At The End Of The Rainbow...

...you will sometimes discover a pot of gold. Or in this case, every Essential Mix from 1993 to now

Get Them Here

Loonies To Blow

Sweet A-Trak remix of Drake & Birdmans 'Loonies To Blow'

The Vault

If an alien emerged from his spacecraft and asked me to name five tunes that encapsulated my music taste I'd have to say...'Give me a week and I'll get right back to you. Don't go blowing up the White House or anything, alright?' After the week was over (in which time I imagine the alien standing, tapping his silver booted feet and steaming up his space helmet, considering if he should, while I'm away, take over the world and enslave humans for meat) I'd return with a little scrap of paper. This is what it would say -

1. Felix Cartal - Moss v Tree

2. Phones - Sharpen the Knives

3. Les Petit Pilous - Jolie Fille

4. Christopher & Raphael Just - Popper

5. Vitalic - La Rock 01

Then under that there would be a scribbled disclaimer saying something about the list being in no particular order, because lists scare the shit out of me. It means I'm commited to an opinion.

Todays Vault features number 3 (though it could be number 4 or 5. Don't fence me in, man) on the list. Les Petit Pilous have a new EP out very soon, and that's all the information I have on it. Their twitter says that they're putting the finishing touches to it now, but to be fair they've been saying that since November. There's some footage of Boys Noize playing a new LPP track out here, if you can hear it over the shouting, but other than that it's all very hush. I can't wait anyway.

As this the Vault though, I don't need an excuse to post my fave LPP track. 'Jolie Fille' was massive back in 2007. I remember having an almost religious experience with it and some fast strobe once, or I could have dreamt the whole thing.

Enjoy x

Les Petit Pilous - 'Jolie Fille'

News!

It's The Music That You Choose

We used to have a bi-annual trip to Shell Island, where we'd camp for a few days, drink loads and 'experiment' with various narcotics. Shell Island itself is a magical place, especially deep at night, when it has a light all of its own and plunging dunes which fuck with your depth perception, leaving you flailing down a sheer 20ft drop, which had looked like a nice little step down seconds before. You can build a fire, then sit for hours, staring into the jumping flames, listening to tunes, until the batteries on the ghetto blaster died. Good times indeed.

I tried a bit of Plan B (first album, when he was a little bit more angry...), around the fire one evening and to say it killed the mood would be understating it somewhat. Which goes to prove that it's not only the music that you choose, but when you choose it aswell.

This one's for the Shell Island Massive - may we get there again sometime

Plan B - 'Stay Too Long (Pendulum Remix)'

Dada Life

Favourite mix of the year so far, opening with my favourite tune of the year so far. Mighty

Dada Life - 'January 2010 Mix'

The Subs – Mitsubitchi
Yolanda Be Cool – Afro Nuts (Douster Remix)
Honorebel feat Pitbull & Jump Smokers – Now You See It (Benny Benassi Dub Remix)
Nouveau Yorican – Boriqua
Cajmere – The Percolator (Dada Life Guerilla Fart #TBA)
Dada Life – Love Vibrations (D.I.M. ReLove Mix)
Crookers – Remedy
Fake Blood – I Think I Like It
Dan Black Feat. Kid Cudi – Symphonies (Dada Life Remix)
True Pseudo – Freaking Me Out (Designer Drugs Remix)
MVSEVM – French Jeans (Dada Life Remix)
Far Too Loud – Bass Association

The Subs - Mistubitchi

Great remix for you today. We've never hidden our admiration for Ellie Goulding and now that everyones jumping all over her (so to speak) we can't just abandon her. Here at SS we just hope that some marketing 'genius' doesn't get hold of her and try and change her image - sex her up and fuck it up. Leave her and her drum alone, eh. This is hot from the guys at Neon Gold, a remix of 'Starry Eyed' that goes bonkers with the house piano and is genuinely uplifting. This is obviously going to be huge

Ellie Goulding - 'Starry Eyed (Russ Chimes Rmx)

Buddhists have a term 'being in the moment', to describe when we are fully aware of our experience, rather than robotically feeling stuff though habit. We often live life in the past or racing into the future, but rarely experience the now.

I had a now moment today. driving a half ton of wood home, through snow covered hills. Deadmau5 'Soma' was on the stereo, there was mist hanging to the hills, as evening fell and I realised that this was one of those moments that would look great in the Movie of my Life. Perfect sound track, perfect scene and of course a handsome mother fucker in the lead role.

Of course, once I realised that I was in the now, pow!, I wasn't anymore. That's the thing with Buddhism, it's very frustrating. I gave up on Enlightenment when I found that not only did I have to give up desire, but wanting to give up desire was in fact a desire...Taking the piss a bit there I reckon

An Average Day At My House...

This is how we roll

Fear of Tigers - I Can Make The Pain Disappear (video by Dream Boat) from Dream Boat on Vimeo.

News comes to us of a new club opening in Manchestah. New Order's Peter Hook and Ben Kelly, who designed the original Hacienda, plan to start up the Factory Club (or Fac251 as I heard on Radio 6) in the old Factory offices. Speaking on Radio 6 Hook said that he wanted to open the club to give himself something to do 'in his dotage' and that they chose the Factory office 'because it's full of some lovely memories'. The building has previously been the venue for Paradise Factory and until recently the Warehouse Project. Hook plans to use all three floors of the venue, with the middle level hosting a club and the lower level used as a 'gigging venue' with a capacity of 350. There's a provisional plan to open the clubs doors on Jan 29th, with Hook himself playing live, along side a guest band.

More news as we get it

Hurts - Blood Tears and Gold

Ok so this lot are going to do exactly what it says on the tin. We're not going to get colour video for a start (maybe stretch to sepia for the next one?) We're not going to get any funky disco, or a hammering electro number. There's a moment in the vid where the lead singer sneer/snarls the lyric and I find that fascinating. It marks the whole thing apart. Hurts are not Right Said Fred. Better learn to live with it...I think they're ace. And how cool do they look, eh?

Tape picture by iri5

More on Iri5 later

Happy Birthday, Chips (and Fish)

Fish and Chips is one hundred and fifty years old this week and as they've been such a constant companion in my life, I thought it was worth a mention.

Best eaten by the sea, splashed in vinegar and sparkling with salt, washed down with a chilled can of Pepsi. Maybe with some piping hot mushy peas or a choice curry sauce. Never to be eaten, clumsily, after a night on the lash, waking in the morning with half your face in the tray. You may be able to get posh fish and chips, but the best ones still come strewn in a tray, or wrapped in stained paper, hot and greasy on your finger tips.

A few fish (and chippy) facts:

1 - The UK fish and chip market is worth 1.2 billion

2 - There is an estimated 10,500 chip shops in the UK employing 65,000 people

3 - Charles Darwin wrote of fried fish warehouses in Oliver Twist, in 1838 (no chips though, but bread and boiled potatoes)

4 - More than half of the UK population visits a chippy at least once a month

5 - A fish supper has approximately three times less fat than a chicken tikka masala and rice

6 - A portion of chips contains less fat than a prawn mayonnaise sandwich

7 - The best variety of potatoes for chips is Maris Piper

8 - The Chinese serve fish and chips with sugar

9 - Michael Jackson liked his with mushy peas

10 - If you laid all the spuds grown in Britain end to end, they would reach to the moon and back three times

11 - A spud is actually a small narrow flat spade often used for digging potatoes

(amazing facts courtesy of The Independent)

Happy Birthday fish n chips x

Dan le Sac v Scroobius Pip - 'Get Better (Villa Vocal Remix)'

Ali Love - 'Love Harder (Tronik Youth Got The Love Mix Fix)'

Acid Girls - Lightworks

Acid Girls - Lightworks OFFICIAL VIDEO dir. Steven Ilous from Steven Ilous on Vimeo.

Also a sweet Acid Girls remix of Ting Tings at Rcrdlbl

Just a quick word on Tsutomu Yamaguchi who died on Monday, in Japan, of cancer. Yamaguchi was present at BOTH Nagasaki and Hiroshima when the Yanks dropped the A-bomb.Badly injured at Hiroshima on August 6th, he went home to Nagasaki and was relating the story of what had happened there, three days later, when 'The Fat Man' was dropped. He was either the luckiest or unluckiest man alive. When I'm sitting there sometimes, thinking I'm having a bad week, I think about Tsutomu Yamaguchi and realise that this shit really isn't all that bad.

Bowie Tribute

Strange to have a tribute album released, when you're not dead, or at least on the way out. Bowies done it though, with an, as yet untitled, album being released sometime in May, with all proceeds going to Warchild. There's some interesting names in the list of contributors, MGMT, Vivian Girls, Carla Bruni (yum), but the one that's got us excited is Soulwax, whose cover is yet to be confirmed. What would the ideal Bowie track for Soulwax to cover, I wonder? I would have loved them to do 'Sound and Vision'

Tracklisting:

1. Exitmusic – Space Oddity
2. Vivian Girls – John, I’m Only Dancing
3. Megapuss (Devendra Banhart) – Sound + Vision (en espanol)
4. Carla Bruni – Absolute Beginners
5. Lights – World Falls Down
6. VOICEsVOICEs – Heroes
7. Duran Duran – Boys Keep Swinging
8. MGMT – TBA
9. Chairlift – Always Crashing in the Same Car
10. Aska w/ Moon & Moon – African Night Flight
11. A Place to Bury Strangers – Suffragette City
12. The Polyamorous Affair – Theme From Cat People
13. Keren Ann – Life on Mars
14. Swahili Blonde (feat. John Frusciante) – Red Money
15. Marco Benevento – Art Decade
16. Corridor – Be My Wife
17. Aquaserge – The Superman
18. Warpaint – Ashes to Ashes
19. Rainbow Arabia – Quicksand
20. We Are The World – Afraid of Americans
21. Laco$te – Within You
22. Ariana Delawari – Ziggy Stardust
23. Pizza! – Modern Love
24. St Clair Board – Secret Life of Arabia
25. Caroline Weeks – Starman
26. Amanda Jo Williams – The Man Who Sold the World
27. Mick Karn – Ashes to Ashes
28. Soulwax – TBA


Alphabeat - 'Hole In My Heart (Sound of Arrows Remix)'

This Is How You Start A New Year...

With new Soulwax!