It’s number 9 of the Friday Night Special! Since this is probably the last FNS (at least for a long while) we’re going out with a bang. An 80+ minute long summer mix with lots of funky fresh tracks. This means some of the latest sunny techhouse and minimal, classic Chicago and acid, smooth disco, plenty of vocals, slow stretched-out mixes and spacey tropical vibes. Perfect for a nice day in the park or at the beach (and it’s downloadable!). So long, and thanks for all the fish:
A very short documentary that sums up in three minutes the importance of the Roland TR-808 drum machine for electronic, hip hop and pop music in the last thirty years. Originally designed in 1980 as a tool for studio musicians to create demos, due to its relative cheapness it became used in the then-underground electronic and hip hop scenes to compose beats.
The by now vintage, distinctive, artificial sound of the 808 not only gave birth to the techno scene (in addition to tools like the TB-303 bass synthesizer), but also influenced the evolution of all kinds of relevant styles in the last decades. By now, their sounds are available digitally, but original machines are highly sought after. If you listen, you hear those kicks and hi-hats everywhere.
Also check out this video, already blogged about earlier, demonstrating the possibilities of the 808.
The late 80′s/early 90′s revival just keeps on truckin’. It’s nostalgia for the era of acid, warehouses, whistles and glowsticks, but very over the top and tongue-in-cheek, almost satire. Still, the mix of jungle, rave and the retro visuals is nice:
Every once and a while you run into a track that makes you realize again how fucking great electronic music is.
Take this 1993 track by Plastikman (Richie Hawtin), for example. Plastikman had an epiphany in the early 1990s, resulting in some of the most original and radical electronic music ever made. ‘Plasticine‘ is a great example: running for 11 minutes, it consists of only a few different elements that come up again and again in a different composition.
The resulting sound is so dark, epic and mysterious that it’ll blow your socks off if you’re susceptible to it. Although I’m still regularly surprised by the originality of new electronic music, a 19-year old masterpiece like this is rarely outdone.
Get your whistles, acid pants and glowsticks out, because there is a lot of acid and rave in this one. That and some acid-inspired newer stuff and a couple of more straightforward techno tracks. The last track is a Dutch rave classic. Here we go:
End of the week, time for the third Friday Night Special. Another 45+ minute mix from your friends at LSD. We start off with some smooth minimal, mixed with classic Detroit, but about halfway the techno tchuk-tchuk train starts rolling, leaving no passengers behind. This one’s not for the faint-hearted. Some E Talk at the end to finish off with a smile.
The Friday Night Special is back. New mix, same recipe: a little bit of this and that, but hopefully quite yummy. In a few weeks you will be offered a cooled down, chilled treat. Tracklist after the jump…
Design companies Edit, Toko and several other designers have cooperated on the Edits by Edit series:
Curated by Edit, a select group of designers around the globe were commisioned to visualize and grasp the essence of a musical genre visualized by using just one element and one typeface.
Get your straps on for some good ol’ big room techno. Check out this blazing techno track by Mark E, featuring some nice electro, disco and acid influences. Was a favorite track of Sven Väth in his Cocoon sets of this season and really became a lethal peak moment when mixed with this crazy Japanese guy’s “C2M”.
Check out the Dance Department ADE special for more Cocoon goodness. And while you’re at it, also enjoy the latest installment, with De Man Zonder Schaduw (The Man With No Shadow).
An absolutely brilliant track by Aphex Twin, that was actually the namesake of the first EP he released under the name of AFX, back in 1991. YouTube commenters are having a discussion about whether it is from 1987. If it is, that’s pure genius.
Regardless of the age, this is really one of the greatest electronic tracks I’ve come across. It’s got the typical Aphex Twin drum beats, but also perfect analogue bubble sounds, synths, and an acid house but also Eastern vibe that’s hard not to feel lyrical about.
A while ago, we presented y’all a documentary on the early 1980s origins of warehouse raves and techno, Real Scenes: Detroit. Now, get ready to submerge in the following documentary on its British successor movement: acid house!
During the late 1980s, acid house, with its distinctive sound produced by Roland bass synthesizers and drum machines such as the TB 303 and TR 808, presented the first full-blown electronic dance music movement in Europe, including a booming underground scene. It also presented the first coming to the surface of ecstasy, which contributed to the summers of 1988-9 being called the second Summer of Love (after the lsd-fueled first one in 1969). Acid house parties took place in warehouses and out in the open, thus continuing the Detroit phenomenon of the “rave”. Fueled by sensationalist media reporting, however, British authorities came crashing down on the acid house scene.
This great documentary from the BBC’s World in Action strand is like a full blown acid house flashback. Broadcast in 1988 at height of acid house fever, it follows the typical weekend rituals of a group of very young fans, tracks the working life of an illegal party promoter, speaks to some of the producers of the music and charts the the then-growing moral panic which surrounded the scene and its copious drug taking. Raving, and acid house, had a huge (if subtle) effect on British culture, bringing people together in new, democratised contexts free of class and social boundaries, opening people’s ears up to a new world of music and opening their minds to new ideas.
So here’s the entire documentary. Enjoy!
More electronic music history documentaries on LSD:
While Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte attended the oh-so-mainstream Dance Valley festival last week (you know your festival is dead when a conservative prime minister shows up), British PM David Cameron apparently knew what was cool in 1988.
Here’s footage supposedly showing a long-haired Cameron, then 22 years old, at an acid house rave. We, of course, are wondering, if it is him, whether he also used some stimuli to get in the mood. Look at that eyes and smile…
One rightwing blogger who previously organized raves unfortunately doesn’t want to let go a thing. More here and here.
The hipster kids are getting younger and younger these days. Check out this clip featuring kids in the disco by Hamburg producer and dj Tensnake. Tensnake is a producer who sorta combines the good sides of the mainstream sound of some popular dj’s with a more qualitatively appealing edge: in tracks like this one and Coma Cat you’ll hear disco, dub, Balearic, Chicago and acid house influences.
Vet cool: maak je eigen mix en bijpassende visuals via de 030303 videomixer.
Leuke tracks, leuke plaatjes van het Utrechtse acid house-collectief, en hoogst verslavend bovendien.
Beweeg met je muis de smiley binnen het raster. Je zal zien dat je daarmee het beeld en de muziek controleert en mixt. Elke hoek verwijst naar het filmpje wat daarin speelt; ga je naar de rechterbovenboek, dan is alleen het filmpje in die betreffende hoek op het scherm te zien.
Als je op change video klikt kan je de filmpjes onafhankelijk van elkaar veranderen. Klik je op switch music dan verandert de muziek.
I recently discovered the magnificent album Screamadelica by Primal Scream. I knew Primal Scream from one track, the uplifting “Come Together“, which was featured on the first of the Trainspotting OSTs. I always loved that song, with its slow but penetrating beat, and the mix of the repetitive female vocals and the sample of the Jesse Jackson speech. But after listening to the entire Screamadelica album I realized that “Come Together” is just one great track among many on this breakthrough album of Primal Scream.
The music on Screamadelica has a timeless quality, like all great music, but at the same time it is the embodiment of a specific era. Being released in 1991 in the UK, right after the big acid house revolution, Primal Scream fused the liberating, transcendental feeling of the acid house movement, as experienced by many, with alternative rock music. The band was introduced to the scene in 1988 and after initial hesitation started to become enthusiastic ravers. They met DJ Andrew Weatherall at a rave and cooperated with him on the song “Loaded”, a cooperation which culminated in Screamadelica.
It was the right album at the right time, like Sgt. Pepper’s in 1967, God Save The Queen in 1977, or Remain in Light in 1980, and maybe even Oracular Spectacular in 2007. And mind you, Screamadelica was released one year before Underworld released their first epic blends of techno and rock. Unfortunately, Primal Scream never reached the same level of brilliance on later albums, mainly due to a bad heroin addiction developed by most of the band members. Fortunately, they have given us Screamadelica. On Documentary Heaven (a great site with 1500+ documentaries) I found a good BBC doc that celebrates this classic album:
TWR72 is a duo of two Dutch producers who primarily do remixes for other (Dutch) artists like De Jeugd van Tegenwoordig, Seymore Bits, Rimer London and B.R.U.C.E. Recently they have also started producing their own tracks. “Future Tool” was a pretty big hit among dj’s like Len Faki and Diplo last month and this week they have released the EP 1991 on Instant Replay. Like many other producers these days they are inspired by the glowstick-era of house music. Some people might argue that in 1991 this era was already over, and in the U.K. that probably was the case, but in the Netherlands the acid house scene was booming in ’91. Here’s TWR72′s impression of that era, a pretty good one I must say:
Especially the video below is, well, sheer brilliance. There are no words to describe it; the joy in the eyes of the dj, the majesty of the Gashouder, and of course the music. Just check it out for yourself, the entire video is worth watching.
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