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Name: Bart
Home Page: http://www.poleshift.net/barticle
Member Since: May 07, 2003
Rank: 18988
Average Vote Received: Correct (4.01, 475 votes)
  last 10 days: Correct (4.00, 26 votes)
Rated 52 releases, average: 4.48
Location: Ipswich, UK
Profile: Discogs Moderator [Electronic] (retired)
Chinese Starsign: Wood Tiger

Recent purchases I'm feelin'...

FSOL - Environments 2
Biosphere - Shenzhou
Monolake - Cinemascope
Rosie & The Goldbug - Heartbreak (Digital Dog Remix)
Tetsu Inoue - Ambiant Otaku
Outsiders - Keep This Fire Burning (Wawa Remix)
Suns of Arqa - Jaggernaut Whirling Dub
Gas - Nah Und Fern
Chocolate Puma - I Wanna Be U (Ben Preston Remix)
T99 - Invisible Sensuality
Robert Henke - Layering Buddha

I'm happy to answer questions about any release I've submitted to Discogs and also to be directed to eBay auctions for anything in my wantlist.



There's so much good music out there that I always have difficulty picking a favourite, however I have managed to come up with a few shortlists (INPO)...

20 Balearic

JT & The Big Family - Moments in Soul
Seal - Killer (William Orbit Mix)
Bassomatic - Fascinating Rhythm
Leftfield - More Than I Know
Sheer Taft - Cascades (Hypnotone Mix)
St Etienne - Only Love Can Break Your Heart (A Mix Of Two Halves)
Primal Scream - Come Together (Weatherall Mix) / Don't Fight It, Feel It
The Shamen - Lightspan
Tears for Fears - Pharaohs
T99 - Invisible Sensuality
The Beloved - Hello
Talk Talk - Life's What You Make It (Fluke Mix)
Candy Flip - Aqua Libra
Carly Simon - Why
Richie Havens - Going Back To My Roots
Jan Hammer - Crockett's Theme
Rondò Veneziano - La Serenissima
Malcolm McLaren - Madame Butterfly
Yello - Desire

20 Electro

Cybotron - Clear
Freestyle - Don't Stop The Rock
Herbie Hancock - Rockit
Hashim - Al-Naafiysh (The Soul)
Kraftwerk - It's More Fun To Compute / Tour De France / Computerwelt 2
Arthur Baker - Breaker's Revenge
Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five - Scorpio
The Beat Club - Security
Shannon - Let The Music Play
The VHB - Beethoven's Fifth (Street) Symphony
Twilight 22 - Electric Kingdom
Afrika Bambaataa & Soulsonic Force - Looking For The Perfect Beat
The Egyptian Lover - Egypt, Egypt
Man Parrish - Hip Hop, Be Bop (Don't Stop)
C.O.D. - In The Bottle
Warp 9 - Light Years Away
Xena - On The Upside
Newcleus - Jam On It

20 Mix Albums

John Kelley - Funkydesertbreaks
Coldcut - Journeys By DJ: 70 Minutes of Madness
Freestylers - Raw As F**k (Remixed)
Justin Robertson - Journeys By DJ (Select Magazine promo)
Mr C - Fantazia: DJ Collection Vol. 3
James Hyman - A Quentin Tarantino Mash-Up
Rob Playford - Moving Shadow 02.1
Liam Howlett - The Dirtchamber Sessions Vol. 1
David Holmes - Essential Mix 98
Nick Grant - Musicology
Strictly Kev & PC - Blech / Blech II
Jeff Mills - Mix Up Vol. 2
Chris Liberator - Prolekulture
Alex Paterson & Dom Beken - I'll Be Black
Norman Cook - On The Floor At The Boutique
Lenny Dee / Bass Generator / Sharkey - Judgement Day
Daz Saund & Trevor Rockcliffe - Reactivate Classics
Kruder & Dorfmeister - The K&D Sessions
Jon the Dentist & Kevin Robinson - Additive Compilation Two

20 Acid

Fast Eddie - Acid Thunder (Smooth Thunder)
Cosmic Trigger - Firefight
Hardfloor - Acperience 1
Tasha Killa Pussies - Hoover Baby
Charles B. - Lack Of Love
D.O.M. - Acid War (Liberator Remix)
System 7 - Alpha Wave (Plastikman Acid House Mix)
Demonic Emotions - Stuck On A Space Trip (Jon The Dentist Remix)
New Order - Confusion (Pump Panel Reconstruction)
DJ Misjah & DJ Tim - Keep Your Love
Dr Octopus - Dr Octopus
Brain 6 - Observer (Influence Mix)
Lochi - New Wave Of Acid Techno
Phuture - Acid Tracks
Heuristix - Lords Of Dat Sample / Uganda (German Tunnel Trance Mix)
Bam Bam - Where's Your Child
Ballistic - Ballistic
Sourmash - Pilgrimage To Paradise (Hardfloor Remix)
Solar Quest - Acid Air Raid

20 B-boy Breaks

The Jimmy Castor Bunch - It's Just Begun
The Cecil Holmes Soulful Sounds - Across 110th Street
Sérgio Mendes & Brasil '77 - Superstition
Ad Funk - The Chance
Michael Viner's Incredible Bongo Band - Apache
Dennis Coffey - Theme From Black Belt Jones
Rhythm Heritage - Theme From SWAT
BT Express - Energy Level
The Blackbyrds - Rock Creek Park
DJ Junk - Going The Distance (Amen Remix)
Babe Ruth - The Mexican
Eric B & Rakim - I Ain't No Joke / Don't Sweat The Technique
All The People feat. Robert Moore - Cramp Your Style
Yellow Sunshine - Yellow Sunshine
Bobby Byrd - I Know You Got Soul
The Mohawks - The Champ
The Soul Searchers - Blow Your Whistle
James Brown - Give It Up Or Turnit A Loose (Album Remix)
Jackson Sisters - I Believe In Miracles

20 Italo

S.S.R. - To Be House
Black Box - Ride On Time
DJ Lelewel - Magic Atto II (The Deep)
FPI Project feat. Sharon Clarke - Going Back To My Roots
FPI Project - Everybody (All Over The World)
Soft House Company - What You Need
DJ Pierre - Get On The Floor
4 For Money - It's A Moment In Time
Alex Lee - Take It!
Last Rhythm - Last Rhythm
Data Bass - Piano In The Night
A.S.H.A. - J.J. Tribute
The Mixmaster - Grand Piano
Mig 29 - Mig 29 (Love Mix)
Jinny - Keep Warm
Baffa - Piano On
Double Dee feat. Dany - Found Love
Wood Allen - Airport '89
S.L.D. - Gettin' Out
Electric Choc - Shock The Beat (Piano Mix)

20 Breakbeat Happy

Fat Controller - In Complete Darkness
DJ Brisk - Airhead
Jimmy J & Cru-L-T - Take Me Away / Six Days
Slipmatt - Hear Me
SMD - SMD 3A
Future Primitive - We're Flying (Vibes & Wishdokta Remix)
DJ Ham - Most Uplifting
Happy Tunes - Rushin' On Pink Champagne
Justin Time - Sweet In Pocket (Force & The Evolution Remix)
Storm Syndicut - Come Together
DJ Slam - Influence / Looking Into The Light
Ravers Choice - Ravers Choice 1A
Ramos, Supreme & Sunset Regime - Crowd Control (Slipmatt Remix)
Euphoria - Euphoria
Substate - Take Me Up (Vibes & Wishdokta Remix)
Different Vibe - Can You Feel It
Seduction - My Own (Slipmatt Remix)
Seduction & Dougal - Better Day

50 Warp (compiled for the Warp20 anniversary public vote)

Aphex Twin - On / Ventolin (Probus Mix) / SAW II CD1 Track 3
Autechre - Eggshell / Windwind / Silverside
Balil - Parasight
Beans - Mutescreamer (El P Remix)
Beaumont Hannant - Utuba
Boards of Canada - Aquarius / Dayvan Cowboy
Broadcast - The Book Lovers
Chris Morris' Blue Jam - Fix-It Girl (heh)
Cmetric (B12) - VOID/Comm
Coco Steel & Lovebomb - Feel It
David Holmes - Johnny Favourite (Exploding Plastic Inevitable Mix)
Disjecta - Is That Really It?
DJ Mink - Hey! Hey! Can U Relate (Hard Rap)
Forgemasters - Track With No Name
FUSE - A New Day
Home Video - Blimp Mason
Jackson and his Computer Band - Arpeggio
Jamie Lidell - Multiply (Hot Chip's Mouth Remix)
Jimmy Edgar - Personal Information
Joey Beltram - Orion
Kid Unknown - Nightmare
Leila - In The Garden (heh)
LFO - LFO / Nurture (Surgeon Remix)
Link - Arcadian (Global Communication Remix) / Amazon Amenity (Chameleon Remix)
Nightmares on Wax - Finer (Original) / What I'm Feelin (Rae & Christian Mix)
Plaid - Headspin / Sincetta
Polygon Window - If It Really Is Me
Prefuse 73 - Love You Bring
RAC - Detour
Red Snapper - 4 Dead Monks (Original Demo) / Hot Flush (Sabres of Paradise Remix)
Sabres of Paradise - Ballad of Nicky McGuire / Haunted Dancehall / Wilmot Meets Lord Scruffage
Savath & Savalas - Demà Vindrà
Seefeel - Fracture
Speedy J - The Oil Zone / Symmetry
Squarepusher - Significant Others
Sweet Exorcist - Testone
Tuff Little Unit - Join the Future

20 Remixes

Slam - Narco Tourists (UNKLE Mix)
Ultramarine - Hooter (Carl Craig Remix)
Sunscreem - Perfect Motion (Boys Own Mix)
St Etienne - Like A Motorway (Skin Up, You're Already Dead)
Double Six - Real Good (Zen Terrorists 'Supreme Being' Mix)
Legend B - Lost In Love (Baby Doc Remix)
Yello - You Gotta Say Yes To Another Excess - Great Mission (Jam & Spoon Remix)
Ramos, Supreme & Sunset Regime - Gotta Believe (Force & Styles Remix)
James vs Sabres of Paradise - Jam J
Human Resource - Dominator (Beltram Mix)
The Prodigy - Voodoo People (Pendulum Remix)
Binary Finary - 1998 (Paul van Dyk Remix)
Higher Intelligence Agency - Delta (Alpha 1999)
Eric B & Rakim - Paid In Full (Seven Minutes of Madness)
99th Floor Elevators - Hooked (Pete Wardman Mix)
Union Jack - Two Full Moons & A Trout (Caspar Pound Mix)
Salt Tank - Salt Tank 3 / Eugina (Sargasso Sea)
Nightwriters - Let The Music Use You (92 Hardcore Remix)
Björk - One Day (Endorphin Mix)
Age of Love - The Age Of Love (Watch Out For Stella Club Mix)

...more lists coming soon(ish)!
Seller Rating: 100.0% positive (29 ratings)

Buyer Rating: 100.0% positive (17 ratings)

barticle's groups (4)

 Reviews:

Various - Technics World DJ Championship 2001 - 10-Dec-08 11:40 AM
The box artwork here is double-sided - the front gives this as the "2001 World DJ Championship" featuring "The History of DMC World Champions" while the back has it the other way around: the History featuring the 2001 Champs. This "double A-side" billing is entirely justified as you get two great features on the DVD.

The first feature gives you all the competition action from the World Championships final in 2001, with some of the most talented DJs from around the world, winners of national heats from fourteen countries across four continents. The skills on display are awesome - their hands a blur of motion across the vinyl, faders and other controls - crafting fast and complex rhythms and performing complicated crossfader manipulations. Its interesting to see them using stickers not just to mark exact cue points but also to create custom locked grooves and to produce noise effects as the needle trips over them.

Plus One delivers an incredible competition-winning set, taking the stylus-abuse thing to the next level - not only tapping the raised headshell like a Morse code key but even rubbing the needle radially across a wide run-out groove to produce yet more abstract sound effects. As a Brit myself its great to watch a DJ from the UK win for the first time in over a decade, especially since I saw him take the national title in person earlier in 2001.

Props also to Kentaro who ends his set with his "Jah Jaka" segment, cutting a stickered record of electric guitar tones to make an insanely rockin riff so catchy that I find myself humming it sometimes; its no surprise that he went on to take the world title the following year. I must also mention Coki who ends up playing alongside a small radio-controlled doll scratching on the other deck!

I have to admit that I bought this DVD primarily for the second feature though. The retrospective of World Championship winning sets from 1987 through to 2001 is a fascinating document of the evolution of the turntablists art. In the earlier sets theres more of an emphasis on using different body parts or objects to manipulate the vinyl and crossfader (nose, foot, elbow, pool cue, etc!) while in the later years the focus is on ever more intricate and innovative techniques. However, that said, you still see Ca$h Money and Cutmaster Swift doing some impressively quick beat-juggling segments back in the 80s and, conversely, Craze still throws in a little old skool behind-the-back or under-the-leg fader action in all three of his title-winning routines ten years later.

My four personal highlights are: DJ David ending his 1991 set by doing a handglide on one of the turntables while the other - at a safe distance - plays the Jungle Bros Ill House You ("round and round and round"); A Trak taking the title aged only 15; Cutmaster Swift spending twenty seconds at the start of his set just dancing like a nutter (much to the delight of the crowd) while the amen of Mantronix King of the Beats drops over Alyson Williams Sleep Talk and finally DJ Noize composing a sentence using four chunks of the rap on Method Man & Redman How High inviting the previous years champion (by name) to suck his dick, whilst holding the tempo of the beats, and then following this with some wonderfully musical tweak scratches over Newcleus Jam On Revenge.

Its a pity theres no footage from the 85 and 86 finals (also one of the Dream Teams sets is absent) but thats a minor complaint. This three-hour DVD is a fantastic showcase of some astounding skillz and if you only buy one video of turntablists in action it should be this one.

Saint Etienne - Like A Motorway - 15-Oct-08 10:40 AM
You have to commend St Etienne for their admirable choice of mixers on this release where even the original version - an upbeat pop number with pretty, poetic and ultimately quite poignant vocals - is mixed by Rick Smith of Underworld.

The first remix comes from the Chemical Brothers - around a year before ditching their earlier Dust Brothers moniker - with midtempo breakbeats, deep bassline and some great sections of melodic distortion (I guess you need to hear it yourself to understand what I mean there).

Next up is David Holmes, accompanied by his regular Sabres engineers, with a combination of bassline, percussion and acid-line that sounds not unlike Hardfloor. He recorded a lot of long (10+ minutes) techno tracks like this around 1993/4 but his mixes of Come Into My Life, Smokebelch II and particularly his own epic Johnny Favourite on Warp from the same period are more effective.

The single saves the best till last. Im sure that some fans of nu-skool glitched-out Autechre will dismiss their remix here as being too pretty but if, like me, you love the IDM masterpiece that is their Amber LP then you really need to check this out. The exquisite composition takes an entrancing metallic percussion loop and adds elegant tones and a single repeated syllable. The central ambient breakdown is so long that whenever I listen on a Walkman I always think that I mustve lost myself in the music and not noticed the break and surely this must be the outro now because the break cant be this long... but then finally the percussion drops back in, a whole three minutes later. Quite sublime, and easily one of my favourite Autechre tracks.

Underworld And Gabriel Yared - Breaking And Entering - 21-Nov-07 10:31 AM
I must confess that I only picked this up cheap second-hand, quite some time after its release, mainly for the sake of completeness in my Underworld collection; I had no idea what to expect from the content but just a couple of tracks into my first listen I found myself thinking "Im really glad I got this!" A far cry from the majority of Underworlds previous contributions to movie soundtracks - solid dancefloor tracks like Born Slippy .Nuxx, Dark Train, Moaner, Cowgirl and Pearls Girl - this is effectively an atmospheric and ambient LP from the duo, working here in partnership with Oscar-winning composer Gabriel Yared. The pieces here are thoughtful and often quite beautiful, led by acoustic guitar, strings or piano (as a fan of Harold Budd and Roger Eno I particularly like the piano-ambience). The compositions are mostly beatless, although some have gentle percussive elements, and are without lyrics, with only occasional vocal sounds on a couple of tracks; theyre also sequenced together smoothly, running for just under an hour in total and giving a very listenable whole (in contrast to some soundtrack albums).

Anthony Minghella, the movies writer/director and a frequent collaborator with Yared, provides five pages of sleeve-notes about the project and cites Underworlds 2002 album-track Ess Gee as being a major influence on his screenplay. Soon after buying the CD I made a point of renting the movie to hear the music in context. Minghellas commentary on the DVD provides some further insights - he explains that he has to "find the sound of a film" before being able to write for its characters and that he wanted the score to create a "restrained and muted world" with a "modesty" to it. He reiterates the importance of the "uninflected" sounds of Ess Gee during the writing process and how it led him to contact Underworld. Initially he intended them to work only as producers but evidently they started collaborating on actually making music with Yared almost immediately, despite his usual reluctance to work with other musicians. Minghella describes the end result as being "insidious, beautiful, careful [and] delicate", liking the way that it "doesnt tell you what to think", adding that its the only soundtrack from his film-making career that he listens to away from the movie - and Id recommend doing the same to appreciate it fully.

Babe Ruth - First Base - 03-Nov-06 11:23 PM
Babe Ruth was a five-piece rock band formed out of a group called Shacklock (named after their songwriter/guitarist Alan Shacklock) in Hatfield, England, in 1971 and they recorded this, their debut LP, the following year at EMIs Abbey Road studios. Alongside interesting covers of Jesse Winchester (Black Dog) and Frank Zappa (King Kong), the records opening song Wells Fargo displays the bands recurring obsession with using Hispanic/western themes in their work. Another example of this and the stand-out track on the album is The Mexican which begins with a delicate Spanish guitar intro and then has original Babe Ruth vocalist Jennie "Janita" Haan beltin out lyrics about a soldier serving under Santa Anna (during the 1836 Texan Revolt) before culminating in a big guitar riff borrowing Ennio Morricones theme to spaghetti western For A Few Dollars More (Babe Ruth went on to cover Morricones A Fistful Of Dollars on their self-titled third album); crucially the song also has a solid drum and bassline backing throughout.

Despite being by a British band, The Mexican made its most significant impact in America - during the birth of hiphop in New York. In the early/mid 1970s in the Bronx the biggest dance parties were hosted by Kool DJ Herc, starting out in the rec-room at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue and later overspilling into the first outdoor block parties. Herc became number one by crate-digging in record stores so that he could play the most exclusive and obscure records that the radio stations (and other party deejays) didnt have (and he even concealed the labels to keep them secret). Whilst playing these he observed that many of the dancers (who he dubbed his "b-boys") would wait for the funky drums on the instrumental break of a record before going wild on the dancefloor and he struck upon the idea of extending the break by either juggling between two copies of the same song (notably looping James Browns "clap yer hands, stomp yer feet" line from the album remix of Give It Up Or Turnit A Loose) or mixing together several different "break" tracks. Herc named this part of his set the "merry-go-round", unaware that hed simultaneously pioneered the concept of the "break-beat" and kickstarted the entire hiphop movement!! ...and the link to Babe Ruth is that one of Kool Hercs favourite vinyl exclusives to play in the merry-go-round was The Mexican. So, despite having a killer guitar riff, powerful vocals and exotic lyrics, the track became famous in the Bronx because of its instrumental break - which the band would probably have described as its least interesting part!

The track became an NYC block party anthem and was a frequent influence when hiphop records started to get released in later years, for example seminal electro classic Planet Rock rips the "Morricone bit" (around four minutes in) while Feel It (The Mexican) by the Funky Four on Sugar Hill converts some of the other guitar parts into trebly brass and squiggly synth riffs, copies the percussion and uses the same lyrical metre (but different words). Although itll never be as big as the Apache break (another "discovery" credited to Herc), the distinctive bassy Mexican break was used on several old skool hiphop tracks such as Africa (Goin Back Home) by Doug E Fresh, Prisoners Of War by Organized Konfusion and On The Run by the Jungle Brothers. All the original breaks tracks from the 70s are still just as popular today in the breakdance scene (although most of them were recorded by black American funk acts, not white British rock bands!) and Babe Ruths contribution in particular is respected and revered as a classic. This explains why DJ Spitfire used the break and vocals throughout his intro tracks on the Strictly B-Boy Breaks album in 2000 and Ive even seen footage of a breakin competition where not only does the deejay play The Mexican during the final b-boy battle but the event is actually named after one of the lyrics: "Chico Got To Have His Share".

Elsewhere - outside the hiphop world - The Mexican has inspired no less than three full cover versions: in 1978 the Bombers included a 12-minute disco work-out on their self-titled debut LP, in 1984 John "Jellybean" Benitez got Janita Haan on board for a freestyle interpretation that topped the Billboard dance chart and in 1999 German metallers Helloween recorded their take on the song for their compilation of covers entitled Metal Jukebox. Another copycat track is the massive 88 warehouse anthem Dreams Of Santa Anna by Orange Lemon (Todd Terry) which has a magical Morricone synth lead and a few sampled vocals (presumably taken from the acappella on the Jellybean 12"); Todd Terrys The Texican and JDs Good Vibrations also feature similar elements. The Mexican break can be found on one of the tracks on the Chem Bros Brothers Gonna Work It Out mix album too.

The songs historical significance and classic status is evidenced by its various appearances on (non-rock) compilations, for example the legendary Grandmaster Flash included it on his The Official Adventures... compilation on Strut and its one of several hiphop-sampled 70s breaks tracks used on the Prodigys 1997 Dirtchamber Sessions mix album where Liam plays a long section of The Mexican and even extends the instrumental break hiphop-style. Its also included on the Big Apple Productions old skool breaks megamix on the Ultimate Lessons 2 compilation, again with the break looped (which is no mean feat if mixed live on turntables as the basic guitar-free drum break is only four beats long).

Obsessives (like me!) should also check-out Morricones original whistled theme to Sergio Leones For A Few Dollars More, the cover version of it by Material featuring scratches by Grandmixer D.St (available on the 1992 reissue of the Memory Serves album) and the remix by Terranova with appropriately twangy spaghetti western guitar and a funky breakbeat (on the Morricone Rmx compilation). Also listen to The Good, The Bad And The Dread by Dreadzone which samples the whistling from the Morricone original.

Even as recently as a few weeks ago Babe Ruths masterful The Mexican is still cropping up - it was included as one of the unlockable songs on the (BAFTA Video Games Awards nominated) soundtrack to the new Sony PS2/PSP videogame B-Boy.

Loop Guru - The Third Chamber - 05-Oct-05 10:17 AM
Excellent outing from Loop Guru in ambient mode - full of radiant ambience (probably inspired by Brian Enos An Ending which gets a mention on the sleeve-notes of Loop Gurus Amrita LP) which is combined on tracks 1, 2 and 4 with long sections of hypnotic drums. This is all complemented by occasional additions of throat-singing, birdsong and gentle piano notes to create an entrancing hour-long journey.

For more of the same from LG check out the final track on Sus-San-Tics 5-10, the last half-hour on Duniya and all of Catalogue of Desires Volume 3 or - for a similar trip but with a deeper mood and more ethereal percussion - try One Thousand Years and All Our Ancestors both by Tuu.

View all 73 reviews...