Blogariddims 14 / Norwegian postpunk 1979-1985.

A little late this time round, but you can now find Halvorsen's Norwegian Post-punk episode of Blogariddims at his blog, or you can view and subscribe to the entire cast here.

"A bit of personal journey back in time this time around. While the last mix was heavily layered, this is more of a sequence of tracks from the Norwegian punk/postpunk period. I started out with a list of around 50 tracks, but soon found that to be too much to cram into an hour, so I‰¥úve focused on what is generally accepted as the big four bands of the period: De Press (and Andreij Nebb‰¥ús later band Holy Toy), The Aller VÌÏrste (‰¥þThe Absolute Worst‰¥ÿ), KjÌütt (‰¥þMeat‰¥ÿ) (and Helge Gaarder‰¥ús experimental side Hiss) and The Cut."

Episode 15 will be winging it's way to you on Monday the 5th of February - and its (as always) a good 'un.

Blogariddims 13 / Electronicack : 1

We䴜ve dragged ourselves out of hibernation to bring you this mix, the first Blogariddims of the new year. For those of you who missed the last six months or so of podcasts, Nick Gutterbreakz has come out of semi-retirement to give you the lowdown on the first 12 episodes (scroll down), and I䴜d definitely recommend signing up and starting at the beginning. You can subscribe or download individual episodes here, and find out how to use podcasts here.

This episode features a mix that I䴜ve been saving for the right moment. A set myself and Slug recorded way back in May 2000, it features a selection of late 90s electronica tunes, from a time when we were actively involved in the scene and were DJng on the radio and gigging on a more regular basis.

Since we haven䴜t featured any of this genre in previous mixes, and it䴜s a bit of a speciality of myself and Slug's, I䴜m going to use this opportunity to address a couple of longstanding gripes... The first concerns the genre name itself, 䴝Electronicack䴜 is a pisstake title inspired by the derision this genre often attracts from so-called 䴝serious䴜 music critics, but it䴜s based on the term we usually use to describe this kind of music: 䴝electronica䴜, or occasionally, 䴝dancefloor electronica䴜. For years I used this term with no realisation that it had a competitor, but when I started using the internet for something other than email in the mid-late 90䴜s, I discovered to my horror, that the noxious acronym 䴝IDM䴜 had somehow stolen the title. Now, I know the whole history 䴋 first coined on the Hyperreal board in the early 90s and inspired by WARPs 䴝Artificial Intelligence䴜 series etc, but it seems to me that 䴝IDM䴜 really came into common usage after the release of Aphex䴜s 䴝Come to Daddy䴜 EP and the 䴜Richard D James䴜 LP, along with the influx of trans-Atlantic fans and the maturation of the US electronic scene.

Lacking all the charm of its cheesy half brother, the Rephlex coined 䴝Braindance䴜, 䴝IDM䴜, like 䴝Intelligent jungle䴜 is one of those terms designed purely to enhance a sense of superiority on the part of it䴜s aficionados, and it emphasises a sense of schism from the dancefloor roots of the genre. Its no coincidence that post 䴜98 (apart from a few stalwarts) this music essentially went up its own arse, specifically, in my opinion as a result of divorcing itself from the sense of real-world context that involvement in a club-based scene brings. The term 䴝electronica䴜 on the other hand, though a bit more vague does make a connection with the rich heritage of Electronic music from the 50䴜s onwards, encompasses both the experimental and the functional aspects of the music, and seems an apt title to give to a genre that is primarily characterised by the use of electronic instrumentation rather than (recognisable) samples 䴋 plus it isn䴜t completely obnoxious and doesn䴜t make you sound like a pretentious twat when you use it. So basically, 䴝IDM䴜 is a dirty word around here, and to be fair, myself and Slug played with or met many of the leading lights of the scene between 98-2003, and I have to say, I never once heard any producer or DJ use the term, so this rant may not be pure hubris on my part.

Now, my other gripe is slightly more prosaic, and concerns the low expectations people seem to have when it comes to DJ‰¥ús who work in this genre. I‰¥úve lost count of the amount of live sets and mixes I‰¥úve heard that we either full of train wrecks, or featured no mixing at all - and when this is pointed out, the response is invariably something along the lines of ‰¥þIt doesn‰¥út matter if this music is mixed or not‰¥ÿ. I find this attitude completely baffling considering the roots of electronica lies in the mutation of late 80‰¥ús/early 90‰¥ús acid house and techno, and probably the two most influential labels in the genre, WARP and Rephlex both started out as dance labels. When the scene splintered in the mid/late 90‰¥ús, there were still 3 main strains identifiable by their derivation from either a techno/electro, jungle or hip-hop template, and a huge amount of material still qualified as ‰¥ùdance‰¥ú music despite the fact that it may not necessarily have been made with the dancefloor in mind. Even with deliberately downtempo material, there is still in my mind a functional relationship with the listener ‰¥ã to entice them to lie down rather than step up, and as the music is generally sequenced and quantized ‰¥ã why not mix it?

If anyone䴜s to blame for the devaluation of the role of the DJ in electronica circles it has to be the audience. Of course the fact that newbie DJ䴜s don䴜t really have a chance to learn their art in club environments doesn䴜t help (this is something that dubstep seems to be helping remedy 䴋 check out this mix from Ben UFO), but, as in many fields that straddle the line between the commercial and the aesthetic, without expectations of excellence from the audience, there is little or no motivation to produce something excellent. As a result good electronica mixes are like hen䴜s teeth. This is a real shame in my opinion. Electronica is unique in that it䴜s the blob of the post-rave genre䴜s, endlessly absorbing and regurgitating other styles, which makes DJng it a particularly rewarding experience. If genre mixing is monochromatic painting in shades of 1 colour, then mixing electronica is like having a full palette of colours. Sure it might be a bit more difficult than mixing music that䴜s been made specifically with the DJ in mind, but that䴜s also what makes it so interesting...

So, having just pointed out that most electronica fans don䴜t demand enough from their DJ䴜s, i䴜ll expect you all to be hyper-critical of this next mix, an hour of late 90䴜s material which is fairly representative of the kind of sets we used to play out back then. Its not 100% perfect. The mixing and sequencing is all pretty tight, and there䴜s a few really nice blends, but I䴜m not a totally convinced about all the tunes (in fact, a couple of them have been ignominiously dumped in second hand record shops over the past few years). We were caught up in DJ fever at the time, constantly looking for specific textures or variations on themes to feed the insatiable appetites of our sets. Still, its a solid enough set, and I think its aged pretty well, and in case your wondering, it was recorded back to back live on the decks and its never been available anywhere else 䴋 there䴜s no recycling in this podcast!

Droid + Slug - Blogariddims 13/Electronicack : 1 (87mb.mp3)


1. The threat of Melkur - Roger Limb/The BBC Radiophonic Workshop - BBC (Doctor Who 䴋 The music LP) (1983)
2. Ambulance - Sighn - Unreleased (Sketches and Draughts demo) (1999)
3. While (Chris Moore) - Trap - Chocolate Industries (Lock EP) (1998)
4. Babel - Shaman - Elektrolux (B sides, the code of B-Haviour) (1998)
5. Autechre - Are Y are We - Warp (we R are Why EP) (1996)
6. Herbert - Deeper - Phono (Parts 1, 2 and 3 LP) (1996)
7. Tura - Reishi - Likemind (Likethemes EP) (1995)
8. Autechre - Rpeg - Warp (EP 7.1) (1999)
9. Mike Flowers Pops - 1999 (Cylob mix) - Lo (Mike Flowers meets Cylob/Orbital - 1999/Chime Remixes) (1999)
10. Mr. Scruff - So Long (Future Homosapiens mix) - Ninjatune (Honeydew EP) (1999)
11. Flanger - Music to begin with - N-tone (Templates EP1) (1999)
12. Chaos A.D. - Davey䴜s safety lamp - Rephlex (Buzz Caner LP) (1998)
13. Kyoshi Izumi - Cheaper cosmos 䴋 Rephlex (Effect Rainbow EP) (1997)
14. Aemic - A1 - Musik Aus Strom (Beta 10‰¥ÿ EP) (1999)
15. Fink - Ever since.. (Hefner mix) - N-tone (Ever Since_ EP) (2000)
16. Lackluster - Suntrap - Defocus (foc 349 EP) (2000)
17. Autechre 䴋 Yessland - Warp (Cichlisuite pt. 1) (1997)

1. The threat of Melkur - Roger Limb/The BBC Radiophonic Workshop - BBC (Doctor Who 䴋 The music LP) (1983)
2. Ambulance - Sighn - Unreleased (Sketches and Draughts demo) (1999)
3. While (Chris Moore) - Trap - Chocolate Industries (Lock EP) (1998)
4. Babel - Shaman - Elektrolux (B sides, the code of B-Haviour) (1998)

We䴜ve gotten into a bit of a habit of starting sets with tunes from the Radiophonic Workshop, and it all started with this LP which was given to me by a good friend in 1996 in return for a promise of mixtape featuring the Doctor Who theme (still pending ten years later!). Roger Limb䴜s short burst of analogue fanfare (opening with a classic dub siren sound effect) sets the tone nicely for the real first tune, an unreleased Ambulance track from a minidisc demo we were given in late 99. I䴜ve written at some length about this Dublin duo in the past, and we䴜ve featured their work (solo or individually) on two other mixes for this site, but just to stress the point 䴋 Ambulance are probably the best electronic act ever to come out of Ireland, and I䴜d strongly recommend picking up their LP on Planet Mu, and their releases on Front End Synthetics.

This is one of their many unreleased tunes, and its quite atypical of their work, as its based around fairly simple rhythm and is dominated by vocal samples from 70䴜s horror/sci-fi movie Demonseed. Minidisc compression mars this recording slightly, and I䴜ve been told on several occasions that it䴜s not one of their favourite tunes, but nonetheless, I think its simplicity works nicely. We drift fairly quickly into the keyboards and crunchy rhythms of 䴝Trap䴜 by 䴝While䴜 on U.S. label Chocolate Industries. Now dominated by straight up hip-hop oriented artists, Chocolate Industries put out some solid releases during the Indian summer of post WARP electronica, 䴝While䴜 being one of the artists who managed to avoid the derivative self-indulgence that marred a lot of the music that was produced around the period this was released.

Haven䴜t got much to say about this 䴝Babel䴜 tune. From a fairly homogenous set of Eps/12s on Elektrolux (most of which have been sold on at this stage), its a solid enough slice of German Electro, well produced with some nice 808 kicks, and the right kind of atmosphere, but its basic function here is to act as the straight man for the more charismatic 䴝While䴜 and Autechre tunes to bounce off, and it serves that purpose well enough.

5. Autechre - Are Y are We - Warp (we R are Why EP) (1996)
6. Herbert - Deeper - Phono (Parts 1, 2 and 3 LP) (1996)
7. Tura - Reishi - Likemind (Likethemes EP) (1995)

The first of three Autechre tracks gets chopped out of ‰¥ùShaman‰¥ú, A 1996 12‰¥ÿ from WARP, which was available (I think) by mail-order only. This is a perfect example of AEs more dancefloor oriented work following on from a string of knockout 12‰¥ús like ‰¥ùanti‰¥ú, ‰¥ùanvil vapre‰¥ú and ‰¥ùgarbage‰¥ú with echoes of their earlier ‰¥ùIncunabula‰¥ú origins. This tune was always in our bag back when we played electronic sets, as it‰¥ús got a great combination of solid percussion and sweet melody, which makes it very handy for mixing.

Herbert is probably our least favourite of all Matthew Herbert䴜s guises, and I think this is the last record we ever bought by him, as he went off into even more housey directions with his later releases under his own name, especially his collaborations with vocalist Dani Siciliano, which I particularly detest. Some of his genre tunes are ok though, and this track probably represents the furthest we will ever go in that direction as we䴜ve never been not big into house at all (though we are big fans of Moodyman!). I wouldn䴜t slate Matt Herbert completely though. His earlier 䴝Radioboy䴜, Wishmountain and 䴝Doctor Rockitt䴜 stuff is nearly all gold.

Tura aka Plaid, with a tune first released on small independent 䴝Likemind䴜 in 95, and then later re-released by WARP on the 䴝Trainer䴜 LP. This is a mood-swinging epic of a track, and the more techno oriented sound seems to suit their style nicely. Probably one of the best things they䴜ve ever done, and its funny that the two Plaid tunes I like best were both released under other names 䴋 this and their brilliant jungle tune 䴝Stromboli䴜 under the pseudonym 䴝Kushti䴜 for the first release on the short lived Octopus records. Gotta love that phased amen!

8. Autechre - Rpeg - Warp (EP 7.1) (1999)
9. Mike Flowers Pops - 1999 (Cylob mix) - Lo (Mike Flowers meets Cylob/Orbital - 1999/Chime Remixes) (1999)
10. Mr. Scruff - So Long (Future Homosapiens mix) - Ninjatune (Honeydew EP) (1999)

Autechre pop up again here with the shambolic, and (in my opinion) funky as fuck 䴝Rpeg䴜 from the first of their two part 䴝EP 7䴜. Shuffling along at 130bpm or so with a big dose of squelchy percussion, this is the kind of track I love to drop in a mix, and Id particularly love to hear on a dancefloor. I䴜ve always thought that these EPs are a kind of water line that marked the point where AE went off the deep end in terms of accessibility and compositional method. Unlike LP 5 which preceded this, there䴜s nary a glimpse of the qualities which marked their earlier sound, but at the same time they haven䴜t quite reached the level of abstractness which can make their music so challenging (and occasionally frustrating) to their listeners.

This next one䴜s a bit of a curio. Cylob remixing Mike Flowers Pops, resulting in a fairly bare arrangement of beats sound effects, and fairly incongruous horns. This tune is only here because I came across a sequence of mixes when practising that led from the Autechre, to a Req tune from his 䴝Daily Breaks Ep䴝s䴜 on Skint, to this track, but unfortunately I forgot the Req when we recorded this, and, there was little I could do to fix it in the middle of the set!

The horns of the Cylob remix left us with a bit of a problem, as they䴜re not exactly common in electronica. We ended up resorting to a Mr. Scruff tune to get a mix in, and even though it䴜s not the worst, I䴜m not exactly enamoured with it either. I used to kind of admire the guy for his crate digging abilities and for his solid production, as his tunes were always a handy way to bring something different into a set 䴋 but looking back on his work now 䴋 he really does represent the worst excesses of Ninjatune naffness doesn䴜t he? Not that Ninja didn䴜t put out some great stuff (there䴜s two other excellent tunes from 䴝N-tone䴜 on this mix), but the preponderance of lowest common denominator and dogmatically sample based releases really grew tiresome to us around the time this was recorded, and this was one of the last Ninja 12s we ever bought.

11. Flanger - Music to begin with - N-tone (Templates EP1) (1999)
12. Chaos A.D. - Davey䴜s safety lamp - Rephlex (Buzz Caner LP) (1998)
13. Kyoshi Izumi - Cheaper cosmos 䴋 Rephlex (Effect Rainbow EP) (1997)

Things get slowed down here with Flanger䴜s aptly named 䴝Music to begin with䴜. One of our tendencies 䴝back in the day䴜 was always to try and split our sets into 2 or 3 different BPMs, mainly because if you䴜re playing for 3 or 4 hours on the radio or in a club, its good to change the pace now and again and get some fresh tunes in (I think the split in this set is 138BPM for the first section and 120bpm for this section). Consequently, tunes like this one are a godsend, as you can do a 䴝cheap䴜 mix and simply start when the last tune ends, thus changing BPM without it sounding too shit.

Don of the Cologne school of electronica, Burnt Friedmann teams up with the super prolific Atom Heart (whom I think I've discussed before) to form 'Flanger'. Friedmann is an extremely talented producer, with a foot in the worlds of Jazz, dub and electronic music and the organic style of this EP sounded completely fresh to our ears when it came out (and I think its stood up very well to the test of time). Friedmann has gone on to collaborate with Can drummer Jaki Liebezeit on a series of releases, which came out on his own 䴝Non-place䴜 records, and are, if I recall correctly, excellent - although the Flanger LP which followed up the Templates EPs was a little to jazzy for my liking.

The next tune has Squarepusher written all over it. Unsurprising really seeing as this is his work under an alias, taken from a triple LP of early demos and unreleased tracks. It䴜s a decent album, bit rough on the production side of things, but features a couple of killer acid hardcore type tunes, as well as this little piano and bass led gem, which slides fairly sveltely out of the Flanger.

This section (my favourite in the set) wraps up with another release from Rephlex, 䴝Kyoshi Izumi䴜 (whom I know absolutely nothing about), with a weird excursion into folk acid that comes whistling into the Chaos AD at about 39:30, ambles into a chaotic breakdown, shifts up a gear into a fairly monotonous breakbeat, before pulling it all together again with a magnificent bit of electro-squelch melody. Very reminiscent of the kind of stuff Patrick Pulsinger was putting out on his 䴝Cheap䴜 records at around the same time.

14. Aemic - A1 - Musik Aus Strom (Beta 10‰¥ÿ EP) (1999)
15. Fink - Ever since.. (Hefner mix) - N-tone (Ever Since‰¥Ï EP) (2000)
16. Lackluster - Suntrap - Defocus (foc 349 EP) (2000)
17. Autechre 䴋 Yessland - Warp (Cichlisuite pt. 1) (1997)

There‰¥ús a sudden drop to half-time here courtesy of Michael Fakesch and Andre Estermann the former of which is a founder of MAS along with his funkstorung partner Chris De Luca, one of the more prestigious Electronica labels to emerge in the mid-late 90‰¥ús. Their releases always seemed to have a high level of attention to detail, and this one is no exception ‰¥ã three sweet above-par downtempo tunes pressed onto a beautiful 10‰¥ÿ picture disc designed by DR.

Fink first popped his head up at about the same time Flanger did with the ‰¥ùFrontside bluntside‰¥ú Ep on N-tone, with more jazzy electronica styles, though slightly tuffer than Flanger‰¥ús efforts. This is a pretty solid, (though a bit loungey) number, and its all about the ‰¥ùEver since I was a kid I collected something‰¥Ï‰¥ú sample (which Im sure most of you can relate to). For years I thought this bit of dialogue was Joe Pesci in Lethal Weapon 2 ranting about his woes to Mel and Danny, but no ‰¥ã according to discogs I‰¥úm wrong! I guess I should‰¥úve watched the whole film to confirm, but that even my unrivalled dedication doesn‰¥út stretch that far‰¥Ï

There‰¥ús a lot of music in this set that we have since lost interest in and sold on ‰¥ã DeFocus, the late 90s reincarnation of the legendary Clear records, is one of those labels that has been entirely wiped from our collection. I admit, we got swept along at the time and bought their first 10 or so 12s, and on a textural level, some of them were pretty handy for Djng, but listening back to them a few years ago, they just sounded empty and derivative ‰¥ã kind of a ‰¥ùPlaid-lite‰¥ú sound. That said, this Lackluster track isn‰¥út that bad, and the 12‰¥ÿ its taken from is probably one of the better things the highly prolific Esa Ruoho has ever put out.

Autechre get another peep in as they䴜re mixed out of the Lackluster right at the end of the set with a tune taken from the two-part 䴝Chiclisuite䴜 EP. There䴜s been enough AE worship in this post already, so I䴜m not going to add any more, simply to say that anyone who professes to like electronic music but doesn䴜t give props to AE for at least some of their work is either a) woefully ignorant b) a moron or c) deliberately adopting a contrary stance 䴋 or a combination of all three! (And if that䴜s not a controversial way to end this post, I don䴜t know what is. ;) )

Next Blogarididms is up in 2 weeks or so - Monday 22nd of Jan. Sincere apologies to everyone for being a bit slow on getting this post up, but once again there was a bit of a mis-scheduling, so its pretty fortunate that we even got the Podcast up on Monday at all!

Till next time.

Been away for a while but now I䴜m back...

You might have been forgiven for thinking that this blog had suffered the fate of many others (have you noticed that most new blogs have a lifespan of only 4-5 months?), and died a premature death, but no 䴋 we䴜re still here. It would take far to long to explain the absence this time, but to cut a long story short, I䴜ve been spending my few spare moments organising music, planning sets, producing, fixing equipment, and doing many of the tedious and time consuming tasks that are necessary when involved in this kind of work. Of course, it would have been nice to keep things updated here, but this place is mainly driven by the audio side of things - and given the amount of work involved in the kind of projects that we indulge in, it䴜s pretty much inevitable that things fall by the wayside here now and then.

Good news is that a lot of the background work for the next crop of mixes is basically done, most of my loooong list of technological problems are now fixed, and we䴜ve been able to embark on a few new grand projects as well - so here䴜s hoping for a return to slightly more prolific days in 2007. Who knows 䴋 we might even expand our repertoire! I䴜ve got a few half-finished comic reviews that could be made presentable with a bit of spit and polish...