Live From The Gentlemen's Lounge

Here's a mix that me and Puffin put together round his gaff last weekend. Bit of a mammoth one (three and a quarter hours!), but it's packed full of loads of great house and techno stuff, both old and new, with a few twists and turns on the way. Excuse the couple of wonky mixes that there are (especially the mix into El-B - sorry about that one!) and the 128kbps quality - hopefully I'll whack a higher bitrate copy up soon once I get round to encoding it properly.

Download:
Puffin Jack & Richard Carnage - Live From The Gentlemen's Lounge

Been a bit slow on the update of late, but we've got some quality bits coming up, including cuts from the new edit compilation on the fledgling Beard Science label, and a full live set from the Modeselektor boys (yes, I know we've been featuring them heavily of late, but we love em!). Take care of yourselves, and have a good bank holiday weekend!

EDIT:
Finally got round to sorting out the tracklisting so here goes...

Claude Vonstroke - Who's Afraid Of Detriot (Deepchord Remix) // Echospace
Serafin - Vallemaggia Tool // Mountain People
Sven Weisemann - Activity Chain // Mojuba
CV313 - Space // Echospace
Monojunk - Channel B // Styrax Leaves
D5 - Run // Delsin
Conjure - Planet 606 // NRK
Tiger Stripes - Hooked // Liebe*Detail
Mr G - U Askin'? // Rekids
Dan Curtin - Perpetual Line Stepper // Metamorphic Recordings
Emptyset - Acuphase // Future Days
Redshape - Misc Usage // Delsin
Blake Baxter - Brothers Gonna Work It Out (Red Planet Mix)// Logic
Smith'n'Hack - Falling Stars // Smith'n'Hack
Kenny Larkin - Loop 2 (Luke Slater Mix) // R & S
Arto Mwambe - Ombala Mbembo // Brontosaurus
The Glimmers - Kobe's In Columbia // Diskimo
Osborne - 'Bout Ready To Jak // Ghostly
Kerri Chandler - Return 2 Acid // Large
Paul Rutherford - Get Real (Happy House Mix) // 4th & Broadway
Steve Poindexter - Work That Motherfucker // Trax
B12 - Slope // B12
Osborne - In Gear // Ghostly
Und - Fox In A Box // Trapez Ltd
Andromat 3000 & Jan - L Delay // Cadenza
G-Man - Quo Vadis // Styrax Leaves
Quentin Harris - Haunted // Un-Restricted Access
Peverelist - Erstwhile Rhythm // Punch Drunk
2562 - Circulate // Tectonic
2nd II None - Waterfalls // Heavy Artillery
El-B ft. MC Juiceman - Buck'n'Bury (Original Unreleased Mix) // Tempa
Thomas Dolby & Salz - One Of Our Submarines (Akufen Remix) // Salz
Solomun & Stimming - Eiszauber // Diynamic
Unknown Artist - ...Skit // Firecracker Recordings
Frivolous - Goodbye Regrets // ~scape
Kalabrese - Auf Dem Hof // Stattmusik
Mogg & Naudascher - Moon Unit (Part 2) // Supersoul
Salz - John & The Nightriders // Onitor
Kiki - So Easy To Forget (Ada Remix) // Bpitch Control
The Turtles - Happy Together (Wade Nichols Edit) // Mindless Boogie

TAPEd Conversation: Modeselektor (Bpitch Control)

As promised from last week, here's our full Q&A with the Modeselektor boys. Expect a full article in next month's issue of iDJ.

It's TAPE's round - what are you drinking?

Coffee and heavy water.

‘Happy Birthday' seems like a big jump from 'Hello Mom', both in terms of ideas, and also your production finesse. Was the album written and recorded over a long period of time (as with the last record), or did it all come together fairly quickly?

Actually, 'Happy Birthday!' was done in a pretty short period of time. The oldest track is 'Let Your Love Grow' that was supposed to be released on 'Hello Mom!' but didn't get done in time. All the other songs are at most one year old and we finished final production between March and June. We wanted to release it in February, but it wasn't ready yet. So we did the mix CD 'Boogy Bytes Vol.3' instead. By that, we got a lot of new energy and inspiration and finished the tracks we were working on.

How would you describe the forthcoming LP in just three words?

A lot of. Unbelievable. Tracks.

I must say that the Moderat track with Paul St. Hilaire ('Let Your Love Grow') is a booming dancefloor hymn to die for. Not dubstep, not techno, but a perfect broken hybrid of the two. Also, TTC's rapping is absolutely off the hook on '2000007'. There are a lot of collaborations on this record - who was your favourite to work with?

We don't really have a favourite - we love them all! Working with TTC is always fun - they are very professional and inspired rappers, we still think it's unbelieveable that we've worked with Thom Yorke! But really, we like all of these songs and each of them is really special.

Do you think the electronic artist ‘émigré’ thing is reaching saturation point in Berlin? Is it still an exciting place to work/live/party?

For some people, or it seems a lot of people nowadays, Berlin seems to be the centre of the world. But this is not all that counts. Berlin is like an old lady who smokes and gets drunk all the time. This can be negative too. But we love Berlin, it's our home base! We grew up here. A lot of people move here due to the low living costs. But this is changing right now. BECAUSE there are so many people moving here, everything gets more expensive - rents, living expenses....

You've done a lot of touring since the last LP. Do you think that performing your live set so regularly has had much of an influence on the tracks for 'Happy Birthday'?

Yes, we do think that touring that much influenced the music we do in the studio. Like "The Darkside Of The Sun" - this track is based on an inspiration we had when we played in San Francisco last year. In general though all of our music just comes from inside of us and is honest and emotional. "Happy Birthday" is definitely very much inspired by the fact that both of us become fathers!

It sounds to my ears that dubstep has informed the sound on some of the new LP, and I'm sure that tracks like 'Edgar and 'Let Your Love Grow' (especially the latter) getting heavy rotation from dubstep DJs. Are there any dubstep producers that you can't get enough of at the moment?

Shackleton is great! But also tracks by Skream or Benga are awesome. We actually listen to all kinds of stuff though, not just dubstep.


You guys obviously have a deep rooted love of all things bass, which is more apparent than ever on the new LP. Are there any particular artists that first turned you on to the power of dancefloor bassweight?

We were definitely impressed by Scorn in the late 90s. And Speedy J with his "Shocking Hobby" album was a mile stone as well. Bass is the motor of the dance floor, and dubstep became more important and bigger because of the bass. This is a good thing, although it kicks the more sensible girls off the dancefloor!

Apart from the new record, do you have any other projects in the pipeline?

Yeah, we want to do a Moderat (Modeselektor + Apparat) album! And do more stuff with TTC.

You effortlessly showed off your no nonsense eclecticism in your fantastic mix for the Boogy Bytes series. What are your favourite records of the moment?

The Simpsons - The Movie (not a record, but fair enough!)
Dr. Alimantado - Best Dressed Chicken In Town // Greensleeves
Smith N Hack - Space Warrior // Smith N Hack
Timbaland - Shock Value // Blackground
Neil Landstrumm - Restaurant Of Assassins // Planet Mu
Blonde Redhead - 23 // 4AD
Max Romeo - The Birth Of Reggae Music // Wackie's
Peverelist - Erstwhile Rhythm // Punch Drunk
Surgeon - Screw The Roses // Counterbalance
Mr. Oizo - Transsexual EP // Ed Banger

Before you go, is there anything else you’d like to tell us?

Keep it real and happy metal!


'Happy Birthday!' is out on September 10th on Bpitch Control.

www.modeselektor.com
www.bpitchcontrol.de

Five For The Weekend

Moderat ft. Paul St. Hillaire - Let Your Love Grow // Bpitch Control
The dubstep/techno hybrid anthem that you've all been waiting for. With booming beats, eerie delayed melodies, and a superb vocal contribution from Rhythm & Sound associate Paul St. Hillaire, this Apparat/Modeselektor collaboration from the latter's forthcoming 'Happy Birthday!' LP is making me very happy indeed. Check back next week for a full interview with the Modeselektor lads.

V/A - Music Is My Space // Statik
Quality dub techno EP from the Statik camp. Quantec (who's previously had records out on Styrax Leaves and Echocord) serves up a hypnotically shimmering shower of synths, whilst newcomer Chet knocks out a seriously deep skanker that marks him out as a producer to watch. Only 200 have been pressed on clear vinyl, so get to it!

Download samples:
Quantec - Hidden Persuasion // Statik
Chet - Urban Dharma // Statik

James Priestley & Dan Berkson - Chariots // Simple
A bubblingly techy spin on deep house with a simply gorgeous piano breakdown that culminates in a synth stab-a-thon that'll have the sunrise dancers' hands right up in the air. This collaboration between Secret Sundaze resident Priestley and Berkson should be out on Will Saul's Simple imprint early next month. Will's also got a fantastic label compilation coming up soon, but more about that another time.

Dennis Parker - Like An Eagle (Todd Terje Rekutt) // CD-R
All you disco heads know and love Dennis' masterful original (which also strangely featured on a Radio Slave mix CD) by now, and you're probably thinking that an edit of 'Like An Eagle' isn't necessary. Yes, the original's fine on its own, but Terje knows the score and extends it out to a ten minute duration, holding the euphoric breakdown til the last three and then pummelling your senses with it. I'm not sure if this is going to get a vinyl release (if there's any justice it will - hopefully with his new edit of Barrabas' 'High Life'), but here's the 192 for the meantime. Also, check out Another Night On Earth for more discofied goodies like this one.

Download:
Dennis Parker - Like An Eagle (Todd Terje Rekutt) // CD-R

Toby Tobias - Solid (Extended Demo) // CD-R
Toby kindly sorted me with a CD of his forthcoming material at UFO last weekend (which, by the way, he was bleedin' terrific at), and this one's apparently getting a reworking before it appears on the fledgling Product Of Society label. It opens with a great bouncing groove before the synths stutter to life - two note arpeggios ramp up the tension before he drops it down, works the snap-claps like hell, then introduces a bit of bass squelch to finish. He's got a single ready to go on Tirk, and an album nearly completed for Rekids that counts Maurice Fulton collaborator Kathy Diamond amongst its guest stars. Keep yer ears peeled.