So far this summer we've got our hands dirty in the British festival calendar and already toiled away at Nozstock in Herefordshire and Wickerman in Scotland. All just for your benefit so you can plan which festivals to go to next year.  Last weekend saw our third festival outing to the relatively young Cumbria / Lake District based Kendal Callng. Kendal takes place in the Lowther Deer Park filled with foresty goodness, dramatic views of big rocky hills and a herd of deer who've lived there for nearly ten centuries.

       Now in its fifth year Kendal calling has grown from a small 2 day music event in central Kendal in 2006, to a fully grown festival with more than 8000 party goers. We decided to take a gonzo approach with our reviews as you may have noticed with our wickerman and nozstock pieces and Kendal was no exception.  

    When we arrived at the Deer Park on friday night it was surrounded by ominous clouds.  However the festival gods had blessed us with a tiny circle of blue over the entire festival. (YES FESTIVAL GODS DO EXIST).  

    We just managed to catch the Stereo MCs on the main stage. If you're young you probably don't know who they are and you probably don't need to. Nevertheless they had a good crowd going warming up for Calvin Harris. The Main stage had a good lineup of band based music through the weekend. Something we don't really go for but with names like the Coral, Badly Drawn Boy and The Doves it was still worth a look now and again.  

    Besides, any seasoned festivaler knows its not usually about whats going on at the main stage.  There's a variety of tents in all different shapes and sizes filled with all different tastes. The "Glow Tent" brought us our usual festival fix of drum and bass, dubstep and other such electronic genres.  Names like High Contrast, who it seems play every festival in the world.  

    Aside the two big stages "Glow" and the "Main Stage" there was a collection of more homely indy tents nestled round the corner amidst the trees. The Kaylied and Calling Out stages showcased a whole host of acts.

    Manchester resident brass band "Riot Jazz" also hosted their own tent the "Riot Jazz Cafe" which for us was the definite highlight of our weekend. It had a really nice vibe all weekend and was rammed pretty much the whole time as well. So well done to the Manc boys doing us proud.

   Like Nozstock,  Kendal also had a Comedy / Burlesque sort of tent. All festivals should have them. Although some people seemed to have confused the exotic form of sophisticated dance which aims to empower women that is Burlesque with a group of people "getting their rat out" as its come to be known these days.

    All in all Kendal is a good weekend away and definitely goes down as one of the festivals thats Family Friendly as well as mash up friendly. One to consider for next summers festival outings.

Check our photos here...

I have to say that free Rotation is one of the maddest little festivals I’ve been to.  We’re talking about a 3 day event where you can stroll into a toilet cubicle and STILL find toilet roll/not drown in a deluge of someone else’s effluence.  It’s essentially one big free party and keeps a loyal band of followers returning year on year for one almighty mash up.  The setting is Baskerville hall, apparently built by the lord of the Manor originally as his Party house.  This place was designed for a ton of people to get down and boogie, right through the centuries.  Of course, times have changed now and Free Rotation has survived through the adherence and respect towards the manor and the owners as the heat appears to have been consistently raised by the surrounding neighbours, who, from what I can gather, consist of one farmer and a very elderly chaffinch.  It is the most powerful chaffinch I have ever heard of with a hatred of sound by the looks of it.  Not wishing to get bogged down by chaffinches, however, I would like to turn your attention to the event itself.  
Free Rotation prides itself on its underground line-up and there were some absolute treats for some all over the weekend.  Friday kicked off with no apologies, the outside tent now a large geodesic Dome, and some excellent warm up sounds were emanating from there right from the off.  The bars in the hall are something of a revelation.  So this is a festival and yet I’m paying £2.60 for a can of Red Stripe?  Where’s the catch?  There isn’t one unless you count the usual catch with drinking too much cheap alcohol, i.e. a head that feels like its taken part in THAT vice scene from Casino.  

Free Rotation is known for its deep and soulful flavours of techno, house, dubstep, electronic jazz, experimental, electronica, chillout, ambient and dub.  That’s what was on the menu but for me, Friday was definitely all about the various dubstep/dub-techno sounds coming from the main ‘bar’ room from the likes of the Hessle audio crew, Shackleton and the incredibly French ‘F’.  
Hessle really stood out for me this year with a tag team back2back session of all kinds of beats and bass.  It was so fresh I had to check that Will Smith wasn’t hiding in the background crying at the loss of his 80s moniker.  It was a real demonstration that this kind of music is beyond being labelled properly anymore.  You can’t just say this was a great dubstep set or techno or whatever, because it had so many different types of tune in there it would be pointless to try and tie it down.  It was a good rave is what it was.  Shackleton then smashed the fu ck out of the system with his live show, consisting of ever changing beats, spiralling percussion and swirling bass boom.  It was again a joy to watch, masterfully held together and never dull.
‘F’ was next on as the crowd thinned out for a while but soon swelled up again as people realised what was going on.  This guy provided a quality set to maintain the vibes set up by the previous peeps, solid drums and deep bass a consistent presence and very easy to brock out to.  Obviously there was much more to check on this night, with a quality buzz about the crowds moving in an out of the venue but I wouldn’t like to be more specific than that as I didn’t really take in the other rooms that night, a really irritating debilitating headache smacked me off to my tent around 5am.  

Saturday brought a smattering of rain, which was actually quite pleasant.  I considered trying to catch some in my mouth as a source of cheap refreshment until I realised it my contain some kind of poisonous heavy metals and that perhaps a refreshing cup of Chai may be a better idea.  I have to give a shout to the Tea tent.  It is EXACTLY what you want after a night of ridiculousness and these peeps will provide pretty much whatever kind of tea you can think of as well as several delicious looking cakes.  
I owe them my brain I think, although hopefully they won’t try to claim that particular prize.
Music kicked off on Saturday afternoon, huge dubby bass could be heard from the campsite for a good while indicating it was time for some chilling and perhaps another beer.  A quality afternoon highlight in the dome was Tom Ellis doing a little live set, dropping some nice housey funkness with the addition of some live bass provided by him.  It was a perfect time to have him on and got plenty of heads nodding as the sun slowly tried to break through outside.  Well enjoyable.  As day progressed into evening there was plenty more to enjoy, especially on the slightly harder techno side as this was DJ bone’s time to absolute rock the hall out.  It was great to see he’d been given a fairly decent 3 hours to belt out a total belter of a 3 deck set and I don’t know how many tunes he racked up but it must have been a ridiculous amount as I don’t remember him leaving those decks alone for more than a second.  I’ve not repped them yet but the visuals provided by the VJ’s were a great accompaniment to a lot of the sets and this one was no exception.  There were some pretty insane images going on at times that’s for sure.  In the 2nd room for this night there were plenty of random additions to go along with the belting techno.  Spatial and Gatekeeper stood out for me the most.  Spatial provided some crazy change ups in style, one minute some real old skool flavours were wacked out like so many odd socks before a multitude of bass heavy quality was delivered.  Gatekeeper laid down some of the darkest beats of the weekend, earth shattering in mood and really refreshing after so much 4/4.  It was Bone I saw through to the end though and, fully spent, I returned to the campsite to bother the neighbours with a bout of vicious snoring.
Sunday appeared sooner than expected and the weather by this time had decided it was going to bring out the big guns.  The big guns in this case being the sun and not actually a large revolver which would have definitely put more of a damper on things as gun death is not really as conducive to a festival in the way that Sun very much is.

The afternoon was luxuriant and the vibes were very nice and chilling, courtesy of Jus Ed.  His deep house goodness was well measured, funky and layered with a good smattering of growling bass.  Not too much, but enough to make this one grin.  It was the right amount of time I thought, making the glorious sunny day all the better for the chilled out vibes it produced.  
Further down the line and we had Tom Demac do a live set, dropping some silky smooth numbers and gradually pulling peeps into the tent to get on down.  An excellent early evening bit of fun and set things up nicely for the remaining hours as Free Rotation prepared to funk out its final time.  Resident Move D was my choice for this, having missed his set on the Saturday in the chillout room; I was keen to check this time round.  I wasn’t disappointed as plenty of jacking beats were on offer and top grooves, it was perfect for my somewhat sagging constitution.  I won’t say too much on it as it’s not really my realm, suffice to say there was a decent crowd fully happy with proceedings and I was quite satisfied with some subdued bopping.

As quickly as it had come around again Free Rotation was done bar Mondays rude awakenings by the bouncers (an upside down shouty man not being my ideal alarm clock but effective nonetheless).  If you’re down for these musical types then I highly recommend getting on this festival if you possibly can.  Even if it’s not necessarily your cup of tea I rate you would have a blast anyway.  It’s full of decent people, I didn’t see one bit of agginess all weekend, and I’d dare someone not to have a silly, rambunctious adventure full of possibilities and daftness.  
Shouts need to be given to all the fancy dress bananas, Sailors and other randomly dressed ones for adding to Sunday surrealness and all those striving to make up the most offensive turns of phrase possible on a magnetic words board.  Free party of the summer in my book, so respect to Suzybee and Stevio for holding things down so well and obviously all those that played or VJ’d and the staff at the hall because they are some of the most pleasant people I’ve seen working at a festival considering so much madness going on around them!  Here’s to the next one.
Peace (Node)

Photos by Matt Bimpson

Example caught up with local boy Beerz to find out what releases he's got on the way, whether Leeds or Manchester has a better scene and what tunes he can't live without at the moment... 

EXAMPLE :  For those that don't know about you Beerz what do you do ?


Beerz : From Manchester and known mostly as Beerz although a few variations get about. Like to Dj and Produce
dubstep/dnb.


EXAMPLE: How long have you been producing ?

Beerz: I got reason 3 about 3 and a half years ago and dabbled around for a year not really doing much. Then moved onto reason 4 a year later and actually started making stuff that sounded like music.  A year after that I finished my first full tune and then just slowly made tunes up until now where I’m using reason and ableton.


EXAMPLE:  Who would you say has influenced your sound?

Beerz: Skream was a big influence earlier on. Lately it's been Kryptic Minds, everything Youngsta plays, DJ Madd, Cyrus, Headhunter, dBridge, Icicle, Stray, Scuba, Jubei, Alix Perez etc. All of the guys that are pushing the darker side of the sound.

EXAMPLE: You've had a couple of releases so far what have you got coming up release wise?

Beerz: I've got one release atm forthcoming on a label from NZ called "Sex Camp Recordings" which will be Foot Print and Time. That will be one of the first two releases by that label, the other being a couple of tunes by AlexisK who’s making a lot of sick stuff

EXAMPLE: Controversial now, Manchester and Leeds both have pretty strong music scenes which do you think is better?

Beerz: hmm... Good question.  West Indian Centre in Leeds is home to some of the best nights in the country. It never disappoints. In Manchester I always see sick line ups at nights like Strange Fruit and Basscamp which I enjoy as they are pushing the deeper/darker/experimental etc side of the whole deal. DnB wise It’s got to be Manchester though, Soul:ution and Hit and Run booked pretty much everyone that I like between them.

Example:  Where do you think dubstep is heading now?


Beerz:  It seems to just be spreading out really.....there's the wobbly side which seems to be the most popular at the moment, then the future garage stuff, techno influenced stuff, purple, darker subby stuff and even though it’s not the same tempo I include the autonomic stuff in the big melting pot. New music will always be made regardless of what happens with the mainstream stuff. Also I'll just say that I love all of the different bits of dubstep even the propper aggy wobblerz..

Example: What tunes can you not live without at the moment ?

Beerz:
Kryptic Minds - Hybrid (but any other track by them would do)
Lenzman - Coincidence
Instra:mental - Voyeur

Example:  Finally its the marmite question ?

Beerz:  Never buy it but it's pretty tasty. Deffo don't hate it :). 

Example: Safe Beerz.

Ah, Summer, great isn't it?  Well maybe for about ten seconds when you glance that bit of Sun waving from behind a cloud that drops a continuous torrent of rain directly into your face.  If you're reading this and you're not in Manchester you may consider me delusional.  Perhaps this is the case but it's all I can think of when I listen to this new Oriol album. Put it this way, you can tell the guy was born in Barcelona.  You can also tell he is sick at music. 

Having studied it in Boston (apparently a good thing) you can tell there must have been a healthy wack of 70s Funk and 80s fusion in that studying because that's exactly what shines right out of this album in exactly the same way that the sun  doesn't here in Manc. Citing Herbie Hancock and Stevie Wonder as some major influences on his work it's obvious that
it also doesn't just stop there. 

This album is a testament to what you an do with completly different styles of music when you know what you're doing.  We've got this spacefunk sound going right through old house and techno into what we now lovingly know as the Drum and Bass and Dubstep genres. So let's get stuck into this feast of fun.

 'Joy FM' kicks off the album getting out some nice laid back rhythm and some funky moog to define exactly where this shiz is coming from. The electronic sounds of Detroit are right in the mix with this  and works incredibly well.  That's just the beginning, as you go further into the album there's just too many sounds to try and describe especially as for some sounds I don't even know how the hell they were made, they just sound like a mad wizard has eaten his guitar and keyboard and belched out  delirious, warm and funky tunage. 

Shay-Lo (Download) by oriol

If you're down for pure, happy and uplifting music this is about the point you realise you've come to the right place. 2nd track 'Spiral' for instance, jumps about with a little scratching in the background, vocal snippets and a mad flutey vibe runs it through like a friendly skewer.  Slap bass is predominant as well, keeping the funk throughout as the this track literally spirals out
towards the funkiverse. 

I don't know exactly how that makes sense but hopefully if you hear the track you too will be confused enough to understand. 'Memories' gets mega spaced out to begin with adding percussive goodness as it rolls along and the melodies trickle out like so much water  appearing outside my window right now. 

Variety is the key in this album, nothing stays the same for long like so many dance albums can.  So 2nd time round the spaced out synth comes in on 'Memories' we get some other top little vocal spread and more varied melody.  This just keeps things spicy. 

Getting that one good hook is important but to have them in abundance like this is well pleasing. 'Jam' has the sickest little funk fusion synth riff, you can practically smell the incense and see the long hair of a 70s funkadelic funkateer)  Seriously, it just manages to keep the right side of cheese aswell with gorgeous otherwordly sounds creeping in.
I'm guessing here that most of this has been recorded live in some form as opposed to using just samples.  

Oriol's musical background would suggest this.  Either the way the marrying of the two, as in live recording and sampling is killer.  It keeps things retro without falling in well worn schtick or pseudo rambling pyschedelia and updates proceedings with the electronic sound, reminiscent of stuff, say, Hud Mo would do but in no way emulating that sound, just tipping a nod to that kind of modern sound.

'The process' is a proper standout track with all these same elements mentioned before being in there but changing up the track halfway through with hints of Sitar gently drizzled over the top and changing up the beats to slow it down well.

'Flux', being just over halfway through starts with a 4/4 rhythm, throwing in snappy percussion for the head nod and stabs of that funk vibe.  It's a good turnaround track just so that you know you're not into the ride for purely the same kind of thing at all times. More drenching funkisms come through on 'Coconut Coast' with swooning synth, little bell chimes and a touch of some horns before you get a moogy solo stretchout.  Very chilled this one.  Definetly get a big glass of rum, some ice and maybe a bit of cocunut.  Maybe don't drink the cocunut. Just look at it and smile as you take this track in.  I rate that's what Oriol would want you to do.

So you've maybe done that (or possibly not because it sounds a bit mental) and now you're ready for the title track.  'Night and Day' gradually absorbs you, all warm synths and clever little samples.  Again, too much really to take in on first listen, leaving plenty to absorb on further checkings.  There's some mad warpy synth all over this track that holds it all together.  I almost don;t want to say too much about it because there's just loads to get you're teeth into. 

Going into more detail would be a bit like telling someone their adopted before their adoptive parents did.  So I won't, just trust that if you're down for the tracks so far you'll be well pleased with this refreshing quality music.

'Fantasy for N' includes more random musical flourishes, absolutly scintillating chimes and smooth flutey illness.  By this point you should just be absorbed in how much this album has to offer and if hasn't become clear by this point of reading, it very much has got me, especially the more I've listened to it.

'LW' is the endgame after that, a bit more uptempo again, strutting rhythm, a proper funk band piece in space.  Crazy vocals and chewed up samples are prevalent making it a well good tune to say goodbye with, alongside '5 Bars' which delivers more top 70s out synth bits getting ever more deranged as it progresses and all the time with a head nod, bob-type beat.

Now, as I said at the beginning, you're not going to like this album if you hate music.  Seriously, if white noise is more your thing or you perhaps like hanging out behind the backs of supermarket waiting to get run over by the delivery trucks...don't try this album. 

It's purely, grinning vibed out 70s/80s fusion electronic dopeness.  It's blatantly for the summer, hopefully if you get it you'll get to hear it under a massive, blistering Sun.  If for whatever inevitable reason that doesn't happen get some headphones and listen to it under a sundbed. 

Actually don't do that due to cancer bad risk (I've heard).  But do listen to it somewhere pleasant, it deserves multiple listenings, I think, especially if instruments are your thing.  Planet Mu just push things forward with this album as does Oriol somehow raidS the past to make good newness.  It's ill and I'm all over it .  Why not you try to, yes?

Yes.

RELEASE DATE: 19TH JULY 2010

A lot of people run around in the world not really doing anything. Thats their choice. Some people like to smoke weed, some people play computer games, some people sleep loads. 

The list goes on. Then there's the people who run around pretending they're really busy and tell everyone that they are when they're not at all.

Maybe these people dont realise what it means to be busy or maybe they genuinely believe that because they have a blackberry they are busy. (being able to reply to e-mails wherever you are really isnt an advantage and it doesn't make you busy, exciting or important).

The Romans ran half the world and didnt send a single fucking e-mail, text or tweet the whole time. If Jesus was alive today (even though he never was) his message would be most likely be spread by some shitty blog, no one would believe him and hed get much less hits than youjizz.com.

However, I've gone off topic. So once you've sorted out all those people you get the very tiny minority of people, who although it may seem like a cliche "have a dream". 

Not only that, but at some point they had the dream thought of the idea and they built it into a plan. A lot of these people then got filtered off even more to join the crew in the second group.  They had a plan and thought they were achieveing but really they let their hype get the better of them.

  So after all those people have been cut off you're left with a tiny group of people who not only had a dream and a plan but took the plan and made it into something real.  (If you become one of these people you also become a target for hate from the people who do nothing. Maybe because they feel guilty about doing nothing. Who knows?)

Zara Khalique is one of the minority. One of the people who doesnt waste time and gives everyone love all the time.

At 16 she started a clothing label called "Dream Factory" famous in Manchester and worn by half of the Music Scene here.

However unlike most people in capitalist society Zara doesn't make clothes in order to make money she does it to spread her Dream Factory vibes of "Keeping It Bright" and "Loving Life".  

Now Zara has started a new project or a way of living as she describes it. Zara believes she can change the world and I agree.

Its the first two groups of people who keep us where we are in the world when the minority are trying to change things for the better.  Why is the environment getting fucked up? Because the "lets do fuck all" group stop anything positive happening.

We can only help ourselves and we should be helping each other together. To kick it all off Zara has been creating a book which not only represents the belief in "keeping it bright" but is also an amazing piece of artwork filled with inspiring quotes and nostalgic photography.

This book makes you feel warm and bright. It makes you realise that all you have to do is dream and start fucking doing it. You can read the book here and also check out her website HERE

So after the last two months of experimenting with Life Without Social Media including topless outside reggae drinking and Bed Drinking I knew I was gonna have to pull out all the stops to think of yet another exciting activity to keep you distracted from your virtual online lives.  This month I have researched and discovered the brand new practise of Scottish Upside Down Tent Neat Rum Drinking. For this activity you will need.

1 x large outdoor music festival.  (Preferably in Scotland). However you could at a push get away with one located elsewhere but its more exciting when theres driving rain. 

3-4 x crates of lager (these will serve as good breakfast and also fill in the gaps where your body decides you need to have a rest from drinking the neat rum)

Several bottles of rum. Any variety will do as long as either has a pirate, boat or something to do with Jamaica on the label.  (these are international rum identification signs)

1 x tent (will be made upside down later dont worry)

1x car to sit in and also store things in.

A fucking big bag of crisps.

1x phone to lose

1x cool box to ensure everything is bare cold OBV.

1x Scottish Child to be bullied by

Several Welsh people

2-3 days

Choose a weekend period in which to make your scottish trip.  I would defnitely advise checking first that there is a large outdoor festival happening at the same time. We chose Wickerman festival a medium sized festival near Dumfries in Scotland.  Aim to arrive for the start of the festival it makes sense and gives you a larger amount of time to engage in scottish upside down tent neat rum drinking.  If you're feeling a bit nervous id reccomend warming up in the car with a few cans of lager.

When you arrive at the site check that your in scotland. This should be quite easy you will have an overwhelming irresistable urge to replicate every scottish accent that you encounter in an extreme way. Once you've checked thats all in order its almost time to take out the rum. At this point you have an important decision to make.  If your feeling energetic you can take the time to set up your tent. However you may want to, in the words of middle class southern students "Law it Blad". We set up our tent 'cos we're cool like.

So once you've set up camp, checked your location you may feel it would be a good idea to familiarise yourself with the festival site, however under no circumstances should you do that.  Do not look at any of the festival site until you are more drunk. Otherwise you will not find it as exciting.  However under the right conditions what appears as a field with some stalls selling hats and haggis stall when sober is capable of blowing your preconceptions of reality apart and taking your scottish upside down tent drinking to a whole next level. 

So before you can ascend to that level. You need to go down the golden brown path of neat rum drinking. Pick a nice comfortable location. I chose the front seat of a Vauxhall Astra however you could go for a patch of grass, a tent whatever takes your fancy.  Our friend "Dave" did discover whilst pioneering the Scottish upside down tent neat rum drinking technique that it isnt advisable to lie down in any sort of area frequented by Event Security. They don't take kindly to it and the excuse im "resting my eyes" excuse just doesnt really wash.  Using that excuse can lose you your wristband and then you are fucked literally.

Once you have attained a safe, comfortable location you can begin to drink your rum. Now in normal rum drinking in our social media driven society it is customary to drink the spirit in conjunction with a mixer beverage such as coca cola, ginger beer or my own personal tipple orangina. (please note you must shake it in order to wake it). However when drinking carrying out scottish upside down tent drinking its imperative that no mixer is used. Because of your lack of Social Media it is very important that you ingest much more alcohol much quicker than normal to distract you from the withdrawal symptoms which so often come into play when you realise there is no like button in real life. 

Now at this point in our research something went  a bit wrong. We defnitely have a strong recollection of opening the rum and drinking it until the level reached somewhere about halfway down. I then theres a brief blank patch and according to my next memory it was night time, we were no longer in the car and we were now drinking Absolut Vodka also from the bottle unmixed.  I believe I may have blacked out from extreme Social Media withdrawal.

Once you've recovered from the intial withdrawal. It is time to implement the festival in your activities. The best way to do this is wander, using your legs, in an aimless fashion round and round in circles. You may lose your companions but dont worry they will come back at some point. Try to see it like theyve gone offline on MSN but theyre coming back dont worry.  That analogy should help you to keep calm.

During our aimless wandering we chose to be bullied by a child in the vicinity of a large man made out of sticks. (see right...) 

However you may want to watch a band, go on an extremely overpriced and most likely lethal fairground or as Dave chose to do.  Eat haggis. Excessively!

Continue these sorts of past times until around 6-7 AM. If you administered your rum correctly you should find youself in a field at this time still satisfactorily sedated. Be careful to not go to near to any scots Scottish people hate Twitter and they hate Iphones (unless they're battered) and they can smell your tweets from a range of 3 ft. PLEASE bear this in mind.  Otherwise you could be murdered. No Joke.

Once you've reached this step It is time for the final hurdle of your Life Without Social Media weekend. Get one of your party to climb into the tent and go to sleep. Then proceed to dive on the tent and rotate it so that it is underground whilst it still contains your friend. With this complete your entire Scottish Upside Down Tent Neat Rum Drinking experience is complete. Now go and log on...

The Long-Player (LP) came of age long before CD or MP3 had even been thought of, and before other, now-redundant formats (8-track cartridge or cassette anyone?) came and went. Before then the 7” vinyl ‘single’ was the dominant format. Popular music had to be fully expressed in under three minutes! Albums were often little more than a clutch of already-released singles plus their B-sides (remember them? No...?), often padded out with filler tracks & cover versions with little care beyond simple commercial concerns.

In the 60’s Bob Dylan extended what would be considered “a single”, with his song ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ (1965), clocking in at six minutes long. ‘Sergeant Peppers’ Lonely Hearts Club Band’ (1967) was the seminal psychedelic LP from the Beatles that set a new precedent, moving away from limitations of teeny-bopper audiences & the 3-minute pop record, and into the more adult-orientated format of the LP. In the future Rock bands & record producers would push the limits of what you could do within the boundaries of two sides of vinyl. The Who created the ‘rock-opera’, a collection of tracks establishing a narrative that ran throughout an entire album, ‘The Who Sell Out’ (1967) / ‘Tommy’ (1969), and Pink Floyd developed ideas from their debut ‘Piper At the Gates of Dawn’ (1967), where long instrumentals grew to become a single piece of music that took up the whole side of vinyl, (clocking in at about 20 minutes!), to the multi-million-selling concept album, ‘Dark Side of the Moon’(1973).

This expansiveness, opened up new territories of expectation for artists & audiences alike, and led to many innovative studio-based albums, a huge creative outpouring that capitalised on this new market, and certainly upped the stakes for a whole generation of music fans & musicians! As artistic statements became ever-grandiose, drugs-of-choice became heavier, record company budgets & rock-star egos grew exponentially larger, the concept-album became as fat & bloated as the ‘70’s musicians who made them!

Rock music now took itself seriously though. The LP was the preferred medium of expression and the live show was its ritual celebration. One often reflected the other. Classic albums are often close to live-performance set-lists: Great opening track, or two, followed by ‘hit-single’, or two, followed by slow-ballad, usually as closer to Side One. Side Two might set a different tone. Always close with anthemic music, leaving the fan dazed & wanting more. I can think of many albums I have where, as soon as the needle hit the run-out groove & heads toward the centre, I would immediately snatch it back, flip the vinyl over, and drop onto Track One Side One all over again!

Almost anything released by the Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin follows this ‘live-show’ format. Even 80’s indie-gods The Smiths  (Meat is Murder / The Queen is Dead) up-to-& -including 90’s-sing-along Manc favourites Oasis (Definitely Maybe / What’s The Story?) used these recognised traditions in presenting their albums.

Every obsessive music-fan has a mental list of favourite LPs, a Top Ten, or Top 100 Greatest Albums of All Time Ever, and everyone’s list will be different. Great albums should do more than collect together the greatest hits of any band. Classic status LPs capture the zeitgeist, or the ‘spirit of the age’, whether it’s ‘Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan’(1963) or ‘Never Mind the Bollocks Here’s the Sex Pistols’ (1977).

Punk kicked the bloated concept-album corpse with a return to the short-sharp-shock of rock’n’roll simplicity, back to the three minute explosion of joy, the 7” vinyl single. In Punk’s wake new LPs from The Jam ‘All Mod Cons’ (1978), The Specials ‘The Specials’ and The Clash ‘London Calling’ (1979) were soundtracks to mass unemployment & the UKs’ newfound multi-culturism; Public Image Ltd Metal Box (1979) and Joy Division Closer (1980) represented new sonic terrains made up from post-punk possibilities; PiLs’ Metal Box also broke with ‘classic’ release format, an LP spread over 6 sides of 12” vinyl presented in a metal box like a cinema-film canister. Totally unnecessary, over-expensive packaging, which soon became rusted and was always difficult to open: Genius!

The 80’s brought Hip-Hop and Rave: Club culture back in force, with the guitar being supplanted by the sampler, and the LP ditched in favour of the 12” remix. Public Enemy ‘It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back’ (1988), De La Soul ‘Three Feet High & Rising’ (1989) or Happy Mondays ‘Pills, Thrills & Bellyaches’ (1992), each perfectly caught different, contemporaneous currents of change, spirits of the Age, upon the air.

But whether cranking up D’n’B epic ‘Timeless’ Goldie (1995) or ‘Fat Of The Land’  The Prodigy (1997) before the weekend starts out, or even listening to come-down classic ‘Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld’ The Orb (1991) early hours on a Sunday morning, these examples were rare exceptions and generally dance-music gave up on the album. CDs can hold a much greater volume of music and contemporary producers favoured the seamless edit, their own LPs mimicking the DJ-mix which had replaced the ‘live-band-show’ format.

With digital downloads now available on millions of individual tracks over the internet, perhaps the concept of the album (as well as the concept-album) had now been made redundant, no longer a contemporaneous technology with today’s bedroom beat-makers.

Making an album, though, still remains a benchmark in an artists’ developing career, and a sign of musical maturity. Recent Logistics album ‘Crash Bang Wallop’ (2009) was a much stronger affair than its predecessors due to it following a less-is-more approach, very similar to the classic rock LP format. Breakage ‘Foundation’ (2010) benefitted from being restarted from scratch and the resulting tracks, collaborations with different vocalists, produced 4 outstanding club-tracks! Both LPs feel like ‘proper, grown-up’ albums and dispel the idea that electronic dance-music cannot be appreciated away from nightclubs.

  Which is a very long & winding way of approaching what has quickly become my stand-out ‘zeitgeist’ album of  last year, ‘Margins Music’ (2008) by London dub-step producers Dan ‘Dusk’ Frampton & Martin ‘Blackdown’ Clark. It is a beautifully well-crafted piece, (incorporating intercontinental sounds of immigrant London, sampling Hindi, Punjabi & Urdu voices, Roll Deep Entourage talking postcode politics, grime mc’s Trim and Durrty Goodz alongside Indian chanteuse Farrah). Grievous Angel obviously thought so as he remixed the entire album! Now don’t get me wrong, there have been other impressive dup-step debuts (Skream ‘Skream!’, Pinch ‘Underwater Dancehall’, Benga ‘Diary of an Afro-Warrior’), but this feels like a ‘proper, grown-up’ album; Unshackled from its origins; Timeless whilst almost geographically precise; Yet cinematic in scope; Inclusive and expansive simultaneously, almost like dub-step has come of age. What next? 

When I found out that Dusk+Blackdown had already assembled musicians with a view to performing ‘Margins Music’ live, that a five-date tour had been announced including a date at the ever-lovely Band On The Wall, I got unusually excited with anticipation.  Now I know some of you were jumping about in mud at Platt Fields open-air ‘Ian Brown’ concert, (I had to take a taxi to BOTW from Withington & the event was slap-bang in between!), but while you lovely young people cavorted with old-Dadchester semi-retired Scallies like me (or more likely saved your pennies for Parklife festival the day after), I spent a beautiful evening taking in the most sublime, awesome, invigorating, inspiring soundtrack and wished you all could have been there!

So its where did the sample come from 3.  So far we've been to Bollywood and tracked down the original Eastern Jam sample and delved into american literature and found about the slave Kunta Kinte. The namesake of one of the most famous riffs in reggae. This month we've tracked down the component parts of Alix Perez and Sabre's  "Solitary Native" released on Shogun in 2007.

"Solitary Native" is an emalgamation of elements from two completely different pieces of music combined to make a truly amazing piece of liquid drum and bass.  So what are these parts?The lunge style synth line comes from a piece of music composed by Billy Cobham.  Described as Jazz fusions greatest drummer ever, Cobham has been heavily sampled over the years by Massive Attack, Souls of mischief (we'll get to that in a minute) and a host of others.  The particular piece we're interested in is called "Heather". A laid back Jazz piece which is unmistakeable as a key component of "Solitary Native"

So there's the melody. Now as far as I've seen its common knowledge that "Heather" is in solitary native but no one seems to know where the vocal is from.  It's obvious its from a completely different piece of music.  I have tracked down that piece. The vocal is in fact the American baritone Nat King Cole and originated in his 1956 single "Ain't Misbehavin'"

Perez and Sabre aren't the only who've sampled the Billy Cobham piece.  Hip Hop fans will know the californian hip hop group Souls Of MIschief  used the riff in their anthem "93 till infinity" which charted 17 in the american R&B and Hip Hop chart and reached 85 in the billboard chart.