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We’re not entirely sure who D Paris is but it’s likely that’s just how this shadowy London based producer wants it, as such mystery ensures the focus remains on the music for those who shy away from futile speculation and hearsay.
Surfacing some four days ago, “I Must Tell You” continues to showcase a wholly unique style- where else can you hear what sounds like the screams of a narcosis induced harpy stretched out and twisted over a decaying industrial soundscape which is given some focus by off kilter rhythms.
Keep your vestibular apparatus locked for the ripples of stone oven bass that encourage you to curl up in.
Excuse the self promotion but we’ve only gone and released another record on our label Hot Pockets, a AA sided slice of new wave pop wondrousness by Danimal Kingdom.
It’s out now in its digital incarnation and can be bought from all the usual places such as iTunes and Juno, those who prefer their music on vinyl will have to wait just a couple more days as it gets released on white 7″ vinyl next Monday.
We think it’s great obviously, but don’t take our word for it, click on the picture above ad judge for yourself.
This is the post where Hoya Hoya and All City acolyte Krystal Klear stamps his own unique synth heavy boogie sound on the already excellent Mystery Jets meet the Count and Sinden up in the old school discoteque sounds of “After Dark”.
My ears are currently boycotting Warpaint until Rough Trade smarten up their ideas – 23 comments and counting asking them to fix up and look sharp is equivalent to several thousand real life signatures right?
Therefore I’m quite lucky to have found a more than adequate replacement in the dinky lo fi sounds of Love Inks whose single “Blackeye” was released yesterday on a equally dinky seven inch.
Filled with harmonies that instantly feel at home in your head and make you think you’ve heard this somewhere before, “Blackeye” is a pretty sweet entree before the main course that is the Texan band’s debut album E.S.P. arrives in May – both released via the Hell Yes imprint.
# He’s got one of those Parka jackets I’ve desired since I was a ten year old.
# Waves Of OK – the first of two EPs to be released via the Moshi Moshi offshoot Not Even – sounds like James Blake if he wasn’t dipped in wetness and constantly positioned next to a electric fan.
# It is available now on etched heavyweight 12″ vinyl.
# At a recent Church based gig he burst into a cover of “Like A Prayer” backed with the harmonious thump of a fully fledged choi.
Several years ago there was a very slim chance I could have made a career out of DJ’ing, not in a helicopter’ing between gigs in the Midlands way but in a fairly mediocre, enough money to sit around in my pants all day drinking stale Fanta and watching Jeremy Kyle style.
Luckily my own natural inclination to fuck things up meant that instead of developing a consistent ‘brand’ and pestering people for gigs/press/love I just started playing whatever I wanted and changing my DJ name each week to something more and more ridiculous. One day I’ll post pics of some of the death (well finger breaking) threats that got passed to me by boring clubbers from this period.
Anyway nostalgia trip aside the reason for this trip down memory lane is that this Saturday I’m playing at I Love Acid at Ginglik in Shepherds Bush and in honour of the night have resurrected one of my worst ever DJ pseudonyms, Guru John, and will be playing a set of vintage acid and rave.
Even more importantly though it gives me an excuse to post this video clip of the still sublime Acid Eiffel, Monsieur Garnier’s finest moment, which sounds just perfect on this sunny Friday afternoon.
Amidst all the divcore, heaving muscles, bikini wax and coke fests that quite possibly characterise the annual dance music industry descent onto the golden climes of Miami there are but a few select individuals who don’t let the searing heat get in the way of the fine art of looking good.
Leading the way naturally were the organisers of Wednesday’s SoundBellegrino event with SP overseer Teki Latex making a strong case for look of the season with the above YSL Aztec wool number (sultry female drapery is apparently an optional extra)
Not daunted by this behemoth look, Club Cheval’s resident crab battler Panteros666 opted for some below the belt dazzle in the shape of these fine Raf Simons floral print trousers – as you can see his bespectacled friend has been stunned into a blank stupor by the sheer awesomeness of them.
However, Jerome LOL BOYS wins out with this epic Lion print shirt which is more than enough to distract from Lou Brodi’s somewhat uninspired London Fields uniform of handlebar moo, slicked back hair, vest and shirt.
So just over a year ago we started to run a label of the month feature, except after duly crowning Thisisnotanexit our first ever label of the month we all got a bit busy and well things haven’t really quietened down since. The result being that like some grizzled prize fighter TINAE have clung onto their award for nearly 13 months now.
But all things must past and so finally we are ready to pass the laurels onto another label and hopefully make this a more regular feature, so ladies and gentlemen of the blogosphere may I present to you our brand new label of the month… Optimo Music!
The Glasgow based label run by JD Twitch of Optimo DJ and club night has long been a favourite of ours, with an ear for unearthing long neglected gems and working with some of the best new acts around. Recent highlights have included the brilliant Green Door Kids album, a collection of post punk/no wave disco classics laid down by a group of ten year olds, and Chris Carter of Throbbing Gristle’s long unavailable The Spaces Between.
Twitch was kind enough to put together a mixtape of Optimo Music highlights and we caught up with him to talk about the label, the clubnight and the joy of vinyl.
The next release on Optimo Music is the (R E A L L O V E) 12″ by Factory Floor, complete with an Optimo remix on the b-side (hint… it’s amazing). If you’re in London this weekend then you can catch Twitch DJ’ing alongside Factory Floor at Dollop‘s Citipost Warehouse night.
It’s almost twelve months ago now you called time on the regular Optimo night at the Sub CLub, are you happy you ended it when you did?
Yes. It was the right time to call a halt to proceedings. I’m always getting asked if I miss it and in all honesty, I don’t. I loved every minute of it and it went out with a glorious bang but running it as a weekly night was such a huge commitment and took up so much of my time that it prevented me taking on many other projects that I now have time to work on. I definitely feel more creatively fulfilled now that I have time to work on other activities.
The night has been replaced by Hung Up which you still play at but has a lot more guests featuring, how’s that been going? Is it odd to know that other people, although friends, are up there taking your place behind the decks?
It has gone exactly as we hoped. It is a very low key night with no expectations, at least from us. It has gone back to being a hobby and while we never do anything without putting a of of love into it, it takes up very little of our time. Jonnie still does all the design and I book people to play (mostly friends of ours) but spend maybe an hour a week doing this as opposed to the half a week i would spend working on Optimo when it was weekly.
Sometimes it’s busy, sometimes not but it feels like it is back to the natural order of what a Sunday night should be rather than the freak anomaly that was Optimo. It’s nice still to have a Glasgow outlet to play at once a month as it’s a test laboratory for when I dj elsewhere. Having a residency, even an occasional one is a total blessing to a dj (in my opinion). I love that other people are playing there and getting a bit of a taste of Sunday night djing through one of the best sound systems out there.
So the reason why we’re chatting is we’ve made Optimo Music our new label of the month (probably year too). We’ve been big fans of the label since it started but it definitely feels like in the past few releases it has really hit its stride. Do you think you needed to end the night to put more focus into the label?
Thanks! I actually probably spent more time on the label while Optimo was still running as back then I took care of almost every aspect of it but now that it is run in association with Kompakt, they do most of the slog.
I run the label with my friend Jill Mingo who takes care of a lot of the administration and does all the offline press and I have Andy Ingle doing the online press while my girlfriend does all the design. My roll is really A & R and liaising with Kompakt.
Most of the time I spend working on the label is devoted to listening to music that is sent to me to be considered for release, trying to track down the copyright holders of music I want to reissue and trying to plant the seed of an idea for a potential release with people I’d like to work with.
It’s great to see you still putting in the extra time and money and indeed hassle to press up releases on vinyl, is that something that’s important to the label to keep doing?
Absolutely. I have put out a cd on the label in the past but in all honesty I loathe them, so now the label is strictly vinyl and digital. I’m not a vinyl purist but records have given me so much joy throughout my life and are such an alluring and wonderful sounding format that releasing them is a pure pleasure I am fortunate to be able to indulge as a result of my dj gigs. If a time came when it wasn’t financially feasible to release vinyl I’d call it a day as the idea of running a digital label isn’t very appealing to me.
And so this week you’re releasing the new EP from Factory Floor, which is clearly a hugely exciting thing and feels like a perfect fit, is that it for you and them now or is this the start of a longer relationship?
It’s actually out the first week in April. It is strictly a one-off release. The idea for the release came from them and I jumped at the chance to put it out and have a bash at remixing them. I don’t really have the infrastructure to take an artist beyond a one off release but I’d love to work with them again in some context.
What else do you have lined up on the label that you can tell us about?
The idea is to operate on two levels; release new music and make available again forgotten gems from the past. At the moment I’m working on the latter and trying to get the rights to several possible reissues but i’d rather not mention them as it is always a worry that someone will do a bootleg release thus rendering all the time and effort put into a project a waste of time.
With regard to new music, I put out things as and when something really excites me rather than just putting out records for the sake of putting out records. I like to release records that have a bit of a story to them and have a couple of projects I’m nurturing which might come to fruition in two weeks or two years. I’m in no hurry.
Finally, horrible question, If you can choose one, what has been your favourite release so far
Very hard to answer and I’d have to choose two. Chris Carter’s record was something I had dreamt of putting out for a very, very long time as the original version had brought me so much joy over the years. It was immensely satisfying that it was so well received.
My other favourite would be from the first phase of Optimo Music when I was putting out records by Scottish artists. I put out a 10″ by Dollskabeat called “Zodiac Rising”. Dolskabeat is Lucy Ross from Edinburgh who is supremely talented and wrote, played and produced the record herself.
It was a rather fraught release, sold fairly poorly and for contractual reasons is sadly no longer available but I am so proud to have put it out.
It is such a bewitching song referencing so much from the past that I love while also sounding thoroughly modern. In some alternative universe it was a global number one. I hope the world hears more from her one day.
In which Genius Of Time provide one of the many reasons why you should constantly be checking up on the Clone release schedule with the classic house strains of “Houston We Have A Problem”.
Available now on their contribution to the Clone Royal Oak sublabel – one of many vinyl releases that comes replete with free download codes. They say its the future….
For their 20th edition the increasingly popular Off Modern shift proceedings to this Friday night down Corsica Studios with a whole load of our friends in tow as Night Slugs, God Don’t Like Koalas, Tough Love and Pictures Music all represent until 4am!
Check the £4 guestlist tweet thing on the Pictures Music site too.
As a fan of bacon, bass and the music of Jimmy Edgar (aka best thing @ BLOC) there was little chance that Edgar’s “Turn You Inside Out” being subjected to the twisted next century rhythms of Baconhead would not provide total sensory satisfaction.
For a taste of what to expect check out this Pejhycast from Fill Yer Boots resident Leisureware that slips nonchalantly between Danny Wolfers, KiNK, Pearson Sound, Jacques Greene and more over the course of sixty minutes.
Oh and here’s a wee soundcloud sample of Axel Boman’s forthcoming epic reimagination of KSD’s “Daemon” which you might hear in full should you choose to attend this Saturday’s party.
We’ve long had the hots for Den Haan here at the Fringe and that’s unlikely to change any time soon, especially if they keep producing videos like the one above, a ‘theatrical trailer’ for their new amyl soaked long player Gods From Out Of Space.
It should be available now on double vinyl and digital and is approximately 89% better than most of the shit that will get written about at length by the mainstream music press this month, check it out.
