Wednesday 22 June 2011

Deep Horse, Melbourne Style


Oh dear, suddenly I've got far too much great new music and I'm a little overwhelmed. For starters I'll spread the news that we're doing a warehouse party this Saturday night with (who I claim is) Australia's bestest DJ, Tamas Jones of Hey Convict! spinning all night long. Check out this sterling mix he did exclusively for the night if you're not a believer - it's just his usual blend of psych-wave-disco-strum-bleep-ambi-vibe deep-croon-funk-core, an hour long instructional tape on how to be a total fucking legend behind the decks - then go hit up the Picnic website for all the details. Going to be a serious winner :)

Hey Convict (Tamas Jones) Picnic's One Night Stand Exclusive Promo Mix by Picnic Touring & Events

Now onto the daunting task of selecting just a few tracks to share. Only realised once my big Juno order arrived that I'd almost exclusively bought deep house. There's just so much brilliant deepness going around, especially down in Melbourne! The Melbourne Deepcast record is as fantastic as I could have hoped for and even picking just one track off that is pretty rough. Since I've got stuff to post by two of the artists and I don't really want to lock horns with Lewie Day's manager, I'll keep things spread out and offer up this gem from Andy Hart. Probably the most mellow tune of the package, it's a sweet little groover that doesn't have to overdo things to force foot movements. Proud to say one of this year's strongest and most essential records has come from our fine land - nicely done, crew!

Andy Hart - Devoted [buy]

Melbourne gush part 2: Fantastic Man's new EP on Kolour LTD is a serious burner. The problem with blogging about deep house is how the fuck do you restrict the number of times the word 'deep' is used to any reasonable amount? This track is really wide, but on a vertical scale... Know what I'm saying? A killer warm reworking of Maxwell's 'Dancewithme' that you might describe as 'peed' backwards. The B2 on this record is definitely my favourite but I think I'll save that for the next Delishcast - I'm hoping to get around to doing a proper deep house mix, but get your hands on the 12" anyway!

Fantastic Man - Groove With You [buy]

Just a quick break in the Melbourne love to give props to an amazing Spaniard. This new record by Leonid Nevermind is completely blowing my mind, this first track in particular. The bassline absolutely slaps my face red and purple - it's disgustingly sludgy, sticky, muddy and unbearably funky. Now I'm probably at risk of triggering some kind of spam bots for repeating myself so many times but this brings deep to whole new depths. If you can somehow swim your way out of the goopy thickness you'll probably find yourself dancing so feverishly your bones will melt and turn into custard. And the rest of the record is fucking great too. Am I exaggerating? No, I would never do that, I'm a professional. You jerk. Without a doubt my favourite record in a fair while.

Leonid Nevermind - The Unexplored Land of Love [buy]

Aaaand the third and final Melbourne props are being handed to Weekend Express for being a supreme dude in a very short time under a new moniker. His offering on the Deepcast record is a gorgeous gem, as is his release on Stilove4music. More disco vibing on this one, it fits perfectly in amongst the SL4M catalogue with the usual quirked out club disco vibe. Check out After Party on the B-side which throws in a great 90s house angle - well, really, the whole record is 100% useful. Top shelf.

Weekend Express - Going to Chicago [buy]

Congratulations, Melbournites. You scumbags.

Wednesday 15 June 2011

My Posty is Toasty


Well while the mail man continues to take his sweet time delivering my boatload of records and my patience reaches an all time low, here are a couple of nice thangs to keep things rolling. This is a nice simple psychedelic jam from Permanent Vacation's swell second volume of Space Oddities. Although it's much more primitive, I smell hints of early 70s Floyd - the same kind of raw simplicity in the real grooved out sections of Echoes. I can picture a band of shirtless college students in flares with some cheap marshall-lookalike cabs and the assembly hall drum kit trying to replicate Live in Pompeii, not without talent, and coming up with something fine like this.

Andre Perry & Louis Delacour - New Life [buy]

Big wows, quite unhappy I haven't heard about Melbourne dude-duo Sleep D (previously Sleepy Dino) and enjoyed their deep deep deeeeeep sounds before. Everything I've heard so far is just fantastic and this track in particular really noodles my poodle. Throbbing thick house music with warm bass radiation pulsating and penetrating, this is perfect winter club music! The gents are releasing a new single soon on Audio Parallax Records which is equally toasty, albeit more subdued and soulful. Keep as many eyes as you can on these dudes.

Sleep D - Buff [buy]

Hrmm well the latest Black Cow release is sadly not up to the usual ball-meltingly high standard thanks to a pretty boring A-side (although the crediting indicates it's not one of the usual crew?) however it's saved by a real nice slow, mildly hip-hoppy, stripped back soul jam thing on the flip. Super cruisy and funky with a tiny bit of respectfully restrained beat juggling spliced in here and there, I'm really a big fan of this one. Actually I'm surprised it's the first cut that has any real hip hop flavour, coming from the Jazzy Sport crew, and although more often than not it's not my cup of tea, it's quite refreshing. Still holding on to its 'best edits label around' title, but the next one had better be goooood!

Black Cow - Smiling Kungfushi [buy]

And just 'cos I feel guilty for being so cheap with the number of musics on here, an old favourite proudly stolen from the always amazing AOR Disco - a classic Fleetwood Mac edit by Swedish bro Mau. Too good.

Fleetwood Mac - Brown Eyes (Maulongated Version)

In other fine news, yes Harvey's Locussolus album is out and about - LN-CC have a sweet limited run of 100 exclusive screen printed albums plus a sew on biker patch designed by Harv for bonus lols, they're doing a comp where you can win one of ten which is nifty so do check it out.

Playing up in Brissy tomorrow if any of you are Queenslanders (boooo), come have a drank!

Friday 3 June 2011

Deadgital


At long last I've sucked it up and done a massive Juno shop, it may have taken me 3 days of painfully wading through rubbish but a big fat box of the good stuff is hopefully airborne right now on its way to my door. Until they arrive I've got a couple of other curiosities that didn't quite warrant the 12" purchase but certainly deserved a digital look. This Lightbluemover track in particular has really been growing on me and now I kinda wish I'd got the record. Certainly not done justice by a 90 second preview, this one is all about the patient growth and progression of the track, the way it calculates its moves very thoughtfully and precisely. Sounds very german to me in that sense of being so fastidious and exact. Proper winter business here, you northern hemisphere chumps are probably too busy leaping about in sunny meadows to care, but for the rest of us who need to keep warm by the stereo this is a top tune. Great rumbly wumbly for down in the club.

Lightbluemover feat. Black Light Smoke - Ddisco [buy]

This Dr. Dunks remix on Internasjonal is reeeally interesting, something quite different from our disco lord and saviour. At no point does it really feel grounded, constantly wandering off into some lofty daydreamy space, and I've been warming to it big time. A total trip into a colourful fluffy realm of peaceful strangeness, never once feeling threatening or uncomfortable in its bizarreness. For me this is definitely the pick of the bunch from this record - although it may be one of the greatest track names ever and Prins Thomas has popped in for a nice remix, I don't think there's much that's interesting or intriguing about the rest of the single. Thank you mister Eric for this lovely little oddity.

Worst Friends - Billiards With A Midget (Dr. Dunks Keep It Cheap Mix) [buy]

Venturing back again into the vast catalogue of the digital graveyard that is iTunes, I've luckily resurrected this Claremont 56 classic by Smith & Mudd - only the second release on the label back in 07. And by classic I really mean classic - it's completely indicative of the Claremont sound, cruisy acoustic beauty of the highest quality. Nothing overplayed or turned up to 11, no corner cutting or impatience, just perfectly well performed and produced music that makes you happy. I always admire the conceptual simplicity of a lot of Smith & Mudd's stuff and how effectively they're able to construct exquisite music from quite basic ideas. It's all about the fundamentals, kids! There's also a great Lexx remix of this track which offers a little bit of variety. Enjoy.

Smith & Mudd - Shulme [buy]

There's plenty to keep busy with this weekend in Sydney. Saturday night you're spoiled for choice: Motion is on at the Hollywood Hotel with a 70s disco+soul vinyl only policy which sounds just glorious; or you can get more contemporary down at Slow Blow which is always a treat. And of course, as ever, we're doing our Sunday rooftop thang over at Hunky Dory which keeps on buzzing. Aaaaand of course the Avalanches tonight at the Opera House - BOOM! Have a great one.