Finally got a hold of this beautiful but rather obscure compilation by Mark Pritchard, containing the title song by Heaven and Earth which I first heard on some of the Amorphous Androgynous DJ sets around 2007. This is a style of music that suddenly emerged slightly after the Summer of Love which was based on folk music but had merged with contemporary styles and had a more produced sound to it. As Mark says in the personal note, “(...) what interests me in these tracks is that the musicians are drawing on a lot of different influences and styles; Jazz, Prog, Soul, experimental music; to create something new and original.”

According to Discogs this is only one of two releases on Optimum Sounds Limited at the moment and I wonder if the label even still oficially exists. There’s no metadata in Musicbrainz yet and the CD seems to be going for a ridiculously low price, for less than 10 bucks it’s yours.

Great album made before they got famous, I guess. I too prefer this over the much more polished Butch Vig produced Nevermind. They were supposed to be buddies with Sonic Youth, which makes sense if you hear how they throw up a huge wall of sound. Sub Pop say that they managed to survive the digital era partly because of the profits they make off Bleach. 'Love Buzz' was originally written by Shocking Blue, a Dutch band from the sixties.

This album was much hyped around the time of release. A couple of standout tracks here were on his MySpace so I kind of knew what to expect, although of course they were all crunched to 96kbps. A so-so review on Pitchfork made me decide not to pick it up though. But after some time certain tunes still stuck in my head, especially the anthem-like 'FUSE'. Problem was, I prefer to listen to music in lossless quality on my discman and I was about to go on a month long trip, so I had no time to drop by the store -- this became my first digital (FLAC) purchase. I didn't regret it; rumor has it this was produced purely with software, however the sound is really fat and crispy. Stylewise, it's kind of a mix between familiar electronic experimentalism and eighties funk with a solid street beat mentality. Standout tracks 'Joy Fantastic', 'Rising 5', 'FUSE' and 'ZOo00OOm' will definitely kill it on the floor and although not all of the frantic chipmunk samples are to my liking, this feels like a complete album.

At the time, I didn't have much attention for this album, being more inspired by "Spanners" and the seminal "Bytes". The first album without Ed & Andy, it consists of 26 shorter, conceptual tracks, beats / ambient oriented, often with an Arabic vibe. It has the funky "PUP 2" catalog number. All I can say is, this album has aged really well and in sound and creativity can compete with many current releases.

Since Warp records is still a major factor in experimental electronic music nowadays, not in the least because of their promotional strategies on the web, their intermediate role in distribution and of course the excellent music they put out, I think more people are starting to regard the back catalogue as a point of reference. This is definitely one of those albums that should be labeled as 'classic Warp'. I picked up a new pressing just recently, so it's still being printed, albeit in limited amounts; the recordstore owner told me back order wasn't possible - I was lucky. Buy on sight.

This is the seminal first ambient album by Eno, released on his own Ambient imprint. I still play this regularly. Each of the four tracks consists of drones, repetitive percussion, piano or processed voices, continuously looping. So basic, so good!

We saw a rare performance by Brothomstates at Ghent Sessions 2005, he performed the Rakim remix.

This debut album by the Kay-Gees contains several classic samples, including the "Who's the man with the masterplan?" that was used on YZ's "Thinking Of A Master Plan" and countless other hip hop records. The Kay-Gees were formed by Kevin Bell, the brother of one of the main Kool & The Gang members, Ronald Bell, who helped produce, arrange and sometimes write for the album [allmusic]. In addition, the band was signed to Kool & The Gang's Gang Records imprint.

One of the greatest tunes on this album is "Ain't No Time", of which part one I have been searching for for several years because it has been cut-up on an obscure Ken Swift mixtape called "Stronger Than Dirt". It has also been used to great effect as the hook in Theo Parrish's "Timeislafinacharunninout" track on the "Natural Aspirations (Vinyl Vers. Pt. 1)" 12". As Usual, I found it when I wasn't looking for it.

This is a rather hard to find LP by a one-album studio band that included many members of what later would become MFSB ('Mother Father Sister Brother'), another Philadelphia studio band which would be well known in the New York disco scene with tracks like 'Love Is The Message' and 'TSOP (The Sound Of Philadelphia)'. Keem-O-Sabe contains raw funk with a Native American touch (as some of the titles might indicate); "Grapevine" and especially "Rain Dance" are essential breakbeat tracks that were probably uses for cut-ups by the likes of Cool Herc and Afrika Bambaata (back when hip hop wasn't called that yet and DJ's extended the records by repeating the drum breakdown of funk songs), to be rediscovered by b-boy DJ's such as James Leacy later on.

First picked up the 'Tadley Management' EP about a year ago,
which includes the splendid tracks 'Red Shed' and 'Buxom Berceuse' (also featured on the Planet-Mu compilation 'Cosmic Forces of Mu'). Then, to my amazement found out that besides being 22 years old and already having produced a number of full-length records, the guy is Dutch! Since our crew organizes parties with electronic music in Holland, we immediately wanted to book him. We were more than happy to hear that his live-set is just as good as his recorded stuff: strong compositions consisting of original beats combined with nice, warm melodies. Pretty funny guy as well...