Clearing House: Pt 4

In the whirlwind days of the mid-90s, there were plenty of times when I'd throw down cash for any old electronic shizz on a disc, and goddamn if those times weren't chock full of worthless comps. The excitement of a foreign genre was at full-time frenzy, and one of the treasure troves for the stuff was Kensington CD.

Kensington CD, located where an acoustic guitar store resides (well, at least when I left Calgary) behind Higher Ground (or thereabouts), was a fantastic place to be if (i) you were too lazy to leave the suburbs to head down to 17th, and (ii) you wanted to check out (and scoop) whatever the hell Sid and Faust were buying (the lady that ran the place would let me check their orders and buy out albums that came in ahead of them)(also: she also let me in on Sid's real name, a shocking revelation at the time). At some point I ran out of moolah and stopped frequenting the place, and thus I'm not overly sure when it packed up. Which is a good thing, because it wasn't overly long afterward that I noticed I spent a lot of cash on a whole lotta nothin'.

One compilation, Further Mutations on Lo Recordings, saddled that vague territory of electronic experimental music, which, in 96, would've also included the likes of Amon Tobin and Luke Vibert, even if only out of novelty. This comp came out before the plethora of laptop glitch, and certainly before anyone had caught on to Leaf Records. Kinda proves as a good nostalgia point, if high frequency squeals brings fond water to the eyes. Here's a selection:

Fish Out of Water featuring Robert Wyatt - "Cry From the City": notable for Robert Wyatt (on vocals and piano) and not much else


David Kristian - "See Sawing Sea": included purely because I'm a sucker for the musical saw. From what I gather, Kristian hails from Montreal, wherein he'd do his own soundtracks for whatever old sci-fi films were playing at the tv station he worked at.


Richard Thomas - "An Itch You Can't Fucking Scratch": I like to imagine this is avant garde scratch dj work, but now imagine it more as someone fucking around with pro-tools or some such early on. Now I just like the title.

Clearing House: Pt 3

There was a time when Tim Goldsworthy (DFA, LCD Toasteroven) was hanging out with James Lavelle as Unkle. These tracks would have come out either while Goldsworthy was still with Unkle or shortly after he had left, and definitely before DJ Shadow had really come in and mixed it up. This would've also been a time when Lavelle was making worlds collide (well, hemispheres), and unearthing Japanese hip hop for the Western world: Nigo was better known for having one of a slew of Japanese albums out on Mo'Wax, and not for Bathing Ape.

The Unkle full-lengths that came out after these singles got slammed to no end, but a re-listen to these tracks don't exactly reveal alot of muster to begin with (caveat: I tended to like Psyence Fiction, and don't mind the other two albums that followed). I've posted a Dan the Automator remix too: it doesn't get more mid/late 90s than this.

"Berry Meditation":


"Last Orgy 3 (Dan the Automator remix)":


"Rock On (DJ Yas remix)":


While I'm at it, here's "Lesson 1" of the famed Double Dee & Steinski lecture series:

Clearing House: Pt 2

I'm pretty sure (read: not sure at all) that Mass in F Minor marks the first Electric Prunes which saw David Axelrod oversee production, most of the composition, etc. It's also around the same time that the group went through a major shift in line-up (around the same time Kenny Loggins joined the group). What's also noteworthy is the Prunes couldn't finish the record, and they had to farm it out to a Vancouver band, the Collectors.

In any case, Electric Prunes + Axelrod + faux religious mass = go nuts. Here's a smattering from the album.

"Gloria":


"Benedictus"


"Kyrie Eleison" (this probably has the most obvious Axelrod touches to it)

Clearing House: Pt 1

Clearing space out of the garage - posting a few tracks before I delete them. Here's the Boredoms' Rebore vol. 3 (DJ Krush mix). DJ Krush selecting and mixing the Boredoms' back catalog - not nearly as blunted as you'd think.

Emitt

The Pat Benatar Revival

FOUND MORE.

I had no idea Ginuwine was big in China.

FOUND.

A Short Revisit: How I Got Schooled

I'll be the first to admit that I have been and continue to be completely schooled by my various peers as to music, regardless of how exponentially my own collection has grown over the years. One visit to Soul Sides or any number of other MP3 blogs confirm that on a daily basis, but, in light of Jay's edit on the last Revisited post, I thought I'd pay some quick respect (I got a flight to catch!).

I DJ'ed with Jay for a long stretch (my faulty memory has it at over 5 years) and with Marco on and off throughout that period, and it's no understatement as to how much I learned through that time (it's easy to give Sideshow Sid credit, but honestly, I probably learned more through my half-Asian compadres). While I will take credit for finally putting a name to a song for Jay (Massive Attack's "Unfinished Sympathy," which I clearly remember Jay asking me about when I played it at the Den, mostly because he couldn't remember the name of it), he did completely learn me as to this Greyboy track, which stayed in my record bag for years:


I'm not sure who first came to this Gaturs track that underlies the song (I think I stopped DJing by the time I bought it):


I don't nearly have enough time to go into how much the various VOX boys (James, Doig, Chiclo, Arif, Frank et al) contributed to the whole process during that time, but I do remember James telling me he preferred Nick Lowe to Elvis Costello (which I still kinda find crazy to this day). My two other Nick Lowe memories consist of waking up to "Mary Provost" on Chiclo's show all the time (along with Peggy Lee's "Fever"), and first hearing "So It Goes" on Grant's (the one that looked almost exactly like Rusty) show, which seemed like a revelation.



It was either Rusty or Arif that made me listen to Split Enz, and I'm still waiting for news of a reunion tour - this shizz sounds current:


A'ight - I gotta head to the airport for more important things.

That Wesley Snipes Character

By now, everyone probably knows that "Bad" was originally intended by Quincy Jones to be a collaboration between Mike and Prince, but I've never actually heard Prince's side of it:



Wow.