Mixtape! Getcha mixtape!

Hello readers!

Another mixtape for you here. This one's a bit more dancey than the last one, with a focus on stuff that's rocking the 'floors of clubs the world over. Or not, maybe. Who knows what the kids like these days, really eh?!


YER MAM!'S SOLID GOLD SMASHES VOLUME TWO: NIGHT VERSION

1. LCD Soundsystem - Sound Of Silver (C2 RMX Rev. 3) (Cryptic title, but solid silver bomb. Carl Craig, as always, gives everything a sort of neo-futurist sheen and a surging, insidious beat. Pure class.)
2. Chromatics - I Want Your Love (From their new album - can you actually call it an album? CD-R? - Night Drive, this is a widescreen, Italo groover. Anyone else of the opinion that Ruth Radelet's the most alluring singer around right now?)
3. Cage & Aviary - Giorgio Carpenter (This one got a limited release recently on the hip, new London-based label, Dissident and here it is in all its ten minutes-plus glory. Hypnotic.)
4. King Creosote - You've No Clue Do You (Atlantic Conveyor Mix) (Should KC ever decide to hang up the arran jumper and take to doing house PAs for a living, then this is approaching what he might sound like. Hey, you know what? It's a look that suits his careworn, but passionate voice.)
5. Mocky - Catch A Moment In Time (Ewan Pearson's Memory Blissed Remix) (Revisited this one from a couple of years ago since its appearance on Ewan's recent Piece Work remix collection. Definitely one of his best, but it could do with a dub. That vocal gets hell of annoying after a few listens.)
6. Ilya Santana - Quasar (Pete Herbert Remix) (Been knocking around for a little while this one but its got better with time in my opinion. Fans of Pete Herbert's work with Reverso 68 and L.S.B. won't find anything majorly surprising here, but that spring-loaded bassline will make you move all the same.)
7. Karizma - In Tha D.ee.p (Another one that's been around the block a bit but I'm jonesing for all things Karizma at the moment so I thought I'd stick it on here. Superb house music for mind, body and soul.)
8. DJ Gregory - Elle (Ame Piano Mix) (Those Germans really are making a name for themselves recently and this kind of track is exactly why. Shuffly, subtly shifting tech workout with a slight latin tinge. Nice.)
9. Moloko - Forever More (My love for the new Roisin Murphy album made me go back and dig this one out. One of the most overlooked and greatest singles of the decade in my honest opinion, not that you listen to little old me anyway. Proper end-of-the-night tune.)
10. Dame Shirley Bassey - Slave To The Rhythm (The Glimmers Mix) (A real show-stopper this one, but can Dame Shirl do any other kind of tune? Gal's got balls.)

Yer Mam!'s Solid Gold Smashes Volume Two Ripped, Zipped and Sent Into Space

More where this one came from. Keep an eye out...

JMx

Wanna buy a mixtape?*

You've all waited way too long for one of these...


YER MAM!'S SOLID GOLD SMASHES VOLUME ONE

1. Turid - Lat Mig Se Dig (Kicking off with some supremely blissed-out, meandering folkprogspaceacidrock from the rather fine Bearded Ladies Volume One compilation on Finders Keepers. Beautiful stuff.)
2. Suzanne Vega - Blood Makes Noise (Reminded of this via The Sarah Silverman Program of all things. A great piece of faintly avant-garde folk-pop from the queen of that kind of thing.)
3. Stretch - Why Did You Do It? (I think enough time has passed since Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels for us all to separate this classic slab of badass British funk-rock from any kind of cockernee gangster connotations, so here it is.)
4. Van Morrison - I've Been Working (Tim Sweeney's been playing a pretty great edit of this track from Van The Man's His Band And The Street Choir album on Beats In Space, but nowt beats the original, with Van doing his best blues howl. "Woman, woman, woman, woman, woman, woman, woman, woman make me feel so good!")
5. American Gypsy - Inside Out (One of the best and strangest - I mean, how incongruous is that slowed-down middle eight?! - funk tracks of all time. Nuff said.)
6. Georgia Anne Muldrow & Dudley Perkins - One (Didn't have high hopes for this collaboration with Muldrow's tendency to over-egg the pudding and Perkins' bent for souring said pudding with a hefty chunk of corn, but The Message Uni Versa is pretty damn good and this is one of my favourites from said album. Got a Madlib-gone-cartoonish feel about it. Nice.)
7. Herbie Hancock - Saturday Night (Beatconductor Disco Mix) (Beatconductor is far and away one of the best editors out there and he does a sterling job here, stretching the original out to near-breaking point, allowing for maximum dancefloor vibes.)
8. Freeez - Southern Freeez (Overlooked, jazzy, funky classic from the guys what brought you 'I.O.U.'. Brings out the sunshine everytime.)
9. Carl Davis & The Chi-Sound Orchestra - Windy City (I'll Tell You What It Is Later) ("Windy city! Doo-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-dooo-do-doo! It's cold! And cool! It's outta sight!" All. You. Need. To. Know.)
10. Me & You - Sneaker Thief (Summer may seem to most like a distant memory now - for some of us it nary made an appearance - but during the summer months this one track evoked the smell of barbecues and that regretful feeling you get when you realise that alcohol and heat do not mix more than any other for me.)
11. Hot Chocolate - Cadillac (The Revenge Rework) (L.E.S.S. Productions' The Revenge - friend of the blog and purveyor of quality edits - takes this 70s cheese-disco nugget and turns it into one tough little unit. A dancefloor stomper, that's for damned sure.)
12. Ministry - I Wanted To Tell Her (Goth-disco stormer from before Ministry were the stern industrialists we know and love today. I kind of wish they'd have stuck with this sort of stuff their whole career rather than abandoning this sound one album in.)
13. Midnight Mike - Who Do You Love? (Sung By Takayo Akiyama and Warabe Takekoji) (One of very few saving graces on Midnight Mike's almost all-dire covers record, Midnight Karaoke. This is just the right balance of respect and irreverence. Shame he didn't get it right on the rest of the album.)
14. The Who - Eminence Front (Big thanks to the Best Foot Forward guys for tipping me to the existence of this massive tune from The Who's 1982 album, It's Hard. Basically a Pete Townshend solo joint, it's a big ol' chunk of proselytising, coke-flecked, disco-rock, stadium bluster and about 10,000 times better than I just made it sound.)
15. Dennis Wilson - Dreamer (Closing us out with a cut from Pacific Ocean Blue, which despite its status as a 'great lost album', isn't actually all that lost these days, what with the internet and everything. Still, it'd be nice to get a proper CD release of this at some point, wouldn't it?)

Yer Mam!'s Solid Gold Smashes Volume One Ripped, Zipped and Sent Into Space

Volume Two soon come...

JMx

*It's free, actually. You don't have to pay a thing.

"It's close to midnight..."

Muh-huw-wah-hah-hah-hah-haaaahhhh! *cough, splutter* Yes, Hallowe'en is just around the corner and to celebrate the boys from L.E.S.S. Productions are releasing another of their quality edits CDs, this time with a spooky flavour and a punny title (the others were called Forever In Their Debt, this one is Forever In Their Death. You see what they did there?).

Anyways, you may recall that I've wrote a little about them before (here) and spoke about them on Blog Fresh Radio (here). If you haven't taken notice of me and snapped up the previous two comps, then shame on you. If you have, then you'll know just what kind of quality you're in for.

It's with that in mind that you'll be pleased to find out this very blog is running a competition, in conjunction with L.E.S.S. to win one of two copies of Forever In Their Death! Exciting, no? All you have to do to win a copy is this...

Email your best Hallowe'en costume idea to free@five20east.com by the 21st October and the best two ideas will each win a copy of the CD. I must inform you that the competition is open to UK residents only and you may receive information from Five20East from time to time, but I'm sure you wouldn't mind that now, would you?

Here's a little taste of what's in store for the winners...

Michael Jackson - Thriller (OOFT Music Phazed Edit) (mp3)

Good luck!

Not a lucky person? Want a CD anyway? You can buy it from here for just £4.99. Bargain!

"Watchin' Soul Train on a Friday night..."

Well, the 2007 Manchester Blog Awards were hosted at Matt & Phreds on Wednesday night and a fun do it was. You can find out who won what here, but I'd just like to say that they all deserved it and Kate from The Manchizzle deserves recognition for organising the whole thing and displaying the patience of a saint throughout.

Jon from Black Country Grammar and I supplied the background music throughout the night, in a kind of one-on/one-off stylee, striking a balance between stone-cold funk and scuzzy rock 'n' roll to act as a contrast to the live jazz that followed the awards. I'd post a setlist but neither of us were keeping track. If you were there however, you would have heard the likes of Golden Earring, Roy Ayers, The Trammps, The Sonics, The Dirtbombs, The Greenhornes, American Gypsy, Rjd2, Muddy Waters, War and quite a bit more. Here are a couple of old favourites that I dusted off for the event...

The Dirtbombs - I'm Through With White Girls (mp3)

Jonathan Fire*Eater - Station Coffee (mp3)


As you can see from the above flyer (or maybe you can't as the print's a bit on the small side), I'm DJing at Purple Sweat at Common in the Northern Quarter on November 2nd. It would be great to see plenty of familiar and new faces down there, so come along and show your support, come over and say hello/shoot evil glances at me from across the bar, anything as long as you enjoy yourselves appropriately and responsibly. It'll be a disco-heavy set, methinks and here's something that just might get an airing...

David Joseph - You Can't Hide (Your Love From Me) (mp3)

Enough shameless promotion for now. Check back tomorrow (Monday) for something rather exciting. No really, it is!

JMx

P.S. The photo from the awards is from here. If you squint, you can just about make out Rachael from The Console, not that I'm trying to embarrass her or nothing...

It's awards night!

First of all, apologies for not posting much around these parts lately. Not really been feeling it to be honest, plus life in general is doing its best to keep me away from the laptop for any prolonged spells nowadays. All that will be rectified soon enough, with a fresh batch of mixtapes coming soon. Scout's honour.

Anyhoo, tonight is the second annual Manchester Blog Awards. It takes place at Matt & Phreds on Tib St. and the whole thing is due to start at around 6.30pm. There'll be readings and whatnot from some of Manchester's finest bloggers, some light music, provided by yours truly and Jon from Black Country Grammar and, of course the awards themselves (see the shortlist here). Come one, come all! You don't have to be a blogger to attend and it should be a pretty good crack all 'round.

In the absence of anything substantial to write, here are some tunes that I've been loving lately, some of which you may even hear tonight...

Sharon Redd - Can You Handle It? (mp3)

Supreme good-time boogie track from 1980. Huge vibes.

The Who - Eminence Front (mp3)

Excellent late-career (until they recently came back at least) oddity. Pretty much a Pete Townshend solo number. Think disco-coke-rock with a blustery stadium edge and you're about halfway there.

Stevie Wonder - Do Like You (mp3)

Not one of his more famous tunes, but this cut from the Hotter Than July album gets me moving all the same.

In other news: Listen to my highly informative (natch) segment on re-edits for last week's Blogfresh Radio. You know you want to.

More soon,

JMx