Loads of Hardcore!

I’ve never got a mixtape in the post before. I wasn’t even aware that people used the internet for this sort of thing, although it should really have been obvious from the outset. I mean, as soon as those scientists had finished transmitting large parcels of data all over the north-eastern United States way back in the early days, the next thing they did must have been swapping mixtapes, right? Or something. Anyway, I had no idea what might be contained within the brown paper envelope that arrived in my letterbox. Could be anything, really, which is kind of the point. Turns out it was CD. A CD with ‘Illegal Rave’ written on it in magic marker. The cover was a basic plastic sleeve with a tantalisingly incomplete flyer inside. One side of the flyer informed me that from 9pm to 6am every Friday night, something went on at a place called ‘Milwaukees’. The other side of the flyer had a picture of a large crowd gathered behind a steel fence, as well as one of two guys clearly having quite a nice time, thanks very much. So I put the disc in my CD player and pushed the button. A voice springs out of the speakers…

Bloke A: “You got any hardcore?”
Bloke B: “ Whazzat mate, sorry?
Bloke A: “I said, you got any hardcore?”
Bloke B: “Hardcore?! Yeah sure, we got loads of hardcore! We got Reinforced Records, Moving Shadow Records, Strictly Underground Records….what you want, mate, c’mon, what you want?
Bloke A: “Have you got Trip to Trumpton?”

A-ha! So it’s hardcore! I’d been having what you might call tantalising brushes with this thing that people called hardcore for some time now, but I’d never actually managed to get around to listening to any, apart from lots of half-remembered pitched-up Kylie vocals and huge kick-drums in the closing stages of raves. I wasn’t sure I was going to like a whole CD full of that kind of thing. Thankfully, this wasn’t anything of the sort. This was completely mental. The music poured into the room, covered in a thick layer of static. Piano rolls, huge wobbly bass. Ropey mixing, weird pitch-shifts. Rhythms all piling in on top of each other. Bloody brilliant. I hadn’t heard anything this exciting in ages. I mean, it didn’t sound that great. This wasn’t yer hi-fi, buddy. It wasn’t melodically complex or even particularly ordered. It wasn’t conforming to a set of boundaries outside those imposed by the technology used to make the music, or if it was it made a very good job of hiding the fact. No, this was pure, unbridled, noisy energy and it sounded like dancing! It sounded like good times on the dancefloor with all your best friends and those guys standing in the queue at Milwaukees. The disc went on for about an hour, and the lack of track markers meant that there was no going back if I wanted to hear the end. The end came halfway through a really neat build-up, but I suppose that’s kind of appropriate, if a little bit disappointing.

So thanks, mysterious Londoner. It’s not every day you get to hear just over an hour of fresh, oddly resonant music that gets you dancing around your living room like a man possessed. I’ll be seeking out some more of this kind of thing, for sure.

SUPERSTAR DJS FUCK OFF! - From LDN to the Chi

I have so much Ferrite Love I cannot even describe how excited I was to receive my tape in the mail. And even better -- it came from the UK! Part of the reason I hang around Dissensus is to soak up all the lovely Brit vibes, so this rubbed my Anglophilic pleasure zones right before I opened the package! I did face some not-insubstantial disappointment, however, after ripping into the envelope -- in violation of established rules and long-held customs, the tape was not decorated!

However, in the charitable spirit of international mix exchange, I will dub this a deliberate aesthetic choice, and actually, now that I think about it, quite appropriate for the rough-around-the-edges contents contained therein.

I was further delighted by the tracklisting, handscrawled on a piece of notebook paper: I recognized barely any of the artists and NONE of the songs. Exactly why I got into this business. And the flippant description! I knew this would be something special.

I will refrain from narrating the entire contents, but I'll do my best to describe the music: PUNK AS FUCK without an overwhelming amount of punk. Really, the mixture of reggae, punk, jungle/breakcore, with the odd bit of grime/bhangra/pub chant made me think "AUTHENTIC UK CULTURAL PRODUCT" many times, and I said as much to my friends if they happened to be in the car with me: "Yeah, you know, I got this tape from North London... got connections on the interweb doncha know..." If I were a mixtape archaeologist (and Xenu willing, I will be some day), I'd say the fella who recorded this (on his "battered, 14-year old aiwa tape deck") is between 30 and 40 years of age, of Irish extraction but currently living in London (and probably a bit bitter about it), peppers his diction with liberal doses of "fuck" and "cunt," can drink me under the table, and has a box of 7-inches in his closet that pisses on my entire record collection from a great height. Some indications of at least one poorly made amateur tattoo from his teen years, but an all around clever guy. Apologies if I'm off the mark, this is practice.

Anyway, the MUSIC! Most of it I enjoyed greatly -- I've always believed track selection is 90% of what makes a good mix, and this one had it in spades. In fact, within days I had downloaded Lee Perry's "Dubbing Psycho Thriller," Z-Factor's "Fast Cars" (I am going to kill many a mixtape with this no-wave gem, don't let my secret out), and Salma Agha's sublime Bollywood funk, "Sote Sote Adhi Raat." Side A is practically perfect, except that the Resonance FM Midnight Sex Chat bit at the beginning is too unintelligible and basically sounds like someone watching television in the next room. My no-count friends (aka DRUNKS) also loved the punk songs and the overall working class atmosphere the tape provided for the Nissan, as frequently my car trips include too much gay dance music and too much rap in incomprehensible languages. The Slaughter and the Dogs track went over particularly well with this crowd.

Where my friends and I differed was on the prevalence of pub sing-a-longs and other Irish folky bits on Side B, and that's because I'm a nancyboy without a drop of Irish blood in my body. I fast-forward through the John Cooper Clarke every time. Give me more of the Tuff To The Bone, it makes me feel well hard (you see what this British culture does to me). HOWEVER, I forgive the tape all minor sins on established anthropological grounds -- I am not such a philistine that I can't recognize EXCLUSIVE AUTHENTIC CULTURAL PRODUCT when I hear it, and I continue to keep this tape close at hand. I just hope its Spartan decor doesn't let it get lost in my pile of FAR INFERIOR mixtapes which I have similarly neglected to label. Good sequencing, consistent volume, and shit-hot track selection makes this a treasured artifact in my music collection, exotic origins notwithstanding. And I'd trade your tape recorder over mine in a hot minute.

“All you freaky ass ho’s from the north to the south,
stick out your tongue
and get these balls up in your mouth”

DJ Deeon – Gimme Head

One thing that may always be a mystery too me is why girls seem to absolutely love Ghettotech. Lyrically it’s some of the most vulgar and misogynistic music there is; but hell when it comes time to drop ones booty to the floor it seems it’s ‘the dirtier the better’ as a rule. I’m sure not complaining though cause it certainly raises the temperature of a dancefloor on a Saturday night and really, I think we all know to take this with a pretty big grain of salt(no matter what Dj Assault’s true intentions are…). But I digress, for this is no ghettotech mix (although I just happen to know and love all 3 tracks here and only a few others on the rest of the tape), no it’s 18 songs and 45 minutes of relentless, energetic, eclectic, bass-heavy and sweat inducing peak-time tunes.

I’d go through each tune but I’d run the risk of sounding like an ignorant fool so I’ll stick with the 8 that I know for sure and gloss over the one’s that caught my ear that I don’t know. The three aforementioned Ghettotech songs help gets things warmed up, first with Aaron Carl’s seductive 21 positions, mmm I love sexy girls singing about dirty things…mmm that bassline, oo yeaaa…ahem. Next we have the previously quoted Gimme Head by DJ Deeon, hmm wonder what this songs about (songs got an undeniable beat though)…and then, a classic, Assault’s Dick by the Pound. This is the second Ghettotech song I ever heard, I know its second because it’s the song after Ass’N’Titties on Mr Mutha Fukha. I love this song because of the back and forth vocals which are strangely…err…do I dare say, charming?! (now that is not the right word…). Next up is a pretty epic female fronted Baile Funk track which I haven’t a clue about but if the author of this tape wants to spill the beans, you know...I’d appreciate it and stuff.


The next song is Dexplicit feat. Nana – Lost Control (wideboys booty juice mix) a bassline tune I didn’t know at all when I first got this tape, but the past month I’ve been poking my nose around the web(or mainly just Continuum’s blog and the Dissensus thread) and happened upon it completely by accident. It’s actually a pretty great song for some reason I can’t really put my finger on. In a genre where every song sounds the same, it’s one of the few songs that sounds different, but really it doesn’t sound different at all…ugh I have no idea how to describe this song, but I just know I like it(and pretty much everything else Dexplicit has a hand in).

The next song is by the mighty Blaqstarr (who I wish would release a whole lot more since everything he’s done is golden to my ears). All the girls around the world is simply a great B-more track, the signature stuttering beat, the androgynous vocal beckoning the girls to the dancefloor and the wonderful little descending guitar sample floating in the background holding everything together; pure bliss(yes that’s all it takes for me to achieve bliss). We then segue into another song I’m a big fan of, Akon’s Don’t Matter (Calypso remix). I’m assuming pretty much everyone’s heard the original, yea this version’s better, that’s all I’m gonna say about that.

There really is only one song on here that I can say I’m not a fan of. I don’t know who it’s by but it’s some weird reggaeton song sampling Europe’s Final Countdown. Yea the song’s the sample and some drums and some shouting in Spanish over it…meh. A couple of songs later tough Mr. (or Mrs.??) DJ makes me completely forget that hiccup and drops a song my roommate would always play when we were passing the bong around, but I was always too mashed to remember who it was. Anyways it queued up a whole lot of nostalgia (ah the nostalgia of two years past) and the first time I heard it on the tape I was so surprised I think I almost cried and I rewound it 3 or 4 times. Anyways I scrambled to finally figure out who the hell made this wonderfully bizarre politically charged Calypso tinged track. I guess it was a song called Wanted (Dead or Alive) by Manhattan Transfer originally, who I admittedly don’t really know anything about, but the version on this tape is a cover I think cause the beats a bit heavier, the vocalist’s different and there’s these bleeping noises over the top. The version I downloaded is good but not as good as the one on the tape.

Ok the next two songs gave me a shit eating grin because they were incredibly stupid (in absolutely the best way imaginable). The first is a fiery Baile Funk track, which is a genre which is always wacky. It opens up sampling the theme from Star Wars, queue angry Brazilian rapping and heavy bass, nuff said, awesome track. The next is a sped up dubbed out mix of Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean. This song does inexplicable things to people on the dancefloor, great great great track and if I don’t find out who did this song soon my life will be left incomplete. Anyways the tape pretty much winds itself up with the Cutty Ranks song A Who Seh Meh Dun(Wake De Man) which is a real pleasant end of the night tune ideal for those end of party L’s when everyone that’s not important has already left.

O’ I guess I should say at this point the A side to this tape is completely inaudible, maybe that’s why it’s called Is That All There Is? It’s quite alright I tested this one side at a house party a bit ago and you can’t give a better review to a party mix than to have 20+ people dropping it and making it sweat. That wraps up my horribly written slapdash review. Peace.

NOW REVIEW MY TAPE PLEASE!!

First???

My tape arrived much later than Herr Lepper had planned, months and months after I sent my tape out. My first problem was finding something to play it on. My old tape deck had died for the second time. I dug around in my attic and found an old Walkman.

I knew quite a few of the artists on the tape: Jap Noise exponents Ghost, blind beatnik jazzbo Moondog, Norwegian Art-Metal band Noxagt, UK Folk super-group Pentangle, obscure bruised American Folkster Jack Rose, US Indie Rock Comets on Fire (is that right?) and apocalyptic gimp Charles Manson. I think that gives quite a good idea of the flavour of the tape itself. It was quite a gnarly, depressing compilation of burnt-out sonics. There was however a very distinct palette that was being used and it was refreshing to not have to listen to any modern electronic beats, even if one track a kind of Avant-Undie thingummy with that Will Oldham’s cousin doing nasal rapping over occluded beats did make a showing.

Given the provided artwork and the Northern England postcode I guessed, or rather imagined, that the compiler was once at something like Liverpool Art School. For my own part, and perhaps in direct contradiction to my last comments, I wondered how it was possible to make such a tape without a greater allusion to the dominant drive of 1990s music, dance. It was like that decade had never happened, though I’m sure many people are glad it has been brushed under the carpet. There was something markedly un-deconstructed about all the tracks, and that's always a quality I enjoy.

What struck me most however was the wonderful rich treacly sonics of my old Walkman. I subsequently made the pledge to move back to cassettes on a grander scale. If I had a tape-deck in my hatchback it wouldn’t keep getting broken into! There are some marvellous old tape decks, Nakamichis and Tandbergs, and using one would mean I’d keep a pure analogue pipeline from my old records. The mix-tape as a vehicle
can’t be beat can it?