DJ Negative Skillz

I had a go at the art of reviewing a long time ago and decided though I had an interest in music and writings about music I decided I wasn’t really much cop. So while I will try my best to give this review a good shot, apologies in advance for the shit prose – I’ve also compensated for this with some photos capturing my actual reactions to all of the songs on the tape.

First of all some of the circumstances of this tape. The paperwork states the tape was

‘mixed on 1 turntable with nuff pause button edits and rewinds by the one they call DJ Negative Skills'.

It was hand delivered to my place in East London on a Tuesday early evening (20th March). We get a lot of door-to-door sellers so I don’t always answer the door (figuring friends will bell me), so I’m glad I did this time. We had a brief but pleasant conversation, where I immediately broke the tape-swapping code by giving my dissensus name and asking for (and getting) his.

The tape is carefully crafted, with as much interest going on ‘in the mix’ as there is in the official tracks. For the whole of the tape it feels like DJ Negative Skills has his hands next to the record lining up another signature sabotage. This has the effect of making it feel like he’s sat there listening to the music with you, which feels kind of creepy but also gives you the discipline to listening properly and not being able to dismiss anything without giving it a proper listen.

I’ve listened to the tape around 10 times in the three or so weeks I've had it. Sometimes I've spun it in my spare music/work room (where all the pictures are taken) but it has also soundtracked my cycle ride to work ( though I got some funny looks pulling out my clunky walkman at work).



Onto the sounds, Side A starts with ‘For your love’ by the Yardbirds where we get a turntabalists re-reading of the song – the song dipping out of right and left channels, slowing down, stopping, the needle thudding against the record, before the tampering ends and we hear the whole if slightly slowed version of the record. This seems to work, a good start.



A change of tack up next with Salt N Pepa’s ‘shake your thang’ (featuring E.U) a slice of late 80s pop rap…which doesn't particularly move (Push It still cuts it but this is just meh) – lot of needle feedback creep in at the end, but I think this is all part of the compiler letting me know their on the controls



Then we have Rammelzee versus K. Rob, leftfield hip-hop from about the same time I think or just later. Rammelzee’s the strange looking dude adored by the Wire isn’t he. This is okay but nothing special. My ill-advised attendance at Shoreditch bars between 1999-2003 killed the vibe of anything 'old school' like this for me. Some more random turntabalism sneaking in at the end at the track cuts between channels, the turntable is unearthed, it cuts and fades, fades some more, cuts back in (I’m hoping this is all very deliberate).



Then we get a couple of slices of The Bordeoms ‘jungle taitei’ track, the second being labelled as DJ Let’s Try & DIY Drum Machine Mix, which sounds like an in-house job rather than any formal mix. Again we get some channel hopping – the first one spends a while just coming out of the right channel. The remix starts with a throbbing Aphex-like pulse going through it while the singer appears to be drowned. The drumbeat becomes more complex and rhythmic. I'm enjoying this, despite having to chase the sounds around the room.



Next is Nobukazu Takemura’s ‘a lost treasure’ a lovely solemn track with vocordered vocal. This is the first artist I’ve not heard of before but sounds worth looking into though I wouldn’t be surprised if I’d discover something in Schneider TM territory.



Next some plinky plonky business with The Remote Viewer – here it was difficult to tell if the glitches, speeding up and down was the author’s or curators italics. Quite a pleasant tune though, if nothing particularly different



Finally Dry Hustle ‘do it sloppily’ is a turntablists or VVM-style version of Missy Elliot’s ‘get ur freak on’…not really doing an awful lot for me.



Side B starts with Pram’s ‘eltopo’. I heard a lot about Pram during the post rock era, but never really bothered checking them out. This has an obvious Morricone influence, with a central (almost Casio sounding) whistling melody backed by occasionally epic strings. Then we get come radio fm searching (again not sure if this is part of the pram track or our compiler’s doing)



Then we get Dexy’s Midnight Runners ‘burn it down’ with some intro volume tampering and cutting out and slowing down by out turntablism champion…. I suppose this is kind of wearing for me now – particularly the switching from left to right channels. Great song though.



Then it’s Quickspace with ‘rise’, whimsical indie stuff – pleasant enough, but not particularly rousing in any way. I’m starting to think the flitting between left and right channels might be a cassette fault – only also the other turntablism antics is making me think otherwise.



Next it’s the more rocky sounding The Yummy Fur with ‘supermarket sounding a bit like Wire, which is quickly followed Neotropic ‘ultra freaky orange’ – filmic mid-90s sounding electronica/lounge/trip-hop…. though it is quite a dense sensory overload, these ears aren’t quite ready for a return of these type of Mo Wax/Vadim/Luke Vivert style soundings.



Then we get a blast of Merzbrow/Gore Beyond Necropsy with ‘a horse named rectal anarchy’…and blast is the right word, sounding like a high-speed train hurtling past. Again some confusion whether the tomfoolery in the mix is from our compiler or the track artists. Somewhere in there we also had Hijokaidan (another artists unknown to me) with ‘ferocity of practical life part 2’ though I didn’t spot exactly where!



Dave Brubeck Quartet’s ‘blue shadows in the street’ is an aptly named mournful swinger of a tune.




Next have Georgia Moroder’s fantastic thumping ‘call me’ instrumental. The tape closes with some distant radio signal beeping away for 15 minutes or so interspersed with some more gadgetry play from the compiler, including a 5 or so minute false ending.

I can't remember the last time someone gave me a handmade, uniquely compiled tape. It must have been my ex, from years ago. We did a tape swap once - bad, bad idea. She taped me a load of stuff that I wasn't very keen on, like 10,000 Maniacs and Kristin Hersh. One day, I revealed that I'd taped over it, I think I'd discovered some pirate station and instinctively chucked her tape in the deck to capture a piece of South London Jungle history (which I later lost). She went completely fucking apeshit - "Do you think I wanted to listen to that punk crap you taped me?" she screamed. "You just don't get it, do you? You NEVER get rid of tapes someone's made for you". At the time, I thought she was being ridiculous, but now I look back through the frozen wastepipes of time, I concede she had a point - but, as usual, it took me years, and until it was too late, to spot the obvious.

Anyway, a few words before I start my review. I've listened to the tape I was sent about seven times now, in various conditions. If I was to create a psychological profile of the compiler, I would guess that he is Australasian, has a pretty Mediterranean girlfriend, has DJ'd (professionally) in the past - oh, and that he wasn't at home on the 5th March when Hackney Homes attempted to conduct a Tree and Grass Inspection. Before Chef Napalm starts yelling again, yes, this tape is very well mixed and obviously hasn't been burnt off at random from MP3s, etc - are we all clear on that? Also, I deliberately haven't Googled any of these artists or tracks, to keep the 'review' as honest and unbiased as possible.

I didn't enjoy the beginning of the tape so much - "Pump" by HE SAID is a placid sort of Alabama 3-style jam, except it doesn't really sound like Alabama 3. It sounds OK if you're drifting off to sleep, I suppose....this is followed by some guy called BILL FAY, who sounds like an Aussie. "Sing us one of your songs, May" he urges, in what seems to be a song about a girl whose soldier boyfriend's been killed in action - maybe with the ANZACS? It's nice enough, but years of smoking must have hardened my heart, as I ended up wishing Fay would shut up and leave the grieving kid alone.

Then we get DAVID BANNER, with "Cadillacs on 22". This is the first of two tracks which the compiler has marked '(C&S)'. I don't know if this related to 'screwed' rap, as discussed on Dissensus, but the song title feels appropriate - this sounds like a R&B platter played at 22 rpm! To be really honest, I can't see the point of it, it sounds stupid. Next up are the ALIEN PORN MIDGETS - I was expecting some hardcore thrash band with wacky lyrics, but "High Altitude Over An Eastern Shore" turns out to be a genuinely 'screwed' instrumental, sort of like Martin Denny sniffing paint and knocking out some ragtime-exotica crossover tune for a 1940s black and white Tom and Jerry cartoon. I found this quite enjoyable, especially after I'd had a few drinks.

HOLGER HILLER's "Waltz" is next, which sounds a bit like one of those old BBC2 music workshop programmes from the 80s - you know, the ones where impeccably well-behaved kids would be split into groups and trained to play separate parts of an overall musical piece - one bunch of kids on glockenspiels, the others bashing triangles - oh, you get the point. I know this bloke's a bit of a cult Kraut legend, but I thought this track was excessively long and was a bit too tidy and conservative.

I've spent years avoiding the music of CAN, as, like Faust and Neu!, I figured it was boring shit for hippies. After nearly 30 years of resistance, I decided to check out the latter two bands this year, and was pleasantly suprised by Faust (I think Neu! suck though). However, this tape's forced me to seriously re-evaluate the situation: Can's "Transcendental Express" is a gloriously fucked-up experimental piece. If you've ever seen that episode of "The Prisoner" where Patrick McGoohan is slipped a powerful hallucinogenic drug and tries to cross a ballroom full of leering, melting faces, this song's a bit like the audio equivalent of that. Strangely beautiful with a hint of menace, at times reminiscent of dead souls wailing through a wind tunnel, it's completely made me change my mind about Can. The muso-critics were right! I've been a bloody fool!

I was looking forward to the LEGENDARY PINK DOTS track, as I was sure that I'd once bought an LP by them when I was living in Camberwell in 1995, which I'd really enjoyed. It was only when "Closet Kings" kicked in, though, I realised I'd actually been thinking of Pink Industry. This sounds like one of those jaunty, jangly, folky things that are splattered all over the "Messthetics" series of CD-Rs. Are they Australasian? I don't hate it, but it doesn't move me in a massive way.

Christ knows what to make of EXUMA's "Metastophalise" - the music's quite sombre, with a tragic, epic feel and scraping strings, but the guy delivering the rhyming soliloquy had me rolling round the floor with laughter, especially as he sounds like he's trying to come across as really sincere and anguished. Maybe I am just a heartless cunt - I always used to crack up laughing at that Tindersticks song about the kid who falls down the well, too - but I quite enjoyed this in the same way I like William Shatner's, er, 'cover' of "Elegy For the Brave". Exuma sound like they (or sounds like he?) could be a contemporary of Comus, part of that deviant 70s folk scene.

Then POSITION NORMAL's "Bucket Wipe" bleeps into action, sweet and hypnotic echoing intergalactic signal noises reverberate over a slightly phased guitar riff. It's got a Radiophonic Workshop feel, and harks back to the good old days when everyone thought that, come the year 2007, schools would be teaching subjects like 'space station communications' and we'd all be riding flying giant squids to work. I really dig the next track, "Stornello" by EUGENIO PILA, because it reminds me of the bloke who used to play his flamenco guitar in the backroom of the Camden all-night kebab shop, Marathons. I can't tell you the amount of nights we'd end up back there after gigs, especially during winter when, soaked in beer, we'd seek warmth, overpriced cans of Guinness and small donors until the tube re-opened at 5.30am - sod hanging round in the cold waiting for a night bus. Marathons is a bit of a London institution like that, I don't know anyone who hasn't been in there at 4am at some point in their lives. Whatever happened to the skinhead bloke who used to wear the plastic policeman's hat? I haven't been for ages, but this track sounds EXACTLY like Marathons used to, even down to the drunken conversations and laughter in the background.

Then WILEY delivers "Doorway", which manages to get across a positive message without sounding too preachy, and proves why grime is about 3,493,748 times more relevant and interesting than any of this Hed Kandi crap my workmates keep telling me about. FAUST's "Psalter" sounds immediately familiar, I've actually got this track on the "Faust 4" LP but it's got a different title there. I particularly like the handclaps on this track. MALACA's "Atola" has an imposing drum beat, though I couldn't really get into it - something about it annoyed me, particularly the vocals. EXCEPTER's "Whirl Wind" starts off with what sounds like a treated xylophone or steel drums sample, before a noise reminiscent of TG's later gigs kicks in, with low frequencies, echoing vocals and distorted electronic cornets zipping in and out of the mix. I liked this, but the one criticism is that the vocals were a bit too mellow - I think it'd benefit more from ripping off the early SPK /Ramleh style of metallic yelping and howling. LIGHTNING BOLT work for me occasionally, when they manage to lock into a spikey groove and keep it going. They do this on "2 Morro Morro Land", which ends Side 1, but there's a bit too much axe-wanking halfway through for my liking.

Side 2 begins with DJ SCREW's "21 Swishahouse" - right, so was this recorded at 21 rpm then? (PS- I'm not joking, I really don't know!) More slowed down rap business, awful. RUFF SQWAD have a bit of a soppy moment on "Motherland", and at risk of offending any Ghana-based readers, I thought this was terrible - twee tune, really wack 'rapping' - I just couldn't shake the image of fat policewomen trying to dance to this at Notting Hill. VITALIC's "Polkamatic" sounds like the theme tune to a really bad 70s Bulgarian religious TV series. Seriously, I know some people go bananas for this baldie DJ, but it just sounds to me like a rotting corpse playing on an organ in a dilapidated cathedral. Though that actually sounds alright....

Then we're up for three bits of unadulterated DANCE FUN. I'd rather have heard CROOKERS' "Buzz Beat", DJ COONE's "Love" and the untitled track from the BOOTLEGGER BEATS 2 white label in some brick-walled basement club, being lashed by flying dreadlocks - the smell of cigarettes, poppers, perfume and sweat blending into a warm fug - than on headphones in a flat in North London. I'd especially be interested in obtaining the latter record, on the strength of that track alone, purely for old skool nostalgia reasons.

Sadly, this cloudburst was shadowed by ARIEL PINK's "House Arrest". I'm glad I never checked this bloke out when he was hot shit on Dissensus. With the opening chords to this song, I honestly expected a voice to pop out, crooning Ooh, you make me live...well, if your idea of fun's a Mark Stewart imitator groaning behind some flanged Radio 2 granny-friendly gush, you're welcome to it. HAVING SAID THAT, I did actually quite like the ending fade-out of this song. Unfortunately, it was followed by RED CRAYOLA, whose "The Mistakes of Trotsky" is up to their usual, abysmal standards. To be fair, the only other RC I've heard is the "Soldier Talk" LP from '79 - I really liked the sharp, clanging guitar sound on that album, but it was completely wasted by the band's insistence on establishing their 'cleverness' and 'experimentalism' by farting around with time and tune changes every 30 seconds, instead of locking into a potentially devastating groove. This song's folkie shit with spindly vocals, as wet and slimey as seaweed.

I have a lot more time for LE ORME's atmospheric and evocative "All'Infuori del Tempo" - again, I'd rather have been strolling around Genoa's Old Town section in twilight than stuck in London when playing this. At least they (or he?) know what they're doing and they do it very well. I hate the term "life affirming", but this is definitely "soul rousing" at the very least. It sounds like it could be from the 70s, though has a timeless quality, and it makes me wish I had some tasty, raven-haired Italian vixen with wraparound shades to spend the summer with - having violent arguments, eating gnocci and drinking too much red wine.

On a 'soul rousing' theme (god, that sounds even more pretentious than 'life affirming'), NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL's untitled instrumental piece is another winner. I think bagpipes are involved? It's like a march over some dewy glen at sunrise, and sounds better the louder you play it. Kind of gave me a warm feeling, like winning the lottery.

Another band I checked out for the first time ever this year was the Pretty Things, brilliant UK 60s psych-garage beat, a genre that's still pretty 'new' to me. So I was pleased to hear "Imposters of Life's Magazine" by THE IDLE RACE, which conjures up images of collar-length hair and mod suits, dropping black bombers and Picadilly shebeens, better than anything the Stones or Beatles ever cooked up. Like the Pretty Things' "Death of A Socialite", the lyrics seem to viciously mock the lameness of fame and celebrity culture, over a twisting and turning beat.

"Air" by INCREDIBLE STRING BAND is fairly dull, sounds a bit like something Thora Hird would have listened to on the bus on her way to Sunday evening mass, but it leads into what, for me, is one of the gobsmacking tracks on the tape. If you'd told me 2 weeks ago I'd really enjoy a piece of music by a brass band, I'd have laughed in your mug. But I found "Bradford" by BESSES O'THE BARN BAND a genuinely potent and moving piece, easily equalling any experimental piece you'd care to mention. Despite being anti-nationalist, I quite enjoy regionalism, but although I was born in the Smoke, I've always had a soft spot for Yorkshire. I like their attitudes towards life. Maybe it's also because my mum was sent from Ireland to live in York when she was 6, resulting in a bizarre mongrel accent. "Bradford" is strong and passionate, but there's also a strange sense of keen melancholy, as if shouldering the woes of this city, shaken in the 80s by unemployment, the imbecilic Yorkshire Ripper and the football ground fire.Bizarrely, I got a lump in my throat.

Side 2 ends with OG RON C's "DSR" - more slowed down rap, give it a rest! - BUCCANEER's "Kill A Sound" - not bad, but not really my favourite dancehall MC, a bit too laidback - and PEOPLE LIKE US' odd "Music Alone". Though, personally, it was going to take something SERIOUSLY extra-special to shift the powerful spell cast by "Bradford".

Well, there you go. I'd say I liked at least half of it, which is certainly good going in my book. At its best, some parts reminded me of listening to John Peel back in the old days, and there's not many compliments you can pay a DJ to top that, really. I'd also like to thank the compiler for breaking down my anti-Can prejudice, and for introducing me to some freaky folks who I'm now gonna Google after hitting the PUBLISH button for this post. And as yr based in Hackney, give us a yell on Dissensus, you ought to come along to the next NE London drink-up. Unless you're still waiting for Hackney Homes' garden unit to turn up with their chainsaws. Cheers! MARTIN