First noticed this in an article in “The Guide” magazine from The Guardian’s Saturday edition last weekend. So Phuture were pipped to the post by 4 years by a wedding musician from Bombay. In 1982 during a visit to the UK Singh bought some new Roland synthesisers and drum machines, including a Jupiter 8, TR 808 and the classic acid box, the Roland TB 303. On his return to India he set to work on his only set of original pieces, “Ten Ragas” being the result. I did suspect this to be some kind of new Aphex Twin or Ceephax Acid Crew Scam, but it appears to be legitimate. Now reissued, it’s available from all good outlets:
http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=288726

Isn’t the music scene getting depressing? I heard an R&S compilation with some classic trax on it today, like Capricorn’s “50hz” and Human Resource “Dominator”, which were remixed for the 21st century, but instead if taking a really modern interesting and new take on these absolutely classic trax, it was like the brush of blandness had been swept over them.. I mean, seriously, it’s sacrilege..

However, here are Seven different records I found whilst trawling through juno which are actually doing the biz right now:

Funk Gadget “Blah Blah” (Slidebar)

Andrez Bergen gets his awesome networking hat on to dish up 4 remakes of his own work, with offerings from SI Begg, Patrick Pulsinger, Dave Tarrida and Paul Birken, along with the original track. Yet again, Tarrida and Birken come up trumps..

http://www.juno.co.uk/ppps/products/385717-01.htm

Hertsi “Kohina (Reissue)” (Sahko)

One of those records that I probably heard some total minimal head play at a Virus party back in ‘93 that sent me on the mission I have been ever since. going to be doing my very best to snap up a copy, and I suggest that you do too as they don’t make em like this anymore.. For some reason I hear the first Crystal Distortion record in there, but this was waaaay before – 17 years old, no way!

http://www.juno.co.uk/ppps/products/386384-01.htm

Villa Nah “Remains Of Love” (Keys Of Life/Sahko)

Which then brought me to this – indulging myself in a guilty pleasure of eighties-esque electro pop. Ignore title track “Remains of love” and go straight to “Benny’s Burning” showing of some amazing melodic harmonies which I just love out and out. Proper robo-soul, and totally amazing to think that this is on a sub label of Sahko. Although this is 17 years on, and I’m guessing that you can only go on for so long releasing distorted undulating subbass tones. “Remains Of Love” is as bad as “Benni’s Burning” is good, and somehow it’s making me think of those IKEA styled (Ok, I know IKEA is Swedish) triangular shaped houses in the woods during a Finnish summer, which is probably quite a nice place to be.

http://www.juno.co.uk/products/Remains-Of-Love/384018-01/

Knarz “Uns Verbrennt Die Nacht” (Wavescape)

More guilty pleasures in the form of Thomas P Heckmann’s “Knarz” Project, where he gets on the microphone and gets on a proper EBM crossed with Techno tip. Yes, it’s a bit cheesy, but it’s got bags of character, and does remind me somewhat of the Horrorist and would probably smash dancefloors to bits. And it has Casio RZ-1 drums on it which is always a winner for me..

http://www.juno.co.uk/products/Uns-Verbrennt-Die-Nacht/388949-01/

Hieroglyphic Being “Ancient Echoes EP” (Mathematics)

Jamal Moss returns with more of his old school sounding stuff, “Letters For The Edge” being the one for me..

http://www.juno.co.uk/products/Ancient-Echoes-EP/386711-01/

Stephen Brown “Red Room” (Music Man)

Glasgow based electrician Stephen Brown has been doing his thing a good few years. I really respect where this guy is coming from, having been informed from mutual friends that Stephen refers to himself as “Just an electrician”, having no big musical career ambitions other than to make the lushes sounding synth pads known to man. There aren’t so many beats on either of these tracks, but the synth lines are just simply gorgeous…

http://www.juno.co.uk/products/Red-Room/384787-01

Jacek Sienkiewicz “X Years Later” (Recognition)

Poland’s best known electronic music export Jacek Sienkiewicz (Non Polish speakers take note- it’s pronounced YAT-SEK SHI-ENK-EA-VICH – I hope I got that right Jacek!) is back with his dreamy minimal techno styles. Yes, you can accuse it of being “minimal” but it beats the hell out of a lot of minimal out there, and the bottom line is, I like stuff like this, either in room two of a club, a beach bar maybe or even just on sunday morning with a nice cup of coffee..

http://www.juno.co.uk/products/X-Years-Later/386751-01/

Vadz has made a step closer to having a vinyl label by the looks of things… Looking forward to the finished copies….

For more info on Vadz, check here: http://russian-techno.com/

in case you didn’t notice already, Andrez Bergen did the interview thing for fun in the murky – check it:

http://www.fun-in-the-murky.com/mt/2010/01/mark-hawkins-interview.html

Andrez has an interesting blog here: http://iffybizness.blogspot.com/ reflecting his expat life in Tokyo…

2 live sets from one of the original Uglyfunk Parties back in 1999, from Scott Robinson and Je:5 – Definitely groundbreaking and inspirational, hearing these at the time pushed me forward towards my own music making and live performances which were still a few years away from this time. Still sounding fresh as ever, check them out!

Scott Robinson Live:

Scott Robinson – Ugly Funk 05-03-99 by scottrobinson

Je:5 Live:
JE5 Live set – Ugly Funk 05-03-99 by JE:5

Just got this from one of my old favourite US techno producers, D-Knox aka Donnell Knox, a DJ mix featuring a track from my doomsday clock album- Check it!

d-knox in the mix 2 by donnellknox

Spain In The Arse – MH Edit by Mark Hawkins

My first lesson in Soundforge Circa 2000 – Field recording originally made at “The End Of The World Party”, Costa Brava, Spain.

A subverted DJ mix from one of the Babble DJs on the Smokescreen/BWPT soundsystem – This unfortunate DJ had been picked out for ridicule by the boys, poor sod, as JE:5’s Live rig was plugged into channel 3.

A pair of headphones were plugged into the live set mixer and the realisation had dawned that the level on channel 3 could be sneaked up while the dj’s back was turned and DJ WOT became master of ceremonies. poking fun at the cheese of the house music an anyone else unfortunate to fall onto the dancefloor during his watch.

The following autumn I used the recording to experiment with Soundforge at Stayfree in Leicester and basically taught myself how to manipulate audio. And this was long before I ever heard the Noodles stuff or Cassetteboy!

Vadz (From Taganrog, Russia) has a new e.p. on his net-label which has quite in interesting story behind it:

Once upon a time i was working on a radiostation and we had a task to record some speeches for Emergency Department. So, an actor from the local theater was invited and all the instructions were spoken over the microphone. One record was about what to do if an incident on the Volgodonsk Nuclear Power Plant (aka Rostov Atomic Power Plant) happens. The text was scary and actual (Volgodonsk is about 260 km from Taganrog) and, of course, i decided to use it. That’s how the Nuclear Volgodonsk trilogy appeared.

so, check it out:

http://russian-techno.com/wp/archives/rtsw11.html

Props to Colin for finding these on flickr. Test was an absolute legend of a club in Glasgow that I played at a couple of times, and the organiser, Joe, was more than a dab hand at graphic design as you can see from these sticker designs…

you can see higher res images here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/totally_pixelated/sets/72157605943514186/

10 tracks that I found on you tube that influenced me in a big way.. this is by no means definitive, there are other trax that I would have put there had I found them, but here was what was rocking my world around 1995-1997 – generally outdoors and on a big system.. there is something magic about hearing music like this outdoors which can’t be matched in a club, around this time I actually never went to clubs, but I felt I had to start DJing because it wasn’t so common to hear music like this at an outdoor party.. In south west wales where I lived at the time during my crusty traveller days it was either Trance or Happy Hardcore, so something had to be done.. anyway, enjoy!