Latest Purchase - Cottam

Cottam - Cottam 4 (Cottam)

I've heard it said that life is about priorities. If that's so then I guess my decisions about this record could be pretty telling.

This record came into rubadub the day before I got paid and I hardly had any money left. I had enough to buy 20 fags for the day and some dinner after work, or at least that is what I'd planned until I saw the e-mail telling me that this record was available. I actually took a half day from work to rush out to get this and made do with an empty belly and 10 fags.


My excitement about this record was so great that I wasn't prepared to even wait 24 hours until I'd been paid. This was down to the fact that I've been playing a different version of the A-side of this single that I downloaded from Cottam's soundcloud a while back so much that I was even messaging him to pester him to release it.

I think I've written before about how much I like Cottam, so the fact that I love this single should come as no surprise.  The A side is so good I can't stop playing it. The elements of this song are pretty simple, guitar loops plus a synth line combined with a small vocal sample and finally a few few acid tweaks, but they way they are put together and used to just keep raising the intensity of this track make me wish I still went out dancing just so I could lose my mind to this.


This isn't a mental or pounding record, it's just really great, really effective dance music. It still has the Cottam trademark detailed percussion programming and the tempo is only a bit higher than usual. Awesome stuff.


On the flip side we've got some swinging funky guitar loops with an electronic bass pulse intertwined with sirens and weird vocals. That maybe makes it sound a bit crazy, but the low tempo and subtle production resolves it all into a coherent smooth whole. While not as rocking as the A-side this grooves on sweetly for about 10 minutes in that distinctive Cottam style.

Listen to Side A 

Listen to Side B

Latest Purchase - Philip Glass

Philip Glass - Koyaanisqatsi (Island Records)

This is a bit of an unusual purchase for me. A modern classical soundtrack to a strange movie. 

I first got into the song Pruit Igoe from playing Grand Theft Auto IV as it was on one of the in-game radio channel, but I've heard it loads of other places before and since. The soundtrack to the game is really good in places and has some unusual selections. Way better than you'd normally expect in a computer game.

I bought the DVD of the movie Koyannisqatsi and it is well worth a watch. Loads of images of the world set to this awesome soundtrack. I've watched it a few times and grew to like the music more and more. It all seemed quite familiar from the outset, but I reckon that is down to countless appearances in movies and adverts and in the background on TV.

 

Latest Purchase - Neu!

Neu! - Neu! 2 (Gronland)

Another birthday back catalogue treat.

Neu! are a German band from the 1970's formed by guys who had previously played guitar and drums in very early Kraftwerk line ups. Their sound is based around the driving rhythms with layers of guitar noise and effects swirling over the top. I reckon it is instantly recognisable and has inspired countless influences and imitators. 

I'd always heard that they ran out of money while recording this record and only had about half an album done, forcing them to use versions of other tracks played at different speeds to pack out the tracks to make up a full record, although I have read elsewhere that this was an artistic decision rather than one born out of financial pragmatism.  I'm not sure, I still think I prefer the first explanation I heard, but irrespective of the reasons, this is effectively half an album as I don't really get much from the tracks played a different speeds.

Having said that, the remaining full tracks at the right speed add up to a solid 12" or mini album's worth of amazingness. This re-issue is pressed on lovely white vinyl, same as my version of the first album. Another item that I always felt was a big omission from my collection that I am more than happy to have filled.

Latest Purchase - Joy Division

Joy Division - Closer (Factory)

It was my birthday the other day and I was given some cash to go treat myself.  I couldn't think of a better use than filling a few back catalogue gaps.

I shouldn't need to say much about Joy Division, other than to perhaps explain why it has taken me so long to get round to picking this up. I'd spent years under the mistaken belief that I didn't really like Joy Division, other than Love Will Tear Us Apart.  That is until I was really stuck about what to do with a voucher I'd been given for a rubbish music megastore which didn't sell records. After a long fruitless search I finally decided to take a punt on the Joy Division cd box set Heart & Soul. It really changed my mind about the band and they gradually became a favourite of mine.


As I grew to love Joy Division, I became increasingly dissatisfied with only having their stuff on cd so I inevitably started buying the albums on vinyl. Closer just happens to be the last of the official releases that I acquired. I know that not everyone understands my feeling that I don't have music properly until I have it on record, but my treatment of Joy Division is about the clearest evidence of this, given that the box set has everything and more than can be found on the albums I've bought since then.


Closer is a straight up classic album in my view. It demonstrates the breadth of the Joy Division sound, from the sound of doom through to things that on first listen appear to be quite poppy but with Ian Curtis's lyrics adding that special edge. Loads of nice synth sounds as well.


I've added videos for a couple of my favourites.

Latest Purchase - Altered Natives

Altered Natives - Tenement Yard Sampler 1 (Eye4Eye)

It seemed like a while since I'd got something new so I picked this up in rubadub at the weekend.

I've got a few Altered Natives things now, and their remix of Ikonika is one of my tracks of the year. 

It was the tracks on the B-side that initially drew me in to this one. The sound on these seems to me to be a mutation of house, but with some modern UK drums. The A is a bit ravier.

I'll add a video, or a decent link if I find one, but I've added a link so you can hear tasters from rubadub.


Get a Listen
 

Latest Purchase - Visnadi

Visnadi - Four Journeys (UMM)

I picked this pretty ancient and flaky release up off Discogs the other day.  It has kind of been on my want list for a very long time, since I first heard it on a really old Slam Essential Mix, back around the time it was broadcast and sold as a double tape at the Arches nights.

This mix had a really big influence on my record buying and listening and was a mainstay for my friends and I for a while.  I heard it while I was still getting familiar with dance music and it showed a few really fruitful avenues of exploration in terms of artists and labels that were new to me. I've now bought the lion's share of the releases from this mix and there are even still a couple that I'm looking to get.

Despite a truly tragic introduction, I really like Transpassage.  It's impossible to tell if this is by association with my history with the track or if I'd think it was shit if I heard it for the first time today, but who cares.  I will say that the rest of the single is awful and I haven't really got anything good to say about it.  Discogs says that Transpassage was produced by someone different from the rest of the single and I reckon that may explain a lot.

Latest Purchase - Burglar Tom

Burglar Tom - EP2 (Not On Label)

  

Burglar Tom - EP3 (Not On Label)

These are the second and third volumes of Burglar Tom's unoffical re-works of a variety of tracks by an eclectic range of artists.  I've had the first one for a while, since Rothko picked up the set and blew me away with the the version of the Bush Tetra's - Snakes Crawl from Volume 1. 

I got the first volume at the time and had been thinking of picking up the other two since then.  I found these two going relatively cheap on Discogs, so I finally got round to it.

These 2 volumes contain reworks of Joy Division, Velvet Underground, Autechre, LFO, Brian Eno and others. 

I haven't been able to find much in the way of decent links to these tracks, but I've added links to hear some short samples from the rubadub website.

Burglar Tom - EP2 

Burglar Tom - EP3

Latest Purchase - LCD Soundsystem

LCD Soundsystem/Paperclip People - Throw (Planet E)

I saw this in rubadab when I was picking up the Sound Stream single.  It took me no thought at all to be needing this.  One of my all time favourite house tracks by Carl Craig's Paperclip People with a cover version of the track by my favourite current band, LCD Soundsystem.  'No Brainer' seems to sum it up.

I've already got another copy of the original version of Throw, but a fresh replacement is welcome as my old one is a wee bit of a battle weary veteran.

LCD Soundsystem's version is fairly faithful to the original, recreating the characteristic bassline and hi-hats. It even has the weird vocals, but their is a new layer of keyboards that adds the LCD Soundsystem stylings.

This is apparently a fixture in LCD's live sets.  I can't remember if they played it when I've seen them before, but I hope they do when I go to see them in a couple of weeks time.

LCD Soundsystem - Throw

Latest Purchase - Sound Stream

Sound Stream - All Night (Sound Stream)

Only the fifth Sound Stream release in 11 years, I almost ran to rubadub when I saw this was out. Continuing this sequence of stylish and distinctive house EPs, this record has three tracks of polished production and unsusual edits.


While this is possibly not the best in the series, it still has a lot I like about it.

After picking this up, I cracked out the older ones to bask in their amazingness.  I've added videos for a couple as well as a taste from the new single.