This is a collection of tracks I picked out of my box that I have never recorded in a mix before, except for ‘Got to Get You Back’ which, personally, seemed the perfect start to this mix. I’ve always had the idea to use it as an opening track, and at the time I made this recording, I had just split up with my girl and Kym Mazelle's lyrics well described the situation.
‘Muzik’ is one of those tracks I bought about 15 years after it originally got pressed on vinyl. I remember being about twelve and getting in touch with American Rap and what we considered to be NY Oldschool, Hardcore and Punk. It's funny, I would’ve never thought that at some point I'd end up with a 4/4 record collection.
'Breath Control' is Danilo Plessow’s first pure House vinyl he has ever put out (if I am not mistaken). Of course, he’d made some House tracks before but I think this was the first time he completely concentrated on making a House record. We started our label, Four Roses, together with another mate in 2006, but unfortunately it all got stuck due to other projects and personal commitments. I am just right now sitting here and making plans for something new to appear later this year.
I discovered Keith Tucker's, 'It's A Mood', at Hardwax where I meet up with my friend, Finn Johannsen, from time to time. I pulled the copy from a box without knowing it was the last one in stock. I had a listen, considered it to be good and then handed it over to Finn for listening. We both were eager to take the record home so in the end I had to convince him to leave it to me this time as I had been so stupid to leave an excellent DJ Sneak record to him some months earlier (what I obviously regret nowadays).
Bernard Badie’s 'Motivation', is also a discovery I made on one of our common record shopping sessions somewhere in Berlin.
Dance Mania have put out so many releases and having missed most of them at the time, I have just now started to become acquainted with the label. Also, recently I found a nice recording of a mysterious and anonymous DJ gig recorded during Love Parade 1996 that almost sounds like a 'Best of Dance Mania' set. I've really been enjoying a lot of what they have been doing and 'Mental Kombat' is one of those tracks.
'Dance Dance' is a record I was recommended once by Mitch, the owner of Melting Point record store in Berlin. Besides selling records, he is a passionate football enthusiast and I’ve spent quite some time talking about players and teams. You should know that he personally despises my favorite team so it has always been big fun talking so far.
'Mary Mary' is missing the usual patterns of House music, working without any of the well known drum machine sounds or chords, but there are some rough Aretha Franklin samples. It’s different and somehow a bit crazy and therefore, I think, of great value.
Ben Klock uses an amazing slamming bass drum on his remix for Jason Fine that I consider to be his Panorama Bar trademark kick. In listening, you should make a mental picture of how the drums should sound on a proper system. Also, an excellent Oni Ayhun mix features on side B.
'Mortal Trance' is one out of a series of great re-releases on Rush Hour recently and a record that absolutely has stood the test of time.
It's the same with G.Flame & Mr.G’s 'Pulsez'. Moods & Grooves indeed have put out a few goodies that are worth checking like Anthony Shakir’s Da Sampla project. Great record and also one of my late discoveries.
Finally, 'Letters From the Edge, is a lo-fi statement and a raw musical trip with a sudden ending.
mujaba - process part 222 bymodyfier 01. Kym Mazelle - Got To Get You Back (Amazella Mix) - Syncopate 02. DJ Pierre - Muzik (The Siren Mix) - Strictly Rhythm 03. Motor City Drum Ensemble - Breath Control - Four Roses 04. Keith Tucker - It's A Mood - Seventh Sign 05. Bernard Badie - Motivation - Distance 06. Sneaky Tim - Mental Kombat - Dance Mania 07. Danell Dixon - Dance Dance (DJ Pierre's Wild Pitch Mix) - Nite Grooves 08. Grand High Priest - Mary Mary - We Ze Records 09. Jason Fine - Many To Many (Ben Klock Remix) - Kontra Musik 10. Boo Williams - Mortal Trance - Rush Hour 11. G.Flame & Mr.G - Pulsez - Moods & Grooves 12. Hieroglyphic Being - Letters From The Edge - Mathematics
Imagine: You are out on a Monday night in the infamous Rampart District of downtown LA. You walk into a black building off Lafayette Park Place and Beverly Blvd. This 6-story black building has no name and all you can hear as you enter is a muffled sound of steady four-on-the-floor beats pounding. You walk to the door and hand five dollars to a short heavy-set guy named Mack. As you enter, you notice a single red light over the bar and a blue light coming from the dance floor. You smell a mixture of cigarettes, Pine Sol and old plumbing, but you don't care, because your sole purpose of being here is to dance until 6am on a Monday night. Maybe you buy a Snapple w/Triple Sec or a Rum and Coke at the bar and head towards the dance floor. A tall Latino wearing sun glasses and a velvet suit is doing a cat-walk dance back and forth like it is his own personal runway. You find a dark corner to do your own shadow dancing to the deep house vibes laced with techno and everything else in between the DJ is pumping. “Is this the Twilight Zone?” you may ask. But no, it’s the Beverly Room – a little place I called home in 1994-1995.
This mix is a reflection of my mind state. Not scared to venture into the deeper realms of house music, I've spun tracks produced by some of my favorite artists/producers as well as myself. So, sit back, close your eyes and enjoy the journey.
01. I Love Alex by Omar S. 02. House 13-2010 by Steve-Oh-Traxx 03. Raw Cuts # 6 by Motor City Drum Ensemble 04. Big Bad Drum by Samuel L. Session 05. God's Promise by Black Jazz Consortium 06. Mouth (Pepe Bradock Remix) by Iz and Diz 07. House 5-2010 by Steve-Oh-Traxx 08. Japanese Prayer by Marlon D 09. E-79 by Kink 10. Birds (Tony Lionni Remix) by Kuniyuki Takahashi 11. Work Dat Shit (Original Mix) by Steve-Oh-Traxx 12. Tripping in the 16th by Martin Buttrich 13. M.A.R.S. (Bangana Remix) by Remote Area 14. Deepness by Black Jazz Consortium 15. I'm Going There One Day by Martin Buttrich 16. The Buzz by DJ Qu 17. Steve-Oh State of Mind by Steve-Oh-Traxx
I guess all artists want to try something new from time to time - to stray away from the usual patterns and go somewhere else. And, at least in principle, the listener or viewer will display a positive attitude towards this. Yes - artistic change and development is a good thing.
However, the reality is a little more complicated than that. Very often fans of, say a specific musical act, are very conservative. They've locked onto a specific way they want their artist to sound like, and don't always welcome the change. And then again change isn't always good. Sometimes it just smells too much of "trying to do something different - just to do something different". And moreover when an artist sits down and consciously decides to do something new, the result just might not be that good. Often there's a very good reason why people have built their name around a certain sound or a certain expression.
So what is the conclusion? Fans: Give your favourite artist some space to experiment. Artist: Go ahead and experiment, but remember to remain a hard judge on yourself and don't fall in love with the new, just because it's new. This is slightly too educational and perhaps also not very controversial, but still worth repeating.
In the world of electronic music there's an awful lot of labeling going on. And labels come in very handy for some rough categorization in a world with an ever growing pool of electronic music. But very often, people are a bit sloppy and imprecise. As a frequent user of many websites about electronic music I often raise my eyebrows. "This is deep house?" Well, not the way I understand it. But luckily you can always hear for yourself since there's audio all over the web nowadays.
Knowing that there might be disagreement about the definitions, I still would wish that people were just a little more precise in their labeling of different kinds of electronic music. Speaking for myself, it only took a few releases into my career in electronic music before I was put in the box saying, "dub-techno". And I've kinda never been able to escape it. I guess I'm ok with this, even though I've made lots of tracks that aren't dub-techno to me (but sure there have always been, and still is, a firm core of dub-techno in my releases).
Much more than throwing around labels and references, I prefer when somebody listens carefully and tries to describe what's going on in the music. I love a reviewer that really manages to tell to me what he or she hears.
Finally a few words about the track presented here. It's called "Totemo". I made it in 2009 and added some final elements in June 2010. It came into being as an attempt to have fun and do things just a little differently. I made some new sounds with my little hand-held recorder. You'll hear children's musical instruments, my voice doing just random stuff, domestic samples and more. I also tried to make a different rhythmic structure than normal.
In the end, I guess it's not that difficult to hear that I made this track (assuming of course you are famiilar with my productions). I'm afraid the melodies and overall aesthetics reveal me. But hey - nothing wrong with that. I just hope somebody out there will enjoy it.
As gravity makes us blind, we lean… As we can’t see the edge from where wind starts… As there are still many things that still have yet to be named… We live unconsciously and it can be said for music as well. I am too ignorant to confess what music is.
I adore the thrilling feeling of opening an egg to see how the inside goes. And I love even more knowing the shell cannot be put back and that time never seems to flow in reverse. My experience of making music is a little bit like this. It doesn’t disappear, but rather, grows stronger. It gives me a hint of life yet to come.
.
