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.

Georgia Anne Muldrow’s debut EP on Stones Throw is one of the more interesting/fascinating things I’ve listened to in ages. Difficult to pin down, musically challenging and deliciously soulful, it’s a record that shouldn’t just slip past.

Read my review at the Cyclic Defrost blog and listen to her song Larva (click the record sleeve).

A friend told me on the weekend that he didn’t talk to me for ages because I looked so intimidating when I’m DJing. Me? I couldn’t believe it either. Anyway, apparently it’s true. I’m like a latter day horned devil behind the decks, or something. Anyway, I hit record while listening to a bunch of music last night.
It’s no Gold Teeth Thief, but if you feel like listening to music (like Style Council, Hermitude, Geeneus, IG Culture, What What and so on) this might be the tonic:

1. The Style Council - Long Hot Summer (Club mix)
2. Hermitude - Ruffwon
3. Demon Boyz - Recognition
4. Jake Slazenger - Lux
5. Spymusic - Notracktitle
6. Geeneus - Da Journey
7. Lionrock - Wet Roads Glisten (remix)
8. Trickski - Hormony
9. Friends from Rio vs Bembe Segue - Cravo E Canela (IG’s Sun of Scientist mix)
10. Tek 9 - Keep It Hot feat What What (IG mix)

Datarock’s Ketil Mosnes is on his hands and knees grasping at a pair of indigo jeans. Their owner, and the Norwegian duo’s other half, Fredrik Saroea is crawling under a backstage trailer at Norway’s Øya Festival. Watching the sun set on Oslo, it’s turning into that kind of night.

(Datarock at Oya Festival, Norway, 2005)

Earlier they played to 5,000 Norwegian music fans - their biggest audience ever – a crowd who arrived early to hear Datarock’s crayon-scrawled funky grooves. They didn’t disappoint. Along with eight musicians from Oslo hardcore and punk bands, apparently a few on stage just to get free tickets to the festival, as well as their own choir the New Traditionalists, Datarock prowled the stage.

“I have problems expressing myself because I’m drunk and I’m not that good in English, but this festival is quite special,” says Mosnes. Shy and self-effacing, he is the antithesis of hipster party boy Saroea. “You know it’s a festival for people who are into underground stuff, but I was shocked that so many people turned up to see us play.”

Saroea is back on his feet and racing across the road to a grassy embankment. Kristin Winsents, a DJ from P3 (Norway’s equivalent to Triple J), is urging the twosome to dive head first, like a human ten pin bowling ball, into a beer bottle-laden table. It’s not a new stunt either; Mosnes broke bones doing it at last year’s festival.

It’s been a great year for Datarock, whose debut album was memorably described by Nick Sylvester at Pitchforkmedia.com as a shot for instant pleasure that accidentally ended up being much more than that, ‘sorta how mom and dad ended up with five kids’. Norwegian pop princess Annie included them on her new DJ Kicks CD describing them as her favourite band from hometown Bergen.

Dressed in red and white striped tracksuits, their smart casual imagery brings to mind Manchester’s Happy Mondays, a band regularly invoked in Datarock reviews. The comparison had seemed generous for the record, which is closer in spirit to contemporaries LCD Soundsystem or !!!. But live it makes perfect, gloriously messy sense.

“I played in some really stupid punk rock bands here and Fredrik played in this trash metal band,” says Mosnes, who grew up on a soundtrack of Dinosaur Jr, Built to Spill and Pavement. He says it was a natural reaction to the jazz his music journalist father played around the house, but his musical palette broadened on moving to west coast university town Bergen. “It’s a small city and you can’t choose between that many clubs when you go out, so sometimes we just ended up in disco clubs.”

The tension between punk and funk that fires the duo has sent a factory load of other groups up the indie charts. But instead of reducing that potential to a pop formula, Datarock embrace the messy fun of disco punk. It’s philandery that winks at indie kids, electronic geeks and the Bee Gees. Wedged into a patch behind the public toilets, Mosnes and I suddenly realise that Norwegian psych group Madrugada are about to finish and the bustling queue for the toilets has gone quiet. We both have another drink ticket to cash in. Racing for the bar seems like the right way to end the interview.

(originally published in Nylon magazine, Australia)

Datarock - The New Song

Datarock tour Australia this month, gig details at their site.

Just announced, Datarock play the Mandarin club this Sunday (Feb 19).

For indie pop that’s somewhere between The Smiths and Scottish faves like Belle & Sebastian, listen to new Austin, Texas four-piece Voxtrot. Ramesh Srivastava started the band, then moved to Glasgow to study, went out clubbing a lot and listened to great music like Arthur Russell and Green Velvet - obviously another person sucked in by Optimo, I interviewed Syd Butler from Les Savy Fav last night and he hates techno but loves Optimo. Still, Srivastava wasn’t tempted to go DFA or post-punk, he eventually dumped the degree and went back to the band, releasing the wonderful debut EP Raised By Wolves.

There’s a new EP due this year, but for the moment check out:

Voxtrot - The Start of Something
Listen to more Voxtrot at their myspace page

The inspiration for intelligent designers everywhere was supposedly born in a couple of days time a coupla 1000 years ago and to celebrate the ingenious Wayne Marshall, no not that one, the one over at Wayne and Wax and Riddim Method put his talents to work on some carolling ditties.

Wayne and Wax vs Chipmunks - Christmas Don’t Be Slow

Wayne and Wax - Remix-mas

Meanwhile a bunch of Detroit characters worked their yuletide magic at Suburban Sprawl, thanks to Nick Catchdubs for the link (he’s got a bunch of christmassy missives aboard too).

Have a great xmas/ny everyone.

…That aren’t related to racism and the clampdown on civil liberties in Sydney.

Triosk were fantastic on Friday night at the Mandarin Club in the city. Disappointing turnout - hard to believe a band like Triosk, that so many people say they’re into, could have such a lacklustre crowd, but it happens to the best I guess. Triosk were incredible nonetheless. It was interesting to sit there, soak up the music and see the role that they play in the band. Laurence was amazing as always, but it was cool to see how much Adrian Klumpe’s phrasing on the piano contributed to the sound. Tony Buck from the Necks played before - my friend came in as Buck started and thought he was doing a soundcheck! It was heavy on the distortion/noise factor, with the odd vocal and a bunch of crazed drumming at the end.

Levins’s mind works in evil ways. The crowd cleared out after Triosk and Levins took to the decks, or should I say the laptop sitting on the decks, and proceeded to program a set so dark and viciously lacking in redeeming qualities it began to mess with our minds. People were screaming, falling over chairs in order to escape. Some (me) even resorted to violence, throwing the vile creature onto his back. Unfortunately, nothing stopped him.

Suffice to say it was one of the best nights out in ages.

Watch viking rockers battling to Jason Forrest’s War Photographer

The Herd - We Can’t Hear You

The Herd - Under Pressure

Sydney dubstep producer and Ableton jockey Moving Ninja (aka Jabba) played at Frigid last week, d/l the set here and read a review of his Southern Steppa gig the week before here.

In the spirit of killer sets, here’s one from Vex’d (thanks to Spannered.org and QLD dubstep don Frosty).

Kid Chameleon breaks down some shows he’s been involved with lately, including Meat Beat Manifesto, Plasticman, Vex’d and Joe Nice, but the most interesting one as far as I’m concerned is a profile of Al Haca and their label Klein. It’ s gotta be one of the most criminally underrated imprints, at least here in Australia, where their junglist dancehall and broken hip hop should be massive. Like, it’s really pop music, but killer pop music. You might know the label for Seelenluft’s Manila, the quirky house tune that crossed over big time into the electro/house scene, but names like Stereotyp, the Bug, Sofa Surfers and the increasingly wide Sofa family need investigating.

Not being a hardcore digger of drum’n'bass Pieter K was a new name to me, but Kid Chameleon’s piece on Riddim Method has my interest piqued. Check out his Pieter K tribute mix.

After drinks above a shop Crown St with friends, we skipped seeing Grand Salvo and Kes at the Hopetoun and instead drove down to the Abercrombie Hotel on Broadway. There’s been a resurgence of pubs in Sydney, I’m not sure what’s inspired it, but joining the evergreen Cricketers Arms, the Hoey, the Judgie, these days you’ll find regular music nights at places like the Sly Fox (Enmore), the Clare and the Abercrombie (Broadway). So the newly cool Abercrombie, whose luck turned when it was bought out by the guys behind the Clare Hotel down the street, has played host to plenty of gigs lately, the Popfrenzy crew are doing parties down there on Sunday nights with bands like Pivot, and a bunch of other regular nights including the indie night Purple Sneakers. Thursdays sees Inhale invite a different crew of Sydney beat makers every week, last week it was Southern Steppa.

We walked in to the corner pub to quease-inducing bass from Steppa-operative Eli Murray. I’ve known about Eli for ages, I even asked him to DJ at the TINA festival in 2004 when I organised the gigs up there in Newcastle - though a squashed lineup and a few last minute technical hassles meant we just ended up hanging out - so all I’d heard before was his killer mix CDs. Playing in the club he was tight, dubstep’s not the easiest sound to mix, the rhythms are deliberately off-kilter and jerky, but Eli has it locked down, the moody sounds flowed perfectly, well as perfectly as can be while still being uneasily funky. I’ve been off the planet as far as these sounds go for ages, but there was a lot of DJ Hatcha and Horsepower style dub-heavy beats with middle eastern melodies and whip-crack beats.

Southern Steppa’s schtick is dubstep, in case you didn’t guess. Well dubstep, grime and whatever other microvariations are coming outta East London, Germany or any of the other places the viral beatscience has appeared. And being more of an eclectic music lover, I have to admit I’d prefer to see these guys get a bit wider spectrum - any style gets a little boring after too long - so I was feeling a little skeptical as a quiet, wiry kid with a shaved head and a tight jumper flipped up his laptop next to the decks. I needn’t have. As part of the Garage Pressure live crew Moving Ninja, Jabba’s recorded for labels like Vertical Sound. But where that group got their name for ‘robo-grime’, Jabba was dropping something a bit deeper via an Ableton-enabled laptop. Heavy and flavoursome wobbly sounding dubstep action that despite the odd computer malfunction sounded tough, later it even developed into grimier IDM-flavoured riddims ala Maxximus. The beats underpinned by a stark, skeletal dub and electro base, like screwed & chopped down drum’n'bass. A small but appreciative pub audience vibed off the music in a mish-mash assortment of Melbourne style second hand lounges. The Steppa cats brought in extra sound making the bass wobble extra. It became properly evident when Kodama stepped up to add some sounds to Jabba’s set at one point. It was dark and minimal, with an occasional burst of light, such as the dark Zinc-style track featuring some seriously cut-up Missy Elliot vocals.

After Jabba left the stage, to a crowd of adoring backpack sporting guys, Kodama and Zerodub kicked right in with a CD jacket full of up to date dubs and a box of records. Their tough, hard dubstep had the building crowd nodding their heads and a bit of a crowd who were borderline dancing. Plenty of Zinc/Bingo style beats and sirens. The constant chatty buzz, relaxed mood and top shelf underground music reminded me of the Cricketer’s Arms of old. And damn, I miss the regular nights there.

Kodama - Mixed Peas (hosted by Southern Steppa)
Eli - Outbreak Vol 1 (hosted by Southern Steppa, sorry it’s WMA)

Moving Ninja - Alien, Soma, Antigen, Shellcode, Lost Tribe, Murky (hosted by Moving Ninja)