brit dj tom middleton selected ‘smells like electro’ from sydney boy DSICO’s (now deleted) punk as pussy ep. titled cosmosonica, the cd picks up where his previous mix ‘the trip’ stopped, featuring obscure covers like snow patrol doing beyonce’s ‘crazy in love’. it’s out 16 may on family. good exposure, and undoubtedly more in licensing fees than the tracks ever sold on 12″.
dsico has just dropped a debut artist album. no longer messing with the bastard pop of his 12″s on bondi’s 12 apostles, he has been messing with a kind of rough electropop. i took a shine to it immediately, and it’s getting hyped all over the place, all the sydney mags have given it great reviews, even mark moore (sexpress) gave it a plug! i noticed it on the recommended listening stand in a great little shop in shibuya the other day.

higher frequency seems like an interesting online zine for house/techno events around tokyo. might meet up with a friend at their michael mayer gig tonight.

hyperdia is good for working out your way round the trains too.

just arrived in tokyo. still hugely jetlagged. but we’ve had delicate fresh tofu, lots of gyoza! and startstruck wandering about the city to take up the past three days. went up the government tower, but sadly couldn’t see fuji. haven’t felt an earthquake yet either, kinda hoping we will, but also hoping it’s not ‘the big one’.

there’s so much happening. like berlin. though gigs and clubs are a lot more expensive here in tokyo. the goethe institute have a showcase happening in may called soundz from germany. it’s a pretty amazing lineup of mostly german peeps like senor coconut, monolake, apparat, mouse on mars, mia, lali puna, pole and atom heart.

otherwise i’m looking forward to catching the bug, madlib, hideki kaji, keb darge, luciano… i’ll probably miss half these, catch a hundred others and do some entirely random things i currently have no idea about. god i love being caught up in the flood of people around tokyo!

we had our first dose of karaoke last night too!

lyin’ back in the shade. etc. except that the new album from tzu, set to drop in july, shows the melbourne heads messing with more. country, rock. loads more singing and live beats. looking forward to seeing this one hit radio.

criss cross publishes metropolis and japan today

We went to the closing night of Tresor last night. All I can say is it´s one of the most amazing clubs I´ve ever been to. The music was intense, claustrophobic, amazing. The crowd was like the music headness of Frigid or Mad Racket crossed with the out of control feel of a rave.

Villalobos, Hawtin, DJ Hell, James Pennington (UR), Mike Huckaby. Though downstairs in Tresor was where it was at. I hardly knew anyone playing there, but it was all off the hook. Troy Mclure was a standout.

I asked a random girl to take a picture of us. She said you´re in luck I´m a professional photographer. And a DJ. It was Kelli Hand, damn, just that sort of night.

i was down at hardwax, one of berlin´s best record shops, the other day and discovered a fantastic label. solo-action have only released five 12s so far, no CDs. but what they´ve put out is consistently great. broken techno, like delsin who they seem to be connected to, but without that label´s smooth sheen. the solo action tracks hit that broken tech with hard syncopation, weird sounds and the odd bit of 303. it´s very disappointing that their first party happens on may 15, long after i´ve left.
the tracks that hit me were by stronghold, shed, and egotism. all worth listening to.
other things that i liked were the new albums by venetian snares, autechre and robert henke. henke´s new signal to noise is a beautiful droney-spacey artificial tribute to thunder. probably the best thing i picked up though was omar s´s great ´(and very moodymann influenced) first album just ask the lonely.

today we went to auschwitz-birkenau.
it was pretty heart rending. looking out at hectares and hectares of barracks and the remains of gas chambers and crematoria that you’ve seen in so many pictures is
one thing.
the real stab in the heart is seeing the abstract victims turn into real people in front of your eyes. huge rooms filled with locks of human hair that was used in the german textile industry to make blankets and material. there was a small cabinet filled with little children’s outfits. a corridor of ss mug shots of people about to be murdered, shaved heads and emaciated, but in every other way just looking like people you might know, people with hopes and aspirations. my age. there was even one that had a little wreath above it left by a younger relative.
all i could do was buy a little candle and leave it on the railway track into birkenau.

fourtet, one of the most consistently fantastic producers working the line between indie and electronics, has a new album out in may. his site says it’ll be called everything ecstatic, and there will be a 2 track promo 12” in april.
apparently stones throw are set to release an ep of fourtet remixes of madvillainy too!

heard this great new swedish band at the roxy in prague a couple of days ago. kinda on the shoegazer tip – a bit of ride, a bit of my bloody valentine – their site says they’ll be playing in berlin on the 17th, brilliant.