Paradigm X: Blogariddims 39 / Journeys by non-DJ

(Droid sez:) Typical. You wait weeks for a Blogariddims, and then 2 come (almost) at once! This episode brings the schedule back in line for the first time in months, and its a stonker of an eclectic electronica mix, reminiscent of our Electronicack mix from last year, and eerily similar to the kind of multi-genre mixing myself and Slug used to do on Saturday nights on Power FM back in the late 90s. I first bumped into PDX on one of the best music forums on the net: Subvert Central, and as one of the aims of Blogariddims was to showcase less well known as well as established talent I thought he'd be a good candidate for a show, and yet again Ive been proven right, as this 'non-DJ' and 'non-blogger' has produced a great cast and a lovely guest post... (BTW, you can check out Ben's tunes and download some for free at his website.)

Over to you Paradigm X:

I must confess, I was quite surprised when Droid asked me to join the illustrious Blogariddims mix archive, consisting as it does some of the finest mixed and researched mixes I’ve ever come across.

I’ve never been a DJ: after borrowing some decks for a short while, and realising quickly that it would (a) cost me a fortune, and (b) require vast amounts of time to get to the level of ability shown by others in this series, I chose to spend my time producing music.

I have always collected a huge amount of music however, albeit on CD rather than vinyl. Doing so tends to give one a different sort of collection to the average DJ: consisting mainly of albums, CD singles full of interesting remixes, and compilation CDs, with odds and sods from all kinds of people you may not have encountered before.

This mix I hope exemplifies this, and the different approach to music you get from being a CD collector than a DJ. I moved recently, and backed up a load of old CDs on my computer in case anything happened during the move, allowing me to go through loads of CDs I haven’t listened to in a long time, finding all sorts of gems (and quite a lot of rubbish !). These are some special tunes for me, for various reasons, and its been great fun putting it together.

This was mixed in Ableton, which I have been using for a year or so to do my live shows, and which is a fantastic piece of software. The actual mix gradually moves from 88 BPM to around 131BPM: I was originally hoping to move slowly from 80 BPMish to jungle/dnb speed, but quickly realised that I wouldn’t be able to fit some of my favourite tracks in.

It was jammed live, with a few volume and EQ tweaks (and a few cheeky edits, couldnt resist!) afterwards, rather than a purely programmed mix, although I obviously practised a lot beforehand. A lot of the tunes originally planned for the mix didn’t actually make it in, but my goal was to try and incorporate at least one tune from all of my favourite producers, and I think I just about managed it (except for the jungle/dnb people…). My main influences for the mix come from Vlari/DJ VLR, DJ Surgeon (my absolute favourite DJ), and Coldcut’s ‘Journeys by DJ’ and ‘DJ Food Fight’ (with DJ Food). I’ve tried to incorporate a bit of everything in the mix, rather than specialising.

Overall, I’m very happy with the mix, and hope you enjoy it too. Many thanks to Droid and all of weareie crew for the opportunity to present this mix.

Oh, and as a side note, according to David Wells in The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers, 39 is the smallest mathematically uninteresting number. Does that make it interesting? :)

Blogariddims 39 / Journeys by non-DJ (84.2mb mp3)

1. Transistor - Look Who's Perfect Now (Under The Duvet Mix) - Virgin
2. Attica Blues - Blueprint (Slakked Plastik Remix) - Mo wax
3. Coil - Who ll Tell - Threshold House
4. Steve Reich - The Four Sections (Andrea Parker Remix) - Nonesuch
5. The Black Dog - Pheremone (Free download from the Black Dog website)
6. Primal Scream - Jailbird (Sweeney 2 Mix) - Creation
7. Richie Hawtin - 96:01/02:00 (Variation) - M:nus
8. dälek vs Techno Animal - Classical Homicide - Matador
9. Bomb The Bass - Bug Powder Dust (DJ Muggs Remix) - Fourth and Broadway
10. Prodigy - Poison (Environmental Science Dub Remix) - XL
11. Paradox - Daylight Robbery - Blue Planet
12. Spectre - Throw Down Spears - Natural Response
13. A Guy Called Gerald - Voodoo Ray - Warlock *
14. Maurizio - M6 (Version) - Virgin
15. Plastikman - Fuk - Mute
16. Aphex Twin - Ventolin (The Coppice Mix) - Warp
17. Teste - The Wipe (5AM Synaptic) - R&S
18. Kinesthesia - Flicklife - Rephlex
19. Paradigm X - Manchester In Dub - Solid Earth
20. Mouse on Mars - Sehn Sud - Virgin

* This originally was released on Warlock (according to discogs), but I took it from the EXP Compilation ‘Flux Trax’

1. Transistor - Look Who's Perfect Now (Under The Duvet Mix) - Virgin
2. Attica Blues - Blueprint (Slakked Plastik Remix) - Mo wax
3. Coil - Who ll Tell - Threshold House
4. Steve Reich - The Four Sections (Andrea Parker Remix) - Nonesuch
5. The Black Dog - Pheremone (Free download from the Black Dog website)

Starting off with some ‘downbeat’ (another cringe worthy genre name), Howie B starts us off with a trip-hop (eek) remix of indie unknowns Transistor. I’ve always really liked this track, mainly because I first heard it while playing with some mate’s decks, and started a lot of my ‘sets’. ‘Interesting’ fact: the singer is Chesney Hawkes’ sister.

This is followed by the exquisitely programmed 808s of Richie Hawtin’s remix of Attica Blues’ Blueprint, utilising his classic ‘only use a tiny percentage of the original in a remix’ method to great effect, which is some lovely, quirky electro/jungle. This is layered with seminal electronic artists Coil’s ‘Who’ll Tell’, from their 1993 album ‘Stolen and Contaminated Songs’ (now re-released and available as FLAC and MP3 from the Threshold House shop. The first Coil album I ever heard, and still my favourite, this album contains a huge array of interesting and experimental electronica. I feel I have sold them short a little by only overlaying it onto Hawtin, but it worked so well I couldn’t resist.

This moves nicely into the Andrea Parker remix of Steve Reich’s ‘The Four Sections.’ The best of a frankly disappointing remix CD, considering the potential of the raw material. I like this one though, a slinky melancholy electro workout. It is layered and followed by The Black Dog’s ‘Pheromone’, a very creepy track. It was a free download from the Black Dog Towers, his website, a long time ago, but doesn’t seem to be available anymore. Black Dog (via the Artificial Intelligence CDs on Warp) were one of the first electronic artists I ever heard, and I have a great respect for their work, both as the original threesome, and as The Black Dog and Plaid individually.

6. Primal Scream - Jailbird (Sweeney 2 Mix) - Creation
7. Richie Hawtin - 96:01/02:00 (Variation) - M:nus
8. dälek vs Techno Animal - Classical Homicide - Matador
9. Bomb The Bass - Bug Powder Dust (DJ Muggs Remix) - Fourth and Broadway
10. Prodigy - Poison (Environmental Science Dub Remix) - XL
11. Paradox - Daylight Robbery - Blue Planet
12. Spectre - Throw Down Spears - Natural Response

In this section, I was aiming for the Coldcut/DJ Food mashup approach, starting with the Sabres of Paradise remix of Primal Scream. I first heard the original of this on the radio and bought it because of an exposed breakbeat (this being years before downloading breakbeats, and when I was just staring to produce). It comes with four great remixes which came as a pleasant bonus. This is layered up with a deeply hypnotic remix from Richie Hawtin’s Concept CD, possibly one of the most interesting remix CDs I have in terms of execution.

Explaining his custom system to produce the Concept 1 Variations, [Thomas] Brinkmann notes, "I used a self-made turntable with 30 kilo plate, and two SME 309 Tone Arms utilizing both Ortofon and Van den Hul moving-coil pickups." Using the original Concept 1 records on his two-arm turntable, Thomas found unheard dynamics within these recordings. Even the imperfections of the vinyl pressing process find new character within his Variations. "The interventions with the actual vinyl are few: I slowed down the speed of the record and used the left pickup (arm) for the left channel, and the right pickup (arm) for the right channel. I found out that the use of different pickup systems for both channels is important for the sound," Brinkmann adds. "It's possible to hear a melodic displacement between the channels."

Picked this up for $1 in Cincinnati, Ohio (then home to the future Mrs X) on my first visit to stay with her. Scratched to all buggery, so three cheers for EAC, the freeware audiophile CD ripper! Amazingly deep hypnotic remixes, highlighting depth to ‘minimal’ techno that was barely visible. The dälek thing, I must confess, is a bit of a one off, but I’ve got a few Techno Animal tunes, and grabbed it. Very good stuff, I’ve been meaning to find some more.

Bomb the Bass’ ‘Into the Dragon’ was the very first album I bought, on tape! This track is a remix of a track from the second album, by Cypress Hill’s DJ Muggs, another early favourite! Lots of hazy memories of the first two Cypress Hill albums. This is given a pseudo mashup with the Prodigy, who I saw live at my first ever rave, alongside DJ Swan-E and N-joi. A very memorable night…

Another remix, this is the heavy bass Environmental Science dub remix. Paradox (not the (in)famous jungle/drum’n’bass producer, but the affectionately known Paradox(13), as described on discogs), this is another tune I really like, but not entirely sure why; the mangled melodies that appear out of the chaos I guess. Original tune is Janet Jackson, apparently.

Moving into Throw Down Spears, by Spectre(6). :) a very groovy dub track. Put together by Nick Raphael, with the Manasseh Sound System and a host of guests, this is one of my favourite Dub CDs – exquisitely produced and varied. Sadly this seems to be the only album they ever did together.

13. A Guy Called Gerald - Voodoo Ray - Warlock
14. Maurizio - M6 (Version) - Virgin
15. Plastikman - Fuk - Mute
16. Aphex Twin - Ventolin (The Coppice Mix) - Warp
17. Teste - The Wipe (5AM Synaptic) - R&S
18. Kinesthesia - Flicklife - Rephlex
19. Paradigm X - Manchester In Dub - Solid Earth

Moving into the final section of the mix, this is the (mainly) techno section. Techno has always been my one true love, although I never really wrote any, bizarrely. Starting with Voodoo Ray, an absolute classic you must have heard.

I’ve just moved to Marple, outside of Manchester, which is a beautiful town. It features in the film Twenty-Four Hour Party People, as Tony Wilson’s hometown, and Voodoo Ray features in the Hacienda scenes… Dubbed out to blend into Maurizio’s sublime M6 (Version), from the fantastic Macro Dub volume 2 compilation. Both of these two compilations are absolutely fantastic, exploring the boundaries of dub, and are well worth hunting down. I didn’t realise until doing this mix that Maurizio is the same two people as Basic Channel, and a slew of other aliases. No-one quite does minimal dubby techno like these guys. This track appears to be exclusive to this compilation, so enjoy.

This is overlaid with my favourite ever Richie Hawtin tune I think, Fuk, on Plastikman’s Musik album. The first time I heard Plastikman was after my first techno night out in Manchester, which was CJ Bolland and Slam’s Orde Meikle. We were all in some bloke’s front room after the event, chatting away as you do, when he put on Musik, and the whole room got literally hypnotised into the tune in silence. Also one of my favourite DJs, Hawtin builds a groove from nothing perfectly.

This jumps rather abruptly into the charmingly titled coppice mix, allegedly a remix of Ventolin. This comes as a 6 track remix EP, with what are named as Ventolin remixes, but none bear any resemblance to the original in any way shape or form. This has one of those simple hauntingly beautiful melodies Aphex does so brilliantly. This mixes nicely into one of my favourite ‘frequency’ tracks, Teste’s The Wipe. Nothing perceivable as a melody, it’s purely designed to stimulate the body and mind through use of frequencies. Little more than sub, a noise and a delay, but fantastically well done, would love to hear this out on a big rig.

This is overlaid with Kinesthesia (aka Cylob). Kinesthesia released a couple of albums of ambient/electronica on the Rephlex label a few years ago, featuring quite minimal but melodic electronia. This fitted so nicely over the Wipe, I couldn’t resist. However, it didn’t really have much weight, so it drops straight into my own Manchester in Dub. I won’t say anything more about this, except that’s was originally released last year as part of a 19 track charity CD, Grounded, which was released to raise money for the people of Darfur, Sudan. There are a few copies left, and it’s only £5, features an exclusive Vex’d track (under the pseudonym Urizen), and all money goes direct to the charity! Oh, and the fantastic sound is due to its being mastered by Macc at Subvert Central mastering

20. Mouse on Mars - Sehn Sud - Virgin

I wanted to include one Mouse on Mars tune, because for every 8 tracks which are harsh, or ‘challenging’, let’s say, they release one of such beauty you have to buy everything they release. Again, from the ‘Macro Dub Infection 2’ CD, this is probably my favourite track they’ve ever done: that kind of aching melancholic electronica I’m a real sucker for, with lots of geeky twiddlage, and a certain amount of humour.

I hope you enjoy this mix as I did making it, and indeed do listening to it. Its a personal rummage through some of my most treasured tunes.

Ben Paradigm X