040. M&S pres. The Girl Next Door – Salsoul Nugget (If You Wanna) (M&S Extended Vocal)

The other day I was messing around online, trying to find info about a track off the legendary disco label, Salsoul. Not before long I was listening to youtube videos when I stumbled across Double Exposure’s Everyman. A handful of neurons in the deepest recess of my brain started to tingle in recognition of the tune; I recognised the sample. It took me a full day to remember the tune.

Back in 2001, a funky filtered disco sampling house number hit the charts and stayed at the business end for weeks on end. Cutting elements from both Double Exposure and Loletta Holliway, M&S’s Salsoul Nugget provided an excellent example of how sampling could, and should, be done. The promo brought desperate elements from differing sources to create something new. However, with its success and crossover it was felt that an additional vocal should be added to give commercial appeal. Generally, attempting this manoeuvre offers a poor finished product, but in this case the vocals really add something extra to the track.

For some reason though, its massive success failed to translate to any kind of long term classic status. I do wonder if this track was dropped would the floor remember it? Even if they don’t, surely its own production merits can carry it to a new audience? There’s only one way to find out.

M&S pres. The Girl Next Door – Salsoul Nugget (If You Wanna) (M&S Extended Vocal) by dcp84

M&S pres. The Girl Next Door - Salsoul Nugget (If U Wanna) (M&S Extended Vocal)
[FFRR : FXXDJ 393]
(2001)

Discogs: £6.50

039. Ghost Dance - Gathering Dust

As the leaves turn delightfully to myriad shades of red, orange and yellow, my running routes begin to feel extensively barren, no longer bulked out with a fleshy green padding. This annual transformation also affects my musical purchasing and playing habits too. As the days get shorter and nights become longer, the techno gets more mechanical, looped and harder, trance becomes deeper, hypnotising but with an uncomfortable edge, all the while 80s post-punk and goth storm up the playlists.

Gathering Dust is the latest purchase in the latter category. Radiating with eyeliner and big haired charm, Ghost Dance dropped into existence during the deepest darkest depths of 1985 when Anne-Marie Hurst (née Skeletal Family), and Gary Marx (née The Sisters of Mercy) got together to write some tunes after leaving their respective bands. The history of their journey can be heard clearly throughout the LP. Expect drum machine rhythms, twangly reverbed lead guitar lines, and lots of lead like work with the bass guitar. In retrospect, this almost seems generic and clichéd, but at the time this was “the” sound to have. I only wish my own musical talents could craft something similar.

Gathering Dust was a compilation LP, collating the bands collected material thus far. Sadly though, this was to mark a shift in Ghost Dance’s sound. Much like The Banshees and The Cure, by the 90’s their releases became markedly more mainstream and pop oriented.

Anne-Marie Hurst, of whom I can’t quite decide if she’s mega-hot or not, though will give the benefit of the doubt, is apparently back in the musical game. With a new line up, she will be performing both Skeletal Family and Ghost Dance tracks with some new ones thrown in for good measure. You can find out some more info here, on her myspace. Be sure to check out the youtube video of a Deeper Blue, she still sounds fantastic, her voice aging very well. I’d be very tempted, but my bank manger is less than supportive, not to mention the fact that I now know how far up the M1 Bradford really is.

Plus it's on my birthday, and will be celebrating in kind.

Ghost Dance - A Deeper Blue by dcp84

Ghost Dance – Gathering Dust: A Deeper Blue
[Karbon : KAR XL303]
(1987)

Discogs: €20.80

038. Woof Woof!

Rex The Dog Season #1 T's
(2009)

www.rexthedog.net: £ 36.40

037. The Timelords - Doctorin' The Tardis

This year’s carboot season well and truly slipped my mind. Driving to work on Firday I suddenly noticed the sign for the last bootsale of the year. Aye carumba! As I rocked up late in the closing hour, just as everyone was packing away I though how this was an apt metaphor for my carboot attitude this year.

Idiot record collectors may scoff at the idea of hunting at these events, but really they can be gold mines. When speaking face to face you can strike deals and haggle to increase the value for money factor. Not to mention the joys of wandering around with a nice cold can of DC in the summer sun, trying to figure out how on earth anyone in their right mind hopes to sell an old TV remote for a set that’s probably older than you are.

If you’re after a mint condition first pressing Beatles LP for under a fiver, you’re probably going to be out of luck at a carboot sale, but if you fancy bulking out your collection with good quality mainstream staples at a reasonable cost, it really is the place to go. Charity shops generally have a good selection, but with vastly inflated prices. This is of course fair; I’d never begrudge the starving children of Africa or little Johnny getting a nice bed in a hospice. Online, prices have become staggeringly expensive and artificially inflated way beyond the actual value of items.

Today’s purchase is a good example. I paid 50p for what would be classed as a sleeve G to VG, media VG to VG+. On discogs you’d be looking to pay around £2.50 for a similarly classed item, ignoring of course postage and packing. If I was a capitalist, I’d surely sell this one on and make a tidy profit. Thankfully I’m not.

I’m slightly reticent to blog about the KLF, the masterminds behind this track. With such a rich and interesting history behind them, and the countless essays already written about them, a few words scratched in haste in the afternoon sun can hardly penetrate the depth of such an infamous and influential act. So, let’s just keep things brief. While many of my generation, and especially those of the current generation, may dismiss the KLF as flagrant commercial pirates, pillaging the charts for all they are worth, you really cannot deny they played the system with aplomb and always kept one step ahead of the game.

For my money, they turned a mirror at the burgeoning celebrity pop chart world of the 1980s, analysing what they were presented with and extracting any utility laden elements and using it to their own ends. Yet, at the same time they weren’t swallowed by pop culture maschine. They managed to retained an esoteric element of charm and distinction, and struck at the heart of the culture while remaining somewhat on the fringes. They had a post-modern irony to them, that what they were doing was blatantly uncool, but because they recognised that fact and had constructed another layer of identity around this fact they suddenly became incredibly cool. Of course, this was in a way that if you actually acknowledged this cool, it would instantly become uncool. Whoops, I guess they’re uncool again now. Then again, it’s been years, I’m sure they won’t mind me rumbling them this late in the game.

The Timelords - Doctorin' The Tardis (Minimal) by dcp84

The Timelords – Doctorin’ The Tardis (Minimal)
[KLF Communications : KLF 003T]
(1988)

Tetsworth Carboot Sale: £0.50

036. Tunespotting In Joburg

By no small coincidence, good record collectors also tend to be good tunespotters. Admittedly, it does verge on the unhealthy side of obsessive compulsive, but you generally like to know which tunes samples what, can memorise your favourite DJ’s best playlists, absolutely love tune ids, and can usually recognise a song in a club before anyone else, even if it is still just from the kick and hi hat which is barely mixed in. By and large, this makes you think you seem uber-cool when you state with authority, ‘I bet he’ll play so an so next’. Of course, in retrospect, you’re probably not.

After going to see District 9, a superb piece of dystopian political commentary, I checked out the short on which it was based, Alive In Joburg. About halfway though my ears jumped to attention, and within an instant I’d got the sample, Matt Darey’s Possessed. Much to the detriment of the producers, this was not acknowledged in the credits. Once again, Matt Darey retains the award for most under rated and ignored producers in electronic music.

Possessed is awesomely energetic dark and brooding trance number. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t get picked up by all the major DJs despite its superb atmosphere. So, in lieu of any credits, I thought I’d dig out the vinyl and share it here. Shame my pressing sounds like it’s been mastered in a wheelie bin though.

Matt Darey pres. Lost Tribe - Possessed by dcp84

Matt Darey pres. Lost Tribe – Possessed
[Darey Products: DAREY002]
(2004)

Alive In Joburg
Neill Blomkamp
(2005)

035. The Merry Thoughts - Psychocult

You really know when you’ve fallen for a genre when you start buying outside the cannon. Musos will generally be able to recognise the big hitters in any given popular style, but it’s only when you begin to fly under the radar that you start getting to the exciting stuff.

Enter The Merry Thoughts. Unmistakably, they are heavily modelled on the tried, tested and thoroughly approved Eldrichian industrial groove machine template. Arkham, the band’s front man even does a passable imitation of Von E’s vocals. This leaves us with the obvious problem; are the Merry Thoughts not just a blatant Sisters of Mercy clone?

I’ll let you decide, but keep in mind the following. Vision Thing, the most contemporary to Psychocult, is by far the worst of the three albums. The energy and vibrancy found in much of the Sisters’ back catalogue was only tapped to small degrees in comparison to its lineage. This lack of desire is certainly not a charge that can be levelled at The Merry Thoughts. In any case, we haven’t had a Sisters offering since 1993, is it really such a crime to head elsewhere when we can find something which is so sonically pleasing? Perhaps I’m being generous, but I’m inclined to say that here, imitation is the sincerest flattery.

Psychocult was the final album of a two album back catalogue, and had an all together darker, more cohesive sound than the first offering, yet still maintaining a pleasing balance between synth, guitar and esoteric lyricism. We Love To is by far and away the standout track; an up-tempo, dancefloor friendly bum shaker of a track.

The moral of this story? Never judge a book by its cover. Just because they wear black in excessive quantities doesn’t mean they can’t provide a monstrously danceable tune when they want to.

The Merry Thoughts - We Love To by dcp84

The Merry Thoughts – Psychocult
[Oblivion: SPV 085-61392]
(1996)

Discogs: €10.50

034. Mauro Picotto & Riccardo Ferri - Taotek EP

Picotto is quite the chameleon, subtly altering his sound to match the backgrounds of popular electronic music. An appropriate parallel given he had a thing for reptiles, naming three singles after various types (Lizard, Iguana and Komodo if you’re interested).

Before 1999, Picotto was relatively unknown outside his Italian homeland. Just as trance was kicking off big style, Lizard - a euphorically laden yet also hard number - hit. Come 2000 Picotto started playing gigs in the UK. As Hard House was the in thing, his sets reflected this. Then, by the tail end of 2000 when everyone realised that as good as the Juno hoover sound was it had already been done to death years ago, his sound morphed in to a mishmash between the realms of Trance, Techno and Hard House.

The big question at the time was, ‘is Picotto techno?’ The answer, like most things in life, was a delightful shade of grey: yes he was, but no he wasn’t. While tracks like Iguana and Save A Soul were clearly chart trance nonsense, others such as Taub, Verdi and Strum Und Drang were much harder to place, sharing from both the trance and techno list of production values. Further fuel stoked the fires of confusion when Picotto would end up spinning all out techno belters such as Gabry Fasano - Logarithm.

No surprise then to hear that around this time Tech-Trance was starting to really establish its self as a legitimate and popular sub-genre. It kept true to trance’s techno roots, but at the same time embracing a less tune-spotter, mainstream friendly format. In the end a modus vivendi was reached; Picotto was Italian Techno. The elitists could be happy their uber-cool and way better than you genre wasn’t ‘poisoned’, while the non-elitists could pretend that they were elitists listening to real techno.

True to form though, as people started switching off from tech-trance and rediscovering what real techno was about Picotto once more made a change, this time to full on techno belters, at which point we get Taotek. While the elitists will no doubt say it’s not techno, frankly they’re wrong, and are just put off by the itinerary of Picotto’s musical travels. Still, there is something inherently commercial and calculated behind it which leaves a sickly sweet taste in the mouth; it tastes good, but too much is bad for you and in the end you’ll just end up regretting it.

And guess what? For the last few years he’s been playing minimal too. Unless you’ve been living beyond the reaches of civilisation, you’d not need a degree to work out that the cool underground sound of the moment is, you guessed it, minimal. So, the more important question which should be asked is not, ‘is Picotto techno?’ but, ‘is Picotto a trend-setter, ahead of the pack in the musical development stakes, or is Picotto a shameless bandwagon jumper, hopping onto “the next big thing” to keep the euros rolling in?’

In the end, I don’t really know. As a self-proclaimed techno elitist on the one hand I want to say bandwagon. Yet on the other hand, with admiration for pop sensibility, he’s clearly an astute individual who has a knack for seeing which way the wind blows. Ultimately, all I can say is that from time to time it’s ok to give into those sickly sweet cravings…just don’t get fat.

Mauro Picotto & Riccardo Ferri - Taotek EP by dcp84

Mauro Picotto & Riccardo Ferri - Taotek EP: Taotek
[Alchemy: ALC004]
(2004)

Discogs: £6.00