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Young Marble Giants – Brand New Life

Glitterball — Wed, 16 May 2012 12:54:33 +0000

About a year ago I came across a veritable treasure trove of ’80s music – largely synth pop, with a healthy dose of post-punk and insert-here-wave. Not all of it was good – in fact, much of it was utter bilge – but as a testament to the experimentation of the period, it was a very educational experience. Plenty of ingenuity with equal amounts of pretentiousness. (For the record, I actually quite like ’80s pretentiousness.) There were many standouts amongst the relative dross. I’ll be posting up a new mix in a couple of months to showcase some of my favourites – and you can hear my first foray into this territory on Glittermix 013 – but in the meantime, here’s a track by the Young Marble Giants that I never get tired of. The Young Marble Giants are famously cited by critics as one of Kurt Cobain’s favourite bands; but I find that focusing on this sort of accolade tends to get in the way of the simple fact that they’re just really great. Their only album “Colossal Youth” features a very stripped back sound: a simple but powerful combination of acoustic guitar, bass and vocals, with a drum machine backbeat often acting [...]

Boris – Buzz-In (Optimo Remix)

Marcus — Thu, 10 May 2012 21:08:55 +0000

Beware, this record destroys dancefloors. Boris are a drone/metal/psychedelic rock band from Japan. They’ve done a whole load of stuff and their style of music varies wildly – some of it great, some not so great. The original version of Buzz-In is a particularly heavy and noisy song, and doesn’t do much for me at all. Thankfully though, the ever reliable Optimo stepped in on remix duties and turned it into an unrecognisable beast of a dancefloor record, and I love it. It has some funky drums and a nice psychedelic synth line, and then BAM! in comes the rib-cage shaking bassline, handclaps and trancey synths. Pure ecstasy. It took the roof off at the last Glitterball and I hope I get the chance to play it again at the next one on 16th June. It’s sadly not available on vinyl (grr), but you can download it (along with a comedy garage remix by Todd Edwards) here

Glitterball XI – Big Trouble in Glitter China

Glitterball — Wed, 09 May 2012 13:28:30 +0000

With DJs: Matthew Burgess, Simon Busby & Marcus Blunt

Passion, 251 Amhurst Road, N16 7UN

Saturday 16th June, £6

Glittermix 018 – Freddie Blunt

Glitterball — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 19:02:40 +0000

Spring is here (I think) and so is the next Glittermix, packed full of songs that remind me that it’s time to put my coat away, blow the dust off my shorts and get my white, pasty legs out. Freddie is my brother from the same mother (and father may I add), and in addition to being younger, better looking and nicer than me, he rather annoyingly also has a great record collection. He runs and DJs at the monthly (and pretty bloody good) Disko Stew party on Thursday nights at the Hi-Fi Club in Leeds. I’ve been on at him to do us a mix for ages, and he’s finally pulled his finger out of his arse and done the job. And a brilliant job he’s done too – a fantastic blend of summery disco, soul, dub and reggae. After a few listens I’ve decided to head off to the corner shop to stockpile Big K coal for this BBQ friendly summer I reckon we’re going to have. If in 6 months’ time I have a shed full of unopened bags of coal in my shed, I’ll hold Freddie and this mix personally responsible… Tracklist 1. Roy Ayers – Goree Island [...]

Soft Metals – Psychic Driving

Marcus — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 08:51:23 +0000

After the slew of old records we’ve been posting up, it’s time for something new (albeit old sounding… and not even that new). I’m just back from a brief trip to San Francisco (what a great city), and picked up this gem the frighteningly large Amoeba Records. Soft Metals are a duo from Portland, who became a couple after making music together. This could explain why the whole album seems to be dripping with sexual tension – enough to give me a semi on my first few listens anyway. Their debut album is packed with ace modern synth-pop made using nothing but analogue equipment (or so they claim), which gets a double thumbs up from me. The whole album is great, but currently the shimmering synth-laden opening track Psychic Driving is my favourite (although I’ll probably change my mind later). Listen and weep.

Mr & Mrs Dale – It’s You

Marcus — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 20:16:43 +0000

This sleazy piece of hypnotic dance music is pretty hard to pidgeon hole – one part broken beat, one part acid house and two parts electro I guess. I know nothing about the producers behind the beast, other than that it was put out on Toronto based Bigshot Records and seems to be the only thing they’ve released. The EP came with four remixes of the same track. I dropped the “New York – London Mix” at the last party, which is basically a straight up house record (and a very good one at that – probably why it went down so well). But it’s the “Free House Mix” which is my favourite – it has a sleazy vocal, some haunting synth stabs, a rumbling bassline and it’s, like, totally hypnotic.

Glittermix 017 – Rob Mathie

Glitterball — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 10:41:32 +0000

Mr Mathie here managed to worm his way into my consciousness via a rather cunning series of well-placed traps, like a sort of obsessed feral hunter, desperate to snare my attention. It wasn’t enough that he randomly ended up living with one of my oldest uni friends for a year, he then started turning up at my favourite club nights and kept popping up in strange places on the tube. I know you’re game Rob Mathie, you don’t fool me. Ultimately I relented and threw him a podcast bone. Delighted, he snaffled it up in his jaws and delivered this wonderful selection of house nuggets in just one take. Rob was raised on a diet of haggis and Chi-town house. He took up DJing, buggered off to NY in time to go to the Paradise Garage reunion (dick!) and could be regularly seen polishing the dancefloor at Shelter with his shoes. He eventually came back home and started up the solescience night in Edinburgh, which has played host to a number of strong bookings such as Greg Wilson, Maurice Fulton and Greenskeepers. His new night Hardlife is about to go supernova in Dalston and also features Chibuku stalwart Emma Mcguigan, Sean Clare and Höhle on the bums and poos. There inaugural party on April 21st is with [...]

A Certain Ratio – Knife Slits Water (2nd Peel Session)

Glitterball — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 20:14:23 +0000

It’s kind of hard to know where to start with A Certain Ratio. I could head straight for the more disco tracks that perhaps best suit the Glitterball sound, but good as some of those tracks are, they don’t best represent the band’s most interesting period. The ’80s is full of genre-busting curios one can look back on and label “proto-this” or “proto-that” (I’ve go LOADS of proto-this) though these are retrospectively applied terms that have little meaning… still, it’s wicked fun to do. And thus I’m labelling this version of Knife Slits Water “proto-minimal techno” – of the 7am, jelly-legged, ketamine-advised variety. The single version is fairly restrained when compared to the Peel session. Punctuated by a punchy drum machine snare with haunting, pitch-molested backing vocals and ethereal synth pad effects containing it all in a primordial soup, the one thing dragging it back into the sort of experimental atmos-funk that ACR perpetuated is the frenetic bassline. It is weird, it is funky, and I love it. (It’s also annoyingly curtailed in the Youtube clip…)

Glitterball X: Welcome to Glam Rock!

Glitterball — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 19:28:29 +0000

Residents Special

10th March 2011, Passion, London

Glitterball X showed that, despite Gary Glitter's best efforts to ruin everything for everyone, the spirit of glam rock lives on.

Simon resembled a transvestite, Marcus resembled John Virgo, and everyone danced 'til their spandex melted off.

Out Of My Hands

Simon — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 22:48:08 +0000

I love a good historical journey through music. A few years back in 2008, when the edit revival scene was still relatively nascent, The Revenge came out with Unfinished Edits Are Out Of My Hands. I first heard Bill Brewster play it at Low Life shortly before its release, running up to the booth...