Round disks of wax with grooves on

Our record emporium is starting to take shape up in Che Camille’s, You can have a look at what we have via this link

We were in yesterday getting some new vinyl priced up, and put in their safety blankets but our whole area was up in arms, crawling with photographers and loads of slammed up HipHoppers pulling shapes behind our decks. It appears the MoBo’s are in town and they came to visit Che Camille. Rumor on the mill is that LaToya Jackson is coming in today……?

We also thought we would give you wee list of what we’ve been listening to over the past week or so

here it is, in no particular order

Love, peace & Halleluwah!

Gold Panda
Home EP

Various has expanded its remit to become a “proper” label, now releasing the work of other artists in addition to Various Production themselves, and this process begins with a great EP from a new artist called Gold Panda, from whom big things are expected as well as being noted as one of the top ten most exciting electronic artists of 2009 in Nylon Guys Magazine. He intuitively mixes lop-sided, chopped up hip hop style beats with a gorgeous refined melodic techno sensibility creating a fresh cross-genre sound that’s distinct and accomplished. The music on this EP is influenced by a year spent living in Japan, as well as B movies on VHS video, minimal techno and hip hop, and all these influences bleed into his sound. The three tracks here were mostly made after returning back to his hometown Chelmsford after living in Japan, as the title and bittersweet mood of first song ‘Back Home’ suggests. ‘Mayuri’ is named after Gold Panda’s techno DJ friend who he lived with in Japan – it’s the most outright ‘techno’ of the three tracks and was started in Japan while Mayuri was DJing in the background and later finished in the UK. ‘Long Vacation’ is a dubstep tempo track that was made using some sound fx from a SNES game, mixed with big MPC stabs, recalling time spent in Japanese arcades trying to beat the pros at ‘Street Fighter’.

Premier Rand
Les Corps Humides 12″

A mysterious French artist IDIB discovered through myspace, PREMIER RANG makes minimal German synth flavored dance music. It sounds like nothing else out there. Minimal and dark, yet with a hint of pop melodies. Hints of Grauzone and New Order come through as well.

hyperdub
5.1 ep

October 2009 heralds the release of ‘5’, a double CD marking Hyperdub’s five years of life as a record label. Honouring past, present and future in equal measure, ‘5’ is comprised of one disc of prior highlights, and one of freshly-composed material contributed by Hyperdub artists and close friends. A series of five 12-inch EPs featuring a selection of the new tunes will be issued, one per week, leading up to the release of ‘5’.

Zomby
Spliff (Rustie remix)

Both Zomby and the on-fire Glaswegian producer Rustie have built up a dedicated following based on a string of off-key productions, with the ferric-oxide-like one hailed in a recent post on Dubstep Forum as “Autechre fighting Four Tet while grime and dubstep make bets in the background”. Their first Hyperdub outing is headlined by Zomby’s epic bleep symphony ‘Mu5h’ (yes, with a 5), a dramatic and melodic 8bit stepper, while the new retooling of ‘Spliff Dub’ – one of the scene’s biggest tracks in the last 12 months – claims equal honours on the flip. Where Zomby’s original followed on from the classic 1980s ‘Sleng Teng’ school of digital dancehall, Rustie’s glitched version scuttles along with wonky denatured percussion, jiggy groove, speaker busting bass, blaring synths and a chopped-up vocal instructing you how to “keep the evil away”.

Sleep Whale
Little Brite

The six songs on Little Brite conjure a universe whose ancient forbears include Steve Reich, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Eno’s looping ambiences, Brit-folk guitarist Bert Jansch, gamelan ensembles and Hindustani hand percussion, however, the wall-to-wall beauty of the proceedings is anything but reverential ear candy. Engaging, melodically rewarding, and sophisto-whimsical, Sleep Whale’s cerebrally atmospheric marriage of the luddite and techno worlds makes for essential listening. 

Here We Go Magic
Here we Go magic

The album opens with the trance-inducing polyrhythms and gorgeous multi-layered vocals of “Only Pieces.” What follows is an album oozing with sounds maternal and subconscious…like floating in amniotic fluid, ripe, hiccup-y and desperate to emerge.  Many of the songs pulse with infectious afro-beat and kraut-rock influenced grooves, calling to mind classic albums like Remain in the Light and Graceland. In contrast, the instrumental tracks conjure mystical introspective landscapes reminiscent of Popol Vuh’s unforgettable ambience. Despite the album’s murky aquatic underpinnings it’s hard to resist shakin what you got to ebullient blissed-out tracks like “Fangala” and “Tunnelvision.” The album closes with “Everything’s Big”, a bleak commentary on weakness and fear birthed of opulence and gluttony. Luke’s fragile tenor delivers this absurd carnival waltz with the fervor and abandon of a teetotaler under the influence, never breaking the spell of the album’s mood of rejuvenation and release. *Vinyl version includes an exclusive bonus track “Your Eyes Spit”

Pains of Being pure at Heart
Pains of Being pure at Heart LP

For Fans Of: My Bloody Valentine, The Smiths, The Jesus And Mary Chain, The Vivian Girls, C86. Meet The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, a four-piece from the same New York scene as The Vivian Girls and Crystal Stilts who play dreamy, noisy POP with boy/girl vocals, blissful melodies and blistering drums. Original members Peggy, Kip and Alex came together through a shared love of The Pastels, The Ramones, American indie noisepop legends Black Tambourine and “Sunny Sundae Smile”-era My Bloody Valentine. Now joined by drummer Kurt, The Pains proudly bring you their self-titled debut album and the most infectious slice of pop perfection you will hear all year, a distillation of all the great noise-pop precedents – early MBV, House of Love, JAMC – but with the incredible exuberance and energy that the Pains bring to every song, the excitement of youth just rushing forth and sweeping the listener along. Over ten tracks The Pains demonstrate an absolute mastery of noise/jangle pop, their songs being a perfect distillation of classic pop melody and thrilling, rushing guitar noise that have taste-making blogs across the planet tripping over themselves in search of superlatives. Like their American peers Black Kids and Vampire Weekend, The Pains have a happy knack of taking the classic sounds of the past and at once making them invigorating and fresh, a knack sure to propel them to an audience beyond the blogs and away from the scenester crowd that made their UK tour dates crushed, sweaty and sold-out through word-of-mouth alone. Fantastic press for this has run since Feb this year, see them on tour in June.

Love is All
A hundred things keep me up at night

After their lighning-paced sold out pop debut, hey soon got snapped up by a major, released a string of great, great pop singles, toured-a-plenty, garnered pages of press and some severe Pitchfork patronage (they covered a Pastels song for a 7″ only release….on Polydor…amazing) and even better, they are from Sweden, the land of cool pop. Anywaay, the new album, is out in the UK on What’s Your Rupture?, From seemingly out of nowhere, Love is All turned up everywhere after their release of Nine Times That Same Song and then, impossibly, disappeared to the fate of hype, broken promises and seething expectations. A full three years later, the fanciful-anachrocharm of Love Is All has matured with the marriage of several members, kids and a true appreciate that love is all. The new album harnesses the same raw energy and music which captured our hearts, but this time magnifi es it through the complex emotions and experiences the band has struggled with. The recording of A Hundred Things Keep Me Up At Night reveals the unsatisfying realities of success. Years in the works, A Hundred Things is a record about excitement, frustration, regret, disappointment and figuring out what’s important in finding the relief of the morning’s light at the end of a bad nights sleep.

Jacuzzi Boys
Island Ave 7″

Featured on the Wooden Shjips Comp CD, Miami’s JACUZZI BOYS have captured the heart of a nation w/ their mystically jangling, gypsy-tinged haunting songs that stick w/ you right on contact. W/ a stellar debut on Floridas Dying & a recent tour w/ King Khan & The Shrines almost wrapped up, these 3 off-center souls drift back & forth between contagious melodic anthems of delirium, & bonafide modern classics destined to entertain generations of weirdos for years to come.

Woods
Songs of Shame LP

Fourth full length rips deeper with both 90 second & 10 minute forays into skeletal psychedelia. This is not to say the idiosyncratic songwriting style vocalizing of Jeremy Earl is not present in spades but expanded, colored, & twisted into a tie-dye of soundscapes. Having toured incessantly over the last 12 months as a four piece (Jarvis Taveniere, G. Lucas Crane & Kevin Morby round out the band), many of the songs on “Shame” benefit from having been road worn, windblown, & deeply grooved.