The K & Me Sessions
OK, before I say anything, a big shout to Dilated Choonz, a consistently fantastic blog with wide and excellent tastes. If you haven't checked it out before, I advise you to start doing so now. Without the DC fellas this post wouldn't have been possible, for reasons which will become clear...
It's good to see the newblood techno community which we all occupy finally, absolutely, embracing the spirit, and music, of Carl Craig (pictured above). His mix of Theo Parrish has been taking electro-orientated dancefloors by storm in recent months, and many of his older productions too are being fawned over for their consummate depth and grittiness. And rightly so. His forthcoming mix of Delia & Gavin on DFA is already a contender for tune of the year.
A couple of years ago I went to see Peter Kruder at the now sadly defunct Seen night (though it continues in a slightly different incarnation as Futureboogie). Known first and foremost as a broken beat/nu jazz night, the range and variety of guests which promoter Joe90 secured in the Level days was astonishing, and a profound influence on me - among them, Domu, Carl Craig himself, and Peter Kruder.
Now, I've always had a fondness for Mr Kruder and his wares - right back to the definitive stonerism of the K&D Sessions (made, obviously, with downbeat's greatest servant, Richard Dorfmeister), though due to a former housemate borrowing (i.e. stealing) it, it hasn't been on my CD deck for a good long while. Anyway, Kruder was always the housier of the German duo, and his Detroity productions with Voom:Voom (I haven't got an mp3 of their recently released 12", but I've listened to it and highly recommend it...) are a perennial delight. His first appearance at Seen (pictured below) coincided with my first summer of love - that is, the summer when 4x4 and ecstasy began to make an awful lot of sense to me. I sidled along to the club really, I suppose, to satisfy my pothead K&D leanings, but contrary to expectation the man laid down 3 hours of deep, deep house and techno. Luckily, I'd packed a couple of beans as well as the statutory joints, and a whole new world was opened up to me over the course of Kruder's set. The highlights were numerous, but I had no idea what the majority of them were (I do remember Ame's mix of Truby Trio and the ludicrously feel-good finale of 'Strings of Life', it must be said); so I was delighted to download, from the aforementioned Dilated Choonz, one of the tunes that I heard that night and which irrevocably changed my life. The tune in question was Carl Craig's mix of 'Angola', by Cesaria Evora. Until yesterday I hadn't heard it since PK first dropped it, but I recognized it immediately. It now makes a lot of sense that Carl Craig was the man behind it; I mean, boy, does he know how to handle a dramatic vocal or what?
Craig performed a year later at Seen, and it was another wonderful night; Kruder too returned to the club last April (pictured above left), and his set is still available to stream here at the Futureboogie site (and well worth listening to, if you can ignore in-house MC Ekimov's painful but endearing chirruping atop the music). This 2nd visit was a bit jazzier, camper and less explosive than the first, but the atmosphere in the club was amazing and there are some passages of sublime, emotive techno - Lazerboy, Puffin and myself were all completely enraptured that night, and you can hear us whooping when Justus Kohncke's almighty 'Elan' is deployed...Ah, heady days.
Anyway, here's the Carl Craig track in all its warm-yet-skeletal glory; and here's to those long hot summers we all had, when we didn't want to be ANYWHERE else and for the first time realized, with bottomless joy, why people take e and listen to house at the same time. I'm a very good boy these days, but only because I feel that first awakening will always be impossible to recapture. So, as I say, let's shed a tear and raise a glass and listen to some Carl Craig.
Download:
Cesaria Evora - Angola (Carl Craig Remix) // Lusafrica
And then maybe take a pill and go out. Because, let's face it yawl, the music gets better and better and we're not getting any younger...
And thanks again to Dilated Choonz for reuniting me with that track.
[Correction: The first, amazing Kruder set at Seen (20/02/04) is still available on the Futureboogie site, albeit in heavily edited form (and with Joe90's immortal description of it - 'tunnelism at its most linear & hypnotic') - seriously, have a listen. No sign at all, though, of the Cesaria Evora track. Did I imagine it completely? Does it matter?]
P.S. If anyone knows what the first track on this '04 Kruder mix is, please, please let me know (those handclaps drive me CRAZY). Jesus. The quest never ends.
It's good to see the newblood techno community which we all occupy finally, absolutely, embracing the spirit, and music, of Carl Craig (pictured above). His mix of Theo Parrish has been taking electro-orientated dancefloors by storm in recent months, and many of his older productions too are being fawned over for their consummate depth and grittiness. And rightly so. His forthcoming mix of Delia & Gavin on DFA is already a contender for tune of the year.
A couple of years ago I went to see Peter Kruder at the now sadly defunct Seen night (though it continues in a slightly different incarnation as Futureboogie). Known first and foremost as a broken beat/nu jazz night, the range and variety of guests which promoter Joe90 secured in the Level days was astonishing, and a profound influence on me - among them, Domu, Carl Craig himself, and Peter Kruder.
Now, I've always had a fondness for Mr Kruder and his wares - right back to the definitive stonerism of the K&D Sessions (made, obviously, with downbeat's greatest servant, Richard Dorfmeister), though due to a former housemate borrowing (i.e. stealing) it, it hasn't been on my CD deck for a good long while. Anyway, Kruder was always the housier of the German duo, and his Detroity productions with Voom:Voom (I haven't got an mp3 of their recently released 12", but I've listened to it and highly recommend it...) are a perennial delight. His first appearance at Seen (pictured below) coincided with my first summer of love - that is, the summer when 4x4 and ecstasy began to make an awful lot of sense to me. I sidled along to the club really, I suppose, to satisfy my pothead K&D leanings, but contrary to expectation the man laid down 3 hours of deep, deep house and techno. Luckily, I'd packed a couple of beans as well as the statutory joints, and a whole new world was opened up to me over the course of Kruder's set. The highlights were numerous, but I had no idea what the majority of them were (I do remember Ame's mix of Truby Trio and the ludicrously feel-good finale of 'Strings of Life', it must be said); so I was delighted to download, from the aforementioned Dilated Choonz, one of the tunes that I heard that night and which irrevocably changed my life. The tune in question was Carl Craig's mix of 'Angola', by Cesaria Evora. Until yesterday I hadn't heard it since PK first dropped it, but I recognized it immediately. It now makes a lot of sense that Carl Craig was the man behind it; I mean, boy, does he know how to handle a dramatic vocal or what?
Craig performed a year later at Seen, and it was another wonderful night; Kruder too returned to the club last April (pictured above left), and his set is still available to stream here at the Futureboogie site (and well worth listening to, if you can ignore in-house MC Ekimov's painful but endearing chirruping atop the music). This 2nd visit was a bit jazzier, camper and less explosive than the first, but the atmosphere in the club was amazing and there are some passages of sublime, emotive techno - Lazerboy, Puffin and myself were all completely enraptured that night, and you can hear us whooping when Justus Kohncke's almighty 'Elan' is deployed...Ah, heady days.Anyway, here's the Carl Craig track in all its warm-yet-skeletal glory; and here's to those long hot summers we all had, when we didn't want to be ANYWHERE else and for the first time realized, with bottomless joy, why people take e and listen to house at the same time. I'm a very good boy these days, but only because I feel that first awakening will always be impossible to recapture. So, as I say, let's shed a tear and raise a glass and listen to some Carl Craig.
Download:
Cesaria Evora - Angola (Carl Craig Remix) // Lusafrica
And then maybe take a pill and go out. Because, let's face it yawl, the music gets better and better and we're not getting any younger...
And thanks again to Dilated Choonz for reuniting me with that track.
[Correction: The first, amazing Kruder set at Seen (20/02/04) is still available on the Futureboogie site, albeit in heavily edited form (and with Joe90's immortal description of it - 'tunnelism at its most linear & hypnotic') - seriously, have a listen. No sign at all, though, of the Cesaria Evora track. Did I imagine it completely? Does it matter?]
P.S. If anyone knows what the first track on this '04 Kruder mix is, please, please let me know (those handclaps drive me CRAZY). Jesus. The quest never ends.
posted by Blackest at 11:05 PM
5 Comments:
yes mate, angola is a mighty track and one that i myself have recently dusted down and been spinning muchly. I remember when i first heard it back in the summer of '03 as an impressionable techno kid, just awakening to the joys of detroit(rather than intec). I was immediately blown away! Thanks to the pieman and maltloaf, from seen for turning me onto this tuneage and so much other stuff. It was they that introduced me to the tunnel like power of Theo Parrish (i love this guy) and showed me that dancefloors don't have to rock out to 140bpm plus! Mad props to the seen/futureboogie crew, these guys are great.
do you know when that Carl Craig remix of D&G is coming out?
I think it's something like 21st March? 12" b/w a remix by DFA. Too long, basically.
yeah, way too long. thanks for the info, though.
good stuff pieman. looking forward to the return of mr c. craig. and morgan geist?
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