Ilictronix Podcast: The Instrumental Edition

"In this episode: Claude brings some bump worthy beats. Adam brings a rainy day ambient mix."

We are live again for this week! Another mixed bag but not the complete whiplash of atmosphere that was last week. It's been a hectic week for me and I've taken the opportunity to unwind with one of my musical dalliances that I dig up every now and then, I went all in on instrumental hip hop. I've expanded a little from last time's 'bump-worthy' selections, this time focusing (unintentionally) on killer samples, which means I get to flex my opinions once again on the subject, though I assure you that my take isn't very hot in the grand scheme of things. I drop some weapons I've been holding onto for a while, tarting off with a couple pieces from the Samurai Champloo OST from Force Of Nature and Tsutchie. As mentioned in the episode I deliberately avoided Nujabes' productions for the OST, not that they're bad or anything but he does tend to steal the limelight when it comes to discussing that soundtrack. That said, if you liked this episodes sounds you should absolutely jump into Nujabes' back catalogue for more of the style

Adam also brings something new to the table with a mix instead of our usual tunes 'n talk combo. Truth be told it's an idea I've played with before but never really thought too much about until now. Like we say in the Ep I think it could be really good to use in cases like this where we'd interrupt the flow with our usual routine. That and it'd give me a chance to crate and play with my 'mixtapes' I used to make one again. Full tracklist follows as usual:

Tracklist:
Intro:
Force Of Nature - Just Forget

Claude’s Picks:
DJ Krush - Song 1
Tsutchie - Sincerely
MF Doom - Arrow Root
Akira Yamaoka - Alone In The Town
El Huervo - Rust


Adam’s Mix
Tim Hecker - Step Away From Konoyo
Kara-Lis Coverdale - Moments In Love
Karel Goeyvaerts - Pour Que Les Fruits Mûrissent Cet été
Mark Pritchard - Untitled
Talk Talk - Myrrhman

SHOW NOTES:

Ilictronix Podcast: Sample Stories & Adam's Mini Mix

Claude and Adam talk about their favorite tracks of the week. Claude takes listeners on a story of sampling and shares how different tracks can use a sample. Adam shares a mini mix.

We return! This time we both tactically deploy little somethin' somethin's we've been holding in the wings. I lead the episode by using The Nightmares On Wax track to set up my three-in-a-row set of songs revolving around one sample (and the original too), with some more funky stuff courtesy of Chromeo and Thundercat rounding out my choices for this week. Adam treats us to something he's mentioned a few times in the past, in lieu of our usual tnes 'n talk combo, Adam instead gives us a mix he did the night we recorded! It's an idea I've mulled in my mind when there's been a few scheduling conflicts that might have made me unable to appear, so I'm more than happy to see it work out so well. Also I apologise in advance for the slightly rambling tangent I go on towards the end of the sample stories section, I make some good points and all but we were having connectivity issues, in the interest of keeping our audio synced I went a little off the cuff! Of course, the full tracklist and show notes follow as always:

Tracklist:
Intro:
Nightmares On Wax - You Wish

Claude’s picks:
Chromeo - Don't Turn The Lights On
Gary Low - I Want You
Miss Kittin & The Hacker - The Beach
Washed Out - Feel It All Around
Thundercat - Heartbreaks + Setbacks


Adam’s Mix
Geography Of Heaven - Pinky Promise
R.M - Chikyu-u 002
Cosmjn - Sunset Soul
Viceversa - Flat Earth
Rimbaudian - Let Me Beat U
Rythm Plate - String Thing
Lousie Chen - Reach (Raw Mix)

Outro:
Ian Pooley - Feel It



Show Notes:
Oh boy here we go. Starting off with the sample I mentioned at the beginning, You Wish HEAVILY takes elements from Judy Clay & William Bell's Private Number, like from the word go. Which is funny 'cos I was holding onto this to make another instalment of sample stories, because it's also heavily sampled in Pretty Light's Finally Moving too in pretty much the same fashion.



A little light on the show notes this week, and I can **guarantee** that I will have forgotten a couple, it's late here in the UK so I'll have a proper listen over the next couple days and fill in any I find. To repeat what I said at the end of my section of this episode, I ask you all to be safe out there and of course to enjoy the music naturally. See you all next week for more from Myself and Adam, we'll leave the light on for ya.

-Claude Van Foxbat

Midweek Hip Hop

How y'all doin'? I am back with some hip hop style stuff to brighten your day either way. Starting off with some folks from the submithub roundups that I said I'd keep tabs on. Well it's already paying off, with Best Friend doing their best to keep my instrumental itch scratched with their newest EP Daylight (which is coincidentally also the name of one of my favourite hip hop EPs from Aesop Rock). The sampling is once again on point, not so much brass this time some lovely cut up flutes the likes of which I haven't heard since the E-Z Rollers' Weekend World.



Time for more of the Metal Fingers compilation now which was a big source for my instrumental needs for a long time. As the name would suggest, it's largely made up of MF Doom instrumentals, all of whoch named after some variety of spice. Each time I pick one to post I have to force myself from not just putting up the whole compilation. If you're a fan of Doom or just have an interest in the instrumental side of things I highly recommend checking it out.



And finally this one wasn't planned to be here originally, but it just came up on shuffle and thought why not. For those unaware, this is a lil' something by one of our long time pals Evan, he's appeared on here under many different aliases and the couple of tapes he did under the Deadbeat Demon moniker have a special place in my collection. The guy's real busy making moves and producing for folk over in the states at the moment, I think the few tapes I have from him can tide me over till he drops another one though.

Song is missing from the internet! Sorry folks.

-Claude Van Foxbat

Friends In Beats (Links broken as of 2020)

Our own in-house producer hasn't been able to post for a while now, not that I mind because when you've been doing this for as long as I have it's easy enough to post a lil' something together. Not to say our man Evan hasn;t been putting work in tho, here he comes with another EP/Tape offering.



I adore whenever he drops one of these, The artwork is solid for one but also they're like a guided course of his influences and interests, often with a few Drum & Bass or House tracks thrown in for good measure. This time though it's all hip hop stuff, and there's few producers who scratch my instrumental itch like Evan does, I'm in love with the opening track, as well as the slightly re-worked version of an older tune now called Rolex. It's shaping up to be the soundtrack to my day, here's hoping it is for yours too!

-Claude Van Foxbat

AT / AA 71

Michael Alan - Fasion

A bit from the black sheep of Oizo's work; Moustache (Half A Scissor). Compared to Analog Worms Attack and Lambs Anger, I can see why it gets a lot of flack, hell the record is in part responsible for Oizo jumping ship to Ed Banger after his then label F-Communications described it as un-listenable. But it does have it's pluses, the Autechre lads have said it's one of their favourite albums and there are some real good tracks in here. This is one of them featuring some lovely cut up style samples scattered throughout, in a recent AMA over on Reddit Oizo said he just recorded himself dropping the needle on a ton of different vinyls to get the sounds giving it that lovely rough edges feel that is almost his trademark.

Son Of Strelka, Son Of God

We here at ilictronix are no strangers to cutting things into teeny tiny pieces and then using those pieces to create something bigger, just look at Pogo for example. But what I bring you today takes that concept and does something truly amazing with it.



I saw this a few weeks ago, over on the Something Awful Forums and have waited anxiously for it to be completed. Son Of Strelka is an audio story set to music. Nothing unusual about that right? Well, the bloke who made it, Dan Warren, dissected the audio version of Barack Obama's autobiography and has meticulously been re-arranging it for the past four years to make this tale of creation set to music. I was skeptical at first, expecting not much in the way of quality but I was wrong. The whole thing flows amazingly well to say it's formed from fragments of sentences from throughout the book. So, in essence what you are left with is a 30 minute short story narrated by Barack Obama himself. And with that: Enjoy the first four chapters of Son Of Strelka, Son Of God

Dan Warren · Son of Strelka, Son of God

If you want to read more about Son Of Strelka or just simply hear the rest of the story; find the original thread with download and torrent links provided by Dan Warren himself here: Here and animations of the first two chapters here and here.

Words & Music,
-Claude Van Foxbat

From the father of HBFS (Boba's Blast From The Past)

Edwin Birdsong, some very interesting stuff this guy does. Not only did he create the wonderful loop in the background of Harder Better Faster Stronger, Cola Bottle Baby, he also put out many other releases which truly didn't get enough attention. The poor guy was overshadowed by The Brothers Johnson and Zapp and Roger, and left in the indie funk scene.

Edwin Birdsong was born in 1950 in the city of LA, son of a minister. Birdsong fought in Vietnam, where upon returning, he left for Germany to play in clubs. He later moved to New York to pursue a more serious music career where he fronted a blues trio and attended Julliard as a composition major. He put out five records, the first in 1971, the last in 1981. Although his personal recording career ended there, he did not stop his profession, and went on to produce for other artists and even played sessions for Stevie Wonder.

Over the last several months, I've been gathering funk and disco compilation bootlegs from across the web, and in doing so, I've found a rather nice collection of Birdsong's work.









Now... now I must vent. Thursday night was my school's formal. Before the dance started, I noticed the DJ setting up and went over to talk to him. In fact i talked to him so long that I entirely missed the dinner. But the guy was really nice, and he'd been DJing since the 1980's, when he had "red hair and long, black fingernails". Since I was there, he gave me permission to flood the request form with songs I wanted. Normally they limit the number of submissions at these things, but I think this guy was genuinely pleased to find a kid who's definition of 'dance music' isn't Katy Perry, Kanye West, or Lady Gaga.

Fifteen minutes into the dance, the first of my requests comes on! Digital Love! Right now, it happens to be my favorite song. I get up from the table, and walk over to the dance floor, some of my friends getting up and coming too... and what I found mortified me. No one was dancing. They were all silent, and either staring at the DJ in disapproval, or at me, because I was singing along, which was the only sound in the room.

"..and it looked like everyone... was... not having fun. *sigh*" I looked at the DJ and he shrugged back and fiddled with his laptop, walked over to his mixer and faded in What Is Love, and the party promptly started again.

This tells me something... I will not be able to DJ one of these dances. The music that I love to dance to is not the music they like to dance to, and I swear to God there will be NO LADY GAGA ON MY FRICKING PLAYLIST.

Annoyed-ly yours,
Boba

P.S. How about a hostile takeover of the event planning committee and put forth a Disco Ball next year? Heh? PUN!