Mixtape Ahoy! Chapter One

Hello people! Sorry this week's mixtape is so late, but, y'know, I'm a perfectionist. Hey, now it's here though and it's very bloody good indeed, so get your download on and put on your dancing shoes! If you want any individual tracks, you can fuck off! I mean, you can email me at norty.morty@gmail.com and maybe we can sort something out. It's a double this week, with the second part to come tomorrow. Tuck in!

1. Otterman Empire - Texas Radio (A rather smart re-edit from Thomas Bullock (Map Of Africa, Rub 'N' Tug) that was released on the shit-hot Whatever We Want Records last year. In case you were wondering, it's an edit of The Doors' 'The Wasp (Texas Radio And The Big Beat)' off L.A. Woman. All Bullock does is stretch out certain parts of the track for maximum effect in such a way that it makes you wonder why Jim and co. didn't do that in the first place.)
2. Sukia - Vaseline & Sound (Oodles of moog, sitar and surf guitar pepper this track from the oft-forgotten Sukia. All I really know about them is that they were on Mo' Wax, their debut record, Contacto Espacial Con El Tercer Sexo is one of the great lost albums of the 90s and one of their number played Joey in Airplane! You know, the kid who got to go up to the cockpit? "Do you like gladiator movies, Joey?")
3. Dr. Octagon - Blue Flowers (An absolute classic. I've yet to hear Kool Keith's latest album in his Dr. Octagon guise, but I should really seek it out. It can't be as good as this though, can it?)
4. Dudley Perkins - Me (The Stones Throw man fancies himself as a bit of a contemporary Marvin Gaye and he's destined to never reach those heights. In fact, the jury's still out on whether he's got any songwriting chops at all, but Madlib's production elevates this above the norm. Love the reggae-ish reciprocating piano line.)
5. Horace Andy - Skylarking (One of the things that I've got my ex-brother-in-law to thank for (and admittedly there aren't many) is turning me on to Horace Andy's early Studio One stuff, in particular this song. That unique voice is startlingly refined, even though the production is raw as fuck.)
6. Sandie Shaw - Your Time Is Gonna Come (I love a good cover, me, and there's no better cover album than Sandie's Reviewing The Situation. This is one of the highlights of that record and while you Zep fans out there might think that no-one can outdo Robert Plant, I suggest you take a listen to this before you cry heathenry.)
7. The Beauty Room - Holding On (The venerable soul-boy, Kirk Degiorgio's latest project is The Beauty Room. For the uncultured, this may sound like so much Zero 7 (more of them tomorrow), but when you're still humming it to yourself days later, you realise that there's more to this than your standard chill-out fare.)
8. Amp Fiddler - Right Where You Are (Hot Chip Remix And Bonus Club Mixes) (The ever-prolific Chip get to remixing the Detroit ledge, taking him on a retro-electro-soul journey for nearly eight minutes. Just lushness personified.)
9. Stephen Malkmus - Kindling For The Master (Major Swellings Remix) (Yes, THE Stephen Malkmus, getting re-rubbed up the right way by Major Swellings, aka Prins Thomas. It's a voyage that I don't think Malkmus has ever been on before, one that takes him to that great disco in outer-space before spitting him out the side of the ship onto the dancefloor at the Paradise Garage. Indie-schmindie has never sounded so good.)
10. Escort - Starlight (Darshan Jesrani's Parks Department Dub) (The best straight-up disco track of the year gets a dubbed-out makeover from the Metro Area man, giving the original a more clandestine, after-hours feel. Those strings still hit in all the right places though.)
11. Chromatics - Glass Slipper (Speaking of after-hours disco, Chromatics and Glass Candy are really starting to give DFA a run for their money in the dark dancefloor delights stakes. This track from last year's 'Nite' 12" is guaranteed to detonate any dark, dank basement club the world over.)
12. Justus Kohncke - Overhead (Superb filtered house from the Kompakt man that manages to stay just the right side of cheese throughout. Like Discovery and Human After All never happened. In fact, if Daft Punk were still doing this kind of thing, I don't think the hipsters would have been so quick to disown them.)
13. Mekon - Blood On The Moon (feat. Alan Vega and Bobby Gillespie) (A bloody mess, but in a good way. All noisy fx and cut-up drums with nonesensical lyrics from Vega and Gillespie. Excellent stuff.)
14. Mclusky - To Hell With Good Intentions (One of the most underrated bands in recent years with one of their finest tracks. 'Nuff said, except for "My love is bigger than your love, we take more drugs than a touring funk band. Sing it!")
15. Wolf Parade - Fancy Claps (I'm sure that I've put this on mixtapes past, but I recently went back to Apologies To The Queen Mary, only to find that, apart from the untoppable 'I'll Believe In Anything', this is my favourite song of theirs.)
16. The Young Knives - Loughborough Suicide (A song about a place that's supposed to be one of Britain's most depressing towns that manages to be both scabrous and uplifting. Job's a good 'un!)

Part One (Otterman Empire - Stephen Malkmus) Zipped and Rapidshared

Part Two (Escort - The Young Knives) Zipped and Rapidshared

Second part tomorrow, people,

JMx