Glasgow is Ready

Morphamish - Another Position EP

Morphamish returns with another package of rampaging electro-nasties that draw on the darker sides of drum 'n' breaks, dubstep and electronica to create a seething mess of awesome. Out now on Blacklantern, you can pick it up as a free download from the homebase, or use their official.FM page to stream the tracks. It's a doozy alright. BLM041 - Morphamish - Another Position E.P. Trailer whole ep FREE DL www.blacklanternmusic.com direct link in comments at 0.00 by morphamish

Two excellent Rave docs

Check these out quick before I repost them on Dangerous Minds with expanded text. They're two different BBC documentaries about rave culture, the first a World In Action special from 1988 (some of this footage has been widely circulated, such as two old cockney ladies talking about flashing lights), the other a BBC North production form 1992 following the set up of a legal rave in a field near Newcastle.

Coming from the BBC, both these programmes contain a typically patronising voice over, but it is interesting to note the difference in tone in both shows. The earlier World In Action special, while coming form 1988, has a more balanced approach, with even a spokesperson for the police admitting that ecstasy use is not that widespread, certainly not as much as the press suggest. The "Rave" programme, even though it is covering a fully legal, licensed rave, is more obviously influenced by an anti-rave/anti-drug press bias that the figures in the show feel they have to counteract.

This being the late 80s/early 90s there are some BAAAD clothes on display, and of course the music is pretty damn aweosme:

WORLD IN ACTION "A Trip Round Acid House" 1988 Part 1



WORLD IN ACTION "A Trip Round Acid House" 1988 Part 2

WORLD IN ACTION "A Trip Round Acid House" 1988 Part 3

BBC North "Rave" 1992 Part 1



BBC North "Rave" 1992 Part 2

BBC North "Rave" 1992 Part 3

How-how-how-how-house-house-music

This 90's documentary on House is slightly marred by an irritating tabloid voice-over, but features some great footage as it traces the roots of house from Disco at the Paradise Garage through to its inception in 80's Chicago.

Peter Van Hoesen DJ @ Berghain

Peter Van Hoesen at Berghain - 022011 by petervanhoesen

Severly banging material, recorded 8-12am on Sunday, 6th of Feb in Berlin's uber-club.

Squire of Gothos - We Do Scorpion Things

Squire of Gothos - We Do Scorpion Things (Rag And Bone)
Squire of Gothos are a formidable live proposition who've been making waves across Britian with incendiary live sets, and have been bigged up to me by everyone from Scrabble and Gatr to random munters bumming fags outside of Optimo. Truthfully, I missed them in the face-hugging confines of Max's Kansas City (apologies to Lono for not making that one), so 'Scorpion Things is actually the first I've heard from them. Ooooft - these guys make Deathklok look subtle.

Rave is undergoing a weird reevaluation at the moment; the likes of Burial and Distance flit into the shadows of neon pyres to half-inch mournful synth lines, whilst Optimo and Slabs of The Tabernacle like to ressurect the glory days from time to time, in all their full-on day-glo lunacy. Squire of Gothos obviously have no interest in either post-modern deconstructionism, or nostalgic reminisces - Rave is here, now and right up in your fucking bassbins. Right? Breakbeats, booming 808 kicks and screeching nippy synths are deployed with glorious abandon - if something's worth doing, it's worth doing harder than anyone else can handle. Big Yellow Smiley Faces, with it's wugga-wugga bassline, synthetic strings and fractured "kill everyone now" vocal, shouted at the top of it's voice, proves that Squire of Gothos are happy to act the fool - there's no pretention about hip or cool. It's just awesome.

In most instances, I'd hate the idiotic-ironic ticket, but like Dr McNinja or Axe Cop, Squire of Gothos work by the Ninja-pirate-robot-zombie priniciple - the more you multiply the awesome, the more awesome it actually becomes. Booming in at 135 bpm, opener Dark Thing blithely mixes both the modern and the classic; the hefty bass synth (filtering down to a sub) sounds a lot like the NI softsynth Massive, but the NEE NEE NEE melody and 303 cowbells are retro as fuck, and twice as beefy as anything a laptop can manage. It's a turn-your-brain-off slice of genius mentalism. After Hours Dog Racing and Flex Hype weigh in with a similar heft; all lfo-ed bass, chopped up vocal snippets and monster climaxes that make the lizard brain jump and squawk. Skitting between four four and dubstep syncopation, it invites every genre to join in the clusterfuck. More of the same, essentially, but if you were looking for surprises, then this is not the album for you. Without ever growing too repetitive, Squire Of Gothos manage to beat you round the head with the awesome stick for the next 60minutes (Cum wit Dat's "we're fucked" vocal being a favourite), before the writhing mess of bassline monsters finally gives birth to the glorious Til Da Morning. Four to the floor and wobbling like an early Skream production, its big, but when the vocal kicks in, in all it's harmonised cheesiness, it's hard not to love. This is the bastard-child of Candi Staton; the well-adjusted child of the drug-fuck generation leering about how it wants to "Dance until the morning comes" (slyly rhymed with "kickdrum") just like mommy and daddy did back in the fields of Suffolk.

Turn on, tune in, drop. Horrificaly dumb, but so worth the effort.

Horizontal Ground #5

Frozen Border are a label I've always paid attention to, if never really made much of an effort to trackdown - I own #4 on vinyl, but never get round to playing it, despite taking it out with me almost every time I play. I recently discovered their offshoot Horizontal Ground via #5, and my god, is it awesome. Plain black vinyl, hand-stamped, limited edition copies of deep minimal techno - all the things that record fetishists go mental for. Interstingly enough, it's all digitally available, but boomkat seem to know even less than we do. Sandwell District, Seldom Felt and Frozen Border have all proven that the formulae still works in this day and age, and it would seem easy to dismiss Horizontal Ground as selling new clothes to the emperor, were #5 not such an utter beast of a 12" - the A-side is a more housey affair, with an off-beat syncopation and a slinky bassline digging in their hooks. After the first breakdown, the chord pattern kicks in good and proper, and it all goes euphoric. Unsurprisingly, the B-side is a dubbier number, with the chord pattern at the forefront of the mix and dirty great sub groaning away in the background - subtle filter sweeps and wobbling delay are neither big nor clever, but it sure as hell hits the spot. Having tracked down the remainder of the series, a few listens indicates this is the best so far - they're great DJ tools, but err on the minimal a little too much. Certainly, there's nothing as warm and emotive as #5.
I'm working my way through Frozen Border at the moment as well - go dig in those crates...




Horizontal Ground on Discogs
Frozen Border on Discogs