Live and direct from Ulan Krautor

Mungolian Jet Set makes the kind of fucked up music i'm absolutely fond of these times.
Cosmic disco, space rock, kraut all spiced up with a very subtle ethnic flavor, crazy sensual vocals hovering above lounge jazz parodies soon turning into dancefloor electronic bangers and then mutating again into sweaty disco sweets, giving you absolutely no time to breath nor stop dancing, yeah i know you just tried to just as it reversed again to some synthetical tangerine daydream or was it John Carpenter trying to sound like Nöze ?
Is my head spinning or is it the record ?

We Gave It All Away...Now We Are Taking It Back is a double mixed compilation of their collaborations, covers and remixes with well known and lesser known psychelectronic wizards, including Mari Boine,Lindstrøm and Nils Petter Molvær

Mungolian Jet Set

Starkey Live@ Various 4.11.09

I've been a fan of Starkey since the "Grim FM" compilation, at the beginning of the dubstep movement which proposed at the time a different approach, much more experimental and tweaked than everything else released in those early years and still sounds highly enjoyable and fresh today.
I was pretty disappointed with his first album "Experimental Exhibits" though, which focused on more classic and banging tracks, unfortunatelly too monotonous for my own taste. And lacking something maybe, although i couldn't say what it is.

Everything changed while listening to a liveset originated from this album, this time tracks blend perfectly together, and it sounds like an uninterrupted flow of awesomeness kicking you in the butt and chiming the bell of party. Dubsteppa suit up, bro !


Starkey Live@ Various 4.11.09 download on PDXInDub

Utku Dalmaz - Milky Way

Turkey ain't only knocking on European Union's door... It's been a few years now that some of its inhabitants also rock the techno and house floors. Utku Dalmaz is one of them.

I noticed him last year, when he had a few mp3-releases issued on Istanbul-based labels such as Bosphorus Underground or M-Vitamine... At the time, he was weel inspired at doing minimal joints and you could already notice his great potential...

One year later, the young guy created his own label, Sound Mass Recordings and now provides us with a long play; it shows a little change compared to the '08 EP's. There's more groove into his music, indeed. It sounds deeper, more housey, with a bit more soul and with kind of a sunny and lazy atmosphere...

'Milky Way' hovers around that genre but still covers a pretty large spectrum, from tech-house to micro-house or something more classic. His beats always spot-on and fine-cut, he delivers thumping basslines, plays with samples with wisdom and let's the groove slowly settle down... The recipe seems simple but Utku Dalmaz is a chef. I already delighted in having some of it pretty much every day since the album came out a few weeks ago... That fits the summer perfectly and I seriously think you guys should get a few slices asap.

Utku Dalmaz - Milky Way by Sound Mass Records

Few Nolder - New Folder

Somewhere in a utopian present the size of a pinhead at the deep center of a black hole this is a world known slogan : "Trust Planet Mu to bring you the perfect mix of idm techno and dubstep". People actually get bored with it when they hear it for the 30st of the day on the radio.

Well in our world it's not, it's just the only catchphrase i came up with for this post. I need to improve on that !

Anyway, "New Folder" is the first album of lituanian relative new comer Few Nolder. As it is often the case on Planet Mu, it's not an album stuck in a specific musical category, landing somewhere between electro, idm, techno and dubstep and borrowing from every one of this styles.

Mood and pace aren't straigth-line either : Melodies get tangled into deep basslines and sharp rhythms while you try to dance through it and you can't help but smile at the beautiful glint of the sun on the knife leaning on your jugular.

Except for that strange eastern european dance track which is a bit ill-assorted with the rest of the album, "New Folder" manages to be perfect record from end to end.

Few Nolder's Myspace

His lives seem pretty explosives, too :

Alex Moulton - Exodus

I remember a time when I was a child, where new words and pictures would put wild and strange images in my mind.
Sometimes these images come back, while i'm listening to Vangelis or Tangerine Dream, or any disc distributed by Pan European Records.

Rains of destroyed alien motherships setting megalopoles the size of a planet on fire, fluorescents deformed beasts roaming a desolate and stricken countryside, strange faces growing in the sky till filling the horizon.

Someone made me experience these sensations again recently. His name is Alex Moulton, and he released "Exodus" at the begining of the year.
(and I can't help but smile like a child again everytime when i look at that intelligent and fascinating take on the no-budget video-clip)



Meridians


Exodus


Out Of Phase



Alex Moulton's Myspace

Mixes for the summer

Some free (and old) mixes for a change

a beautiful monomaniac and slowly-evolving techno mix by Speedy J & Georges Issakidis on the very inspired blog Get The Curse, the 61st of a long running and always interesting collection.
Speedy J & Issakidis – Electric Deluxe [gtc061]

a more ghettotech-oriented mix, perfect to drop massive amount of sweat on the walls, this one is full of bangers (many more mixes on DJ Dials site)
DJ Dials - Face Melters Mixtape

Lastly, because we sometimes listen to music which is not always electronic in essence, the last one is the perfect mix for the summer, from the excellent african underground music blog Awesome Tapes From Africa, very moving and melancholic, slow and reconforting as the ever-coming heat waves during a burning hot afternoon nap.
Simon's Praise & Ballads Selection

John Daly - Space Walk / Morning Moon

Let's be honest, I never heard of John Daly until a few months ago, thanks to a beautiful EP released on Drumpoet earlier this year... A great deep-house record, by the way (just play 'This Is A Lonely Beat' loud in your headphones even when riding a crowded Parisian métro, and see if you don't start jigging about); and at that time I thought "This is a name I need to remember".

OK, here we go : the Irish fellow just had a new EP published on Mule Musiq! Still deep-house oriented, 'Space Walk / Morning Moon' lets you dive into an ocean of strings and oldschool round basslines, sometimes skimming the borders of tech-house & trance continents, like some of the best tunes issued on labels such as Ibadan records.

If you don't know what it means to look blissful, then take some time to listen to the whole record. You might suddenly close your eyes,and then, after a few seconds, an ingenuous and happy smile should appear on your face. It's good for your morale, don't worry and let yourself go.



PS : Pour les francophones, on est sympa, on vous met un lien vers un blog qui se penche sur l'album de John Daly, sorti au printemps.
http://www.desoreillesdansbabylone.com/2009/06/john-daly-sea-sky-2009.html

"That guy is following us"

That's what the taxi driver said just after stopping next to another cab, pointing at him, a bald guy with kind of a sinister but lost-in-his-thoughts look.
"That guy is crazy, he keeps following me". He bends over, turning on his CD player. A dark mix of IDM, dubstep and techno comes out of the speaker – something between Gridlock and Benga – as the car shoots off like a rocket.
We keep silent for a few minutes, rushing through the streets. "There he is ! ". I turn around, looking through the back window.
"No it's not the same guy"
"Yes it's him !"
I'm drunk, so the situation feels pretty amusing; I couldn't care less whether it's true or not, I'm just taking this moment as it is, a comical and mysterious one.
Sure, the driver does strike me as very stressed out, even a bit disturbed, but eh, as long as we get home, it's just a funny encounter, I'm okay with that.

That's when I notice that we aren't heading to my street, but circling around the block.
"Hey what are you doing, weren't you supposed to turn there ?"
"I'm just looking for a police car, to show them the guy, so that he doesn't bother me anymore"
I turn around to check, and there's nothing out there, no car.
A few minutes tick by, nothing new happens, and the cab is not even an inch nearer my home .
"Okay, I'm tired now, can you just drive me home, PLEASE ?"
"Wait, I'm just looking for a police car"

I'm so drunk that I'm still amused, grabbing my backpack and determined to jump the car if anything goes wrong, even at full speed, and I can't help but laughing.
After a while, we're, at last, in front of my building, but the driver has one last request : speaking in a low plaintive scared children voice he just asks timidly "Could you just please wait for the traffic light to turn green he's still behind me !"
I say okay, fed up with his bullshit, and I just go to the door to enter the code. As i finish dialing it, the guy steps on the gas and I have just one second to turn my head and see another car passing by and following him. It's driven by a bald guy, with a sinister grin.


Marching Dynamics - Nailsleeper (2007)
Marching Dynamics - The Workers Party Of Haiti (2009)

Interview (in french) on Premonition.fr

Marching Dynamics Myspace

Bloody Mary - Black Pearl

Until now, I viewed Louderbach's beautiful album, Autumn, as the most magnificent album this year. I changed my mind. Bloody Mary's first LP released a few days ago on Contexterrior (Germany-based label run by genious Jay Haze) just had its bewitching world and rugged scenery unfold before me. Her music and me, I guess it's some kind of love-at-first-listening. Really.

Don't get me wrong : Autumn still is a piece of art to me. But Marjorie Migliaccio, a.k.a. Bloody Mary just depicts the beauty of darkness and melancholy with a terribly accurate sensibility. No wonder why she claims to be inspired by Charles Baudelaire's works...

There's not much to say about the details; by describing or analyzing each track of this perfect album I'd do nothing but draft an article on how this whole piece is giving me thrills and cold sweat.

Just be aware that whether she explores the shores of minimal, electronica or ambient, there's always this a fragile but intense organic swell... As if your heartbeat chanted the prayer of its most buried feelings.

The record is called Black Pearl, by the way, and here's a video of the eponymous tune.

Florian Meindl - Time To Move [Flash 013]

Mostly known due to his ability to design and also remix tunes with groovy minimal-to-tech-house beats, German producer Florian Meindl introduces the latest release of Flash Recordings, the labels he jointly owns and runs with his fellow-countryman Oliver Koletzki...

A great track there, 'Time To Move' unfolds a pretty academic & martial beat intro that slowly turns into a heady housey dancefloor killer blended with a smart use of voice samples...
That reminds us a bit of the first few releases of other German labels like Moon Harbour, and that's a perfect micro-house (as it was called a few years ago) tune, smelling like mugginess on a freshly lotioned skin.

Release date : 5th of July