Archive for the ‘remixes’ Category

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Proof that England is Better than America

Friday, September 23rd, 2011

Tonight’s post is fucking awesome. More awesome than me even, and I’m pretty fucking awesome.

The Cure
Lullaby (Remix)
Primary (Red Mix)  
I’m consistently amazed/befuddled as to what previously rare and hard-to-find tracks get a digital re-release and which don’t. For example, damn near everything associated with Disintigration (“THE BEST ALBUM EVER!” – Kyle from South Park) has been remastered and re-released a dozen times over by now, but as far as I can tell this remix remains a bit harder to find. It’s a shame too, because I think it’s actually better than the original. It removes a lot of the instrumentation, stripping most of it down to nothing more than bass, drums and a very sparse guitar riff. It fits the ethereal delivery of the vocals by Robert Smith so much more than the original. I found it on a 12″ promo only release.

I am far too uninformed to make such a statement regarding “Primary (Red Mix),” though. I don’t own Faith, the album from which the original version is from (look, I can’t own everything…yet). I do know that it is not the 12″ version however. That version is only five and a half minutes long, this one is over seven minutes in length. I got it from the CD single for “Close To Me.”

Visage
Fade To Grey (Dance Mix)
There are some songs that I can just listen to overa nd over again everyday and not get sick of them. Midge Ure was at least partially responsible for at least two of them, this amazing track from Visage’s first album, and Ultravox’s “Vienna.”

Finding this extended dance mix has been a little tricky. There are many, many remixes of “Fade To Grey” but as far as I can tell this is the only official extended mix ever to be released. It has been released on CD on various versions of the band’s self-titled debut, but that’s not where I got it. I found it on a 12″ EP that was also self-titled. It also featured an amazingly ridiculous cover. Dude looks like he was about to rock a pirate party, but got sidetracked in the land of The Neverending Story.

Erasure
Run To The Sun (Beatmasters Outergalactic Mix)
Run To The Sun (Beatmasters Galactic Mix)
Run To The Sun (The Simon & Diamond Bhangra Remix)
Run To The Sun (The Diss-Cuss Mix)
The last bit of Erasure that I’ll probably feature in quite some time. I’m actually running out of rare Erasure to share, thanks to the recent re-availability of their singles collections.

I love this damn song, and these remixes are just fab. The “Beatmasters Galactic Mix” especially just makes me want to dance like a spastic monkey for hours on end.

The Blur
There’s No Other Way (Red Sleeve mix)
There’s No Other Way (Rock Mix)
Explain
So in tonight’s post I’ve proven I don’t own at least one seminal album by The Cure and I also barely know anything about Visage. I might as well make it a hat trick and confess that I don’t own any Blur before Parklife. Shut up. It’s not my fault I was born in America. I’ll get there one day I promise.

I love these mixes of “There’s No Other Way” the Red Sleeve one especially, it spaces out the track even more, so much that it almost resembles something off the first Stone Roses album. Baggy indeed. “Explain” is a solid B-side as well. I got all of these off of the 12″ single.

Posted in B-sides, Blur, Erasure, remixes, The Cure, Visage | 4 Comments »

Dual Divas

Wednesday, September 21st, 2011

Anyone care to recommend a good direct-drive turntable? I’m finding more and more problems with my Audio Techinca. Any advice would be appreciated.

Madonna
The Power of Good-Bye (Fabian’s Good God Mix)
The Power of Good-Bye (Slater’s Filtered Mix)
The Power of Good-Bye (Slater’s Super Luper Mix)
The Power of Good-Bye (Dallas Austin Low End Mix)
Of the 12″ Madonna singles I picked up in San Francisco last month, this one was my favorite and remains the only one I regularly listen to still.  It’s a great example as to why I love 12″ singles so much. One song. Four remixes. Each drastically different.

“Fabian’s Good God Mix” is a beat-heavy dance mix made for the dance floor, as is “Slater’s Filtered Mix” but while the “Good God” mix is a pretty straightforward 12″ mix, the “Filtered” mix changes the song radically. It transforms it into a crazy hardcore rave track with distorted vocals and a non-stop throbbing beat. But it’s not even the weirdest mix on the record. That would be “Slater’s Super Luper Mix,” which is nothing more than the lyric “freedom come” looped over and over again until it looses all meaning and devolves into unintelligible noise. It’s over eight minutes long though, and that one trick really wears thin after the first four minutes or so. Finally, there’s the “Dallas Austin Low End Mix” which is a sparse mix that is, not surprisingly, heavy on the bass. I enjoy that one as well.

Janet Jackson
Together Again (Tony Moran 12″ Club Mix)
Together Again (Tony Humphries Club Mix)
Together Again (Jimmy Jam Extended Deep Club Mix)
Together Again (DJ Premier Just Tha Bass)
According to Wikipedia, “Together Again” is one of the best-selling singles of all time, an ironic feat considering that the album it came off of, The Velvet Rope, was considered to be something of a commercial disappointment. I haven’t heard that album in its entirety in ages, but it does have two of my favorite Janet Jackson singles on it, this track and the excellent Joni Mitchell-sampling ” Got ’til It’s Gone.” For the record, my favorite Janet Jackson single is “Black Cat.” I need to re-record that 12″ single and put it back up here sometime.

The Tony Moran and and Tony Humphries mixes are good, but relatively standard as dance mixes go. The other two mixes are more interesting, especially since they feature entirely different vocals by Janet that slow the song down tremendously. I don’t know if I like them as much as the more upbeat dance versions, but they certainly match the bittersweet theme of the song better than the poppy, happy, delivery on the original version.

Posted in Janet Jackson, Madonna, remixes | 3 Comments »

American Life Wasted

Saturday, September 17th, 2011

Hey, everyone is awesome!

I ask for help procuring the Driver: Sounds of San Francisco vinyl and one of you helps me out!

Then I ask for help finding I Scream You Scream’s Me Too and one of you come through on that too!

Are there any awesome people out there looking for a freelance music reporter? Because I’m totally available.

Madonna
American Life (Missy Elliot American Dream Remix)
American Life (Oakenfold Downtempo Remix)
American Life (Peter Raunhofer’s American Anthem Part 1)
American Life (Felix Da Housecat’s Devin Dazzle Club Mix)
American Life (Peter Raunhofer’s American Anthem Part 2)
Die Another Day (Calderone & Quayle Afterlife Mix)
Weezer’s 1996 album Pinkerton was aggressively reviled by both audiences and critics when it came out. Now it’s seen as a classic that helped paved the way for modern rock in the 21st century.

Bowie’s Low and Lodger were both poor sellers that received mixed reviews at best when they were released, but now Low is considered and classic and many believe Lodger to be just as influential and important.

Everyone hated Marvin Gaye’s Hear My Dear at first, but in the decades that have passed, many critics say that the introspective and experimental album is Gaye’s best work.

Sometimes art takes time to take hold. Often, a piece of art can be so ahead of its time that audiences of its era can’t understand it, causing them to lash out against it. Other times it may simply not fit in with the current cultural landscape, a victim of bad-timing more than anything else. Or sometimes a negative view of the artist themselves can cause backlash against a record, whether its deserved or not

None of those things are true with “American Life.”

This song sucked in 2003. It sucks now. And it’s going to suck 100 years from now. It will forever be known as a disaster. A colossal  misfire of epic proportions the likes of which the world rarely sees. It’s such a hideously bad song by such an amazingly talented and popular artist that it’s almost impossible to find another song or piece of creative work to compare it to.

So why do I own it and why am I posting it?

Well, I own it simply because I want to own every Madonna 12″ single, and this happens to be one of them.

I’m posting it because I’m sure someone out there loves this song (I actually know someone who does – and I’m still friends with them in spite of this fact) and they’ll be more than happy to find these remixes. Not all of them are…that bad. The Felix Da Housecat mix is actually pretty listenable, and I’ll even go as far to say that I actually like the second Raunhofer’s mix, most likely because it strips out the stupid rap. Conversly speaking, the Missy Elliot remix actually focuses on the rap (Missy even adds her own parts) and it, in turn, is probably the worst song I have ever put on my blog.

And hey, the b-side is a pretty awesome remix of “Die Another Day,” so it has that going for it, which is nice.

(Disclaimer: If any rabid Madonna fans are reading this, please don’t attack me for my opinion. It is just that, an opinion. If you like this song, good for you! There’s nothing wrong with liking it. I mean, it’s not like it’s a Fergie song or something. Everyone is entitled to their own unpopular opinions. Shit, I own Howard The Duck on laser disc, who am I to criticize anyone?)

Posted in Madonna, remixes | 3 Comments »

Junior Senior and an Ominous Madonna Warning

Tuesday, September 13th, 2011

Sleepy.

Madonna
Nothing Really Matters (Club 69 Vocal Club Mix)
Nothing Really Matters (Club 69 Future Mix) – as per evidence of this LP being evil, this MP3 is fucked up and I had to take it down
Nothing Really Matters (Club 69 Radio Mix)
Nothing Really Matters (Club 69 Phunk Mix)
Nothing Really Matters (Vikram Radio Remix)
Nothing Really Matters (Club 69 Future Dub)
Nothing Really Matters (Kruder & Dorfmeister Remix)
Man, that’s a whole lot of “Nothing”. I used to like this song, but this 2×12″ single was a pain in the goddamn ass. It skipped, needed to be cleaned repeatedly and then my recording of it got corrupt so I had to do it again. I still kind of like the song, but I fucking hate the record its on.

More Madonna later this week. You’ve been warned (trust me…you’ll see).

Junior Senior
Move Your Feet (Rascal Madness Mix)
Move Your Feet (Rascal Beats)
Move Your Feet (Rascal Edit)
Move Your Feet (Rascal Extended Club Mix)
Move Your Feet (Rascal Bonus Mix)
Perfect dance song? Perfect dance song.

What have Junior Senior been up to since the break up? Well Jeppe Laursen (Senior) did what every talented gay man in the music biz will eventually do, he went to go work with Lady Gaga. How could the man partially responsibly for the above track of epic awesomeness also somehow be the co-writer and producer for the Madonatrocity that is “Born This Way”? Ugh.

So we know what happened to Senior, but what about Junior (Jepper Mortensen)? Well, he released an amazing single called “Trust Tissue” (which was originally an unreleased Junior Senior song) under the name I Scream Ice Cream and then…I have no idea. According to Wikipedia he released an album as well, a record with three tracks that were 25, 35 and 45 minutes long. However, I cannot find any release information on it. Can anyone confirm this? I would love to hear that sure-to-be dance epic.

These “Rascal” mixes are from a 12″ single. In case you were wondering, “Rascal” is Albert Caberra, a very prolific remixer and producer.

Posted in Junior Senior, Madonna, remixes | 5 Comments »

Praga to God that I Khan get this record

Monday, September 12th, 2011

Damn video games.

Allow me to elaborate.

Last week I purchased Driver San Francisco. It’s a shockingly great game and return to form for a series that I thought went to the shitter ages ago. I highly suggest picking it up.

I didn’t preorder the game when it came out, but the dude working the Gamestop still gave me the preorder bonus, a perfectly nice travel mug with the Driver logo on it. Kind of stupid, but whatever, I like free crap.

I was content with that, until I found out that UK retailers got their own pre-order bonus for the game: a freaking 180g yellow vinyl LP with selections from the game’s (amazing) soundtrack! Goddammit! That’s the second time us Americans have been screwed out of awesome video game vinyl! But hey, I was able to get that record thanks to an awesome person who reads this blog.

So…are you an awesome person who reads this blog? Can you get a copy of this vinyl and mail it to me? If so, I will repay you in cash and in MP3s.

My email is on the sidebar to the right, if you think you can hook me up please drop me a line.

Short post today. Bigger post tomorrow.

Praga Khan
My Mind Is My Enemy (A Mind Is a Dangerous Thing Mix)
My Mind Is My Enemy (Quick Frontal Mix)
Luv u Still (Our Love Is Eternal Mix)
Praga Khan has an album called Pragamatic and another called Khantastic. I respect that level of commitment to such a stupid alias.

I’m not that familiar with Khan’s solo work, although I notice that much of it seems to be of the EBM/industrial-dance variety,dark songs about how much he hates humanity; how much humanity hates him; or how much relationships suck.

This is of course in stark contrast with his work with Lords of Acid, a band whose catalog almost solely consists of songs about crotches and what people do with them.

They recently got back together (with a different lineup) and have just released their first single; “My Little Rabbit.” It’s about a big plastic vibrator. Nice to see that some things never change I guess.

Honestly, that song sounds pretty damn horrible. These tracks, however, are not. You should listen to them. Then, if you dig the remix to “Luv U Still” then I suggest you check out the album version – that track is one of the best acid house songs ever, no question.

Posted in Praga Khan, remixes | 1 Comment »

Modes of Depeche

Wednesday, September 7th, 2011

If you guess the theme to tonight’s post then congrats, you can read.

Dave Gahan
I Need You (Gabriel & Dresden Unplugged Mix)
I Need You (Ladytron Detoxxmixx)
I Need You (Jay’s Summerdub)
I Need You (Gabriel & Dresden Plugged Dub)
Dirty Sticky Floors (Lexicon Avenue Dirty Sticky Dub)
I Need You (Ladytron Detoxxmixx Instrumental)
I have the 12″ singles for “I Need You” and “Dirty Sticky Floors.” I also have the Hourglass Remixes EP. I do not, however, own either of Dave Gahan’s proper solo albums. It amazes me how often I do bass-ackwards shit like that. My brain is always like “An album I can easily get for a few bucks? Fuck that. I want the rare and hard-to-find 12″ single that is beaten up and scratched so bad that will will take me two hours to record and restore.”

Of these mixes, I prefer the Ladytron one. Not only does it Depeche Mode it up with extra synths and drum machines, but it’s also a scant four minutes long. The rest of these remixes are ridiculously lengthy. Don’t get me wrong, I could listen to Gahan’s seductive voice all day and night (and I have sometimes) but one can only take so much of “You’ll always need me much more than I need you” being repeated ad nauseum.

Depeche Mode
The Darkest Star (Holden Remix)
The Darkest Star (Holden Dub)
I Feel Loved (Danny Tenaglia’s Labor of Love Radio Edit)
My Depeche Mode singles count is in the 50s now, so I’m shocked when I find one I don’t own. And between the six singles box sets and the two massive remix collections, I am even more shocked when I find a Depeche Mode remix from a single that is a genuine, out-of-print rarity. That’s the case for all three of these mixes though, which I picked up from 12″ singles I bought at Amoeba. These mixes for “The Darkest Star” are great, although the odd scratchy noise (which is intentional and NOT a defect of my record) on the “Holden Mix” is kind of grating at first. In a rarity for me, I actually like this dub mix way more. It’s intense, fast-paced and crazy weird. The “I Feel Loved” mix is great, but I’m not a big fan of that song in the first place.

Posted in Dave Gahan, Depeche Mode, remixes | 4 Comments »

Pop Will Eat Prodigy

Monday, September 5th, 2011

I recently did something I swore I would never do, and that’s buy a cassette tape deck.

I am not a fan of cassettes. I hate the hiss. I hate how they get worn down and you can start to hear the track on the other side in reverse. But more than anything else, I hate the shitty artwork. I guess size matters for me when it comes to a physical release, I want to see the artwork and linear notes in all their glory, I practically need a magnifying glass to read cassette linear notes.

Anyways, I got one because I promised a friend I’d record some mixtapes out of her own collection. So now it’s hooked up to my soundsystem, junking up the joint. I figured I’d make the most of it though and ask you all, are there any cassette-only releases/remixes/B-sides from 80s/90s artists that you know of? Or any special cassette mixes of albums that are worth listening to? I know there’s a Polyrock album that was released on cassette only, but that thing is near-impossible to find.

Well, enough about a horrible antiquated format that sounds like shit. Here are some tracks taken from CDs.

Yes, that was an intentional little joke on my part.

Pop Will Eat Itself
Get The Girl! Kill The Baddies!
Can U Dig It?
Urban Futuristic
Wise Up! Sucker
Like many American teens at the time, I discovered PWEI in 1996, when their songs were featured on the PS1 game Loaded. That game was an orgy of violence and death, so PWEI’s tracks “RSVP” and “Kick To Kill” fit perfectly on it. I remember being so impressed with their tracks on the soundtrack that I sought out a copy of their only album that I could find in American stores, Dos Dedos Mis Amigos.

I didn’t discover their earlier stuff until I started buying vinyl, and I still can’t believe all these releases are by the same band. Their early Box Frenzy-era stuff is kind of hideous white-boy rap that’s barely listenable today. But This Is The Day…This Is The Hour…This Is This! is actually more than little bit brilliant. It holds up better than anything the band did before or after, with amazing tracks like “Can U Dig It?” still sounding fresh some 20 years later.

PWEI (kinda) got back together recently, and most of their albums are getting the 2CD deluxe treatment to celebrate the event. Even though I have most of the non-album rarities on vinyl, I’ll definitely be picking up the deluxe version of This Is The Day… when it comes out, and I suggest you do the same.

Oddly enough, none of the re-issues feature these live tracks, which are from the Get The Girl! Kill The Baddies! EP that came out in 1992. I think that speaks less of the deluxe editions, however, and more to the fact that there were so many B-sides and live tracks from this era that something had to get cut.

The re-issue of Now For a Feast will have their cover of “Love Missle F1-11” though, which is good enough a reason to buy it.

The Prodigy
Out Of Space (Underworld’s Millennium Mix)
Out Of Space (Celestial Bodies Mix)
Jericho (Live Version)
There are two variations of the CD single for “Out Of Space.” One is a four-track version with the single edit and “Techno Underworld Remix” versions of the title track, as well as “Ruff In The Jungle Bizness (Uplifting Vibes Remix)” and a live version of “Music Reach (1,2,3,4).”

The other is a six-track version, which includes the previously mentioned remixes and a live version of “Jericho.” The live version of “Music Reach (1,2,3,4)” is not included. The four-track version is on Amazon’s MP3 store, but the tracks exclusive to the six-track version are not. So that’s why I only included those tracks, which are out of print, and not the others, which are easily available.

Goddamn import singles make everyone’s life more difficult.

Posted in live, Pop Will Eat Itself, remixes, The Prodigy | 7 Comments »

Early 90s electronic music for the win – Aphex Twin and 808 State

Sunday, September 4th, 2011

I rarely post music that I was into when it was originally released, but I can proudly say that I was listening to music by tonight’s artists back when they were the cutting edge of all things electronic. I’m not that cool though, I wasn’t rocking out to these at illegal midnight raves or anything like that. No, instead they served as background music to countless Doom marathons and Punisher comic book reading sessions.

It’s amazing I turned out as well-adjusted as I did. …okay, maybe it’s amazing that I’m not more fucked up than I already am.

Enjoy, and tune in Monday, if you think this shit is weird…just wait.

Aphex Twin
Vaz Deferenz
Ice Hedral (Philip Glass Orchestration)
Pancake Lizard
Is there an artist out there as diverse and batshit crazy as Richard D. James?  Take these three tracks, all of which are from the single to “Donkey Rhubarb.” “Vaz Defernz” (named after the part of the male anatomy that allows for ejaculation) is a pounding track that’s about two steps removed from full-on acid house, but it’s followed up by Philip Glass’ orchestral version of “Ice Hedral,” one of the most haunting and beautiful tracks you’re likely to ever hear. Then that’s followed by “Pancake Lizard,” a simple, quiet and almost playful electronic piece that’s nearly ambient. And they’re all B-sides, yet more amazing than anything you’re likely to hear from mainstream electronic/dance music today. Has James put anything out since the Analord series? I miss him.

808 State
Cubik (Pan American Experience)
Cubik (Kings County Perspective)
In Yer Face (Mancunian Delight)
Cubik (Kings County Dub)
You know how many versions of “Cubik” there are? Me neither, but it’s a fucking lot. On my computer I have the original version; the “Tomix” remix; the 88 and 98 remixes, the Dominator/Cubik mashup by Soulwax and these three versions from the “Cubik” single I picked up at Amoeba in San Francisco. That’s eight different versions. They should just pull a Moby, make them into one massive mix and release that as a CD. That would be epic. Or should I say “epik?”

No, I probably shouldn’t have.

Posted in 808 State, Aphex Twin, B-sides, remixes | 3 Comments »

I Ran Out of Ways to Combine the names Orb and Orbital

Wednesday, August 31st, 2011

I will stop posting combinations of Orb/William Orbit/Orbital when I stop finding Orb/William Orbit/Orbital singles.

The Orb
Blue Room
Blue Room (Radio 7)
Blue Room (Excerpt 605)
Towers of Dub (Mad Professor Remix)
That first version of “Blue Room” is indeed the full uncut version. For those of you who may not know, that means it’s 39 minutes and 58 seconds long.

The Orb made a 39 minute and 58 second long song because that was the longest a song could be in the UK ans still count as a single. I wonder how long a song can be on iTunes and still count as a single? Since I often see 10 or even eight minutes songs on iTunes limited to “album only” purchases, I’m going to assume it’s a lot less than 40 minutes.

I posted these tracks long ago, after I found them on another blog. However, that blog was only hosting 192 kbps versions. These rips, taken from my recently acquired 2CD Blue Room single that I found at Amoeba, are encoded at 256 kbps; which is why the uncut version is 73.2 MB big. Don’t be a dick and download it repeatedly. Unlike most MP3 blogs, I actually pay for bandwidth.

Orbital
Funny Break (One Is Enough) (Layo & Bushwacka! Up Remix)
Funny Break (One Is Enough) (Layo & Bushwacka! Down Remix)
What’s so funny about it?

Okay, so I’ve listened to these two remixes about twenty times now. I love both of them, but I oddly have absolutely nothing to say about them. If you like them I suggest you check out Bushwacka’s remixes of Depeche Mode’s “Dream On.” They both feature great basslines.

More 90s/early 00s electronic music next post, which may be tomorrow! Or it may be next week. Who knows, I sure as hell don’t.

Posted in Orbital, remixes, The Orb | 4 Comments »

I’ll Bring the Dance Music, You Bring the Rainbows

Wednesday, August 31st, 2011

More Madonna. More Pet Shop Boys. More Erasure.

Don’t worry, my next post will be less Castro.

Madonna
Beautiful Stranger (Calderone Club Mix)
Fact: This theme song to Austin Powers 2 is 192% better than any of the actual content in any Austin Powers film.

Don’t argue with me! I proved it with science.

Pet Shop Boys
New York City Boy (The Superchumbo Uptown Mix)
New York City Boy (The Almighty Definitive Mix)
New York City Boy (The Thuderpuss 2000 Club Mix)
If you collect enough remixes, (and I collect more than enough) you start to notice certain names keep popping up. In the 90s I knew the big names like Flood, Fatboy Slim, The Chemical Brothers, and so on, but as my collection of remixes extends into ludicrous numbers, I’m beginning to notice many more recurring names; such as Almighty and Thunderpuss. I have a remix of Erasure’s “Chains of Love” credited to Almighty, and a few Madonna tracks remixed by Thunderpuss, but who are these people?

Well, Almighty isn’t a person at all, they’re a company (complete with a garish website). According to their Discogs page, no one person can be linked to an Almighty remix, they are a nameless mass of remixers and producers whose sole intention is to increase the funkatude of any dance track they get their hands on. They’re kind of like the Illuminati I guess, but with beats.

Thunderpuss, on the other hand, are two people – specifically Chris Cox and Barry Harris. I can’t say I know much of either’s work, but I can say without question that Chris Cox, a skinny white boy from the US, is not related to electronic music legend Carl Cox, a big black dude from the UK.

As for Superchumbo? That’s a dude named Tom Stephan. If you want to know more about him I suggest you read his horrible Wikipedia page, which reads like a press release translated from a foreign language.

Erasure
A Little Respect (Remixed By Mark Saunders)
Oh L’Amour (Acoustic)
Walking In The Rain (37B Remix)
Since I’m already talking about remixers, Mark Saunders is a super-accomplished remixer, mixer and producer. He has a webpage, find out for yourself. Of course, as you already know, Erasure is fucking fabulous, you don’t need to go to their webpage to find that out.

The acoustic version of “Oh L’Amour” is haunting, while the remix of “Walking In The Rain” is…decidedly not. It’s more fabulous than haunting. But it’s so fabulous that its fabulousness may haunt your own fabulous dreams.

Fabulous.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, “Walking In The Rain” is a cover, the original is by The Ronettes.

Posted in Erasure, Madonna, Pet Shop Boys, remixes | 4 Comments »

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