Under The Influence

This one is pretty close to my heart. It happens to be full of tracks that I love - that's not surprising really... given that I was involved in making it. It's basically the perfect mix for me; country, electro, pop, house, dnb, metal, everything really. A friend and I spent almost a year twiddling with knobs and dials in our respective countries sculpting a mix that we could really enjoy. There's something in there for everyone and something in there to offend most everyone (63 tracks 38 minutes).

I was reminded of it the other day after I meet someone who had been enjoying it of late. It was nice to listen to it again. It's great having a taylor made mix. Head over to the axis of cool to check it out - go on, find that moment in there that you really hate...

Oi Va Voi have recently released a new album that's getting very good reviews - I thought it prudent to listen to some of their old stuff first. I try to make a habit of working that way where possible.

This is cool. Very eclectic mix of sounds and influences. At it's core you get Jewish klezmer type goodness but it's spiced up with all sorts of other things. Drum and Bass beats for example are used in the vast majority of the tracks. I guess it's basically traditional Jewish music with electronic wizards working the controls. Lots of cool bits of looping and the like.

It surprises me that this doesn't sound more dated, given that it's 5 years old now (in a genre, ethnic/electronica, that's a bit risky for that). Looking forward to sitting down with their latest offering now.

Bang! Cock/Ver 10 hits you like a kick in the teeth. The drum arrangements are downright amazing. What great interpretations - the potential for screwing this up is huge. Plenty of people have attempted this sort have stuff in the past and the end results are generally disappointing to say the least.

These guys have come up with some very inventive ways of creating the sounds - apparently they had to knock together some strange instruments to imitate the original recordings. Actually the attention to detail is phenomenal - check out the simulated acoustic scratching, inspired stuff indeed.

From what I understand this is some sort of Steve Reich related group - I think they may have performed a couple of the albums he composed. I have no idea whether he was involved with this particular project at all.

Truth be told I'm not a massive Aphex Twin fan - don't get me wrong, that's not to say I don't like the stuff I've heard. Actually I've really loved what I have heard, it's just that I've never owned any of the albums and hence I've never dedicated any real time to it. After listening to this I think that's going to be changing very soon.

There's a very good reason these guys won a Mercury prize for their work back in the 90s. It's because they were innovative - they made DnB good (along with Goldie of course). It still sounds relatively fresh. I can pick this album up at any time and enjoy it straight away. It works on so many levels.

The beats are nice and clean. They have room to breath - unlike most the crap the genre is spitting out these days (it's not all about trying the rattle the speakers guys). I mean - just look at the moment that rich dark double bass drops (1:54 in) on 'Brown Paper Bag'. Simple and clean but with so much impact.

I actually get a tad angry thinking about it. With such great examples aspire to why did DnB go so wrong? I take refuge in the fact that this album, and songs like Heros and Watching Windows, will be around forever for people to get re-inspired by.