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)

025. Rex The Dog - Prototype (Casio Remix)

Despite the frequent ludditisms which bleed into my posts on this blog, not everything about the digital age and record collecting is so bad. Globalisation provides us with one of the more exciting aspects. To date I’ve purchased records online from: Ireland, America, Belgium, Holland, and now Switzerland. You can see evidence of this in the photos. The fact that I’m buying a record from a British producer from someone in mainland Europe for less, postage included, than it would cost to buy and receive the same item from sellers in my own kingdom serves to highlight both the state of the economy and the ridiculously overpriced postal system we are forced to endure.

Leaving that aside for the moment, despite Prototype being my all time favourite Rex The Dog track, for this I decided to go for the B side. It’s a version which uses only the Casio CZ-320S synthesizer, without any additional production. Those of you lucky enough to own said synth can download the memory tape data stream to play with at home. While the A side will always remain a firm favourite, possibly even making it into my all time favourite records, the B side is a nice oddity. When an oddity is connected to a favourite like this, it’s almost criminal not to have it in the collection.

Rex The Dog - Prototype (Casio Remix)
[Hundehaus : HUND001S]
(2005)

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