, Al Kent and Faze Action, the source material has been tweaked, twisted, looped, refined and primed for today’s dance floors. Available in high quality digital format now, treat yourself to an early Christmas present and a reminder that there’s more to French dance music than overdriven electro.
Those of you in London and not half dead from new year’s eve will be able to hear many of these tracks alongside all sorts of other weird and wonderful disco oddities when Bill joins us, Brighton’s Soft Rocks, new DFA signing Capracara and The Romantic Motherfuckers on January 2nd at Cargo.
James Rutledge, one of our favourite remixers of 2008, adds another band to the impressive People I Have Remixed section of his CV in the shape of Telepathe, everyone’s new favourite androgynous hipster electro shoe gazers from Brooklyn.
Look forward to lots of new James Rutledge material next year and of course the new Telepathe album, Dance Mother, which one of Team Slutty Fringe recently wrote silly words about for super new War Magazine
Last year’s surprise hit ‘Thou Shalt Always Kill‘ propelled its proponents Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip out of poetry slam obscurity and right into the middle time. With a great video and eminently quotable lyrics it was one of those perfect pop moments that seemed to strike a chord with everyone from underground electro types right through to the blokes in sales in the office I worked in at the time.
Now nearly two years later they are revisiting the track with a whole host of remixes due for release in January on Sunday Best. Making up the package is a rework featuring De La Soul’s Pos Plug Won and remixes from Friction, The Losers, Drop The Lime and my personal favourite the in-house Sunday Best Cosmic Dub Mix which fits nicely into the current zeitgeist for all things spacey and disco.
The pair are on a tour of public libraries at the moment, as you do, and are well worth checking out live.
NATIONAL YEAR OF READING ‘GET IT LOUD IN LIBRARIES TOUR’
5th DECEMBER, WALSALL LIBRARY;
6th, LANCASTER LIBRARY
7th, BURNLEY LIBRARY
10th SKELMERSDALE LIBRARY
11th POOLE, ROSSMORE LIBRARY
13th ESSEX GRAYS LIBRARY
14th LONDON, THE BRITISH LIBRARY.
It’s not all about electro-disco-wonky-noise here at Fringe towers, occassionally we feel the need to talk about all sorts of other subjects that we are equally clueless on and today I’ve decided to take a murky dip into the world of art.
With the economy crashing around our ears, art has been increasingly looking like a safe haven for those with some spare cheddar. Despite one or two wobbles, daubs of paint on canvas (or more likely pickled hedge fund managers in formaldehyde) still seem to be holding their market value.
Those looking to top up their collections would be well advised to check out the Agents of Change curated Nancy Victor Christmas Show. Featuring work from 26 up and coming (or in some cases already come) street/outsider/graffiti art types with names like Grohs, Remi/Rough and Juice 126, you might be hard pressed to find any nice watercolours of fruitbowls but you never know you might even grab yourself the next Banksy.
Personally I’ll be digging out the cheque book and sharpening my elbows to make sure I’m first in line and get my mitts on the piece by Kid Acne, who you should know from his skewed hip-hop musings on Lex Records.
Nancy Victor Christmas Show Basement, 36 Charlotte Street, London, W1T 2NJ
4 December – 24 December
Monday – Friday 10AM – 6PM Free Entry
Sincere apologies from Team Slutty Fringe regarding lack of musical insight of late, we are currently beavering away at the end of year round up which include lots of wanky lists and words from our heroes of 2008.
And you know getting on with real life.
One thing that has been soundtracking this beavering is JD Twitch’s60 Minutes of Fear, a mix of transatlantic punk from the 70s and 80s which forms part of the lovingly presented Rvng Prsnts Mx6 & Mx6TEN release by one of Slutty Fringe’s favourite labels RVNG INTL.
I’m not going to pretend to be any sort of authority on punk musics cos I’m not (and I know at least two people who would delight in exposing such faux authority) but the combination of Optimo alumni, RVNG and limited edition vinyl and screen printed packaging was reason enough to purchase.
For those of you who feel this is not enough sample one of the tracks from the mix which has been edited by Twitch and made available via the corporate blogging network that is RCRD LBL
Words cannot convey how strongly this mix is recommended, however it is extremely limited so be quick and order forthwith direct from RVNG SHP as it is done sold out everywhere else
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