After Action Report: Renegade Hardware 19/12/09

Braving the snow and the travel disruptions, we headed back to Area for our first Hardware night since June, and it was certainly worthwhile. Last time was a total blast, mainly due to the awesome presence of Black Sun Empire, but the 19th had an equally strong lineup, with Spor B2B Chris Renegade and the ever delightful pairing of Calyx and Teebee. I have so much love for these two that it's slightly terrifying, and as per usual they managed to fire off an awesome, furious, uplifting neurofunk set. Wonderful.

You know it's been a good night when even Friction does a good set, but this time round the time seemed to fly by, and the uglylights seemed to come on incredibly early. After all my whinging about how Hospital nights just ain't what they used to be, it was nice to be down with a more serious crowd of dnb nerds/chavs/thugs, and Area is certainly a strong venue with plenty of space to crowd round the dj booth and dance. I think we missed Prolix, which was a bit of a shame, and it'd have been nice to check out Room 2 a bit more, but overall, fifteen thumbs up, will have to reach it again in February!

High Contrast!!

I love Lincoln Barret. Everything he touches turns to gold.

Check this:



Shit the bed!

Avalanches - Since I Left You

So out of sheer boredom I was browsing through the NME Top 100 Greatest Albums of the Decade, which is largely disagreeable bollocks (I don't know what I was expecting to be honest*) but in at number 45 is the Avalanches' debut Since I Left You.


I used to love this CD back in the day, but I've not listened to it for years, and seeing it halfway down the list got me keen for a reload. Having finally managed to dig the album out of a shoebox of long-unplayed CDs, fucking hell does it still sound fresh. The production on this thing is just top notch. Wikipedia would have you believe that there are over 3500 individual vinyl samples on the ingredients list, and it's just great fun. Even the boring bits are cool!

Frontier Psychiatrist is probably the stand out track on the album, being one of those tracks that almost everyone appears to have heard, without knowing who produced it or where it came from. It seems that even these days when you're picking your way through someone's iTunes library at a party it'll be on there, and everyone loves it. My favourite track has still gotta be Electricity, but the breaks under Flight Tonight are also bloody lovely. Makes you appreciate French hip hop too, even though listening to it makes you look like a bit of a bellend.

The Avalanches are one of those bands that I check in on every few years when something reminds me they exist just to see if they're still working. Been waiting for a follow up to Since I Left You for almost eight years now. Apparently it's been in production for a while, but the band are struggling to clear all the samples and whatnot. Word on the streets is that it's coming out 2009, but with less than a month til 2010, this is looking unlikely.

Yet another reason to be pissed off with copyright laws really. Obviously, people producing the original samples have gotta get paid, but they're hardly being ripped off here. The Avalanches are simply taking what they did, combining it with a load of other people's work and producing something greater than the sum of its parts. If the people who dreamt up the original copyright laws back during the time of the Sumerians had imagined the existence of sampling, perhaps we'd be better off? Surely there must be a happy medium whereby producers can produce and artists can make cash money?

Ah well, give Since I Left You a spin and then check out The Go! Team for more crazy sample insanity.


*I know that picking on the NME is an easy target, but seriously, who is it being marketed to these days? When I was a kid it seemed to be aimed at middle-aged people who still listen to Radio 1 and nowadays its demographic has shifted to the same sort of age group as Newsround. Scroobius Pip had it right.

After Action Report: Warp20 London

So...

Warp20. Has it really been 20 years? That makes it almost the same age as me. Whilst it seemed like all the UK Warp love got dropped up in Sheffield (the label's hometown) what with the likes of Clark, Squarepusher, Harmonic 313, Hudson Mohawke (Hell's Bells I wanna see that guy live) and Andrew Weatherall bringing the noise, the London lineup wasn't half bad.

Highlight of the night had to be Flying Lotus, who more or less shredded the place, but the Plaid classics set was a treat too. I really enjoyed Nice Nice, having not really heard anything by them before. Definitely another band deserving of further investigation. Battles were probably good, I dunno. There's been a lot of hype round these guys, but I can't remember a thing about their set. It's quite likely we missed it completely anyway...

Up in Room 2, Nightmares on Wax and Strictly Kev were both fantastic. I could quite happily have stayed there all night if it hadn't been for the lure of Room 1. Kev is seriously awesome and has never failed to impress. If you've never seen him doing the DJ thing, then you really oughta do something about it. Nightmares on Wax will always hold a special place in my brain, having had his stuff on almost non-stop rotation during my first year at university, and it was pretty brilliant to finally see him live.

Also packaged with the ticket cost was a Warp20 compilation CD thing, which I've still not had a chance to check out. Whilst it's a nice touch, I kinda feel they just threw it in there as an excuse to bump up the ticket prices for the night, which is a little cheeky, but it's still a nice souvenir!

S.P.Y Triple J Mix

Got a million things to rant and rave about, but been a bit busy recently. Have no fear, I'll get it down at some point :/

In the meantime, here's a S.P.Y mix chock full of laser cut rollers. Apparently it was recorded off some aussie radio station. Enjoy!

http://www.dnbshare.com/download/S.P.Y_TRIPLE_J_MIX_27-11-2009.mp3.html

Link unfairly jacked from http://www.dubplatedigest.net

Randomer November Mix

Totally digging Randomer right now. Always seem to miss his live sets when we're out and about, although he did serious damage at the Logistics launch down at East Village back in September.

http://www.thefatclub.com/music/Randomer-November09mix.mp3

Zombie Disco Squad - The Dance
Joe - Claptrap
Untold - Just For You (Roska Remix)
Randomer & Jonny5 - Too Many Times
Martyn - Mega Drive Generation
Untold - I Can’t Stop This Feeling (Pangaea Remix)
Untold - Palamino
Drop The Lime - Set Me Free (Lil Silva Remix)
Lil Silva - Different
Randomer - Bleep Loop
NB Funky - Frequency
Randomer - Scapegoat
Toasty - Full Clip
Randomer - Soft Focus
Instra:mental - No Future
Randomer - Junk
Danny Breaks - Outro
Randomer - Easter Island
Enei - Z-Grab
Randomer - Down in the Woods
Randomer - Down to the Club
Randomer - Synth Geek
Randomer - Trogs
Randomer - Synth Geek
Dan Harbarnam - Zoom Back Camera
Danny Breaks - The Big Bossa
Commix, Nutone & Logistics - Soundbyte
Randomer - Puzzled
>>Hunchbak - Peace Wip
Randomer & REDS - Modem Jazz
Hunchbak - Peace Wip
Decimal - Circle Of Nine
Sabre - God Fearing
Randomer - Appetite
Martsman - Halow
Randomer - Rough Sex

Boosh!

Reload: Tribes Vengeance

Tribes Vengeance (2004): I never really played Tribes back in the day, and until T:V, my only real experience with the franchise was Starsiege from way back in 1999. I first picked it up for about four quid or something in 2005 after reading some generally positive reviews and having a go at the demo (whilst playing catch up for the previous four years of PC games that I'd missed out on from not upgrading).

At the time, it was actually pretty stunning. Flying round the huge maps by jet pack and skiing down almost vertical slopes at 5000 mph was fantastic fun, even though the weapons were either bit shit or completely redundant. The Unreal 2 engine made everything look lovely and shiny, and the space-opera storyline was actually rather compelling as well, despite being painfully cheesy at times.

It was only when I started exploring the online and multiplayer options that it began to become clear how pissed off most of the Tribes community seemed to be with T:V, the game's developer Irrational and its publisher VU Games. After its launch in 2004, T:V failed to sell for a number of reasons and support for the game was quickly abandoned by VU. Existing Tribes players seemed to think that T:V moved too far away from the original games and stuck with them, rather than moving on to Vengeance. Also, 2004 was not a good year for rebooting PC franchises, with UT2k4 and Half-Life 2 occupying most gamers' free time. I can't help but feel that it was also the beginning of a transition from mainstream online gaming away from PCs and towards XBox Live. If Vengeance had been launched a year later on the 360, perhaps it'd have fared a bit better. In any case, by 2004 there really wasn't room for what was essentially a new online FPS franchise.

The failure of Tribes Vengeance is a pretty sad story overall, and whilst the multiplayer may not have made the grade considering the game was essentially a multiplayer game, the single player campaign is still worth a play through if you haven't tried it before (despite the fact that its really only there to provide training for the multiplayer). The Unreal 2 engine is certainly showing its age, although I still prefer its post-processing to the over-blown plasticiness of the Unreal 3 engine.

As previously mentioned, the T:V storyline is pretty good and Irrational certainly managed to do an impressive job of telling it from various different points of view, switching between the past and present.I doubt there's anyone playing it online these days, but as a single player game, Tribes Vengeance is definitely worth giving a spin if you haven't tried it before, and still worth a replay if you have.

After Action Report: Wang! 10th Birthday

My friends are probably sick of my constant whinging about missing out on the birth of rave back in the late 80s. The era before the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 seems to have taken on a near-legendary status in many people’s minds, myself included. Survivors from that period whine that the parties these days just ain't what they used to be.


Wang 10th birthday down in Ewer Street Car Park; basically a load of archways somewhere in South London. There were puddles everywhere, the toilets were shit and it was freezing cold. It was a perfect raving environment. From the industrial strength piles of speakers and the 90s-esque TV wall rig to the empty cans of Lech littering to the floor, the setup just couldn’t have been better. The only real problem was the extreme shortage of set lists, which meant that we had no clue as to who was on where and when. Wasn’t really that much of a problem, because we managed to catch Plaid and Squarepusher, but would have been nice to put some names to other faces/sets.

On the subject of Squarepusher; shit the bed that guy can play the bass! His performance at Wang last NYE was incredible, and he was one of the highlights of Bestival this year, but fucking hell! We spent almost his entire set up the front, gawping in slack-jawed wonder. Absolutely mind blowing.

It seems to me that the reason that the Wang crew are able to put on such consistently good nights is because they are all about having a good time, rather than making fat stacks of cash. At least that’s certainly the impression their nights give. I get the feeling that perhaps I’m going to the wrong kind of parties when I wake up the next day feeling ripped off. Whilst we’ll never get back to the proper raving of the early 90s, at least there are parties like Wang to give us all a taste of what once was. More please!

B-Complex - Different Kind of Masochist Mix

Lovely mix from B-Complex. Check out his tracks on MySpace (http://www.myspace.com/bcomplexdnb) or YouTube. He's one of my favourite producers right now.

http://www.dogsonacid.com/showthread.php?threadid=622669

01. B-Complex ft. Acrisma - Fragmenty
02. Verbal - Exorcist
03. Apex - By The Way
04. B-Complex ft. Bad Girl - Alone With The Sky
05. Unknown Error - Midnight Special
06. Naibu - Generic Generations
07. Medmen&Poets vs Soulgrifter ft. Ill-esha - Save Me
08. State of Mind - Sun King (Chris Su Remix)
09. London Electricity - Just One Second
10. Brooklyn - Someone (Naibu Remix)
11. Duo Infernale - Lost In The World
12. Danny Byrd ft. Brooke Brothers - Gold Rush
13. B-Complex - Reflections
14. Jiant vs FatBoy Slim - Skanky
15. Tyler Straub - Easy Does It
16. Young Ax - January
17. B-Complex - Sober Yet Overdosed
18. B-Complex - It`s A Funny World
19. B-Complex - Beautiful Lies
20. Unknown Error - Yearning
21. Ill.Complex - Broken Windows
22. Duo Infernale - Dreamherb
23. Simon V - Supernatural
24. B-Complex - Girl With Flower
25. Seba - Blaze and Fade Out
26. B-Complex - Little Oranges
27. B-Complex - Questions
28. Rido - Hard As Life
29. Morebeat - Colours
30. Noisia - Crank
31. B-Complex - Passage
32. B-Complex - Ocean Deep
33. B-Complex - Raindrops
34. LM1 - Reneissance
35. B-Complex - Three Dots

Always nice to see Sun King in there. Only thing the mix is missing is fifteen minutes of Beautfiul Lies à la his September Hospitality@Matter set :)

A Modern Warfare 2 Post!

Blah blah blah Modern Warfare 2.

Blah blah blah :(

After Action Report: Hospitality At Matter

I bloody love Hospital Records. I love all the Hospital producers and I really love Hospitality. I've been to every one of the Matter Hospitalities bar the first and so far I've always had a really good time, and last Friday was no exception.



Turned up late to the Dome on Friday having been to see the Cinematic Orchestra over at the Camden Roundhouse, so unfortunately we missed Beardyman (apparently he was awesome) and Matrix. It wasn't all fail though, because we also managed to miss Fabio. Result!

We arrived just as London Elektricity was getting going, followed by High Contrast, who both smashed it as usual. We retreated to THE CAAAGE for a bit more space during HC's set and hung around the edges for Danny Byrd. I dunno if the number of tickets sold has been increased or something, but Matter definitely felt more rammed than usual. No room on the dancefloor for dancing and lots of shoving and pointy elbows instead. Perhaps I'm just getting old. Stuck my head in briefly to Room 2, but whoever was dubstepping it up in there almost sent me to sleep. Wish I'd caught D-Bridge's set though!

By the time Cyantific came on, we'd managed to smash our way to the front. This definitely proved worthwhile, because it's only when you get on to the dancefloor that you really feel the sub bass shreading your knees and whatnot. Ed Rush was on last to finish off the night, but everyone was really starting to lag a bit and we ended up calling it a night around half five, which was a bit of a shame.

I still quite like Matter as a venue, despite the fact it's always a bloody mission to get home from. However, I think I'll be taking a break from the Matter Hospitalities for a while. Although the beer prices have always been a rip off, £4.50 is just too fucking much for a bottle of Stella, and the crowd there seems to be pretty angry most of the time. Perhaps these two problems are related? My other problem with Matter is that I always feel really disconnected from the DJs/music. Room 2 doesn't have this problem as much, and nor do the Ram nights where the DJs are set up in the cage thingy rather than up on the stage. Perhaps it's all just a bit too big? Kinda makes me miss The End.

Hopefully taking a break from Matter will allow me to return there feeling refreshed and start to enjoy myself a bit more. Despite all my whining, Hospitality really is a great night and last Friday was throughly splendid and worthwhile. Wish there were more London-based Hospital nights though!

After Action Report: Wah Wah 45s 10th Birthday (Scala)

Bit last minute this one, with the squad being drawn to the Scala by the promise of Danny Byrd, Bonobo, Beardyman (unfortunately a no-show on the night) and Format but none of us really knowing what to expect. Never been to a Wah Wah 45s night before, but I certainly dig the Scala as a venue and the mixed lineup promised a fairly wide range of genres and performances, so we thought we'd give it a go as a change from the usual all DnB diet.


Bonobo: Impressive main room DJ set from Simon Green. Could have perhaps done with hearing a few more of his own tracks in there, but it was jolly good all the same. Must check this guy live ASAP.

DJ Format: Everyone else had pissed off to the Scala's dank, dungeonesque smoking pit for the start of Format's set, so I kicked my way to the front. Format dealt a really good hip hop mix, but it really left me wanting more. Another guy to check out live.

The Apples: Surprise discovery of the night. None of us had heard of these guys before. Best described as a some sort of jazz/funk unit, their performance was really upbeat, although it might have just been that the £4.20(!) beers were finally taking effect. Their rework of Rage's "Killing In The Name", really got the crowd bouncing (although even Killing on a Stylophone will have that effect).



Danny Byrd: As expected, Danny Byrd ran a smashing DnB set, which finished off the night nicely. Everything was running late by this point, and it seemed that most of the crowd had gone home to bed, but it was definitely their loss. Only downside was that it felt that he was playing it a bit safe when compared to his last Matter set, but hopefully he'll smash it up next Friday at Hospitality.

Overall, a jolly good night. The Room Two dubstep made a nice change of pace when we dipped in there once or twice (I think we might have caught some of Loefah) and the only real negatives for the night were the ridiculous booze prices and First Capital Connect not having enough fucking drivers to take us home.

Can I Get A Reload?: TIE Fighter

Recently, I've found myself replaying a few of the older games in my collection, a situation that has arisen out of a mixture of boredom and the fact that my PC lacks the oomph to run anything post 2007 at an acceptable standard. It's been quite an interesting experience, revisiting titles that I remember were fantastic in their day and seeing how they've stood the test of time.




TIE Fighter (1994): Who doesn't have fond memories of playing TIE Fighter? Probably quite a lot of people actually (doubt anyone under the age of 18 has even heard of it), but let's not dwell too much on that. Deeply atmospheric as only a Star Wars space sim could be, TIE Fighter was a Proper Star Wars Game, with a pretty cool plot that saw you completing missions as both a faceless TIE pilot nobody and as a sort of special agent for the Empire (often placing your primary mission goals in jeopardy). Flying missions for the Empire mostly involved policing the galaxy, busting pirates/smugglers and combating Rebellion "terrorists", making a nice change from the guerrilla-style hit and run missions of X-Wing.

TIE Fighter was also bloody tough, especially in the early stages when you're piloting fighters with low or non-existent shielding, possibly made from balsa wood. This forced the player to rely on speed and maneuverability, as well as careful management of shield and laser energy in order to stay alive. It seems that the developers realised quite how tough and frustrating the game could at times become, and chose to include the option to turn player invincibility on or off at any time. Whilst this might seem like a bit of a cop out, I think it actually proves to be a smart inclusion, if used sparingly.

So what's it like to revisit TIE Fighter? Obviously the game looks old (it came out in 1994!) but rather than hold back the game, I feel the aged graphics actually give it a sense of charm. The ship models and textures lack detail and the actual space environments themselves are sparse, with a few pixley planets here and there, but the gameplay remains so solid that it is easy to look past the game's age and have a thoroughly enjoyable experience. The craft-specific cockpits/HUDs are also nicely detailed and actually go quite a long way to giving the various fighters a good sense of identity.

I was playing with the "Enemies of the Empire" add on campaign, which adds three additional sets of missions following on from the main game. The primary focus of the campaign involves hunting down a rogue Imperial commander and his fleet, which actually becomes a bit dull when compared to the variety of missions found in the original game. I certainly felt that once the game no longer centres around being a Fascist Space Policeman, it loses much of what originally made it stand out from other space combat games.

There are variety of legal and less-than-legal ways to track down copies of TIE Fighter, and I'd definitely recommend that you give it a play. Having said that, I bloody love space shooters, but I know they're hardly to every one's taste (which is why they died out back at the end of the '90s, but there's a whole other post for that). Word on the streets is that LucasArts might be re-releasing all it's space shooters over Steam, hopefully opening them up to a new audience, as well as giving old-timers a chance to revisit them. I'd rather see a whole new TIE Fighter release with shiny modern graphics and stuff, but no one likes space games these days, so I can't really see that happening. Even if LucasArts were to do this, they'd probs shit out some godawful Phantom Menace themed nightmare.

Ah well, all this ranting about TIE Fighter has really got me jonesing for some X-Wing Alliance now...

One Time We Lived [Matrix and Futurebound Remix]

Wait a second. This is free?

http://www.moby.com/remix-matrix-futurebound

Obviously Matrix+Futurebound, and all the better for it.


Lovely stuff, reminds me of listening to Play when I was a kid.

Default October Promo Mix

Proper smash and grab mix from Default. Loving the Lynx and Kemo finisher.

http://dnbshare.com/download/Default_Oct09.mp3.html

UTOPIA - SCAN ME
CALYX - TEARING US APART
COMMIX - JUSTIFIED
BSE/N.PHECT - TAURINE
JADE - CRYPTIC (PHACE REMIX)
LOMAX - TOO COLD
NOISIA - CRANK
INSTRA:MENTAL - WATCHING YOU
SPL - ALL OVER
LOXY/ISOTONE - SHODAN
SUBWAVE - INDIGO
AUDIO - ERROR
ALIX PEREZ - DOWN THE LINE (BREAK REMIX)
ED RUSH/OPTICAL - CHUB RUB
SPECTRASOUL - I WAS 10
NOISIA - LAST LOOK
TREI/STATE OF MIND - THUNDER BISCUIT
BTK/PRESENCE UNKNOWN - PROPHECY
EWUN - SCREW UP (UPBEATS REMIX)
FRESH - HEAVYWEIGHT
ALIX PEREZ - STRAY (ICICLE REMIX)
N.PHECT_ENCRYPTION
PHACE/NOISIA - CCTV
LYNX/KEMO - DEEZ BREAKS

Blu Mar Ten - Believe Me

I'll admit I've often found Blu Mar Ten a little too ice cool in the past, but the stuff off their new album, Natural History, has all been really good. Grab it ASAP!

Can I Get A Reload?: Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory

Recently, I've found myself replaying a few of the older games in my collection, a situation that has arisen out of a mixture of boredom and the fact that my PC lacks the oomph to run anything post 2007 at an acceptable standard. It's been quite an interesting experience, revisiting titles that I remember were fantastic in their day and seeing how they've stood the test of time.

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (2005): Upon starting this one up the first time round, I remember initially feeling disappointment because of the way it felt so different to Splinter Cell and Pandora Tomorrow. Having spent the previous two weeks sneaking my way through the first two titles in the series, I wasn't quite ready for the change of tempo offered by Chaos Theory. Mostly, however, my initial distaste was down to the fact that the new Unreal 2.5 engine seemed to give Sam Fisher et al. stupid fat faces. However, my reservations quickly ceased to be once I found myself immersed in the game proper.

Although Sam seemed to have become less a secret agent and more a super soldier, the game was all the better for it. Stealth and action were balanced perfectly, and because the "Three alarms and you're out" rule was gone, it became possible to shoot your way through levels if you got frustrated with the "sneak-grab-interrogate-stab in throat-hide body" formula. Although adopting this approach still usually ends up with President Palmer* yelling at you, several of the levels set in war zones actually encourage this sort of noisey and generally antisocial behaviour, which breaks up the sneaking and knifing nicely.

Having said that, I still rarely used the SC-20K rifle, which makes you wonder why Sam bothers bringing such a clunky piece of gear with him on all his top secret missions. I struggled to finish the first Splinter Cell, mainly because by the end I was getting bored, but whilst playing CT, this tedium never seemed to set in and the game kept me playing right up to the end.

So how does the game stand up on the replay? Well, I can report that CT is still a magnificently cinematic experience. The game itself still looks lovely (apart from the previously mentioned fat face issue) and it plays fantastically. The techno-thriller storyline chugs along like one of the good series of 24 and the Amon Tobin soundtrack remains as suitably vicious as ever (it's remained a constant fixture on my MP3 since 2005).

When compared to the buggy, poorly optimised mess that was 2006's Splinter Cell: Double Agent, CT stands out as even more impressive. A thoroughly great game, well deserving of a replay or even a first time run through for anyone who missed out on it previously.

The next entry in the Splinter Cell series, Conviction, seems to be heading in a new, more Deus Exy sand-box direction, which could be a good thing although it'll have to be very impressive in order to reach the lofty heights of Chaos Theory.

*Actually Dennis Haysbert only voiced Lambert in Pandora Tomorrow.