Environ Mix
Environ has always been an interesting label; it was and still is a record label that consistently release good quality disco and some house tracks. I just found a dj mix of mine that was built around Environ galaxy and instantly uploaded it to soundcloud. I’d probably alternate the playlist if i did the mix nowadays, but the huge classics are already taken place in the mix. So it was recorded sometime around late 2006 and was broadcast on Dinamo 103.8. Enjoy!
Tufan Demir – Environ Mix (15.01.2007 @ Dinamo 103.8)
Tribute to – John Coltrane
Here’s another great addition to RBMA Radio’s “Tribute to” series; this time Delsin’s Aardvarck pays tribute to jazz legend John Coltrane. Great music, excellent mix!
The cross-fade controller never rests! Bringing the time-honoured tradition of hip hop breaks, tape edits, and reggae selectors bang up to date, Amsterdam resident Aardvarck has been plying his trade as a DJ and producer since the late 80’s. Aardvarck emerged when techno and hip hop was developing out of a swamp of post-punk synths, reggae, and new wave, and he has been cutting and splicing his own trail ever since. As a producer, Aardvarck has gotten props for a gang of projects. From singles and remixes on the pioneering Djax label, to his Find The Cow album on Amsterdam’s finest techno outlet Delsin, to his seminal Cult Copy LP on Rush Hour – he’s always been exploring club sonics. He’s also linked with Steven de Peven in Red Nose Distrikt since 2002, as well as contributing to the Beat Dimensions compilations and Viral Radio events with ex-Academy-participant Cinnaman. In this Tribute show, Aardvarck pays homage to the jazz giant John Coltrane, weaving through his massive discography with a specially selected bunch of edits.
Henrik Schwarz & Bugge Wesseltoft Live
I think this collaboration between Henrik Schwarz and Bugge Wesseltoft is the most exciting live project since 2004’s Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto’s cooperation. Here, on RBMA Radio, you can listen to their unique live performance at Royal Festival Hall.
Henrik Schwarz is a long time veteran of the German deep house scene, cutting his teeth as a DJ in the nineties, but it’s been his forays into production and epic approach to tunes that have brought a soulful jazzy groove to the 4×4 groove. On th eotehr hand, Bugge Wesseltoft has been constantly pushing the envelope of what jazz music can be. This Norwegian mastermind is far beyond any tired ideas of ‘fusion’ and has been interested in dance music and working with DJs since the early stages of that culture in Europe. Together they form a duo extraordinaire with a very special live project. Relentlessly improvising, Bugge and Henrik work with each other’s material, create blends and new forms of existing and even previously non-existing pieces. To put it in a nutshell, they just play together – and very well so. During their stay at RBMA’s London edition, Schwarz and Wesseltoft brought their classic yet modern set-up to the stage of the honourable Royal Festival Hall. Get the Bugge!
More to Say
As some of you already noticed I have launch my page on soundcloud. So, from now on I’ll put some stuff I make there as well as I post them to Listening Room. Actually I’ll use soundcloud more for my dj mixes since it is more accessible.
I’m also starting a new mix series called “Sense Of Sensible” on RBMA radio this month. My initial plan was to stick to post series here but this way it will be much better because the show will be monthly and you know how punctual I am about this page. So watch this space for news about the show.
Anyway, for those of you living in Istanbul and still don’t think that going out in winter is a depressing activity I’ll be mashing up discofunksoulhiphop together at Gizli Bahce on Friday night and will be spinning more deep also Detroit stuff before and after Jimmy Edgar at Ghetto on Saturday Night. So, see you later this week.
Welcome back to 2000
It’s the fifth day of 2010 and we are kicking into some icy weather here in Istanbul. So I thought it was an opportune time to sit and write a new post since we’ll hit 16 degrees soon. I have no will to make a rewind list for best music of 2009 and still think it’s quite boring to force myself to arrange some album/EP names which you’ve already seen million times. In actual fact I don’t even have enough albums to review, I think I can only be able to make 2009 list in 2011 or so. Last year was more of an EP year for me, though I got amazing records by artists like David Sylvian, Moritz von Oswald Trio, Mike Keneally, Trus’me, MF Doom, 2562, Juju & Jordash and Ryuichi Sakamoto. So far I’ve only listened to the albums few times and need more time to devour them.
I’m not sure if there was something kind of special about 2009, but musically speaking it was another unpredictable year in all genres. Actually the whole decade was unpredictable in its entirety – emerging technologies, rapid changes in world economy, altered social movements… All in all they made everything change so fast that as a result the way we perceive music has become ephemeral. I have never been a massive fan of pointing how fast we consume everythin, but I seriously think that we’ll never have enough of trends, hypes and fashion. At some point the music media has to pump certain things on the surface and forget about them next day to keep their masses excited. This is what happened to IDM, Kompakt, minimal techno/house or space disco in the last decade. The last toy is dubstep and we’ll see how long it’s gonna take until they tag it as boring which has already started actually.
Anyway, without a second thought the past decade was the golden era of new and emerging music genres/styles. Earth-shattering technologies have triggered big changes in music production at the end of 90’s and together with the great developments in audio hardware/software; the appearance of new ideas has increased substantially. As such a seminal turning point, the year 2000 is well worth a look back. So I whipped up a list by re-checking some of my favorite music from that year.
• Auch – Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (Force Inc. Music Works)
• Bohren & Der Club Of Gore – Sunset Mission (Wonder)
• Burnt Friedman & The Nu Dub Players – Just Landed (~scape)
• Château Flight – Puzzle (Versatile)
• D’Angelo – Voodoo (EMI)
Neo Soul: hate it or love it, there is the fact I believe the artists who can be labeled as Neo Soul are making much more interesting music than today’s other modern R&B acts. Though, the style is kind of invisible on mainstream level, there were some albums made major impact on charts. Just like D’Angelo’s Voodoo which is an album that provides enough material for being pop while achieves to exhibit different styles like jazz, funk or hip hop and combines them perfectly. Other thing I really fancy about late 90’s and early 2000’s Neo Soul records is there is this wide range of dynamics gives a great listening pleasure on high volume, not like today’s poor, squashed and loud R&B hits.
• Dettinger – Oasis (Kompakt)
Another sound I really miss: Kompakt’s good old ambient records. Oasis is the peak point of a kind of ambient music that combines both Chain Reaction style cold-atmosphere and shoegaze aesthetic. It’s definitely a music for the winter, yet it really fits to the mood of blurry early mornings or late-late nights. I think it’s never been more than 3 months I survived without listening to the album since the time I bought it. Hence, I can say that the record is quite addictive. Even though the layers are pretty repetitive and music is simple, it is incredibly hypnotic and truly brilliant.
• Dj Rolando – Jaguar (430 West)
• Eyvind Kang – The Story Of Iceland (Tzadik)
Eyvind Kang is one talented musician, he has worked with different names like Mr. Bungle, Bill Frisell, Laurie Anderson, just to name a few. He is also pushing boundaries and creating different musics. This is an epic album that I enjoyed listening to when I was travelling with trains. Music is quite unique; it feels like it delivers a marvelous journey through an imaginary source. Can be considered as cinematic listening since the music slowly goes around a theme with variations which encompassed by engrossing soundscapes and medieval-like atmosphere.
• Gas – Pop (Mille Plateaux)
What a great year 2000 was for innovative ambient music. There are many similar music is out there right now, but back then it was kind of thrilling to have a music made with new approach. This record can really be described as typical Gas, yet it’s my favorite one among the other albums. The reason is I hear different sounds and visualize different images every time I listen to it. One scrumptious thing about Gas’ music; it’s hard to focus on individual sounds, mostly because of Wolfgang Voigt’s unique mixing and production techniques. Therefore it gives different pleasure or takes you to different places with each listening. It’s difficult to define the music when it comes to the feelings and the situation is not getting any easier here because it just sounds like a natural flow.
• Godspeed You Black Emperor! – Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven! (Constellation)
• Kid606 – Soccergirl EP (Carpark Records)
Kid606 is best known for his hardcore beats with mind blowing angry noises, but here’s a little exception. Though I’m not a fan of all his works, I really love his softer side. The albums he released on Mille Plateaux were genuinely good and I can say the same for this overlooked EP. It may not be his most original sounding work, because sonically it reminds of the time when first electronic ambient music emerged. However, the atmosphere that sequences make provides a delicate and almost a poetic line of beauty.
• Kid Koala – Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (Ninja Tune)
• Luomo – Vocalcity (Force Tracks)
This album was my first introduction to Sasu Ripatti and the whole Force Tracks label. It was the time when minimal or micro house was still tied to roots of house music. Though the tracks on the album have very groovy bass lines and a fluent structure, they probably can’t be perceived as dance-floor-ish by today’s young clubbers. The title is quite illustrative of what dominates the album and that is the soulful vocal lines. Sung in laid back style with simple lyrics, vocals get more intimate with the wise use of dub-like delay and reverb effects. If the track lengths weren’t about 12-13 minutes or the whole production wasn’t built in textural atmosphere, Vocalcity could easily be described as pop music but it soars high into some sonic ether that is too original to fit into any genre.
• Moodymann – Forevernevermore (Peacefrog)
• MRI – Rhythmogenesis (Force Tracks)
Oh, I can’t tell you how I miss Force Tracks. It was the time when we were actually waiting for the label to release next stuff and getting excited for it. I truly relied on their taste when they put an EP or album out. Now it looks, those times were kind of magical. Anyway, Rhythmogenesis is another fascinating example of early minimal-dub-house just like Luomo’s Vocalcity. I don’t know if it has become my obsession by the years to determine Basic Channel influence whenever I hear delayed chords in plain 4/4 texture but there are some moments I feel the same on this album. Not in a bad way, of course; MRI takes the influence to someplace else where staccato samples chops with melodic notes and some disco flavor.
• Pan•American – 360 Business / 360 Bypass (Blast First)
I can easily state this album as one of my favourites of all time. Quirky drones, ice-cold loops, gloomy soundscapes and fragile melodies; all is drawn together in a manner that can be only achieved by an artist like Mark Nelson. Back in the day, it wasn’t really common to come across music production quite like this: traditional use of real instruments in a context where both influences from minimal dubby techno and drone rock take place. 360 Business / 360 Bypass also provides a wide sonic space that combines the aspects of given styles in a way which wasn’t truly explored before.
• Pan Sonic – Aaltopiiri (Blast First)
I think one of the best concert experiences I’ve had was when I went to Pan Sonic’s gig soon after they released this album. Aaltopiiri is a bit different than duo’s other albums; it’s not really noisy or exhausting. It’s the very opposite actually; textures are really tidy that makes the listening experience very intense. Even though it’s filled with mechanic electronic signals and noises, emotions are kind of attached to the tracks which draws a great picture of urban human life.
• St Germain – Tourist [Blue Note]
It might be the favorite record of Lounge Café/Bars during the first half of the last decade; Tourist is a milestone in the history of fusion of jazz and electronic music. The album has many hits, even the mainstream ones but I don’t think there is any track on the album is below the average; the production at its best, everything’s well arranged and the most important is the mixture between genres is no faked up synthesis. It’s still a great album to play from beginning to end, especially on Sunday evenings.
• Super Furry Animals – Mwng (Placid Casual Recordings)
• Sutekh – Periods.Make.Sense (Force Inc. Music Works)
How cool experimental-minimal/click techno was back in early 2000’s, it had everything that it lacks today: mysterious ambience, interesting clicks and cuts, driving basslines which wasn’t necessarily written for dance floor and so on. Before the wide use of vst plug-ins there wasn’t many works in this class, however it has become less and less interesting with excessive use of micro sounds. It was actually tagged as experimental in so many reviews but after some point heavy beats kick into the music. Though the whole micro-click-glitch triangle is out of sight now, Periods.Make.Sense still sounds fresh.
• Sutekh & Twerk – Deadpan Escapament Reconstructed (Context)
• Soulphiction – Bust Me (Perlon)
• The Necks – Hanging Gardens (Fish of Milk)
• Vladislav Delay – Multila (Chain Reaction)
• William Ørbit – Pieces In A Modern Style [Maverick]
Sublime Porte Podcast #2
Here’s my Beto Narme mixtape i recorded for Sublime Porte’s blog. I’m not really good at labeling genres, but it’s somewhere between dubstep and techno. It contains some of my favorite heavy bass sounds from old-school to future classics. You can listen to it via player below. For direct download switch to here.
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Lagrange Points I
Derivate’s “Lagrange Points I” is released on Sublime Porte last weekend. In this project of Ismail Genc, he delivers some serious deep and warm chords encompassed by broken beats. I also have a remix on the EP, so go grab one since the label offers free download.
Ismail Genc’s most recent offering Derivate comes on the heels of his Havantepe project where he created dubby circles in techno. This time around the Istanbulite derives new approaches from emerging musical ideas in a bid to combine them in his distinctive style.
The title of the EP comes from the locations in space where gravitational forces and the orbital configuration of an object balance each other. There are five Lagrangian Points in the Sun-Earth system numbered from L1 to L5 and of the five points, three are unstable and two are stable. L1, L2 and L3 constitute unstable equilibrium points and the tracks on this first part of Lagrangian Points EP’s are named after them.
On these four tracks you are invited to experience a dreamy techno space, filled with human emotions and shattered beats. Inspired by some dubstep elements, Derivate delivers three tracks of dub-tech-based minimal grooves and Tufan Demir’s Beto Narme strips down L2 and appends more dubstep edge to it with sharp rhythms.
Beto Narme
I haven’t made much headway on new music productions but the EP I’ve been making for Sublime Porte will be out before the next year. Beto Narme is one of my new guises, yet it’s not exactly a recent project. It has been on the table since Sublime Porte was launched, however, I put the tracks together just recently. Even though the overall appearance of music is not very similar to the stuff they’ve been releasing, it has lots of dub techno elements within the sound. I don’t know how to depict it sonically, but it is in somewhere between tech-house and dubstep. (sounds ropey, huh?) Anyway, the next release of the label is Derivate’s “Lagrange Points I” and it consists of a remix of mine under my Beto Narme moniker.
Train Wreck Mix – Volume 4
I recorded the fourth mix of my Train Wreck series few months ago, the selection contains the tracks that I played the most at Gizli Bahçe during the summer. Click here to listen to it.
Playlist
Moodymann – Shades Of Jae (Part II) – KDJ
LoSoul – Remember Your History – Playhouse
M.D.3. – The Pressure Cooker (DJ Sneak Remix) – P&D
Tiger & Woods – Time – Editainment
Da Sunlounge – No Turning Back – Myna
Chez Damier – KMS 049 – KMS
Andy Vaz – Back To Square One – Yore
Dennis DeSantis – Five Minutes.. (Trevor Loveys Mix) – Third Ear
International Pony – A New Bassline For Jos – Skint
Ghettofunk – What Ya Want – Lawn Dogs
Pepe Bradock – 5550 – Versatile
I:Cube – Rhythm Track – Versatile
Aardvarck – Kutwell – Rush Hour
Back On the Horse
Alright, months have passed since the last update but it’s not so late to catch up.
It was another long-hot-boring summer here in Istanbul, but musically speaking I had the pleasure of seeing some of my biggest influences on stage, and those names were Larry Heard, Theo Parrish and Maurice Fulton. If you’ve seen any of these legends spinning behind the decks, you already know how incredible DJ’s they are. Larry Heard played at The Hall on RBMA’s club night, I consider myself lucky to be on stage before him and to do the warm up set for the night. His set was like a history lesson for house music, skillfully blended mixture of old and future classics. He dropped his timeless tune “Can You Feel It” at the end of the night and sung over the track, here are some snippets from the moment:
30 Patterns
Here’s the video of a track which is actually called ” This One Is Just 30 Patterns But a Blue Rose Case Inside” that i made ages ago. The video is created by my friend Çınar Çulfaz for his final project of school. As you can tell from other posts as well, we don’t really do so much if the school don’t force us to do something. Blame the education system of Turkey!
Sensible Sucker – 30 Patters
Together is the new arrow (no pun)
Elections are over, no one is satisfied with the results which is a quite typical aftermath-reaction in Turkey. I won’t reach any outcome here, sorry, i have to articulate that I’m not the biggest fan of this system that never seems working properly. What i extremely hate is the chaotic arrangements of promotions they provide everywhere at least for 1 month before the elections. I really need someone to tell me that what kind of constitution let this things happen and how can they have those rights to rape a city’s life for weeks with the money coming from x-budget!?!. If someone chosen assign a rule against flag orgies and sonic disturbance in the streets (fat chance!), sure I’ll vote for him/her forever. All those hideous posters, flags and their friends are gone with the elections, Istanbul is still ugly, but less dirty.
I’m stuck with the recording sessions, endless compositions & arrangements and field recordings for a while, I’m huddling all the stuff together that i created for Sensible Sucker project since 2005. I’ll give more details when i come near the end of process.
Okay, it’s been pretty hectic when this occupation combined with school’s final project but I’m running off to States for a short time. I’ll, also, play there at a party in Brooklyn along with ex-Istanbul-er fellow Taylan and some other artists, you can check the details on flyer below.
I’ll play at Gizli Bahçe on 18 & 25th of April and share the stage with Dave Clark at Indigo on 24th of April when i come back to Istanbul. Hope to see you there!
I can’t find any headline
As I’m swamped in final projects that I have to finish for graduating from school, I’m pretty much interested to write for my blog again. So I’ll briefly inform you about the things that I was planning to mention when I goofed off all day before I was busy, also some new topics, as well.
Sublime Porte’s Havantepe released an ep called Winterschlaf as label’s third net release few months ago. Just like his previous works, this one delivers unique sounding deep and dubby dream-scapes in calmed techno territories. My favourite is Hybernate which is an ambient track driven by deep layered chords, also remixed by Dubatech in 4/4 beats. Both artists, also, participates on split 10″ that is released by Baum Records. Check “Baum Limited Picture Edition 002”, download “Winterschlaf” and visit Havantepe’s brand new official page.
Punkt Music which was one of the influential labels that led me into djing is defunct now. I found about the truth when I wondered and checked the label’s page to see if they had any new releases coming up. I’m not saddened in a way, actually. Well the reason is they kind of managed to create great catalogue without being trendy and cheesy. The range of style the label put was a bit wide but always in high-quality. I’m still playing their old records from time to time and I guess it’s time for revisiting again. I loved the text on label’s page now:
I found this great coloring comic on George Clinton’s page, there are 6 pages of funkadelic flash based comics that can be colored also printed!!!
This is the most creative thing I’ve ever seen on youtube. The music sucks a bit, but the idea (video/game) is absolute fantastic.
After I posted my first Sense Of Sensible mix, I came across (free) mixes fractured, transformed and restructured by Thavius Beck for celebrating Mush Records’ tenth year. You can get the link for download here.
Tonight, I’ll be playing some disco grooves at Gizli Bahçe and I’ll be spinning before Audiojack at Indigo tomorrow. Come down if you want to leave tedious and rainy Istanbul behind for some hours.
+ I’d like to share this page that I started to spend so much time in it again. It is called Audiotool and kind of flash based workstation which comprised of some emulation of old school tools such as TR-909, TR-808 and TB-303. Well, it is flash and controlling is a bit deficient sometimes but sounds almost as good as the plug-ins that does the same job and it’s definitely the best one I’ve ever tried on a web browser.
Why Hip Hop Sucks In ‘96
I couldn’t come upon with any better headline than “Why Hip Hop Sucks In ‘96″, ironically, the title (which is a nifty interlude from Dj Shadow’s 1996-album “Endtroducing…”) defines something which is completely insignificant if we compare today’s hip hop music with the 90’s good old records. To be honest, I was a big fan of rap and other forms of hip hop music back in 90’s: from old school to softened Mtv hits, there was always good spirit on the tracks. (Well, let’s say most of the time) I’m no hip hop expert for sure, but as far as I can see hip hop -as one of today’s biggest selling genres- has lost its charming presence on the mainstream level.
I guess I’ve stopped listening to popular hip hop music around the time when Jennifer Lopez started to collaborate with well known rappers at the beginning of the century, however, there is a fact that today’s situation is no healthier than that, actually it’s much worse. I can’t even stand hearing any of those musics when I encounter them on TV or radio by mistake. It’s obvious that patrons of the music business don’t want rappers to express difficulties of today’s world since majority of listeners won’t be willing to buy it. Rather, they’d like to hear how many bitches they screwed and watch how many expensive cars they show on the videos. Beside the lyrics, I don’t find most of the beats interesting, either. Maybe they sound fatter on car stereos but lost the funkiness in a way.
While mainstream hip hop remains as a pretty awful genre, there is a lot of creativity takes place on the underground. So many different styles of hip hop have emerged in the last decade and there are still many rappers representing the spirit of the times when hip hop was developed by the aim of giving messages. … Alright, I wasn’t planning to complain about mainstream or analyze the genre; as a matter of fact, the very reason I wanted to give some thoughts about hip hop was to build an introduction to a hip hop mix I made few years ago. But since the topic has come to this point, I’d like to recommend some underground hip hop albums that were released in the last few years, too.
Black Milk – Popular Demand [Fat Beats, 2007]
Cyne – Starship Utopia [Project Mooncircle, 2008]
Dabrye – Two/Three [Ghostly International, 2006]
Guilty Simpson – Ode To The Ghetto [Stones Throw, 2008]
Headset – Spacesettings [~scape, 2004]
MF Doom – MM..Food [Rhymesayers Entertainment, 2004]
Prince Po – The Slickness [Lex Records, 2004]
Quasimoto – The Further Adventures Of Lord Quas [Stones Throw, 2005]
Thavius Beck – Thru [Mush, 2006]
Wildchild - Jack Of All Trades [Fat Beats, 2007]
Tufan Demir – Sense Of Sensible Mix 01
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About the mix;
I decided to put some mixes that show different influences on the project Sensible Sucker, before I’ve launched this page, but typically I forgot to accomplish it. Anyway, I compiled this mix which consists of beats, breaks and hip hop in 2007 and it was broadcasted on my friend Kez YM’s Chill Size Radio around that time. You can also download it if you don’t like to listen to it from the application above.
Stars Of The Lid
Since i’ve started to open “2008″ case, i should put everything that I’d meant to write down last year but never got around to. An article about Marvel’s X-Factor will be up in next weeks, i just wanted to wait until the last adventure ends. But now, i am sharing a video which is said to be a teaser of Stars of the Lid feature film. To be honest, i can’t really figure what really is that movie, however, it looks pretty cool and thrilling.
I’ve also found a NYC subway ad campaign which features the band’s “A Meaningful Moment Through A Meaning(less)” from their beautiful album “And Their Refinement Of The Decline“, can be seen below;