Records in 2013

ALBUMS

Alberich - Machine Gun Nest Cassette Works Volume 0



Authentic modern industrial delivered with an intensity rarely captured in music. Two of the tracks already appeared on his Psychology of Love LP but they are two of the best tunes ever released on Hospital Productions. Absolutely essential. Play loud. "Album of the year" by a long shot.


Georgia - Asemic Club

Georgia ASEMIC CLUB: Needle Teaser from Georgia on Vimeo.

An (other)worldly collection of instrumentals presented as a well conceptualized LP on one piece of vinyl. (There were too many unwarranted double LPs this year so it's nice to have a record to put on and not have to get up every ten minutes). There's a healthy variety of sound sources here; guitars, drums, rhodes, odd field recordings- the closest comparison I can come up with is later period Sun City Girls. For me, this is an essential companion to all the heavy recordings mentioned elsewhere in this piece. Comes with an amazing B&W newspaper poster.

Felix K - Flowers Of Destruction



Drum&Bass reinvented for 2013. A record full of properly psychedelic atmospherics and nasty dubbed out rhythms. Buy this 3x12" from his label Hidden Hawaii while you still can.


FFH - Make Them Understand



Raw savagery from FFH. Extreme noise mixed with poetic lyrics about bad things. If you like power electronics or angry musics of any sort find this and play it as loud as you can. They only made 114 copies but as of this writing there's a few for relatively cheap online.


Alexander Lewis - A Luminous Veil



Another amazing year for Blackest Ever Black. I didn't have enough money to buy everything they released though I did mange to acquire a few and this is my favorite of the bunch. There is a spontaneity to the arpeggiated synth blasts of noise that I find very listenable and each subsequent listen proves more rewarding. And, of course, the Cuts Hands stuff on BEB and Downwards is essential listening. The Gnod tape was great too.

Other LPs worth mentioning:

Nurse With Wound - Xerography
Nurse With Wound - Silver Bromide
Virile Games - Wounded Laurel
Vakula - You've Never Been To Konotop
Pharaohs - Replicant Moods
Factory Floor - Factory Floor


SINGLES

Paula Temple - Colonized



My favorite track of the year. Exciting, engaging, relevant techno. Temple is taking the form and doing something new with it. The Perc remix is a bit boring but the other two songs are mind blowing. The live sets she uploads to Soundcloud were my soundtrack to driving around Los Angeles this year.


Joe Claussell - Project Residue Part 1: Eno (Melodic Dub)



We are two releases deep into Joe's new series and they are both outstanding. The Melodic dub of Eno is the most techno track I've heard him make in a long time and the second 12", Underground Battle in Babylon, is an epic 16 min piano soundscape. You can get both these stamped 12s dirt cheap direct from his label. Timeless music.


Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement - Refuges From Black Magic 



This mix of rainforest recordings and dark ambient sounds was the perfect warm up to every set I DJed this year. It's also really great home listening. This was by far the best RSE release this year, the sound quality is much higher than the two Hospital LPs. The Bed of Nails 12" is nice but not quite as nuanced as this. It's probably the best thing Dominick Fernow made this year, though Prurient's near total conversion to dance music, Through the Window, was interesting as well. Also, When You Are Crawling by Vatican Shadow is the the best stuff from that alias since his classic debut on Bed of Nails.


Aquarian Foundation - Mystery Track from Silent Teaching EP



Great year for Brian Not Brian's Going Good label out of Brixton. All three releases thus far have been solid. The record pictured is by the Vancouver, Canada group Aquarian Foundation- the 12" on their own Mood Hut records is excellent too. The newest Going Good record is equally as strong- Anom Virus's lengthy EP is all acid squelching and lush pad work.


Gorgon Sound - 2x12"



Bristols' Young Echo collective put out a lot of strong material this year, my favorite was probably this: Kahn & Neek's grime influenced dub project Gorgon Sound. Four monstrous dubs that sound incredible on a proper sound system. The Dubkasm mixes are dope too. Along a similar line, the annual Kang Super Sound 7" on Sex Tag Amfibia is worth looking into as well.


Rrose - Waterfall (Birth)



Crazy tripped out techno with amazing tension. A very serious track on a proper system.


Also...
Jay Daniel - No Love Lost
Oake - Nihnin Ned Bargund
Objekt #3
Joey Anderson - Above The Cherry Moon and Sky's Blessings
Valentina - Wolves
Romanonthy - Ministry of Love (Andre Crom Rework)
Dusky - Nobody Else
White Material - Problems
Zsou vs The Velvet Season & the Hearts of Gold - Wild Honeyz

The Year in Music

In light of there not being much content on this site lately I have compiled a list of my top ten tracks of 2011. These are vinyl singles only- no album tracks. They are all dancefloor records made to be heard on a club system so don’t bother listening on computer speakers. Click the title of the song for a link to purchase.

Midland – Through Motion. A beautifully executed piece of modern big room garage that I kept coming back to all year.



Blawan – Vibe Decorium. Everything this guy has done this year has been fantastic (Getting Me Down, Peaches, the Karenn records) but this slice of industrial techno is particularly heavy.



Mosca – Bax. Anthem alert. This massive club tune manages to incorporate everything great about UK dance music within the last ten years. Also a very fun record to play out and mix with, especially pitched down a bit.



Factory Floor – Two Different Ways. Both tracks on this release, as well as the Optimo mix of Real Love earlier this year, are totally amazing pieces of modern industrial dance music. FF have to be one of the most interesting and exciting bands out there right now.



Crazy P – Beatbox (Breach Remix) . I’m not familiar with Ben Westbeech’s pop music (apparently popular in the UK) but his work under his Breach guise is some of the freshest music out there. Last years single Fatherless was an anthem and its B side Man Up was rinsed at every gig I played this year. Here he takes a mediocre Crazy P track and turns it into a bass heavy piano house epic. A masterclass in remixing.



Joe Goddard – Gabriel. The original and dub are amazingly well crafted songs but it’s the Seiji remix that really moves floors. That bassline is serious buisness. Also on the remix 12" is the Compound One mix- it has a nice old school UKG sound to it.



Slava – Dreaming Tiger. A really unique record that grew on me throughout the year. I can only describe as some sort of primitive Balearic psychedelia. (i could only find the live version online)



Joy O – Jels. Joy O is unstoppable. This take on 90’s style house is straightforward and devastatingly heavy. Out of the six records he has released there hasn’t been one song that isn’t completely awesome. One of the most consistent producers out there.



Levon Vincent – Impression of a Rainstorm. All three tracks on this EP are equally as good. Thoughtful, epic, raw late night techno. And the B2 track is a nice throwback to early tracky house like Bluemoon productions. Essential record.



Being Borings - Love House of Love. A deep and funky house cut on Crue-L Records from Tokyo. I think this is a new project by Kenji Takimi/Luger E-Go but I’m not 100% sure.

Pacific Horizons 12"

The second Potion Lord affiliated record has been released. Two new songs wrapped in a sleeve featuring a painting by Jay Nelson. The first piece is The Forest Electric and, according to Piccadilly Records, is "hinting at that mid - late 70s dreamy soft rock sound." The second is Jack Parsons' Laboratory. A tune that the Spanish website Counting 9 describes as "hypnotic inner movement from the triangular form that warns you about the flood of feelings of this more acoustic piece... MAGIC AND SPECIAL." The Japanese record shop JetSet sums up the release as "chivalrous spirit Balearic fore the sorrow" So there you go.

You can buy the vinyl here in the USA and at various shops in the rest of world...

Or the MP3 or WAV files are for sale dirt cheap here.

Thank you for your support.

Ethereal Beat - Underboard (Remix)

Here we have an absolutely beautiful Italian obscurity from 1985. This is the remix version, there is another version called Underboard (Samba Olec) which sounds almost identical. I think the only difference is this version is a little longer with a more pronounced kick drum. There is little to no information about Ethereal Beat online so I don't have much to write other than this song is friggin' awesome. Enjoy.

Ethereal Beat - Underboard (Remix)

MIke Francis - Survivor

Here is a bit of Italian Balearic music courtesy of Mike Francis aka Francesco Puccioni.
It was a big hit over there in 1984. Enjoy.

Mike Francis - Survivor

Balearic Vol. 1

A mix inspired by the musics of The White Island, Ibiza, in the 1980's. Mixed by James, February 2010.

Balearic Mix

Pacific Horizons

The first P-Lord affiliated record has been released. After working on the music and figuring out distribution for the last year it is finally hitting the streets. Here is what the London record shop Phonica has to say about it: "Pacific Horizons is a new band straight out of Los Angeles and this is their first release. Featuring a lush screen-printed and individually numbered cover (just 200 of these 12's) - the chaps definitely know what they're doing. On to the music though. The a-side "Universal Horizons", is a laid-back epic that's got 'balearic' written all over it and a psychedelic soaring guitar lead designed for hedonistic sunrises by the beach. On the flip, "The Amulet" ups the ante on the general balearic-ness of the record. A slowly-building journey into guitar-penned mysticism."

Hear samples and buy it here.

or here.

New Mixes!

P-Lords Music Mix #7 & 8. Mixed by Ketamine Brothers.

The first one is mostly disco, house, and punk. Mixed late night/early morning November 26.

Here it is.

The second was recorded even deeper into the same night after already DJing for 12 hours... Some of our favorite balearic gems. It is more on the recontextualized 80's obscurities and pop side of the term than tropical Ibiza jams like our last one.

And here it is.

Email or comment with track questions if you have them...

I Can Hear Your Heartbeat

A big hit around here these days, I Can Hear Your Heartbeat by Chris Rea:

Adriano Celentano

Check this out. Prisencolinensinainciusol by Adriano Celentano is an Italian club tune that predates balearic and italo disco. It was somewhat of a cult classic on the dancefloor in the 70's. The language he sings in is nonsense-totally made up. The tune is currently being re-edited and re-released by Greg Wilson.

P-Lords Music Mix #5: Pacific Sunsets

The Brothers K present a mellow harp and guitar led tribute to sunsets worldwide. Ibiza chill out, Swiss new age, French spagetti western, and nu-balearic beats all meet here.

Pacific Sunsets Mix

P-Lords Music Mix #4: Donny Don

Do you like to have your mind blown?
I do.
Listen to this mix.
It has been two years since DJ Donny Don has put his wax on the tables. He has been retired in the rainforest of Hawaii for years. He recently resurfaced and dropped this mix on us. Unbelievably, the records you hear here were scored at the Keeau dump in Puna, Hawaii. From the jungle to the city, this is a personal note to the life he loves.

P-Lords Music Mix: Fall Edition

Here is a mix I recorded tonight. This one is the result of a lot of research, digging and hunting for the proper versions on vinyl, and trying out the tunes during sets. These are songs about love. I think you'll dig it.

Check it out.

The Source feat. Candi Staton - You Got The Love
Louis - Pink Footpath
Kate Bush - Running Up That Hill
Fleetwood Mac - Big Love
Carly Simon - Why
Taana Gardner - Heartbeat
Pat Metheny Group - Barcarole
Art of Noise - Moments In Love
Ooioo - Linglinglee (Kan&K.U.D.O. Mix)
Aphex Twin - 4
Joubert Singers - Stand On The Word
Jocelyn Brown - Somebody Else's Guy
Jorge Ben - Oe Oe Faz O Carro De Boi Na Estrada


I think Frankie would have been stoked on this if he played it loud enough.

11 Balearic Singles from the 1980's

What is balearic music, you ask? It can be a lot of things but essentially it is music that was played by DJ's like Alfredo and Jose Padilla in Ibiza in the 80's and early 90's. Their style was wildly eclectic and helped pioneer downtempo and house music. A lot of balearic music is usually fairly slow, with rolling drum patterns and deep bass lines, with some nice guitar and piano over the top. But it really can be anything that fits a certain mood. Somewhat trippy, poppy, mellow, and funky. Most of these tracks have radio versions and extended versions. Always get the extended mixes if possible. So here are 11 of my favorite classics from the 80's. They have all featured pretty heavily in my DJ sets at one point or another. Click on the title to listen to the song and make sure you hear them through some decent speakers at an appropriate volume.

1. Kate Bush - Running Up That Hill

This is simply one of the best songs ever. It has the classic balearic beat, heavy lyrics, cool chanting, and an amazing guitar riff. Unbeatable.

2. Art of Noise - Moments in Love

This tune is much mellower than a lot of Art of Noise's other work. There are a lot of different versions out there, I included the long 10 minute version that is the centerpiece of their classic album Who's Afraid of the Art of Noise?

3. The Cure - Lullaby

I'm sure you know this tune. So dark and so beautiful. Supposedly it's about being sick from heroin. This is the far superior extended version from the underrated Mixed Up album. Warren says to check out the video and that he lost his virginity to this tune.

4. Flash and the Pan - Midnight Man

I first heard this on a Rub N Tug mix a few years back and it took me a while to track it down on vinyl. Flash and the Pan are two Australian guys that were in the Easybeats, and then produced AC/DC. Angus Young is one of the guys little brother. They made interesting new wave pop in the late 70's and 80's. They have a lot of classic songs like Waiting For A Train and Walking In The Rain. This is the 12" mix of Midnight Man.

5. Tullio De Piscopo - Stop Bajon(Primavera)

This is a party jam. Every time I play this out people start smiling and grooving. There really isn't anything else out there like this. He is an Italian drummer and singer and thats about all I know.

6. Carly Simon - Why

The music is by Chic. You can tell by the skronked out electro groove and the super funky bass. Lyrics and singing by Carly Simon. Its an unusual style for Carly. The B side has an instrumental that is just credited to Chic. The version I posted here is the radio version, not the extended mix that is an Ibiza sunset classic.

7. Chris Rea - On The Beach

Chris Rea is an English songwriter and this was a hit for him in 86. The version I included is Tangoterje(aka Todd Terje)'s Megamix re-edit. He took three different versions and cut them up and put them together. He took out most of the words because the radio version is kind of corny. He vastly improved on the original to make one this one of the Ketamine Brothers favorite records of the past few years.

8. Tina Turner - Whats Love Got To Do With It?

I dont know. I love this song. Super groovy in a very subtle way. The key is to turn the bass way up so you can hear how deep this B line is. Incredibly soulful singing and lyrics from Tina.

9. Jah Wobble, The Edge, Holger Czukay - Hold On To Your Dreams

Francois K produced and wrote this music with Sid Vicious' best friend and bass legand Jah Wobble, U2's The Edge, and Stockhausen student Holger Czukay from Can.
I first heard it when Juan Nunez gave me the amazing 12" re-edit he did on his label Freestyle.
This is the original version from 1983.

10. Kongo Band - Afrikan Man

This is more Italian Disco than anything. The dub version, included here, has some really nice acoustic guitar soloing and tripped out singing. Kongo Band have style. Here is the incredible video for the vocal version. !!!

11. Sade - Hang On To Your Love

Sade has lots of balearic hits like Paradise, Make Some Room, and this one off the classic Diamond Life album. So smooth.