House Is A Feeling

Yo all, work has kept me busy of late to the point that typing in the evening is a tricky task, so posts will be sporadic for a while. I do have a guest mix which I’ll put up this week so keep your eyes (and your itunes) open for that.

I’m probably going to find a good way to manage time and blog a bit more at some point but work comes first for now. Just know that I love each and every one of you and this break does not mean myself or your mother love you any less.

Now sit at the kitchen table and mournfully listen to the sound of screeching brakes as your Dad rides into the night, ideally with the below track soundtracking the whole domestic burlesque show.

Yo I’ll be back at the Pygmalion on South William Street in Dublin tomorrow night, June 13, from 22.00 to close, playing with Aidano. Come down if you’re about, it’s free in and I will shake hands with you for a fiver.

Check out a roundup of some tracks I enjoy from the WhatPeoplePlay MP3 store here.

So two of the shadowy figures behind the Arto Mwambé alias play T-Bar tomorrow. I’m on early on from 9-11 with High Horse resident Casper C in the middle. Quite a few people I’ve spoken to have not heard the Arto stuff so here’s a quick hit collage from one of my favourite producers over the last few years.

Arto Mwambé-Noh Ngamebo:

Telespazio-Telemetric (Arto Mwambé’s Guitar Down Mix):

Check their Myspace for newer remixes of Osborne, Friendly Fires, and Roland Appel. Be sure and say hello if you’re about tomorrow night! I ressemble my pictures.

Let’s take some candy from this barrel, an article about the dance industry in the Guardian.

Now obviously it’s easy sailing to make fun of broadsheet articles about dance music. I’d go even further and say it’s absolutely plain pickings!

But one paragraph still stood out here, and in any case I’m not going to make too much fun. Just enough for tonight with some kept in the fridge until tomorrow. So have you read the above link? Then here goes. Near the end it says:

DJdownload.com – a digital music website set up by DJs and clubbers – has become a global hub for electronic music buyers.

I’m confused! I’ve never used DJdownload.com, have you? Has anyone you know? Am I being harsh?

Now obviously all of you in the blogosphere adopt earlier than Angelina Jolie on a visit to an African township, making it easy to scoff, but still, I am fairly sure this site isn’t particularly successful. I’m going to get out of my chair now as if this was a room full of former alcoholics and drug users (a lot of my friends read this site) and boldly declare: “I have never used DJdownload.com.”

To me the piece suggests that the guy from Mixmag cited DJDownload as evidence that dance music is ONCE AGAIN not actually dying (seriously this poor fucking genre we like has had more false terminal illnesses than Wacko Jacko, only difference being you read about dance music’s latest alleged public fainting fit in the broadsheets!)

That’s what it looks like to me, a conspicuous plug, but we can’t necessarily accuse anyone of anything without hearing the tape. A quick spot of googling however seems to suggest all sorts of links between the popular drugs magazine and the considerably less popular download site.

It seems the Guardian’s been sold a ride, and indeed taken for a pup. (This begs the deep and searching question, who will guard the Guardian?!)

So moving along, I should have a WhatPeoplePlay roundup on the way tomorrow. You may not be familiar with WhatPeoplePlay.com but I’d casually describe it, off the top of my head, perhaps while leaning on a flat surface to underline how relaxed and informal I was being, as “a global hub for electronic music buyers”.

What if I was feeling even more casual? What if, perhaps, I was sitting in a kitchen on a Monday night, eating strawberries with the window open and a warm breeze blowing in? I might then conjure up an even more casual description than “global hub for electronic music buyers”.

I might somehow find a phrase that rolls off the tongue even more naturally than “global hub for electronic music buyers”. That is, if you can believe that a more naturally beautiful phrase exists!

In such an instance of great casualness I might, having taken off my shoes and socks, even call “an online record store” like DJdownload, “an online record store!” (It’s the “calling a spade a spade” of the 21st century, but thankfully not as useful as an excuse for fucking appalling behaviour.)

Anyway, it’s obvious from my lack of inspiration that I’m just not much of a wordsmith. I mean the last time I said the word hub I was probably changing a tyre!!! (Think about this sentence, there’s a very cryptic joke in it.)

I beg you though: please forgive me my lack of pzazz. Afterall, this blog, or “techno chat hut on a computer”, is all I’ve got!

So first things first, get yourself over to London promoter Warm’s blog to check out a mix Mark E has done for them. On the hottest day of the year this is a good tip, slow and low, as you’d expect. It’s funny, listening to this and Anton Zap’s mix for Roof (or Daniel Stefanik’s latest remix on Kann, or loads of others) I feel like dance music is in its most summery phase in a long long time. Even markedly housier stuff than Mark E seems to sound Ibizan, and so much less pious.

I mean, sure, house has been dominating for ages now but there’s a more blissful feel to a lot of music around lately which I’m really getting a kick out of. Personally I’ve got sick of hearing bad dub techno lately. Despite an impenetrable armour of cred, this stuff often sounds to me like those vaguely electronic 90s bar house mixes with the temperature dropped ten degrees. Instead of a general wash of “oh this nice” you’ve got a general wash of “oh this is melancholy.”

You get to a point where imitations of Basic Channel become this endless fodder. Obviously it’s purely an instinctual opinion to say a particular well has run dry, but it’s also inevitable that others agree. I do think dub-techno is too much of a sacred cow, precisely because people are quicker to let bleak music off the hook than euphoric music, for whatever reason. Sometimes in techno it’s as if there’s something fraudulent or untrustworthy about positivity.

(An aside on 90s bar music: If you ever bought dance mixes or worked in a record store you’ll know the ones I mean, like “Lounge Grooves” or “Lounging” or “Hey Check It Out, I Am Sleazing On Your Partner In A Hotel Lounge To This Awful Shit Until The One Good Track That Cost Our Entire Budget For This Release Comes On, And Yeah It Is Jon Cutler’s ‘It’s Yours’! How did you know? Part IV.” The internet has certainly trimmed the fat since those days.)

As the sub-par dub stuff goes back to its secluded mudhut of endless respect I think house music and some of the disco/balearic stuff feel a lot closer together than they have been. There’s a renewed innocence to the stuff about at the moment, and though this might sound like the rantings of a dude who finished work at 2pm on a 24 degree day, I’m starting to feel summer 09 will have a real unifying brilliance to it in the clubs.

You know, maybe just a little more than every other summer! If you don’t believe me, have a listen to the fucking tune below for crying out loud. Christ…

PS: This is deliberately the shittest post title I have ever come up with. “The blogosphere-Come on in and make yourself at home. Feel free to take a dip in the discourse.”

Final edit: I blame the endless typos and fuckups in the first version of this post on leaving my flat for work at 5.30…

And here is as good a place to advertise as any. I live in East London. Mail me for details. You could live in the dream factory where the webs of this very blog are spun. You’d also have a fairly large freezer.

Yo I’ve just started a new job (in kids TV, lol) so things are a little busy this week but just a quick note about some gigs. On Friday 29th I’ll be playing at Jam Bar on Shoreditch High Street in the basement for the Phone night, which goes till about 3am. These parties are always a good laugh especially when the basement is open so come along if you’re around the area.

The following Friday, June 5th, as I mentioned I’ll be at the below gig in T-Bar

Then the following Saturday, that’s June 13th, I’ll be back at Pygmalion in Dublin for the second HIAF residency. If you’re around for any of these come along, should be lots of fun.

Keep an eye on the site here for a guest mix coming soon, a WPP roundup, and some more substantial posts over the next few days.

If you’re in need of a good finger wagging “oh no you didn’t” house track of a Thursday afternoon then just turn this up. I heard it on Jus Ed’s show from Roof FM, after being released first in 1992 it seems it’s been reissued. How can you not like this baudy house stuff? The histrionic machismo of this shit is unreal, not just real house music, real pop music.

So I just heard yesterday that I’ll be playing before Arto Mwambé at High Horse in the new T-Bar on Friday June 5th. This should be loads of fun, it’s a real buzz to get to play at T so I’m looking forward to it, and to seeing the Arto guys play. Come down and check out the gig if you’re around, I’m on from 9-11 and it’s free in.

The following Saturday (13th of June) I’ll be back in Dublin for the second HIAF residency at Pygmalion.