Dimitri Andreas - Run and Hide (Original Mix)

I can't explain to you how much I like Marc Romboy's record label Systematic Recordings. Not on Youtube so I can't post it, but check out 'Rd's Movement (Randy Watson Variation #4)' by Sascha Dive.

Ibiza

Got back on Friday and still don't feel well enough to write anything yet. Just thought I would whack this up so people didn't start worrying I had died or something. Luciano killed it at Cocoon (as did Ricardo who played a tune that name dropped himself! - will try and locate that in time) and he played this tune which he also killed in 2008.

Pina Bausch

A sad day today as Pina Bausch has passed away at the age of 68, five days after being diagnosed with cancer. I'm not going to wax lyrical about a woman who is in my opinion, the unrivalled grand dame of 20th century dance, except to say that watching The Rite of Spring and Cafe Müller in Sadler's Wells last year was one of the most breathtaking performances of any artistic medium I have ever seen. Bausch was my favourite artist - a term I use catholically to mean writer, musician, dancer, architect, painter, sculptor - and this is a sad day for the arts as a whole.

The Human Bond

Youtube does the weirdest things to people. Take one E Dancer (AKA Kevin Saunderson) track released in 1998, cut it a bit, and upload it alongside a tongue in cheek Formula 1 parody featuring a real life Homer Simpson that inexplicably cuts out half way through. What do you get? Fucked if I know, but I'm still struggling to work out what Luis1vo was hoping to show the world, the Formula 1 sketch, or the track. Either way, I'm glad it's up there and that I can share it with you, my discerning reader/listener.

Stereo Dancer - Absolute Reason

I find it impossible to believe that this track came out in 1998! The dub-techno intro sounds very before its time, and the transition from fog-horn bleariness to sit up and take notice beat is artful and well judged. This is the first track from Danny Tenaglia's Global Undeground 'Athens' mix, which has moments of ups and downs, but overall, gives one a good idea of how important a DJ Tenaglia is. He's had residencies at Twilo, APT, Cielo, Tunnel, and Avalon in New York, rocked Ibiza, and unnusally for a New York house DJ, been a long time champion of German techno. Although Stereo Dancer are French, you really can, whether intentionally or not, hear a Basic Channel influence.

This is taken from his Wikipedia page: 'Danny Tenaglia (born March 7, 1961) is a New York-based DJ and Grammy nominated record producer. Explosive success for him came not behind a major label release, or a world tour, or a radio hit remix: It happened when enough people had the private Tenaglia experience for themselves.'

In all honesty this is 100% true - I saw him at Exit in 2007 having never heard of him, and was blown away by his performance. He wiped the floor with Hawtin, and only Magda, perhaps Marko Nastic gave him a run for his money. If you ever get the chance to see him live, jump at it.

Graceland

What with the sudden death of Michael Jackson, it got me thinking about where he ranked in the heirarchy of popular 20th century (because he wasn't 21st) musicians. You have your Dylans in the list, your Neil Youngs. Leonard Cohen, Bowie, as well. Then of course you have the bands; The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Zeppelin, U2 even. I'm sure Jackson snuggles in somewhere, but one person you never see is Paul Simon. He gets credited for his work with Art Garfunkel, but usually in dialogue with the film it came to embody, The Graduate, which really does him a disservice.

Songs such as Rosemary and Thyme and Scarborough Fair are hauntingly infantile and would sit more comfortably with the Pagainsed mediaevalism of the original Wicker Man then the middle-class insecurities of Dustin Hoffman' character. Yet it works.

The medieval theme continues on the Graceland album cover, a nod to earlier material, but the music within takes its sources from an equally faraway place. The album is phenomenally pioneering in the way it incorporates the African incantations of Ladysmith Black Mambazo in a way never explored before. Rooted both musically and in spirit with the deep south of America, Simon fuses the fairytale quality of the region with the equally otherworldly elements of African singers. And moreover he does it with such poetic flair. Diamonds on The Soles of His Shoes neatly defies ideas of rich and poor, whilst Homeless sounds like a funeral dirge composed by an African chain gang. The smash hit, You Can Call Me All has a great video with Chevy Chase in it and the eponymous track Graceland has maybe my favourite lyric of all time, trumping any of Dylan's efforts:

'There is a girl in New York City,
Who calls herself the human trampoline,
And sometimes when I'm falling flying
Or tumbling in turmoil I say
Whoa so this is what she means,
She means we're bouncing into Graceland.'

Later work shows an affinity for reggae which is a bit quaint but so pleasantly catchy (Mother and Child Reunion) and his whole career has seen a willingness to engage with new music. And he is still relevant. The sound he created is being peddled by Vampire Weekend most prominently, by TV on the Radio, and the rest of the Afrobeat heads yet it all stems from him. Let's not forget that he has aged gracefully, never averse to playing new material but always keeping it his own. As he said: “My whole artistic life has always been about change, change, change, move on, move on. It's the only thing I find interesting.”

RIP MJ

I have never ever been a Michael Jackson fan. I don't mean to hate on the King of Pop, but the way I see it, he was a good dancer who had the good luck to work with Quincy Jones in one of the most fertile periods of his career. Nonetheless, I don't deny his levels of social significance and notoriety (even though for the last 20 years it's had more to do with negative press than anything music related), and am more than happy to add my name to the list (6 billion and counting I think) of people using the internet (#MichaelJackson) to wish him well in the afterlife. Suicide bombers dream of harems chock-a-block full of virgins with wicked french lace suspenders and a naughty glint in their eye. I reckon Jacko's view of the afterlife was a Disney World-esque set up full of little kids, troipical animals, rollercoaster rides, and him at the centre like some sort of muscial version of the Worther's Original grandpa'. Nonetheless, my thoughts and prayers are with Michael Jackson's kids. Actually, I suppose my thoughts and prayers have always been with Michael Jackson's kids.

Anyway, I'm not going to post an MJ track (well sort of), but instead put up Caetano Veloso's mash-up of Billie Jean and Eleanor Rigby. Am I alone in thinking MJ covers are more often than not better than the source material?