I have been able to discover more new music and support artists more efficiently for the joy they share with us.
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The Hit List
NOTICE: List has been updated. Check it out!
There are many albums floating around in the blogsophere that are long out of print. Re-issues are nowhere in sight and the files available are low bit rates.
Since these command ridiculously high prices, a collaborative effort is the most efficient way to bring these to the masses.
Save your pennies, refinance your house, get a second job... From the Echospace FB page: "cv313 "dimensional space" pr...
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The bottom line
This site is a repository of linked files; it is not a hosting site. Every single file linked here can be found freely online, usually with minimal effort.
The goal is to introduce quality music that is not as well known, is harder to find and/or is out of print.
Quite a bit of the material is old and/or common enough to be found on the cheap on auction sites.
If a copyright owner has an issue with any post, please send an email and the links will be removed.
As often happens, there are tracks that keep popping up in my shuffle and I am constantly stopping to find out who it is...
Ukkonen. Something different about this one.
This isn't the release on the shuffle (more about that one here) but this mix will give you a taste of where he's coming from...it's a great throwback move forward mix into the roots of Detroit techno.
"Finnish electronic musician Ukkonen has restructured and reimagined a range of house classics in this inventive mix for No Pain in Pop. Often familiar but not often identifiable, even the biggest club bangers half-implied and fleeting, while it’s dark and intense rather than straightforwardly arms-in-the-air euphoric."
“I had a vision, or a dream...in which I saw and heard a Detroit from an alternate reality, where the only difference was in the music: odd numbers were the norm, nothing was ever in 4/4, nothing ever sounded quite right or wrong. People were going wild for it, the music and dancing couples spilling into the street. It was the early 90’s and a new sound had been developing, a multi-layered swirling mass of rhythm, never quite lining up, never quite falling apart. Simple melodies, that when played together created mind boggling and and ever evolving combinations. I could hear the music like I was actually there, but I think it was just a dream..” (Source)
You can find the mix here (right click, 'Save As'):
Speaking of inflated prices, this one came out late last year and just exploded on the resale market.
Limited to 1,000 slabs of wax, these sold out immediately and prices shot upwards of $500 within a few days. It's since settle down a bit but prices are still up there if you want a physical copy.
When it first came out, it was just a 'Eh, it sounds like Burial and Massive Attack.'
But as the months have rolled on and the hype has died down, I now realize that these are two of the finest tracks to hit in a long time.
This one generated quite a bit of buzz when it came out not only for the quality of the music but for the limited 2 x LP that was issued and the immediate inflation of the price on the resale market (such is the state of vinyl today...).
It's a collective, a label, a cult.
They effectively ended all physical releases and communication in January of this year with this note and this mix on their blog.
Truth be told I only stumbled across them because of the hype but it's been fun going back and discovering what I missed.
Sublime Porte, out of Istanbul, Turkey, is one of the many netlabels around that offer up amazing releases for free or donation only.
There is so much incredible music being made these days that it is impossible to keep up and so many artists just do not get the audience they deserve. Sensory overload on all fronts.
However, from the din some artists float to the top.
The two artists below are of the dub techno variety but have a sonic depth that you don't hear too often.
Highly recommended. Please support them and the label(s) in any way you can.
For some reason, not many people really know about this compilation.
Over time, it's turned in to one of my favorites of the Mo' Wax era as it really encapsulates that sound that made the label so fresh.
Toy's Factory out of Japan had an early association with Mo' Wax and brought out some early gems along with some tracks exclusive to their releases (e.g. Urban Tribe's Collapse of Culture).
And, for some reason, there has only been a 256 kbps and/or a v0 floating around the web for years.
So, for your listening pleasure, another HTCIS exclusive: FLAC.
Last trip to Mexico, a few songs popped up in the mix associated with "Mexico" which seemed quite serendipitous. One of the tracks was from this compilation.
I lost a boatload of music (GBs in the 100s) when the computer crashed and I now have a dead hard drive that I can read but am still unable to retrieve the files. Maddening.
At least I was able to retrieve the 70 GB of tunes on the mp3 player and move them back to the new computer. Unfortunately, I only had 10 of the songs from this compilation.
As anyone who's been here awhile knows, one of my favorite labels is the now defunct Dorobo label out of Australia. Some great, mid-90s experimental music.
This is a cool video by Richard Grant (aka I+T=R) whose artwork and video work is part of the labels' identity. Cool concept that works well with the song...
"This was the first experiment I did with my first video camera in 1991. Made by recording the short loop onto VHS then playing it back on the VHS player whilst shooting it again on camera, then playing the camera tape on the VHS player and re-shooting, I repeated this process until I couldn't discern the start of the loop anymore.
I slightly edited this experiment to the Loggerhead track in 1994, it was meant to appear on the Dorobo video compilation but the running time was too long.
As anyone who has been following for a while knows, I've lately been just putting the mp3 player on shuffle and letting it go.
There are a few "filler" things I've got in there that really add to a good shuffle. A lot of them are compilations with an endless variety of songs I'd never otherwise listen to (and, since compilations are a dime a dozen, a shuffle mix is probably the best purpose for them).
The Coffeeshop compilations below provide a seemingly endless variety of good, frequently well known, downtempo tunes. Every so often I'm surprised by a track that I've never heard before and am glad to know it's from these compilations.
There are many other compilations that could be added but the key is to make sure and add different genres and other weirdness you might not otherwise intentionally listen to. In fact, the weirdness (Demdike Stare, Alan Lamb's wire music, etc.) is a key to keeping it interesting.
Even the audio book of Suzuki's "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind" (broken into segments) fits in. As you open yourself up to listening freely, you learn that this connects easily to the skits in The Art of War: Who Dares Wins) which are taken directly from Sunzi's "Art of War."
Like life, it all ties together.
All but volume one are at 192 kbps so if anyone has better rip rates, please feel free to share.
Went and saw Demdike Stare do a live re-score of the film 'La Vampire Nue' (aka 'The Nude Vampire') last night in Pittsburgh. No, it's not porn. It's one of those films that only the 70s could have produced. The original is, perhaps obviously, in French (the film we viewed was dubbed in English).
Here's the trailer:
In light of 70s zeitgeist I'm sure the director was trying to get across some deeper metaphysical or philosophical point of view. For an in-depth analysis of the film you may find that meaning here.
The ticket? A far cry from the keepsakes of old.
As for the show itself there was a quick, softspoken intro and, with no fanfare or sensationalism, Miles Whittaker and Sean Canty casually took a seat in from of their gear and got down to work. Their gear - some analogue equipment and a turntable - was right under the screen.
The photo below is from after the show but gives an idea of the setting. Miles Whittaker was talking to, I believe, Andy Stott (who had a show later that evening at a different venue). Sean Canty, who manned the turntable, had stepped out. On a side note, while they both used Apple laptops, Miles Whittaker's had a sticker of some kind over the glowing logo.
With the lights out, it looked like this:
The end of the show was the same. Some applause and a quick highlight of other events happening throughout the week and that was it. It was perfect, just two guys who dig music playing for a group of people who dig their music. No drama.
The show itself was around an hour or so long. The film itself was edited and the music worked in sync with the film. It was shortened and at least one of these scenes got an extended remix which was both comical and eventually quite hypnotic. Not sure anything was lost in the shorter version or not.
As for the music, below is a performance of them live at The Boiler Room which gives a taste of the sound.
By the way, check out some of their videos online and you'll get a clue of how they can take what is otherwise a campy film and give it some real creep value. Remix culture is alive and well.
When I travel my philosophy is not to impose or to take (even 'taking' pictures should be scrutinized) but to understand and to learn.
Slowly but surely I am actually being immersed into a different worldview. This isn't the mere observer point of view taken to all the touristy places but a slow immersion into seeing life as it is. I consider it a privilege to be given this perspective.
That is my guiding m.o. any time I travel so everything I do is filtered through that lens. That means I ask lots of questions.
Music is always a great bridge so I've picked up a few artists local to the region and have added them to the shuffle. From 3ball MTY to Panda it's a great bridge to understanding (I keep vowing to improve my Spanish by listening with a translation of the lyrics...).
Anyhow, this is the mix on the shuffle from Pittsburgh to Houston. This is one of the most consistent mixes I've encountered, mostly on the low, dubby end of the spectrum. Was the perfect groove for an early morning start.
Couple of newer tracks in here, always worth a listen to possibly pick up some new sounds.
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