January 2, 2012As usual top charts of 2011 all came in different formats, with some taking more liberties than others in cramming as many records, news events ad whatever else they could in. Also most people have chosen not to rank their releases (thanks Jimmy Monsta Funk who started the trend last year and now everyone’s tried it on) I’ve preserved them…
January 1, 2012As is the time of the year we sent out the call for ‘Best Of…’ charts from the crew, which will be going up soon. Kamikaze flatly refused to do a top 10 – saying he needed at least 100 records as it’d been such a sterling year. He’s actually taken it one step further and recording them in to…
December 31, 2011You’d think having seen through an EP with Chairman Kato we’d be somewhat used to his creative outbursts or random activities that seem to make slightly more sense inside his head than in the real world. You’d be wrong. Only he could make a New Years Day broadcast called ‘Live From The K-Hole’ seem so depressingly appealing. The fact that…
December 30, 2011A classic project from 1988 that is often overlooked, despite these brilliant times where we seem to be looking back to Detroit with new interest. Two records to their name, Separate Minds were a collaboration of masses, highlighted once more the further we dig in to the somewhat mysterious world of Scan 7 and the militancy and legend that is…
December 26, 2011Kamikaze and I were recording a show for NTS the other day and he dropped in something from 1935 by an artist named Conlon Nancarrow. He mentioned at the time that Nancarrow had often composed music too fast or complicated for the human player, so took to punching holes manually in to piano roll for the piano player. In essence,…
December 23, 2011From day one of knowing who:ratio the man’s been an educator and proper vinyl figurehead. 2001 or 2002 was the year he gave me my first DJ Krush plate and blew my mind. Back then he was MCing and DJing with Foreign Dub, jungle crew from around Sydney, and spreading the love as far as he could. He was also forcing…
December 22, 2011via Jimmy Monsta Funk Yesterday I heard news of the untimely passing of Nilesh Patel (aka Nilz at The Exchange) and felt compelled to write something down in his honour. To inveterate records collectors like my extended crew and I, Nilz was a legend without compare. He worked as a mastering engineer at The Exchange after completing college in 1989…
December 21, 2011The crew at monome dropped through an email saying that there were some models of the gs64 and gs128 available to ship straight away – and whilst I’m not technically minded or making enough to be able to buy one, it did get me back on their site which I used to obsess over. On it was a very cool…
December 19, 2011This is some proper raw house, the type that we’re in love with at the moment. Out to Nicole who was pumping this in Sounds Of The Universe definitely turning a few heads with it’s brutality, making us look a bit deeper. New tracks on vinyl only release from the artist(s) and label known as Appointment Records – the combined…
December 18, 2011A conversation on South America the other night made me pull this out and be reminded of my love for it, and more importantly the impact this film had in opening my ears to Latin jazz in a new context (thanks Claude and Gio!). The below was originally done for Shook about two years ago, but having just revisited the…