Is this how you dance to Dubstep?

"Sultanesque"

My mate put me on to this magnificent track by the mighty Roxy. It's the B-Side to their 1975 club-banger "Love Is the Drug". In his own words (,kind of): "an excellent Bryan Ferry electronic composition that predates the To Rococo Rot sound we all know and love". Spot on!
While Ferry is mostly known for his quirky and clever songwriting, clearly Eno wasn't the only one into Cluster, as this track proves.
So anyway, I got this 7" off of some dude on Discogs. Why he would want to get rid of such a gem is beyond me, especially at the bargain price of £4 including postage!
My mate asked me to digitise it and upload it so that he could have it.
I've always loved Roxy, but now I'm obsessed with their singles, as the B-Sides are always quite interesting. They show an expansive, more experimental side than their album tracks or pop singles could offer, as groundbreaking as they were during their first five or six albums. Check out the exquisite B-Side to "Pyjamarama" for further proof! The B-Sides gave them a chance to go beyond what the hit-parade expected of them. This is a side to the seminal glam-pop group I wasn't well aware of until recently. Bowie who? Bolan who? Fowley who? This lot are the real deal, folks. For fuck's sake, if the "For Your Pleasure" LP isn't enough of a statement to you, then you have no business even visiting this blog... ...or just dig deeper into their B-Sides. I promise these were really made "for your pleasure", so do yourself a favour.
This one's for you Paul.

Mosaic Electronique

I was planning to do another "Dance Mix". I picked some dance-y records, but as I was spinning these and picking what the next record should be, it became apparent that this wasn't strictly a "Dance Mix" per-se, but rather just an electronic music mix. I guess it was just the mood that I was in at the time. I guess I didn't really feel like dancing that much. You still get some micro-house, acid and techno thrown in, but in this instance it mingles with ambient, disco and minimalist electronica. I opened the mix with the last track I produced (see last post) and it proved to be a good mood setter for what's to come.
The mix closes with perhaps my favourite Spacemen 3 record, "Big City". Come to think of it, I find it a bit odd that my favourite Spacemen 3 record is not one written by Jason Pierce, although I do quite like the Sonic Boom stuff and EAR as well as Spectrum (Check out that album he did with the Silver Apples and the stuff he did with Delia Derbyshire!). Kember is a pretty smart, if perhaps somewhat drug-damaged dude. Anyway, that record ("Big City") is absolutely brilliant: about 9 minutes long, and all it's got is a huge chorus that repeats, with some NEU!-esque instrumental passages that act as verses. You could sing that chorus forever, you could drift in its rising-sun-at-6 a.m.-pill-come-down-psychedelia for hours, repeating that brilliant chorus. It's a long record as it is, but I could do with an even more extended mix!
ELECTROMA!

(Working On My) Levity

The other day at work I was out having a fag with one my colleagues. He asked if I was alright or something and somehow (I can't remember) we got into a conversation about levity. I said I needed to "work on levity. But how does one go about working on one's levity?", I asked him.
His response was rather surprising. He suggested that if I didn't have any plans this weekend (which I didn't), the best way to work on my levity was to spend the weekend writing a piece called "Working On My Levity". So essentially, I'd be working on "Working On My Levity".
I took this as a challenge and I promised him that by Monday I'd return with a finished piece called "Working On My Levity", a piece meant as therapy to er, work on my levity, you know, not be so serious and uptight, but a bit more cheerful, light and likeable. People don't like people that lack levity, I've come to realise.
I don't know that making this piece has helped, but I'm definitely pleased with it! It was nice setting limits to myself and giving it a deadline. It made me a bit more spontaneous, which is what excites me about making music. Sometimes I dwell too much on one idea in the hopes that I will make it better, but it is not always the case.
So here you go Duncan, my friend, this is one is for you because of you. I hope you enjoy it.

"Meek"

Just a quick one, then:
My partner Jessica and I have got into the habit of making CD-Rs with sketches, advances or previews of material that we have been working on with our group, Encounters. We take them to gigs and give them out to people. They are very DIY and always contain different versions, track listing and artwork courtesy of Jessica.
We recently went to a Dirty Projectors gig. They were ace, in case you were wondering. That's not the point. We didn't get a chance to give one of these CDs to anyone in the band, so I ended up giving it to out friend Laura (not our drummer) who came to the show with us. The thing is, the new version of one of the tracks was a bit longer, so it would not allow space for the last track, a ten minute pop song that goes by the working title of "Meek".
Jessica had already written down the track listing on the insert and it included this track which didn't fit in the CD, so I just scribbled "available as a free download in blogspot.com/memogrammofon").
Of course the track had not been posted, so here it is.
It's not finished yet. We plan on recording some vocals and some other stuff on it. It was recorded nearly a year ago, or at least it seems that way. I was (again) going through a Joe Meek phase and this was my intent at trying to make a tune that approximated the general sound and vibe of some of his records. I'm not sure if I succeeded or not, but whatever, I think it's sounding good so far and maybe one day we'll finish it.
So here you go Laura, this is up here because of you. I hope you enjoy it.
Love,
Memo.

Memo / Polle Van de Gash Stoned Mixtape

I know I've been away from the blogosphere (again) for quite some time. I just didn't find anything worth posting... ...until now!
My psychedelic, cosmic, red guru friend Paul has been hassling me for a while now to upload this, so that he can put it up on his fantastic blog as well, I suppose.
One time he came over. I'd just come back from Mexico, where I endured two months of casualties, legal issues, soul searching and generally trying to find myself. I had a broken arm from a car accident I was in whilst there. I was to play a gig with my mates in Austin, TX the following night. Some little shit was going the wrong way on a one way street. He was a minor, probably didn't even have a license and was driving recklessly. I was on my way to my mate's flat to go over the music we were performing the following night.
Long story short, I couldn't make it to the gig as I had to spend the week in hospital, which I was deeply frustrated about. It was sounding ace at rehearsals!
I flew back to London with two large suitcases, one of which was full of records I'd brought over from Mexico. That particular suitcase was heavy as fuck and I had to pay a ridiculous overweight fee to the airline to take it across the Atlantic. Screw you Continental! No, that's not fair. Other airlines are even shittier! Never fly with Air France! They basically guarantee they will loose your luggage and I certainly didn't want that with the luscious gems I was carrying.
Again, long story short: Paul came over to see me and was dumbfounded by the state I was in. Drunk and stoned, as per usual, with a thick cast covering the whole of my left arm... Anyway, we caught up and then did what we usually do: roll a few spliffs and spin some records. Only this time, we ever so carelessly recorded our fun on to a tape cassette (remember those?!?! TDK D-60 for life, bitches!). I'd recently found this big-arse case, akin to a coffin. It's got two turntables and a dual-tape deck, complete with an in-line mixer. It is in near-perfect working condition. Even the lamp works! That's a fucking good find if you ask me! Some stupid plank left it outside his/her flat for anyone to take. I guess they'd figured they'd get an ipod and get rid of this cumbersome but beautiful piece of gear.
As soon as I spotted it, I asked my neighbour Mario and his reluctant sister to help me carry it home (I've only got one working arm, so chivalry was not an issue).
This particular piece of machinery has been my best friend ever since. It's given me a new tool to record music: on to tape. It just gives it so much character, hiss, bass and tape compression. I have been making music on it. I shall soon post these tracks for your aural pleasure.
And I find myself rambling and droning on again, so to the point: we got high and freaked out to the records I'd brought over. We had a super groovy time and now it's here in all it's imperfect glory for you good, everloving sons of Jah!
It's (predictably) all over the place and it's got its fair share of fuck ups, record skips, clips and the like.
Most noticeably, it's got some absolute beacons of Mexican popular culture, rubbing shoulders with the usual psych/prog-cum-everything-else shizzle you know us for. We didn't realise at the time, but as I was playing it back I noticed we innocently followed "Je T'aime (Moi Non Plus)" by "Ave Maria": so, a secular piece that got a lot of shit for sounding almost church-like, with its organ motif juxtaposed with its infamous sexual content - followed by a religious piece of music. Then I believe there are some rain chants in there somewhere.
See you soon!

Polle Van De Gash's Library Mixes

Hey all. I know I've been away from the blogosphere for a while, two months to be just about precise. A lot has happened in that time. I've been away, sorting shit out, sorting myself out, and then coming back with a broken arm i got from a recent car accident. I'm typing with one hand. It is not easy and a bit frustrating.
I have been keeping busy though. I'm happy to be back and doing the blog circuit again. I can't mix very well with one hand either, it's difficult, so don't expect a lot of action until I recover.
But this post is not about me. It's about my good friend Polle Van De Gash, who has just uploaded two mind boggling mixes of library music goodness on his previously recommended blog.

You can get them here:
http://rapidshare.com/files/249024937/Library_Mix_I__Pop_Distortions.mp3.zip
and part two from:
http://rapidshare.com/files/249031856/Library_Mix_II__Cosmo-Synthetics.mp3.zip
Some cracking stuff on there.
Polle was actually round mine last night. I'd just found this coffin with twin turntables, a mixer and a double TEAC tape deck that worked perfectly just outside a block of flats (this is common practise here in London: if people want to get rid of something they just chuck it outside and a passerby may be interested. This is how I've acquired most of my furniture and even my television). I guess whoever chucked it out decided to buy an iPod or something. What a find!
So we just got smashed and picked a pile of records and started having a back to back session which I recorded onto the tape machine. I'm currently digitizing it so you can download it from here. Expect it soon!