Ade: Proggy techno from G-town

You know how with some people you just really click in terms of musical taste? Like you haven't seem them for ages, and when you do, they've been digging all the same tunes you have? For me Ade's one of those people. Whether he's spinning chunky psy breaks or proggy techno, managing the Wobbly Squadron or running the Dance Tent and Ents24 stage at Guilfest, his taste is always impeccable.

I've been bugging Ade for a mix for ages. He finally gave me one in October, but I said I wasn't going to put it up unless he gave me a tracklisting... unlike our mate Dan (Agent Smith) who disappeared off around the world leaving me with an awesome mix but no names. Ade's in India for Christmas now, which means I've lost, so I'm putting the mix up anyway 'cos its sweet as a nut.

Ade - Proggy-techy mix 10-2009 by doofdoofdoof

TRACKLISTING?
There's loads of Tribal Vision tunes on there and proabably some Iboga. For anything more accurate I'm afraid you're gonna have to wait till Ade gets back!

*NB. This isn't the same DJ Ade who spins UK garage around Kent, Essex and London, just in case you were wondering *

Firefly: Thrash Jelly

I've already mentioned Thrash Jelly a few times on this blog. The party duo are Jeet and Max Cooper, the boys behind Nottingham's legendary Firefly nights. *Reminices back to many a morning set played by the lads after an awesome nights partying*

Anyway, they've just brought out a new EP on their own record label Firefly recordings featuring some slinky electro techno with lots of interesting noises. Check out the samples on their Myspace. And check them out at the next Firefly!



The Thrash Jelly live show spans electro, techno and breaks and consists of 3 mixers and 6 turntables being used by the pair in order to allow simultaneous scratching, juggling, mixing and layering of effects. You can check out their most recent mix below:

Gushing Fluster Mix (Direct link - right click save as)

Gushing Fluster Track Listing:

1. Plastikman – Spaz (Plus 8) – Thrash Jelly Edit
2. Sasha – Park It In The Shade (Enfire)
3. Velkro and Ido Ophir – Warehouse (Sprout)
4. Piemont – Ignition Spark (Gedankensport)
5. Sebastian – Ross Ross Ross (Ed Banger) – Thrash Jelly Edit
6. Retronouveau – Nigtmares – Mark Broom Remix (Cray 1 Digital Works)
7. Guti & Dirtyroom – Ich Kenne Keine Stiefken (Vekton Musik)
8. Luca Bacchetti – Trust (Wagon Repair)
9. Rainer Weichhold – Bamboo – Format B Remix (Great Stuff)
10. ThrashJelly – CrimsonBloom (Unsigned)
11. ThrashJelly – Fluster Gush (Unsigned)
12. Workidz – Washmachine (Toolroom)
13. Abnormal Boyz – Da Box (Globox)
14. Max Cooper – Custard Crush (Evolved Records) – Thrash Jelly Edit
15. Sebo K – Far Out (Mobilee Records)
16. Perfect Stranger and Pena – Ode Ao Sol – Moonbeam Remix (BEEF Records)
17. Adam Freeland – Hate (Marine Parade)
18. Meat Katie & D.Ramirez – Stop The Revolution – Bassbin Twins Remix (Lot49)
19. ZZT – Lower State Of Consciousness – Justice Remix (Turbo)
20. Cirez D – Control Freak – Adam Beyer and Henrik B Remix (Mouseville)
21. Rino Cerrone – Untitled 1 (Rilis) – Thrash Jelly Edit
22. Perc & Fractal – Up (Kompakt) – Thrash Jelly Edit
23. Alexi Delano – Lost 4 Words (Truesoul)
24. Unknown – Unknown (White) – Thrash Jelly Edit
25. Justice – Phantom – Boys Noize Remix (Ed Banger) – Thrash Jelly Edit
26. Max Cooper – FRANK (Firefly Recordings)

Glade Festival podcast: Fiord

The Glade Festival 2009 website is now up and running. As the best dance music festival in the UK it's always a highlight of my year, with an amazing spread of breaks, trance, techno, interesting house, ambient dub and Overkill wrongness. 2009 will be the first year at a new location, rumoured to be the Matterly Bowl in Hampshire, otherwise known as the Homelands site. I've heard mixed reports but at least the music should stay on till the sun comes up!

You can sign up for a Glade podcast. I recommend that when you do you dig out the track by Fiord, the new minimal project from progressive trance leg-ends Antix. They melted the Origin stage as the last act on Sunday last year.

Minimal Firefly: Max Cooper

When I used to live in Nottingham I used to love Max Cooper's scratch breaks sets at Firefly. Nowadays he's making minimal techno, as well as making up one half of party rave leg-ends of the East Midlands, Thrash Jelly (Jeet being the other half). If you ever get a chance to go to a Firefly party make sure you do. The atmosphere is incredible, especially when Thrash Jelly Play the closing set. Big up the Notts massive!

Kanio: Beatport and Firefly

Remember Kanio and his tumbling techno beats? Apparently he's been nominated for best minimal artist at the Beatport music awards. Click here to vote!

You can check out Kanio's latest promo mix here:

Kanio - Feb 09 mix (Speedyshare link)

He's also playing the next Firefly at the Marcus Garvey Ballroom in my old stomping ground of Nottingham. If you've never been to one of these nights before, it's basically a one room rave in a ballroom that looks like a school hall with amazing atmosphere and great people. The music builds through the night into a full on sweaty stompfest by the end - highly recommended if you like your house, techno and breaks.


Other upcoming UK dates are:

20 Feb 2009 10:00 Redlight Afterhours @ Aquarium (Saturday Morning) London
20 Feb 2009 20:00 Pacha London
6 Mar 2009 20:00 54 Label Launch @ 54 Comercial Street London
14 Mar 2009 20:00 Chemikal @ TBC Liverpool
15 Mar 2009 8:00 Just Because @ Platinum London
20 Mar 2009 20:00 Firefly @ Ballroom Nottingham
21 Mar 2009 20:00 Optik @ Club 69 Glasgow
3 Apr 2009 20:00 Ketoloco @ Kerbcrawler Leeds

.. in between which he's off to Brazil and back a few times!

Luke Porter tasting fleshy

Just found this mix by Luke Porter, whose Flesh Taste remix on Tribal Vision made it onto quite a few progressive trance playlists last year. He's coming from the progressive house end of things, so I don't recognise half the names below. Sounds lush though!

Luke Porter - February 2009 Promo Mix (direct link - save as)

1. Wahi - More Soul Please (Robert Babicz mix) [Curbed Recordings]
2. Bradler - Solo [Presslab Records]
3. Thomas Langner - System 103 (Jacek Janicki mix) [Unikat Records] **unr
4. Egostereo - Oxyde [Aenaria Music]
5. Komytea - 7 [Anjunadeep]
6. Vibrasphere - 102 Miles From here (Solead mix) [Tribal Vision]
7. Hatfield & Beckers - Youre Not Me (Fiord mix) [Sprout]
8. Alaa - Rhea [Nellie Recordings] **unr
9. Jaytech - Nemesis [Anjunadeep]
10. Rino Cabrera - All Of A Sudden (Daniel Portman mix) [Enormous Tunes]
11. Joshy Rotten - Slumber Party (Human8 mix) [Morphosis Records]
12. Kosmas Epsilon & Evans T - 8 Hours (Cid Inc & Luke Porter mix) [Dyami] **unr
13. RPO & David Weed - Industry Part 2 [Tribal Vision]

Later this month Luke's headlining a night at Inspiral Cafe in Camden, hosted by Liquid Records' new progressive offshoot OmLiquid. I'm told their launch night at Scala was incredible, which is entirely in keeping with the rest of Liquid's output so far!

Techno mixtapes on Crackbook

Just had a go at searching bookFace for mixtapes and stumbled straight into THE FACEBOOK MIXTAPE group. It's an archive of techno, electronica, electro and a few dnb mixes, mostly live. You'll find something by most big names in techno up there but the files vary in quality of both recording and mix. Hasn't been updated for a while but people post their own mixtapes up in the chat box.


I was specifically looking for something by Spanish minimal supremo Alex Under, who ripped it up on a UK tour last summer, and found this:

Alex Under @ Awakenings Festival 2008

Cockney Nutjob: Kanio's minimal madness

Just been sent this by my mate Hollie, minimal techno madness from (I'm guessing East) London producer Kanio (pronounced Can-ee-oh apparently), who has just released the above EP on brand new London techno label Novakane. He gets my vote for the comedy cockney Boosh referencing already, but Hollie tells me he destroyed it on the beach at the legendary biennial Boom Festival last year. The pearly geezer has a whole bunch of free mixes you can download from his MySpaz page (speedy share links about halfway down). It's all sounding pretty funkin wonky so far. It's the tumbling beats, I'm told...

Download Feb 08 DJ mix here

Why I love: Tribal Vision Records & Vibrasphere

Tribal Vision have just released the digital version of Sweedish prog-trance legends Vibrasphere's 5th album Lung's of Life.
Vibrasphere have consistently produced lush albums of emotive and hypnotic Scandinavian soundscapes that veer between icy cool chill out and pounding smooth grooves. They've long been one of my favourite acts. With their recent Tribal Vision releases they've been introducing a very welcome dose of minimal electro into their immaculately produced sound, so it's well worth checking out the samples here.

Tribal Vision are a Czech trance label who have been shaking up the world of progressive trance since they started release records about 4 years ago. While the idea of 'progressive trance' may sound like some late 90's mash-up of ELO and Sasha, it actually emerged as a stripped down techno-esque approach to goa trance led by Scandinavian labels such as Digital Structures (Vibrasphere's previous home).

Alongside Danish label Iboga, and artists such as Ticon on Digital Structures, Tribal Vision have recently been exploding the genre with a more open approach encompassing more 'mainstream' styles like electro house and minimal techno. As such their tunes have been finding their way into the record bags of superDJ's on the club circuit.

They also produce some lush graphics (see video below).




...which is from...



So, the slinky subtlety of minimal techno + all the bounce of electro house = absorbing music with lots of nice noises that creeps up on you out of nowhere with phat electro bass lines! For a proper taste check out this awesome mix by DJ Shankar to promote the excellent Vanguard compilation which came out Dec '07. Its was by far the most played mix on my ipod last year!

DJ Shankar - Vanguard promo mix (Dec 07) (right click and save as)

Tracklist:

Paolo Driver-Mayo (Maurizio Ruggiero & Danielino DJ Rmx) [Presslab Ltd]
Motion & Tapwatr-Kp'n'tch (Original Mix) [ColdGroove]
Nick Muir - G Platz (Pig & Dan Rmx) [Audio Therapy]
Tegma, Duca, DJ Slater - East Block (Original Mix) [Tribal Vision]
Bass Kleph - Bump Uglies (Dopamine Rmx) [Vacation Records]
Greed vs Sonic Cube - Wilde (Elegant Universe Rmx) [Tribal Vision]
Antix - Seven Seas (Logiztik Sounds & Mauricio Duarte Meets Bill Tsipidis Remix) [Iboga/cdr]
FM Radio Gods - Sleeper [cdr]
Even 11 - Like This (Komytea Rmx) [Tribal Vision]
Drone - Hanging Out At Night (Original Mix) [Dezign Music]
Peter Juergens - You And Me [Tribal Vision]
Talisman & Hudson - Leaving Planet Earth (Dousk Rmx) [Too Much Information]
Duca - Green Lines [Tribal Vision]
Xavi Beat - Techu (Original Club Mix) [Fresco Records]
Kohra VS Ady - Clear Grounds [Shivlink Records/cdr]

Richie Hawtin party hat fun

Went to The End for a Minus night on Saturday for my mate Joe's birhday. Magda played a very laid back warm up followed by Loco Dice's warm bouncy sound, but Marco Houle's live set was a definate highlight. Ritchie Hawtin then showed everyone up as he took the helm with a really upbeat 4 hour set from 6-10.30.

Amazingly this as the first time I've seen him play... but it was easily one of my top3 techno sets of all time (alongside Derrick May and Jeff Mills). It was made all the more fun with party a set of party hats provided by Jo the Party Hat Princess. Richie was understandably reluctant to put his party hat on during his set but he was nice enough put it on after for us. Unfortunately no pic of that but we did get one of him and Jo (above). Legend!

Sadly The End is due to close on 23 January - a major blow to London clubbing. You can read an interview with The End’s directors, Layo and Zoe Paskin here. Such a shame as it's such a sweet venue - it will be greatly missed.

FREE DOWNLOAD: Minus recently celebrated their 10th birthday -
Click here to download a special Rob Da Bank and Friends feat. Richie Hawtin from earlier this year (track listing and link to download).

For a bit of comedy viewing, check his out. Worth it just for GMF's facial expressions...