One of my friends got permanent residency on Friday. It shouldn’t be something to celebrate. He was recognised as a refugee from Afganistan three years ago. It’s six years since he saw his family last. It took masses of red tape. But he got it. So it’s a major celebration. Major! Everything else this weekend dropped, replaced by an after dusk feast Auburn-style.

Linked is a soundtrack I made for the occasion. It’s celebratory and optimistic, even if the tone’s dark and gritty at times.

Kinski - Silent Biker Type (Sub Pop)
Horsepower Productions - Marseilles Connection (Tempa)
Chiapet - Tick Tock (Two Lone Swordsmen R.G.C. Remix) (Phonography)
Ides - Limer (Acid Fuckers Unite)
Second Protocol - Bass Lick (East West)
Jammin - Kinda Funky (Wookie Remix) (Bingo)
Pressure feat. Warrior Queen - Money Honey (Remix) (Hyperdub)
Rhythm & Sound - Let We Go (feat. Ras Donovan & Ras Perez - Villalobos Remix) (Burial Mix)
Kim Hiorthøy - Hej, Vart Blev Det Av Dat En, Kim? (Alog’s Album Remix) (Smalltown Supersound)
Boxcutter - Rikta (Planet Mu)
Sun - Reach For The Sky (Pluramon Remix) (Staubgold)

DOWNLOAD: Overland From Kabul

I like finding new record labels, especially when they’re based in Sydney and doing something cool like being online and giving away their music, and, even cooler still, make music I like. Cabinet Pin is a newish label run by a guy called Jeff who has a band called the Desks. As well as his songs, Cabinet Pin has songs from Sparrow Hill and Fisheads of Fun, which I like.

The Cosmonauts of Inner Space featuring Ari Up - Allergy
Arrow - Groove Master (Acid Soca House Dub)
Donovan Bennett - Jonkanoo
Explainer - Rasta Chick
Mighty Duke - Rock Meh
Morgan Geist - Probs
Dimitri From Paris - Dirty Larry (Idjut Boys Roast Beef Remix)
The Tiki Two - The Best is Yet to Come

One of the most curious characters I met while living in Canberra was Darren Ziesing, better known in some circles as Stalker.

Turning out album after album of dense, layered techno in sleeves that were desperately short of information, especially for a liner notes junkie like me; he does something and moves on. That’s great musically. But it’s consigned him to a bit part in the broader music scene - if noone hears the music, was there any point making it?

Fortunately, Ziesing’s reappeared with a new online music shop, Polybonk, and apparently, a sixth solo album.

The site’s ‘about us’ section link is broken, but from what I can gather from the blog, it’s still germinating. Pitched as a community site where artists can upload their music and sell it to each other/others, you can find three minute tracks through to hour long epics from Stalker, Sleep and Exo available in what almost seems like a pro rata price of around $1.80 to $10.

Or at least get three Snawklor albums.

The 10 year collaborative project between Melbourne’s Dylan Martorell (Hidden Archive) and Nathan Gray (Undo Design), Snawklor, produced beautiful sound art and experimental music. Go to the duo’s blog, where they’ve made three albums available for free download.

Sentimental mixtape-ology - and I mean tape - is a perennial music head fixation. I love it, but aside from one good mate in Alice Springs, I don’t know anyone with a tape player. So, to me, mixtapes are a pointless anachronism - technology’s moved on! It’s tempting to say playlist/burn mixes are the future. But the biggest problem with this kind of mix is its popularity and ubiquity - you like the songs, but you’re not going to listen more than a few times. And there’s no shortage of ripped compilations.

But if someone went to the effort of making an actual mixtape, would you listen over and over the way you did at 13? There’s too much music to soak up at any one time - that’s an equally interesting question in itself, which Eli took up a while ago (interestingly he’s only posted once to his blog since) - I reckon the media’s not the issue, it’s the effort/thought that goes into the compiling and sequencing.

I used to listen to favourite mix tapes over and over and over, until the tape distorted, tore, and got sticky tape surgery. When I hear songs from those tapes now I expect the next song. It’s a weird, hollow feeling when the song fails to materialise.

Scientific American’s new mix (click the picture) has that feeling at its core. And I’ve been listening since Riddim Method first put me onto it. SA took favourite mixes, turned the spotlight on those perfect segues, and created what they call the massdstrction mix.

umm, yeah, okay i guess it needs explaining. mass.dstrction is a mix series. like a cd a dj makes of songs that all blend together, or a tape you made for a girl in 10th grade because you thought she was cute and would think you had good taste in music. so make yourself a mixtape, then a few months later take your favorite parts and mix in some new songs, take parts out, whatever. keep changing things and rearranging, maybe only use the snare sound from one song, with the bass part from another, you get the picture. that’s what’s going on here - except that if you’re in 10th grade and give this to a girl, she’ll probably think you’re sorta crazy. love it!

It wouldn’t be the first time Smiths fans got all worked up over not very much. Apparently they’re sending death threats to NY-based DJ/producer Mark Ronson. He’s covered ‘Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One’ inna R&B style, with Melbourne’s Daniel Merriweather on vocals, and a bit of the Supremes for good measure.

One of the gladi-touters wants to stab Ronson in the eye.

Ronson’s rumoured to be Bowie guitarist Mick Ronson’s son, but apparently it’s false as he’s actually the scion of a socialite and a real-estate supremo.

Merriweather’s ‘She’s Got Me’ was a favourite in 2004 - the 8 Bit remix was so hot - though he’s been invisible since, so it’s cool to hear his voice again.

Mark Ronson featuring Daniel Merriweather - Stop Me (via Cub Pop)

As album ideas go it’s lacking spark, but at some point if you like a song then you’re going to like an interesting cover of the song, and I like it.

There’s an indie DJ in Sydney at the moment calling himself Fire In The Disco, but one of the things that stuck with me from being in Tokyo in 2005 is kids asleep beside the dancefloor because the trains shut down in the early hours.

SLEEPING AT THE DISCO (49M)

• Herbie Hancock - Tell Everybody
• Disco Dub Band - For the Love of Money (Underdog mix)
• Domu - Not in Common
• Double U - Secret Love (Metoboman remix)
• Black Devil Disco Club - No Regrets
• Imagination - Changes (Larry Levan version)
• OTW - He Dance Funny
• Domu - Fun No More
• As One - Away From All of This

So that’s the name. The reason it sounds like it does was Jamie Lloyd’s new album, Trouble Within, on Sydney label Future Classic. I’m not saying this mix hits the same notes as that great record. But after listening to Lloyd’s record three times in a row I got thinking about all these other great records and had to listen to them.

I would have fitted some Arthur Russell in, but it was very much of the moment, and in that moment I couldn’t find any.

FBI has a new URL - FBIRADIO.COM - and lots of newly podcasted interviews with people like Filastine, Shadow and Peter, Bjorn and John.

A couple of my guests from earlier this year too: Matt Robertson about Factory Records and his graphic book on the label, as well as David Best from Fujiya Miyagi.

The following mix of music may do to fill your 45 minutes. I haven’t DJed much this year, but I’ve been getting loads of records, maybe more than at any other time and they’ve all gotta go somewhere. Although, I have to say, this mix is not so much about new stuff as about reevaluating some brilliant older tracks such as the first one from Japanese trumpeter Toshinori Kondo. In fact, the only new ones are from new CDs by TV On The Radio and Scritti Politti and a demo CD from Sydney producer Milkrun - all three CDs mixed in to the set using my extremely high tech Teac CD player.