HIGH TECH SOUL is the first documentary to tackle the deep roots of techno music alongside the cultural history of Detroit, its birthplace. From the race riots of 1967 to the underground party scene of the late 1980s, Detroit’s economic downturn didn’t stop the invention of a new kind of music that brought international attention to its producers and their hometown.
Well, I’ve been hyper-busy getting ready for the big move to California, so sorry for the lack of posting!
In my absence, I totally missed the release of College’sSecret Diary. The Teenage Color EP was great, but it lacked a little something. . . something to make it memorable. Secret Diary takes over and delivers just that. Great release.
You may remember Fujiya & Miyagi’s phenomenal animated dice video for “Ankle Injuries” from last year (view it below). Well they’re back with more bodily harm in the form of the Wade Shotter directed “Sore Thumb” video. Can anyone remember what game they based this on? They had it in the arcade by my house, you looked through a periscope type thing and fought wireframe tanks. Anyways, very cool video, although not feeling this song quite as much as Ankle Injuries. I heard these guys spent almost the entire marketing budget for the Ankle Injuries album making the video (below) in the hopes that it would go viral and blow everything up. I wonder how that worked out.
Portland has a lush music scene, I might even say that it might be more exciting than it is here in Brooklyn. During the CMJ festival Portland’s Starf*cker played a couple times and I never got to catch them live but picked up their album and definitely found a few songs on there that I really like. With the name Starf*cker I thought it was gonna some wild Dan Deacon kind of music but it wasn’t at all which isn’t a bad thing but the name just threw me off.
Eliot Lipp continues to blow me away, he has started his own label called Old Tacoma Records and has been touring non stop like a proper busy musician in 2008. His new single is what i’m guessing how Hip Hop will sound in 2030.
Le Baron was given to me by none other than Tom Croose, this whistling song puts Peter Bjorn and John to shame.
I know I post some Techno/House on this blog and its probably not very fitting to listen to the songs just on your computer especially if you don’t listen to much of it but DJ Koze this year was elite. Listen to those shakers! just brilliant production and sequencing, if you ever hear this on a big system you’ll fall in love.
I would never deny a song that has this intro from this Freddie Hubbard song, so if anyone starts a song out like this then I am all yours until the end.
D. Lissvik is one half of Studio which have produced one of my favorite albums of 2008 so this must be good. I’ll post that list closer to January for everyone.
One of the sleeper records this year is the Twine album, if you haven’t seen the cover then you need to it’s right here and that’s also where you can find this song Endormie for free to download.
Grouper is band that i’m still checking out but this song stuck out for me among the rest. I read about them earlier today in an interview with Telefon Tel Aviv, so it must be good hah.
Tom Croose is one half of the Brooklyn DJ duo Worst Friends and has done a mix on ISO50 before, it did so well that he put another one together for us for the holidays.
TRACKLIST
Tom Croose – Mr Mackey Intro
OMD – Time Zones
Badly Drawn Boy – Once Around The Block (Andy Votel remix)
Shalabi Effect – Sister Sleep
The Little Ones – Morning Tide (Studio mix)
Mount Eerie – I Hold Nothing
Flying Lotus – Robo Tussin feat. Lil Wayne
Onra – The Anthem
Beck – Hot Wax (Tom Croose edit)
Pilooski – Love Is Wet
Low Motion Disco – The Low Murderer Is Out At Night
Taj Majal – Queen Bee
Hamburg’s Tensnake maybe best known for his remixes for musicians like Junior Boys or Sally Shapiro but I just picked up this tropical slow burner from Beatport last week and it has helped me with cold walks to the subway. All the synth noodling and night drive long chords that keep the song flowing makes this track a recent favorite. It all reminds me of a 80s jam that I can’t put my finger on that I use to listen, let me know something pops in your head because its buggin’ me.
Vancouver’s Cobblestone Jazz helps me with my attempt to get some people here into deep house once again, there is a lot more than just the Wal-mart electronic select fav Mark Farina’s Mushroom Jazz series.
Nathan Fake at one time had me really excited, I thought he’d be the one to really stretch his sound and nail down where melodic techno and prettier synth rock would go hand and hand. I’ve really haven’t been impressed since his debut album “Drowning In A Sea Of Love” which features this beautiful Superposition song.
I was thinking what’s the best way to start off December? Vince Guaraldi Trio that’s how.
I got a chance to check out the M83 / School of Seven Bells show last night at the Fillmore (sorry for the bad pic, all I had was my iPhone). School of Seven Bells is a recent signing to Ghostly so it was nice to finally see them after hearing so much via the label and Jakub’s posts. M83 put on a great show as well, I saw them a couple years back at Bimbo’s 365 with Ulrich Schnauss and it was somewhat tame so I wasn’t sure what to expect this time. It was still your average shoegazy affair but there was definitely a different level of energy to the whole thing. A nice touch to the was their synth rig. I spotted a Doepfar Modular and a DSI Prophet 8. I could have sword I saw a Jupiter (6 or 8, not sure) in there, but given that all their other analogs were modern I’m betting it was something else. The only thing I was disappointed by was the lack of visuals, although the lighting did a pretty good job of making up for it. Anybody else catch the show?
And here are the videos for Teen Angst and Don’t Save Us From The Flames, both of which fit very well stylistically with the Graveyard Girl video.
