here is a mix i did a while ago. it got played on triple j’s club show in australia, as well as fbi in sydney and pbs in melbourne. hope you like.

there must be some kinda underground, subculture-y thing here in bulgaria. but i’ve been looking and i’m yet to find anything. not speaking/reading the cyrillic bulgarian can’t help. no good record shops so far, which everyone seems to attribute to the heavy local servers – internet is slow, but each town has a local server with very large quantities of music and video, meaning that retailers of those things struggle to sell them. i did go to a cool hip hop party last night at 3 Ushi (the djs used cdjs and burnt cds). these people put on some bigger parties with guys like a guy called gerald, the orb and mike patton, not sure if there’s anything while we’re here though.

the road out of sarajevo winds up past the ski fields and through some wild territory. where else could you look out one window and see a pig hanging by its hind legs being skinned and through the other a wartorn cityscape dominated by the city’s rebuilt twin towers. the bus curls through the mountains surrounded, and sometimes covered by snow.
fortunately i seem to have equilibrated to that peculiarly european style of driving, the most notable feature is a tendency to overtake any vehicle (bus, truck, etc) no matter what kind of vehicle you’re driving (scooter, bus, land train), or the state of the road. winding mountain roads covered in ice are fine for dare devil overtaking on hair pin turns, even when you can see oncoming traffic.
maybe i’m not totally over it. an old rickety bus that felt like it was unfit for the school round. every time we went over any kind of topography the bus would be overrun by a wheezing that seemed to alternately drift from the front and rear of the bus. looking around i realised it wasn’t the geriatrics – they were taking care of the throaty coughs – but the failing hydraulics. we spent most of the trip travelling at 40km/hr or less.
anyway, 24 hours later and things are feeling better.
hard to believe, but michelle grattan in the age has reported howard’s softening his line on refugees with plans to release long term detainees… a chink in the armour? who knows, good to hear anyway.

my face is red. mostly my forehead, cheeks and nose, though there’s a conspicuously unburnt patch around my eyes. we’re just back from jahorina, a ski resort 25 km out of sarajevo. the snow was a little slushy, runs short, skis pretty bad. but it was still great. so cool to be on the slopes, stifling a laugh at others, for a change, spending runs on their backs. glad we weren’t up there any longer though, there aren’t that many runs and i think we pretty much exhausted them.

no wonder typhonic – the canberran dj with bosnian blood – has such an affinity for heavy breakbeats. i’m in bosnia now, and heavy beats are everywhere you look. in mostar the clubs advertised a combo of ragga, garage and drum’n'bass. here in sarajevo, there are a few house and minimal techno events, but most of the clubs swing between dancehall, dub, ragga, garage and drum’n'bass. even the dodgy western cafe we wandered into the other day was playing heavy dub reggae. looks like the best places to check are access (on marsala tito), the art depot, maybe the bar and bock too. haven’t found much sign of experimental music, or jazz (beyond the lounge bar variety).

woah. riots in campbelltown? that definitely hasn’t been reported on cnn. it’s pretty much impossible to get any papers here in bosnia, so cnn’s all i’ve got for now. when i’m through posting i think i’ll do a little surfing.

reminds me of a story i heard the other day about tension in brisbane during WW2, called ‘the battle of brisbane’ between stationed us troops and the locals. an aust film director i met in zagreb says he wants to make a short film about it. i might write it all up if i get more computer time.

we had our first sunny days in dubrovnik, a revelation, seriously. life is suddenly looking great. found a great indie club where we saw a local hip hop crew.

caught the bus over to bosnia today, and have spent the afternoon wandering about mostar. it feels like the war between the croats and muslims only finished moments ago. half the buildings are wrecked. it’s a pretty stark contrast between shiny outfitted euro kids, begging children and limbless ex-soldiers.

off to sarajevo tomorrow…

that leonard cohen tribute at the opera house seems like a whole other world, one that i keep thinking about flying back to. it is very cold here. the coldest it’s been in 18 years. though i’ve been feeling a lot warmer since i picked up a coat from an outlet in vienna yesterday.

we’re in croatia now. spent a bus trip from vienna shivering about spending the rest of the night on the streets. the hostel we booked earlier emailed yesterday to say we couldn’t stay. to cut a long story short, we went there anyway. and it was all fine.

zagreb is more beautiful than i was expecting. very cool things happening, especially music – ken vandermark, balanescu quartet, jeff mills, jonathan richman. hordes of kids hurtling down slopes in home-made sleds or bits of plastic, couples walking down the lanes, parents dragging the sleds back up the slopes.

have moved on to pula in the istrian top of croatia. we’ll be here for a few days, then dubrovnik, then…

i’ve been listening to new beats by a crew from budapest. check realistic crew‘s site for some samples. it’s a double ep by members of the crew – krizo and chabz. i met krizo (aka christian) at afrofill records in budapest, where he’d arrived with the cds direct from the pressing plant. his side is definitely the most interesting. broken beat and jungle flavoured hip hop beats packed with experimentation. chabz’ side is pretty steady boom bap hip hop, with a bit of krush-style melancholy. worth checking out.

otherwise i’ve been listening to b. fleishman (beautiful electronics from vienna), modern lovers and the care (velvets-influenced off kilter pop), kpt (killer post rock/electronic dirge pop!), and the high llamas (dileep clued me in on a great ep that came free with their album hawaii). unfortunately missed bright eyes in vienna, but looking forward to berlin.

itÅ› been a blur since we left canberra – first there was the rush of farewell dinners, breakfasts and parties in sydney, then the rush of actual airport goodbyes. we flew into innsbruck. what an incredible place to start off in europe.
from there, we drove to corvara in the italian dolomiti mountains. the skiing was brilliant. huge imposing mountains, with a faint pink colour.
it was looking a little dry when we arrived, so you can imagine our relief when it snowed about 20cm overnight. and it kept snowing most of the week – not perisher style sleet and blizzards, but beautiful soft snowflakes.
the runs were long and great. the food was fabulous and we spent most days drinking from around 11am.
must say itÅ› quite good to wake up and not have to strap on boots and skis since leaving. we stopped in bolzano for a few days, and now in budapest. the food isn´t so great – all hearty stews and things – but the beer is cheap and very good, and the absinthe is available at the supermarket.
music scene, well weŕe yet to discover one that doesn´t take in joe cocker, queen or anastacia, but i´m sure weĺl find something. i noticed thereś a night on here on friday featuring vienna scientists and some of the pulver people.
weÅ•e here until sunday. then we might go to slovakia for a couple of days – we were going to go through gyor, but that seems like a fairly boring town and i´d like to get to slovakia. then we head to vienna for a few days, then prague!

if anyone has any good suggestions for things happening in eastern-central europe over the next few weeks, or good english language print or online media to find out about things, feel free to add a comment!

it’s my last week hosting therapy on 2xx in canberra… here’s what was played.

Alex feat Form of Audio & Joelistics – Broken Tears
Terry Callier – Love Theme From Spartacus (4 Hero mix)
Smith & Mighty feat Rudy Lee – No Justice
Adventure Time – Whetting Whistles
Bob Holroyd – Drumming Up A Storm (Dhizan & Kamien remix)
Talib Kweli – Get By (Blackbeard mix)
Mako & Bass Kleph – Like, Abort Juan (Andrew Maher Delta mix)
Boxsaga feat Lyric L & Andrea Clarke – Back Inside (Superbug mix)
Blunted Stylus feat Koolism – Breakin’ Thru
Toni Braxton – Hit The Freeway (Zed Bias & Typhonic mix)
John Foxx – Mr No (Joakim mix)
Flippo Naughty Moscatello – Memorabilia
Chemical Bros – Galvanise (Abe Duque mix)
DJ Krush – Univearth
Soul Central – Strings of Life (Funky Lowlives mix)
Sueno Latino – Sueno Latino
Deepchild – What’s Going Wrong (Mako mix)
Avenue D – 2D2F

life’s been a little bit busy for writing up tracklists – as much as i hate to say that! – anyway here are the track nic and i played on therapy the past 2 weeks…

Last friday night:
The Orb vs Meat Beat Manifesto – Matron
Fat Jon – Talk To Me
Flanger – Midnight Served
Mouse On Mars – Wipe That Sound
Syrup – If I Gave You A Party (Version)
Ghislain Poirier feat Beans – Cold As Hell
National Collective – Dia De Desfile
Stereotyp feat Tikiman – My Sound
Midnight Juggernauts – Deadly Venom
Aphex Twin – Bucephalus Bouncing Balls
SJD – Four Door
Nasty Tales – Come On-A-My House (Hook’n’sling mix)
Q And Not U – Wonderful People
Kraak + Smaak – Maputo Express
Mr Bungle – Goodbye Sober Boy
Soul Position – Inhale (Remix)
Beres Hammond + U Roy – Putting Up A Resistance
Avenue D – Do I Look Like a Slut
Boom Bass + Etienne De Crecy – Bit Torrent
Iswhat?! – Cold Hands (DJ Spinna mix)
Flanger – Angel of Love
J Zone feat Celph Titled – Spoiled Rotten
Sequel – Melt with “Big Clap”

The week before:
Headman – Find a Way
Pasobionic – Echoes of Blue
Husky Rescue – Summertime Cowboy (Mocky mix)
Savath & Savalas – Sota L’Aigua
Sholto – The Sleeper
Wagon Christ – Shadows
Daedalus – One Breath To Breathe
Ernie & The Top Incs – Dap Walk
DJ Rels – Broken Soul
Stereotyp – Fling Style
Esquire – Brandy & Xanax
MIA – Sunshowers
Bugz in the Attic – Booty La La (Extended Booty mix)
Mouse On Mars – Wipe That Sound
Material – Reduction
Herman Chin Loy – Heavy Dub
Architecture In Helsinki – Love Is Evil (The Prequel)
Soulwax – E Talking
Grandmaster Flash – Scorpio (Plaid mix)
Swayzak – Then There’s Her
Alter Ego – Rocker (Black Strobe mix)
Soul Strata feat Cesar – Po