Moskow Diskow January 9th 2009

Moving into 2009 your comrades at Moskow Diskow have decided to take the opportunity to showcase the breadth of their love for electronic music of the past, present, and future by starting with a techno hootenanny banger...

We are enormously happy to announce the arrival of special guest Warp DJ and producer Tom Hopkins, famous for his remixes for the likes of Hot Chip and Jamie Lidell. Stepping up with him we have the delectable Mr. Simon Shelley all the way from Holland. A firm Moskow Diskow favourite on the decks Simon produces his own unique brand of quirky melodic techno under the Tennis alias, and we expect to hear a show case of his latest material all for you dear comrades. As if that wasn't enough we've also got Semi-Squared, head honcho of Pollinate Records. A former Jungle producer, Semi-Squared will be rinsing out his unique style of music, inspired by influences like Basic Channel and Kid 606. We're also going to be graced by the presence of Chris Hammond, one part of the Janitors and well-known for touting 'wonky electronic sex music' around Sheffield and London. Finally, DJ Spuddha, minimal techno heavyweight of Sheffield's C90 night.

TOM HOPKINS (Warp DJ)

SIMON SHELLEY aka Tennis (Prefab Leeds / Eindhoven)
www.myspace.com/raketsports

SEMI-SQUARED
www.pollinaterecords.com
www.myspace.com/semi_squared

CHRIS HAMMOND
www.myspace.com/dothedulondon

DJ SPUDDHA
www.myspace.com/biffbaffer

Beyond that you've got the Moskow Diskow DJs, delving into the depths of their Detroit Techno record collection. Forget the January doldrums, start the new year the way you mean to go on... drinking too much vodka at the Russian Bar.

Armando 'Don't Take It'

Apparently this record is quite a big deal, but I didn't realise it existed until I picked up the Thomos and Johnny Fiasco edits in Rough Trade. Obviously hadn't being paying enough attention. Anyway, it was resurrected a while back on Let's Pet Puppies and it's heavy, if you can find it on Discogs or eBay I'd recommend picking it up. It's probably going to be available a lot cheaper than this.

The story goes that, like lots of good things, Don't Take It was made in a hotel room. It was improvised and recorded (obviously) in a single take, during an after-party session. Despite those potentially adverse conditions it's an amazing piece of music. It's hard to believe it's twenty years old, two years old than Armando was when he made it.

As tends to be the case when people record things in hotels, the bathroom was used as a makeshift vocal booth. Sharvette Cole sat on the toilet seat and adlibbed her entire contribution, complete with occasional 'uh's and pauses that add to the rawness. Despite clearly being pretty talented and interesting she only seems to appear on one other record, Marcus Mixx's Shake That Thing. Thomos' edit retains Sharvette's women's liberation speech, whereas Johnny Fiasco's edit strips the vocal out and toughens up the drums a bit. Both of them make you feel like you're in the hotel room with them, and make it hard to resist a bit of air-303...

You can here the Johhny Fiasco treatment here. Personally the one for me is the Thomos version though. If you want to hear that you'll probably just have to buy it.

Moodymann Detroit 67

I picked up this end of year release from Moodymann yesterday, and it's really grown on me, one of those releases that is greater than the sum of its parts. Architypal Moodymann from the outset, blaxploitation snippets add the usual cinematic feel. The main track 'Freaki M***er F***er' is all slowed down x-rated ghetto vibes, with a lolloping bass grind, and finger snap metronome. 'Hello 2morrow' is the real delight with its roller-skate party feel and filtered disco-funk guitar. The title track despite more serious overtones relating to the Detroit riots of 1967, deserves a mention for the crazy bass synth weirdness that it descends into. 

Also in my shopping basket were: http://www.discogs.com/release/28156
and: http://www.discogs.com/release/1559889

DJ Tennis - Moskow Diskow January Promo Mix

Download here: Playing DJ Tennis - Moskow Tennis

Running Time: 50 minutes 24 seconds

Tracklist:

1. Tennis - Intro
2. Tennis/Kilgarriff - Schadenfreude
3. Massi DL - Wonderland
4. Damian Schwartz - R y F 1
5. Gaiser - Trunkated
6. Gabriel Ananda - Doppelwhipper
7. Stephan Bodzin - Rekorder 0
8. Robert Babicz - Dark Flower (Joris Voorn remix)
9. Massi DL - Barbabietola E Spinas

Ed DMX Podcasts

I have to credit Ed DMX with being the man who introduced me to a lot of old skool electronic music. Though I enjoy his own stuff, it's his DJ mixes where the education really begins. Case in point see here for a genre hopping masterpiece of stone cold dance floor classixs.

Recently he's started producing a podcast where he discusses tunes that have inspired him with a radio 2 style voice over. It is my tip for this month's recommended downloading:

dmxkrew.blogspot

(Gear freaks should also take a look at his studio tour.)

I really love Ed DMX, and as one of the few musicians who can regularly be seen out at parties in the punter capacity, I've on more than one occasion taken the opportunity to say this to his face. Unfortunately, and I blame the number of beverages it takes me to get to pluck up this kind of courage, it's never been well received. So I feel I should take this opportunity to make an official apology for all the times I have - and will - run up to the poor bloke and shouted "I love you Ed!" off my head at 4 in the morning. I'm really sorry.

The photo above is one I took during Ed's set at Extrema Eindhoven, where there was also a fat man doing some amazing break dancing moves whilst trying to poke a cigarette out of his belly button: