08.02.06 Freestyling @ Soul Stereo / Athens, Greece

Aight folks, next week sees me hopping on a plane to Greece for a proper freestyle set in Athens / Greece. Read their press release for the night below.

Big up to my booking agent Takis @ Imp Artists for working this out - seems like this is not gonna be the last trip to Greece in 2006 as contracts are already signed for another show in Thessaloniki in march and more things to follow soon...


"Serving a Freestyle trip to High Quality Music"

baze.djunkiii, the mastermind of the Hamburg/Germany-based label Intrauterin Recordings, set on a mission for his first ever DJ show in Greece, scheduled and set by Imp Artists agency for Wednesday the 8th of February at the highly regarded Club Soul Stereo of Athens.

On the decks for about a decade now baze.djunkiii has always been the one to explore leftfield and freestyle territories of electronic music in his mixes, in small underground venues as well as well established clubs & festivals. His ability to blend genres from Downbeat via Headz to DeepHouse, going from Advanced HipHop to NuJazz, Phusion and back in one set without breaking up the atmosphere, possibly makes him one of the most creative and interesting DJs around - his sets should not be missed by any kind of musical connoisseur...

What to expect music-wise:
Some of Downbeat/Headz tunes favorites - the classic ones which have been inspiring him even before he started his first steps on the decks. Namedropping acts and labels like DJ Shadow, DJ Krush, Kushti, Compost or Pussyfoot. Alongside these there'll be Deep Dub-flavored House, eclectic Broken Beat stuff in various tempos, possibly some cool HipHop & Digisoul too, plus a few surprise tracks for very special moments. It all depends on what he feels the crowd is ready to go for...

Where: Soul Stereo , Evrippidou 65, 10554, Psirri, Athens/Greece

Parts in the post, pt. 25

Hamburg-based label Audiolith teams up with Miriam Music International for the release of a fine, double-A-sided 7" these days which will be a sought after collectors item soon due to the very limited edition of only 100 issued copies worldwide.
Audiolith-act Plemo comes up with the track "Flashlight" - a weirdo high-speed 80's Disco tune featuring funny 8bit-bleeps and lo-fi synth-melodies. Imagine a pop colored video mixed up with Flashdance or Saturday Night Fever on cocaine and too much acid. On the flipside there's Tobiah's "Romeo" who's on a early SynthPop-revival tip - loads'n'loads of ultra-harmonic string arrangements and naive "little girl dreaming of Prince Charming"-vocals. If I didn't knew better I'd bet this is the soundtrack of a japanese anime containing an innocent Lolita love story. File under: UltraPop!

Not that innocent is the new release on Highball Music which are about to mash up dancefloors with the third part of their various artist 12"-series "Psycho Shoxx". Crossing borders between HardTechno and Hardcore this 5-tracker is pressed on clear orange vinyl and features DJ MinuPren, Faeb, Manone and Bassbottle - all of them causing some serious destruction and brain damage. If you're weak-minded stay away from "Psycho Shoxx Part 3" - isn't the series title suggesting this already? - but if you're diggin' fired up, hammering bassdrums and heavy noise attacks make sure to grab this one. Bassbottle earns some bonus points for the best track name I came across throughout the last months by naming his piece of music "Panzerwerk Nord" - that geezer seems to be a sickhead for life.

After the massive success of his first 12" "Love Dose" Argy is back with second release on Poker Flat Recordings to be released soon. His "Night Ritual E.P." contains three tracks of excellent Minimal Techno, stripped down to the bone but pretty functional and able to move dancefloors for years. Although the dry, kinda oldskool hook and bassline of "Poke Her Flat" is highly recognizable I'd regard none of the tracks as an obvious hit which makes them twice as interesting as they're protected from being rinsed to death within a few weeks but will be well appreciated by the dancefloor crowd for a long time. High potential music, likely to be regarded as classics by forthcoming generations of Minimal Techno connaisseurs and very likely to be a constant selling record futurewise.

Coke DJ-Culture No. 12

Coke DJ Culture is on tour again in Germany featuring two of the most influential US-based DJ's/producers the Techno/House-scene has ever seen - Kevin Saunderson & Joey Beltram. While Saunderson's world famous project Inner City introduced early Techno/House to a wider audience and gained mainstream success with their legendary album "Techno" as well as the hit singles "Good Life" and "Big Fun" , Joey Beltram's "Energy Flash" set dancefloors on fire in the early 90's and "Mentasm" served revolutionary sounds that have never been heard before. His - at that time - new Hardcore Techno sound has been plagiated a thousand times and paved the way for a new generation of Techno music. Don't miss the godfathers on tour...



COKE dj-culture No. 12 presents:
Kevin Saunderson & Joey Beltram

Tourdates:

09.2. Berlin 103 Club
10.2. Erfurt Joue Joue Club
11.2. Hamburg SM Bar

16.2. München Prinzip Club
17.2. Frankfurt Monza
18.2. Wuppertal Butan

Longplay love 13.0

Two new albums are due to be released on feb. 17th on Neurot Recordings.

The labels cat.no. 039 ist the sixth full-length album of the Washington/D.C.-based band Tone, consisting of five guitar players, one operating bass and two drummers. On their album entitled "Solidarity", which has a running time of approx. 54 minutes, they deliver seven pieces of instrumental-music, partly based on highly repetitive, hypnotic and as well multi-layered structures, familiar to a Rock audience which is the context Tone have been operating in from their day one which is 1991. And 15 years in business proves that their first determination and belief - according to press information - was right. There is still space for intelligent instrumental music.

Cat.No. 042 is the third album of Justin K Broadrick's deep listening project Final named "3", a double CD (!!!) including the whole of 26 tracks produced throughout the timespan of five years between 2000-2005 - 11 of them alongside Diarmuid Daiston who joined Final as new collaborator a while ago. Somewhere between layered drones, Dark and/or Experimental Ambient, Electroacoustics and feedback modifications Final is Justin K Broadrick's longest running musical outlet which he ran long before he joined Napalm Death or founded the likes of Godflesh, Jesu and his Industrial-/Mutant-HipHop-band Techno Animal. Listening to Final's music is like watching an autumn's landscape through a fog-bank - formerly clear structures start to disappear slowly, sounds are a bit fuzzy, cognition feels blurred and everything seems to be kinda spooky. Not exactly the kind of music highly recommendable to anyone suffering form depression but if you like to voluntarily isolate yourself from any kind of civilization for approx. 124 minutes, deplug any communication sources and explore the beauty of fragile solitude this is the perfect soundtrack for your trip - preferrably to be consumed in dark and cold winter nights.

Parts in the post, pt. 24

Two more records coming straight out of Tadox' studio these days.
Composure Records is about to release the "Spider On Your Head" E.P. of his side project "Tadox pres. S-Tunes" as cat.no. 023 - a three tracker which explores Techno purism rather than noisy HardTech. Especially "Get Down" is kinda main room - talking really huge spaces here - stuff, featuring a massive uplifting bassline that'll turn some heads around. Title track "Spider On Your Head" is fast'n'hard coming up with some dark psycho tones and Heckmann-influenced bassline, while "Can't Get Enough" is a toolish HardTechno stampede dedicated to those who like heavy stomping beats and distorted bassline workouts.
Cat.No. 004 of Groovebeat Records is a split-12" of Tadox vs. Timo Benz named "Art Of Alliance E.P.". While Timo Benz of whom I've never heard before delivers collaborations with Andre Vanox and Brad Lee plus one solo track which are proper tools but loosing focus a bit (... or maybe I just don't get the point), Tadox is about to mash up places with at least one Hardtechno banger and two Techno tunes exploring darker, more psyched out terrain.

After a while of silence Grand Casino Records is back on track again with a re-release of Humate's 1993-anthem "Love Stimulation" which is known as one of the biggest Trance classic ever. The Original Mix is included as well as the infamous Love Mix which was produced by Gerret Frerichs and now global player Paul Van Dyk back in the days. This is essential for everyone who has taken part in electronic dance music since the 90's but missed to purchase that tune for any reason plus everyone else. Trance is about to be back!

Longplay love 12.0

Tosca, the collaboration project of Vienna-based Richard Dorfmeister and Rupert Huber, have a remix album piped for 24th of february to be released on G-Stone. Entitled "Souvenirs" the CD features a whole of 16 tracks reworked by the likes of Rodney Hunter, Sterotyp, AGF Katzengedanken, Henrik Schwarz, DJ DSL and many more. All of them artists delivering warm, easy and organic mixes, which are going to work well in hip cafes, lounges or bar/restaurant places as most of them are quite chilled and some even provide a bit of balearic feel. If you're new to the so-called couch culture "Souvenirs" is a nice album to check out, but if you've been listening x-amounts of Downbeat-, Chill-, Lounge- and NuJazz-compilations/-albums in your life you'll find that something's missing here - at least one or two outstanding tunes...

Ipecac's mastermind Mike Patton is a lover of weird, extreme and obscure music. We all know that and if someone doesn't he even can guess from the Ipecac-backcatalogue. The labels' 68th release is to be released soon, a furious 23 track album by East West Blast Test which is filled with madness, insanity and information overload as these tracks are packed into a running time of approximately 35 minutes. By the name of "Popular Music For Unpopular People" it can be described as a melting pot of the music of Melt Banana, the density of Fantomas' last album "Suspended Animation" and the lo-fi trash-factor of projects like Messer Chups and related. For those who don't get the point: If you really, really want to stress out your neighbours, partner or mother within a minutes time just put this CD into your stereo and turn the volume up to the maximum. But back to the music again - East West Blast Test is a pair of two musicians that like to work long distance instead of teaming up for a recording session. Drummer Dave Witte, located in New Jersey, is the one to record the whole drum section of each and every track alone in his studio, sets the basic structure. Those drum-only songs go down to Chris Dodge, living in California, via mail, which is the one to complete them by filling in bass and guitar plus vocals and/or samples. The result is defo not easy to handle but if it was, it wouldn't be released on Ipecac anyway. Recommended tracks and hidden hits: 7. Lithe & 17. In The Multi-Purpose Room

Heavy guitar riffs, anyone? Earthride's new album named "Vampire Circus" is scheduled for february 19th on Southern Lord, which also released the band's debut back in 2002. Based in the Doom-capitol of Maryland Earthride-singer Dave Sherman delivers smokey, whiskey-burned vocals over slow and kinda depressing walls of guitar provided by Kyle Van Steinburg, while Eric Little, former part of Internal Void, is responsible for a very basic but still thrilling drum structure. File under: 100% pure Rock Music for the lost, suffering and despaired.

Straight from the Ghetto - News on HipHop, pt. 9

Oakland-based one-man HipHop-band Hawney Troof is about to release their 6-track E.P. "Community" on february 10th on the Retard Disco-imprint, which is that HipHop as the infamous Beastie Boys were back in the good old days of their first albums. There's a lot of weirdo sample-madness going on here clearly refering to the BB's kind of humour, some redneck banjo-playing as well and they even deliver a strange cover version of Björk Gudmundsdottir's track "It's In Our Hands". File under: artsy.

Mobb Deep are teaming up with the likes of 50 Cent and Nate Dogg for their new 12" "Have A Party" on G-Unit/Interscope, which is to be working the dancefloors well due to a monotonous beat bouncing and a repetetive guitar sample running straightforward from beginning to end. The excessive use of this sample is at the same time a bit annoying, so the the track can't be played out too often before it's getting on my nerves. The chorus is a bit cheesy, too so I'd rate this one - taken from the soundtrack of 50 Cent's "Get Rich Or Die Trying" - as a 5 or 6 on a 10 point scale.

March 10th sees the release of Trick-Trick's 12" "Welcome 2 Detroit" on Motown Records, which will cause massive destruction on every HipHop-related dancefloor. Produced by Eminem, which is also featured on vocal duty here, this tune is a dark, slow banger with a kind of sci-fi melody that also fits well into a Grime set and some clikking sounds stating clearly that this is gangstah business. Chekkit!

28.01.2006 Strictly 45s @ Astrastube / Hamburg

file under: strictly 7" freestyle bashment hosted by....

baze.djunkiii [Intrauterin Recordings]
Inchspektor Drop-Out [Strictly 45s]

Astrastube
Max-Brauer-Allee 200
22769 Hamburg
Germany


This is gonna be fun - a whole night out set on fire by 7" records only. No musical restrictions set, so the both of us will dig deep in our crates for smashing tunes & obscure rarities, familiar anthems & hard to find collectors items. A night out for vinyl freaks, music connaisseurs and other weirdos.

Parts in the post, pt. 23

Mate Recordings comes up with two new releases in early 2006.
Cat.No. 009 is a nice 7" - that lovely format again - by Boys Of Scandinavia named "Why Do You Love Me?" which is an anthemic mover somewhere in between straight forward 4/4 beats, SynthPop, Wave and Electroclash. Will move every dancefloor, no matter if it's an Indie-discotheque or a straight Electronics-club. On the flipside there's a remix by Major Tweaks focusing on a more oldskool 80s (No)Wave feeling when it comes to the beats and flangered, kinda Moroder-styled basslines which somehow remind me of the legendary German band Fehlfarben.
Cat.No. 008 features four different versions of Roger's "Kids And Thieves" which is a bit less anthemic than Boys Of Scandinavia's new output and more focused on the guitar-orientated side of life. Vocals on the Original Version are a bit Pet Shop Boy'ish which is kind of puzzling, the A.N.I.M.A.L. Remix is a stripped down edit leaving out the vocal parts apart from the main chorus while Sly Wink's rework clearly has the Electroclash-crowd in mind thinking 'bout target groups. The Sigils' interpretation on B2 adds a very special lo-fi flava, brings in a new rolling drum section and melancholic, Film Noir-like string arrangements - musicwise I'd say this is how The Doors would sound like in 2006.

Audiomatique's Cat.No. 010 is the second part of their 12"-series released alongside their recent mix album. "Volume 1.2" features another three exclusive tracks - A1 is "Playmate" by the Barcelona-based producer Giancarlo Gusti who's releasing tracks under the - obviously strange - moniker CDjjj and deals with a special subbranch of Acid minimalism which is referred to by some as AcidGrunge. High class psycho music for advanced dancefloor use. Alexi Delano & Fernando Gullon team up for "When It Rains In Madrid" on B1 and it seems like a rainy day down there isn't that bad at all as they serve a dry uplifting primetime tune filled with positive vibes and some weirdo bleeps, which are basicly fun to listen to - no matter if it's on the dancefloor or at home. Huggotron is/are responsible for "Flashlight" on B2 which is a cool workout tool for the the early hours - stripped down, pumping and kinda trippy.

Azzido Da Bass comes up with a new single on his own imprint Luscious Sounds alongside Zoot Woman-singer Johnny Blake by the name of "Lonely By Your Side". Once again he crossovers between ElectroHouse and rock-orientated NuSkoolBreaks as he already did on cat.no. 001/002 but this time introduces real song structures to his audience which is defo a step into a new direction. Massive support from DJ's as different as Adam Freeland, Lee Combs, Mijk Van Dijk, Radio Slave, Funk D'Void, Play Paul, who is responsible for the remixes on the flipside, and others is reported and I wouldn't be surprised if "Lonely By Your Side" is breaking into the mainstream market soon and being airwaved by commercial radio as well.

German HardTechno-producer Tadox comes up with a new release named "Praying Soldier" on Fat Spanking Beauty on 02/2006. The title track - which is also remixed by Kriz Miller on this 12" - is massive banging HardTech with a brutal vox sample that one is not to forget about again. On the flipside there's another two tracks to be found - "Dark Invasion" and "Fresh Air" - which will be loved by fans of straight forward Techno. Especially "Fresh Air" is a cool primetime track as it adds a more uplifting feel & structure to Tadox' musical spectrum, which usually focuses on the darker side of sound. As this tune is featured on B2 it will be overseen by many, but should be regarded as secret weapon firing up every dancefloor and as well taking aback a lot of your DJ friends when played out.

Parts in the post, pt. 22

Steve Bug's label Audiomatique is putting out catalogue number 009 these days named "Volume 1.1", which is the first of two 12"es featuring only exclusive tracks from their first ever Mix-CD "Audiomatique Volume 1.0 mixed by Martinez". Three tracks are to be found on this disc - Faktor-X's "Projections" is a journey into deep hypnotic Techno focusing on an ever changing driving bassline and some dubby, Basic Channel'esque sounds; Adultnapper's "Choose" delivers warm organic minimalism with a touch of so-called Intelligent Techno plus an oldskool-influenced hook, while Martinez explores "Twilight" with some stripped-down-to-the-bone Techno purism not too far away from what Sleeparchive focused on in the past 12 months.

Poker Flat is starting 2006 with Steve Bug's "The Smackman E.P." which is PFR 066. Both tracks, "Smackman" as well as "i-Thought", are excellent and Steve Bug as Steve Bug can be. Thrilling minimalism at it's best, pretty deep, athmospheric and at the same time functional as fuck - seems like this geezer never has a bad studio day. Regard this as another future classic which is not leaving my case for quite a long time. Top notch tunes!

Hamburg-based experimental musician Kera Nagel has put her 6 track CD "Off-Time" under her Axiomatic Integration-moniker recently, which is the first ever relase on Fragmented Media. If you're into the Clicks'n'Cuts of Mille Plateaux as well as into the minimal Industrial rhythms of Pan Sonic, slowly pulsating organic basslines, small tweaking melody fragments and drone-orientated surface noise you are likely to be part of Axiomatic Integration's target group. All of these elements are bond together to create a dense athmosphere for experienced consumers of advanced electronic music, non-disturbing Experimental Ambient that might fit well even into public spaces surrounded by glass, steel and concrete. As additional feature "Off-Time" also includes 18 minutes and 31 seconds of video quicktime data and, this has to be mentioned, great packaging design.

Longplay love 11.0

NYC-based Broklyn Beats have been putting out their 23rd release recently named "Disco Rallado mixed by Criterion", which is a furious journey through the labels back catalogue. Although I'd prefer the term "selected" instead of "mixed" as many Broklyn Beats-tunes are highly advanced and hardly mixable and Criterion chooses the way of cut-mixing more often than beatmatching tunes on this disc, the selection of tunes and artists is a good overview on what Broklyn Beats is/are about. 18 tracks featured here provided by the likes of 1-Speed-Bike, Les Trolls, Criterion, Jason Forrest, DJ /Rupture and others explore the fields or Breakcore, Weird Electronics, Experimental Postrock and Abstract Beats - most of them tracks hardly based on harmonic structures, so this is for advanced consumers only.

March 3rd sees the release of "Skyshaper" on Synthetic Symphony / SPV which is the sixth album of the Helsingborg/Sweden-based band Covenant. Originally founded as Covenant in 1992 - although the trio of Eskil Simonsson, Joakim Montelius and Clas Nachmanson have been making music together under various aliases since 1986 - the band caught attention of the EBM / Wave / Industrial / Dark Electro-scene since the release of their track "The Replicant" on "Autumn Leaves", the third sampler released on the swedish independent label Memento Materia. Musicwise "Skyshaper" clearly targets the dancefloor as the majority of the album tracks introduce dark 4/4-beats that are either heavy and stomping or athmospheric and hypnotizing like in "Greater Than The Sun" which is one of my personal favorites on the album. On top of all is the non-dancefloor track named "Happy Man", a ballad based on a lo-fi/preset rhythm structure and funny 8bit bleeps which are as well used by artists recording for labels like Micromusic. As Covenant already have been providing a remix for the Fixmer/McCarthy on Planet Rouge Records and their track "Bullet" received remix treatment by Berlin's Ellen Allien which both spread their name to wider audience than the EBM / Wave / Industrial-scene it's not unlikely that "Skyshaper" or at least the first 12" single "Ritual Noise" which is to be released this month will break onto Techno-/Electro-dancefloors as well.

Parts in the post, pt. 21

Jose Gonzales' new single "Heartbeats", known to many through Sony's Europe-wide "Bravia" TV commercial, is to be released on Agenda / Peacefrog on January 16th. Three formats will be available - 7" and CD-single as well as a DVD featuring additional live footage plus bonus material. Musicwise Jose Gonzales is - as on his recent album "Veneer" from which both tracks are taken - on a Folk / Singer-Songwriter-tip. Title track "Heartbeats" is a timeless, innocent song while "Suggestions" is a repetetive, melancholic instrumental sketch that - as suggested for "Heartbeats", too - well fits for nice autumn afternoons.

TVT Records Europe has put the new 12" of the YingYang Twins ft. Pitbull named "Shake" on promo circuit recently. The YingYang Twins are originally hailing from the HipHop biz but this disc features 4 (sic!!!) mixes by XPress 2 transforming the whole track into nice Minimal-/ElectroHouse bangers which will do serious damage on the dancefloor due to their pumping beats'n'basslines. Even if you - like me - haven't been into the YingYang's kind of HipHop until now this one is at least worth to be checked out.

Mark Spoon Is Dead

39 years old DJ & producer Markus Löffel a.k.a. Mark Spoon, 50% of the successful 90's Techno/Trance-project Jam & Spoon, was found dead in his flat this morning after a heart attack. Alongside his partner Rolf Ellmer a.k.a. Jam El Mar Mr. Mark Spoon has been responsible for two of the biggest and most influential anthems of the early Techno/Trance movement: "Jam & Spoon - Stella" and "Age Of Love - Age Of Love *Jam & Spoon Watch Out For Stella Remix".

Rest In Peace!

baze.djunkiii - Isle Of Darkness Mix

Something for all Breakcore-addicts out there...

Tracklist:

1. Jahba - Warpigz VIP
2. Bong-Ra - Rise Above
3. Amboss - Mad Tuesday
4. Rotator - Breakstorzz
5. Antichrist - Subversion 002
6. Crisis Theory - Luxuria
7. Burning / Rom E.P.
8. SL Puantes - Hard Step Frequency
9. Undacova - DOSC-Shielded By The Sun RMX
10. BeeSnares - Bee In Bunnyhead
11. Xanopticon - Sympwrak
12. Inside - Unbalanced
13. Electric Kettle - Cookies And Rex In
14. Martin Horntveth - Parc Evil 001
15. Anonymously 001
16. Toe Cutter - Fucking Rotten
17. Masters Of The Absurd - Careless Trotter (Tonight The Music Seems So Loud)

Free Download

BigUp to Rudebwoy / P.o.D. for hosting this mix...

Straight from the Ghetto - News on HipHop, pt. 8

Not exactly talkin' HipHop today, but as this column previously has been dealing other styles of urban music I think this two records that've been sitting in my postbox today do well fit in here.

Mary J. Blige's new album "The Breakthrough" is due to be released on Geffen Records in the nearest future. Six tracks of the forthcoming LP are featured on a pre-release 12" which is now out on promo circuit. An excellent piece of Urban / Digisoul created strictly for the dancefloors as all tracks are more uptempo and also perfect to add some vocal flavour to a Headz-/Downbeat-set. At least this is what I'll use this record for.

Tracklist:
A1 "Can't Hide From Luv featuring Jay-Z"
A2 "MJB Da MVP"
A3 "No One Will Do"
B1 "Be Without You (Kendu Mix)"
B2 "Gonna Breakthrough featuring Brook"
B3 "About You featuring William"

Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley, who's had all eyes on him after his massive anthem "Welcome To Jamrock" tearing up 2005 Notting Hill Carnival, is coming up with his next 12" on Universal Records featuring the vocal talent of rapper Nas. Title track "Road To Zion" is highly recommended to all headz loving dope beatz like the likes of DJ Shadow, DJ Krush, Dr. Octagon or Nightmares On Wax used to provide throughout the peak of the so-called TripHop-/Headz-era. A bit smokey and filled up with melancholia, but still bouncin' on the floor. Name it future classic. "The Master Has Come Back" is to be found on the flipside and can't win by any chance here as this tune is a bit too positive and on a SunhineReggae vibe - maybe this works well with dem gals dem but is defo not my cup of tea.