HOUSE! HOUSE! HOUSE! HOUSE! HOUSE!

 

 

(Giving a warning that this POST is all about House Music,

as this is not at all a specialised house, dance or music blog.

And I don't want to alienate anyone just dropping by to read otherwise.

!While you could give it a go! :)  )

 

 

There has been & is good stuff around at the moment, so time for some stuffing of stuff onto blog.

 

 

I should do a couple or more of HOUSE! posts per week, and at least one anyway.

 

 

3 HOUSE TRACKS in this post today (or tonight, rather, it's late and I've been ill unfortunately).

 

(1) One track I've only heard a few times and clearly already, to me, is a classic of early this year ("Wayne County", Omar S remix, by Omar S).

(2) One track has been around for a few months (though I heard it around 5 months ago first), has been popular, is getting very popular, or already is, and is still growing, house of the moment
("Preset" by Crooked Man).
(3) One track I regard as a classic from last year which reminds me of Old School early house days (the Screendeath remix of "Song For Lisa" by The Japanese Popstars).

 

 

 

(1) "Wayne County" or "Wayne County Hill Cop's (Part 2)", Omar S, Omar S Remix. Early 2012.

An excellent track, find yourself suddenly in the middle of Detroit, listening to classic Detroit Techno from the mid to late 80s. Wayne County is an area in Detroit.

 

A sample of the vinyl, the analogue sample rather than digital, had me feeling like it was 1988 again. Or even '86, I'm not sure and I was young though living on house with every chance. Not young enough to miss ALL the clubs! :) If you ask, I don't really remember.

 

The Omar S remix is featured on the release with the original mix (available to buy from the links below). The original mix is more classic house, and IS so classic, and I love it and probably prefer it, but I share the Omar S mix here anyway, as it's what I'm listening to. It was a shorter version that got me sharing this, some time after I'd heard it a few times before (though I've not been out much anywhere this summer past, or Spring for that matter). That shorter version, mix, or a radio cut / edit, that has me sharing this, was played by Seth Troxler and Jamie Jones on their Essential Selection show on Radio 1 (BBC, UK) this summer. Certainly a best classic of 2012. That much was sheerly obvious right at the start of the year.

 

Follow these links for more info and to buy the music:

• Info (R.A.) ... Some basic R.A. track history
• BUY digital download (Beatport)
• BUY vinyl (Phonica)

 

(2) "Preset", Crooked Man. (From "Preset" / "Scum" E.P. on Crooked House label.)

"Preset", Crooked Man - promotional from radio mix Ben Watt (BBC 6 Mix, UK) by lcb

• Info (R.A.)
• BUY digital download (Juno)
• BUY vinyl (Phonica)

Good luck finding the track to purchase, online stores still say it is sold out (mid September 2012) for both MP3 and vinyl. It's a brilliant house track, sounds like a classic or anthem to me, so is worth looking around for. It was released in April this year, as far as I know. Yet I checked a few times in the last 4 months or so and the online stores said sold out. Maybe it was released for a week or something, just for DJs, or something, a digital equivalent of a white label, or something, or something.

 

Mysterious - I don't know anything about this track by Crooked Man, who've published on their own label, also called Crooked Man, it seems. They've been around for a while and I think are lead by an old shool DJ from the north of England, from a club I think I must have poked my head into when I were a little teen. Or something. While those are serious house - jazz vocalists on that recording, sounding like a soul groove house classic within a very few listens. It's not just a man in a studio with electronics. While said man really does have the most amazing, incredible digital percussion production facilities - it's beyond most serious balearic stuff, while also a bit minimal acid and more mainstream Chicago at the same time. I can't tell if it's real percussion bars sampled and looped, or all created from some amazing digital boxes. (Some sources online refer to the label as Crooked House.) And the record seems to have been unavailable for some time. Would love more information.

 

---

*** Added in a post edit, 17.09.2012: Here's some information now, including vocalists names found on the vinyl record itself: Info - Crooked House
---

 

(3) "Song For Lisa", The Japanese Popstars, Screendeath Remix.

The Screendeath remix is classic house from 2011. It brings me back to a time of classic after classic, week after week, weeks full of classics, from the mid to late 80s through the around the mid 90s or so. Things aren't really like that anymore.

 

Screendeath is a Northern Irish DJ and producer, still based in Belfast, I think, who I've seen some at local house clubs in the city. Really cool. After hearing his "Song for Lisa" remix and being amazed and falling in love with it (some time after I'd thought "Song for Lisa", JP's, was kinda shelved in current club stuff), I saw him do a set and I wasn't disappointed. Brilliant. I think he was one of the names before Ben Klock's visit to The Stiff Kitten club last year (or Steffi from Panorama - Berghain). (Ben Klock back next week at SK.)

 

The Japanese Popstars are also musicians from this region, DJs and producers, still based in Derry I think. They had a remix featured in "Tron Legacy Reconfigured" (2011), the remix album of Daft Punk's 2010 film soundtrack. (Added 13.10.2012: I forgot to mention they have a really good global name as a live dance act, particular in stadia and festival stages.) They were one of the names at the last time I went to Belfast's huge club SHINE. You might call ir a superclub but it always has been and is based in a perfectly nice, but typically basic (but for a nice back bar) students' union - it's not a student club though.

 

Unfortunately, I missed The Japansese Popstars completely that night, and nearly all of the headliner Alex Metric, as the DJs in the very back bar were playing great house all night and I couldn't move away. Anyway that's typical for me at Shine, where I went to see Paul Oakenfold last year, but spent most of the night enjoying an amazing set by Questhouse DJs in the first bar (Questhouse have their own club in Belfast, "Questhouse", formerly The Warehouse, Boucher Rd.) That was surprising as Questhouse are fast, trance, techno - not so much my thing, but the set was SO cool, amazing. And Oakie was not doing so well on that night (and the place was absolutely heaving). And the main hall speakers sounded really bad by the time he came on anyway. That's unusual for Shine, in recent times at least, for the times I've been, the sound is usually at least good.

 

I made it to check out the Questhouse club this summer, actually too tired to bother going anywhere after a few drinks in the bar downstairs, and feeling like a few more beers. The techno was so fast, not my scene, a nice venue though. Maybe it looked fun for those into that. Maybe, as a long time total house head, I thought they need real house music at a danceable tempo. Or a whole night of Ce Ce Roger's "Someday", repeatedly (OK all mixes that can be found, to root the place in something with roots.) This was a Friday night, and from what one of the promoters said, I got the feeling that Saturday should be more housey techno, or that week anyway. (Though checking out one of the DJs online, Moog I think, his stuff can be really fast.)

 

I remember I missed Paul Van Dyke at Shine the week afterwards, quality trance if you want. Illness can be really annoying at times. While for classic later - noughties trance house - rave, Eddie Halliwell is headlining Shine in a week or so from now. I don't know if I can do rave anymore. I think it died in me soon after a few visits to 'Rez' near Edinburgh in the late 90s. While earlier classics live on. There was a time when many types of mainstream house and even pop house and techno and rave were often kind of married in tracks (tracks like Sunscreem's "Love You More", Sunshine Valentine Mix or others, even the original). And even before that when tracks of each genre were all often - indeed probably mostly - kind of married in clubs, along with slower dance such as Soul II Soul and Movement 98. There were the genre clubs - a lot, just like today - house, garage, techno, rave etc. And there were many dance clubs which incorporated charty RnB (meaning swingbeat - swingbeat was OK or at least OKish at the start) and the dance clubs with all of that without the swingbeat (which I much preferred). That kind of thing is really hard to find now. It seems there are underground dance genre clubs, and a commercial play anything or most things nightclub / pop disco, that's that. With recent pop music, the latter aren't worth even directing your mind to. Common or garden discos used still to be nice fun. Once upon a time. Nowadays torture is the name of the "game" in popular music and the lives of those who are somehow attatched to it.

 

Returning to Shine and my missing huge names in the main hall, last year Sasha was a headliner, who of course I'd thought was a really cool DJ, since a mid teen at the beginning of the 90s,and he played a long set. Of which I heard one track early on and the end of his very last track at the end of the night. Because 808 State were playing in the first bar also that night, and it was an amazing set, with guest appearance by one of the biggest current names in house in Belfast, Space Dimension Controller (getting a big name in the wide world). He also played WITH 808 State. It was a highlight to see the amazing 808 Sate play along together with SDC, great sets and combination. I made a promise to myself to see Sasha again, somewhere, wherever.

 

But illness means nothing is sure. I usually don't buy tickets in advance. The last I bought in advance, for Kerry Chandler in Belfast (Stiff Kitten) I couldn't go to and lost. I even waited until the morning of the night, thinking, I can force myself to go tonight, I'm not too bad, but there's no predicting.

 

The Japanese Popstars are playing at the upcoming Shine birthday night in Belfast (is it 17 years old, now? While I always thought Shine went back to nights I sometimes went to at Belfast Art College in the 80s, when underage, house nights I thought people "called" Shine. Or maybe they were telling me to shine, dunno.) John Digweed is the headliner (really looking foward to this), and Julio Bashmore is playing. I saw one or two sets by Bashmore last year and I loved them. But his "Au Seve" is absolutely killing me, I hate it. It literally kills me. Dead. For weeks or longer, with just 1 minute or less of hearing it. Piece of mod retro crap.

 

There is also an excellent Pete Tong remix of The Japanese Popstars' classic, "Song For Lisa". The original anyway is a lovely electronica - maybe indie - house piece.

• Screendeath in Soundcloud ...  Info - Screendeath, R.A.
• Info - Japanese Popstars home site ... ... wikipedia ... ... disography (discogs)
• BUY digital download (Beatport)
• BUY digital download (C.D. Universe)
• (No commercial vinyl)

The Japanese Popstars - Song For Lisa (Screendeath Remix) by screendeath

Ho hum ... blog-wise as idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean...

' Day after day, day after day,

  We [royal] stuck, nor breath nor motion ' *

.. blog-wise.

Y'know, I've been wondering what to say in a blog and if I should just write something, anything, anyway!

With a lot of interest in certain things, for example House Music, I was doing fine at one stage to expect I could just bloody well post some amazing house classics or rarer heard stuff. Which I really should.

I've just returned from the South of France, yesterday. I spent two weeks there, most of it in Nice, part around Cannes... (Which was very hard actually for this sufferer of chronic fatigue and severe, frequent migraines.) ... And did very little but just about made it going, just about stayed alive and just about made it back again.

The relaxing, high point of one's life ...

... the focus that is needed in the mind (so strongly it is also in the body and movement and existence)

... about the real situation on the earth, periodically, maybe regularly, like a tonic wine or cup of the most healing, inspiring, refreshing, renewing, situating spiritual MEAD (or 'made wine') that winds you up again like the clockwork doll who needed it so long ago, but got by, but anyway for whom it works again

...

... well, ceases much to be all that at all when it is such a challenge, a real chore, something of a nature close to a killer - surprisingly, something bringing on serious physical body pain in trying and worse in the mind and head. To try so hard, in reaching, though just intending to naturally make happen (but it doesn't), what one took for granted once, what is defined as needing to be there to be taken for granted, what should never be "tried" at all ... is muddling everything up.

I don't mean that it ought to be that a person can take having a holiday for granted. No, not at all. I know for many it is a luxury, and many, many, basic food is a greater thing of luxury. Which is very sad, indeed (such is this place, alas).

I was referring to some kind of mind thing, some kind of existence and identity thing about living on the earth. I mean that it's the very kind of thing - visiting the South of France to me (and other Meditteranean places, perhaps only European Meditteranean places, not sure), for example - which has an identity itself as something innately, inalterably of spritual relaxation and the most calm, refreshing inspiration. A necessary tonic involving identity and reality. (Which, if in part or substantially of illusion, nevertheless is so strong it amounts in fact to something that isn't actually illusion anyway, it couldn't be. Reality can work that way.) And that identity of that real facet of life - the visit to a certain place or places which live on in the mind or even become part of the mind - lives in a most special, vital, essential, delicate, sensitive position within a very important place of one's personal identity. ... ... And it doesn't work, and seems it might churn your whole identity and being up, perhaps tragically, perhaps forever, if it happens that it is strangely such an effort it seems a challenge, something that nearly kills you perhaps!!!

Anyway, it was OK, good too! And better than OK!

 

(Added 14.10.1012: And worse and much worse than OK, of course. It was real and not a figment in my mind since it ended.)

...

...

...

So, just some words about holidaying or travelling, and places which can be part of you very existence after some time, and identity. Unless you escape, perhaps... ! Hahaha!? I don't know. It's far too strong for me. There is no escape. Places are me ... to some really large degree (more than just Meditteranean places). And I decided long, long ago, even if escape could somehow be possible, it's fine anyway, it's how it is, and, in a sense, what can be higher (meaning more valid) or other or more true than that?

While in Nice, I thought I should post a blog entry about visiting, either during or soon after the visit. While I couldn't think what that should be, I thought, why not just make a visual blog entry - you know, some photos, perhaps with shaky camcorder footage, made into a quick home video. I'd still like to do that, and want to make a proper post holiday Blog post, even though I took very little footage or photos indeed. A quick flash video to come maybe.

 

         I'll get some kind of blog going eventually, I hope. No, here it is! Yes. It happens to you.
         You don't happen to it. It can't be happened to. But you can be happened to.
         No, I made the bloody move to go and write tonight, that's it, isn't it? Isn't it?

 

...

HOUSE CLASSIC time ...

Slower house - soul classic ...

of Chicago heritage.

I rediscovered this in late Spring or early summer this year,

I think thanks to Groove Armada, and their occasional guest spot,

show 6 Mix takover on BBC Radio. While, I remember, I usually rediscovered it

once every 6 months to a year, quite regularly. But always like a rediscovery every time.

Lovely.

It's the great, great Larry Heard,

as

Mr. Fingers

"What About This Love"

(1989)

(Thanks to Youtube promotional / social sharing, by "LILJAMIE")

Buy "What About This Love" by Mr Fingers:

• Music file download from 7 Digital store
• Used vinyl sold through Discogs marketplace
 
 

...

...

Groove Armada, 6 Mix takeover (2 hours)

15.06.2012,

BBC Radio 6 (UK)

A leftish radio show / long mix from the dons who went their own silent way for a while.

 

Download here unrestricted- Groove Armada 6 Mix 15.06.12
(free)

(Note: Legal download sharing, as audio is otherwise unavailable,

and not available commercially.

Fair use exception in Copyright Law due to special interest,

if used not for profit or gain

though copyright remains with Groove Armada / BBC.

While the copyright exception doesn't allow many repeat plays of each track,

without also buying them.)

BBC program info with (usually incomplete!) tracklist:

"6 Mix" Groove Armada, 15.6.12, BBC website page

Enjoy... :)

---

 

* 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner'. Coleridge-Taylor, or Taylor-Coleridge, whichever is correct, I can't remember. Probably the first one and I guess I should remember.

... ... 1 ... ... ... ... ... ... (subject added long after post)

New blog thing. And "Electroma". I am touched by the beauty and real relevance and significance of the feature film "Electroma" [2006], which I watched in full thanks to a Youtube media sharer, albeit only in the lower resolution (360 dots down). (The DVD is ordered now, so I've not been blagging stuff away from copyright laws. However, I recommend if you think you would not watch this film, to try the whole feature if you like, in Youtube and decide if you would pay to watch it in the proper resolution. For that can be how modern promotional publishing works best.)

I don't think I've been as touched by a film for a some time. My life is very much encompassed by illness - severe migraines and chronic fatigue - more or less all of the time. And so it means something very different to most people that I "watched" or "sat through" a film, when also this is one reliable passtime and point of focus that I keep in life. By the difference, what I mean is that it's not like I am, all day long, happily going about things, or sitting pretty in a relaxed manner, until I watch, and then I return to how I was. No, anything of any duration, even passive "entertainment" such as watching a video is a big thing, a big treat if I can make it, something I hope to be able to do some times, but would actually quite rarely be able to do. Life is about focuses and nothing. The estranged mental reality of perhaps acheiving anything once known in life, some time in the coming times.

I start an online "Weblog" - I suppose a diary for all and sundry (as well, of course, as for me, that's important), having to define what makes up, I suppose, more or less all of my living time. (While, yet, also, living time means something else. I am more like an unknown, far away desert than a human as I used to be.) It's just a necessity to describe this briefly in a first post, while it's tearing me from getting some thoughts down about the great impact of Daft Punk's "Electroma" movie.

[If you don't know, Daft Punk are a duo of pop musicians, very successful, specialising in electronic dance music - 'house' and disco, and I think more recently 'techno', which has a harder, sparser, more minimal, unrelenting or dedicated depending on your point of view, persuausion.]

I can't count on being able to write or think in any sustained way at all. I'm just gong to copy a quick movie review I wrote last night for the IMDB site, which has a good number of very favourable reviews for this film, while a relatively small overall number of reviews for it. And hopefully other thoughts will come. I know many feelings are there. I can't help feeling and thinking, "Wow, what a great film."

I need anyway to watch the film again, and I suspect I'll watch it many times. I think I fell in love with it. And its soundtrack. I don't know how many times I've listened to Linda Perhacs's "If You Were My Man" today. Most likely just beyond promotional, radio play alternative, social media sharing etc. etc. copyright exception times also, meaning I'll have to buy the album, but I want to a lot.

I suppose it took some plays for me to really remember that I knew Linda Perhacs's "If You Were My Man" earlier in my life. (This is a common experience for me.) And I remember the tears the song brought, of its great, simple beauty in music. I guess a relationship with that song never expires, never retires, one never outdates it. Maybe it comes and finds you at times.

I read other people expressing gratitude to Daft Punk for that song, while I know Youtube in general, on any subject, and opportunities to write about Daft Punk also, abound with worship eulogies of all kinds to Daft Punk.

I should link to Linda Perhacs's classic, gorgeous, simple ballad of one sided love.

(I'd just been laughing to myself seeing someone tag the song or singer with "psych folk", which brought back funny memories of ridiculous categorisations in the early 80s of what you might call new directions in folk. I remember concluding in humour that "psych folk" or "psych spiritual folk" were just tags designed to create delusions of witchy life in a modern, zen-like, superior, more fortunate grounding. A new birth, perhaps, in removed modern 'knowingness', which, thanks to the generosity of pastiche, or just being post first generation or something, seemed to allow a higher plane to old categories. Stuff and nonsense. Mostly, maybe. And maybe there's something, a thing, to be said for all that. For I know artists could descend upon me bitingly to ask what developing vision with time and experience might be. And I don't know.)

Perhaps I can link or even embed the track by Linda Perhacs at the end of this post. I'm quite new to Web publishing, and new to blogging.

Anyhow, "Electroma". Thoughts thus far managed by copying my review, which is very basic actually. One of the main reasons I'd written this for the IMDB site was to make the point, assuring people who might be put off "Electroma" because of its connections to a pop, disco or rock group, that it is completely independent from the music duo Daft Punk, artistically and in every sense, and has none of their music. That it is a film in its own right.

So I begin a blog really just mentioning "Electroma", putting it aside to write about later sometime. Just happy to communicate, basically the deep impact of the film for now, very surprising, and the great impact of Linda Perhac's song particularly. Comforting. Perhaps some others finding this can appreciate also. (I don't know if anyone reads blogs, I'm sure there are millions of them tucked away in The Web, barely tickled by the seeking or unseeking potential magnetism, reward, wonder, disgust, time passing from the people who would.)

Copied:

For film fans, great, 8 July 2012

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

A landmark movie. It's very attractive and will retain an emotional attraction and personal significance for many. One reason, as another reviewer remarked here, is its comforting simplicity. There is no cerebral requirement for external references etc. as in some art movies. Surely there can be cinematic references there to artistic movies, however the film kind of, simultaneously creates a visual artistic paradox in shunning any necessity or compulsion to know.
People shouldn't be put off this film by connections to the music world and the band Daft Punk, or associations with electro, disco or house music.

"Electroma" is a movie 100%, and is to be viewed 100% on movie terms. It is a feature film, and has nothing to do with music, disco music, electro music or Daft Punk in itself. It has no Daft Punk music and no club soundtrack, though the soundtrack is gorgeous. While, yes, Daft Punk the musicians see themselves as culturally varied artists and may kind of live some sense of concept art, and the film may fit within this notion; the characters in the film are based on the band characters. However, again, there's really nothing more connected to the film. The wider contextualisation, for anyone who needs it, need only be that to know the characters are meant to be the 2 band members. The artistic meaning of "Electroma" is self contained.
I feel this is a very deep film. While very sparse in elements of interpretation, this means that the meaning of what you can find in there can be incredibly strong indeed. You won't want to treat any of it lightly. There are very serious and emotional themes (and they're very difficult to treat well), such as predeterminism, life as disingenuous facade for the seeing, the lack of choice in life, perhaps, that worldly fate is doomed in the here and now.
What is astonishing about this film is both that this is done in the gorgeous visual way achieved, lovely cinematography, and then the sheer, deep endearingness that this gives way to in appreciation of the film. The themes call upon sympathy for those in the welded, inescapable routes, while we may surmise as to whether this has meaning for the two actual band members. It seems there is a lean to a theme of kind of artists as hero, yet anti-hero in a traditional sense, moreso again - as hero. Endearing and comforting. Lovely cinematography and soundtrack. Full of significance and far from flimsy.

End of copied text.

Two things. One, perhaps I should have mentioned in my review for readers of IMDB, that, as I see it, and intentionally, this film is not out for creating anything like a typical feel good experience. Perhaps my terms endearing and comforting could suggest otherwise. (Remember, maybe, I am a burning desert! Perhaps so is the meaning of life. And I know it's not clear just in what circumstances anyway, this can become endearing and give comfort. Comfort comes mostly in harsh landscapes, and this could mean the most harsh. Kind of ever?)

However, to me this is a very grown up film, utterly concerned with the truth and clearness of vision, kind of an eternal clearness of vision about this place, I think. Which, I should add, probably does not fit into the song "Cover Your Face with Sunshine", unless meaning real sunshine, burning, blinding, harsh, comforting, healing, natural light and heat. [ Edit; added 08/02/2013: But even then, not really. ]

Another, just to mention I find it funny and very interesting (for one thing I'm charmed to come across it) that some other people who have given their thoughts on the film perceive goings on which come from their own interpretation, goings on which they see as the basic plot. It is interesting indeed. For the plot is so amazingly minimalist, so highly sparse. And perhaps, for some unused to that, some not ready for that, it is inevitable that their interpretation forms part of what they perceive as the plot.