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Innervisions - IV 16

There’s one obvious choice for you. The Laurent Garnier record has already received enough buzz without me adding to it. However, I have decided to ignore this fact and talk about it anyway. Sue me.

So the story is that Dixon was playing with Laurent Garnier at Panorama Bar and suddenly the man with the red face dropped a track that we now know as “Back To My Roots”. Dixon immediately proposed signing it to Innervisions. “Panoramix” was apparently (see Dixon interview) made the weekend right after they had signed “Back To My Roots”. You could say the man is on a row, considering the number of records he has put out in the recent years (hint: not many).

“Back To My Roots” is sort of a tribalish epic production. What amused me was Dixon’s comment on a message board (Faith Fanzine, I believe it was) about the track being shit for the first 8 minutes. Hell, that’s about as long as your regular track gets. Anyway, if you listen to the track, you can probably see what he meant. If “Back To My Roots” could have just as easily been produced 10 years ago (and that’s a good quality, by the way), “Panoramix” is the more contemporary piece of music on this EP. When I first heard it, I presumed it to be a remix of Sebo K’s “Horizons” and later learned I wasn’t the only one to make that connection. However, it’s also got a clear touch of “The Man With The Red Face”, for nostalgic purposes.

For me, it’s another rock solid Innervisions installment.

A: Back To My Roots (original Afrodiziac mix)
B: Panoramix

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Desolat - DESOLATCD001

While you have been biting your nails waiting for the next post, I have been enjoying myself in the darker parts of London. Saturday saw me visiting Mulletover, an underground party that feeds the hype by keeping its locations secret and publishing it through viral channels only a couple of days before the event. The highlight there was Dixon, who unfortunately entertained the carnival-masked crowd only two hours until 2AM, which is when Sebo K took over. His set was quite a disappointment, simply because of the mostly dull music. He had a couple of moments though, to give him justice. Dixon played out a couple of records that are quite certainly going to be big once they get released, such as the new Laurent Garnier on Innervisions or the Henrik Schwarz remix of Bill Withers or a track from the new Loco Dice album.

The album altogether is brilliant and quite house-y. Which gives me confidence in saying that House is making a small comeback and conquering back territory from his skinny weird-hairstyle brother Minimal. Another indicator of that have been the recent Radio Slave records, which I have liked quite a lot. And I don’t recall a minimal record from the recent months that would have moved me very much.

But just go ahead and listen to the sweaty beat of “Tight Laces”. It’s really something, isn’t it?

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I’ll be snowboarding in Livigno, Italy the whole next week, so probably no reviews to come till I’m back.

I’ll leave you with a nice Dixon interview from his visit to Australia in In The Mix.

I haven’t heard any good new DJs in the last few years. How come, though? Where do they learn to play these days? They have no chance to play clubs for longer than just the warm up. How can they learn how to guide a crowd through a night? There’s nearly no clubs left where the residents play all night long. I think that is the basis of a good DJ.

Also check out his Innercity 2005-2008 mixtape at OFFtrack.org.

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I stumbled upon an Efdemin interview in Resident Advisor (published in summer 2007). His productions had managed to escape me for quite a while, however once they finally kicked in, it was for good. And it’s funny how his music kind of clicked with everything that I read in this interview. Here are just a couple of my favorite quotes:

I didn’t decide before that I wanted to do a minimal album or I wanted to do a house thing. It just flows through me and comes out.

I think house was labeled badly, like handbag house and things like that. And bad people were listening to house. House was like porn music. But now it has come back. It’s very good what Dixon does. Some people in Berlin and other places have really kept at it. I mean Dixon has been playing this kind of music for fifteen years and now people are like, ‘”Ah, he’s a new DJ. He’s so great.”

It’s a bit like if you have a really good Luciano set - he is my favorite DJ I think, sometimes - then you have four hours of nothing happening. It’s like a long line, which is the best thing that can happen. I always try to play like that. I can’t really because he’s so amazing, but that is the best thing. It’s like the old way of playing. There’s nothing really spectacular happening. It’s about feeling like “Okay. We are here. There is no time and I’m just dancing.”

Efdemin - Le Ratafia

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Get Physical - GPMCD 012 / GPMLP 018

Get Physical’s DJ-mixes keep getting better and better. I barely got over Dixon’s staggering selection on Body Language vol 4. Now the two crazy frog-eaters, Gilb’R and I:Cube (great f***ing names I say…) aka Chateau Flight have launched their own madness of a DJ-mix. I got a chance to catch the guys on Sonar 2007 in Barcelona where they gave a sexy laptop live to a gorgeous stoned-out crowd. One of the hits of their Sonar set is also featured on this mix-CD, namely “Baltringue”. This was in fact introduced on Dixon’s Body Language, mixed/edited by Dixon and Henrik Schwarz. Anyway, it has got to be one of the stand-out tunes for me on this CD as well.

Body Language vol 5 features a lot of Chateau Flight’s own productions, mixed with strange balearic sounds and leftside techno. The 2xLP is a blessing for those idle DJs like me who don’t have enough time to do their own crate-digging (shame on you…). If you’re into the Chateau Flight sound (and being on this page, you probably are), be sure to dig into this one.

This is the CD tracklist for you, with (*) asterisks behind the cuts featured on the 2xLP.

01. Bogdan Irkuk: The Distant Message - Arken Remix (*)
02. Château Flight: Baltringue - The Body Language Remix (*)
03. Château Flight: 116 BPM Beat
04. Ceramic Hello: Sampling The Blast Furnace
05. I:Cube: Prophetization - Demo Mix
06. Fox N’Wolf: Claws Against Knives - Todd Terje Remix / BL Edit (*)
07. I:Cube: Pazuzu
08. Brifo: Mi Piano Rojo (*)
09. Syncom Data: Beyond The Stars (*)
10. Westbam: Monkey Say, Monkey Do
11. Smith N Hack: Space Warrior
12. Riz Ortolani: Il Corpo Di Linda (*)
13. Poni Hoax: Antibodies - Château Flight Remix
14. Henrik Schwarz: Jimis 2006 Mix 3 (*)
15. Punto: 3Tempo3 (*)

Resident Advisor review
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