<Soundtracks For Them>

Friday, June 01, 2007

Drop The Lime Interview: "No Rave is the new Nu Rave was the old Neu Raev is now the neu! rayv!

I linked off to a mix by Drop the Lime some time ago, it's one I've made the soundtrack to most of my bike commutes. More recently I had the pleasure of finally getting to see this self-declared heavy weight of New York Bass deliver a set at Crosstown in Toronto. He stands well tall over the decks, imposing and lanky shouting random exhortations to the crowd alongside enthused introductions to what ever tracks he's introducing to the mix. All the time he is building a pummeling wall of bass, and with the higher end of the mix well dipped it's sometimes hard to make out the vocal hooks that continuously suck you in on recorded mixes.

To my own confused drunken mind it was like he was excavating through dance culture, pulling surprising Chicago house tracks out from way back when and reminding the crowd that "this was twenty years ago" before moving on quickly in a whole other direction: be it the guitar crunched dubstep of Distance's "Ska" or some doo wap sounding oddity. His "electro banger" alter ego Curses! will be dropping the debut EP My House Is haunted! on Paris floor quaking label Institubes in June. The bucko himself drops by Kaboogie on June 22nd to serve up B-lines to ye Dublin feckers in Kennedy's over on Westland row. His latest music video is also up over on the Trouble and Bass blog.

Can you remember your first gig as a DJ and how it went for you?

I was 17 years old my name was DJ Dysis at the time and I played for a jungle/drum&bass night with Soulslinger, Pish Posh and TC Islam - I was smashing it, until TC Izlam came on to introduce Soulslinger while I was still DJ'ing and he said "who is this kid that nobody knows? blah blah blah blah" - rappin' about how I'm some nobody opening for Soulslinger hahaha, mad funny.

When did you make the move over to digital DJ-ing and how did it change things for you?

I still DJ with vinyl as well as Serato - Serato is useful for playing out unreleased material and new tunes I'm working on.. it's a good way to test the tune on a crowd and see if its ready to go public or if it still needs work in some places - plus exclusives from crews that nobody has heard yet.

You were in a lot of bands as a teenager, what sort of music were these making and has any of it rubbed off on what you are engaged in now? What finally pushed you in the direction of dance music?

I was heavily influenced by bands like Can, Fugazi, Sonic Youth, and Brian Eno - the constantly evolving style and sound in all of those bands and artists has been a continuos influence on what I do now.. Every summer as a kid I'd go to Italy and swim at this public pool, the radio would always be playing shitty euro house jams.. "this is the rhythm of the night..of the night.. oh yeah".. so the dance music sound has always been an influence on my songs.

When I was like 14 a friend of mine from London played me this mix-tape of DJ Hype, and I lost it. From that moment on I got this jealous feeling about Jungle music and that made me want to DJ and produce it, I started going to rave parties back home in New York and got more and more into electronic music, my copy of Zinc's "6 Million Ways" and "Zion08" sound like white noise all worn out now, cuz thats what I learned to DJ on.

This is a knowingly stupid question - but what's bass music all about? I know its a vicous blend of bass heavy genres but why do you think people are throwing genre boundaries out the window and going hell for leather at it for heavy duty bass?

Playing whatever you want to play as long as it has a nasty bass-line. Thats what counts. Jumping all over genres in a night is more exciting to me than one style all night long, as long as what holds the night together is bass. If you brought me some klezmer track that had a growling sub bubbling bassline holding it together I'd find a way to make it work with a B more or Electro or old school Chicago House tune, just because the bassline was so banging.

Dubstep is a pretty UK heavy sound and you manage to use it relatively distinctively - throwing US hip hop vocals over Skream's "Request Line" for instance in one mix - but is there a danger people will just labour after it as a purist sound, retarding the potential for something real interesting to come from its spread?

People tell me this a lot. I love dubstep and DJ it here and there, but its definitely a UK sound - I think every genre takes the risk of becoming washed out once it gets attention outside of the DJ scenes and into the people's homes... it's just about constantly putting out fresh material and pushing boundaries that will keep it strong, not how its mixed in a DJ set. When we in the Trouble & Bass crew mix hip hop or club rap with Dubstep it helps Americans who are unfamiliar with the sound become familiarized with something new.

What are your feelings on this whole "new rave" thing cultivated by magazines like NME and hooked on bands like the Klaxons?

No Rave is the new Nu Rave was the old Neu Raev is now the neu! rayv!

In the interview Dirty Down did with you you seem pretty down on blogs that release tunes not to promote the artist but to "have the tune" as you put it - have you ever been burnt by blogs doing this or by releasing material before you wanted it released?

Yes many a time. Sometimes a tune will get leaked thats unfinished or un-mastered, and then a blog will put it up and hundreds of DJ's will download it and play it out, even though in my ears it wasnt read yet. Really though, I have been supported massively by blogs, and I appreciate that.. its just that sometimes it wouldn't hurt to ask the artist or their label if they can post a specific tune up.. we probably will say "yes"..just ask. Most blogs do ask me or labels I'm affiliated with, and those blogs are A top on my list. Dirty Down, 20 Jazz Funk Greats, Palmsout, Acid-girls, Slap you in public and Fluo - they've all asked and have been really supportive of DTL and Trouble & Bass

Do you get the chance to do much graphic design which is one of your other interests or are you just totally absorbed in music?

I do most of the cover designs, t shirts, posters etc.. that are attached to my music..

For a while there you were associated with the aul hyper active use of the amen break, what was it about breakcore that you eventually found limiting?

The amen break!

You seem to love NYC right, I'm not sure if you've heard it but on the new LCD Soundsystem album James Murphy gives the world a pre-Giuliani-era lament in "New York I Love You" - how do you think the city has changed since 9-11?

Giuliani didnt like us dancing. I was born here and feel close to the big apple. People are dancing again though, and this whole "no dancing" cabaret law is dwindling away like a weak joke. I don't know the LCD soundsystem song, but I imagine its a different image of the city than my image.. I grew up as a raver, but I heard James Murphy grow up as a Skankin' Pickle fan.

Just going on pictures of Trouble and Bass parties I've seen on the net, they look like fairly small but sweaty parties - have they gotten bigger and how do you think they compare to parties like Bangface in London?

We do large and small parties from 300 to 1500. But now, we are moving towards only bigger parties - the small ones have been too sweaty and crammed. This was our last one with our boys, Cut in May (photo courtesy of the Captain at Dirty Down and there's more here).

And finally - do you think the E-lock video will be something to be embarrassed about in 30 years time?!

I plan on doing a sequel in 30 years.

The photo of Drop The Lime is nicked from the Onwards Charles Blog.

Labels: Breakcore, Drop the Lime, Drum and Bass, Dubstep, Interviews, Music

# posted by antrophe @ 4:42 AM

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Saturday, April 28, 2007

What the Fuck Is Breakcore?

If you tell people you like breakcore, "what the fuck is it?" is a strong inevitable first reaction. Jason Forrest nicely puts it in the freshly released Notes on Breakcore documentary. "I have the computer, I have some break beats - I can speed them up and make music from them. It's three chords and the truth type stuff." Society Suckers describe it as "music too fucked up for neo-Nazis." That entertains me.

I'd come across the trailer for the documentary last year some time, and the site had promised a torrent release some time back in February - it never emerged. No harm, the thing has been leaked onto the net now and is available on Google video. Watching it seriously makes me realize I haven't been to a good and proper raggle tag night of vicious amen-ism in quite some time now, it also reminded me of the sweat drenched excitement of first going to some of the gigs. Toronto better sort itself out.

As a documentary its an interesting survey of the variations in how breakcore as a cultural movement has been putting down roots through word of mouth and the internet and the artists attempts to resist genre categorization. In a review in Vice magazine, some of the usual digs are thrown in, with one of their commentariat calling it "music for people who hate ears." Make up your own mind.

The DuranDuranDuran photo above was taken way back when at !Kaboogie in the Ice Bar last year.

Labels: Breakcore, Film, Music

# posted by antrophe @ 2:46 AM

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Tuesday, March 13, 2007

DJ C Interview: Mashit's Mashup Maestro

Nothing has turned me onto as much ass quaking good music this past year as the track listings of DJ C mixes. Dealing in nuthin' at all but the best dance floor shakers, DJ C and his endless output is a man to pay attention to. Rampaging across genres for the ultimate ass jiving party sounds to spice up his own Boston bounce, DJ C doesn't hold back with the output. At the centre of the recent brilliant bastard rebirth of jungle fronted by showstoppers like Aaron Spectre, Mashit deserves your categoric full attention. Especially as it generously throws all of their artists output up on the net for free download.

Take a track like DJ C's Quality Diamond colloboration "Let It Billie," remashing a classic regaee version of Jackson's Billie Jean with some infectous jungle rattle that will make even the heads of the most cynical "breakbore" detractors turn. Those excited by his more recent dancehall flavoured colloborations with Chicago vocalist Zulu will be delighted to note the forth coming releases "Body Work" and a 12 inch called "Darling" with a remix by Montreal's Ghislain Poirier, both on Community Library and distributed in the UK by Baked Goods.

The early release of three tracks from his "Sonic Weapons" debut album on Bristol's Death $ucker Records will awake the attention of any genre blenders rapt to the sucker punch surprises of his copious "B" series mixes. In this interview DJ C tocuches on the frustration of experimentalism prior to Rupture's mash mainlining, Bush's re-election and how Mashit intends to kit itself out for musical distribution in the digital DJ-ing era.

What's the "C" stand for?

During one of my psychedelic phases I was having visions. I could see things that weren't there, at least not in the every-day plain of reality. This was before I was a DJ. I was making 4-track tapes and releasing albums under the name See. That name quickly morphed into Cee, and eventually became DJ C.

Whats this boston bounce all about and will my elderly rural parents like the waltz aspect of it?

There's really not too much of a waltz aspect to my bounce tracks. It's more of a swing, or a shuffle feel, with an up-tempo broken kick, and a snare or rim-shot drop on the 3. It's a sound we developed in the Beat Research labs. DJ Flack's been developing some more waltz-y tracks lately, or at least they're in 3. Not sure your parents would like them, but they're probably baby-boomers right, so who knows?

How did you get drawn into music and DJing and when did you come to really start to obssess about it as a DJ?

I've been into music since I was a young child. My father — a painter/ poet — would make percussion instruments and play them with me as an infant. All kinds of experimental, pop, and classical music was always wafting through the house. I received a guitar for my 5th birthday and felt as though I was Elvis. Before I got a real drum kit I used to make drums out of pots, pans, cardboard boxes, and pillows and play them with kitchen utensils. I would record that on my little cassette machine, and eventually I figured out that I could multi-track by playing the last recording I had made through my step-father's speakers, on his tape deck, while playing along and recording another cassette on my machine. One thing lead to another and eventually I wound up making electronic music and DJing.

You are part of the Riddim Method collective which takes an almost academic approach to mixing and the relationship between different forms of music, can you tell me how this collective nerding came into being and whats its purpose is?

Most of us are from Boston, with the exception of Kid Kameleon, but we all came together through music. 10 years ago DJ /rupture and I co-founded an event-production collective with some other folks. DJ Flack and Ripley became members of the collective over time, as did Aaron Spectre, Hrvatski, and many more. We met Kid Kameleon, Wayne&Wax, and Pace later, but it turned out they'd all been to, or been fans of those Toneburst parties.

We're all part of the Beat Research crew too. Flack and I have been running Beat Research as a weekly event for the past 3 years, and have had over 100 guest performers/DJs come through. The members of the Riddim Method crew are kind of like auxiliary Beat Research residents. The Riddim Method blog began when we realized that another group of DJs had started a blog at beatresearch.blogspot.com and we were like "Hey! that's our thing." In was actually really positive as it inspired us to start our own group blog. It's really just a forum
to talk about stuff we're into.

You and others in the Riddim Collective frantically blog about music, how do you think music blogging has affected underground music scenes?

Music blogs are really important these days. As a DJ, especially, it's a great way to find out about new music, and communicate with other folks about it. I also appreciate being able to get stuff off my chest too.

On the Mashit label you give away tonnes of free MP3s, do you not think you are taking a needless hit through this given the whole debate around music piracy? Also how come some tracks never seem to end up as pay-for-download after vinyl releases? I'm thinking of Gone-a-Jail here which an awful lot of people must want.

The business model behind Mashit when it began was to give out all the music for free in digital form, and then sell it on vinyl. The free digi-files would help spread the word, and then DJs, who were mostly still only playing vinyl, would buy the tracks if they liked them. Digital distribution is so powerful. You can put a file on a server with virtually no cost and make it available for thousands of people around the world to get it easily. If we only sold our music on vinyl, and even CD, and used traditional distribution methods, we would not have NEARLY as much of our music out there as we do, and that bodes well for touring, networking, etc. It's all worked very well.

In the past couple years there's been a big shift in the DJ industry, though; a landslide of folks shifting over to digital DJing. This has been fueled by the coming-of-age of CD players that feel like vinyl, and real vinyl controllers for digital libraries. I use Serato Scratch Live which uses time-coded vinyl records to control my iTunes library on my laptop, and it's completely opened up the way I DJ. Like it or not, this is putting a serious dent into the vinyl industry. Many major vinyl distributors and stores have been going under. Don't get me wrong, there are still a lot of folks who do use vinyl, including me sometimes, but the tides are turning.

Needless to say, Mashit's original business is doesn't apply as well today, but that's OK. Because it's incredibly cheap to distribute music digitally, and now that so many folks are DJing digitally, that's what we'll focus on going forward. Mashit will be re-tooled for the future over the next year or so.

Are your mixes fully hands on and what sort of set up do you need for a show?

In the past I tended to categorize between DJing and performing a set of my own music. I've toured in Europe 3 times with just a laptop and and 8 channel MIDI mixer which I use to control my tracks in Ableton Live. It's a really simple setup, but it allows me to present my own
material as a continuous mix while tweaking, dubbing, looping, and effecting things on the fly. I looked at DJing as a way to present other peoples music, for the most part. I'm not looking at ways of combining these together, and blurring the lines more. No need to compartmentalize, ya know?

I spent most of last summer insisting people listen to the Bouncement mix, what's your own favorite in the series and why is there such a series in the first place?

"Bouncement" was my fave for a while too. I also really like "Boots," and "Baltimore" when the mood is right. Lately I've been into the "Blentcast" mixes. Unlike the rest of the "B" series up to that point, they're fiercely eclectic, which is more like my DJ style in general.

The series began just because I had ideas for so many mixes the names of which start with the letter "b". I've still got a lot more up my sleeve. Perhaps it will shift to a different letter at some point, though.

The new Traced Milk EP really shows a more chilled out side to you, how come this is hidden away in your non-stop party mixes?

Well, again, that's part of the reason why I like the "Blentcast" mixes. I take it out there with some more mellow stuff, even some chilled out rock by folks like Wilco, TV on the Radio, and Donavan. There's also the "Berlin" mix, which is super chilled out. I actually went through a major ambient phase back in my early days as a DJ.

There's a set on my site, on the "Music" page, called "Mid '90s Style Chillout Set." It was recorded in '02, but consists of stuff I used to play back in '95/'96. Back then I recorded under the name Electro Organic Sound System. I had an album out in '96 of ambient/chillout-ish stuff, and another album out in 2000, which began to bridge the gap between my more chill and the jungle/breakcore side.

In one interview you described how impossible experimentalists in Toneburst found it to get club gigs back in the day, what sort of venues did you end up using?

Half of us were students at the Massachusetts College of Art, and the other half were students at Harvard. In the beginning we started out at a small art-space outside the city. The first party we did in Boston was at a store-front complex that a Harvard architecture student was using as a studio/living space. We eventually went on to stage events at the Boston Children's Museum (an event called Child-Style), the Boston Museum of Science, and of course Massachusetts College of Art and Harvard, as well as many other colleges.

You sometimes get characterised as 'one of those new fangled breakcore djs' when your sets are anything but confined to one genre, how do such off hand descriptions make you feel?

That's OK. It's difficult to categorize what I do and I like it that way. I'm excited to see that there's finally a movement — at least here in Boston, but I think all over too — of folks who are into eclectic genre blending. I think DJ /rupture has been a driving force behind that and folks like Diplo have helped to popularize it. In the Toneburst days, and still when we began Beat Research, we were reacting against the club and party DJs at the time. You know, the ones who when asked what style they play say "progressive-trance-breaks," or something super-specific like that. We would go out to the drum 'n' bass night and it would be the exact same beat all night long. Not only that, but they cared more that a track was new than weather it was actually any good or not. Now it's finally hip to experiment with mixing wacky things together and I'm really happy about that.

A blurb on Mashit describes how the anti-Bush mix you released prior to the election was part of a protest music "alive and well" because of the net, do you think the net facilitates other forms of dissent stateside or is it all right wing/neo-con bloggers?

Oh yeah. The net facilitates it all. There's a bunch of everything out there. As destructive as our administration has been, I have to say that free speech is alive and well. Probably in large part due to the internet, and blogs. Much of the mainstream media here really sucks 'cause they're controlled by corporations who have a lot riding on keeping things the fucked up way that they are, and during some of the more scary moments over the past few years here, the Bush admin
has struck fear into the hearts of journalists. On the other hand, the media has to keep afloat when they're losing the attention of consumers to the internet. It can be difficult to weed through all the conflicting info, but you can't say the system's not open. I'm also an avid listener to National Public Radio which generally does a great job of presenting news and information.

In a Spannered interview Ripley described being active as a street medic, were you ever active in the post-Seattle protest upsurge or do you think music is the best medium you have to make political gestures? You were involved in a group called BEATS NOT BOMBS?

I've participated in street protests from time to time, but not nearly as actively as the kind of involvement that Ripley was getting into. I tend to get more involved on the political campaigning side. When I see a candidate who I think will help to make things better, I will donate money and do fundraising events. I feel as though I should personally apologize that Bush was "reelected." I did try though. I traveled up to New Hampshire and went door to door asking people to vote for Kerry. And on election day I worked at a polling place making calls and even picking people up who needed a ride to the polls. Kerry did win New Hampshire, which had been a republican state before that, so that was a tiny ray of light on a deep and
darkly shadowy day.

Do you have much contact with Trouble and Bass and otherstate side crews doing vaguely similar things as yourself? Where should people look to follow whats happening on that side of the Atlantic?

I've played a few shows with Mathhead of Trouble and Bass, and have also met Drop the Lime and Stareyes. As a matter of fact, I just finished up a remix for Star Key, who's also part of that crew. Looks like their parties have been off the hook. I don't think there's one singular source about these type of goings on in the states. Just gotta' keep your ear to the blogs I guess.

Labels: Breakcore, DJ C, Interviews, Music

# posted by antrophe @ 9:18 PM

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Thursday, February 08, 2007

Some Mixing Barbarism On The Auld Sony Acid.

Taking a peak around my laptop lastnight led me back to some strange places, including some lost and now disregarded folders of mashed up samples in various states of chopped up hopelessness. One of these shunned folders contained a 30 minute mix (90mb mp3) I made using Sony Acid about a year and a half ago and then forcefed semi-live to a rather bludgeoned and bewildered crowd at an Anarchy Night Cafe up stairs in the Liberty Bell on Francis Street.

As a record of what I was listening to heavily at the time it features some Robocop samples, Woody Guthrie in a car crash with Scotch Egg, Belladonnakillz on party advice and a whole Shitmat melody in the middle. I think there's even some Authecre in the background being mangled by Hellfish and the best bit of all the rousing Scooter finale. I listened to it last night and its hardly the worst but seriously if any of the above sounds interesting enough to make you download the thing, then please be careful some of the belching , squeeling and peaks in this train crash of a mix may damage your ears.

With Sony Acid as a topic of conversation, there's an odd feature on the DVD that comes with Computer Music this month - nearly 65 minutes of Shitmat on how to produce a track using Sony Acid and one or two other programmes. He starts with chopping beats, moves on to getting bass lines sorted, adding ragga chat and gabber kicks for dance floor hops. At 10e that's a hefty price to pay, but why not...

Labels: Breakcore, Mix, Music, Shitmat

# posted by antrophe @ 3:49 PM

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Sunday, February 04, 2007

Aaron Spectre Interview: "Sometimes You Have To Abandon All Previous Work and Start From Scratch."

Aaron Spectre really doesn't demand much of an introduction for regular readers of this blog. His unique blend of on the fly mixing sees him deconstruct tracks from across the musical spectrum through Ableton and then complement them live with his own programmed loops, junglist horns and brutalist breakcore rattles roaring away in the background.

In Aaron Spectre mode his DJ sets set venues alight before firing your head with re-mixers and producers to scan the net for, as Drumcorps he uproots his own musical background in an astonishing flurry of metal tinged guitar, pained vocals and pounding laptop electronics. Here he talks to Soundtracksforthem about his own background, the move to Berlin, relentless touring and making music.

You've a Converge sticker on one of your midi-keyboards, do you come from a punk/hardcore background? If so, how does a punk end up mashing things up ragga styl-ee and what drew you away from hardcore and into electronic production?

I grew up in the middle of Massachusetts, outside Boston. A lot of what I saw in the all ages shows resonated with me and still does. I wouldn't say I was a punk or hardcore kid or what not, as I've never been into the whole fashion part of it but I have my local favorites: Converge, Cave In, Sam Black Church, anything with honesty and fire! I learned a lot during those days that still keeps me going.

Around age 15-16 I was playing drums in a few small hardcore bands, but I was also first getting into producing electronic music - I'd sneak into my school's MIDI lab during lunch and bang out tunes on the DX7 / Mac Classic. I discovered Orbital through a local record store's tiny electronic music section. I saw the Orb play on their Orblivion tour and a whole new world opened up. As soon as high school was over with most of us moved away for university & that pretty much finished off the band. Now out of the country and in the city, there were lots of other musical influences floating around. It seemed like a natural progression to start getting into electronic music... Jungle, Drum & Bass, Ambient... strange weirdness and crazy nomads. Many Drumcorps fans have followed a similar route in their music tastes... punk / hardcore early on, developing a taste for electronic music a little later, and now rediscovering their roots.

What made you make the famous move ala Hawtin and skip over to Berlin?

New York City had given me what I needed and it was time to move on. New York was (and still is) an awful place to be creative, for certain kinds of people. It's a great place to learn, to see crazy high-end awesome stuff, but not a good place to focus, too distracting and too expensive. In Berlin, now that I wasn't spending mad cash on living expenses, I was able to invest in proper music gear... sit down and develop, figure out how to make that sound I'd been hearing in my head for years.

Are your sets all on the fly mixing, or do you set out with a vague idea of what you are going to play, aresome tracks given the Spectre pre-treatment at home and then hopped off the laptop to the venue's speaker system?

Most of the Aaron Spectre set is on the fly. I have a good idea of what combinations work, but I like to leave it open to the feel of the night, what's appropriate to play at that time.

Just on production again, some would say breakcore is the new punk - does your music and breakcore more generally contain the DIY ethos of the punk scene?

Breakcore is sorta the new punk, but it's different this time around. I like the slogan Droon (from Breakcore Gives Me Wood) has put on his MIDI guitar, "WOOD IS THE NEW METAL"! The Wood crew have the right idea, with their other slogan.. "my subculture can kick your subculture's ass anytime 24/7" It's not about subdividing into a little insular clan, it's about enjoying the music. Breakcore is raw, powerful, and pure. The music moves people and makes them totally freak out! If that was what punk was about, it's the new punk. I wasn't around in the original punk days so I don't really know, and so much has been distorted by now. Nowadays there's a growing right-wing police state, overbearing fear, similar conditions to the 1980s reagan days.... this oppressive political climate influences the music somewhat, maybe there are some parallels.

You've got to be DIY now, it's the way everyone operates. There are a million different niches and flavors. All you have as an artist is your word and the quality of your work. I like that, it keeps things pure. Those things are all you ever have really, but in a totally DIY environment you never forget it. I imagine one could lose sight of stuff like that once too many other people get involved...

In an XLR8R interview Parasite claimed that people like yourself and The Bug all have a political message to convey, aside from shitting all over copy right laws - what is this message?

I can't speak for The Bug or anyone else, but my root message is one of self-reliance and self-criticism. Our heads are filled with so much marketing nonsense by an early age... talk to any 7 year old and you'll find them repeating a host of brand names, slogans, whatever they saw on TV. You need to clear that out, dig deeper and evaluate, think for yourself, LIVE for yourself. This can mean different things for different people, but the world would be a better place if people sorted themselves out. The first step to not being deceived into having false goals and ideals is to be honest with yourself. Many other political motives stem from this...

Where would you advise heads wanting to throw themselves into making/playing music to start?

Develop your tastes and find some good mentors, older people who can give you pointers. If you're making music for DJs, start mixing vinyl. It will give you perspective on what works and what doesn't. Get as many gigs as you can. Play everywhere, take chances, don't hold back. Don't wait for anyone to "discover" you, those days are long gone. Stay honest and make the music you want to hear. The tech is relatively easy to learn, it's that inner vision that matters.

Did Pitchfork linking to your Bastardmix do much for you or do you think your popularity is more due to the hard slog of touring and working?

Every bit of press helps, but there's no substitute for that hard touring. Just gotta go out there and do it...

Who's coming out with the best tunes in your opinion lately?

Dev/Null's new record is amazing, he just destroyed it at the Wasted 4 fest in Berlin. Elemental, Vex'd, Search & Destroy, Toasty Boy, Rotator, Cardopusher, DJ C for electronic stuff... Converge's new album is amazing. The new Isis is great ... I can't wait to hear the new Aarktica..
there's so much good music coming out right now it's hard to keep track of it all.

With you using Drumcorps tracks in the end of most "Aaron Spectre" mixes, I'm confused as to why you saw the need for two distinct personas?

Aaron Spectre sets are more geared for dancing, club music. I change those sets up to suit the mood of the venue and time of the night, and the tone doesn't generally get dark & depressing. it's about dancing.... I do get a lot of requests for Drumcorps tunes so I tend to play a track or two in my sets if I can.

Drumcorps sets are strictly metal / breakcore. It's a performance presenting an idea, and it doesn't adapt as much to the mood of the place... more like a band. Drumcorps has a lot of darkness and brooding, bad feelings, anger, tension, resolution, emotions that don't go well in dance music. I use live guitar in the Drumcorps sets and it's a different thing, you'll see the difference at the Dublin gig.

The Lifewepromote and Bastard mixes seemed to define the general direction of your gigs over the past while, does the recent Reptiledub mix signal the way you'll be delivering things at future shows?

The studio mixes, like Reptile Dub, are more a reflection of the new tunes I like and the way things are developing. Sometimes that is reflected in the live sets but not always. I love dubstep and I've been following it for quite some time now, so i had to put it on a mix. Playing live is a different beast though, and it's best to approach each show on its own merits. It's not good to plan things out too much before a show - it's far better to just have a lot of options available and then go for whatever works at the night.

At a recent London gig, I had such an occasion. I had just bought a lot of new dubstep 12"s and ripped them into the computer and finished up a few of my own, and I was all stoked to play a deep dark dubstep set in the heart of south London but by the time my set rolled around the previous DJs (who were also stoked to play their new finds) had run the gamut of all the current dubstep releases! Every single one of them... it was the peak of the night and I couldn't be getting all halfsteppy, so I just threw out all I had prepared and played some jungle & breakcore & more uptempo music. The crowd exploded and things went great. Sometimes you have to abandon all previous work and start from scratch.

A mate heard a rumour that you and Scotch Egg were starting a grindcore band with Bongra - anything in this?

We are doing a project together, and I'm doing the drum programming. It's nice to be just a drummer again... but as far as forming a live band that's a little far fetched, as we all live in different cities.

The Drumcorps shows on Youtube look like carnage, with the next Dublin gig being a punk versus breakcore night i imagine it'll be just as mental. How have you rated your other gigs in Dublin? Doesn't the constant touring ever tire you?

Touring is rough, but you develop tricks to get by. The worst part of touring is the endless downtime and waiting. I love to read though, so the quiet time suits me fine. The hardest thing is
finding a steady stream of good books. Dublin has always been one of my favorite places to play, such good enthusiastic people there. It's always been mental - can't wait!

Aaron Spectre will be playing !Kaboogie in the Underground at Kennedies alongside Prince Kong, The Banker, Nihl, PCP and Richie Kaboogie on Friday Feb 16th. To get yourself in the mood pop over to the Kaboogie Myspace for a gawk at some Drumcorps videos. Meanwhile his own website is brimming with mixes and mp3s to pack out whatever Gigerwatt it is you play your music on. Watch an interview on Drumcorps over here.

Labels: Aaron Spectre, Breakcore, Interviews, Music, Punk

# posted by antrophe @ 5:49 PM

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Wednesday, January 17, 2007

In The Box 1: Enduser

Kaboogie are promising another night of bass heavy enough to make your granny cry as stateside speaker thrasher Enduser takes a break from touring with Bong-ra to fuck the place up down Kennedys way this friday. Enduser uses fractured beats and the machinery of an industrially tinged drum and bass to tear through every genre you try barricade him in with. The grinding sonic terror at the heart of Endusers music is cushioned in often soft female vocals like on his Bollywood Breaks release or more commonly filthily compounded by violent ragga vocal lifts as on Comparing Paths.

Find yourself a copy of Bollywood Breaks for a lesson in cementing over hippy visions of Goa or India in a bizarre collage of dnb and world music. There's a fair chunk of tracks over at the C8 site for you to start pillaging to get you in the mood before Friday night. Here's a short interview with him, he's both short and cheeky but if interested you can drag up a more in-depth piece with Enduser over at Exploding Plastic.

You're on tour with Bongra at the moment, how's that going and how are crowds reacting to you?

Tour is good, crowds are great for the most part. Sometimes they want more straight forward dnb but i think it's shit.

As a teenager what were your main musical influences?

Godflesh, Swans and Napalm Death

When did you first start making music and what pushed you into it?

I've always made music. I just started putting out records to pay for my medication.

Describe your first track in ten words, be as cruel or self-praising as you want?

Two tape decks and here are a few more words...

What's your stimulant/drink of choice?

I'm sure you will find out very soon

What was the best gig you attended in the past year?

I can't remember.

Bollywood Breaks is a fantastic release - how did you get the idea for combining such distinct musical styles and why a whole release of it?

All music can be treated like this, just two things I enjoy sounded ok to me.

What can we expect from you in the near future?

I'm going to have lunch soon. Then some music. Maybe I'll be dead in a few days, I don't know yet.

The net is increasingly important in music, how are you using and do you buy the hype about it changing everything?

Internet is good and bad. I don't see how anyone can say that hasn't changed everything.

Where did the name Enduser come from and why do you want to 'fuck up the system?'

Enduser = end user. Everyone. I made a song called that but it was a typo. it was supposed to be called "fuck up your sister". It's a personal thing, I'll explain later.

Labels: Breakcore, Enduser, Interviews, Kaboogie, Music

# posted by antrophe @ 1:48 PM

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Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Alec Empire Interview: "The Iraq war is an ongoing nightmare. Doing politics like this has no future."

With the would be 'Sir' Bonos of the world doing a wonderful job as the soft, recuperating face of global governance, its easy to be cynical about the space where politics and music combine. Still, few artists spring to mind that can rival the continued enthusiasm of Alec Empire for pushing the boundaries of contemporary music to incorporate radical politics. As a techno innovator responsible for the emergence of the digital hardcore genre, Empire was a figurehead to a generation of German experimental artists emerging in the wake of the Berlin Wall's collapse through the creation of his Digital Hardcore Records label.

Starting off within the punk scene fronting bands like Die Kinder, Empire eventually grew disillusioned and moved towards the emerging rave scene. During the turmoil of re-unifaction the bubbling techno scene was seizing ware houses in the east of Berlin for massive parties, linking it to a long standing autonome squatting scene that was spreading eastwards from its traditional bastions in areas like Kreuzburg.

Empire's political radicalism made him antagonistic to the E-fuelled, loved up, utopian culture that was all over the techno scene like a rash. Outside skinhead groups, cushioned by a renewed German nationalism, were fire-bombing migrant centres and organising pogroms while the police stood back and watched. As a forceful rebuttal to apolitical rave scene Empire formed the seminal Atari Teenage Riot. Involvement in the anti-fascist movement came to heavily define the band, even late into their career. One viral video popular among fans on Youtube features the group playing off a truck at a Mayday anti-fa march in Berlin in 1999. Screaming the lyrics of an early song suitably called 'Start the Riot,' the band implore the crowd to do just that - as they drive straight into the heart of escalating ritualised conflict with police. This was a group after all who believed 'riot sounds, produce riots' and they certainly sought to test it when given the chance.

Atari Teenage Riots first full length album Delete Yourself stands head high as a musical document of the intense political struggles and debates that emerged in post-reunifaction Germany. Atari Teenage Riot weren't just an angered, aesthetic reaction to the loved up boredom of rave or a desire for a scene that actually engaged with the realities of rising unemployment and accommodation shortages. It was a deliberate attempt to politicise and organise within a subcultural milieu. Atari Teenage Riot and Empire pioneered the digital hardcore sound of sped up break beats, metal riffs chuggy enough to put Slayer on the run and chanting punky vocals interspersed with samples from film and ainme. If you can imagine the dress up sloganeering of the early Manic Street Preachers ram raided by a German black bloc armed with trolleys full of drum machines and samplers - then you have some idea of what Atari Teenage Riot sound like. Coming to me at the time through the pages of NME, this was an early teenage musical revelation. The combination of two such distinct sounds, previously only sketched on The Prodigy's epic Music for the Jilted Generation now all sounds a little musically dated but an indelible experimental template was in place.

A trip organised by Beastie Boy's operated Grand Royal Records began a process of filtering DHR material out on limited releases stateside. Eventually the rave new world of the Berlin underground wound down around them and ATR found themselves competing on the stages of the big summer festivals alongside the likes of Nine Inch Nails and a whole plethora of bands still hanging around in the post-grunge wake. In the US they became a pre-cursor to that peculiar wave of stateside adoration of UK big beat that saw acts like The Prodigy dominate the albums charts there through the cartoon punk of Fat of the Land. Just before the blockades of the Seattle WTO opened up new constituencies for their music within an actual, growing movement , personal tragedy struck as band member Carl Crack died of a drug overdose and the Atari Teenage Riot project was more or less wrapped up.

In this exclusive interview for Indymedia.ie Alec Empire discusses the origins of Atari Teenage Riot amidst rising Nazi attacks in the early 1990's, experimentalism and conservatism in music, his future projects and much more besides.

Alec Empire will deliver a DJ set courtesy of Kaboogie at the Underground in Kennedys on December 29th. Kaboogie should be familar to Indymedia readers for recently doing musical combat with fundraising regulars Porco Dio in a mash up of scenes in aid of Indymedia Ireland. The Empire gig starts at 9.30pm and goes until the wee hours. Support will come from NIHI, K.AL.P.O.I. and Super Extra Bonus Party. There'll be a 12 bip hit on the door for entrance.

Labels: Alec Empire, Breakcore, Indymedia, Interviews, Kaboogie, Music, Politics, Squatting

# posted by antrophe @ 3:45 AM

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Thursday, August 24, 2006

Several Birds, One Stone: Mantua and All Thats Fit to Print

Mighty Morphin Mega Power Illegal Raves.

According to the Guardian, the bobbies across the water are on the look out for a 'mega illegal rave' due to take place somewhere in the south east of England in the next few weeks. Sarah Champion, one time music journalist and sometimes editor of mid 1990's rave zetigeist fiction compendiums has also been pushed to comment on the pheonemeon, leading to some heavy doses of nostalgia over on the Guardian blog. There's definitely something in the air, with many inhabitants on my usual internet merry-go-round asking similar questions of a rave scene revival, there was even a bit of a discussion on this over on U75 a while ago.

Its possibly all hype, with journalists eager to chase after the latest underground fads, last month it was the Artic Monkies and this month its purple dreaded psy-trance ravers on ketamine. Its tempting however to think dance culture, or at least some harder edged variant more firmly rooted in the undergound is on the up over here as well. There's a certain tiredness around how so much of the new wave of British lads on guitar have colonised the soundtrack of the city at night. As well as that a generation that grew up as kids with romantic notions of rave are now old enough to start pulling things together for themselves, there's been a nice confluence of interest as a result of this. People have been able to break away from some of the more established venues and promoters because they simply do not provide any more due to the declining fortunes of commercial dance. If there are no reliant official nights churning out what you want to hear, then people cater for themselves. Equally the mid 90s commercialisation of dance spelt the death of the rave hysteria, opening a space for its limited return outside the eyes of the cops.

Mr Oizo Impression Inducing Techno.

Of course this is all premised on you actually believing the hype, the Mantua and Leechrum festivals have come and gone again this summer with heavy doses of hardcore dance on rotation at both. That both these festivals were possible in one summer on such a small island, surely is some way testament to a vibrant underground, but you have to ask yourself why such annual stalwert events like the Jigs and Rigs weekend and the regular Creation parties have exited the building before cuddling up to any doses of optimism.

Mantua was great, a field located some where in Roscommon that for two days was domianted by clusters of people insanely dancing before finding themselves sheepishly dishelved the next morning being micro-waved in their tents. With little by way of sobriety and a critical facility intact, memories of Super Exra Bonus Party delivering a high octane bouncy set that got the crowd in the Alphabet Set tent jogging on the spot tell me they are worth checking out again. God Is An Astronaut left no surprises and no highlights, suggesting that a band that once represented something of a bright hope for Irish experimental music are going to have to significantly revise their set lisiting and their on-stage audio-visuals before churlishly churning out more by the book performances to increasingly bored audiences who have seen them all too often before. Radioactive Man turned in a stomping set of Mr Oizo impression inducing checky techno before momentarily descending into some early drum and bass. Bringing the tempo back up again, it was all I could do to sit outside the tent and stare at the light show, wondering just how much harder this head case could take people.

Later in the night, Ed Melody Masher spluttered long lines of amen breaks and staccatto gabba out for hours on end, firmly in recovery ( not like this thank christ )at that stage it was impossible to enjoy what was an impressively comptent set that machine gunned the assembled crowd until well into the next day. The reggae 'stage' was impressive, consisting of a section of field framed on either end with two walls of babylon's finest rigs sound systems in the form of Cork's Rootical Soundsystem. It was impossible to get into the mood, little crowd or dance floor dynamic developed there, harder to discern what this strange land walled in reggae was never mind where to congregate to dance to it. With no more food available than a lame Fallaffel stall, and a hippie in some sort of native American garb running around with his arms outstretched flying through his own head it was clear the best option was to leave for the creature comforts.

And All The Rest.

Back in the cold hard and rainy streets of this fair and fucked city, Duran Duran Duran delivered a sickeningly but air punching good short set in Kaboogie as the bar man decided 'ya basta' around 0030hrs. Over on Oldrottenhat, our former glammer slamming Herr Philosopher Sir Krossie has delivered another traveleouge of his mad cap antics as the GoawayRecords lads touched down in Berlin for several album launches and a dose of paddy whackery. Now on slightly related note, someone from a clubbing forum in Dublin has put together an index of all the old raver anthems up on Youtube, some of them are classics. Enjoy the vidiocy!

Labels: Breakcore, festival, Gig Review, Kaboogie, Mantua, Music

# posted by antrophe @ 10:42 PM

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Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Mantua: Something for the Weekend/Germany Got the RAF - England Got Crass.

If you missed all the madness of the Leechrum festival the weekend before last, then like me, you could do far worse than promise to find yourself wandering around a field somewhere in Rosscommon come Sunday night. Why? After hosting Vex'd as part of a Planet Mu/Warp records showcase earlier in the year, the Mantua lives festival will be finally tacking itself on to the festival circuit for the first time on the 19th and 20th of August. Nialler9 has the full low down, with some mp3s of the headlining acts ripped and ready, just to get you in the mood. Among the acts I'll be clamouring up the front for will be God Is An Astronaut, who we've interviewed on this blog before (after they wiped Whipping Boy off the stage at one of their come back gigs down in Cork before Christmas) Herv, Radioactive man, Ebauche and Giveamankick.

Now for something different. Crass remain one of the most popular bands to emerge from the post-'77 British punk scene. Taking the cartoon anarchism of the Pistols to a far deeper level, they wedded their music to social and political subversion combining situaitonist sloganeering with sqautter punk activism. Their 'Do They Owe Us A Living?' continues to be an unabated anthem that champions the potential for auto-reducing our exploitation by capitalism. Doing much to keep the black flag flying during the years of Thatcherism, Crass are one of the most controversial bands in the history of British music. I'm not going to go any further with this off the cuff biography of Crass, instead I'm going to send you off in the direction of three articles I've being pointing people to for sometime now. Punk and Autonomia - the 1977 lines between punk in the UK and Autonomia in Italy, Aufhebens' Chill or Kill - Analysis of the Opposition to the Criminal Justice Bill and the Praxis 18 Newsletter on Breakcore. What unites all of these articles is a clearly articulated attempt to relate culture to its political and social context, and thats something that we here on Soundtracksforthem quite like but probably rarely put much effort into doing.

Labels: Breakcore, Mantua, Music, Social Movements

# posted by antrophe @ 4:17 AM

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Friday, May 12, 2006

DJ Rupture Set To Lay It Down.

Dublin punters are in for a treat next weekend as mixing virtuso DJ/Rupture kicks off in the Belvedere. Infused with what pitchfork have described as a multicultural "ghetto to ghetto" approach, Rupture cascades across genres ram raiding the vaults of variant musical traditions for the ley lines in between that mark a common point of musical evolution. Once these similarties are exposed, he uses them to build intricately flowing mixes that take listeners on a right old voyage through the best of grime, ragga, world music and commercial hip hop. Ripping melodies from Missy Elliot and building into a crescendo of Venetian Snares lifted gabba, then weaving political criticisms of police violence with the use of Dead Prez vocals before tearing off into a more nuanced world music buzz.

Rupture first came to relative prominence in 2002 with a pair of densely organised mixes the previously download only Gold Teeth Thief which then got a release on Tiger Beat 6 and Minesweeper Suite. He has released one album as a producer, Special Gunpowder which in many ways disappoints. Starting off with the spoken word of Watermelon City and the soulfoul tinged gospel of a politically charged Lil More Oil to Manu Chao-esque reverbations, it was an album that really sought to expose his strenghts as a producer rather than a cut and paste mish mash of the strenghts of various genres. Whatever he lays down come Saturday night, you can be certain its going to be a lot more subtle and intelligent those who ruthlessly associate him with breakcore, ignoring his own musical philosophy of "non-stop pluralism."

All You Can Beat present DJ Rupture, The Belvedere, 13 May.

Labels: Breakcore, DJ Rupture, Music

# posted by antrophe @ 5:07 PM

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Monday, April 17, 2006

!Kaboogie: The Teknoist. In The Ice Bar

Planet Mu's The Teknoist was brought over to these shores last Thursday to a relatively frustrated Ice Bar crowd that was anxiously wondering wheter or not it would be subjected to the same closing time as the rest of the city. Turned out we were. The Teknoist delivered a blistering fast paced straight ahead gabber hardcore that sailed across the heads of a tightly packed crowd that punched the air before having to leap out of the way for every punter that wanted to go to the toilets - The Ice Bar having its own quirks is by no means an ideal venue. His music really is a traditionalist straight ahead asortment of gabber kicks, with ragga vocal tingles very low in the mix on one occasion, and some of his own tunes making the most of 10 second long Prodigy samples to get the crowd going before pumping them up with the snares again.

Also: You can get a relatively good taste of exactly the sort of stuff the Teknoist mix delivered in this download over here. Kaboogie are also going to be regularly hosting a club in the Ice Bar every second thursday, being the heads that brought over Aaron Spectre not so long ago, it'll be well worth keeping on eye on their line ups.

Labels: Aaron Spectre, Breakcore, Gig Review, Kaboogie, Music

# posted by antrophe @ 9:14 PM

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Sunday, April 02, 2006

Grimey Bass Lines Rumbling In My Tummy

With grimey bass lines rumbling out of the TBMC powerhouse speakers, you knew it only had to be Vex'd that had taken the stage. The visuals with the duo's name floating in the background certainly helped in this wonderous identifaction process as heroin laden hoover noises delivered an aural spookiness over a well up for it crowd. I'd been quite looking forward to Vex'd, their Breezeblock mix was voted mix of the year last year by the show's listeners, it being over here in zip format and their last release Degenerate and some other yoke I downloaded called Function have been sending vibrations up to the people above the flat for about a week now. They deliver the sort of set that could really go in any direction, you expect more pounding buildups or it just to kick off in a harsh DnB direction, with patient breaks clanging in the background, Vex'd were fucking, dark and dirty skagged out of it sounding shite and they were good, as punters bodies flowed in musical waves in this confused manner that asked how the fuck does a Dublin crowd dance to this? This ain't East London.

This was a very odd mashing of niches in a sense, coming in under the Leechrum banner who hosted the night for Mu/Warp, everything screamed breakcore, but it was only the Person who delivered a blistering Winnipeg Is A Frozen Shithole-esque Snares sort of set with gabber threats in the background in a typical vein that promoted momentary out bursts of pit behaviour. It really was odd to have him slap bang on after Vex'd, leaving it impossible for Milanese to down tempo again with some dubstep sounding like it was being strangled in an emptied oil barrel. No surprise one pocket of punters just started shouting "where's Chris Clarke?" during Milanesse. Feck sake. But you had dub step/grime/breakcore/classical warp sound seekers and fans all thrown in together under an assumed common banner of what exactly? And then left surprised when it wasn't meeting their expectations throughout the night. Breakcore no longer fits the pattern emerging at these gigs, if anything breakcore has become a handy byline for a scene that is all ears and eager to what the UK underground is churning out through trusted filters like Planet Mu and on the blogs documenting the productivity of what the estates are churning out like Guttabreakz. This umbrella effect has even being noted on forums such as Tolling Gang and U75 during the week with the question asked "is dance music dead?" before focussing on its underground regeneraton under breakcore and another with an audience left wondering is DnB the new punk? Maybe in mid 1990's, with no doubt what they were talking about hearing was breakcore.

The Person has come on huge since his Exile/Chevron in Belevedere support back there in summer, which if memory serves correctly consisted largely of metal guitars being dropped in quicky in a real rave revivalist clash of samples. Was it all original or was he dropping tunes? I missed out on getting one of the 25 cds though..pah.. I was delighted to see Vex'd live, it was very "bass culture" hoover noises rumbling in my belly- totally different to how I hear them in my ear phones as nice, quite chilled build ups but filled with a paranoid vomit inducing tension if you let it get to you. Industrial as fuck, I can only hope Autechre sound as promisingly transformed live...thump..thump...as for their label mate Chris Clark on the night? Well, with a crowd banging the stage for more at the end, what can you say? Throughout the night was given a visual edge, with banners strew across the stage's front, some mad out of it bloke who probably thought he was acting as a conduit for the crowd's delerium with charcoal strapped to him splattering out drawings on a huge sheet of paper. The 8 foot tale grim reaper reaching across the crowd with a scythe during Clark was a great touch too, and you have to beg the question of those who claimed to have missed it leering over them.

Labels: Breakcore, Dubstep, Gig Review, Vex'd

# posted by antrophe @ 5:28 AM

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Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Breakcore Special On Radio Neuromantek Tonight.

If I have a readership (and who'd think that?) they have been spoilt with links to music these past few days. Around 2002, there used be a little electro night called Neuromantek that was well worth going to if you could manage the journey from town to the Thomas St House up past NCAD. I did it a bare handful of times, and moaned about it all the way trust, getting lost in one of the more barren looking, junkie infested areas of the city more often than not. What waited up there, as always in the Thomas St House before its demolition, was a night that fairly thumped all round with spliffs being smoked freely inside and nutters dancing on tables. These days Neuromantek exists only as a gig collective, with its main organ being a radio show hosted on Radio Na Life. Due to laziness and almost permanent access to broadband with its universe of online radio I don't fidget around with a coat hanger jammed into the back of my stereo enough, to give the show a regular listen. But anytime I have - has definitely been worth it. Tonight maybe one of those nights, as notice of an all breakcore session came in on IE-Dance this savo. Radio Neuromantek is hosted by Krossphader, Mick Harvey and Paul Watts on Radio Na Lifé, every tuesday from 10pm till midnight, hopefully the live stream will be working tonight. No chance of some auld MP3s masquerading as podcasts there lads even? Guess IMRO would be on their case.

Well, tonight, it's an all-breakcore show, brought to you by Krossie and special guest mentaller DJ Melodymasher (his mum calls him Ed Murphy). Check out what's on his mind, musically and otherwise, here. Melodymasher recently supported Arron Spectre in the Ice Bar and a junglist/breakcore set he played there back in December is available over on the Alphabet Set. In other news, I've just given the Nialler9 hosted live set of Super Extra Bonus Part y strutting their stuff a listen, its well worth a gander. Nialler9 describes it as "some refreshingly upbeat electronica from the jangly tones of "Spanik" to the bouncy energetic "Mushie Shake", and the ethereal "Softly" which samples Dublin singer songwriter Nina Hynes." While im on the topic of radio - when moving to Dublin in 2001, even at that stage the city was packed with pirates, with Future FM and even Power still on the go. Not to mention Phantom of course. What the hell happened there? Either way Powerfm have an impressive archive of their shows availbile in mp3 format.

Labels: Breakcore, Media, Music

# posted by antrophe @ 6:17 PM

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Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Leechrum Gig: Maybe This Breakcore Thing Could Go Nathan Barley?

James Murphy from LCD Soundsystem rants and raves about the overbearing wieght of 50 years of pop culture crushing down on his shoulders with the expectation of originality, of being "there." The insurgent popularity of breakcore among underground music fans in numerous cities is definitely a response to this existential crisis of music fans. When half the internet can fall for a KLF stunt claiming the Libertines were faked you know there is a crisis in music's heart - there are no more scenes, nothing is happening, at least with breakcore people shut up and dance. But it could go all Nathan Barley.

The "breakcore uk" massive has been spreading through word of mouth, with interest being obvious in the increased amounts of Bong-ra and Enduser records clogging up boxs in alternative city centre stores. NWODTELM from Toronto and Heres My Card Records honcho resident in Brightin lead the charge with a hellish cacophony of noise from a set based on loops played back on cassette tapes, part gabber, part breaks with one mentalist collage using songs with the word "jump" in them to instigate the obvious on the dancefloor.

Chevron did just as well dropping his most rough and violent "Running Out Of Time" as the second track illustrates what an uppity set this was with a wide range of new material being showcased at the expense of some of the material off "Everythings Exactly The Same." Any time I've seen him Chevron has struck me as predictable and boring, but this was a complete break with form largely due to the revision of his set which puts his live shows in the same bracket as his production, top notch.

Shitmat the mash up mentalist was up next, none of his ideas should work, but believe me it does on record. Live is another question, with one speaker cutting out all night and a psyched Shitmat in his underwear struggling to maintain anything resembling a set. Shitmat has delivered some whirling fly by night sets maintaining a simple 4x4 throughout while processing tracks on the fly. At the breakcore binge of Overkill at the London Electrowerkz, it was a similar story - but when he does drop his tunes in a co-herant manner which he managed to do for some time, the place went ape.

Updated to add: Wavioli, a regular contributer to Thumped has added a great Flickr set from the night over here.

Labels: Breakcore, Gig Review, Music

# posted by antrophe @ 1:25 PM

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Thursday, February 23, 2006

The Wrong Music Van Arrives In Town - Lets Get Ready To Dance. Like Idiots Of Course.

What once may have been a movement of isolated nutters sitting in gaffs downloading brutalized beats and tortured undanceable rhythms that reduce dance floors to gibbering mangled and usually mashed happy idiots has been stretching its wings and pulling devotees in under its wings in an organic flurry of growth over the past wee while.

Dublin heads such as Herv, Lakker and others have brought the sound a certain degree of respectability among the Dublin dance scene. GoAwayRecordings have even got it together to commission an Irish breakcore compilation which should be hitting the shops soon. The boredom of music scenes full of DJ's that barely dance to their own tunes, the combination of a truly jilted generation living off the jaded memories of musical movements that were worth latching onto means that breakcore is pulling in fans from across the alternative musical divide. No more traveling to the UK or Galway for the nuttiness, now it's setting up camp in the capital and we all better be there. The Leprechaun Error tour which lands courtesy of the of some of the Brighton breakcore greats across Ireland. The line up includes Shitmat, Chevron, Ebola, The Gross Consumer and Nwodtlem hits Dublin on Friday 24 February, doors open at 10pm and it goes till late.

What can you expect from this? Well straight up, a high energy burst of musical mayhem, with sound collages and samples screaming to be released from being pounded to death by turbulent breaks and lopped gabber noise, think of the most danceable elements of the Prodigy accelerated from end - courtesy of Shitmat. From Chevron expect a certain degree of po-faced seriousness, with etheral build ups leading into cartoon ragga breakdowns or chaotic bleep/break sound clashes. NWODTELM leads the charge with a hellish cacophony of noise. This gig will be very over stimulating. So hand over your money suckers and get ready to dance.

Checkout Me Elsewhere: Breakcore Nutters Leechrum Set Up Monthly Night and Shitmat: Oh Babylon Bwoi..What A Piece Of Brightness and From The DEAF Onwards
Elsewhere: Nialler9 On This Gig.
Tuneage: Shitmat: Morris Minor Massacre
C8 Tune Stores: A complete abundance of tunes here ranging from the comedic mash-up/cartoon ragga side of breakcore to the paranoid hard edged beats of Enduser.
Background: This link isn't meant in a patronising manner, but "what the fuck is breakcore?" is a fair enough question, and the Wikipedia article on it is ny the worst. A fairly comprehensive gawk at its origins and links to many of the core artists sites will leave you with enough mp3s to buzz off for the time being.

Friday February 24th - Legal Eagle, Chancerry St., D.1 9 til late - Tickets 15 euro - Ticket available at Spindizzy - Georges Arcade, The Hemp Store - Capel street, Red Ink bookstore - Templebar and City Disks - Templebar

Labels: Breakcore, Music

# posted by antrophe @ 11:22 PM

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Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Breakcore Nutters Leechrum Set Up Monthly Club In Dublin - Its Wrong - All Wrong!

What happens when you add this, this and this? Probably the potential for one of Dublin's most chaotic and exciting club explosions, that's what's in store - as breakcore nutters Leechrum Records who brought over the likes of Planet Mu beat mangling beasts Exile and Chevron to these shores last year set up their own monthly club night in Fraizers on O'Connell Street. What once may have been a movement of isolated nutters sitting in gaffs downloading brutalized beats and tortured undanceable rhythms that reduce dance floors to gibbering mangled and usually mashed happy idiots has been stretching its wings and pulling devotees in under its wings in an organic flurry of growth over the past wee while. Dublin heads such as Herv, Lakker and others have brought the sound a certain degree of respectability, while the boredom of music scenes full of DJ's that barely dance to their own tunes, the combination of a truly jilted generation living off the jaded memories of musical movements that were worth latching onto means that breakcore is pulling in fans from across the alternative musical divide. No more traveling to the UK or Galway for the nuttiness, now it's setting up camp in the capital and we all better be there. First up its local rave revivalists T-Wok and Solen, with stand up comedy thrown into the mix. Check out the Leechrum site for details of their new monthly club nites, in Fraizers, and worst of all the bar serves Buckfast. ITS WROONG!

Leechrum are also organising a Leprechaun Error tour of some of the Brighton breakcore greats across Ireland. The line up includes Shitmat, Chevron, Ebola, The Gross Consumer and Nwodtlem hits Dublin on Friday 24 February, doors open at 10pm and it goes till late. So hand over your money suckers.

Labels: Breakcore, Music, Out

# posted by antrophe @ 12:34 AM

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Friday, January 06, 2006

There Ain't Nothing As Fun As This Here Guv.

So there isn't.

Labels: Breakcore, Internet

# posted by antrophe @ 3:02 AM

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Saturday, September 10, 2005

Oh Babylon Bwoi..What A Piece Of Brightness

Breakcore as a genre developed relatively organically since the late nineties. Utilising the peer to peer file networks of the net and the DIY ethos of hardcore punk as a distribution mechanism. It bubbled away in the underground gabber sound system scene of the mid-nineties and amidst the pathologically violent sounds of digital hardcore in Germany. A genre with a high producer/consumer contention ratio it veered from the early influences of an extremist axis of Atari Teenage Riot/DJ Scud on the European and the schizophrenic death throes of 'appy 'ardkore in the UK to quickly became a point of shelter for music fans of an extreme bent who delighted in its culminating formulae of mashed up, twisted samples from a disorientating array of different genres.

With an armoury consisting of elements of early rave, punk, ragga, and cheeky pop samples in a DIY explosion of beats mangled on cheap, or pirated software like Sony Acid - a monster was born. Like early nineties 'ardkore it can be tempting to dismiss it as the soundtrack to a shopping centre being invaded by legions of Burberry hat wearers trying to simultaneously eat their own jaw. You'd be mistaken, considering the production qualities of recent developments in the genre. Meshing wrenching, classical string soundtracks to wavering breaks in an intricate hyper edit, Venetian Snare's latest “Rossz Csillag Alatt Született” leaves no one in doubt that we are just going to have to re- assess what is being passed off as proper dance music. After Snares pounded the TBMC to dust last April, its his bad “bwoi” renegade laptop, Planet Mu label mate Shitmat's turn to do the business on an Irish crowd down in Galway on Friday, 26th.

Residing in Brighton, one of the scene's key geographical nodes, this master manipulator of the amen beat and rapist of cheese pop, takes his impetus from Tigerbeat 6's Kid 606 and catapults the genre breakdowns of dance music through a window. With the broken shards he starts afresh. Meshing the DIY impulse of old school techno together with ragga, the delirious kicks of gabber and the infectious breaks of jungle, his 2004 Full English Breakfast release saw the Big Ben chimes, the English Anthem, Aerosmith, the Snowman song and Rage Against the Machine kicked to death by the bastard off spring of an early Prodigy with the pop sensibility of 2 Unlimited. The standout track The 1995 Morris Dancer Massacre dug a hole for itself on many underground DJ charts. His earlier Killbabylonkutz release took the infamous “Babylon Bwoi” vocal and cut its throat across an albums worth of material. From the cheeky Jackson$ with Michaels finest melodies soldered on to a ragga vocal collage, with Ace of Bass Babylon cheekily reworking the early nineties chart monsters. None of this should work, but believe me it does.

Gig promoters Suitementale have being blowing the roof off sweat box venues in Galway with nights of breakcore mentalism for the past few months and all reports are good. After Duran Duran Duran and Donna Summer breaking venues there down to their very last compound, Shitmat's next up to the mark. Support on the night comes from Keanie and NoizeReducation 1 regulars from the Leechrum roster who put on the daring Leechrum crossover fest in August, and Herv, Dublin label Risc's glitchy gameboy guru who has been making overtures towards a harder sound recently. After his Lesser Spotted Burberry Hat EP, with its wink and nod to the excesses of gabber, complete with monged pill-head rantings over the top received regular airplay and frantic promotion by the late John Peel, resulting in Shitmat DJ-ing at the RADIO 1 celebration of his life work, you can be guaranteed that this is a night of ruthless sampling and frantic bpm's not to missed.

Shitmat plays The Boat Club in Galway City on Friday, September 23^rd. Tickets are €10 on the door. See http:www.shitmat.co.uk

Labels: Breakcore, Music, Shitmat

# posted by antrophe @ 5:44 AM

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