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perc & fractal – up [KOMPAKTEX52]

July 20, 2007 · by · in

Dropping August 6th: Perc Mix. Original Mix.

Oh god, and the label copy is just amazing:

Return of the MEAN!
With Speicher 52, the brutish returns to the clubs. Perc & Fractal unleashed a sabre-toothed tiger of a track on us Everybody who’s familiar with Mr Perc’s oeuvre so far knows what we’re dealing with here.

Apart from plenty of crackers on his own Perc Trax label, he’s well known for being a close relative to James Holden’s Border Community. Metaphorically spoken, we could say that he’s Holden’s vile cousin. “Up”, his first cooperation with Fractal is based on a reckless synth line that – like the title suggests – seems to tweak higher and higher over its 7.5 minutes course. It drills spirally to right where it hurts most. On the other hand, the beat pretends to be just slick, smart and sexy. But we wouldn’t recommend you to trust its peaceful surface too much… There’s something evil lurking beyond!

For the flipside we complied to numerous requests from the CIA and developed an extended torture tool. Played at high volume we guarentee that it’s way more effective than anything Jack Bauer could ever do. Awesome acoustic thumbscrew!

the tide pool update

July 16, 2007 · by · in

Yea and gather round, for I have many things to tell you about.

– The mighty AFK is our guest this month on Tide Pool Is Love, on Proton Radio.  The show airs this Friday at 0300 EST.  That’s Thursday at midnight, for those of you who are on the west coast like us.

– We have two new interviews posted in the Tide Pool forums.  Vancouver’s own post-hipster Antiguru talks about East Van, recording gear, and rocking the house as a DJ.  Cecil D, our Albertan connection, answers questions about real guitars, fake amps, and the corrolation between fake tits and DJ gigs.

– And, finally, our latest release is The Ultraviolet Catastrophe, by The Sky Patrol, and it’s totally fantastic.

vemf, and brazil vs. spain

July 13, 2007 · by · in ,

Just as a heads up: I’m playing at VEMF, and probably helping out with production seminars. Bring your dancing shoes and questions about compression.

Also, Brazil were robbed by Spain on Wednesday night, in a drop-dead gorgeous game of soccer. Brazil went up 2-0 in a two minute span near the end of the first half, and then Gerard Pique knocked the ball in off his hand, paused, looked at the linesman, and then began celebrating. Sigh. Spain’s second goal was off a quick free kick, which to my surprise are in fact 100% legal, although totally unsporting in the modern game.

And to be fair, Brazil made a poor substitution, taking off the full-back that had contained Spain’s explosive left winger, Diego Capel. And it was Capel who starred as Spain began to dominate, eventually producing the cross for Alberto Bueno to score the game winner. A lucky, but gritty, win for the Spaniards, who have an unusual habit of getting better as a game goes on.

many things

July 9, 2007 · by · in , ,

– I played at Storm Warning this weekend, rocking the opening action. It could have been a more coherent set of trippy, pretty downtempo and ambient, but I was really pleased with the tracks I got to play. In other Pacific Front news, my remix of ‘Lost’ should be out in August or so.

– It was also made official that my tune ‘Up’ is coming on on Kompakt as Speicher 52, in early August, with a monumental remix from Perc. Thanks is really and seriously due to Perc for this one, as he did the remix and got it signed. I just provided the original ever-rising sine tone action.

– I get to see Spain play Brazil at the U-20 World Cup on Wednesday! Spain has yet to lose a game, and Brazil has only barely won one, so the smart money should be on Spain. However, things are so swingy at this level that it really comes down to who shows up on the day. Hopefully it won’t be a 1-0 bore.

battles…

July 5, 2007 · by · in ,

…are a fucking crazy band. I don’t know if they’re math rock or post jazz, but they sound like the future to me.  They also have an endearingly awkward live show – they’re showmen by virtue of passion, not slickness, and it shows.  But they’re still a crazy good band, and are very much worth seeing if you like trying to dance to weird time signatures.

academia waltz

July 5, 2007 · by · in

Just registered for Uvic this fall.
Ahhhhhhhhhh.

how to fix soccer

July 2, 2007 · by · in

I’ve been watching the U-20 World Cup, and I have been annoyed, as per usual, at the diving and simulation of injury.  This is pretty much par for the course with high level soccer.  I have two simple answers:

Faking Injury:  If you’re hurt so bad that you must leave the field, you must leave the field as soon as possible.  You do not get to come back on until at least next stoppage of play, at the ref’s discretion.  So, if you get stretchered off and then are suddenly fit as soon as you’re off the pitch, your team plays a man short until the ref decides to have you back.  And the ref does not have to be nice about this:  If he suspects you of simulation, he is within his rights to keep you off the pitch for as long as he likes.

Diving:  The yellow cards for diving help, but they’re not enough.   FIFA / UEFA / etc need people to review game tape, hand out suspensions, and provide video footage of the incidents.  Professional players should be given fines in relation to their duplicity:  a clear, no-contact dive is a week’s wages and a three-match ban.  A player going down too easily is a half-day’s wage and a post-match yellow card.

sweaty weekend: parts 1 and 2

July 1, 2007 · by · in ,

So we’ll start at the beginning:

Chris Fortier at Lotus, on Friday night. Fortier is a really, really nice guy, and he played a really, really nice, varied set.  The rave factor was much higher than the last time I saw him, which was great to hear.  Smooth mixes, lots of vinyl, and people losing their shit == good times.  Amusingly, the resident DJs hadn’t played a record in so long that they didn’t know the decks were skipping from too much bass.  Two barstool-tops ended up saving the day though.  (and yes, I know the picture is old)

Saturday night was Kid Koala with Kieren Hebden and Steve Reid, at the Commodore, as part of Jazz Fest:

Kid Kola is pretty sick, overwhelmingly happy, and has a nasty sense of humour hidden until his “Your Mom’s Favorite DJ” veneer.  He’s also an amazing turntablist.  His chief strength, though, is not his pure technical ability.  Rather, it’s the music he chooses to apply the aforementioned staggering technical ability to that sets him apart.  To badly paraphrase someone:  “Any DJ can rock a party.  Not many DJs can rock a party with doubles of Moon River.”  A great show, other than the pointless 45 minute wait for the Kid to start his set after the openers finished:

Kieren Hebden and Steve Reid are one helluva pair.  Hebden is tall, with frizzy hair, HUGE EYES, and a serpentine neck.  When he smiles, his entire face lights up, and he begins to look human.  Reid, on the other hand, is a 63 year old black man, who plays drums like a spider in the depths of religious ecstasy.  Combined, they sound…well, like Four Tet playing with a legendary jazz drummer.  What did you expect them to sound like?  I can’t recommend them enough.

receive the light

June 27, 2007 · by · in

Releases news never rains when it could pour: my remix of Dustin H’s massive ‘Receive The Light’ has just been released on Pacific Front. It’s downtempo and clever and lush, and you can buy it here.  A longer clip is here.

various things

June 24, 2007 · by · in , , ,

– Just bought The Field’s new album, FROM HERE WE GO SUBLIME, and it’s 1001 shades of lovely.

– Also got Lusine’s remix collection, PODGELISIM. It’s not as blatantly lovely, but it covers vastly more ground, with remixes from Apparat, Tejada, Lusine himself, and so on.

– Tried out the demo for PEACEMAKER. It’s not a simple game. I like it a lot. May drop the $20 on the full version.

– Been reading DMZ, which is amazing, and the LENSMAN series, which is so 1950’s-pulp as to be astonishing. Can’t recommend DMZ enough. LENSMAN is worth reading if you’re into the history of sci-fi like me.

– Finally, I made my first project in SCRATCH. I need to make it visually better, so other people can user it ,and then I’ll post it up. It’s a ‘guess-the-tone’ toy, designed to teach me basic pitch recognition.