I've got the Kiki, I've got the secret

Oi oi....before I do anything else, let me draw your attention to a fantastic blog I've been enjoying recently: 24:Hours. I've nicked a few bits from their site since TAPE arrived mewling and puking into the blogosphere; these (Swedish?) electro cats have impeccable taste (and, I suspect from recent postings, we share the same source of promos...), so if you like what we're doing here you're bound to get on well with them. Along with Oh My Gosh, it is, to me, the best mp3 blog around (please let me know of any others, I'm a greedy type). Check it out pronto.

Right. To other business. It's been an impressively shit day, though admittedly not the shittest. The shittest days offer no consolation and there have, it must be said, been some serious musical/televisual consolations to the colossal bills, relationship traumas, work difficulties and failed debit card fraud which have defined my last ten hours: that Einmusik mix of The Shock is so lush, I'm only just catching up...I mean, absolutely fucking superb production, and an overall mood tending towards Philip Sherburne's comedy coinage 'electremo'. Miss it at your peril. Also good, though not quite of such epic proportions, has been the final of Celebrity Big Brother. The last thing you want me to do is talk about that, so I won't, but suffice to say - why the hell did that dumb slut Chantelle, and not Pete B or Barrymore (pictured above, with the puppy later found dead in his swimming pool), emerge from the house victorious? Channel 4 editors/producers and BB voters of Great Britain: you make me sick. How dare you reward innocence and optimism over bitterness and self-hatred. What kind of an example are you setting? Travesty. Fucking travesty. But this is by the by.

While I try my best to get over the brilliance of the aforementioned Shock tune (available, incidentally, to listen to somewhere down below and buy here), I thought I'd forrage for a few carbuncles from days gone by and serve 'em up with specious annotations galore. How very unlike me.

I've been a fickle fan of Kiki ever since he hooked up with Silversurfer for cowbell classic 'Shake Off' on Crosstown two years ago...My eyes haven't exactly lit up at the mention of his name ever since the disappointment of his LP for BPitch Control, Run With Me. I distinctly remember the DJmag review at the time which implied this album to be, like, the definitive document of Berlin electro/techno. What lies. There were certainly moments: the title track, 'Drawing Circles' and 'Luvv Sikk Again', which first appeared (sans the 'Again') way, way back on Futurism 2, Lazarus's formidable 2nd wave electroclash mix for City Rockers - a compilation which signalled the arrival of a progressive mentality and technique in electro which continues to evolve and to underpin every bit of tuneage that me end up loving long time. But apart from these three fruity carbuncles, significant highlights on Run With Me are few and far between - not least because most of the other potential candidates are tarnished by distinctly dodgy vocals. But hey. Let's give Kiki a break. Clearly, he still has a lot of creative bullets to fire, and I look forward to being shot down; For that to happen, though, he and Silversurfer need to get collaborating again sharpish, 'cos that's when they really kick it. Here, anyway, is 'Run With Me', a buzzing bit of electro melodrama that sounded right at home on Tiefschwarz's canny Misch Masch comp of '04; them were good days.

Download:
Kiki - Run With Me // BPitch Control



That mention of Tiefschwarz has brought on a slew of misty-eyed, none too distant memories - memories of simple, happy times. There was undeniably a period in my life when I thought the brothers Schwarz would truly take over the world - you know, have their own country and their own laws and shit. Of course, they, and I, were brought back down to earth last year with the relative inconsequentiality (Tracey Thorn? 2005? What?) of the album Eat Books (Working title The Beers Are In The Fridge. God knows if they'd stuck with that, everything else would have fallen into place), and the chronic, fatal self-dating of peaktime electrohouse at large. When our wonderful era of underground electronic dance music comes to be documented, though, Tiefschwarz will be rightfully acknowledged as absolute key players. Their dub of 'Kinda New' is, quite simply, one of the greatest sides of vinyl in all Christendom and for me, before then a lanky Indian dividing his airtime between Wu-Tang and Whiskeytown, it opened the floodgates on a world I still joyfully, excitedly inhabit (Note: I am still a lanky Indian).
In the end, I venture that they blew all their ideas on that one track and the subsequent onslaught of stonking remixes they churned out - for a few special months, everything they touched turned to gold. Phonique's 'The Red Dress' always gets mentioned, but for me it's Tief's explosive re-rub of of DJ Tal's 'Digital World', done for Yellow Productions' wildly inconsistent Art of Disco series, which takes the, er, disco biscuit. It's the most Tiefschwarzy thing I've ever heard, with insane builds and breaks and drums and effects and orgiastic synths threatening to melt your brain into so much mush. OK, so we're all supposedly too sophisticated to dig the 'Schwarz these days, but come on, you play this out in the right set tomorrow and you'll still rinse even the most pretentious ravers into boggle-eyed submission. This was, and is, fearsome, electronic body music, precision-tooled to make MDMA and your bloodstream get on like the very best of friends. Vintage 2004, and nothing to be ashamed of.

Download:
DJ Tal vs Tiefschwarz - Digital World


p.s. apologies for the brief return to rapidshare, the yousendit server appears to be temporarily down.