Wrapping Up 2022

Left it a little late to do a year's end roundup, but I'm going to return to a tried and tested tradition: the good old fashioned track dump. I never really felt comfortable posting a sea of players with no commentary, so this one is going to be broken up a little with thoughts in-between, so apologies in advance if it gets a little long.

First things first, if you're after a real Nostalgia-fest, BBC Radio 6 has you covered. That right there is a playlist straight out of the 2010s featuring many of the Ed Banger crew and other indie darlings of the time. It's available here for about a month if you're interested, tho with some limitations if you're not in Europe but I can't confirm that

Michel Majerus - Untitled (2000)

Now with that out of the way, let's take a look at what I've got. I've made no secret of my love of Eurobeat over the last few years - the sugared up evolution of Italo Disco colliding with J-Pop. I had a fair few lined up, but on listening to them back I whittled it down to just a couple - it's pretty hard to find legal streams of a lot of them anyway and in hindsight some of them were a little bit OTT. Which is an absolutely stupid thing to say I now realise, as the whole point of Eurobeat IS that it's over the top! Keeping it low key to start with, Switch really highlights those latent disco traces inherent in the genre, which makes it a good dipping in point for the curious.



I've managed to skirt one of the more silly parts of Eurobeat with these two selections, being mostly written by Italians, you do get some... interesting lyrical choices that don't quite make a whole lot of sense. On that note though, Eurobeat does a fairly decent job of maintaining a good ratio of Male to Female vocalists, it'd be very easy for the genre to fall into the latter much like the Vocal side of trance did way back when. That said, there are definitely tracks that evoke that same kind of euphoric vibe - enter So Fragile



Some Tofubeats next, I picked up some of the man's soundtrack work a while back and had been meaning to check out his works ever since. His Bandcamp is weirdly bare with releases there but not for sale (that clearly used to be as well), and releases like this one here that don't appear on Discogs or anywhere else really. Synthesizer is a prime example of why I felt the need to check his work out, a real head bopper of a slow jam, topped with liberal use of Vocoder to make the whole package complete for me.



Going total nostalgia bomb for this next one, it comes back out to play every so often, and rightfully so as it's damn good. Potentially one of the finest remixes ever from the era - Thomas Bangalter (1/2 of Daft Punk for those not in the know) spins out what was a ~1 minute interlude from DJ Mehdi's Lucky Boy into one of - if not the - electro house anthem. It hurts a little knowing that we won't hear any more Mehdi productions, I always liked the man's style and was excited to see where he'd take it, but what better way to celebrate the man than belting this one out.



Let's go a little deeper next with some Soichi Terada. Terada's return under his own name was a release I was extremely looking forward to, I first got turned his way off the heels of the (legitimately fantastic) Ape Escape soundtrack, and was pleased to find even more Drum & Bass on waiting for me. But the man actually got his start making (equally brilliant) House tracks - and that's what Asakusa Light is all about - paraphrasing Terada's own words: he's trying to capture that same feeling from those days. And on tracks like Double Spire, he really does. It helps I'm a real sucker for pitch bends though!



Speaking of capturing the spirit of yore, we have DMX Krew, who has been dwelling in that space for a long long time now. Now with DMX, you often will get some cheeky playful self aware elements in the mix, evoking old school electro of the early breakin'/electropop era, it's a genre than can be quite funny after all so why not embrace it? (see also: Chromeo). Party Life doesn't really do that, at least on the title track. The thing comes out a little more like an electroclash record, lamenting the shallow nature of the said Party Life. But you don't have to delve that deep into the analysis if you don't want, the Dub mix has an excellent groove on it and is as relentlessly catchy as the original.



Couple more to round us out, starting with what is one of the oldest digital files in my collection - Misstress Barbara's Never Could Have Your Heart. A relic of my first serious forays into the world of electronic music circa the early 00's, the first version I had of this was a naff one I pirated at like 96kbps or something like that! But even then, I was totally entranced with it. That melody (which I would later learn is pretty much a cover/sample of Move D's In/Out) is just gorgeous, and the beat work is surprisingly frantic for a House record, with machine gun hi-hats and flurries of handclaps. I reckon it'll be about 20 years I've had it in my collection next year, and I'm still as in love with it as I ever was.



And finally, the one track I post every year without fail, The Knife's New Year's Eve. Taken from the soundtrack to the film Hannah Med H, it's from around the Deep Cuts era so is very much in that extremely electropop style - the one with super sweet synths and the steel pan work as heard on tracks like Pass This On. Does the track have anything to do with NYE? Not really, it plays in a scene in the film that takes place on the night which is the reason for the title. Still, it's become a bit of a tradition, there was many a year where we'd play this while getting ready to head out for the night. And now it's a tradition here too!



And that'll about do it for now, it did end up getting a little long but nothing too ridiculous! That'll be all for this year, but rest assured I'll be back soon enough in '23 with more. Thank you for sticking with us this year, we've had a couple hiccups along the way but I don't know anyone who hasn't. I hope you've found some tracks here to enjoy and will continue to do so in future - and of course, as always: Stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Charting the Stars

Getting around to writing this, I was waiting until all my tech woes were sorted out. A little bit of a retrospective this time, after seeing that Justice's Planisphere is now available as a separate release, I thought it'd be good to take a closer look at it once more. It's an interesting curio of the duo's discography - originally a promo CD for a Dior show back in '08, it'd see another release on the digital version of Audio, Video, Disco in its entire long form version (that replaced other bonus track Presence from the other versions) as well. And here we are again with another standalone release, coinciding with Ed Banger's new Bandcamp push, complete with updated artwork to boot. Let's take a look.

And speaking of that artwork, it should tip you off to the kind of experience you're in store for here. On the four parts of Planisphere, the Justice boys wear their hearts on their sleeves - a 17 minute epic that encapsulates all their influences. Personally I think the whole saga works better in parts than as one continuous stream, but I suppose the full length version is more in line with the very clear prog rock influence on display, see the extended jams of say, Tangerine Dream for reference.

Part I sets the stage - channeling the cinematic opening of Genesis with some dramatic piano stabs... for about 45 seconds or so before we land both feet firmly in that Cross-era sound. If you rinsed that record as much as I did back then you'll immediately hear the similarities. Personally I find Part I to be a bit plodding in terms of pacing for the first half but then again it is supposed to be the soundtrack to a fashion show so we are missing an integral part of the experience. That all changes in the second half though, where things take a very Valentine turn around the 3 minute mark - and it is brilliant.



Part 2 leans heavily on the duo's penchant for slightly spooky soundtracks (as they did previously with the Goblin sample for Phantom) at the very beginning, before settling back into that Valentine-esque groove. At the 50 second mark we start to take off and we launch back into something that shares more in common with the heavier sides of their debut LP, very Waters Of Nazareth in execution. The shortest of the Tetralogy, it does feel very much like a bridge between the two parts, especially given the sudden change at the very end that ushers in part III.



III continues that trend, leading with that grinding, almost engine revving sound that underpinned the Justice sound of the time. I think it might be my least favourite of the bunch, but not for any particular reason - looking over my 'played' stats for them all it is the lowest of the four but that's not a great metric to measure that by as Part IV is heavily skewing those numbers, but we'll get to that in due time. Because in reality, as good as the rest of the parts are, IV really, really steals the show.



And it wastes no time making that clear from the get-go. Opening with a frankly decadent display of guitar shredding. It is between this and SebastiAn's bootleg of Killing In The Name Of I was able to get a few metal-heads into electronic back in my high school days. The crescendo of this extended jam is up there as one of the finest tracks the duo have ever made, an exclamation mark at the end of an already killer tracklist. All these years later, the build up and break at 1:10 still makes me a little excited, catapulting me back to my days of chasing the next electro banger of the week. I've said in the past I'm not the biggest fan of guitar noodling, especially in electronic music - but I'll be damned if it doesn't work wonders here. For the final 3 quarters it is a non-stop barrage of furious fretwork, an absolute tour de force.



I might not have kept up as much with Justice or the rest of the Ed Banger crew, but coming back to tracks like this never fail to bring me right back to that heyday. Planisphere has aged a little more gracefully than some other examples of the era, partly because it's not out there to be this week's hot thing for the dance floor, but even so I'm sure that it'd still get the floor filled as it is. While not as pervasive as their debut album Cross, Planisphere is widely held up as one of Justice's finest hours, and hopefully as you've heard, rightfully so. Predictably the Vinyl version sold out pretty rapidly, folks on Discogs have been begging for it for literal years if you go back and look. It might have been in stock if I'd have posted this when I originally intended to, but between tech issues and Life™ it's been delayed slightly.

Even so, I hope you've enjoyed this little look back, whether you're a Ed Banger Veteran or this is your first time. I still have to write that full breakdown of last month's bandcamp Friday, and if I don't hurry up I'll end up having to do two back to back! I'm gonna try write a couple quicker ones in the meantime too but until then, as always, stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Throwback Thursday

Let me take you all back in time, back to when a younger Foxbat was your stereotypical blog surfer with a headful of House. It's not that long ago in the grand scheme of things, but it's all documented on this site for all to see, going back and reading my (incredibly self conscious and very obviously the product of a teenager) writing is always interesting - to see what's changed and what hasn't. I tend to focus on what hasn't when I've previously brought this up - I'm still a fiend for all things IDM for one - but there are also more interesting changes in opinion as well; somewhere on here you can find a solitary post where I moan about not gelling with Portishead - fast forward a decade or so and I adore 'em

So Me - Triple Trouble (Crowd) (2009)

This time though, if the art didn't reveal all already, we're paying another trip to the archives of Ed Banger - a formative label for me as a teen and one of the major reasons I ended up writing here in the first place. I won't dive too deep into that this time though as I already did earlier this year, naturally there is going to be a lot of crossover though! First of all what being what spurred this post on in the first place - my last complaint about a lot of Ed Banger stuff not being on Bandcamp is now null and void, as a little while ago a whole heap of the catalogue appeared on there, including a whole bunch of DJ Mehdi stuff - including that remix of Signatune by Thomas Bangalter.

Instead of retreading ground I thought I'd put another favourite up (that I'd actually forgotten about a bit) - Mehdi put out a compilation of remixes called Red Black & Blue back when, and I think we might have even done some kind of preview/review of it at the time too. A real highlight for me was his reworking of Chromeo's Waiting 4 U, one that I am surprised didn't end up appearing anywhere else other than this comp. Chromeo and Mehdi were an almost perfect match anyway as demonstrated by their collaboration on I Am Somebody and this mix only cements that further. Unlike that though, this mix of Waiting 4 U feels much more raw by comparison, the Bass that slams in after the li'l break at 0:45 sounds super distorted, like its clipping slightly, giving the whole thing this lovely bedroom bootleg feeling.



This whole post, like my last Ed Banger one could be 100% Mehdi in all honesty, but I am going to have a little bit more variety this time around. Just after one final Mehdi offering! B-Side to the Pocket Piano EP, Tunisia Bambaata always felt a little underrated to me in the grand scheme of things, it's very much in that 'Nu French Touch' style that was in vogue at the time after all. Doubly so after myself having explored the world of Future Funk, this would fit right in that scene no trouble, though it's maybe a little slower than my favourites from that genre. Anyway, my real favourite part of Tunisia Bambaata is the 'bonus track' included at the end - after the final fade we get a little 1-minute instrumental interlude that lets Mehdi show off his hip hop leanings. As a teen obsessed with Adult Swim bumps, I was all about little instrumentals like that, but I'd be lying if I didn't still have a lot of love for that style of lo-fi.



SebastiAn's remix compilation is also there, though the track list is a bit of a minefield and a lot of them aren't tagged properly with either the artist or the fact it's a SebastiAn remix. At any rate, at the time there were some real juggernauts of remixing - MSTRKRFT was always a favourite of mine, but SebastiAn got a lot of the limelight thanks to his bold choices in what to remix. Rather than just remixing whatever was new at the time, SebastiAn did a lot of paying tribute to his influences with bootleg mixes of Rage Against The Machine and others - it didn't take long for some of them to go legit however, a trend that continues to this day with Metallica commissioning him and other artists to remix the Black Album. I've chosen his remix of Klaxon's Golden Skans because it is not only one of my favourites ever, but also highlights another thing I loved about this time - there was a great crossover between folks from the Indie scene getting into Electronic music and vice-versa, I made a lot of friends that way!



There is still a distinct lack of Ed Rec. available on their bandcamp however, there are some real gems on there (especially Volume 3, but I am biased!). In light of that though we're going way back in the chronology of Ed Banger for this one here, with a catalogue number of ED010: Mr. Flash's Champions / Disco Dynamite. It's funny going back to these early releases, you can hear the direction that the 'Ed Banger' aesthetic is going to take but it isn't quite fully formed yet, there's a certain charm to it, though it's not quite aged as gracefully as the later entires of the label. Still, those early releases are still important, and an interesting listen if nothing else. Personally, I enjoy a little bit of Disco Dynamite once in a while - there are days where it hits the spot.



And that'll be all for today, I hope you have enjoyed this little time capsule we've had today - as I'm becoming all too aware of it might be the first time hearing tracks like this for some of you depending on your age! Maybe over the summer I'll do another historical dive back into the early days of Dubstep and become some kind of digital archaeologist. Anyway, I'll be back soon with another entry for you all but until then, as always - stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

M❤∞ - Celebrating DJ Mehdi

Ed Banger Records is a very important label to me, one of the first that I started following in earnest and one that was a huge influence on myself. My taste in art, fashion and of course electronic music as a whole owed a lot to the Ed Rec crew - part of the reason I ended up writing here in the first place is because as a teen I was hooked on Electro House. Ed Banger, among others, were (and are!) quality purveyors of the genre. While my days of blog surfing for the next hottest dancefloor destroyer are behind me, the memories I have still shine bright and come back from time to time - I still have my 'Cool Cats' snapback on my desk and even use the old Cool Cats logo as my avatar in a few places!




The Ed Rec crew of the past and present is a real who's who of the electronic world, which over the years has seen many huge names join the ranks: Mr. Oizo, SebastiAn, Brekabot, Feadz, DSL, Mr. Flash and of course, Justice to name but a few. Yet out of all of them, there is one man who means just a little more to me than the rest - Mehdi Favéris-Essadi, better known as DJ Mehdi. Mehdi is behind some of my favourite tunes ever from the label, he's the man behind the first ever album released on Ed Banger Records, the Electro / Hip Hop fusion of Lucky Boy. I remember loving every single picture of him playing live sets because he always looked like he was having an absolutely amazing time. In a lot of those pictures, label master Pedro Winter (Better known as Busy P) is usually there too, also grinning from ear to ear - that isn't something exclusive to Mehdi's live sets though, any time there was an event with a few of the Ed Rec folk playing you could usually spot him up there too. This camaraderie was something else I really admired about the Ed Banger squad, when they teamed up to do remixes or DJ sets under the 'Ed Banger Allstars' banner it was always going to be a real good time.

In September 2011, DJ Mehdi would pass away after an unfortunate accident. The whole thing felt surreal, Mehdi had just played live the weekend before, and I had already experienced the death of a musician I loved already that year with Trish Keenan of Broadcast. I remember getting so excited when former site owner Jordan got the chance to interview the man himself before I became part of the team. Condolences from contemporaries and institutions soon followed, you can see some of them archived here on a DJ Mag article from the time. It still feels fresh in my mind, to the point where I actually missed that it's been over 10 years since that all happened.

As cliché as it sounds, the beautiful thing is that whenever someone in the creative field passes, their work survives - and the Ed Banger crew have done plenty of work on that front. Loukoums, a previously super rare mixtape type thing Mehdi did in the vein of J Dilla's Donuts was published on Ed Banger's soundcloud not long after - a selection of demos and off cuts from the run up to Lucky Boy. It's a 40 minute crash course in Mehdi's unique brand of Electro and Hip Hop - one that made him a perfect fit for Ed Banger.

Some choice timestamps for you to get started: 6:40 is a great stripped back beat with some decidedly nervous synths and the transition into the next track at 8:15 is killer every single time, the fusion of sounds on show is incredible and when the beat drops at around the 8:44 I fall in love all over again. The sudden dunk into something a little more funky at 19:43 foreshadows the eventual collaboration with Chromeo that would appear on Lucky Boy proper in I Am Somebody. Head to 30:28 to hear some good old fashioned French House in that Daft Punk / Crydamoure style, but through a Mehdi lens. The variety on show here is just amazing, and only further cemented Mehdi's position as one of my all time favourite producers.

Ed Banger records · DJ MEHDI "Loukoums"

Which brings us to the actual reason I drafted up this post in the first place - just a few days ago, the world was treated to new release from Mehdi, he's not alone mind you, it's a collaboration between Busy P, Santigold and Benjamin Epps. The story behind this newest piece is worth a post on its own: Originally started as a jam session between P and Mehdi in a rented New York apartment on their MPC 2000 and 3000 respectively, it got saved, but then ended up lost along the way. Fast forward twenty years, and Busy P finds the floppy disk with the jam saved on it. Dusting it off and giving it a new coat of paint, we have the fittingly titled MPC 2021. In a way, it's like Mehdi was never gone - the sample has his hallmarks all over it and P has done an amazing job finishing it up. While I haven't been keeping up with all things Ed Banger in recent years, I immediately felt right back at home as soon as I hit play. Mixmag also did a great rundown of it and a little Q&A with Busy P that you can read here.



I thought I'd round out with a couple more of my favourite Mehdi tracks, starting with one that I must have heard thousands of times - one that is iconically Mehdi all over. Whenever I was trying to introduce folk to the world of Ed Banger, I would point them towards the Ed Rec compilations - when Vol. 3 came out, it became my go to example of what the crew were all about. Pocket Piano is one of many standouts from the tracklist, once again highlighting Mehdi's ear for samples. It's not quite the massive electro house bangers that come to mind when you think of the era, but it is one of the tunes I think embodies the real mixture of styles and genres that are woven into the DNA of the Ed Banger identity.

DJ Mehdi · DJ Mehdi - Pocket Piano

The orchestral version made for the 15th anniversary of Ed Banger, the fittingly French 15 Ans was a beautiful tribute. It appears alongside many other heavy hitters from the Ed Banger catalogue. An amazing feat if only for the difficulty of adapting some of those tunes to the orchestra format, at the same time though some of them like Pocket Piano feel much more suited to it. Watching it back now as I write this I couldn't help but smile as the iconic melody made its appearance, as the wave of realisation sweeps over the crowd and the cheers rise, it all combines to make something really incredible. I'll admit I was skeptical when it was all first announced, the whole 'playing electronic music with an orchestra' was done quite a bit around the time - an opinion coloured by many a 'Ibiza Club Classics' ones that I'd seen which ranged in quality quite a bit. In hindsight was more than a bit foolish, of course they were not going to cut corners with it, they only went and got the Orchestre Lamoureux!



And finally, I could never write up a post like this without mentioning Signatune. The original is a nice little interlude on Lucky Boy, a classic jam in the style of Loukoums above - nice enough on its own but the real highlight is a reworking of it that would appear on the Lucky Girl EP and later the Lucky Boy At Night re-release. A remix by someone you may have heard of: a one Thomas Bangalter. You may recognise his name from some house records as-is, but if the name doesn't ring any bells you may know him better as the silver half of Daft Punk. It's not super complicated, Bangalter just took the main hook of of Signatune and added a beat to it - but the end result is, and remains, potentially my favourite electro house tune of the era by some ways. To this day if and when it comes up on shuffle I take the time to revisit, and just for a few minutes I'm teleported back to that time in my life. An absolute monster of a tune by two legendary figures, one that I will be still as excited to hear another 10 years from now as I am now.

DJ Mehdi · DJ Mehdi - Signatune (Thomas Bangalter Edit)

And that'll be all for now. I thought I'd take a different approach that just talking about the new tune. It's been fun looking back, it's been a long time since I've talked about Mehdi as well, so I figured I owed him at least that much. Ed Banger will forever an important step on my music listening career, and I love that they're still active to this day. As I've gone through the old archives and restored a whole heap of the old posts, it's been remarkable how many people have connected over a mutual love of Ed Banger over the years - hell, as I mentioned above I probably wouldn't be here writing this now if it weren't for them, and I'll forever be thankful for that.

I'm going to go on my own extended Mehdi retrospective now, going to start with his debut album (The Story Of) Espion and work forwards from there, my favourite from it is Anything Is Possible, which I think is a fitting note to end on.

Until next time, as always, stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

The forgotten art of Cover CDs

If you've been reading here for a while, you know that I'm a bit of an archivist. I love gathering odd and curious releases that catch my interest, albeit sometimes digitally in the cases of really rare ones like Takashi Kokubo's BMW Cyber-Tech Sound. Still, I've managed to get quite a few physical ones in my time as well - and today is going to focus on a very specific subset of them - the magazine cover CD.

Picture slightly unrelated, this cover did come with a CD though!

It's a pretty simple concept: you buy a music magazine, you get a free compilation/mix or whatever CD from it as well, works to promote both your mag and the artist(s) featured as well. So I thought today I'd go over some of my favourite examples of them that I've manage to pick up. By far responsible for the most of them in my collection is MixMag - they've played host to some properly massive names when it comes to their cover CDs over the years, there's even a Felix Da Housecat album that until recently was exclusive to one issue of MixMag, but that's a tale for another day as today I'm going to focus on the actual Mix CDs.

Part of the reason I like collecting these, aside from the obvious appeal of finding new stuff of course, is preserving the mixes. It makes me sort of sad when things like this fall by the wayside as time goes on - but I guess that's to be expected after all as you don't get much more ephemeral than a release that came with a Magazine, even so it still bothers me a bit. Like how I've been unable to find any trace of Fotonovela's I'm The Masturbator With My Pocket Vibrator mix CD either physically or digitally - judging by the tracklist that mix looks brilliant.

Thankfully, it seems there are a fair few folk like me out there on the net with this archivist streak, while discussing this exact topic with some friends I was able to pull up most of them on YouTube (which of course means there are copies floating around in the P2P spaces as well). We're going to be starting with a MixMag offering first of all, with one that I still have my actual copy of from back when I was an Ed Banger obsessed teen: Club 75, mixed by Zdar of Cassius. This was around the time Ed Banger was rebranding a touch: their clothing line was being renamed from Cool Cats to Club 75 - and the Club 75 in the compilation's title was supposed to be a DJ Supergroup of Cassius, Justice, Busy P & DJ Mehdi (as detailed on the comp's cover).

That didn't quite pan out though and with the death of DJ Mehdi in 2011 the project seemed to have been permanently shelved. The compilation itself is a great listen though, a real time capsule back to 2009 with some big belting tunes on there - the Justice mix of D.A.N.C.E still gets a rise out of me to this day (It appears on this comp mislabelled as the MSTRKRFT Remix, but that too is a massive tune). Perhaps a little bittersweet now that both Philippe Zdar and DJ Mehdi are no longer with us, but what better way to recall them than by putting this on.



Another of my favourites from the MixMag ones is the Trance 'n' Bass mix from John B circa 2002. John B has a pretty eclectic style, if you look up pictures of him from discogs he looks more like the frontman of an early 00's emo slash pop punk outfit than a Drum & Bass producer (and also one unfortunate picture of him at like 16). Trance & Bass was a very short lived spin off of the two genres, but it made enough of an impression to get an entry on Ishkur's Electronic Music Guide at the time, the one that no longer works due to the death of Flash.

The mix shows off a great deal of variety from the genre, with a healthy dose of John's own productions in there too. The introduction is a pretty solid demo of the overall vibe - massive build ups a la Trance that release with waves of bass and frantic breaks, it takes a good 3:24 before the beats even come in on the intro! I would say that throughout does lean more heavily on the D&B side of things and keeps the BPM suitably high too, but the Trance elements are a welcome addition, especially in my case as I don't have a ton of variety in my collection when it comes to D&B. It gave me a laundry list of stuff to check out and introduced me to a great tune in Speedfreak from Plex - a tune very hard to search for now that all engines assume you mean Plex servers. It's quite an intense listen and doesn't let up for long, which can be a bit much for the full 74 minute runtime - but even if it's not your bag, I'd say it's worth at least a sample purely for the tagline on the cover: "Mentalist tunes to rinse your weasel"



And that'll be all for today, there are other mix CDs that could have gone in this list quite easily, but I figure I'll hang onto them for a future second instalment. It felt good to write something out long-form for a change as well given my output in recent weeks, I think I'll leave this one up for a little longer before returning to the bite-size format. I hope you'e enjoyed this brief dive into the world of cover CDs - there are some really fantastic ones out there if you go looking, and more often than not they're an interesting curio of the times if nothing else. Until next time, as always - stay safe and enjoy the music.

-CVF

Bk On R BS (The Podcast Returns)

Claude and Adam are back at it again sharing their favorite tunes of the week. Discussions this episode include: The new Justice live album, DJ's in GTA 5, Ghost in the Shell and the landlord stab

We are back after an unintentionally extended break! it was a lot of fun to come back to, though we still have some hiccups here and there (thankfully not literally.) So please enjoy a new instalment of us talking about music, as mentioned above we have some interesting topics this time and it was great to have an actual conversation with Adam about them. Extra thanks to Adam for editing all of this together! Tracklist and notes follow:

Tracklist:
Intro:
Bôa - Duvet (ScummV Remix, JJ's Another Edit)
NOTE: Due to an editing goof (that was partially my fault), this track is both the intro and outro, the intro was *supposed* to be the original ScummV Rmeix

Claude’s picks:
Hideo Kobayashi - Navi 3.0 (Wasei "JJ" Chikada Remix)
zircon & Jillian Aversa - The Search For Ambrosia (NYC Streets)
D∆WN - Serpentine Fire
Cornelius - Ghost In The Shell: Arise
Yoko Kanno - Crystalized


Adam’s Picks
Cajmere - Chit Chat
Spok Da Rok - We Dance (Intr0beatz Remix)
Cybonix - Make This Party Live
Kalisha - I Got Something Here
Underground Resistance Ft. Yolanda - Living For The Night
Landlord - I Like It (Blow Out Dub)

Outro:
Bôa - Duvet (ScummV Remix, JJ's Another Edit)

Show Notes:
Duvet (ScummV Remix) is available for download from ScummV’s Soundcloud (https://soundcloud.com/scummv/boa-duvet-scummv-remix), check the track description for a link.

Hideo Kobayashi - Navi 3.0 (Wasei "JJ" Chikada Remix) appears on the album Cyberia_Layer 2, which is available to buy Digitally and Physically from JJ’s site, wasei.tokyo, and is available to stream on Spotify, Apple Music etc.

The Search For Ambrosia (NYC Streets) appears on Deus Ex: Sonic Augmentation, which is a free fan project that is still available to download from it’s mini-site over on OCRemix (augment.ocremix.org), either as 8 individual tracks spanning the entire Deus Ex series or the whole thing in one package. It comes with a selection of album art in the style of each of the games too which is pretty neat!

As of the time of writing, the 2016 Adult Swim Singles collection can still be streamed (but not downloaded) from the mini-site at (www.adultswim.com/music/singles-2016/), it can be a little tricky to navigate, but it’s neat nonetheless. There are some mirrors of the .zip and blogs that host the tracks from that year’s program though, so if you do a little bit of virtual crate digging you can still pick them up.

And that wraps up this installment! Me and Adam will be back soon with more in due time. As always, stay safe and enjoy the music.

-Claude Van Foxbat

Friday Quickie (Link broken as of 2020)

Seems Oizo's been causing a stir by releasing another thing on FlyLo's Brainfeeder label. He set things straight on twitter tho saying quote: "hey internet freaks, I never left Ed Banger Records !!! I just joined BRAINFEEDER ! nothing's wrong !". not an unexpected move after FlyLo's obvious love of Oizo what with re-issuing his second LP on vinyl on Brainfeeder and that. Check out the snippets they put up the other day here, it's shaping up to be another twisted slice of Oizo goodness!

October review : Audio Video Disco

October review : L-vis 1990 - Neon Dreams

October review : Surkin - USA

It's that time of the month again, time to review (some of) the albums that came out !



The first is the obvious one, Justice - Audio Video Disco.

Let's get something straight before I start talking about the album. The Justice we know from Cross changed a lot, this album is pretty much nothing like their previous work even if we obviously recognize their style. "These guys are the new rock'n'roll" someone once said, well, they heard him.

Maybe it's Xavier's work on Jamaica's album or Gaspard's on Rubber, maybe they just did not want to make a Cross 2.0, maybe they simply wanted to do something they like even if it changes from their "usual" style.

Let's play some music now.

The album starts with Horsepower, a good progressive and powerful track to begin with. It keeps those dark synths Justice are known for but also has this retro rock feeling. Very enjoyable track if you ask me.



Next is Civilization, the track that made everyone know that Justice changed, it's the kind of song that grows on you, Ali Love's voice fits very well with the song. I would have prefered Jessy Chaton, singer from Fancy who gave voice to D.A.N.C.E. (If you don't know Fancy and enjoy 70's rock with a crazy singer, check them out).

What do we have now ? Ohio, the song starts in a strange way, and keeps growing in a weird way in my opinion. Not bad at all but a bit too slow and the melody is really not that good for a Justice track, I don't think the vocals are good either... My least favorite track on the album.

Canon (Primo) is an intro to Canon, not much to say, it's an intro you know.

Canon, now we're talking ! The kind of songs that screams play me louder, that's the new Justice I like, strong drums, good chords... the perfect mix of electro and rock, the downside might be the end of the song, a bit weak. I'm starting to wonder what it will look like to see them live now, will they be playing actual instruments ? Mainly after seeing the Audio Video Disco video.



On'n'On. That perfect song you bought the album for. It has everything Justice has to offer, even the flute (?) who could have ruin the mood feels good. And those lyrics... I don't know who's singing, it's not referenced anywhere that it features someone so it might be Gaspard or Xavier, but damn, I'd like to hear that voice more often.



Brianvision remembers me of Rubber OST a lot, that atmosphere, the whole retro feeling of the song is amazing, it would have been a perfect fit for Rubber... It works great here too anyway so that's not a bad thing.



Parade. Call me geek but it feels like a battle theme from Final Fantasy hooked up with Queen - We Will Rock You and The Beach Boys - God Only Knows. Mind blowing track.



New Lands continues what On'n'On began, the only downside I can find is that without knowing it's from Justice, I would probably not have guessed it. But once you accept the turn they have made, it's an awesome song too, that ending... oh well.



The album ends with two already known songs.

Helix, I love this song, but it has a strange feeling because I first heard it they day DJ Mehdi died so it's always a bit weird to listen to it, especially because I think the vocals sampled would match a lot of Mehdi songs. Anyway, great great song even if my judgement is a bit biased.

Audio, Video, Disco is still what it is, I know a lot of people who don't find it good at all, I for one think it's not as bad as a lot of people tend to say it is.

But wait, why is the track 10 minutes long ? Yup, unnamed bonus track at the end ! Lovely lovely bonus track.



Alright, time to give my opinion about the album itself. While almost every track is good, it does not (and I don't think anything will ever again) have the same power as Cross. Once you accept the fact that it will be more of a 70's rock meets electro album than a Cross 2.0 the album is good, great actually. Fans might be disappointed by it, it's understandable, but it's a good album, with well made tracks and no "old remixes from 2003 renamed to fit in the album".

I'd say good move Justice, everything turned out better than expected even if it lacks of something here and there sadly.

-Here

What's happening at ed banger ?

Hey there, after the little medley from Justice album, I found a few more things you might enjoy.



Justice really is into oldschool guitars and vocals, I'm not the one who'll complain as long as they do it as nicely as on Newlands. Anyway, the song seems a bit unfinished, that wouldn't be surprising obviously, it's enjoyable anyway even if it feels that it's lacking something.

JUSTICE · New Lands

If you enjoyed Helix, Canon might do the trick for you. So far all those Justice songs are not bad (even Audio Video Disco finally grew on me and I found myself liking it when I was like 'bleh' at first, go figure.) but they feel like they are missing something, that little thing that made every tracks from Cross epic.

JUSTICE · Canon

Don't get me wrong, they are decent electro tracks, but I expect more from Justice, especially when you see how great Cross and Planisphere were. So far it seems like they are holding themselves, weirdly.



Let's move to something different, and I'm not talking different from Justice, I'm talking different from everything. You guessed it, Mr Oizo ! From his upcoming album Stade 2, here is France 7

oizo mr 3000 · MR OIZO / FRANCE7

Enjoy!
-Here

Audio Video Disco medley

For those of you who did not listen to it yet !

Ed Banger records · JUSTICE "Audio, Video, Disco." medley

Here's top 5 chillin' in September tunes

So, it looks like we already are in September, that means I have to make my top 5s again, yay !

I've heard a lot of really good songs during August and I'll give you my 5 favorite calm ones today.



Rei Harakami is a Japanese IDM DJ, his work reminds me a lot Wisp's, really peaceful, but with some DnB in the back.

#5

An amazing remix by Port-Royal, one more talented band from Italy, it's hard to define their work, some songs are pure Electronica, some other are way more Ambient and they make some nice Post-Rock too.

#4


OK, you know me, I need to talk about french artists, I can't help it. Pilooski makes some of my favorites edits. So what happens when Pilooski meets Nina Simone ? I'll let you decide.

#3


Squarepusher's new project on Ed Banger Records : Shobaleader One. What can I say ? This is pure genius, I love Squarepusher and he didn't disappointed me with this little gem. Get ready for an epic Mr Oizo remix in my top 5 Bangers.

#2

Warp Records · Squarepusher presents Shobaleader One - Cryptic Motion

And of course, the best comes at last. Cassius's new song, from their soon to be released on ED Banger EP : "The Rawkers". I've listened to it for about 2 hours, and I can't get enough of it.

The little dubstep touch, the lovely sample from "Gladys Knight & The Pips - I Feel A Song"... everything just sounds goddamn good.

#1

Can't wait to hear the remixes of this one...

Enjoy, and get ready for my top 5 bangers !
-Here