S.A.D.

(All links blossom into other tabs of intrigue and wonder)

Its been something of a hard week for yours truly, with winter seeming to suddenly press in closer and the realisations that:

- In some respects I'm something of a dickhead:




- That I'm probably going to have to move to Newport as, unbeknown to me, it is obviously the epicentre of all cultural innovation. Attempting to cover cutting edge electronica from any other position in the mulitverse is surely bound to prove worse than futile:

Newport (Ymerodraeth State of Mind) from Vanessa Whyte on Vimeo.

...and cruelly, how much I fancy my mate on the eve she emmigrates to Spain. Always the way isn't it?

So here are some tunes from the bluer side of the electonic spectrum, as you try and see Autumn as poetic rather than just an unwelcomly abrupt end to summer. More bedroom listening than dancefloor destroying. Would throw a little gentle banter at the Mole encouraging him to pick up this theme as well - old rascal's bound to have some absolute gems up his sleeve. But alas, he's sunnning his fur in the south of France, so is probably still revelling in sunshine vibes and their soundtrack.

Burial's obviously the undisputed Overlord of the break-up beat, the muffled melody of melancholia, but we all know this - so I won't bother mentioning him. Anyway, some of these guys have more of a whistful side, a knowledge that sun, festivals and scantily clad girls will be with us again before we can say 'seasonal affective disorder'. (Whilst Burial seems to have never recovered from a vicious comedown, where there's no hope left for anyone, anywhere... ever again. Poor chap. Someone should let him know about 5htp.)

I've been listening to Mount Kimbie's album Crooks and Lovers so much recently. Released on Suba's Hotflush record label, it does even more for me than the label boss's Triangulation. Its not all bluetronica but certainly has a leaning that way that I really like. Before I move off stirs lethargicaly out of plucked strings reminicent of one of my favourite ambient producers ever Julien Neto, into something Bonoboesque but with deliciously cut up vocals. Blind Night Errand starts off with the nearest thing to a bit of dancefloor suitable moodiness and propulsion, but as if not able to maintain this aggression, soon fades into a more gentle tone in keeping with rest of album.

Pariah's brilliant Detroit Falls, is being compared to the work of the late great J Dilla, which is no small potatoes. It equally has another energy for the floor but the emotive soul sample gives it a a pensive depth not often discernable in typical club fare.

More to come soon, but on a more optimistic note here's the video for Mount Kimbie's Would Know, also on Crooks and Lovers but distinctly more cheerful. Tropical teenage crushdom:

For Free Youtube to MP3 Converter click here (intended for evaluation/promotional purposes only)

Tom Waits - Big in Japan (listen to tune in video below)

Though this blog is dedicated to electronic bytes of sustenance, every really great DJ from Villalobos to Matt Edwards knows when to throw in something from outside their conventional electronic genre to give their set breadth and make a nod to a world beyond ill-lit basements.

The aforementioned Action Jackson has been known to send the dance floor whirling like a dervish with a cheeky Greek number, something like the tune that accompanies that climactic scene in Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

So here is the first of my recommendations of songs, not dance tunes in the conventional sense, that could be worked into sets. (And in doing so, I invite the seemingly hibernating Mole, to think up some too.)

Tom Waits has the voice of a crusty old pirate who’s dared to do everything you never had the balls to and then a little more you wouldn’t even want to. As Daniel Durchholz put it, sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."

This bad boy, off album Mule Variations, has so many elements, from the rasping brass to the descending swing of the double bass, that could be cut up, sampled or whatever you clever people do, to great effect.

For Free Youtube to MP3 Converter click here (intended for evaluation/promotional purposes only)