sebastien and the morning-after mansion

my review of kilometer on Resident Advisor

Fiona Apple - Criminal

One can't help but be charmed by the video, which seeks the man awake in a lovely house full of equally lovely pantless nymphs. Soph reminded me that it's alot like the video for Criminal by Fiona Apple. Although you'll note the gender divide - fiona: "oh my god, what did I do last night?" sebastien: "undie babes in my house again, oh well." 

Ridin' High Podcast 12.23.08: Night Plane

just in time for christmas, it's the darkest ridin' high podcast yet, the soundtrack to fiercely frozen streets during the longest night of the year. featuring a new solo track by the singer from the knife, a special kanye remix, and for closers, a balearic cover of metallica. dark and shadowy, yes, but running the gamut from steel-edged midnight horror to smoothed-out twilight grooves.

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file under: moody machines and paranoid androids

download link

track list

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excellent swoon - dear scott

fever ray - if I had a heart

eno, moebelius & roedelius - the belldog

woolfy vs. projections - return of starlight (invisible conga people remix)

night plane - walls of stone

lawrence - miles

anthony rother - welcome to my laboratory

ssion - clown (glass candy remix)

kanye west - welcome to heartbreak (night plane remix)

nine inch nails - down in it

motor city drum ensemble - stripped down

killing joke - almost red

honey bane - guilty (jd twitch edit)

leda - endless race

tiedye - nothing else matters

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if i had a heart: a new solo track by the singer from the knife, singing the tin man's solitary 3am lament.

the belldog: one of my favorite eno vocals tracks, a collab with cluster. a haunting interlude about technology and transformation. because you see, there are two kinds of art, the kind that tells humanity about itself, and the kind that reminds humanity that it is actually at its core something other than itself, that the essence of the human is inhuman.

walls of stone: inspired by a late night trek through the financial district, with ghostly facades of financial institutions staring back at me. 

clown (glass candy remix): cool remix by johnny jewel, nicely italo with good vocal line. 

welcome to the heartbreak (night plane remix): my detroit version. every piece of art has two parts, it has itself, and it has that penumbra of possibilities around it that were never realized, but that glow like a halo. it's the dj's job to capture and engage with this halo, like those old photographs that claimed to capture a person's aura around them. in a good mix, the halos from two songs, when placed together, appear to be of matching colors. that's how I feel about placing kanye next to nin. In other words, if you think about it, 808's and Heartbreak = Pretty Hate Machine. enough said. the move from kanye's crying robot to trent's screech is really satisfying.

guilty (jd twitch edit): another of optimo's awesome punk edits. This is some more echoe-y postpunk with sexy girl gasps. 

endless race: much sought-after cosmic disco track by one of the dudes from tangerine dream. far-out twisting outer-space acid synth with ghostly girls riding high. the guys from bumrocks put this on their new el bum comp. 

nothing else matters: lars, james and crew set off towards the sun as it disappears over the ocean.

Serge Santiago / Patrick Cowley

Another italo-disco meltdown from Serge Santiago, courtesy of XLR8R

Tracklist:

01 Intro
02 Boytronic "Bryllyant"
03 Ruede Hagelstein "The Modest Theme"
04 Kebekelektrik "Journey into Love (Disco Mix)"
05 Patrick Cowley "Mindwarp"
06 Rinder & Lewis "Wiles and the Hand Jive (Serge Santiago Edit)"
07 Droid "The Force (Serge Santiago Mix)"
08 Boo Williams "Snare Tappin"
09 Kebekelektrik "War Dance"
10 Mr. Flagio "Take a Chance"
11 Ray Connection "Replay (Hampus Drake Edit)"

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Patrick Cowley - Mindwarp (Remix)

Serge's mix contains a track I've been meaning to post for a while - the title jam to Patrick Cowley's third and final record Mind Warp (1982). Cowley is one of the visioniary producers of disco - he was reponsible for the 15 min+ extended mix of Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" which remains one of the cornerstones of electronic dance beats.  Cowley passed away from AIDS complications at the age of 32, and this album, recorded near the end of his life, supposedly reflects an increasing sense of detachment, alienation and delirium that Cowley felt in his condition. I provide here the album's remix version, which is very trippy electronic disco, and features a really fantastic use of Casio dog barks. 

Lyrics:

Mindwarp! 

Mindwarp!

Mindwarp!

DISCONET PROGRAM SERVICE

Lama - Love Is On the Rocks (Disconet Remix)

Serge Santiago / on myspace

Serge Santiago is a London-based DJ. He used to be in Radio Slave. What's Radio Slave? Radio Slave is techno, it used to be a duo but now it's just Matt Edwards, who is also one-half of Quiet Village. Serge loves Italo disco, which in the history of dance music is the experimental turning point between disco and house, the point where dance music becomes electronic, but in a wild, hairy, very bearded mutation, like the part in "Metropolis" when the wizard dude makes a robot woman. 

Part from "Metropolis" Where Wizard Dude Makes a Robot Woman

So Serge loves italo re-edits, which I mean, who doesn't, really? One of his recent cuts is a re-working of "Love is on the Rocks" by Lama, a classic early-80s italo rarity. Do I have to mention that it's really good? Actually, I'll say this to you: if you don't know what 'italo disco' is, this is a smashing example. It's glitzy but spare, cheesily up-lifting, with echoey synths. It's about dancing silvery robots with lips and hips. If you were to have a conversation with a beardo master about rare synth-disco awesomeness, you could easily glide through it solely by saying "oh yeah, of course, 'love is on the rocks' by lama.' 

In doing research for a review of Serge's latest edit 12", I found out that there's another remix of this track, from back in the day, by an organization known only as DISCONET. 

It seems that Disconet was a subscription-based DJ service in the 70s-80s which would provide its customers with monthly LP compilations featuring exclusive remixes and medleys. I offer here some further images and choice quotes from djsportal.com concerning DISCONET.

"DISCONET was part of a New York based company called Sugarscoop - created as subscription program service with professionally selected and mixed disco music for discotheque DJs, mobile discos and radio stations. Program content was selected by DISCONET DJs from new disco releases made available by Record Companies which have licensed DISCONET to provide the service.

DISCONET is called as the "Granddaddy" of all remix services and provided mixed/segued DJ dance sets, not only to make the DJs job a little bit easier, but to expose club goers to new music. The DJs spinning at the height of the disco era were given access to a new creative tool - a different interpretation of current dance tunes to wow club goers."

DISCONET was invented by THIS MAN, MIKE WILKINSON, aka CAPTAIN MIKE

"During its second year, Disconet added more remixes and medleys by popular DJ's like: Bobby Viteritti, John "Jellybean" Benitez and Raul A. Rodriguez. The third year highlighted the first productions by Bill Motley & Trip Ringwald, who later start Moby Dick Records of Boys Town Gang fame. The first "Disconet Top Tune Medley" by John Matarazzo & Mike Arato was released as well: they produced "Top Tune Medleys" from 1979 to 1985 with the exception of 1982's Casey Jones' medley.

'Volume 3, Program 7' included the infamous Patrick Cowley's mix of Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" lasting 15:45 minutes, which was issued after Patrick's death in November 1982 by Casablanca Records."

As mentioned, these quotes are all from DJSPORTAL.COM, which is run by an erstwhile Polish music critic and enthusiast, the proprietor of a number of disco-history prorjects such as DISCO AID: "I would simply like to create special fund to help discotheque pioneers whose are

broke and need economical / life help."

for more info see: http://www.djsportal.com/en/pioneer/index.php?id=disconet

List of every Disconet release, including the respective "DJ NEWS" update for each:http://www.hotdiscomix.de/remix_services/disconet/mwdn0307djnews.htm