White Town

August, 1999. My first (very hot!) month in Jerusalem. It's nice having cheap unlimited internet by night, but I'm listening to music on cassettes and CD's mostly. So one day my sister took me out for some music shopping. Our first stop was Tower Records on King George street - a huuuuge store with massive alternative and electronic sections... and not that cheap... so after looking and salivating on all the Warp and Ninja Tune CD's, we went to Shamai street to check out Picadilly Records. Only years later I realized that I saw the legendary store in its last days. This was the final sale and there were stocks upon stocks of CD's everywhere for ridiculous prices! We bought a few items, including the album that my sister bought because of the hit song. To our surprise, the album was very different from that one hit and very soon I was already listening to the album and skipping the hit song each time - it seemed so boring and even "usual", compared to the other songs. One of these songs became my favorite for many years - an ideal heartbreak tune for a romantic 16-year-old indie kid.

GAIA LIVE MIXES. BIG CHILL - PART 10

The Irresistible Force remix flowed into some hypnotizing echoing female vocal chant, which faded into sad chords... a pause... and the soft male voice entered: "Can it be? Do you hear? A new freedom song is ringing...", melting all the feelings gathered throughout this intense 90-minute journey into a melancholic but very hopeful release. Every word was resonating in my head, opening the gates for the coming morning...
A year later, on Sartaba, I heard this first verse again, while staring at the first rays of the rising sun:

Something simple is the key
Only love will set us free...

The long last word and chords dissolved in a long delay, never entering the beat. This is where the tape ended.

GAIA LIVE MIXES. BIG CHILL - PART 9

The mix was traveling further into some jazz-funk tune which dissolved into long bubbling electronic chords and the voice calling: "...there's a message for us... today...". The ambient/downtempo tune was like a catharsis of the journey that this mix was intensely flowing through all of the previous 80 minutes.

I remember, when one year later I went with my class to Sartaba, I was listening to this mix all the way up to the mountain and reached this tune when we were nearly at the top. In the first light of the morning, in the middle of the desert, surrounded by nothing but stones... it touched something very deep inside me... and still does each time I hear it.

GAIA LIVE MIXES. BIG CHILL - PART 8

The mix was proceeding further in the Nu Jazz vein and exploded into an abstract ambient tune, which soon dissolved into "Caprice" by Extended Spirit (which I already posted earlier). The last chord flowed into the epic orchestral syncopes of "An Evening with Hefner (Part 1)" by Hefner (which in an odd way doesn't exist in any stream format anywhere on the web), which was followed by a hypnotizing percussion&vocal chant. And this is how I heard The Last Poets for the first time...

GAIA LIVE MIXES. BIG CHILL - PART 7

After the Groove Armada's tune, the mix was speeding up and entering its upbeat part with some soulful breakbeat, then Latin tunes and further to some early Future Jazz/Broken Beat goodness. This is how I heard even more work by Jazzanova. I wish I could also post the great "Flying High" by P'taah, but it's just unavailable anywhere on the web.

GAIA LIVE MIXES. BIG CHILL - PART 6

Apani B Fly's jazzy rap transcended to an abstract electronic beat, which was followed by the groovy bassline of this remix. It will take another couple of years until I heard the original. But to this day both tracks exist in my mind completely separated from each other, even if the trumpet sample reminds of an undeniable connection between them.

GAIA LIVE MIXES. BIG CHILL - PART 5

Tek 9's tune was followed by a very special rap track. I always had a weak spot for female rappers - ever since The Herbaliser's "Blow Your Headphones", which included plenty of tunes with What What (today - Jean Grae), and this amazing combination of great flow and such beautiful samples just melted my heart out.

GAIA LIVE MIXES. BIG CHILL - PART 4

Oh wow! 3 weeks without any posts! It was exactly the time that I was abroad and also recovering from all that craze. Now, just to excuse the silence, I'll post 3 new tunes at once! Here we go:

DJ Spinna's remix of Nightmares on Wax was starting the hip-hop-influenced segment of the mix. It was followed by a short cut from this great tune. Although they did introduce Jungle to many of its classic samples, and they did remix some of the hip-hop tunes, 4hero were never related to as hip-hop producers. Only years later I realized that both Dego and Marc Mac had a very special approach in beat production, and this tune is a great example.

GAIA LIVE MIXES. BIG CHILL - PART 3

There's not so much I can tell about this particular track, besides that it was in the beginning of the beautiful hip-hop-inspired segment of the mix, full of significant tunes.

GAIA LIVE MIXES. BIG CHILL - PART 2

Following the incredible remix by 4hero, there was this strange tune: a weird breed of jazz with almost arrhythmic crawling drums and deep slow eerie atmosphere and the following exploding brass part. By that moment I was already familiar with the name J. Swinscoe from the Ninja Tune's "FunKungFusion" compilation, but I didn't connect yet between those two pieces. The connection appeared only a couple years later, when I finally heard the entire album, and this long piece in its entire 13-odd-minute-long beauty.
This music was perfect for the empty late night streets of any city that I've seen so far - Jerusalem, Minsk, Saint-Petersburg, Berlin... It was that perfect reflection of a mood of someone walking through the sleeping neighbourhood...

GAIA LIVE MIXES. BIG CHILL - PART 1

After an unplanned week-long break (just too much work going till late every time), I'm back here with the new promised post. Well, series of posts - the third and the longest of the three.

I never knew, who actually did the third mix that I recorded from the Gaia Live stream. On the cassette I wrote simply "Big Chill", but I had no idea yet of what this title actually means. This was probably the best mix of all things downtempo/leftfield/soulful electronica I ever heard, with so many classic tracks (which I found out later) mixed up in a 1.5-hour journey.

One of the first tunes in this mix was this one. I haven't heard the 4hero's "Two Pages" yet and had no idea what revolution in the Drum'n'Bass sound it actually was. It will take me another 4 years to find out, that this was actually their remix. It also took 2 more years until I actually saw "Cowboy Bebop" series. But back then, in the summer of 1999, this was a revelation to me on how live and organic Drum'n'Bass could sound - even more than Adam F or Roni Size.

GAIA LIVE MIXES. JAZZANOVA - PART 3

Actually, Jazzanova's mix was hardly longer than one side of 90-minute cassette, so there is not so many tunes to recall. Well, there was one more Extended Spirit classic, that I really wanted to post, but was very surprised to not find on YouTube. At least I found this amazing soul tune, that was actually closing the set. Just a beautiful late 70's rare groove song - perfect for that early August morning.

From the next post I'll be going through the third mix - the most mysterious, the most exciting and the most packed up with discoveries - the "Big Chill" mix.