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Today's compilation:

Superlongevity 2 2001 Minimal Techno / Microhouse / Tech-House

A little bit surprised by just how much this one actually failed to click with me here. I've never really ventured all that much into the realms of the more minimally-flavored styles of dance like minimal techno and microhouse before, but this release is so highly rated on Discogs that I thought I was gonna enjoy it; but I didn't.

See, I guess what's always drawn me to a whole lot of different types of music in the first place is the overall dynamism—that is, music with rhythmic and melodic layers to it that has a bunch of different elements coalescing around each other to form a fully-fledged song. And when something like that doesn't end up taking place, I'm far less likely to be riveted.

Now, two things here: one, to be very clear, I'm not posting about the much more popular double-disc DJ mix version of Superlongevity 2; what I plugged into today is the double *12-inch* version of it, which plucked out a handful of tracks that appeared on the DJ mix and presented them in their full, unmixed versions.

And two, no shade at all to the makers of these quieter styles of dance music, either. I hear the innovation in some of these tracks in which this 'less is more' mentality bears a unique type of fruit that can't be yielded with a more maximal ethos. For example, the approach to creating a backbeat with this stuff can be a much more meticulous process than it would be with a regular four-on-the-floor tune, because that backbeat is just so much more prominent on tracks like these. And a song like Dimbiman's "Hōkūle'A," which embeds tiny specks of unidentifiable vocal samples into its backbeat, serves as a prime example of a tune that doesn't overlook its most foundational element, which some terrific house tunes are able to totally get away with, with their pretty simple combinations of 4/4 kick drums, hi-hats, and hand-claps.

But still—and there are definitely exceptions to my own rule here—I'm almost always gonna want more meat on the bone than what's provided in this comp. Nothing but respect for the people who've tried to expand the sonic limitations of dance music and forge new paths for it, but my tastes tend to lean towards something with a lot more thickness. I'll always give this stuff a chance and have been personally wowed by people like Heiko Laux's brand of minimal techno, as well as a bunch of tracks off of this microhouse comp from German label Kompakt, for example, but give me something with a lot less empty space and I'm probably gonna end up digging that more than this crop of tunes here.

All that said, though, maybe the double-disc DJ mix version of this album that was done by Zip—co-founder of the German label that put this thing out, Perlon—will be such a transcendent experience for me that it will completely change my mind one day and I'll regret having written most of what I just said above 😅🤷‍♂️.

No highlights.

#minimal techno #techno #microhouse #micro house #house #house music #tech house #dance #dance music #electronic #electronic music #music #2000s #2000s music #2000's #2000's music #00s #00s music #00's #00's music

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Today's mix:

Audiophonic 5 by Christian Weber 2001 Techno / Electro

Finally! A techno mix from 2001 with a good amount of absolute bangers on it, folks! I was really in a little bit of a rut over the past week or so with this early 2000s techno mix foray that I've been on recently, but this one here managed to pull me right out of it 🤘. And I really don't know who Christian Weber is—seems like the vast majority of his career just consists of these Audiophonic mixes for Berlin-based label Fine Audio Recordings—but he picked some fantastic tunes for this CD nonetheless.

Here's the big disclaimer, though: if you want something that's mixed well, you need to avoid this thing at all costs, because the transitions on this really are just absolute, bottom-of-the-barrel, gutter-ass. However, if lack of mixing skills isn't a dealbreaker and you just want a sampling of some fire techno tunes from 2000 and 2001, this pretty broad selection of tracks will definitely have you covered.

Undoubtedly, the two best tunes on here come back-to-back, when in the somewhat early going Weber unleashes a pair of remixes from the inimitable Swedish techno wizard, Adam Beyer. Here we get Beyer's take on duo Air Frog's (Jesper Dahlbäck and Stephan Grieder) "Bon Voyage," which implements the original version's irresistibly wicked and fuzzy sub-bassline; and immediately after that we're treated to another total ground-shaker with Beyer's remix of Ben Sims' "Manipulated," which sees Beyer on that nuttily thooming-and-booming, super percussive tribal shit, as a bevy of clamorous drums and dinging hi-hats play alongside vocal samples of Cuban singer Albita's "Ta Bueno Ya." Really incredible stuff.

And another excellent tune on here is German native Richard Bartz' techno remix of Italo-disco trio 'Lectric Workers' 1982 song, "Robot Is Systematic." With this one, Bartz adds a techno backbeat and plonky synths to accompany the original version's classic, sci-fi futuristic lead string melody. An awesome modern update for a sweet and much older dance tune.

So, like I said, if you're looking for someone who can throw down a stellar DJ mix, Christian Weber's Audiophonic 5 is not for you, but if you treat this thing more like an early 2000s techno playlist of sorts, I guarantee you're gonna really dig a bunch of these selections here 🙌.

Listen to the full mix here.

Highlights:

DJ Zank - "Game Over" Air Frog - "Bon Voyage (Adam Beyer Mix)" Ben Sims - "Manipulated (Adam Beyer Remix)" Dirty Ali + Funky Farid - "Electronic for Children (Warriors Groove Mix)" Bolz Bolz - "Out the Door" Lectric Workers - "Robot Is Systematic (Richard Bartz Remix)"

#techno #electro #dance #dance music #electronic #electronic music #music #2000s #2000s music #2000's #2000's music #00s #00s music #00's #00's music

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Today's mix:

The Sound of Eukatech Five by Nils Hess 2001 Techno / Tech-House

Decent and ephemeral techno and tech-house dispatch here from the London-based Eukatech label's Sound of Eukatech series that was released in 2001 and mixed by Nils Hess, who, before delivering this one, had also co-mixed the previous installment of this series with Richard Summerhayes, and had also done The Sound of Eukahouse for a Eukatech sublabel whose name you can probably guess as well.

Now, normally, when it comes to any comp or mix whose name begins with 'Sound of…,' I think it'd be safe to assume that what's on that release is going to be material from a single entity—in this case a label, namely, Eukatech. But that doesn't actually seem to be the case here. *Some* of the tracks that appear on this album are from the Eukatech catalog, but not nearly all of them. And I wouldn't necessarily call that deceptive or misleading, but if you're a newcomer to this series, it definitely might be a bit unexpected.

Anyway, props to Nils Hess himself for not only doing this mix, but also showing that he can hack it as a producer too, because among this tracklist that has some pretty notable turn-of-the-millennium European techno names on it, it's Hess, under his Reck moniker, who delivers one of its greatest gems in "Dragons Turning," which is remixed by Stigmata, a German duo that just so happened to take home the award for 'Best Producer' at the German Dance Awards for the same year that this mix was released. This is a song that takes some time to brew, but once you get a taste of its sweet, dinging hi-hats, it really finds some nice and steady footing 😌.

But a song on here that might be better than Nils Hess' own offering is the one that directly succeeds it: beloved Slovenian DJ and techno/tech-house god Umek's "Potential 11 B2." Umek has a career that dates back to the early 90s, but long before the term 'EDM' became widely adopted and Umek started racking up numerous accolades and high rankings among various publications and websites that specialized in EDM itself, he was churning out darkly nifty productions like this one, which sees a pairing-up of a panicked, plonking synth melody with some intermittently hard and banging hi-hats. And Nils Hess appears to be the only one who's ever laced a commercial mix with this bit of gold too.

So an overall solid and well-mixed set from the early 2000s here by the UK's Nils Hess. It's not an exceptional release that's going to totally blow you away by any means, but he definitely manages to pack some tasty techno goodies in here regardless 😋.

Listen to the full mix here.

Highlights:

Rino Cerrone - "Optical Way" Gaetano Parisio - "Pain 23" Gaetano Parisio - "The Preface C1" Reck - "Dragons Turning (Stigmata Remix)" Umek - "Potential 11 B2"

#techno #tech house #dance #dance music #electronic #electronic music #music #90s #90s music #90's #90's music #2000s #2000s music #2000's #2000's music #00s #00s music #00's #00's music

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Today's compilation:

Baby Boomer Classics: Heart & Soul Fifties 1985/1988 R&B / Rock & Roll

Folks, I gotta say, for how short this release is—13 songs that amount to only about half an hour—this might be the most potent 50s comp that I've ever come across in my many years of collecting. See, there's plenty of nostalgic comps out there that just slap together a bunch of chart-busters and then call it a day without giving much of any thought to how much juice any of the selections may still actually have, but when the California-based JCI label put this dispatch from their Baby Boomer Classics series together in 1985, and then re-released it again in 1988 with a replacement of Wilbert Harrison's terrifically catchy R&B classic, "Kansas City," with Joe Turner's "Corinne, Corrina," they seemed to be far more concerned with how good the actual songs still sounded rather than with how well they charted back in the day.

And to be clear, most of these songs still did chart very well themselves anyway, but do you know how many big hits there were in the 50s that don't really sound that great anymore? A whole lot. And JCI didn't end up picking any of those for this album; these selections that they made almost four whole decades ago are still really no worse for wear than they were when they first came out. And that's pretty remarkable, given how much music from the 50s really doesn't quite strike like it used to anymore.

Now, if you already know your oldies like the back of your own hand, you're probably not gonna find much utility in this album, because even though there's no real lackluster filler in this small set, you're likely to be very familiar with these tunes already. But if you're someone who's never really been exposed to much in the way of great 50s music before, I really cannot recommend this album enough as your starter pack. You've got probably my favorite 50s hit of all time on this thing in Lloyd Price's "Stagger Lee"—a song so good that it legitimately has the capacity to turn me misty-eyed, even though I was born long after the 50s and have no personal nostalgic attachment to it whatsoever—as well as one of the greatest pieces of loud and dynamic group doo wop that's ever been recorded too: The Silhouettes' "Get a Job." And on top of that is Little Richard's "Lucille," plus Smiley Lewis' "I Hear You Knocking," which Little Richard would go on to cover himself too, as well as Welshman Dave Edmunds, who would deliver a great blues-rock version of it in 1970 🤘.

But, as seems to be a feature and not a bug with this Baby Boomer Classics series at this point, another one of the best songs on this record, which also happens to be probably its most obscure selection too, is a tune that's not actually from the 50s: Bobby Bland's "Turn On Your Love Light," which came out in 1961. While the rest of the songs on this album were big top-ten or top-twenty hits, this one only made it to #28 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart; so when it comes to this oldies comp wing of the music industry, this is not a tune that you're gonna come across very often. But it's a total gem, with a sweet and uptempo, shuffling drumbeat that's made to bolster Bobby Bland's own soulful voice that hits some really satisfying points of throaty gravelliness throughout 🥹.

I'm really in awe over how well JCI managed to nail this one. An assorted cream of the 50s crop right here in just 13 songs. Not an easy thing to pull off, but these are some really stellar choices 👍.

Highlights:

Wilbert Harrison - "Kansas City" Thurston Harris - "Little Bitty Pretty One" Bobby Bland - "Turn On Your Love Light" Little Richard - "Lucille" The Silhouettes - "Get a Job" Clyde McPhatter - "Lover Please" Smiley Lewis - "I Hear You Knocking" Lloyd Price - "Stagger Lee"

#r&b #r & b #rhythm & blues #rhythm and blues #rock & roll #rock and roll #oldies #classic rock #music #50s #50s music #50's #50's music #rock #60s #60s music #60's #60's music

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Chicago Blues Playlist

Blowing the dust off of this excellent playlist of mostly overlooked Chicago blues goodies that I haven’t made any alterations to since all the way back in 2019! This week I’ve added five songs, four of which are by Sunnyland Slim, a very gifted pianist and vocalist who originally hailed from Mississippi and then moved to Chicago in the early 40s, only to become an integral part of the Windy City’s own storied postwar scene.

Now, my favorite add of his with this update is a song called “Highway 61.” There’s another version of this song that’s already on this playlist that was officially released on the b-side of a 7-inch single back in 1956 for Cobra Records, but this version is soooo much noisier, with booming percussion, loud harmonica, guitar, and Slim’s yowling vocals to cut through it all, along with some piano work from him on the instrumental bridge too. A really terrific song with somewhere around 4,200 Spotify plays.

Sunnyland Slim - “Mary Lee” Sunnyland Slim - “That Woman” Little Milton - “Looking for My Baby” Howlin’ Wolf - “Smokestack Lightnin’” Sunnyland Slim - “Highway 61” Sunnyland Slim - “It’s You Baby”

And this playlist is also on YouTube and YouTube Music too.

So this update now brings us to 30 songs in total that amount to 91 minutes. And I know that my corresponding YouTube playlists usually come with added bonus tracks that can’t be found on Spotify at all, but that’s not the case with this one; everything I’ve wanted on this thing so far is on both Spotify and YouTube. But, just so you know, eight of the final nine tracks come off of one of my favorite blues comps of all time, Jewel Spotlights the Blues, Volume 2, which consists of songs from the great Shreveport, Louisiana-based Jewel Records. On YouTube, the artists on this album are credited correctly, but for some reason on Spotify they’re all misattributed to Lightnin’ Hopkins 🤷‍♂️. So, to clear up any confusion, for most of those final tracks on this playlist as of right now, here’s who they’re really by:

Magic Sam - "Everything Gonna Be Alright" Otis Rush - "Double Trouble" Buddy Guy - "You Sure Can't Do" Earl Hooker - "Blue Guitar" George "Wild Child" Butler - "Put It All in There" Buster Benton - "Spider in My Stew" Buster Benton - "Money Is the Name of the Game" Willie Dixon - "New Way of Lovin'"

A little bit of soul next week.

Enjoy!

More to come, eventually. Stay tuned!

Like what you hear? Follow me on Spotify and YouTube for more cool playlists and uploads!

#blues #the blues #chicago #music #50s #50s music #50's #50's music #60s #60s music #60's #60's music #70s #70s music #70's #70's music #illinois #playlist #spotify playlist #spotify playlists #playlists #youtube playlist #youtube playlists #youtube music playlist #youtube music playlists #Spotify

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Today's mix:

An Agenda and a Beat by Dietrich Schoenemann 2001 Techno

Alright, well, yesterday I posted about a pretty damn great techno mix from 2001 by longtime veteran French DJ John Thomas that left me wondering why the guy never released another commercial mix in his life, but today we have a techno mix from that same year by veteran New York DJ Dietrich Schoenemann that won't have you wondering why he only released one commercial mix in his life; because the thing is a pretty incohesive bore! 🥱

An Agenda and a Beat—a title that I would guess is making reference to Schoenemann's own time spent on New York tribal techno label Hidden Agenda— states in its liner notes that what Schoenemann was going for here was not necessarily a polished, studio-made mix, but something more reflective of playing live and in the moment, to a crowd. But what that idea ended up yielding actually just feels like a sparsely attended warm-up set. There's no direction or theme here, and the selection just really feels like a total grab-bag of steady, yet largely forgettable late 90s and early-aughts techno.

However, there is one totally insane banger on here that I can't not talk about, and it's UK duo Subhead's "Mod-U-Like." Shortly after downsizing from a trio that included the likes of Jamie Liddell, the pair of Jason Leach and Phil Wells had this one lead off their 1997 12-inch, Size 9. And props to Dietrich for then being the only DJ to ever put this one in a commercial mix (at least according to Discogs), because it really is such a truly nutty piece of punchy and thumping madness—like you're bearing sonic witness to the ritual disembowelment of a Speak-n-Spell 🔨🤖—and odds are I would've never come across this gem had I not decided to give this particular mix a whirl.

And once again, for the millionth time, this is why we never shut anything off, folks, no matter how bad or listless it may feel!

Listen to the full mix here.

Highlights:

Subhead - "Mod-U-Like"

#techno #dance #dance music #electronic #electronic music #music #90s #90s music #90's #90's music #2000s #2000s music #2000's #2000's music #00s #00s music #00's #00's music

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Today's mix:

Caught in the Act by John Thomas 2001 Techno

Good lord, this was quite an extensive journey, folks. Back in 2001, France's John Thomas, who'd been DJing since the late 80s, *finally* put out the only mix that he'd ever release commercially in his entire career: Caught in the Act, on French label Logistic Records. The way this story goes is that Thomas decided to start producing sometime around '96, and then in '97 Logistic would launch with his own debut release, soon followed by some records that he had also made with a guy named Olivier Micheli too, under the name of Static Drum. In fact, although Thomas didn't found Logistic himself, it was pretty much either he or Static Drum that was responsible for the label's first 15 releases altogether, until Detroit techno legend Robert Hood broke that trend in 2000.

And in the run-up to releasing his debut LP, Blackstage, Thomas also put out this simply wild mix that same year, which really seems to serve as a contemporaneously multi-flavored and super dense clinic of highly rhythmic and throbbing techno music. It's not much to start, but eventually, when Thomas decides that he wants to solidify in a dark and dystopian direction, this thing ends up developing into a total monster.

And this isn't one of those linear mixes where tracks simply fade into and out of one another, either; JT's doing some pretty sweet multi-deck blending here. For example, he lets this mix's very own crown jewel, Umek's "Mamomit"—a song whose melody sounds like you asked a robot to play the most fucked up kind of jazz that it could possibly come up with—bleed all the way throughout the succeeding track, S.B. Project's "Cultural Co-Operation (B2)."

Some people may balk at Thomas' choice to not stay in one lane here, though. I mean, 33 tracks is quite a lot for just a 74-minute mix, after all. And while nothing beats the extended section of sci-fi madness on here, which on top of those two aforementioned tracks also includes Robert Hood's "Moveable Parts Chapter 1 Untitled 2," Olga+Jozef's "#07 B1," "A4" off of Ben Long's Imperial Leather EP, and the stunning "So Big So Close" by Diskordia as well, it does feel a little bit off when he decides to keep going after venturing outside of that realm. Like, I'll never say no to Andrew Mc Lauchlan's Brazilian-sampled "Love Story," one of the most essential techno tracks of the early 2000s, but it really would've served as a nice bow on this thing, especially since Thomas opened up his mix with a different Mc Lauchlan track too; it just doesn't really feel like there was a need to keep going with four more tracks after that one.

But be that as it may, the long and meaty middle of this mix is where it really truly shines; it takes some time to get going, and then it takes some time to peter out, but between all that is some terrific techno music and mixing, and after you give this one a complete spin, it'll probably have you wondering why this is the only set that this long-seasoned DJ ever ended up releasing 🤔.

Listen to the full mix here.

Highlights:

Sterac - "Liteon" Percy X - "Track 2" Alkahest - "Elemental" Umek - "Mamomit" S.B. Project - "Cultural Co-Operation (B2)" Robert Hood - "Moveable Parts Chapter 1 Untitled 2" Olga+Jozef - "Olga+Jozef #07 B1" Ben Long - "The Imperial Leather EP (A4)" Diskordia - "So Big So Close" Oliver Kapp - "Bella Figura" Andrew Mc Lauchlan - "Love Story"

#techno #dance #dance music #electronic #electronic music #90s #90s music #90's #90's music #2000s #2000s music #2000's #2000's music #00s #00s music #00's #00's music

[randomvarious]

Today's compilation:

Cottage Industries (A Neo Ouija Compilation) 2000 IDM / Leftfield

Got into some excellent y2k-era IDM today with this first installment from a long-running series called Cottage Industries that was put out by UK label Neo Ouija. Here we have a nearly spotless collection of mindbending stuff that's sure to leave any IDM junkie feeling blissed-out, just like the iconic android in the armchair from the cover of Artificial Intelligence, the foundational comp from Warp Records that really put IDM on the map in the first place all the way back in 1992 😌. Neo Ouija seems to go for that super chill, emotively melancholic, and solitudinous kind of vibe, and this comp here, which appears to have been just the label's fourth release, serves as a great introduction to their sound from when they were just getting started.

And ultimately, it's really hard for me to pick total favorites among this set, but I feel like I need to talk about a couple in particular: one, Quinoline Yellow's "Eythyl Maltol," and two, Clatterbox's "Power Up."

Quinoline Yellow's "Eythyl Maltol," a title that makes reference to a flavor-enhancing chemical compound, is the debut track from a guy named Luke Williams, who, quite possibly because of this very tune, would go on to showcase his talents the following year on the much more well-known Skam label. "Eythyl Maltol" is a slow, head-nod-inducing groove, with rhythmically glitchy stutters and some beautifully layered, otherworldly synth work to go along with it all. And among debut tracks for IDM artists, it probably ranks towards the top; a total unknown guy making a name for himself rather quickly with this one.

And Clatterbox's aptly titled "Power Up," which liberally incorporates zappy 8-bit videogame sounds, feels like the track with the most mass appeal here. Typically, IDM is made for a post-club, home listening environment, but I feel like you could totally get away with playing this one at a nerdy hipster bar-type setting. A bit more uptempo and far more conventionally structured than the rest of these tunes, this electro-leaning track could maybe serve as a solid nugget in order for you to introduce your friends to this whole amazing genre of underground electronic music; before, y'know, you start to melt their brains with some of the more abstract stuff 🫠.

And if you pair this album with the also excellently chill and organically crunchy IDM double-disc comp, Putting the Morr Back in Morrissey, which was put out the same year by German label Morr Music, then you've got yourself a few hours worth of some ultra-satisfying and relaxational, turn-of-the-millennium IDM fare there 😎.

Highlights:

Phonem - "Bioluminescence" Bauri - "Fleck Yck" Plod - "Aptaxi" Geiom - "Reihl (94)" Penfold Plum - "Cute Toy" Geiom v Infant - "Multistories 2" Quinoline Yellow - "Eythyl Maltol" Yunx - "Nemo-Sis" Clatterbox - "Power Up" Consumer Durable - "Cool Dry Places"

#idm #intelligent dance music #electronic #electronic music #music #2000s #2000s music #2000's #2000's music #00s #00s music #00's #00's music #leftfield #leftfield music #left field #left field music

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Today's compilation:

Baby Boomer Classics: Groovin' Sixties 1987 Pop-Rock / R&B / Soul / Blue-Eyed Soul / Doo Wop

Well, this one was kinda fun and unexpected. Here we have Groovin' Sixties, a comp with a title so vague that you couldn't possibly glean a coherent theme from its name besides the decade that it deals in. Every other title that I've gone through in this Baby Boomer Classics series thus far has been pretty self-explanatory with regards to the type of music that's on each one (British Sixties, Electric Sixties, Folk Sixties, Dance Sixties, etc., etc.), but this release appears to be different.

And that's because the thing that actually links all of these songs together is not really their sound at all, but the labels that released them: Heritage and Colossus, a pair of short-lived labels that existed from the late 60s through early 70s that were both run by a guy named Jerry Ross, whose biggest claim to fame is probably making the song "Venus," by Dutch group Shocking Blue, a mega-hit after spending some time in Europe looking for songs to bring to a US market. And he managed to score a big ol' #1 for himself with that tune!

So while these Baby Boomer Classics albums have been doing a pretty ample job thus far of weaving big hits together with smaller ones, this release in particular has a very different focus; and it makes no indication of this focus anywhere on its front or back covers, but it's clearly to highlight some very good singles from Jerry Ross' two labels, regardless of where those songs may or may not have ended up charting. And while it's a departure from what this series typically offers, you all know that I'm relishing at this opportunity to hear some totally forgotten and unheard gems here 😎.

But before I get to a great tune that doesn't appear to have ever made the Billboard Hot 100 chart at all, let me talk about a blue-eyed soul group from the city of Portsmouth, Virginia called Bill Deal & the Rhondels. This group, who became a big fixture of the Carolina beach scene and circuit, managed to chart five times between 1969 and 1970, and three of those hits appear on this album. Two out of those three strike me especially, though, because both "May I" and "I've Been Hurt," which were Bill Deal & the Rhondels' first two singles to chart (at #39 and #35, respectively), seem to be deliberately complementing their blue-eyed soul with underlying Jamaican ska riddims, with an instrument constantly hitting the same note on every other beat. And both of these songs are made catchily remarkable—and also Carolina shaggable!—because of this neat quirk.

Now, I really don't think that many American bands were incorporating ska into their own sound all the way back in the late 60s—much less white bands—but maybe I've found where Bill Deal & the Rhondels actually managed to derive that Jamaican inspiration from in the first place. See, both "May I" and "I've Been Hurt" are actually covers, and while the original version of "May I," which was by Maurice Williams & The Zodiacs—whose classic, "Stay," is the shortest song to ever top the Billboard Hot 100—had no ska in it and no known covers before Bill Deal & the Rhondels made their own version, "I've Been Hurt" had a whole handful of covers before BD&R got around to releasing theirs. And one of them, by Jamaican legend Delroy Wilson, was a reggae version that came out in '68.

To be clear, though, because the timelines here are so murky, I really have no idea if Wilson's rendition was even made before Bill Deal & the Rhondels started to implement ska, and I don't know if BD&R were even aware that the Wilson version ever existed in the first place either; but being that "May I," the first of these two BD&R singles with some ska in It, appears to have a recording date in July of 1968, and Wilson's version of "I've Been Hurt" was released on an unknown date that same year, it opens up a possibility that Bill Deal & the Rhondels hatched their ska idea for "May I" after hearing Delroy Wilson's reggae cover of "It Hurts."

What's funny though is that Bruce Eder at AllMusic tries to explain that "May I" had actually been performed by Bill Deal & the Rhondels for quite some time before they eventually made their debut with it; in fact, they'd actually dropped it from their set before someone shouted it out as a request, and they then decided, right on the spot, to put their own spin on the tune, which led to their popular ska-infused studio recording. But for some reason, in Eder's write-up, he doesn't refer to that performance as incorporating ska, but rather polka. And I'm sorry, folks, but that's not polka on that song! It's pretty clearly ska!

Anyhoo, I promised you all a gem that didn't chart on the Hot 100, and it's a great, uplifting soul tune by a group called The Festivals, whose "You're Gonna Make It" only managed to peak at #99 on the chart of Billboard's biggest competitor, Cashbox. And if you weren't from the New Jersey/Philly area when it first came out in 1970, you've probably never heard it at all!

So this album appears to have been an aberration in the Baby Boomer Classics series overall, but clearly it gave me plenty to write about today! And I should also note that even though the title is Groovin' Sixties, not everything on here is actually from that decade. This series seems to have a real problem with keeping track of release dates, but my nerdy, eagle-eyed ass is keeping on top of it all 🤓.

Highlights:

Shocking Blue - "Venus" Bill Deal & the Rhondels - "May I" George Baker Selection - "Little Green Bag" Bill Deal & the Rhondels - "I've Been Hurt" The Festivals - "You're Gonna Make It"

#pop rock #pop #rock #r&b #r & b #rhythm & blues #rhythm and blues #soul #soul music #blue eyed soul #doo wop #classic rock #classic pop #oldies #music #60s #60s music #60's #60's music #70s #70s music #70's #70's music

[randomvarious]

Learning some very unfortunate facts about the afterlife 😔.

[randomvarious]

Today's compilation:

Baby Boomer Classics: Folk Sixties 1985 Folk

Alright, folks, it looks like we have a pretty bad one here today with this small collection of folk fare from the 60s. Basically, outside of one song, which I'll get to a little later, this LP from the otherwise largely good and broadly eclectic Baby Boomer Classics series is definitely not worth your time. And I'm certainly no hater of folk music from this era in general—although I could live without hearing "This Land Is Your Land" or "Little Boxes" ever again—but there is one predominant strain of 60s folk that I happen to absolutely loathe. And it's that stuff that was so freaking over-the-top hippy-dippy-happy that you'd think the bands that were performing it were countercultural bizarro versions of The Stepford Wives or something, but for music. Their dispositions were simply too sunny, their smiling was too excessive, and at the end of the day, you get the feeling that the people that were making this stuff had actually been indoctrinated into some kind of creepy new age cult 😵.

But this stuff really played, man. For example, a totally excruciating song on here that exemplifies this mind-numbing style of 60s folk is "Don't Let the Rain Come Down (Crooked Little Man)," by a group whose name alone is too on the nose for you to believe that they actually existed: The Serendipity Singers 😩. Now, it's one thing for this awful song to exist in some little, whimsical, Bohemian niche as a piece of forgotten ephemera, but this thing was actually a top-ten hit in the US, and it also landed a Grammy nom too! And listening to it is so uncomfortable that it makes me want to tear my hair out!!!

But now, on to the only tune on this comp that I thoroughly enjoyed listening to: "There but for Fortune," by the legendary Joan Baez. With a lovely vibrato appended to the end of most lines, and a pretty acoustic guitar melody to match, this intimate and heartfelt song sends a basic and universal message that could always use more hearing, especially in turbulent times such as these; and it's to have empathy and not ridicule or judge others, because 'there but for fortune,' it could very well be you who was born into a circumstance that'd leave you currently sitting in a prison cell, homeless, suffering from addiction, or having your home bombed. This song was originally written in 1963 by another folk legend, Phil Ochs, but Baez' version from '64 proved the most popular, reaching #50 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and earning itself a Grammy nom for Best Folk Recording. And clearly, it's still very much relevant to this day.

But other than that one song, this album unfortunately just sucks. Stuff is either insufferable like that Srendipity Singers tune, overplayed, or just comparably lackluster when put up against 60s folk juggernauts like Joan Baez herself. I've been slowly sifting through this Baby Boomer Classics series over the past month and change with few criticisms to levy, but this is by far the worst thing I've heard from it so far. And even though I don't write much about folk music from this golden era of revivalism in particular, a comp like Warner's Storytellers: Singers & Songwriters from 1987, which has the likes of Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Arlo Guthrie, John Prine, Phil Ochs, and others on it, serves much better than this record that pulls from a similar time period.

Highlights:

Joan Baez - "There but for Fortune"

#folk #folk music #music #60s #60s music #60's #60's music

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Lol the meme doesn't fully fit here, but I think it makes it funnier in the end anyway 😅.

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Today's compilation:

Baby Boomer Classics: Electric Sixties 1985 / 1988 Psychedelic Rock / Blues-Rock / Hard Rock / Progressive Rock / Acid Rock / Psychedelic Pop / Garage Rock

Aw yeah! Today I dipped back into the California-based JCI label's lengthy Baby Boomer Classics series in order to give this terrific Electric Sixties dispatch a listen. But a couple things first before we dive right on into it: one, there are at least two pretty different issues of this album under the same catalog number that are out there. The first one was released in 1985 on vinyl and consisted of a dozen songs, but then in 1988 another version came out on CD, and that one replaced half of the original's track list. So today I listened to both albums combined, which made for an excellent set of 18 classic rock tunes—a bunch of them indispensable classics, but a few unexpected curveballs too.

And two, as it's happened so many times in the past with these types of comps before, this release may be claiming to consist of nothing but songs from the 60s, but it's simply not true. "Fresh Air," for example, a tune by beloved pioneering San Francisco psych rock band Quicksilver Messenger Service, was recorded and released in 1970. But its placement on a release that's ostensibly a 60s rock album is not the only thing that makes it a bit of a curveball here; "Fresh Air" may have been QMS' most commercially successful single, but this smooth and smolderingly melty, pupil-dilator only ended up peaking at #49 in the US, which feels pretty low for being on a release like this!

But if that selection's really a curveball, then it's the straightest one of this whole entire bunch, because we've also got a great song by Jethro Tull that was never released as a single, which means that it never charted at all in any capacity. "A New Day Yesterday" isn't a JT deep-cut, per se, but you're really not gonna find it on very many of these retrospective classic rock-type comps. A rhythmically unorthodox piece of rolling psychedelic blues-rock that includes harmonica as well as bandleader Ian Anderson's calling card too—his flute!

And for that final curveball, on an album that otherwise has nothing but studio cuts, we have a very unexpected live version of Traffic's signature tune, "Dear Mr. Fantasy." I cannot tell you how many times I've heard the studio album version of this bonafied classic before—my mom played it for me while I was in the womb and she hasn't stopped playing it since—but I am far less familiar with this live version of it, which appears to be a three-plus-minute section from a near-eleven-minute recording that was performed in London in 1971. Frontman Steve Winwood's guitar solo is a lot more laid back on this one than it is on the studio version, but this recording is still a great and welcomed surprise nonetheless.

And last but not least, I have to say something about The Byrds' "8 Miles High" too. The Byrds are definitely one of the greatest and most important bands to ever exist, and they're especially preeminent when it comes to folk-rock, specifically, but on top of all of that is the fact that a lot of people also believe that they were responsible for releasing the first ever psychedelic rock song too. However, as spellbinding, innovative, and newfangled as "8 Miles High" was when it first came out in 1966, it failed to reach the top ten in the US, and ended up as the band's final single to reach the top twenty altogether, following "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Turn! Turn! Turn!" both of which were chart-toppers. The band's primary songwriter, Gene Clark, left after the release of this single too, which most likely contributed to the band's overall decline, but nevertheless, if you're looking for the song that really kickstarted the whole psychedelic rock phenomenon in the first place, this is the one.

So another fantastic comp from this Baby Boomer Classics series here. Truth be told, had I listened to just the 1985 or 1988 editions, I probably wouldn't have enjoyed either as much, but combining them together here really created a nice balance between tried and true classics and stuff that's not as well known. And I'm really glad that I listened to it on today of all days, because these releases happen to make for a great road trip listen too, and I'm about to go on one of those myself, so see you all later! ✌️

Highlights:

Steppenwolf - "Born to Be Wild" Santana - "Evil Ways" Steppenwolf - "Magic Carpet Ride" Count Five - "Psychotic Reaction" Blind Faith - "Well All Right" Jethro Tull - "A New Day Yesterday" Traffic - "Dear Mr. Fantasy" Vanilla Fudge - "You Keep Me Hangin' On" The Yardbirds - "Shapes of Things" Chambers Brothers - "Time" Cream - "Sunshine of Your Love" Velvet Underground - "All Tomorrow's Parties" The Electric Prunes - "I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)" Byrds - "8 Miles High" Quicksilver - "Fresh Air" Spirit - "I Got a Line on You" Big Brother - "Piece of My Heart"

#psychedelic rock #psychedelic #psychedelic music #rock #blues rock #hard rock #progressive rock #prog rock #prog #acid rock #psychedelic pop #pop #pop rock #garage rock #classic rock #classic pop #music #60s #60s music #60's #60's music #70s #70s music #70's #70's music

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1950s Blues Playlist

Blowing the dust off of this excellent playlist of mostly overlooked 1950s blues goodies that I haven't made any alterations to since all the way back in 2019! This week I've added six songs, four of which are by Sunnyland Slim, a very gifted pianist and vocalist who originally hailed from Mississippi and then moved to Chicago in the early 40s, only to become an integral part of the Windy City's own storied postwar scene.

Now, my favorite add of his with this update is a song called "Highway 61." There's another version of this song that's already on this playlist that was officially released on the b-side of a 7-inch single back in 1956 for Cobra Records, but this version is soooo much noisier, with booming percussion, loud harmonica, guitar, and Slim's yowling vocals to cut through it all, along with some piano work from him on the instrumental bridge too. A really terrific song with somewhere around 4,200 Spotify plays.

And then there's a couple tracks I added this week that aren't by Sunnyland Slim, and one of them is another total 50s blues favorite of mine, Little Milton's "Looking for My Baby," which is all about that singing electric guitar in the intro and solo portion, which also accompanies the horn section on Milton's verses to mimic the sound of a honking train horn. Milton, also a native of Mississippi, would eventually find success in St. Louis, both as a recording artist and producer, but before finding his way there, he would end up on Memphis' Sun Records, the label that was famous for launching the careers of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis into the stratosphere. It was actually Ike Turner who discovered Milton and brought him to the attention of Sun's owner Sam Phillips. Milton never ended up having any success on Sun, but "Looking for My Baby" appears to have been his last attempt before leaving for greener pastures. And you probably wouldn't know it from listening to this song alone, because his voice connotes that of someone you'd assume to be much, much older, but Milton was about 20 or 21 years old when this song was first released. Pretty incredible stuff. ~17.4K plays.

Sunnyland Slim - "Mary Lee" Sunnyland Slim - "That Woman" Little Milton - "Looking for My Baby" Howlin' Wolf - "Smokestack Lightnin'" Sunnyland Slim - "Highway 61" Sunnyland Slim - "It's You Baby"

And this playlist is also on YouTube and YouTube Music too.

So this update now brings us to 26 songs in total that amount to about 76 minutes. And I know that my corresponding YouTube playlists usually come with added bonus tracks that can't be found on Spotify at all, but that's not the case with this one; everything I've wanted on this thing so far is on both Spotify and YouTube. But, just so you know, the final four tracks come off of one of my favorite blues comps of all time, Jewel Spotlights the Blues, Volume 2, which consists of songs from the great Shreveport, Louisiana-based Jewel Records. On YouTube, the artists on this album are credited correctly, but for some reason on Spotify they're all misattributed to Lightnin' Hopkins 🤷‍♂️. So, to clear up any confusion, for those final four tracks on this playlist as of right now, here's who they're really by:

Magic Sam - "Everything Gonna Be Alright" Otis Rush - "Double Trouble" Ike Turner - "Matchbox" Buddy Guy - "You Sure Can't Do"

More blues next week! 😎

Enjoy!

More to come, eventually. Stay tuned!

Like what you hear? Follow me on Spotify and YouTube for more cool playlists and uploads!

#blues #the blues #music #50s #50s music #50's #50's music #playlist #playlists #spotify #spotify playlist #spotify playlists #youtube #youtube playlist #youtube playlists #youtube music #youtube music playlist #youtube music playlists #Spotify

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Today's compilation:

It's All Becoming… 1996 IDM / Leftfield / Electro

A couple days ago I wrote about a little 12-inch comp called Two You See? that was put out by a small and short-lived UK label by the name of deFocus, which was founded in the early aughts by a woman named Clair Poulton. Poulton first cut her teeth at Aphex Twin's own Rephlex label before launching a couple labels of her own, and the one she founded before deFocus was called Clear.

So here's Clear's first ever sampler, It's All Becoming…, which was released in 1996 and showcased some of the talent that had graced this quirky label throughout its first two years, including heavy hitters like IDM duo Plaid and the nebulous Autechre side project of Gescom.

Now, compared to the tracks that I gushed over from that Two You See? record earlier this week, I don't think that anything on this CD is quite as good. Part of that can probably be chalked up to the fact that this came out about four years prior and IDM had made a bunch of progress within that time, but I've also heard IDM releases that predate this one that sound better than this too. So while time plays a factor, I don't think it's a total excuse here.

But with all of that said, though, this is still *definitely* a quality sampler. It may not have that soul-piercingly emotive synth work that I crave or super complex rhythms to fill up each track, but the music is still nonetheless pretty creative, intriguing, and good.

And outside of the tail-end of an unreleased mix of Plaid's "Angry Dolphin"—the only true exclusive that appeared on this comp at the time—the stuff that strikes most is by a duo called the Gregory Fleckner Quintet, who first appeared as Ono on a split-12-inch release on Rephlex back in '93, before assuming this extraordinarily unique role as an act that makes leftfield electronic music, but with a deliberately vintage jazz band aesthetic. And they are certainly not a one-trick pony, either; GFQ get four songs on here to show what they're all about, and while each one deploys clear jazz themes—save for an excellently dense remix by Plaid—none of them sound remotely similar to one another. "EDP Blues" is on this extensively spacious and sort of crime noir/beatnik tip, "Hold Me Close" sports crisp 'rat-a-tat' hi-hats, and "Oi, That's My Bird" ventures into swing territory. All in all, a very cool concept brought to satisfyingly abstract fruition each time.

So, I really don't think much of this comp will totally bend your mind like a lot of great IDM releases have a way of doing, but if you want something that's mostly chill, a little thought-provoking, and pretty unlike much else, a whole lot of this thing is worth an attentive listen.

Highlights:

Plaid - "Anything" Clatterbox - "Tiz" Doctor Rockit - "How Do You Do" GFQ - "Juicy Jazz Girls (Jade Gates Mixed in the Bubble by Plaid)" Clatterbox - "Montis" GFQ - "EDP Blues" Gescom - "Gosheep" GFQ - "Hold Me Close" GFQ - "Oi, That's My Bird" Plaid - "Angry Dolphin (Unreleased Mix)" Clatterbox - "'Bad' Means Good"

#idm #leftfield #left field #intelligent dance music #electro #dance #dance music #electronic #electronic music #music #90s #90s music #90's #90's music

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Today's compilation:

Neferiu Records 2000 IDM / Drum n Bass / Techno

Got a pretty nifty debut comp here from a little Canadian label called Neferiu Records that seemed to specialize in IDM and hip hop throughout its ~thirteen-year tenure. Founded at the turn of the millennium by a guy named mantrakid—who supplies his own piece of experimental dub techno with "Live v. 1.0" on this very album—Neferiu was inspired by the music from a largely European digital subculture called the demoscene, in which groups of computer nerds would make cool and stunning audiovisual presentations called demos and enter them into competitions. Not very well-versed in this stuff myself, but looks like there's some playlists of awesome demos that have been made throughout the years up on YouTube. If you love old computer graphic art, I would suggest you definitely give those a look.

Here's a neat and trippy demo I found from 1997, for example:

Anyway, being that the demoscene is a mostly European thing, it makes sense that with IDM and other related forms of computer-based electronic music being heavily driven by the internet itself, that a Canadian label would be able to recruit a bunch of European talent for its own releases. And that's exactly what seems to have happened here with this CD.

Now, I know that in the header for this post I've described this album as being IDM, drum n bass, and techno, but that's only because there are multiple tracks from each of those genres on here. Really, this is way more of an electronic music smorgasbord than I've let on. There's also a great lo-fi house track that sounds like it was recorded off of a cassette or something by Sweden's Lukas Nystrand, a piece of downtempo, and a drill n bass tune too.

But my absolute favorites on here are a pair of IDM tunes, one by a duo from Stockholm called Frank and Bill, and another by a Polish-Canadian duo called Ilkae. Frank and Bill contribute "Asfaw," a song with this little glint of a proto-trap edge in its beat that gets undergirded with some sweet, dusky pads at around the minute-mark, before continuing to add a slightly distorted chiptune-y melody to complete the package; and then Ilkae's "Kk," which is the very first track that they ever released together, seems to answer the question, "what if music box, but IDM?" Pleasantly placid chiming synths dominate this one, as they play over a constantly pecking, rhythmic bed.

And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention "Haloaw" by Helsinki's Lackluster too, an IDM tune with a much darker vibe than the rest of these. Lackluster's first 'major label' release was on the UK's deFocus, whose 12-inch sampler, Two You See?, I posted about just yesterday; and "Haloaw" also appears on another comp I've posted about in the past, one from Miami's Merck label called Squadron Sampler, which I said might just be the greatest IDM 12-inch comp that's ever been made, period 😯. That release also has Brothomstates and a teenaged Machinedrum on it.

In all honesty, I really didn't love *all* of this release, though. There are certain points where this album gets to feeling a bit listless and a little too out-there for me, personally. But still, as Neferiu puts it on their own Bandcamp page for this debut, "…you got yourself heat. Oldschool heat, but heat none-the-less." And that definitely rings true.

More of this type of stuff on the way 😎. And check out this album and the rest of the Neferiu catalog on their Bandcamp too!

Highlights:

Krii - "Futura" Abstrakt - "Infection" Frank and Bill - "Asfaw" Lackluster - "Haloaw" Lukas Nystrand - "Music - Wheres the Harm?" Ilkae - "Kk"

[P.S.: All of these are Bandcamp links except for "Haloaw" and "Kk," because those are the only ones that I could find on YouTube.] 

#idm #intelligent dance music #drum n bass #drum & bass #drum and bass #dnb #d n b #d & b #d&B #d and b #techno #dance #dance music #electronic #electronic music #music #2000s #2000s music #2000's #2000's music #00s #00s music #00's #00's music #Youtube