amanda jenssen - charlie

this one is from amanda jenssens second album 'happyland' and is with out a doubt one of the best tracks from the record. it was swedish national radio station p3 that put me onto the lead single of the album which was called 'happyland' as well and i remember that it was something else. her first album which was recorded after coming in second place on swedish pop idol was quite of the time.

jenssen made a quite an impression with the general audience and her song at the audition was her version of "that's alright mama" a la elvis presley. with guitar at the audition and an image that wasn't the pop star thing became an early guess on what was soon to come. the first album from 2008 had that mark ronson-y 60's/70's soul revival thing to it. the second album sort of was on that direction but it felt more natural this time around and it had some real personality to it and one felt that this wasn't just copying amy winehouse/mark ronson.

the title track is really good but my favourite song on the album is one near the end and starts off like a mellow piano piece and then hook comes around and it explodes. this dynamic isn't anything new but i think the contrasts between the piano blues and low-pitched harmonies in the verses and the horns in the hook is nice. one of the elements that i love the most is the upright bass that grounds the whole track.

amanda's worries over "charlie" mystifies me also but mostly over who this "charlie" is. it sounds like he/she is the gutter either emotionally or physically and needs help. i don't really care but i like these type of songs as long as it has a really good rhythm to it.

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simbad - after the dance (bugz in the attic remix)

i was tipped off on this track by swedish blog ohbabyilikeitraw.com where it was given a massive hype up back in '08. the original is simbad doing a version of marvin gaye's classic 'after the dance' in a west london meets motown kind of way. simbad brought on swedish singer melo to do his best marvin gaye impersonation and while he fails at that he delivers a vocal performance that doesn't sink the track.

the bugz in the attic remix is this heavy syncopated drum groove with some strings and some key twiddling by kaidi tatham. melos vocals rides on top and all that sitting on some stacatto bass. it's kind of a different flavour compared to simbads original and it's more west london than motown. but i have to say that while i love this tracks it has given me some of the biggest frustration when i've tried to dj with it. the syncopation will have you shitting bricks the first time you try to mix out of it.

reason being that while you get a kick on the one in the beginning the bugz take it out and the repeated two bar key sequence in the latter part of the track starts on the three. broken beat sometimes seems to push the limits on what is 4/4 but i think it's interesting and much harder than to just play the same four on the floor. ever since i discovered broken beat i thought i want to try to work this even though i shouldn't have touched the stuff. reason being that i'm the kind of idiot that sometimes takes the hard route and then bitch and moans about taking that route and then when he pulls it off thinks that everyone needs to kiss his ass.

it tends to go like this when i play some musics (on a webstream mostly): i play an half hour of housey stuff and then think "well let's try to spice this up then". and then i go for a bugz in the attic/zed bias/domu related tune and then either it goes nicely or i just break flow for no fucking reason. people that has heard my sets know what i'm talking about. this is my formal apology for that nonsense but note is that i'm not going to stop doing this because taking the easy route is and just playing the same four on the floor for two hours is just sometimes boring.

anyhow this tune is amazing but i think the bugz in the attic guys should have done a better work on their dub since that version is just a load of bollocks i think that the jerky looping thing that is scattered throughout that version is crap. so in conclusion, i can write a lot about nothing.

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mini reviews #1

a few days ago when i tried to blag this blog to a mate of mine over msn he said that "you should do something that no one does and you should just give short reviews". i said i have all this useless info inside of me and it has to get out of me. or else it will eventually kill me or make me a third rate fredrik strage (if you don't know who that is then substitute the name with whatever opinionated music-geek turned music journalist and critic that you know of). so i'm going to steal a thing from sykonee's blog (that is currently on hiatus) and do mini-reviews.

but the premise is that i'm going bugger other people for the tracks and they are going to be ten tracks that i'm going to listen to, either on spotify/youtube/grooveshark (or whatever music listening service available). i'm going to listen to the track in it's entirity and then i'm going to give a short (less than 140 signs) review about each track.

01. Blood Orange - Sutphin Boulevard (Bicep remix) | youtube
nice nod to jamie principles's "your love" and i quite like this. i'm guessing this is kind of new house trying to sound a blend the early 90's.

02. Spectr - Dance 4 Me | youtube
bumping uk funky stylings on this one with a pitched up sample of monica's part from "the boy is mine". i like it but i wouldn't buy it

03. Virgo Four - It's A Crime (Caribou Remix) | youtube
despite having a good midsection this falls flat and i don't like how caribou imposes his thing on it. i like his bits but they sound of place.

04. Wham! - Everything She Wants (Long Version) | youtube
my sisters loved george michael so i've heard this before but never taken a closer listen to it before. i quite like it and it could work today.

05. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Round and Round | youtube
this song wear it's 80's influences of their sleeves and i'm not really moved by it. it's ok but i don't really think much of it.

06. Locussolus - Next To You | youtube
it started like it was trying to be four tet but then it goes into a nice boogie type groove. i've heard this on radio and i like it a lot.

07. Gatto Fritto - Beachy Head | youtube
this started like a boring thing but became a brilliant exercise in synthesis. i liked it a lot.

08. Lily Allen - Not Fair | youtube
i love this track. it's a modern twist on a country song interpreted by a englishwoman with a mockney accent. right on.

09. Gil Scott-Heron and Jamie xx - I'll Take Care Of U | youtube
i like the original and jamie translates it well but it sounds wrong when there in that sparse midsection where it shifts focus. it's ok

10. Lucky Paul - Thought We Were Alone (Money vs. Gold Remix) | soundcloud
the track is decent but i don't like the groove and i don't like how they suppress the cloud of airy synths.

thanks for those ten bassel. i asked him if he wanted to say anything extra about his picks but his response was:

this is just stuff i've been feeling over the past few months

fair does.

dry bread - words to my song

i sometimes look at the videos from amoeba records on youtube since they have this segment called "what's in my/your bag" and they either catch or get a celebrity or someone(s) relevant musically or entertainment related. i don't remember from which video this recommendation is from however, i do know that it wasn't the particular song highlighted from this compilation.

the compo in question was a bahamian/west-indian funk thing from reissue label numero group. i was however intrigued and i listened to the samples on juno and then i was hooked on song #4 which was this track by cyril ferguson apparently but under the name of 'dry bread'

the song is this funky soul number and originally when i heard the sample on juno, there was a sense of "i have to sample this" because you have so much instrumental areas that scream "why aren't you jacking this you idiot". the reason is quite simple because since it's on a rare funk compilation, you know that you are not the first one to be fucking with it.

also because it's a track that doesn't require heavy chopping you are have to try to fuck with someone that doesn't need fucking with it. if that sounds illogical and stupid then don't make beats just follow push some keys on a 2$ casio synth and get some 808 drum samples and scream "yeaaaahhh" "oh-kay" on the track.

anyhow back to the song, i love this song and it was something that i had to buy since it was so awesome. a funky number with some heavy animosity in the lyrics and i think they are directed towards a record label or another artist since ferguson says:

someone took the words to my song / next time i'll write a song, there ain't going to be any words, let the music go on

it's this element that makes this track special and i've been vibing to it a lot on these nice summer days.

buy here (junodigital)

2013 edit: turns out someone actually did sample this and true to my words, it wasn't something that was chopped around. the track in mention is action bronson's "barry horrowitz" and it's decent but i'm not that big of a fan of action bronson.

nina simone - flo me la

i picked up a number of records a while back and one was this nina simone live album which i would have passed it up but something drew me to it. probably since nina simone is all awesome but i don't really know much of her back catalogue. the track most people know is 'feeling good' because of it's famous intro and then maybe 'sinnerman' and the usual classics 'my baby just cares for me', 'don't let me be misunderstood' & 'i put a spell on you'. i like her work however and she has a unique voice and i love when she breakdown in sinnerman and just does her version of scatting.

this track is a jam session i think and it opens up the b-side of the record. it doesn't appear in any other form on any of her other albums and the whole improvisational nature of the track along with it's frantic percussive midsection leads me to the idea that it's a live jam. it starts off slow with nina saying "flo flo flo me la" and that becomes the mantra and the main melody and then it picks up steam fast. the whole album is quite a gem and i've been listening to it a lot the last couple of days and it's well recommended but this track and her rendition of folk song 'lil liza jane' is top picks of the album

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moneybrother - they're building walls around us

back in 2005 this track hit radio with a bang and i was always on the fence when it came to moneybrother. he had some good songs before this track but nothing that really grabbed me by the lapels and shook one over. i think it was the first time it moved me when i heard it with that snare roll intro and then it goes into this thunderous rhythm along with strings, a synth patch that sort of sound like a tinnitus tone and driving guitars. it really hit me hard but it wasn't until i heard the remix by spånka nkpg when i went down to the recordstore and bought the single.

since the original was already a dancable rock track so translating it onto a house rhythm isn't hard but they didn't just go and take it as it was and slapping a kick under. the remix strips the track down to it's core and reassembles it's parts into a more steady dancefloor fashion. utilizing every genius part from the original into the mix in a great way. but it's not really house since they are using a breakbeat rhythm but it's kind housey kind of breaks. the remix is well recommended folks also.

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chromeo - hot mess (riva starr remix)

i heard about this one through djricomixshow forum and it was announced that "hot mess" had some remixes out by duck sauce (armand van helden & a-track, although their remix sounded more like a-track more than armand) and some other geezers including riva starr. to be honest i am not much a fan of his stuff but i had a listen to the preview and was hooked. truth be told it's a remix of eddy grant/coachhouse rhythm section's underground disco classic "time warp" with the acid rhythm from phuture's acid trax along the robot funk from chromeo's original. it's banging and i try to incorporate it a lot into my sets.

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timbuktu - dansa

a few months ago jason diakité dropped this track as a teaser for his forthcoming album. an album whom he trouble with since his massive writers block which eventually was broken and he started pouring his emotions out into his songs. like this one, and this one was weird as it was nothing you really associated with the timbuktu sound. even with his folksy branchings and his likeability from everyone.

i remember when national radio played it and i thought that this is some heavy stuff and i seriously wondered if he was going to drop something like this as his first track. but it turned out he didn't as it wasn't an official single and the official first single "dödsdansen" was a banging indian sampling uptempo joint. his second single (for radio as there is one that is for the streets as well) is a track about his former friends and how he wishes them nothing good and just misery and doing that in the most sing-a-long way possible.

however having listened to his album a lot recently and listened to this track ever since he gave it out in late february. it really struck a chord with me and it fits really well at the end of the album and i deeply recommend the album. this track has a history to it that timbuk told in an interview with swedish magazine nöjesguiden.

he heard this classical piece at the end of a documentary and was moved by it and he wanted to use it in his music. he played it to his brother in arms and producer måns asplund of breakmechanix and asplund's response was "dude i'm not going to fuck that beautiful peace of music up by putting a beat under it, there is no way possible".

jason later got to play a show with a jazz pianist by the name of jan lundgren and he played him the piece and lundgren said "ah schubert" and him along with swedish string duo pannacotta made an arrangement and timbuktu laid his rhymes over that. the schubert piece that is used is "Piano Trio No. 2 in E-flat, D. 929, Op. 100: Andante con moto". apparently a very famous piece of music. i was also gobsmacked by it's beauty and it should be deserved to be listened to on it's own.

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jason's track entitled "dansa" and he pours his heart and soul out and lets people hear what he feels about love and the constant game for love will do to you. when i showed this track to mate jan henrik (who has the oddish emissions blog), his reaction was "this is some next shit. not a hook in sight. tremendous lyrics, but it's all so heavy. dunno if I'd be too inclined to listen to this very often". i can understand him but if you need some a powerful injection of thought then this one is for you. that is if you understand swedish, if you don't just listen to that schubert piece. it will give you the same emotional boost.

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quant - i like this

first time i heard of quant was when musikmagasinet did a special on the gothenburg electronic music scene back in '00-01. there was a lot of exciting house and jazz fusion stuff coming out of that scene dubbed gonkyburg. they showcased ernesto, andreas saag, quant and a few others and it was mindblowing to be honest. since then i kept my ears open for that stuff and i'm a big fan of andreas saag in general. this track however came out on north of no south sublabel dot and this label attracted a lot of attention because of it's fresh sounds and exciting fusions.

this one was a b-side to "intestinal sound" which was quant's first release on dot and i bought the record for buckfunk 3000's remix of "intestinal sound" but i found a big liking to this one as well. it's a mid-tempo smooth electro funk groove with a heavy bass and vocoders. it's minnesota meets paris in gothenburg and it's all love.

for further listening i deeply recommend his 2000 album "quantastical quantasm" which shows quant's shades of funk and does it really well. his subsequent second album and works on austrian label ecco.chamber are also good. after that he left the electronic music scene for doing production for pop acts and he's been doing tracks for kylie amongst others.

lady gaga - judas (röyksopp remix)

when it comes to stefani germanotta (aka lady gaga) everybody has an opinion and like madonna back in the eighties and nineties she split the world into camps. people who loath her, people who love her, people who appreciate her hustle but don't really care about the music and then people who act like they couldn't give two shits but do actually. i don't know where to put myself but i think she's done some good songs and she's a great entertainer but more than that i don't know.

i like the fact that she was once just another "r&b" or pop-dance singer that like any other singer. the rules for lesser known singers is that they have to say their record companies name, their managers name, their producers name and whoever discovered them, their lawyers name and everyone else associated to said singer before they even sing one phrase. oh and they have to be backed up by a bigger star by having a big rapper to add a verse to said song. that was an exaggeration but listen to "just dance" and "eh eh" and then to her new songs and you notice a difference.

because gaga actually wrote her songs she had a different status compared to another singer on akon's konvict label: kat deluna. her song "run the show" has a long intro which exemplifies what i mentioned. it's 12 bars of intro where it's all hype and bigging up everyone else before she goes on singing. it's quite ridiculous but this is all a matter of how much records you sell. unless you are hot property and sell records and concert tickets like hot cakes you are not more interesting than the guest artist or the producer of said track.

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anyhow back to gaga, my favourite song of hers has been "love game" which has an amazing hook and bridge and i have to mention that the sound of arrows remix of "alejandro" really is amazing. that was a song that i really thought was bland in it's original form but then comes swedish producers the sound of arrows that whipped up a remix that sounds one part motiv8 and one part madonna in the shep pettibone era.

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swedish national radio p3 brought that to my attention and so did they for this one. "judas" in a version by norweigan act röyksopp which i'm a big fan of. i like the sound of arrows remix of "alejandro" i really didn't like the original but then this came on radio and i heard the core fundamental of the song on top of bouncy beats with acid, eighties-style squarewaved synths and vocoders. what i like the most is that they removed that "juda-ju-da-da-da" thing in the hook and they only work that in the end part of the track.

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james carter - song of delilah

late january in 2010 i was listening to the radio on my cellphone and i was flicking through the channels and swedish national radio station p2 was on and playing jazz. it was some very good jazz and i was hooked instantly. it was this nice vibrant groove going on and then ten minutes in i hear this big freejazz-like crescendo.

it goes on for a minute or so and then it all breaks down to bassline and i was gobsmacked. because here was this hiphop groove played by a jazz ensemble and it was really well done. i listened to the whole thing and loved it and found out the jazz was by james carters quintet and the full monty was a live recording from a show that carter did at berlins quasimodo club.

i went home and listened to it again via the intarwebs since they streamed the thing on the swedish national radio website. later i thought, why don't i figure out how to rip this and i did and i have that whole one hour set and it's excellent.

especially this double bass solo by a mr. ralph armstrong where he strums masterfully and then brakes out his bow and does a soothing exhibition with that as well. i remember sending that to a mate (fellow musicgeek and jazz lover, dj jake julius) and he loved that part with the bow.

anyhow, that section that sent my jaw to the floor was a version of jazz standard "song of delilah" and was featured on mr. carter's 2008 'present tense' album and is amazing. it took me a long while to get adjusted to the album version since he doubles up his own soprano sax part and with a tenor sax.

also the fact that the song on the album is a compact piece where as the version from the quasimodo goes for 10 minutes with extra improvisation but i guess that's jazz in general. carters version infuses a lot of hiphop sensibility and when i heard the track i thought i have to do something with this and carters version gives you already everything. all you have to do is to add heavier drums (which i already have done).

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i should also mention that "Song of Delilah" has been recorded by a number of jazz luminaries and some other acts. i've taken a listen to a few renditions on spotify and i recommend Herbie Mann's version, The Jokers' exotica meets blues version, Nat King Cole's version and Lou Blackburn's version.

faithless - soundcheck jam

when most people think of faithless they do think of their dancefloor related material since most of their biggest hits have a pounding four on the floor beat and a pizzicato synth hook. but if anyone buys any of their albums one would find a lot of hiphop related and "downtempo" material. i used to think that was garbage since rollo & sister bliss weren't that good of a beatsmiths compared to many of their contemporaries. however maxi jazz had his distinct flow and storytelling abilities and could light up a track like 'baseball cap' (which is a favourite of mine) where the beat is kind of basic.

this track is from the b-side & remixes version of "reverence" called "irreverance" and features maxi jazz throwing it down over a really good beat. he starts off on borrowing a rakim rhyme and then just deliver 32 bars after another.

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usher - you make me wanna (lil' jon remix)

i remember when usher's original hit mtv back in '96 and it was a massive hit and fact of the matter is i loved this tune. "nice & slow" is a kind of a sexier tune and a bit better but when jermaine dupri still had some good productions in him, this was a couple of those. when i saw the cdsingle for 'you make me wanna' in a second hand store with remixes from luminaries like timbaland and lil' jon, i was intrrigued. actually i knew about the existence of those remixes and i wanted to find the uk single with the tuff jam garage remixes but i'll find those another day, probably.

before lil' jon became a meme, laughingstock and something for random hacks to copy everything from, he was another big southern producer and he did tracks with his group. this remix sounds like very much like lil' jon and has that dirty south kind of raw hiphop sound. the tr-808 is used for it's drums, hihats are vibrant and the bass is subby and raw and along that you have rugged synth strings. it's a quite a simple production but fact of the matter it really works.

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isaac spayes - heathen

now the first time i heard the word 'dub' i was fixated with it because it was this funny weird word for this kind of music that was spacey and grungy. people who know me know that for a while i used the word dub for anything and everything, i go by the moniker "dub" sometimes as well. but i do like dub music in all of it's flavours.

jamaican dub is essential but that goes without saying but i like the lee "scratch" perry school of traditional dub and the kind of digital style of scientist but leaving out legends like king jammy and tubby and augustus pablo and all those people is kind if insensitive but i'm not kneedeep in all of it yet.

i just like it and enjoy dub very much but the european dub kind of seperates me. there is a couple schools of european dub, in every type of speed. the dub found in the uk scene is rooted from jamaica as jungle was influenced from the basslines of reggae and dub. the kind of disco dub that is the result of disco producers and djs listening to jamaican dub and tweaking their soundscapes to widen it.

the kind of house and techno kind of dub is a result the disco dub and from moritz von oswald and basic channel if i'm not mistaken but i'm not an expert on that kind of sound to be honest. i can enjoy it but it needs a good dj to play that kind of stuff. also since i'm a trancecracker that likes psytrance as well i have to mention that you have that kind of dub sound also. i like that sound also but i mean it's only a few geezers there that produce it well. enough of this wikipedia style report on dub and let's get to the nitty gritty about this tune.

isaac spayes is a swedish-finnish producer by the name of jyri kantanen and rolls in the same scene with mika snickars who put his records out on his label. snickars runs a mighty fine recordstore in stockholm that i recommend. anyhow this track is from a niko belotto/tangent beats compo named "x marks the spot vol. 1" and is this heavy yet spacey track.

the basic jist is that you have this powerful one drop riff that runs through the tune and you get a whole spectrum of sounds along with it. it's the kind of tune that doesn't work as much a tool but i think it could really back up some kind of static techno. my best experience with the tune was when i was out walking a winter day a while ago and i track came on in my headphones and it was quite dark outside, it was five or six in the evening. the heavy vibe and the cold and winter atmosphere complemented each others really well.

listen here (epitonic) | buy here (discogs marketplace)

my mate jan henrik tipped me of that this tune was on epitonic a while ago but yeah i got it on the compo and to be honest that 128 on epitonic doesn't really do the track any service and that compo is really good and has a few other gems on it that i might do a special on later

air bureau - coloured behaviour (sinesweeper remix)

i bought this single back in '03 quite blindly from the strength of "don't expect me" and i liked it a lot. the original was a good track but somewhat mild like they were trying to get radio airplay. the air bureau / aircrash bureau project was the housier counterpart to their usual pounding techno releases such as headroom (with patrik skoog) and other monikers.

but there was a period where they shifted towards trancier regions but i remember an interview where they said didn't like the people supporting their records (i think this was a slant to paul van dyk who was playing "don't expect me") and shifted out of the trancier sounds towards kind or regular house.

the filterheadz remix was the big profiled version and to be honest, stockholm records was ordering filterheadz remixes left and right and around that time filterheadz got a bit lazy with tracks. i used to say that they have a couple of tribal loops that they would make or chop up and work them over all their productions.

sinesweepers remix really delighted me since he really worked the song aspect as well as a hard club track aspect in a way that's kind of hard to pull off. i really like the bassline and the vocal effects and of course that synthwash in the chorus that's either backed with guitars or sawsynths that sound like some power chords. right on

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