life is easy but needs earthing

a selection taken from the chaos that is my records at the moment.. they are on the floor, on shelves, in sleeves and out of sleeves, stacked together plastic to plastic, groove to groove.
got ANOTHER new soundcloud account
fixed my record players again (we are now in mad max territory for these troopers)...
   an easy life by easy now
neon waters - doruk ozlen tribal winds 2002
past and present days - frankie valentine sunshine enterprises 2002
aja majl - ustad sultan khan raimo symphonies 2005
dummer camping - erobique acid jazz 1999
larry heard - missing you (son dexter django version) track mode 2000
crue-l grand orchestra - still be your girl (night dubbing feeling part2) crue-l recordings 1997
phil collins - im not moving virgin 1981
fugitive vesco - fist of facts Helvete Underground Records 1988
Rå Energi (tiaz reconstruction) lugnet 2009
ub40 - nokomo a go go DEP 1984
family - coast to coast electrik soul 1995
rob mello and zaki d - untiled b luxury service 1996
instant house - dub house natural resource 2002
coca sunshine - baikonour melodic 2002

drums always save the day

the other RATCLIFFE things on ATLANTIC JAXX are dope too.....
vut the drums on this are wonderful..

been elsewhere back very soon with stuff...

An excerpt from a tuesday night jam

You know when you go round someones house for some much needed r'n r. 

You have the best intentions of having a civilized evening with a few friends. 

Food, good conversation, mild mid-week drink and drug abuse, all soundtracked by various random, enjoyable funks, folks, pops and crackles?

The wierdness was being saved for later in the evening, so to begin with it was all tasteful electronic beats and pieces, nothing too serious or heavy.

The gentleman jack and the red string thai flowed gently and we eased ourselves into the evening.

I got about an hour or so into the I-Key (you can listen and download below) before our attention spans started to degrade, and the all too familiar messy scenario of putting a record on for 30 seconds or so before snatching it off and replacing it with a 30 second burst of something else, took over the night. 

We veered accross musical genres at breakneck speed like Jeff Mills at a church jumble sale, at one point we were listening to that johnny trunk porno flexi disc lp, while someone was trying to fashion a weed vaporizer out of a lightbulb - the sort of thing 40+ year olds do on a regular basis so im told :(

Fun was had, hangovers were endured and i so wish i hadn't lost my main motor skills and recorded the better points of the evening - ah well there is always next week.

download here

lovelight - fluctuate
chateau marmont - nibiru (beautiful swimmers late night dubbing mix)
goapele - milk & honey (aybee gorilla in trunk slap)
ptaah - everything is naturally free (DK edit)
buki cole - rotation (shannon harris dub)
john talabot - sunshine (ilya santana conceptual version)
nu yorican soul - nervous track (yellow mix)
boom jinx - suncast (rune linbaek mix)
kash - percussion sundance
echoa - wishing well (beatless)
super numeri - the chart

paul winter - song to the mountains

On the hill - a Brian G Morrison selection

download here

Thought i'd bypass January as it sucked.. but for those who care about these things happy new year and all that :)
Part of my new fitness regime is to get this blog updated on a much more regular basis - hopefully!
So for starters here is a super ace late night selection of recent acquisitions, old favourites & lost nuggets from special needs main man, Mr Bobby Hands aka phonica records disco sasquatch Brian Morrison.
This has classic sunset gear gently kneeded into arabic grooves and other funks.
The B word must be utalised here as genres have been gratefully ignored, thus providing me with much fun as i traveled the regents canal today on foot towards an appointment with my trick cyclist.
I know the tracks but mr hands has supplied an altenative listing which is far more fun.
enjoy :)

greek stag - naughty intro
winking krat - under the patio
hardware abuser - desert vibes
children of the gods - draughty
whats her name? - primal rhythm
swedes undercover - plucking
afro friends - dont fall in
mid price soldier - melt up
blind mans wife - sought after
well dressed couple - balham charity shop joint
not kiss - freddies alternative version
whisky breath - some old song
legendary knob twiddler - outro

no limit to my love for this tune.

lesley feist goes the distance on this..



but so does james blake..



what would harry hill say?

condensed energy

as bill hicks once said. "..let there be HOUSE."



download here

emmanuel jar, rise ashen, glenn undergound, woolfy, frisvold & lindbaek, mark e, 1 room apartment, king sporty, steely dan, noel pointer and the mighty bill hicks :)

tracks of my life #8 Chris & Cosey - this is me

Starting with a blast of Coseys cornet (treated of course), this (my favourite) track by C&C, announces its intentions straight away. They aim to seduce you with sharp sonics and then batter you round the head with perverted noise, or do they?
I love how this track is like a school playground taunt, simple and kind of nasty. we listen to coseys words and are already picturing those really sexy (in a 1970's dirty way) soft core snaps of hers.
Trademark icy tones pervade this slice of very dark pop. The beat is intentionally slow, something to hold your loved one on the dancefloorperhaps? For you to collapse in their embrace, as clean electronic pulses soundtrack your twisted love - well thats what I thought of at the time :)
This is the 1st type of music that I called "mine". It definately wasn't what my mum and dad had listened to, it wasn't what my sister had listened to, and it wasn't what my peers were listening to either..
(schools in hackney in the late 70's and early 80's were rocking to reggae, funk and soul)
I worked backwards from this sort of stuff and discovered TG, made those connections between them, punk and new wave and started to build my own listening asthetic. goth and dark humour was beckoning around the corner.
Little did we know that my friends at school would soon be listening to the bastard child of this distinctly white and intentionally(?) souless electronic "pop", cheap electronics would bring together all the tribes and strands of 80's dissenfranchised youth.

download here

oh my lord part 3

Another slice of audio sponge cake with modern blues plus jazzual snares from
MYTHMATICA, followed by a stone cold wierdo classic from the addled minds of HAWKWIND.
12" island electronic jazz funk rareness from the forever young STEVIE WINWOOD into conceptual hiphop in the form of BLOCKHEAD. French cutup coolness from LA FUNK MOB is followed by an example of the modern feeling and LA RAMBLA PERVERSION.
MANNED MISSILES is part of an amazing EP of cutup funk, which also features a corker
from nudisco prince Tal M Klein.
Deepness from sunny Poland and ELTRON JOHN and into the final stretch with this
track from ARTS and CRAFT is featured on the new Walter Gibbons comp,'jungle sounds'
and there is comes with a deep and driven Gibbons remix, here it's more rough and ready and we finish this selection with a barmy record from the 70's,
ADMIRAL FREEBEE which has been sonically overhauled by our favourite cult leader
and freshly greencarded Harvey Bassett.
I'm thinking im gonna start doing these selections like radio shows from now on..
with sparkling banter and all that guff.


download here

oh my lord part 2

download here

we continue this set of selections with the very mighty  dave gruisin , russ gabriel, azuymuth, oneiro, maxxi & zeus, hungry ghost, takako minekawa, masanori ikeda,baricentro, holgar czukay, michael karol and the orb...
more to follow, it might not stop :)

LOVE this

ardour by this man is wonderous.
orchestrations :)

oh my lord part 1

steve miller band - threashold
buffalo daughter - moog stone
liquid liquid - rubbermiro
zombi - night rhytms
dj mochizuki - star libre
give it up for love cover social disco club edit ???
cottam 1b ??
alif tree - aurevoir
mccoy tyner - his blessing
aurora - dancarino estrela

im thinking i may well mean business on these ones :)



download here

evening tune #7 Frankie Valentine - Lepidoptera

Frankie is a hard man to pin down.. is he about drums, percusion and ambience or is he about driving densely layered peak time house music? A Londoner that very rarely plays records in his own city, yet can ram out the mighty Precious Hall in Sapporo and have 1000 punters all wearing cut out frankie valentine masks in tribute (not really,but iv'e always loved the idea) This fella cut his teeth in the soundsysem culture of london in the 70's and 80's and was leading the uk underground rave charge by the end of that decade, yet he was NEVER on the front cover of Muzik or DJ (even though he's definately got the moves and canrock some fine publicity shots). His recorded output is heavyweight with amazing tracks on Balance, Trackmode and Auto. But his relationship with Austrias Sunshine Enterprises, is where his trademark super organic, live house, brazilian rubbed and uber deep sound has evolved. His 1st lp with them is amazing but his 2nd LP (from which this track is taken), WORLD OF WHAT is a long player of outstanding broadness along with a set of covers by our boy DANNY SANGRA and sleeve notes by the mysterious MAGUS (myself and the dread dommamu), that could have bridged that gap into mainstream play. Every track on this lp is ace, but i thought id go for this chilled, string laden soundtracky corker with beautiful tight drums and a distinct oriental feel to let you in on Mr Valentines distinct audio world.

evening tune #6 Dark Comedy - Clavias North

My wife thinks KENNY LARKIN is one of the most beautiful men to have walked this planet.
Kenny makes loves to the camera, in all his press shots he is seriously shiny, oiled up like some shaven musical gladiator or a model in Maxim or some such.
He is also seemingly indesctructable - Kenny took a bullet after a gang banger tried to nick his car outside his yard back in 1994.. and he does stand up comedy..

Kenny Larkin is also the creator of jaw droppingly stunning music, electronic washes of tone that lift you, make the hairs on your arms bristle. motor city rhythms from some futuristic Detroit that exists only in the dreams of  it's somewhat bemused inhabitants. Machine funk that in turn can be directional, cold and hard like chrome swords and yet organic, emotional and thathave chord progressions that really make you cry - check out these tracks by his YENNEK and LARK as examples of how this music can move.

This mans back catalogue simply rules!
Maybe I could supply my top 20 Larkin tracks?..
but then again i could, start getting my copies off the
racks and putting them into the context  of other tunes - kinda like how its supposed to happen?
Here is a stone cold classic from the man on his ART OF TONE label, this track is backed with the equaly amazing PLANKTON and it's on clear vinyl just to up that,  "I bought this in FAT CAT, when it was in a cupboard.." type vibe :)

what can the detroit renaissance man not do?

evening tune #5 Gong - Love is how Y make it

Are GONG a bunch of hippies or a treasure trove of blissed out breaks and grooves?
I reckon, definately Both! :) Just ask DJ Pogo whos a major fan of this little hippy jazz fusion belter.
If like me, your late teens were based on music, art & drugs - not nesseceraly in that order then
a night of hot knives, bucket bongs and ozric tentacles nearly always involved a track or 5 from

this fella DAEVID ALLEN and his bunch of pan european banana baiting loonies. This band truely had the minerals, with STEVE HILLAGE and his glissando guitar and future ambient stylings, jazz drummer par excellance PIERRE MORLAN + many more drug taking musos with serious chops all controlled with humour by aussie ALLEN formerly of SOFTMACHINE - (i think a couple of post Allen and Robert Wyatt space jazz belters from them would go down well whatcha reckon?).
This tune is basically all about the groove that STRIKES like NO OTHER @ 2mins and 43 seconds - it's a mirimba/vibraphone led, funky as fuck corker! Someone with better disco scissors than I, needs to tease this one out into a 8+ minuter because it's TOO short!.. ANYONE?
ANGELS EGG is a very serious lp along with CAMEMBERT ELECTRIQUE , YOU and the wonderful MORLAN led SHAMAL - a quartet of super classic cosmic hippy funkers!
But you knew that already right?
I Love this band so much!! and I don't care who knows.

evening tune #4 Bert Jansch - Life depends on love

Bert Jansch hasn't been well :( let's all send out, our pschic love
and respect out to this man!
One of those guitarists thats spoken about in hushed reverent tones
like John Williams, Richard Thompson, John Renborn, the forever
mighty John Martyn etc.
Iv'e seen Jansch play many times and it's all about subtle stylings
wierd chordings and nifty picking.. He was in Pentangle :)
But we are not here tonight to bang on about balearic folk noodling
we are here to check this track from his first LP - Nicola.

Life depends on love is one of those end of night tunes.. uplifting...
almost northern soul in it's leanings and so very very ace, in these
rather fucked up troubled times.. listen to this and smile, i do.. Often!

evening tune #3 The Pop Group - 11 3 38

The Pop Group have reformed.
OK.. well im not sure what I think of this..The middle aged singer of this
band was always and still is a inspired gobshite :)
Reading some stuff Mark Stewart has said recently, i'm of the opinion,
that the smell of money and oppotunity are in the air.
This group splintered into my all time favourite band and influenced the sound
and mix of my life:) punkfunk, squatjazz, 23 skidoo - blah blah blah, yadda :)

"Y" is one of those lp's that when it came out blew my mind.. angular funk, dub, politics and
the distinct taint of punk. It was like all my pre teenage musical fantasys were there.
Coming from the inner city oasis that was Hackney, Bristol seemed to have that
similar mix. Now all the books have been written and the articles have been read, we know
that they are same place - mind, body, spirit and attitude.
This track is another one of those genius studio creations from the weed addled and uniquely black
british dub fingers, of Dennis Bovell.

Only he could see between the spaces, of this bands groove and plug the gaps with dub pollyfiller.
LOUD, this tune makes you dance and say to yourself WTF?? just as all great tunes should.
And it sounds backwards :)

evening tune #2 George Duke - Northbeach

This AMAZING tune popped up on my radar when MOTON records put out a version as their 2nd release way back. This version had a massive back beat added for the A side, but it was the wacked out, synth laden B side, that smashed it for me. Anything that said "percussion by Harvey" would be purchased (2 copies) and i thought that all those aggresive synth washes had to be added extras from the cult leader himself as well as the drums.. Oh those drums!! :)

But I was sort of wrong. Yes there was extra production.. Yes there was extra drums.. but it was all George.. and the LP had to be had!
You have to love the fusion, but there is literally SO much that if you are a broad eared soul like myself then LP's will always be missed :) 

There are other tracks by the former Zappa keys man, that deliver black science fiction but this long player is an absolute must, and just edges out everything elseof his  for total moodiness :)
To hear this record over a very decent soundsystem, piss loud is one of lifes pleasures - believe!
So here's the cut - minus the extra hairy, drugged fueled percussion!
Proper futuristic ambient jazz bizniz!

evening tune #1 Psychic TV - Just Drifting (midnight instrumental)

I'm gonna start posting a track a day.
(a homage to lovefingers and bumrocks perhaps?)
To start,  here is Just Drifting (in it's midnight instrumental form)
from PSYCHIC TV - a MAJOR band for me.

So much in fact, that i wrote my degree dissertation on the band - the cunning angle (you ALWAYS needed an angle when doing an art degree.), being that i had been following this band and it's mighty, mighty shaman/leader GENESIS P-ORRIDGE,

since they had emerged from the dying embers of THROBBING GRISTLE. Not knowing that everything i had heard, witnessed, danced to and taken part in was infact.. ART :)
Here's a brilliant overview from fantastic killyourpetpuppy blog, where you can also check the original vocal version, with the gentle spoke/sung voice of Genesis, oddly cold and emotional at the same time laying these words over maybe some of the most fantastic downtempo orchestartion.. ever.
but for you here is the rarer midnight instrumental.
please enjoy!

these funks saved my sunday

there are times when a return to the funks
and the slow cleanliness of a groove
can begin the long hard graft
of the rearrangment of my mind

this selection is for PeechykKeen aka miss 300 to me :)
mz kween has it bad for the sadly missed (by it seems the whole world??) JAY DILLA.
My lack of detailed hiphop passion means that i tend to
see the late James Dewitt Yancey as a supreme listener of records from all corners of the disco.
PeechyKween is a team member of the super slick and generally
all round lovely looking IHEARTDILLA blog and general deposit for all things HIPHOP.. get involved!
She was directed my way, for no other reason than family ties :)
by the ever fragrent Amelia I RUN TINGS from the very mighty
PUTMEONIT... i salute thee ladies! X



tokimonsta - glaring lights
loose ends - feel the vibe
emantive - we travel the spacebeats
mckay - rising tide
undisputed truth - show time
stereolab - soop groove #1
fila brazilla - airlock holmes
nat adderley - quit it
leos sunship - im back for more
the roots - melting pot