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.

GAIA LIVE MIXES. JAZZANOVA - PART 2

As I'm going through the mixes that I recorded from Gaia Live in 1999, I realize that, in an odd way, after years and years of record diggin' and listening to thousands of albums from different genres and ages, I still couldn't locate the majority of tracks, included there. In their mix, Jazzanova put a lot of rare jazz, that I never heard being played by anybody else. So, besides those exceptional moments that I can't post here (because I still don't know their titles), there were special moments, which actually (as I figured out 3-4 years later) were produced by the collective themselves. Just like this amazing remix, which was definitely one more step towards my love of jazz and Brazilian grooves.

GAIA LIVE MIXES. JAZZANOVA - PART 1

The next mix that I'll be going through is by Jazzanova. Today, this collective of DJ's and producers needs no introduction, but back then, on that warm August night of 1999, this was actually the very first time I heard about them. And this was an exciting introduction, full of not only new, but also old sounds - some kinds of jazz that I never thought even existed. This mix was very much my first step into the Nu Jazz-Future Jazz-Broken Beat perspective, but back then I couldn't imagine where would the following tunes lead me.

I still wonder, how much of the material presented in this mix is originally by the band or its members' various incarnations. However, this opening tune (which in the mix has a slightly different beginning, than the officially released version), was mesmerizing in how it was constantly growing, developing, changing. And then - the chorus with its beautiful vocal sample. Even the low quality of RealAudio dial-up stream couldn't hide its fresh innovative sound. More breathtaking discoveries were yet to come...

GAIA LIVE MIXES. MASTERS AT WORK - PART 8

Alright, after two months of tune dropping, I guess, it's about time to recall the last tune from Masters at Work mix, before we move on to the next one (there was 4 in total, including the Plaid mix, which I just don't have anymore).

Like you have already realized from all the previous posts, this mix was a nice guide through Hip Hop's rare samples, future classics and musical foundations. And "It's Just Begun" was only half-way through it, exploding with delayed "begun-gun-gun-gun-gun..." into a house beat. "A house beat?" Well, yes. It was the summer of 1999 and the disco-house fever was at its ultimate peak. Hits like "King of My Castle", "Feeling For You", "Music Sounds Better with You", "Turn Around", "Canned Heat", "Groovejet", "Sing It Back (Remix)" were ruling the charts and the dancefloors of the world. And funk groove that was in the backbone of these tunes was hypnotizing me.

But this particular tune was different: very well arranged, continuously developing  between parts, it was a more "true" (of sorts) interpretation of the long abandoned genre. I didn't know yet, that this was a remix of a cover of the song from that era. But after all these years I can tell, that it gives a lot of justice to the original.

This will probably be nearly the only house tune in my blog, but hell yeah, it has an undeniable place in my musical biography.

P. S. From next week, I'll be going through the Jazzanova live/mix, so stay tuned. :)

GAIA LIVE MIXES. MASTERS AT WORK - PART 7

7 is a lucky number and it relates to a tune that is not just an ultimate classic. Back then, on that sleepless night in the summer of 1999, when I heard this mix for the first time and the infectious bass groove of Liquid Liquid's "Cavern" exploded into this stabbing horns intro - this was a moment of revelation. I knew exactly WHAT begun with this tune for me. All my break digging and funk collecting, all of my favorite types of grooves and all the music that I'm DJ'ing today - all comes down to this single but epic tune.

GAIA LIVE MIXES. MASTERS AT WORK - PART 6

Ok, I'm back after a short break. Can't wait to move on to the next mix, but there are still couple of significant tunes to point out of MAW one.
Today's tune is yet another early 80's New York b-boy classic and in the mix it was presented in the classic b-boy style - juggling the first few bars of the tune back and forth for about 2 minutes. No need to explain how infectious this post-punk bass-line is. This is what I call "perfect urban groove".

GAIA LIVE MIXES. MASTERS AT WORK - PART 5

The next tune that I remember from that mix was this classic. I recognized the sample in the beginning, as I heard it on various Hip Hop records, but I didn't know yet that for years and years this tune was mistakenly played by generations of DJ's at 33 1/3 rpm instead of 45 - just like it's presented here. However, as I look back, I can clearly see, how this tune was at the beginning of the tiny route that lead me to all the switched-on psychedelic grooves that I've been into recently.

GAIA LIVE MIXES. MASTERS AT WORK - PART 4

As I'm going further through recalling all those tunes that I heard for the first time that hot summer night on 1999, I realize that after all this was just a 1+ hour mix, but every tune, every short segment on it was an exciting discovery. And it's amazing how the influence of these tunes extended further in my life.

I already had my favorite kind of hip hop - Shadow, Vadim, Cam, Krush, Blackalicious, Wiseguys. But when after an array of rare grooves this tune came up, it was a whole new thing - I never heard a rap beat like that before: clean vocal group loop, minimalistic drums and claps and a smooth flow. It was like the purest street beat music.

And again, it would take me a few more years, before I'd discover the names behind this tune...

GAIA LIVE MIXES. MASTERS AT WORK - PART 3

It took me many years until I realized the connection between this bossa tune and one of my favorite rap tunes. But when I first heard it, I still didn't know it was sampled, and it seemed a bit strange (but somehow organically connected) that after the frist two vocal lines of the tune by The Bubble Gum Machine, this tune came up and, unlike 15 different short segments before, they played it ENTIRELY. I was't yet into Brazilian music - I only liked some classic Jobim stuff and liked the way Clifford Gilberto was sampling it. But for many years I was looking for this anonymous tune. Today, after I learned about Tropicalia and the whole following generation of creative artists of the 1970's, classic bossa nova has become less interesting for me, but this song will always remain amongst the few that I really love.

GAIA LIVE MIXES. MASTERS AT WORK - PART 2

Another tune I remember from the beginning of Masters at Work mix is this one. A couple of years later I suddenly heard it covered by a modern band. Another five years later I found the original song on a beautiful pop-sike album. Yet still, the opening of this instrumental easy listening cover twinkles in my head as a memory glimpse of that long August night of 1999.

GAIA LIVE MIXES. MASTERS AT WORK - PART 1

A couple of months ago I recalled a mix by Plaid that was the first streaming mix I heard from the web. Then I discovered the Sly Stone's "If You Want Me To Stay". But the real amount of new discoveries was yet to come, when I reached the website that the Plaid's mix was recorded for - Gaia Live.

It was August of 1999, the internet connection was still dial-up, and the cheapest web-surfing was during the night. Very soon I took a whole night to spend on this website. I connected my stereo-system instead of the speakers and prepared a few cassettes to record some of the sets. The three tapes that I recorded that night became an endless source of inspiration in the following years. Although I never saw the track-lists of these mixes, to this day, many of the tunes I heard there remain my all-time favorites. In the following weeks I'll be recalling some of them.

The first set I recorded was by Masters at Work. I still had no idea, what their importance on the House scene was, but the first part of their mix wasn't about House at all - it was about Hip Hop. It was beginning with an array of short segments of rare original tunes, sampled in Hip Hop. And one of the bright memories to this day was a short piece from the beginning of this beautiful pop-sike song:

Dirty Harry

Today's tune is from one of my favorite Drum'n'Bass albums in 1999. It's interesting that back then I didn't connect this tune to the movie, that I saw in Russian translation about a year earlier. But now I can clearly see, how this tune brought me closer to the sub-genre of 70's action movie soundtracks - from Balxploitation to Euro-crime.

Cassettes show

Sometimes a break is necessary. So, while I'm taking mine (it will last only until the next weekend - I promise), I thought that it would be fair to post here the 1.5 hour cassettes special that I did on Radio Raash Hour about a month ago.

Here it is. Enjoy! :):

And the playlist (including some of the tunes I posted here before, plus two songs that will never appear on YouTube):

01. Amont Tobin - Nightlife
02. Clifford Gilberto Rhythm Combination - Soulbath
03. DJ Cam - Innervisions
04. Tongue - Notion
05. La Yellow 357 - Quelle Sensation Bizarre
06. Takeo Yamashita - Theme From Lupin The 3rd, Version 1 (FPM's Reconstruction Mix)
07. Pizzicato Five - Lesson 3003 (Part1)
08. Neotropic - Vacetious Blooms
09. Sneaker Pimps - Becoming X
10. Gus Gus - Why?
11. Hasta La Fillsta - Believe ('96 Demo)
12. Saint Etienne - Erica America
13. The Cranks - Fairy Tale
14. April March - Sugar
15. Meat Beat Manifesto - Transmission
16. Funki Porcini - I'm Such A Small Thing
17. Depeche Mode - Barrel Of A Gun (Underworld Soft Mix)
18. Everything But the Girl - Before Today
19. Nightmares on Wax - Stars

Underworld

Well, as you already understand, when I arrived to Jerusalem my head was in full B-Boy-style Hip Hop mode... on one hand... and deeply into Drum'n'Bass - on the other... So the developing interest in deep techno and disco-influenced house may sound really odd. And it still remains a mystery to me, because this is the only influence that with a time had no further development. Four-to-the-floor beats simply don't work well for me. But back in 1999 it was still a sort of sensation. Probably - thanks to one particular band and its two key albums of the 90's. We'll talk about the techno aspect of its influence later, but right now I'd like to concentrate on their ambient/downtempo side. This song was like an exciting extension to the "Soft Mix" they did for Depeche Mode (which you already know that I like a lot). Just an amazing ambient song with a simple but deep production:

We're going on air!

I'm glad to announce that tomorrow, after nearly half a year of posts, I'm taking this blog on air through my weekly show on Raash Hour Radio! Yes, this week's "Kaleidoscope" will be presented entirely from my old tape collection, including some of the artists that I've already mentioned here earlier and far beyond that. Here's the Facebook event.

 Important to mention that this cassette special is related to my new article in this month's "handmade" issue of Af Magazine (which is not out yet, but is on its way).

Tuesday, 8.01.2013, 21:30 - 23:00, Jerusalem time. Tune in! :)

If you want me to stay

When we arrived in Jerusalem, I've finally discovered the comfort world of dial-up internet at home (in Minsk I was only going to internet cafes). The night traffic was cheaper, so soon after we connected to the web, I arranged a sleepless night for surfing through music-related websites.

One of the first places I visited that night was Warp Records website. Warp were celebrating their tenth anniversary, so many artists made special their contributions for the web-home. One of those contributions was Plaid's two-part special DJ-mix (naturally for 1999, it was available as a RealAudio stream). The first part was pretty much electronic house'y stuff, which was less interesting for me. But the second part was more in the downtempo/freestyle vein. And I was so amazed by this mix that I even recorded in on a  cassette, like I was already used to do with the FM-radio. Today I hardly remember this mix and I can't even find the tape itself. But I remember clearly how out of the glitchy hip-hop beat suddenly appeared this tune. I already knew this song, since it was covered by Red Hot Chili Peppers, but this version (that I didn't yet know was the original) was just 100 times better!