24th April 2015
DJs have long experimented with the speeds of their records to add a little bit of personality to their sets. Patrick Ryder follows in the footsteps of the great dancefloor innovators to pick out ten records which shine when played at the wrong speed.
Words: Patrick Ryder
If you grew up in a house with a turntable, chances are you spent many a happy hour turning your parents’ record collection into ‘The Very Best Of The Chipmunks’ or an eclectic covers album by the late, great Barry White. What you probably didn’t know is that you were following the same path as a host of avant garde musicians (Pierre Schaeffer), adventurous DJs (Levan, Baldelli, Loda) and gloriously unprofessional radio hosts (John Peel), whose experiments with speed, whether deliberate or accidental were creating weird and wonderful results all over the globe. The list below ranges from the obvious to the obscure covering wrong speed ‘classics’ and a couple of my personal favourites. It’s by no means exhaustive though, so dive into your collection and give it a go, the results could just be spectacular.
Listen to all ten in this playlist or individually as you scroll.
Dolly Parton
‘Jolene’
Originally 45rpm / Now 33rpm
Ms Parton’s enduring tale of jealous vulnerability is probably the best known record in this list and while the sombre tempo and plaintive male vocal of its 33rpm incarnation may be too much for the purists, the slowed down version has certainly caused a storm, doing the rounds extensively of late on various social media outlets.
Wayne Ford
‘Dance To The Beat Freakout’
Originally 45rpm / Now 33rpm
Cosmic club legend and turntable maverick Daniele Baldelli was one of the earliest advocates for the fine art of slow motion, frequently turning the dancefloor’s brain inside out with his pitched down afro cosmic selections. He famously worked his smacked out magic on this 1979 disco hit, transforming it from lightweight mediocrity into all out drug chug.
Linda Law
‘All The Night’
Originally 45rpm / Now 33rpm
A year before Rub N Tug dropped their mind expanding blend of pitched down madness, ‘Better With A Spoonful Of Leather 2’, the duo ended their flawless ‘Campfire’ mix on Eskimo with this sultry bit of Moroder-esque madness from Linda Law. Average electro-disco to intergalactic sex music at the push of a button.
Maxine Dee
‘I Need A Man (That’s What I’m Living For) Men Hungry’
Originally 45rpm / Now 33rpm
Sticking with the NYC scene, Justin Vandervolgen imperiously chopped and skewed this rampant bit of ‘83 Hi-NRG on his Try To Find Me mix for Golf Channel, pushing the 33 button to transform the tachycardic original into throbbing back room sleaze of the highest order. Poppers not provided.
Factory Floor & Peter Gordon
‘Cside’
Originally 45rpm / Now 33rpm
Everyone’s favourite industrial disco outfit hooked up with first wave avant garder Peter Gordon for two cuts of tessellating hypnosis on Optimo Music back in 2013. While A-side cut ‘Beachcombing’ got all the hype, I was smitten with the endless sunset of this bona fide Balearic B-side. Imagine my surprise when I found out it was actually designed for 45 and sounded like a Samsung ringtone.
Speedy J
‘De-Orbit’
Originally 33rpm / Now 45rpm
Not only was Jochem Paap one of Europe’s techno pioneers, he can also stake his claim as a key player in the evolution of Drum n Bass thanks to this melodic techno cut from back in ’91. At its regular 33rpm it’s a pleasant but unremarkable Italo-influenced cut but pitch it up to 45+ and those breaks and bleeps come into their own. What’s more, it came out a whole year before ‘Bug In The Bass Bin’ – take that Detroit.
Masters At Work
‘Justa “Lil” Dope’
Originally 33rpm / Now 45rpm
Although renowned as the finest purveyors of New York’s house sound throughout the majority of the ’90s, Kenny Dope and Louis Vega found a special place in the hearts of the UK rave scene when they dropped ‘Justa “Lil” Dope’ back in ’91. The low bpm cut, built out of break beats and horn licks from the Lafayette Afro Rock Band and plenty of reggae chatter didn’t have quite enough impact for Britain’s chemically enhanced youth. Switch it to 45rpm and it’s a different story.
LB Lynam
‘Get Things Straight’
Originally 45rpm / Now 33rpm
Here’s a little trick I learned from Manchester’s resident South African madman, Levi Love. At 45, this Caribou production is a skipping garage influenced monster with stadium sized synth breaks; but slow it down to 33 and you get a bass heavy zulu house groove perfect for mixing into a little Penny Penny or Shazula Max.
Gary Low
‘I Want You (Instrumental)’
Originally 45rpm / Now 33rpm -6
If Speedy J, Masters At Work and Carl Craig can all take props as unlikely DnB forefathers, then it only seems fair that we crown Gary Low the godfather of chillwave. At its intended allegro ‘I Want You’ is a fairly frothy Italo chanson you’d ignore in the pound bin, but played at 33rpm -6 you’re onto a sunblushed winner, as Washed Out found to his favour with ‘Feel It All Around’.
Wanda Jackson
‘Funnel Of Love’
Originally 45rpm / Now 33rpm
Just like dear old Dolly at the top of the list, Wanda Jackson is the proud owner of one of music’s unmistakeable voices, an instrument she used to fine effect as she carved out her own chapter in the Rock n Roll hall of fame. Asian influenced melodies and Wanda’s raucous vocals make ‘Funnel Of Love’ an undeniable Rockabilly classic, but if you slow it right down you’re met with layers of hidden mysticism as a cowboy vocalist gets lost in the Thai rice paddies. So successful is this slower version that Jim Jarmusch based his cover on it for the Only lovers Left Alive soundtrack.
For more pitch-shifted records and balearic good times, check out Daniele Baldelli’s 50 favourite cosmic disco records here.
4th April 2015
In advance of his conversation with Cover Club next week, we sit down with accomplished cover artist Lewis Heriz.
Occupying a unique corner of music design, Heriz’ beguiling artwork has enriched a wealth of respected labels including Sofrito: Tropical Discoqtheque, Now Again, Strut and Stones Throw. But nowhere has his influence been felt more strongly than at Soundway, where his glowing designs have played a strong hand in carving out the label’s identity.
---You’ve designed countless sleeves for Soundway Records, what’s the connection there?
The first time I contacted Soundway was after the first release – Ghana Soundz Vol 1 – in 2003. After listening to it, I emailed Miles to say that it was the best music I’ve ever heard, and I really hope there’s more to come. Luckily there was! I never really do that sort of thing, but Soundway became a buy-on-sight label, and every so often I’d email Miles to say thanks.
A few years later I started a blog for my drawings and occasional posters (which became the website I have now), and after another one of my Soundway fanboy emails – in response to the Cumbia En Do Menor 45 – Miles came back and said he really liked my illustration work and asked if I’d like to do some work for him in the future. I was made up. That was the groundwork, I guess. The actual label work started a year or more after that, by which time I had already started doing record covers, and design work for Sofrito. So there you go – if you like what someone’s doing, let them know. It’s a good thing to do and you may even end up working with them.
---Do you try to pinpoint the essence of the music in your artwork design?
That’s the core aim, yes. But there are always other factors that need to be included, or that alter it in some way, so it’s all about trying to keep hold of that essence while fulfilling whatever brief I’ve been given. I will listen to the album whenever I’m working on the sleeve, though, right to the end, which means that sometimes – when a job’s gone on for some weeks – I will listen to it hundreds of times.
Lewis Heriz in his workspace. Photo: Takafumi Miki for Colectivo Futuro
---Can you talk us through your process, step-by-step?
It always depends on the job, but there are a few stages that are always the same:
1) Listen to the record from start to finish without doing anything else. Just listen. Repeat. Repeat again.
2) Find out as much as I possibly can about the context of the record, who the musicians are or were, where they come from, what they’re saying, what their influences are, in what way their music connects with their culture or other cultures, in what way they’re interacting with the past, present, or future. I try to get as much of a grasp of the universe inhabited by the album. Is it rooted in a universe we know? Or a different one? My task is to complete that universe, or help make it real, or at least construct a door to it through which the listener will step. That’s how I tend to see it.
3) Keep listening to the album, and play. Playing – like a child does, just pushing around colour and shapes and seeing what happens – is the most important stage I think, as it’s this step that I often find a compositional & colour system that somehow resonates with the music. It’s a bit mysterious and I prefer not to think about it too hard. Sometimes my translation of the music into something visual is quite different to the band’s or the label’s, in which case we have some graft ahead. Which is fine, but it’s always a great feeling when this process pays off and everyone says it looks like the music sounds.
The rest is always more specific to the concept or the desires/needs of the musicians or label. There’s often a level of compromise involved, so it’s quite rare I send the cover I really wanted to, but the right cover is the one that everyone is happy with. That’s the way it should be.
Would you say there’s a design aesthetic that runs through your artwork?
People say there is, but that always slightly rankles as I try to approach each record afresh, and don’t like the idea of imposing a personal style on the release. It’s not about my style, it’s about the music, after all. But as a lot of the music I worked with for some years was from the middle 4 decades of the 20th century, much of what I have done reflects the common aesthetics of those decades.
I hate the idea of being retro, I really hate it, because retro stuff is clichéd and outmoded, while I want my work to actually resonate with a modern audience. And often, when I try something new, the client guides me back to where I left off because – of course – that’s why they commissioned me in the first place. My love of block colours, abstracted shapes, low-precision printing techniques and technology, hand-drawn typography, warmth and character (impersonal, precise graphic design that strives for ‘invisibility’ feels alien to me) makes up my aesthetic, I think. But I will happily tread away from the trodden path, if the people who are paying will let me.
We picked out 10 sleeve designs that captured our imagination and asked Lewis to talk us through the story behind each one:
Ibibio Sound Machine
Ibibio Sound Machine
(Soundway, 2014)
This one was a lot of fun to do. The band is fronted by Eno Williams, whose character is so strong on stage and on camera that we knew a photo of her would make for a great sleeve. It was then just a case of working out how to also use the design to communicate the album’s unique sound. The image was already strong, but I wanted to make it more than that. Iconic, if possible – we wanted it to feel classic but new.
Taking out all the colour was the first step, as turning something black and white automatically removes it from our everyday reality, and then I treated it to give it an unreal, almost robotic feel, to enhance her already-unusual pose. I then worked with Miles to decide on a pared-down colour scheme, and worked those colours back into her clothes and a simple frame to fix it together.
Marshall Allen Presents Sun Ra And His Arkestra
In The Orbit Of Ra
(Strut, 2014)
A lot of Sun Ra’s covers look like automatic drawing, or the kind of subconscious/stream of consciousness drawing you do when not trying to think too much. A kind of cosmic doodling. This is my preferred way of working – improvised and unrefined – but it’s not often I know I’m allowed to go for it.
I worked as spontaneously as I possibly could, and once I had the abstract elements in my sketchbook that I felt I needed, I photographed them and transferred to digital to integrate it into one of the photos I’d been sent by the label to use. I chose this one because he has his eyes closed, he is listening (in the original photo he’s at the recording desk, listening back to a take). Music was Sun Ra’s life and his primary connection to the universe, so it was important the image reflected that. This is one of the rare examples of a rough being approved and sent to production without any edits. I’m very, very proud of this one.
Strong Arm Steady
In Search Of Stoney Jackson
(Stones Throw)
This cover went through some very interesting twists and turns. It’ll take too long to explain them here, but it started as a celebration of the Jheri Curl, or more generally a short period in recent African-American history that was epitomised in the Soul Glo guy from Coming to America, or Lionel Richie.
Strong Arm Steady wanted me to turn one of the icons of this style and era – Stoney Jackson – into a cartoon, in a similar way that was done with Mr T. Though this isn’t about Stoney Jackson, but the concept of ‘Stoney Jackson’, the icon. Hence the face eludes us and the image is reduced to its main cultural signifiers. Also – like the Soul Glo adverts – while it’s funny, there’s something very cool about it, which is why we gave the three main members of the group Jheri Curls for the Instrumental album sleeve…
Nick Jonah Davis
Guitar Recordings Vol 1
(Self-Released, 2009)
I love that you picked this one out, as it was a very early one and in a style that’s totally different from anything I’ve done since. Before I started designing I used to draw mainly cartoons and pen and ink illustrations for no other reason than that I loved doing it.
Nick, whose instrumental solo guitar pieces I still really love, approached me to do the cover for his first album which was self-released. You can probably guess what the brief was: he asked for a monkey playing a guitar. But he said he liked Robert Crumb, whose work I also admire, so I just did it in pen and ink and that was it. There is a simplicity to the album, and maybe the image is quite self-deprecating on the part of Davis, or maybe the monkey represents the animal within all of us. Or something else. Either way, on his next album there’s a track called ‘Death and the Monkey’, so make of that what you will…
Batida
Batida
(Soundway, 2012)
If you search for ‘Batida Alegria’ on Youtube, you’ll see the video they’d already produced before we started working on the album artwork. It was the kaleidoscopic patterns that Miles and I decided to focus on, and as it was to be abstract I spent most of the time in stage 3 – playing with shape and colour until something settled. This was drawn in ink separations and recomposed digitally. Batida’s music has very strong historical, political and anti-colonial threads running through it but to reference that in a way that isn’t reductive or didactic in a single image is very hard, so I’m glad we went for an abstract design that lets that side of the music speak for itself.
Lucho Bermudez Y Su Orquesta
Lucho Bermudez Y Su Orquesta
(Soundway, 2011)
With you choosing this and Nick Davis, you’ve reminded me that I’d love to do more pen and ink stuff. My first job for Soundway was actually restoring and treating an old Colombian record cover illustration of a french horn, for the Dejala Corre 45. When Miles decided on a 45 set as the format for the Colombian singles Soundway were to put out around the time of Cartagena! and before the huge Original Sound of Cumbia release, it made sense to revisit that illustrative style. This time though I wasn’t using old designs but creating new ones. The cumber of Lucho Bermudez is clarinet-led, so that was the natural choice for the illustration.
Various
Sofrito: International Soundclash
(Strut, 2012)
This one was us trying to step away from the problem of categorising the diverse music we’re promoting by using the Buckminster-Fuller Dymaxion AirOcean World (look it up if it’s new to you!) concept that every continent is connected, and that our boundaries are not just often arbitrary but damaging to understanding the fluid nature of human culture.
Also, that the Mercator projection we still use distorts the West’s view of the rest of the world – it’s literally an imperial view of the globe, with the so-called ‘Third World’ shrunk to a lesser size than it actually is in relation to Europe and North America. That was what was underpinning this idea, which is why we included a diagram showing how to make the globe from a flat map which presented the land masses with the north pole in the centre – meaning that no one viewpoint is preferred over another. We didn’t want to ram the message home though, so it was just presented without comment and I just had to make it look nice. I hope some people got it.
DrumTalk
DrumTalk
(Huntleys + Palmers, 2015)
This is the latest release from DrumTalk, whose releases I’ve done all the physical artwork for so far. I’m going to talk about this in more detail when I get a chance because a lot went into it, but the Brutalist structures are 3D renderings of ‘architectural’ blueprints built from elements relating to each of the four tracks on the record. I broke each one down using rhythm, acoustics, overall composition, spectrum analysis, waveforms etc and tried to use them as building blocks and plans for concrete forms. The blueprints are on the reverse of the sleeve.
Various
Highlife On The Move
(Soundway, 2015)
Released on Soundway this week, a huge collection & overview of Ghanaian and Nigerian recordings from ’50s and ’60s, and acts as a sort of prequel to the label’s Nigeria and Ghana Special comps, the latter of which was one of the first designs I did for them. It was a joy to be able to work with the more rigid design style of the 1950s that you find on 78rpm sleeves – whenever I do a design I see it as continuing within a design tradition of sorts, a celebration of formal style that maybe gets neglected for reasons of being old fashioned. And the same goes for the music. This is all amazing stuff, but it got left behind, and didn’t deserve to be. Hopefully this release will redress that.
You can catch Lewis Heriz next week at Cover Club, a free event that celebrates the most creative record covers and the people behind them. The event takes place on Thursday April 9 at Ace Hotel, London – click here for more info.
29th March 2015
South African afro-jazz expert and Matsuli Music boss Matt Temple digs deep on this stunning selection of spiritual jazz from 1968-1979.
Nowhere has jazz been as prominent a vehicle for protest and self-determination as in South Africa. From small township clubs to the nationwide touring of anti-apartheid musical King Kong, its potency for delivering messages about the plight of young black South Africans ensured jazz and its musicians were at constant odds with a regime desperate to silence them. Prominent figures like Abdullah Ibrahim (aka Dollar Brand) and Hugh Masekela gave South Africa’s established be-bop sound a political edge that resonated with the fledgling Civil Rights movement in the United States, forging a national scene that spoke directly to the people.
However, events following the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960, where police opened fire on several thousand black African protestors, led to increased censorship and a crack down on venues, crippling the scene and forcing many jazz musicians to leave the country.
South African percussion ensemble Amampondo
As a result, South African jazz developed along split lines, with a large ‘scene in exile’ operating in Europe and the United States, where established names like Dollar Brand, Masekela and Miriam Makeba were free to forge international careers, and underground artists like Ndikho Xaba made music that drew explicit links between anti-apartheid struggle and the Black Power movement.
The records in this list trace this phenomenon loosely termed deep jazz or spiritual jazz, which draws on traditional African rhythms and influences within an expanded hard-bop framework. Often built around modal progressions and hypnotic, slow burning forms, it’s a sub-genre that blossomed among independent black record labels in the late ’60s and ’70s, thrilled by the spiritual, expansive qualities of John and Alice Coltrane, Pharaoh Sanders and Don Cherry.
Specialising in reissues of South African afro-jazz, Matt Temple’s Matsuli Music is the authority on South African deep jazz. With reissues for Bea Benjamin, Batsumi and most recently Ndikho Xaba and The Natives’ holy grail LP (which we’ve been trailing ever since the superb ‘Nomusa’ made it onto Jazzman’s Spiritual Jazz compilation series a few years back), we asked Matt to give us an introduction to one of the most important and diverse underground music scenes of the last fifty years.
You can listen to the whole selection in this Youtube playlist or individually as you scroll.
Words: Matt Temple
Heshoo Beshoo
Armitage Road
(JPL 4021, 1971)
With a visual reference to Abbey Road this group was put together by saxophonist Henry Sithole together with Ernest Mothle on bass, Nelson Magwaza on drums, Cyril Magubane on guitar and his brother Stanley on tenor. Heshoo Beshoo means moving forward with force. On so many levels this recording is a strong statement of self-determination, creativity and freedom in the midst of the brutal subjugation of black South Africans by the Apartheid government. The LP had a limited release in South Africa as well as a subsequent release in France. In 1971 Henry and Stanley were approached by guitarist Adolphus “Bunny” Luthuli to get a band together to compete in the Alco Best Band Competition at Jabulani Stadium in April 1971. Bunny had played with Henry in Almon’s Jazz 8. This approach was the genesis of South Africa’s greatest soul jazz band The Drive comprising the Sithole brothers Henry, Danny and Stanley, Bunny Luthuli, Mike Makhalemele, Lucky Mbatha, Nelson Magwaza and Anthony Saoli.
Soul Jazzmen
Inhlupeko
(CYL1000, 1969)
Featuring pianist Tete Mbambisa this album presents a modern vision of South African jazz with renditions of US standards alongside homegrown compositions. Inhlupeko was the first commercial recording for Tete Mbambisa despite the fact that he was one of the most gifted pianists and composers of the 1950s. He has kept the original and unique ’50s sound alive, and has nurtured many of today’s best young jazz talents. With his inventive piano playing, Tete Mbambisa helped to preserve South Africa’s acoustic jazz tradition during the genre’s decline in the 1970s and 1980s. Following Inhlupeko Tete recorded Tete’s Big Sound (1976), Did You Tell Your Mother (1979), Xhosa Nostra (1990) and Black Heroes (2012).
Gideon Nxumalo
Gideon Plays
(JLP 02, 1968)
Nxumalo is an absolutely central figure in the development of modernist jazz sounds in South Africa. As ‘uMgibe’ he hosted the This is Bantu Jazz radio show on the Rediffusion service from the early 1950s onwards, until his dismissal for playing politically charged music in the aftermath of the Sharpeville massacre. A university trained pianist, he taught piano and theory at Dorkay House, and he composed the music for the Sponono musical, the first South African production to play on Broadway.
Abdullah Ibrahim
The Journey
(CR 187, 1977)
South African pianist and composer Abdullah Ibrahim joined forces with several well-known figures in avant-garde jazz, including trumpeter Don Cherry and baritone saxophonist Hamiet Bluiett for this session. Recorded with a full ensembles of players in September of 1977 at New York’s Downtown Sound Studio this album blends of Abdullah’s famous Cape jazz alongside the avant-garde and soul of the assembled players. The Journey begins with the sublime ‘Sister Rosie’ and then takes a journey into two sublime and lengthy work outs.
Batsumi
Batsumi
(RTL 4041, 1974) reissued by Matsuli Music 2011
This album was lost for many years but it remains a masterpiece of spiritualised afro-jazz. There is nothing else on record from the period that has the deep, resonant urgency of the Batsumi sound, a reverb-drenched, formidably focussed pulse, underpinned by the tight-locked interplay of traditional and trap drums and pushed along by the throb of Zulu Bidi’s mesmeric bass.
Sathima Bea Benjamin
African Songbird
(GL 1839, 1976) reissued by Matsuli Music 2013
Sathima convinced Duke Ellington to listen to her husband Abdullah Ibrahim (then Dollar Brand) play in a small club in Switzerland and since then her musical career was overshadowed. This stunning album was recorded at a time when both her and her husband were living back in South Africa before the events of the Soweto riots in 1976 forced them into permanent exile.
Ndikho Xaba and the Natives
Ndikho Xaba and the Natives
(LR-7001, 1971) reissued by Matsuli Music 2015
Listen / Buy at phonica records
South African exile Ndikho Xaba’s 1971 album linking South African jazz to the Black Power struggles in the USA. Ndikho played alongside Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders and Sun Ra supporting anti-Vietnam rallies. Its rarity has until now served to obscure both its beauty and historical significance, making profound links between the struggle against apartheid and the Black Power movement in the USA. Ndikho Xaba and the Natives is arguably the most complete and complex South African jazz LP recorded in the USA. It stands out as a critical document in the history of transatlantic black solidarity and in the jazz culture of South African exiles.
Chris Schilder Quartet featuring Mankunku
Spring
(AYL 1001, 1969)
This LP is in essence the second Winston Mankunku album, following his 1968 Yakhal’Inkomo – which is the best selling South African jazz LP of all time. Due to a fire at EMI factory in Johannesburg in 1973 the master tapes were destroyed and it was only preserved on the existing vinyl pressings.
Johnny Dyani Quartet
Song for Biko
(SCS 1109, 1979)
Johnny Dyani was a member of the legendary Blue Notes group that left South Africa for exile in 1964. In this 1979 recording he plays with Don Cherry and fellow Blues Notes Dudu Pukwana and Makaya Ntshoko. The relaxed and authoritative style of Dyani underpins music that is haunting, emotional, adventurous and melodic. It marries the South African folk heritage with that of Ornette Coleman’s free-bop and elements of avant-garde jazz.
Louis Moholo Octet
Spirits Rejoice!
(OG 520, 1978)
Featuring Harry Miller, Johnny Dyani, Keith Tippett, Evan Parker, Nick Evans, Radu Malfatti and Kenny Wheeler. This is former Blue Note artist Louis Moholo’s first album under his own name and is a classic example of the cross-pollination between South African and British players. The highlight is certainly Mongezi Feza’s ‘You Ain’t Gonna Know Me ‘Cos You Think You Know Me’.
Ndikho Xaba & The Natives’ self-titled LP is out now as a limited edition deluxe vinyl gatefold. Click here for more info.
26th March 2015
For the eleventh episode of the Phonica Mix Series we’ve invited Dresden’s Uncanny Valley behind the decks to deliver the goods. Albrecht, Carl, Philipp and Conrad run the label together with an ethos of acting local and thinking global. In the beginning Uncanny Valley rose to fame with the release of four various artists EPs that compiled the assorted sounds of House, Techno, Acid and Down-Tempo that were coming out of the music community of their home town. Five years down the line, the label has released a large catalogue of amazing original EPs and a few albums that have been well received by fans and critics alike. Their latest offering (a gatefold LP from Sweden’s Joel Alter) shows the team looking beyond the valley’s hills, but as they explain below they’ll never forget their local roots.
Albrecht, Carl, Philip and Conrad recorded this exclusive mix together with tracks that reflects their different influences and also mirrors their choice of music they like to put out on the label. Sit back, relax, tune in and drop out. This is Uncanny Valley in the mix.
---P: Hey guys, what's going down in the Valley these days?
UV: Finally, springtime is coming and people are leaving their houses again to drink beer in the park and start smiling again ;)
---You just released an album from Joel Alter. Can you tell us a little more about how the project came together?
We have been in lose contact with Joel over the years, met him here and there. And we have been great admires of the music he made with his Jonson/Alter project. So we were excited when he sent us the album he had just recorded in summer 2014. We instantly fell in love with it and even though it meant a move away from the more club focussed music he has been known for before we took the risk to put it out without any preceding EP or singles on Uncanny Valley because this album is meant to be enjoyed as a whole.
---Uncanny Valley started off strictly releasing music from the Dresden music community and there's always been a local vibe associated with the label. Your latest album comes from a swedish artist. Are you planning on opening the label up larger community or keeping the focus on Dresden Artists?
We will keep the focus on our local community because there are still so many great artists here and it's always nice to be able to meet in person spontaneously when we feel like. But through mutual friends and travelling we meet people from other places and sometimes we just can't resist to ask great artists for their demos even though they are not from Dresden. Joel lives in Berlin so it's not difficult to meet either.
---Uncanny Valley has two sublabels, Rat Life & Shtum. Can you tell us more about Rat Life and Shtum?
We started Shtum as an outlet for the more Techno-focussed music we like. Rat Life was an idea by Credit 00 and he's selecting the music for it and doing the artwork.
---Any big plans for the summer?
We'll be preparing our 5th anniversary which will be in September of this year because we released our first record in September 2010. There will be an extensive anniversary compilation and some parties here and there for this occasion. And we're looking forward to remixes from Joel Alter's album by Dorisburg and The Persuader.
01. Linkwood - Hear The Sun [Firecracker]
02. Ozo - Anambra [DJM]
03. Codek - Tim Toum [Island]
04. Fern Kinney – Groove Me [T.K. Disco]
05. 16 Bit - Where Are You? (Mix I) [Ariola]
06. Junior Boys - Under The Sun [Kin]
07. Kelpe - Suitcasing [D.C. Recordings]
08. Iggy Pop - Interlude [UNKLE Sounds]
09. Dinosaur L - Kiss Me Again [Sire]
10. Sebastien Tellier - Politics [Record Makers]
11. Delia & Gavin - Relevee (Carl Craig Remix) [DFA]
12. Shackleton Vs. Kasai Allstars - Mukuba Special [Congotronics]
13. Burial - Raver [Hyperdub]
14. Jacob Korn - Mirrorflip [Dolly]
15. Human League - The Things That Dreams Are Made Of (Dub) [Virgin]
16. Glowing Palms - Ask Me After Midnite [Ruf Kutz]
17. C-Beams - One (Intro) [Smallville]
18. William S. Burroughs - Inching - "Is This Machine Recording?" [Industrial]
24th March 2015
Dear Berliners,
You may know that Phonica Records has a selection of music available in The Store x Soho House, Berlin but we are offering a service where you can order online at www.phonicarecords.com and get them shipped to The Store FREE of charge. No shipping, nada......Its not instant, we ship once a week along with all the new records we send out there.......so browse online, select 'pick up in Berlin' then go see our man in Berlin Roi Perez! If your order is received by 6pm on Thursday evening we will send it off on Friday and will be available for pick up from The Store the following week. Please spread the word!
20th March 2015
Original Source: The Vinyl Factory
Words: Alexander Bradley
Teaming up with Phonica Records for a new label to release new and old music from across the dance music spectrum, Alexander Bradley introduces Utopia Records and marks its debut release of Manabu Nagayama & Soichi Terada’s Low Tension with a run down of 10 other essential Japanese records.
If you are anything like me then you are always searching for a better way. The never ending hunt for the perfect beat or experience, gaining understanding and clarity of the world through music, art and other cultures and philosophies as a way to find essence and meaning. ??From a very early age I was drawn in by the Japanese sensibility of minimalism and refined beauty that threads through much of their architecture, design, food, gardens, photography and music.
As a young teen I was given a new-fangled Mini Disc player by an old family friend who moved to the mountains just outside Nagano in the early 1970s. Peter McCormick was a jazz and rock session drummer who played with many of the touring jazz greats from America throughout the ’80s and ’90s. His MD had a selection of Japanese jazz and funk, his own organic rhythms, through to Japanese pressings of Zappa, Steely Dan and Miles from his record collection which just blew me away.
Toshinori Kondo
Growing up in a backward suburban cultural vacuum at the time, the idea that there was a place where the best of music and art was a more mainstream enterprise gave me a sense of hope and got me dreaming of a life in music avoiding the cultural and systematic constraints of the modern world.?? A Japanese record pressing always has that little more care and quality, so when I was working out how to start Utopia it felt natural.
Soichi Terada and Manabu Nagayama’s take on the deep house sound is authentic yet original and instantly Japanese with its more metallic bell sounds that you don’t tend to hear producers use in Western music. Low Tension became a personal favourite of mine after digging it out on hearing Soichi’s ‘Sun Shower’ in the late ’90s. Hisa at King Street, Manabu and Soichi were very kind to send the parts in the back end of 2013 to remix and reissue. and I hope this release put together with the help of Phonica, along with Hunee’s compilation over on Rush Hour, shines some more light on Soichi, but also opens up a Japanese world to a whole new generation of young music fans who delve not just into the music but into an entire approach.
Kuniyuki Takahashi
Precious Hall
(Natural Resource, 2002)
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This particular record has become a recent favorite which I got my hands on recently in Berlin after it was name-checked to me by an old friend whom I met while working at Vinyl Junkies at the turn of the century. I have long been a fan of Kuniyuki, and it was great to see him touring in Europe of late. A producers producer, who melds musicality with organic rhythm and soul, rarely demonstrated in much of today’s house and techno dirge us DJ’s sieve through. This particular track released on Joe Claussels Spiritual Life offshoot Natural Resource has all the elements I speak of, with warmth and rhythm that even stands up against Claussels’ sound itself. On a great system this has serious depth and I love the sense of ecology and oneness that Kuniyuki attempts to get through in his music, something that is hard to do with dance music. Try this one out, if people on the floor have something upstairs and in their hearts they will go with you.
Fukutomi Yukihiro
A New Morning
(Cutting Edge, 2000)
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The same positivity is present in ‘A New Morning’ by Yukihiro Fukutomi, who I was lucky enough to have remix Low Tension along with myself for the new Utopia 12? under his Foog guise. He produced some magic dance tracks around 2000, ranging from nu jazz to deep house. ‘Another Land’ on The Sounds Of The Far East EP was my entry into the Japanese house sound, a track I used to get the dance-floor bubbling in the glory years at my old Love Fever dance. His Third LP on Wildjumbo ? that was released in Japan in ’95 is essential. It has some great New York to Tokyo house tracks, from the Blaze-esque ’4 Colored Girls’ to deeper states on ‘Come 2 Home’. Also worth checking is ‘Expressions’ off his LP entitled Timeless, which although I am not sure goes all the way for me, I sure love what it tries to do. A really underrated producer whose sound treads the line between lounge and dance-floor just right.
Minako Yoshida
Tornado
(Alfa, 1980)
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If you see anything by Minako Yoshida ever… buy it. ‘Tornado’ well, I love this track, a sultry little Japanese folk track I got a few years back. The kind of sleaze record to play at some of those early morning spaced out parties in red light bars in London and Berlin. Minako basically looked, dressed, made music and moved (I assume) like how you wish your girlfriend did. Her track ‘Town’ is goldust and an absolute stonker of a flop about with long hair “this sounds like Harvey” type disco track. The artwork on her long player entitled Twilight Zone says it all. Soft lit, black lace, big hair, a Japanese cigarette and a cat mask. The music itself is standout, especially the sing along end of night ‘Shooting Star Of Love’.
Terumasa Hino
This Planet Is Ours
(Flying Disk, 1978)
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As mentioned earlier Japan is the one country that really embraced all forms of jazz and took it into their mainstream(ish). The jazz-funk, fusion and boogie sound of American artists like Ronnie Laws and Lonnie Liston Smith was mastered by the likes of Terumasa Hino, and this track off his Hip Seagul LP handed to me by Italian connesuier and Neroli records boss Enrico Crivelero has become a constant on my home hi-fi. A great trumpet player with a wonderful back catalogue worth digging into. Great feelings!
Toshinori Kondo
Fukotsu?
This leads me onto another Japanese trumpeter of the more Avant-Guarde persuasion, Toshinori Kondo. Perhaps best known for his joint project in the ’90s with DJ Krush entitled Ki-Oku, which remains a classic to this day that really pushed the boundaries in electronic trumpet soundscapes in contemporary music. This heady trip is one to go on for sure and I am very pleased to be talking to him about working on some new ambient tracks in 2015 for Utopia, hopefully that can come together as his music is timeless and has a common thread with many Japanese artists who connect the dots between nature, man and music something he delved deeply into in his recent ‘Blow The Earth in Japan’ experimental ‘trumpet in nature’ works worth checking.
Susumu Yokota
Tobiume
(Leaf, 2000)
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This track from Susumu Yokoto’s album Sakura I played recently on my NTS show and it really caused a stir. It’s a wonderful album in its entirety that I picked up around 2000, the perfect fusion of old and new Japan, hard to come by now.
Mariah
???? (Shinzo No Tobira)
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Way out record I was put in touch with by an old friend, Aaron Coultate who is a great music writer firstly in setting up Juno Plus which helped launch the careers of many of todays DJs and producers and now RA but has also been playing records in London for around the last 5 years and is finding a great sound. Cosmic Japanese electronic workout, Geisha Boogie? why not…
Mkwaju Ensemble
Hot Air
(Better Days, 1981)
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No words needed. The record I don’t have on this list so if anyone has a copy…
Midori Takada
Through The Looking Glass
(RCA, 1983)
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I don’t think I can sum this up better than the writer on its discogs page – “I’ve had the pleasure to take a good listen from a lossy source, this album is a wonderful arrange of nostalgia, space, and curiosity, I can’t help but to feel in trance at the thought of a childhood that I rarely remember, so warm and empty. A very interesting sonic and spiritual experience. If you find a source to have a listen, don’t hesitate. And if you are lucky to find a physical copy, don’t think twice.” (nephitos, June 24, 2014?) I can see a movement over the next 5 years from producers in the West duplicating these moods as we all seek some up-liftment (is that a word?) Beautiful from the heart for the mind and soul percussive music that really takes you on a trip. The second track ‘Crossings’ is especially hypnotic and even good for late night in the clubs. Beautiful record and artwork worth the investment if you can get your hands on it. LNCC had it kicking about a while back.
Mandara
Somei Sato
(ALM, 1982)
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Comfortably the deepest record I own and one that I take much joy in partaking in after walking away this last from escapist practices and moving into immersive ones. Somei Satoh is a Japanese composer who blends contemporary and classical Japanese sensibilities. This particular piece was composed by Somei Satoh in 1986 as a response to an exhibition of Tibetan mandalas. It’s a great ride, he uses multiple layers of his own voice to create this meditative soundscape.
Cosmos
Bourbone Suite
(Canyon, 1982)
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I couldn’t really do a list of my Japanese records without turning out some boogie. The Japanese jazz-funk and boogie sound of the ’80s rivals anything that came from the US or UK. This Cosmos record makes even the straightest cat get groovin’ and is the pride and joy in my boogie collection, tip top record and there is a world of it out there…if you are playing music like this and people are dancing, then life’s pretty good.
