Friday, 25 March 2011

Gyptian - Hold You (Shy FX & Benny Page Digital Soundboy Remix)



This was the final track dropped by Kenny Ken at Bloc 2011. Haven't dared to listen back to it since because it'll never be as amazing as it was that night.

As incredible as the D&B is right now, you gotta make room for the old skool stuff as well. Zinc's remix of Ready Or Not remains a big tune whenever it goes off.

Thursday, 24 March 2011

Komatic - Make The Most Of Now (Technicolour Remix)



Breakfast D&B gets you out the door in the right mood first thing in the morning.

Saturday, 19 March 2011

After Action Report: Bloc Weekend 2011

Dear Techno,

I'm sorry about all the horrible things I said about you. I didn't really mean any of it, you just have to understand that I really like drum and bass, and sometimes I say things I don't mean.

I'm sorry I said you weren't fun.
I'm sorry I said you were just for the French.
I'm sorry I said you were just for the Germans.
I'm sorry I called you Belgian.
I'm sorry that I said people can't dance to you.
I'm sorry I said you were just boom boom boom boom for three hours with all build and no drops.
Most of all, I'm sorry I said you were boring.

I just didn't understand that you were different. I see now that I was wrong. I was prejudiced and I let that get in the way of my better judgement. I just have a short attention span, but that is flaw with me, and not with you.

I'm sorry Techno, let's put all the horribleness behind us. If you'll still have me, can we be friends?

xxxx



PS. At least you're not Trance.

Wednesday, 9 March 2011

Cyantific - OBEY



Big new track from Cyantific. Just listening to it makes you feel like you're lost in a training montage from an Eighties movie about break dancers competing to save their local community centre.

Or perhaps that's just me.

Make sure you don't miss Bounce It on the other side.

Saturday, 5 March 2011

Rise of the Jukebox Vandals

Time was when a jukebox was just a big stereo, filled with a pile of 45s or CDs. You stick your 20p in, make your choice from a selection consisting of Rod Stewart, The Beatles and some weird compilation of Seventies Rock (the kind that gets heavily advertised on TV in the week before Father's Day) and that was it. Music plays, no one has a good time.


However, over the last decade, jukebox technology, fuelled by the internet, has evolved rapidly into an all together different beast. These days the digital jukebox is more likely to be hooked up to the internet, offering an almost unlimited range of tracks to choose from and thereby providing the perfect opportunity for sociopathic misanthropes to strike out at society.


I can't imagine what would drive someone to highjack a jukebox in order to facilitate antisocial behaviour, or what sort of socially-damaged individual would find enjoyment in such an activity, but here's a selection of fun things to try out next time you're in the pub and you've run out of stuff to talk about.

Brute Force
Obviously, if you want to just upset everyone in the pub, it's perfectly easy to just stick five quid in the thing and set Spice Up Your Life running twenty times, but this is far too unsubtle.

As an act of vandalism, it's the equivalent of replacing every word on the History of The United States Wikipedia page with the word "Shitfuck" repeated eight thousand times. It's briefly hilarious, but there's just no satisfaction in it. It lacks finesse.

Just as a Wikipedia admin will quickly revert the page back to it's original state and ban your IP, so too will the jukebox be turned off and you'll likely get glassed if you spam it with crap music.

True Playaz
A much better technique for causing grief is to queue up endless drum and bass on the jukebox, because no one likes drum and bass music. As a bonus, if you close your eyes you can pretend that your local pub is actually The End.

Festive Cheer
This one only works if it's the height of summer, but why not create a nice festive atmosphere by putting all the Xmas songs on at once?

Descent Into Madness
The most effective form of jukebox vandalism also requires the most patience, but if you get it right it's certainly the most rewarding.

Correct track selection is essential for this to work. Pick something with a big stupid chorus or obvious intro. My weapon of choice is Dire Straits - Walk Of Life, but something like Cher - If I Could Turn Back Time or Jackson 5 - ABC can be equally effective.

Queue up your battle track, then five other random songs, then your selected track again, followed by another four tracks, then your selected track, then another three and so on and so forth until you get down to just your song. Then line it up a few more times for good measure.

In this way, everyone gets to hear Dire Straits repeated endlessly without actually realising it, and you get the satisfaction of pissing seven quid away in exchange for the knowledge that everyone in the pub will have Walk Of Life stuck in their heads the next day.

Hope you're happy with yourself.

Wednesday, 2 March 2011

Mindscape - Bounce



Blam!
Hungarian producer Mindscape has produced a track that does exactly what it says on the tin.

Bounce LP is out on Commercial Suicide right now and also includes the massive Dreamworld.