Monday, April 10, 2006

Les 10 Jours Fous


I’m currently enjoying (or should that be enduring?) a two-week spell at my parents’ home in East Yorkshire. Despite every moment here providing some affirmation of either my (or everyone else’s – it has to be one or the other) limitless insanity , there are certain advantages to returning to the pastoral setting of my childhood. For one, I find myself reunited with what I once hubristically referred to as my CD 'collection' – that maddeningly erratic, plastic-encased colossus which describes a ten-year arc of ambition, love, learning, prejudice and pretension. Note: The first album and single I ever bought were actually cassettes, which in this age where three-year-olds are au fait with Ipod shuffles, makes me feel rather old.

The album, if you’re wondering, was Crossroad, the best of Bon Jovi, and the single ‘Here Comes The Hotstepper’ by Ini Kamoze. Both classics in their way. Bon Jovi were a laughing stock before Crossroad, sure, but a loveable one; after that formidable comp celebrating ten years of unsurpassed poodle-rockery, they just went a bit weird and crap (‘These Days’ was a real point of departure...). I blame Jon’s terrible solo album Destination Anywhere for giving him delusions of seriousness and, admittedly, the onset of old-age probably played its part (isn’t Tico Torres, like, 82?). But fuck me, at one time they really did know how to write tunes; I mean, forget ‘Living on a Prayer’, sullied by a decade of inclusion in even the most streamlined cheese cannon, but the rest – I mean, ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’, come on – amazing. You know, there are teenagers in the Third World who worship Jon Bon Jovi with the same arrogant assurance that we make of a God of Villalobos…Anyway. Before I try and manoeuvre out of this embarrassing cul-de-sac, can anyone answer an unresolved enigma (well, two) of my childhood – did Richie Sambora have absolutely shitloads of plastic surgery over the course of Bon Jovi’s career, or did I just imagine that? And was the band’s latterday bassist called Alec John Fuchs, or did I imagine that too?



My point, I think, was that being at home I have the opportunity to re-acquaint myself with those CDs which I acquired in my long, hormonal schoolboy daze (I think that pun was intended.), before file-sharing existed for me (I missed out on the whole Audio Galaxy embargo) and when vinyl meant my dad’s shit records in the garage. So, while there are some aural diamonds cluttering my shelves, there are also some real howlers (and I don’t mean, like, Spice Girls albums, but really bizarre, economically determined choices like Tim Buckley’s worst album, Ry Cooder’s most anodyne set, etc, etc)…The Englishmen among you might correctly attribute the acquisition of these audio atrocities to years of shopping at HMV, with their hit-and-miss seasonal sales which at the time felt magical – this was where, for £4.99 a pop, you picked up your Grace, your Blue Lines, your Blood on The Tracks, but also a whole load of other shit which you still haven’t listened to the whole way through. Let’s not forget that even five years ago, the internet wasn’t quite the resource it was, and how was I to know that The Future was probably the wrong Leonard Cohen album to start off with? Anyway, this is all off the point. I think. The item under discussion is, basically, the Super Discount album which was produced, overseen and released by Etienne De Crecy (pictured above) back in 1996. Now, this was kind of when Gallic dance fever was about to break out of the Paris underground and take Britain by storm – mainly Daft Punk and Air, but all kinds of other shit hanging on their coat-tails. I remember buying the ‘Da Funk’ single, I’m sure only because I digged Spike Jonze’s unforgettable dog video (a few years later, like everyone else, I’d realize it to be one of the greatest tunes ever, dog or no dog). So yeah, Daft Punk we’re in ascendance, and Moon Safari was on its way – and eight years on, you can say what you like about 10,000 Hz or, Christ, Talkie Walkie, but that debut album (OK, excluding the Premier Symptomes thingy) remains an unassailable blast of brilliance, pure class – I mean what sounds, what style, what substance, what proto-electro irony… Alas, the fruity Frenchmen were never to scale such dizzy heights again. Anyway, Etienne De Crecy, whose sojourns into house, dub, hip hop and downbeat techno with Motorbass and La Chatte Rouge had already been met with sincere chin-nodding from those in the know, blasted on to the world stage with a record which remains, for me, one of the most immaculately conceived, designed and executed projects to ever be called a record. Basically (and forgive me if you know all this already), De Crecy assembled his mates who were making waves on the then still fairly underground French dance scene (Alex Gopher, Air, Minos Pour Maine Bass, Mr Learn, Mooloodjee), commissioned a track or two from each of them, knocked off a few himself, and compiled them all under the simple title Super Discount (though intended simply as the title of the collection, it’s taken ten years for De Crecy to realize that Super Discount is a far more recognizable moniker to do remixes under than his own name). The sleeve was amazing, a lurid black-and-yellow parody of the pile’em high sell ‘em cheap superstores and signs which you find everywhere (especially on the Continent). Even some of the tracks themselves yielded to this overall theme of cut-price commerce, with titles like 'Tout a 10 Balles' (Everything at 10 Francs) and 'Fermeture Definitive' (Closing Down Sale). The whole thing, dare I say it, had an affably postmodern je ne'sais qua (in a very, very 90s way), but all this would have meant nothing (except a lowly life in the real life Super Discount bins of motorway service station shops) were it not for the revelatory brilliance of the music contained therein. The housier tracks are, of course, more aligned with the fast, filtered proto-Stardust sound that was the toast of the time, than the slightly pitched-down electro grind that we naturally think of as house on this side of 2002. De Crecy’s productions are quality: ‘Prix Choc’, with its jazzy chords and brushed snares riding a frenetic kick, topped with a warped sample of a fella saying "Sensimilia…Marijuana" is maybe a little bit juvenile conceptually, but musically it's sublime, with a truly louche groove emerging beneath twinkling xylophones and a sound which is so, so, so delightfully French. It’s unlikely I’d play it out now, but I credit my re-discovery of this piece of stoner-house six years down the line (NOTE: when I bought this album as a fourteen-year old, absolutely everything but the Air track (and the aforementioned lyrical frisson of ‘Prix Choc’) went entirely over my head) with winching me out of the trip-hop ghetto and into the ever-expanding coterie of 4x4 delights which I now consider my first language. That isn’t to say that there isn’t any trace of what we’d loosely define as trip-hop on Super Discount – in fact, it’s all over the fucking thing, but in its most refined and elegant forms (De Crecy’s remix of Air’s ‘Soldissimo’, a vocalless first draft of the Moon Safari weepie ‘All I Need’, is particularly superb). More satisfying to my ears now are Alex Gopher and Mooloodjee’s wonky disco-house hybrids, and the unabashedly French filter-fest of ‘Le Patron Est Devenu Fou!’ (by Minos Pour Maine Bass). In short, the whole album’s superb, a gallery of immaculate, detailed and diverse productions, each deeply invested with the spirit of dub; turn up the bass, light up a funny cigarette and pretend it’s sunny outside (if it isn’t really) for maximum listening pleasure.


Download:

Etienne De Crecy - Prix Choc (Price Shock) // Disques Solid

Alex Gopher - Super Disco // Disques Solid

Mooloodjee - Les 10 Jours Fous (10 Days of Madness) // Disques Solid


…But that’s not the whole story. As you’re probably aware, Monsieur De Crecy returned (after a solo record, Tempovision, that was dubious in places but not without merit – check the awesome ‘Scratched’) in 2004 with, wait for it, yes, Super Discount 2. The album featured a more stripped down cast of players than the first outing, but with the notable contribution of Philippe Zdar (formerly of the De Crecy-affiliated La Funk Mob). In a clever update of the first volume’s cut-price theme, each track on Super Discount 2 took its name, rather endearingly, from a file sharing service – Bit Torrent, Soulseek, Audio Galaxy and so on. Of course, by the time this record emerged, electro-house was the going rate in credible 4x4, so you would expect Super Discount 2 to have been totally behind the times, right? Well no, because if anything, it played its future-acid house hand a little too forcefully, with the dubby, relaxed intimacy of its precursor jettisoned in favour of straight-up electronic house. This made for some stunning tracks, but, I guess, also abysmal sales: the release was so low-key that it probably entirely escaped the notice of the generation who went mad for the first volume, and even if it did reach them, a lot of them were no doubt put off by its alien, electro-ey topography and absence of nineties chilled-out vibes. The electro-house bods, meanwhile, were too busy panting at the Phonica counter, waiting for a new Tiefschwarz remix to arrive, and failed to buy as many copies as SD2 deserved to sell. Still, ‘Fast Track’ became an underground hit (a staple of Erol Alkan’s sets at the time and fused brilliantly to the 'Never Be Alone' acapella on his Bugged Out! CD) before being tarted up and sanitized with a female vocal for a re-release thrown at the Tongy hordes. Forget that version, though, because the original is a total winner, boasting one of the most insane and effective build-up/breakdowns I’ve ever encountered in my deep-fried experience. Only problem is, as the title suggests, it’s a little fast….'Poisoned’, the track he did with Zdar, is an uplifting, bouncy house track distinguished by its cartoonish orchestra of manic acid lines, and ‘Grokster’ is a competent electro track with a fat, faintly dystopian synth riff which’d do the business at 5am. De Crecy isn’t exactly on the dole (he’s recently turned out a nice remix for WhoMadeWho, as well as a few smart earners for Moby and, oddly, The Bravery), but I can’t help but feel that he doesn’t get the recognition, or adulation, that he deserves. Fact is, Super Discount 2, in the ludicrously rich climate of electro-houseishness we occupy, is pretty workaday; however, Super Discount 1, any time, any place, is am absolute fucking masterpiece. I mean, just listen to that Alex Gopher track above…So says I, anyway….[EDIT: One of our sage readers has pointed out that, in all my De Crecy-praising, I completely neglected to mention he and Gopher's totally stunning Dynamik mix of Kraftwerk's 'Aerodynamik', which came out in 2004 and was absolutely massive with everyone from Erol to, well, me. I don't have an mp3 of the track, but as soon as I do, I'll put it up - because if you haven't heard it before you're missing out on a bonkers rave anthem of the highest, highest order.]

Download:

Philippe Zdar & Etienne De Crecy - Poisoned // Disques Solid

Julien Delfaud, Alex Gopher & Etienne De Crecy - Fast Track // Disques Solid

Etienne De Crecy - Grokster // Disques Solid


A lot of you probably have the mp3 of this by now, but if not, it’s my great pleasure to introduce to you the A-side from the new High Feelings 12”. High Feelings is a newish label which everyone’s calling “Sweden’s answer to Whatever We Want”. The comparison isn’t as lazy as I imply; both labels peddle epic, discofied re-edits of old psyche tracks, both have quality artwork, and both have ludicrously small press-runs for their releases. It’s the last feature which is, in some ways, most definitive - and it would be easy to see it as nowt but a cunning strategy to achieve cult status double-quick, were it not for the pretty inarguable quality of the music itself. This new 12” from High Feelings is reminiscent of Otterman Empire’s last one on WWW (Private Land/Texas Radio) – an obscure, harmony-drenched rock track (‘Go to California’ by a Norwegian band called, er, Motorpsycho) given the requisite nip, tuck and expansion by the High Feelings people to elicit some of the ol’ boogaloo on the dancefloor. Not one that I’ll necessarily be playing out, granted, but it’ll do nicely for breezy West Coast vibes when the summer finally catches fire and spending evenings outside getting high won’t seem odd at all. Makes me wonder though, when are all these disco re-edits going to dry up? I’m not against them, but will a point come when there isn’t actually anything left to re-edit? Furthermore, what’s the next generation of disco fans going to make of the noughties’ extreme, all-encompassing disco edit fetish? Will a kid in 2040 know the difference between the Otterman Empire edit and the original Doors track? Will people be releasing re-edited re-edits of re-edits? God knows. Let’s not even think about it now, it'll just make my head hurt.

Download:
High Feelings - Leave Norway // High Feelings



No one hates Radiohead arcana more than me, but I’m curious about the tracks on the latest ultra-limited 12” to be lifted from the Exit Music compilation – interpretations of ‘Nice Dream’ and ‘Airbag’ by the prince of found-sound provocateurs Matthew Herbert (pictured above at Sonar last year) and RJD2 respectively – bound to be interesting, but probably not worth the Ebay price tag the vinyl will probably have acquired by now. I keep meaning to do a massive post on Matthew H, but I never get round to it and I don't really have sufficient mp3s to do him justice - my love for the man is based less on his crackpot sample odysseys and more on the devastating, minimal laptop sets he does live (Does anyone have a Herbert DJ mix that they could ysi me? I would be UNBELIEVABLY grateful if someone did...). Elsewhere, there’s a new EP on the shelves from a TAPE favourite, Kango’s Stein Massiv, whose past, none-more-wonky offerings on MBF and Trailerpark have invariably gone down a treat. The new one from this potty purveyor of fjordfunk (his word, not mine) is called Letbeint Liten Sak, and it too is on Trailerpark. Buy the vinyl from the usual outlets, I’ll post a track if/when I get hold of it.

As always, check the links on the sidebar if you need more mp3s/bloggishness – I should draw your attention in particular to Skull Juice, where Alex has kindly put up Erol’s long-awaited ‘Horrorhouse Dub’ of Daft Punk. It’s very silly, but you know you want it….



30 Comments:

Blogger Electrobot said...

I quite like your blog a lot...

Your post made me hear Superdiscount again...i have Superdiscount 2 also...they`re different, but the two albums are very good...

Never liked Bon Jovi...

I`m Eduardo, i`m Portuguese (i live in Setubal), and i`m also into Electro, Disco, Punk-Funk, Acid, Minimal Techno & French Stuff like Daft Punk, Justice, Digitalism, etc...

Here`s my current top 10 :

Who Made Who - Out The Door [Superdiscount Mix] (Gomma)
Duoteque - Leave The Juno Planet (Boxer)
Playgroup - Front To Back [Kenny Dope Old School Mix] (Defected)
Bloc Party - Banquet [Boys Noize Mix] (Kitsune)
Paul Woolford - Erotic Discourse (20 20 Vision)
Lindstrom - Another Station [Todd Terjje Mix] (Feedelity)
Lindstrom - I Feel Space [Freeform Reform parts 1&2](Playhouse)
Huggotron - Breath E.P. (Confused)
Zoo Brazil - Body Talk E.P. (Fine)
Goldfrapp - Ride a White Horse (Ewan Pearson`s Disco Odissey parts 1+2] (Mute)

5:54 PM  
Blogger Blackest said...

- i think it's probably a good thing you don't like bon jovi...cheers for the top 10, will include some of it in the group chart I do this weekend. glad you like the blog, and please feel free to leave a current top 10 or 5 or 1 or whatever any time. thanks

5:57 PM  
Blogger Towt'z babouche said...

I like when you blatter so long like that..

a few remarks: there was a mix by Herbert at Tresor, Berlin (RIP), which came out in 2002-ish, used to have it on CD but lost somewhere in my musical capharnaeum... can look for it though if you want! got shitloads of songs and remixes by him otherwise, since I respect or worship the man depending on how I like his frequent releases ... very innovative everytime, nevertheless. his Big Band was fun and utterly shining gold material, though hardly a completely new electro relecture of jazz...


as u didn't mention, Zdar, who's considered a little as a godfather in France, was also one half of Cassius, whose two albums were housey genius at the time to me. And the source of some respect as I think of it now for English DJ's, esp. one mixing in a beer party in Southampton who took earnestly my blattered request for "Feeling for you" and spun it ... /end egocentric hi-blog-jakking


will do a current top 10


ta-ta-ta-boum


ps that "Impaler" picture below makes me sick. I'm currently eating "calve tongue", but not that raw.

7:30 PM  
Blogger Blackest said...

- i know, i hate that impaler picture is pretty sickening, that's rich's visual taste for you! yeah, i didn't mention cassius, but i've loved some of their business - 1999 is shiny disco brilliance...as for herbert, if you can find that tresor mix, i'd be ever grateful; if not, i would be immensely grateful for two or three of his tracks - maybed you could post/ysi/e-mail them for me (kiransande@hotmail.co.uk)? No worries if not. Look forward to your top ten, and glad you like the ranting; keep up the hi-blog-jacking, and hope the calf tongue went down ok...

8:28 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

F*ck! I was just busy doing a fine french house-mix myself, 'cause it's the new electro. Mark my words. Next year everybody will be like OMG Cassius, Motorbass, Zdar, etc. etc. {-)

Well, anyway. I love your blog. I'm one of the people actually réading your shit and I love it. I like your view and the connections you make quite a lot.

Bút, why didn't you say a word about the astounding and mindblowing cooperation between Etienne and Alex Gopher called 'Aerodynamik (Etienne de Crécy & Alex Gopher remix) - Kraftwerk'? It's like one of the biggest Erol-Alkan-Rave-Anthems of the past years. I'm sure you know it, right?

Or, why did you leave I:Cube out? And have you heard the Cassius remix of Jacques your Body? Now that ones actually in my top 10 ever. If I'd ever make one. :-)

9:37 PM  
Blogger Blackest said...

Ok, i hold my hands up, i can't believe i didn't mention the mix of aerodynamik - cos that is probably one of THE greatest records ever, I all but wore out my copy a couple of years ago. Fuck, I don't have an mp3 of it, but Rich probably does somewhere, we'll get it up here soon - well pointed out. One of my first, er, awakenings to electro was when I saw erol spin at Homelands in 2004(?)- he finished with 'aerodynamik' and I think I almost lifted off the ground; my first forays into 4x4 djing basically revolved around that record, the tief mixes of 'kinda new' and 'the red dress' and black strobe's ludicrously abrasive 'abwehr disco'...shit, that brings back memories, well done for remembering. Also, yeah, a big first wave French house revival is definitely on the horizon. As for I:Cube, I can't say i'm familiar enough with his work to write about him, i only know the odd bit, most of it recent (like that wicked mix of phonique he did last year), but you're right to draw my attention to him; and I must admit I've never, as far as I know, heard cassius's mix of 'jacques yr body', so...
Thanks for the kind words, glad you like the blog, keep comin' back. p.s. if you have a handy mp3 of aerodynamik, perhaps you'd be kind enough to ysi me it (kiransand@hotmail.co.uk) so I can post it up and give it the mention it deserves? No probs if not, take it easy

10:05 PM  
Blogger Blackest said...

- and eddy, if you finish your french house mix, make sure you give us a link so we can listen

10:20 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, you've got it. Took me a while though, as yr email-addres wasn't correct, but the one in a post above was. I think. If it is you've got it. :-)

And I'll drop a link when the french mix is ready, absolutely.

PS, which of those p2p-program-named Etienne's do you like most? It's like he's made 'm worse whenever the p2p was a cunt itself, it's funny. :-) You see, Bit Torrent is a brilliant piece of work, and so is the program. Audio Galaxy is absolutely fun and kind of a frequently heard record, like Audio Galaxy itself. Unlike you, I didn't miss out on Audio Galaxy. Those were the times, man. Audio Galaxy. :-)

11:38 PM  
Blogger Blackest said...

- thanks so much, i'll check my mail now. Er, the only file-sharing progs i've used in my time have been kazaa (awful), soulseek (brilliant in its time) and bit torrent (for movies), so I can't really interpret De Crecy's titling value judgements! As I said, I never used Audio Galaxy, but all my friends who did get misty-eyed and talk about it as if it were the perfect girl they once went out with and will never see again...

9:13 AM  
Blogger Towt'z babouche said...

sent you the Tresor mix, the Sly Mongoose rub tug track, and a few remixes

like

louis austen - hoping (herbert's high dub)
this song shows how his style can work as a jewel case for any song - and yes, I have got a thing for this tomjonesque singing, I take responsibility for it. I even spun it at the very end of a night! Never Mind the Bollocks as the Sex Pistols would put it...


serge gainsbourg - bonnie & clyde (herbert's fred & ginger mix)
A classic for backroom gay clubs here in Paris apparently.
funky bass line, this "rythmic wobbliness", trademark of Herbert's (altough I found it in Ark's productions as well, check Shalark), and this layer of synths make such an ensemble that even a goth/punk would dance or jump or trample someone in the moshpit on it!
(in the same style, check his remix of Cinematic Orchestra)


Herbert - O'Brother: a pure gem


akufen_-_deck_the_house_rmx_-_b1_-_rock_the_house_(herbert_stops_like_this_remix)
makes me wanna go Travolta



a lot of gems can be found on his Anthology out a few years back, well worth BUYING ..
I haven't talked of his Scale album that just came out? sure indeed. (pssst, I hate it, in all its grandiloquence and West End-style, but don't take my word for it)


anyone got his remix of Cibelle?


I'm probably too passionate to write well about Herbert..

10:45 AM  
Blogger Blackest said...

- wow, thank you...Yeah, I haven't heard Scale but didn't like the look of it; I've got the Cinematic Orch mix, really nice...I didn't know he had an anthology out, I think I probably will buy it...i'll do the herbert post soon, so i might have to quote you...

anyway thanks so much for those tracks (though I should say at this point - did you e-mail them to me? I don't seem to have received anything, but the mail might just be delayed - did you send to kiransande@hotmail.co.uk ? - one of the addresses that i posted above is wrong (kiransand@hotmail), so if you send it to that, would you be so kind as to re-send to kiransande@hotmail.co.uk - thank you again, sorry to be a pain in the arse!

11:20 AM  
Blogger Towt'z babouche said...

YSI still uploading ... coming... hopefully

(no probs quoting)

but I don't see what you mean by "the look of it"??

my statement which could reaally go to far maybe is that he was asked to make a more commercially-viable LP by his label or distributor? or his own choice? anyway an artist has got the choice of what he's doing, as long as it doesn't have social/political repercussions

11:39 AM  
Blogger Blackest said...

- 'the look of it' was just a lazy turn of phrase; what I meant was, the idea behind 'Scale' didn't seem too exciting, especially so soon after the conceptual intrigue of 'plat du jour'. But I haven't heard it (Scale), so I can't judge...

The only Herbert LP I own in its entirety is 'Bodily Functions', but I've lost it somewhere on my old PCs hard drive - I didn't like it too much at the time (but that was a few years ago). Correction: I also had, on the same hard drive, Dr Rockit's 'Indoor Fireworks' - which in places I thought was amazing. Vinyl-wise, I've got one of the Big Band 12"s, and the 'Vinyl Resting Place' Rockit 12" - both really nice.

...You're right, the artist should make his own choices, especially one who seems as in control as Matthew H.

Once again, thanks again for sending my those tracks - really appreciated, and I will buy some more herbert soon, so no need to feel guilty...I hope he's playing at Sonar this year, I caught him peak-time DJing at Benicassim last year and he was mind-blowing.

11:50 AM  
Blogger Richard Carnage said...

I'm pretty sure that I have that stonking mix of Kraftwerk on an mp3 cd somewhere. I'll have a look and see if I can dig it out. That cowbell...

I'm glad that I'm not the only one thinking that Herbert's 'sound experiments' are erring on the wrong side of pretension. Aren't you all forgetting about his great remix of Moloko's 90s cheese anthem 'Sing It Back'?

Towt'z - Apologies if that 'Rise Of The Mutants' picture spoiled your dinner, but I just couldn't resist the cheese metal sleeve!

4:11 PM  
Blogger Towt'z babouche said...

Hear Hear! obviously a monster song

"Sing it back" is mixed with Theo Parrish's "Dusty Cabinet" in the Tresor mix by Herbert himself, rather classically, with vocals first in, then treble, then bass, and a lovely little beatmatch delay. but should have been a treat I believe if I was at Tresor and heard Roisin Murphy landing over Theo's madness!

(sorry if this place is beginning to look like a message board! & for that slightly useless post;)

4:42 PM  
Blogger Electrobot said...

Hmmmm...i quite like Herbert a lot myself...Around The House and Bodily Functions are two of my favourite albums of all times...

4:50 PM  
Blogger Richard Carnage said...

I was talking more in point about 'Plat Du Jour' regarding unnecessary pretension. You have to respect Matthew for his innovation and fresh ideas, but when it gets in the way of actually enjoying the music, is that really such a good idea?

6:27 PM  
Blogger Blackest said...

- rich, have you ever seen herbert's manifesto? This, apparently, is the set of rules he adheres to whenever he makes music:

http://www.magicandaccident.com/matthew_PCCOM.htm

7:19 PM  
Blogger Richard Carnage said...

Yeah - I've seen that before. This one from the 'Turbo Extreme' edition's my favourite.

"5. The piece shall endeavour to be good. Mediocrity is not an acceptable conclusion."

Too right.

8:23 AM  
Blogger Puffin Jack said...

great post kiran, very much feeling what you had to say about HMV back in t'day! don't know about the jovi, surely they must have all had surgery over the years? (they fucking need it, ugly bastards) I think when it comes to Matthew Herbert what we'd all really like is a straight ahead wonky house album no? i admire all the conceptual stuff, but arguably Matmos have done better with the same blueprint? (Chance to cut is a chance to cure is one my all time faves) And has anyone else noticed the massive (physical) size of Herbert's head? obviously lots of brains...

9:14 AM  
Blogger Blackest said...

The man's head is huge - but yes, you probably need a fair amount of brain to juggle the high concepts and the studio boffinery. And you're damn right - a straight-up wonky house album from MH is the thing we all want but'll probably never get. I'm not as familiar with Matmos as I should be, I've always liked their ideas (the rats, the rats...) but have never tried to listen to 'em properly. On a more accessible level I guess 'Vespertine' is a towering example of both their and Matty H's talents put to good use.

1:09 PM  
Blogger Puffin Jack said...

how very diplomatic of you bud! although everyone knows its all about homogenic, a true techno-pop classic, with the genius of mark bell in full effect. Carnage and i have argued the toss about which is better many times, most recently friday night, with no resolution and lots of shouting (and gurning!) watch this space for the puffin's non-techno chart coming soon...

1:49 PM  
Blogger Cameron said...

How do you guys feel about the Luciano Sci.Fi.Hi.Fi. comp? Just curious ... BTW, I love this post. I agree, Mr. Crecy does deserve much more attention that just being relegated to a side note in French house!

8:24 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

mmm audiogalaxy. that word reminds of me the beautiful jewish princess who jerked me off in a field at reading in summer 2002 who disapeared into the night and i never saw again. i miss you audiogalaxy. i miss you kiran. i miss you mansun b-sides.

9:58 PM  
Blogger Electrobot said...

"Also I think the first Soft Pink truth album came out of a bet Herbert had with one of Matmos to make a house record, though I'm not sure about that? "

Benedict x, i also read about that rumour, and it was in a Jockey Slut, i think (how i miss that magazine...although FACT! is quite nice...).

Quite like the two Soft Pink Truth albums also...

1:41 AM  
Blogger Puffin Jack said...

i think i read that in wire as well, so it must be true!

8:50 AM  
Blogger Blackest said...

- edsa, is that you? I miss you too. Though I'm not sure if I'd jerk you off. And speaking of Mansun B-sides - 'World's still open' is AMAZING. Them wee good days.

----
jockey slut was one of the greatest magazines ever, may it rest in peace...at least bugged out has continued.

----

and i think i'm one of the few people left in the world who hasn't heard the luciano cd.

12:53 PM  
Blogger Towt'z babouche said...

now that I think of it, there is a band in Paris that seem to be becoming a successor of Herbert's microhouse: Nôze
few prods yet, but a notable inclusion of accoustic instruments in the samplers and in live set-up..
will post a tune soon, but check it out, they blow me away

5:32 PM  
Blogger Blackest said...

NOZE ARE AMAZING! 'Kitchen' is one of my favourite tunes of recent times. Please post something when you get chance!!

6:24 PM  
Blogger Blackest said...

- towt'z, do you have a blog address? Whenever I click your name Blogger always says the URL is not found...

6:25 PM  

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