Nine Inch Nails - Head Like A Hole

Off to see this lot tomorrow in Manchester, alongside Janes Addiction. Wasn't a huge NIN fan until I went to see them a couple of years ago and they blew me away. Fuck me - that Trent Reznor knows how to put on a show.

Think this is the first 10" single I've put up on the blog. I had a 9" single of another NIN track, Sin, but cannae find it so this'll have to do.

Mix-wise the 'Copper' one is the winner for me. Both are a bit crackle-tastic due to the fact that it's my girlfriend's record and she played it to death (plus the fact it's a 1990 release).

This will be the last post for a good while, as tomorrow kicks off three weeks of madness, courtesy of my girlfriend's redundancy payment. NIN/JA tomorrow then back on Wednesday evening. Thursday morning we're off down to the Latitude festival, and then flying to Thailand for a fortnight the day after we get back next week. Provided I don't get eaten by a tiger in Thailand you can expect posting to start again roundabout the 7th of August.

Adios amigos...



Nine Inch Nails - Head Like A Hole
A - Head Like A Hole (Slate)
B - Head Like A Hole (Copper)

Buy it here

Various Artists - 1-7

Check this fuckin joker - calling himself 'Various Artists' - aye that's a nice easy one to store/google/find. Turns out he's also the Traktor dude I posted a while back. Known to his mum as Torsten Pröfrock, he's done other stuff on Chain Reaction as Erosion and Resilient which I'll stick up at some point.

Minimal as hell, this is one for the Basic Channel hardcore, not too much on the 'melody' front here. I fuckin love it, but it's definitely an acquired taste.

Before doing this blog I had no idea I'd bought so many Basic Channel / Chain Reaction records. Turns out I've got hunners of the bastards...



Various Artists - 1-7
A1 - 1
A2 - 2
A3 - 3
B1 - 4
B2 - 5
B3 - 6
B4 - 7

Buy it here

Clubheroes - Raiders Of The Lost Groove, Vol. 2

I bought this 12" for the A-side mixes, but ended up preferring the ones on the flip.

It came out on a German label, Formaldehyd, which I'm not familiar with at all but has a fair old roster according to Discogs. Check out the outfits on the back of the sleeve - it's all a bit bizarre...

So, we've got the 'Chicago Side' featuring Cajmere and Boo Williams - both pretty good mixes but not brilliant. The words 'jazz piano mix' didn't exactly fill me with anticipation but it's safe to listen to it. Around this time I'd have bought a U2 record if it had a Cajmere or a Weatherall mix on it. Grudgingly, mind (thank fuck they didn't as well)...

The B-side is called 'Planet Chick Side' - dunno what that's all about but the mixes are superb, much better than their Chicago counterparts. A bit more bangin' and jazz piano noticeable by its absence...



Clubheroes - Raiders Of The Lost Groove, Vol. 2
A1 - Da Lost Piano (Cajmere's Jazz Piano Mix)
A2 - Da Lost Trip (Boo Williams Mix)
B1 - Da Lost Piano (Dole Mix)
B2 - Da Lost Piano (Kom Mix)

Buy it here

Majic 12 - The Last Battle

This is a mysterious looking one-sided 12" on the Beau Monde label from Detroit that's got a mental 'post apocalyptic' story etched onto the other side! The guy who produced it is Scott Edward, who also did stuff as Uriel if that helps.

It's brilliantly old-skool spacey electro in sound, but somehow manages to sound up-to-date as well (well, 1995 up-to-date anyway). It gets 4/4 after about 5 mins and would be a great tune to build up a set with.

A lost wee gem, which I'd completely forgotten about until spotting it just there. Go check it oot...



Majic 12 - The Last Battle

Buy it here

GU - Essentials II

Another fine EP of Essentials from Mr Underground, this time from 1996. Maybe not quite as strong as Vol 1 but still worth a pop if you ask me.

Lots of disco-y house here, in fact my girlfriend has just said "what's that pish? That sounds like the stuff you'd hear coming from a cafe down the beach in Ibiza", as track A2 came to an end. See what I've got to put up with? Tsk tsk...

Lazy bastard couldn't even be bothered to come up with a title for track B2, so I can't be bothered with a description. Saturday hangover and all that...



GU - Essentials II
A1 - The Wheel
A2 - In The Midst
B1 - Mine Moods
B2 - ?

Buy it here

Various - Pure Devotion

Something a wee bit different today, to tie in with me going to see Nine Inch Nails in Manchester next Tuesday.

Devotion was a UK label which licensed stuff from Wax Trax - nutters like Al Jourgensen & Paul Barker from Ministry and Chris Connelly under various different guises making industrial / electro / madness. Most of the stuff here is produced by the aforementioned threesome, along with one-offs like a taxi driver who used to take them around.

My pick of the bunch is Acid Horse - an electro-tastic Ministry / Cabaret Voltaire collaboration.

I remember ending up at the only Glasgow gig by Revolting Cocks by accident - it was supposed to be at the College of Building and Printing. I was seeing a girl at the time who wanted to go and see EMF(!) at King Tuts so we went and chanced our arms getting in there. This was back when 'Unbelievable' was flying up the charts so they were hot property. Managed to blag our way in to the gig - don't remember anything about it, unlike what happened next...

We went up to Glasgow Tech afterwards (a popular goth hangout back in the day), it was pure mobbed and there were bodies flying out the door totally fucked. I knew the folk on the door so we got in - I asked why it was so busy - "the Revolting Cocks are still on, Mog". What the fuck!?!?!?!?!? I charged up the stairs and managed to catch the last hour! Turns out the police had pulled the gig at the original venue due to all the paranoia at the time about putting them on - rumours about electric fences, cattle prods and strippers.

The stage at the Tech was tiny and the place was heaving. One of the vocalists (I'll not call him a 'singer') had a massive big rubber cock on and was squirting white goo all over the front rows, Al Jourgensen was yelling the chorus to Beers, Steers & Queers and offering sniffs of poppers to the audience in between lines. Everyone was totally fucked - we joined in with the festivities and had a fuckin blast. The gig ended up the stuff of legend and Chris Connelly says as much in his book, My Life As A Revolting Cock (recommended reading).

EMF? What the fuck was I thinking...



Various - Pure Devotion <-- new linky
A1 - Revolting Cocks - Beers, Steers & Queers
A2 - 1000 Homo DJs - Supernaut
A3 - Acid Horse - No Name, No Slogan
A4 - Murder Inc. - Murder Inc.
B1 - Hyperhead - Teenage Mind
B2 - Chris Connelly - July
B3 - Lead Into Gold - Faster Than Light
B4 - PTP - Rubber Glove Seduction
C1 - Malhavoc - Re-Release
C2 - Excessive Force - Conquer Your House
C3 - Crowforce - White King
C4 - Pigface - Tonight's The Night (Little Sisters Remix)
D1 - Skrew - Sympathy For The Devil
D2 - Bomb Everything - Hoeda, Hoeda
D3 - Pigface - Ten Ground & Down
D4 - Revolting Cocks - No Devotion

Buy it here

Spider And The Flies - Up / Down / American Mixtape

... aka Tom and Rhys from The Horrors, these are three FAB mixes which originally featured on the wonderful Vice Music Blog.

They've done an album as Spider And The Flies which I'm just in the process of buying, and then did the Up & Down mixes for Vice. 'Up' is a mix of various electronic music, krautrock, drum'n'bass, techno and other nonsense, and 'Down' is quite frankly terrifying. Two of the oddest mixes I've ever heard, and they both come highly recommended.

Just yesterday, they posted up Tom's American Mixtape which features a selection of some of the records they bought when recently on tour in the States. It's a great selection of "Detroit techno, Chicago house and the weird, wild world of Bollywood funk". Check out the full story here.

I really misjudged this lot on the basis of the music press hype (and tabloid romance shenanigans) surrounding their first album and they're now up there with the best as far as I'm concerned.

Make sure you don't listen to 'Down' alone in a darkened room, or maybe that's exactly how you SHOULD listen to it. You have been warned...



Spider and the Flies - Up Mix

Spider and the Flies - Down Mix

American Mixtape

Buy Spider And The Flies stuff here

Fruits of God - Lion's Fear EP

Something for everyone on this EP on the See Saw label from 1992.

The '303 Mix' lives up to its billing and is pretty fucking hard acid, but there's nothing jungle about the 'Jungle Mix', it's more early trance than anything else. Who gives a fuck though - it's a great track.

The B-sides are a bit calmer, almost Detroit-esque in places. Great noises and nice mechanical melodies. See what I mean - all bases covered.

No idea about the personnel involved on this one - they don't look like they've done too much else, according to Discogs.

I only just realised there (17 years later) that the 'See' label is an eye, and the 'Saw' label is a circular saw. On the ball as ever...



Fruits of God - Lion's Fear EP
A1 - Lion's Fear (303 Mix)
A2 - Lion's Fear (Jungle Mix)
B1 - Spirits
B2 - Confirm

Buy it here

JD Twitch - Optimo Podcast 1 - Synth Summer

I reckon if I was forced to only listen to one DJ for the rest of my days, desert island style, then that person would be JD Twitch. Over the years he's astonished me with his inventiveness and mixing ability - always has a surprise or two up his sleeve.

This podcast promises to be the first of many, and will eventually be put up on the iTunes store (I think), but in the meantime here's a preview courtesy of the Echatio forum.

Here's the accompanying blurb:

"Shortly the Optimo website is going to have a total revamp and finally enter the 21st century. There will be lots of new features and content and one of the things we are going to introduce is a series of podcasts to take us into the second decade of the third millennium.

These will range from mixes recorded at the club to radio type shows, spoken word, mixes of music that tickles our fancy, or anything else we come up with that we'd like to share.

The first one will be available as a podcast in a few weeks but we have decided to make it available as a Yousendit download in the meantime.

The podcast is called "Synth Summer" and is a selection of (guess what?) synth based music from around the planet. It covers a broad range of styles and a broad time span - from 1980 to some tracks that haven't been released yet, and that may indeed never see the light of day. It is a dj mix but not a club mix. The flow is the way it is so as to be a listening experience rather than for the dancefloor, even though all the tracks are "dance" tracks. Wherever possible, as much of each track as possible has been included.

There is no tracklist as we think in this day and age with the abundance of mixes available on the internet that people often judge something based on the tracklisting rather than actually listening to it. If anyone really wants to know what a particular track is, we will be happy to tell them.

The mix was recorded using two turntables and a laptop. Wherever possible the original vinyl was used but some of the tracks don't exist on vinyl. Track one (which we would like to thank Mr. James Holden for providing us with after searching for it for many years) only exists on a cassette from the early 80s so please excuse the fidelity, although it actually sounds pretty fab considering. A tiny bit of post mix editing was done as one of the tracks skipped during the recording and the levels were a little askew in a couple of places. The mix contains 17 tracks, lasts just over an hour and the download is a 192kbps mp3 and is 84.5mb.

Enjoy."

JD Twitch - Optimo Podcast 1 - Synth Summer

Buy Optimo stuff here

DJ Sneak - Blue Belly Bandit E.P.

A great EP of housey nonsense from 1996 here, with lots of those filtery bits'n'bobs that were doing the rounds back then.

A1 features a sax riff which I'm sure I've heard somewhere before, I'm no fan of the sax but it's not too intrusive. Great title though, conjures up all sorts of images in my deviant head.

A2's got a great riff that makes you think it's slowing down and speeding up with a great wee guitar lick on it, before a vocal hook comes in, "can you feel it?" (hence the title, I guess).

B1 is where it's at though, lots of great synth sounds coming in and out as we progress through the track, over a guitar riff that reminds me a wee bit of the start of Sueno Latino.

This'll be the last post for a couple of days as we're off to a wedding in a castle down at the borders (on a Tuesday!) and if it lives up to expectations should write us off till Friday...



DJ Sneak - Blue Belly Bandit E.P.
A1 - Sneaky Finger Man
A2 - Can You
B1 - Latin Seoul
B2 - Fierce! (Queen's Anthem)

Buy it here

Halo / Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia - Not At All / Exit 23 / Obsidian

I thought I was onto a super-limited-rare-as-fuck PWOG release when I saw this double-pack in Fatcat Records in London. Turns out it's a promo that's not even on KK Records (it's on Restless Records)!

The first 12" features Halo, I band I wasn't familiar with, but sound like an American version of the Mary Chain. Actually really good, track A1 is mixed by the Dust Brothers - the original US ones who made the UK ones change their name to you-know-who. I'm afraid B2's got a bit of a sticky scratch at one point but I've included it anyway.

The second 12" has got the three stunning Drum Club mixes of Exit 23 on one side and the full 20min version of Obsidian on the flip. This was great news for me as for some reason I only had these on CD singles beforehand. What was I thinking..?

The Drum Club mixes 2 & 3 form the one 16 minute epic, so that's how you're getting them.

Obsidian? Check out this review on Discogs, which tells the story of the track much better than I ever could. This would make a nice companion to Acid Ted's Global Communication stuff that he's got up today...



Halo / Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia - Not At All / Exit 23
A - Halo - Not At All (Dust Brothers Remix)
B1 - Halo - Unhinged
B2 - Halo - Spark Wide Open
C1 - Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia - Exit 23 (Drum Club Remix 1)
C2 - Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia - Exit 23 (Drum Club Remix 2)
C3 - Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia - Exit 23(Drum Club Remix 3)
D - Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia - Obsidian

Buy it here

One Dove - White Love

Just the thing for a strung-out Sunday comedown, and another thinly veiled drug reference from One Dove.

A1 sees Stephen Hague in 'gonnae get us on the Radio 1 playlist?' mode. He didn't quite manage it though, they bombed which was a shame.

'The Professionals' were the three members of One Dove alongside Sabres backroom boys Jagz & Gary, who provide a great strung out thudding bass-heavy mix.

If you head straight for the aptly named Guitar Paradise Mix as I initially did, you're in for a treat of epic proportions.

Three great mixes of a great single by great underachievers...



One Dove - White Love
A1 - White Love (Radio Mix)
A2 - White Love (Meet The Professionals Dub)
B - White Love (Guitar Paradise Mix)

Buy it here

Various - White Flight EP

Mid 90s techno on a Saturday? It's all over the place this month...

This is an EP on Black Nation Records from 1995, featuring Jay Denham on the two A-side tracks and a dude called Chance McDermott doing both the tracks on the flip.

I bought this for track A1, which features some great squelchy noises that sound as if they shouldn't go together melodically, but somehow it all works and it's a belter of a tune.

B2 is more of an acid track, which turns into a nice melodic piece after a couple of minutes.

B1 sounds like very exuberant orchestral acid with wee snatches of the riff from "No Limits" by 2 Unlimited thrown in at the start (or at least that's what it sounds like to me). Mental? Aye...

Finally we've got a UR-style track to finish what I'm rediscovering as a great EP - this is making me so glad that I'm doing R-i-G as stuff like this would probably never have been listened to again.

Off to a stag night tonight for the guy who first persuaded me to 'check out this dance music stuff' one night at the Arches, and the rest is history. This one's for you, Andy...



Various - White Flight EP
A1 - Fade II Black - Tweekin
A2 - Vice - Moon Mist
B1 - Chance - Trakmo
B2 - Endangered Technology - Digital Overthrow

Buy it here

The Horrors - Live at Glastonbury 2009

What a fucking band. What a fucking show. This is the other live set which appeared in my inbox while I was away.

Two versions to choose from - I've got my mate Tufty's audience bootleg recording which is one of the best I've heard (check out his Glasto bootleg blog), and a rip of the BBC stream from the website. I've been listening to the audience recording though, more authentic sounding and it's got the soundcheck at the start as well.

When I posted this track up earlier I commented on how I didn't realise that's what they sounded like now - Primary Colours is my album of the year so far and I'll finally get to see them at ATP in December. Cannae fuckin wait...



The Horrors - Live at Glastonbury 2009 (Tufty audience recording)
The Horrors - Live at Glastonbury 2009 (BBC rip)
00 Soundcheck
01 Mirror's Image
03 Three Decades
04 Do You Remember
05 I Can’t Control Myself
06 Scarlet Fields
07 I Only Think Of You
08 Who Can Say
09 Sea Within A Sea

Buy Primary Colours on vinyl here

Andrew Weatherall - Rockness 2009

So, got back from Copenhagen last night to find not one, but two excellent live sets in my inbox. This one comes courtesy of the fine people at Rizla, featuring an hour of Mr Weatherall on STUNNING form at the Rockness festival a few weeks back.

It's a crazy setup - I saw Mani and Don Letts at the Rizla Invisible Players arena at the Connect Festival a couple of years ago, playing from a 1920s-style van thing, while glamorous ladies went round handing out free skins to the punters. Magic!

Had a listen to the mix this morning and he's on top form - I had my doubts after my mates' reports of a recent Glasgow appearance but this is up there with the half hour mixes at the end of his recent 6 Mix broadcasts.

Looks like he's ditched the Brian Blessed-style beard in favour of an 'interesting' 'tache...



Andrew Weatherall - Rockness 2009

Buy Weatherall stuff here