In two days I went to two concerts; Matt & Kim and Girl Talk. Both shows were insane spectacles of awesomeness that were filled with skinny little hipsters that I wanted to kill. Note to guys, stop wearing v-neck t-shirts and Kanye shutter glasses. It’s not cool, it’s not funny, it’s not “ironic,” it’s fucking annoying and I will smack you. And note to girls, if you’re going to dance on stage and wear a mini-skirt you should probably wear underwear (or not, I’m cool with whatever.)

On an unrelated note, I apologize for the lack of updates lately, hopefully after Thanksgiving shit will slow down for me a bit so I can get back to shit I like doing (like this).

Faithless
Insomnia (Armand’s European Vacation Mix)
Insomnia (Armand’s Mission To Mars Mix)
Insomnia (Monster Mix)
Insomnia (De Donatis Mix)
This was the enigmatic “more faithless” I hinted at a couple of weeks ago, and I think you all will agree with me that remixes of this seminal house/trip-hop classic are better than remixes of the Boy George-centric “Why Go.” If you disagree with that your opinion is wrong, “Insomnia” is one of the greatest electronic tracks of all time.

808 State
Pacific 0101
Pacific Break
Pacific 516
Okay, so how many versions of “Pacific” are there? In addition to these three (which are off of a 12” single) there are also versions numbered 202, 718, 212, 909, and one just called “Pacific State.” I have 909, but it’s scratched to hell and I couldn’t fix it up enough to put up here, sorry about that. This is some good chill shit.

Chris & Cosey
Exotika (Remix)
Workout
Beatbeatbeat (Live)
Rise (12” Remix)
Hypnotika
I know very little about Chris & Cosey, other than they were both members of Throbbing Gristle. I’m also very tired so I’m going to stop now. These remixes are from two different 12” singles.

I’ve been to Toledo four times since August, and three of those times I’ve come back sick. I think that makes it official, I’m allergic to Northwest Ohio.

Daft Punk
Harder Better Faster Stronger (Peter Heller’s Stylus Mix)
Harder Better Faster Stronger (Peter’s Beatz)
Harder Better Faster Stronger (Breakers Break Remix)
Harder Better Faster Stronger (Pete Heller’s Deeper Dub)
So I see this 12” single with remixes of “Harder Better Faster Stronger” and I’m like, “fuck yea, that’s the best song ever, those remixes are gonna be insane!” Actually, I was wrong. Since “Harder Better Faster Stronger” is in my list for the top 5 electronic tracks of all time, it’s damn near impossible to improve. So while all these remixes are fun and pretty good, they all pale in comparison to the original. They are all better than that damned Kanye song though, for what that’s worth.

The Chemical Brothers
H.I.A.
Come With Us (Fatboy Slim Remix)
Come With Us (H Foundation Remix)
What does H.I.A. stand for? Any takers? Horny In Alabama? Hot Ill Aardvarks? Horribly Infected Anus? (Sorry about that one.) I have no clue. It’s a non-album track taken from the 12” single to “Come With Us,” and is pretty much a dub/instrumental remix of that song. Fatboy Slim’s remix of “Come With Us” is balls-out nuts awesome.

Sci-Clone
Hold On
Lucid
If you Google “Sci-Clone” the first thing that comes up is a pharmaceutical company. If “Sci Clone” isn’t the most fucked up terrifying name for a drug company than I don’t know what is. Sounds like some company that starts the research that leads to the zombie apocalypse. Those bastards will be the death of us all. This bastard, on the other hand, is going to give you some great drum ‘n’ bass love in the form of these two tracks, which came from a 12” single. Both of these tracks combine DnB with jazz (I’m always shocked at how well that works) and should appeal to those out there who usually pass on DnB because it’s too crazy.

Increased blog posting throughout the week in an effort to maintain my sanity while exiled in Northwest Ohio. It’s grim up north.

Depeche Mode
Behind The Wheel/Route 66 (Megamix)
Behind The Wheel/Route 66 (Megadub)
Behind The Wheel/Route 66 (Extended Remix)
Behind The Wheel/Route 66 (Beatmasters Mix)
I had this for well over a year but never recorded it. I have no idea why. Ever seen Cars? It had a really shitty version of Route 66 by John Mayer. They should have used this one, totally would have been an entirely different movie. I just watched Wall-E with the commentary and the director said how he combined post-apocalyptic sci-fi imagery with music from Hello Dolly because they are polar opposites and the combination created something unique. I wish he would have been working on Cars, New Wave synthpop plus Americana/Western images would have been an awesome mix-up. These are all from a 12” promo single.

Faithless
Why Go (Ferry Corsten Remix)
Why Go (Faithless Mix 1)
Why Go (Lange Remix)
Why Go (Fused Why Stay Remix)
I have more Faithless at home. But I am not home. So that Faithless will have to wait. Why Go is one of their lesser songs in my opinion, probably because I’m not a huge fan of Boy George’s voice (although his fashion sense is fabulous…ly stupid). Grunge fans take note, this song is of no relation to the Pearl Jam tune of the same name. That would be weird. Still, these are some pretty good remixes that I grabbed off of a 12” single.

A quick round up of my latest reviews

Marnie Stern: This Is It… – The best album of the year. No contest.

Hadouken!: Music For An Accelerated Culture – Grime? Grindie? Fuck it, it’s just stupid.

ph10: Well Connected – Fun DnB. I like this record, even if the person who commented on my review seems to think I didn’t.

Mr. Meeble: Never Trust The Chinese – Not even half as good as that awesome title would suggest.

Live
Lift Me Up
I had to scour the damned interwebs to find this motherfucker. This song is in Zack And Miri Make A Porno during a very…intense scene. It’s a beautiful goddamn song. However, not only is it not on the soundtrack to the movie it’s not on any Live album! The story goes that Kevin Smith first heard the song while making Mallrats but Live wouldn’t let him use it in that movie and since they hadn’t released it some 13 years later he asked them again for this movie and they said yes. Now, I still kind of like Live, but they haven’t released a song this good in ages, what the fuck is their problem? If they put this song out on iTunes people will buy it. The quality of this MP3 isn’t perfect, but this is probably the only one you’re going to find for a while.

Erykah Badu
On & On (“I’m Feeling High” Vocal House Mix)
On & On (“I’m Feeling High” Dub Mix)
Aside from “Lift Me Up” all of the songs on tonight’s post were taken from white label 12” singles. These are the only two songs of the bunch that are from an actual official release, a promo single that had in massive print “FOR DJ USE ONLY.” “On & On” is my fav Badu song, and surprisingly enough, the song actually works well in club/house remix form.

Depeche Mode
It’s No Good (Club 69 Dub)
It’s No Good (Club 69 Remix)
This one wasn’t labeled outside of someone writing “Depeche Mode” on the label in blue ink. I found out the name of the remixes by Googling the number that was etched into the vinyl itself. Club 69 is not a place, but a person who’s real name is Peter Rauhofer. He’s pretty well-established in the remix community (even won a Grammy) so these remixes were probably released legitly at some point.

Donna Summer & Giorgio Moroder
Chasing Donna
This remix, however, probably never was. I grabbed this off of a very strange 12”. One side has a horrible song that incorporates (rather poorly) a sample of Samuel L. Jackson Ekezial speech from Pulp Fiction and shit house beat. That side was labeled as “Pulp Fiction,” but for some strange reason above that were the words “Led Zeppelin” crossed out. Odd. Anyways, that song is awful, this song however is the opposite of awful (it’s totally awesome). It’s a mash-up remix that combines the vocal of Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” with the main theme music from the movie Midnight Express, which was called “The Chase.” Both songs were composed originally by Giorgio Moroder, but I don’t know the identity of the remixer that mashed them up. Between the Pulp Fiction track and the Chasin Amy reference of this one, I can only assume that it was done by someone who loves 90s indie cinema.

Obama won! Yay.

People still hate gays! Boo.

So that’s my political post. Slightly unrelated side note, I badmouthed Michael Crichton on Monday and the dude went and dropped dead just hours later, so maybe I should lay off the bile for a bit (yeah, right). But seriously even though Crichton was kind of a douche he was a great writer and I’m sure his passing is a blow to those who loved him. So he will be missed. Go read Andromeda Strain if you haven’t dammit, it’s an amazing book.

Now, who wants rare 80s soundtracks by Tangerine Dream? I know I do!

Wavelength Original Soundtrack
Heartbreakers Original Soundtrack
I haven’t seen either of these films, but here’s what I’ve been able to gather about them. Wavelength was an independently produced film about aliens being held captive by the evil military and only Robert Carradine can save them. It was directed by a dude named Mike Gray, who went on the produce and write some episodes of Star Trek: TNG. It came out and then left about five minutes later. No one saw it and as far as I can tell there’s little evidence that the movie even exists. The few reviews I found were overwhelmingly blah, and its currently out of print (and I’m not going to hunt it down to find out more about it).

Now Heartbreakers I found a little bit more about. It was made by Bobby Roth, who’s directed a billion TV shows since then and starred Peter Coyote and Nick Mancuso, two actors who you’ve never heard of but seen thousands of times. This movie was slightly more well recieved than Wavelength. It played Sundance (back when actual independent films played it) and Ebert gave it four stars (he also gave Titan A.E. three and a half stars though, so take his recommendation with a grain of salt). Despite this somewhat warm reception this movie is also out of print (and I’m also not going to hunt this one down either).

Both soundtracks are typical 80s Tangerine Dream. I personally like Wavelength more because its tone is a bit more somber and understated, the music for Heartbreakers is very over-the-top 80s sounding (in all the bad ways). Still if you like Tangerine Dream you should dig on these and since they’re both insanely out of print (how many times can I type “out of print” in one post?) this is the only place you’re going to find them without paying an arm and leg (and neither of them are that good..maybe worth a pinkie and a toenail, but that’s it).

Go vote, while listening to obscure electronic music.

The Andromeda Strain Original Electronic Soundtrack
The Andromeda Strain is one of my favorite science-fiction books of all time, and is without a doubt my favorite Michael Crichton book. I used to be a big fan of that guy, until he lost his fucking mind and decided that writing about fake science made him a real scientist (FACT: anyone involved with the production of Runaway should not be invited to speak in front of congress). Anyways, I’ve only seen the original Andromeda Strain movie once, but I recall liking it (and being confused that one of the characters switched genders from the book to the film).

Both the movie and the book are readily available, and I recommend them both. The soundtrack is a little harder to come by, however. Never released on CD, the original vinyl records were hexagon-shaped and came in an awesome foldout case. They only made 10,000 of them this way (because of the high cost in doing so), while later copies were made regularly. Both versions are insanely hard to find. I got a copy with a slightly torn cover for $20, but a near mint copy can easily go for $100-$200 online, so I got a deal. The music itself is great early electronic music, all synthesizer stuff. It was composed by Gil Melle, who may be known to genre film fans as the composer to such classic films as Blood Beach and The Sentinel (one of the most FUCKED UP movies you will ever see). He also did the scores for episodes of Night Gallery, Six Million Dollar Man and Columbo. Diverse dude.

Liquid Sky Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
This is a movie I have not seen. As far as I know this movie is out of print, despite it being listed on Amazon (that looks like a bootleg). From what I can gather the movie is about alien heroin addicts. Sounds like my kind of flick. The soundtrack is just as weird as the film. It was composed on a Fairlight CMI (the first digital synthesizer) and is very experimental, featuring an odd assortment of jarring tonal sounds, off-kilter melodies and freaky beats. I dig it. The director/writer/producer Slava Tsukerman is credited as a composer of the soundtrack, as is Brenda Hutchinson, who is a freaky experimental musician, and Clive Smith, who’s done a bunch of TV stuff over the years. Never released on CD and insanely hard to find, it’s a must listen for fans of weird shit.