Greg and Voitek from Catz n’ Dogz are the busiest men on the planet. They are prolific with their releases on all sorts of labels (Get Physical and Nurvous being the last two but of course they’re regulars on Dirtybird too), they find and release new talent on their own label Pets Recordings, they attend more or less every festival in the whole world; where they play about a million sets but still manage to attend five or six other parties a night to watch their friends, and now they’ve just completed their Body Language compilation for Get Physical, which I absolutely cannot wait to get my hands on.
I seem to share some tastes with one of my favourite DJs Thomas Koch aka DJ T; as not only did he remix one of my favourite tracks to play out, the uber-classic DJ Le Roi feat. Roland Clarke, I Get Deep, for Get Physical‘s remix package in January this year, he’s also currently working on one of my down-time favourites, the beautiful Changed by Mario & Vidis, for release later in the year.
He’s been having a break in Hawaii pre-the craziness that begins with Miami Winter Music Festival in March (we’ll be seeing him at the Get Physical party as well as some of the Electric Pickle appearances), and he’s done a little mix while he’s there. The Mario & Vidis remix is 1hr 12 minutes into the mix; the man is so smooth it’s untrue – have a listen.
We’re about to go off on our Christmas hols, so today is a day of stocking up on new mixes to soundtrack journeys. Until normal service resumes in the New Year I thought I’d share with you a few to load your pods with.
Fur Coat grabbed my eye with their remix of Russ Yallop‘s The Crossroads, which became a staple for walking-listening and DJ sets over the Summer. Beautiful heavy bass under subtle soulful vocals. After delving further, I found a few records by Fur Coat that I just can’t live without.
The Venezuelan duo of Sergio Muñoz (Delete) and Israel Sunshine (who met after discovering they were neighbours in the town of Caracas, both already regularly DJing in the area separately) seem to have had a similar effect on Damien Lazarus, as after they sent him four demo tracks he’s signed the entire forthcoming album to Crosstown Rebels, beginning with the first EP Space Ballad. He’s even experimenting with the Fur Coat sound alongside a totally different genre altogether, asking Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs to remix the title track, which Orlando Higginbottom did with relish – re-singing the vocals himself.
Out on September 26 (digital 3 October), Space Ballad is soon followed by Slo-Mo Girl on Get Physical 3 October, so it seems that M.A.N.D.Y., Booka Shade and DJ T are fans too.
Fur Coat offer their September “Laser Beems & Bass Podcast” for download here, full of absolute beauts like Miguel Campbell‘s Something Special and Lee Curtiss & Shaun Reeves‘ remix of James Teej‘s Daytime Ringer. YUM.
Heidi’s new compilation for Get Physical The Jackathon is so loaded with badass tracks it can re-inspire those feeling a bit broken after some hard core nights out. One of my favourites is by Waifs & Strays, the very lovely What You Want.
Then I remembered that name was linked to an absolute killer from the Miami Winter Music Conference this year Yeah Yeah, released on Leftroom 20 June as part of the Extended Family EP (Part II).
So it turns out Waifs & Strays are Amos Nelson and Rich Beanland from Bristol and had been playing apart for almost ten years before they started producing together, first getting noticed by the Big-men in 2010 with the mighty 3am. Waifs and Stray – 3 in the morning (Master) by waifs&strays
They’ve got quite a few other things in the pipeline for our musical delectation, including Feel getting a release on Futureboogie some time this Summer, and Heartbreak added to the forthcoming 5 Years of Leftroom compilation on 1 August. More full-bodied deep house for the balmy nights.
I’m not a fan of retrospectives: it’s not very inclusive to harp on about a brilliant night/festival/set for too long, unless there’s some sort of constructive end to it. Go and see so-and-so here, etc.
BUT festivals like Sonar and Miami WMC are tastemakers and fixers for the rest of the year’s musical delights, and a precursor for the Summer’s selection in Ibiza, so I thought I’d let you know what tracks we heard out and about in Barcelona. Plus, it allows me to re-live it a little bit, so indulge me.
Particular highlights were the RA by Day party on Thursday, poolside on the roof of Hotel Diagonal, which started chilled in the sun, was moved up a level to fun old skool hip-hop and disco by Space Dimenson Controller, then brought to a sundown sweat-fest frenzy by Claude VonStroke. So many new tracks and highlights which we managed to ask him about later, but he warned us we’d have quite a wait, in particular for the release of Justin Martin and Ardalan’s epic follow-up to Mr Spock; LEZGO. I found a very small taster here – only 21 seconds but thank you to ‘Rainingcaps‘ and his dancing-while-filming brother.
A few other greats which you can get hold of now are Claude’s Take a Trip mix of Chilly Gonzales - I Am Europe, and J Phlip‘s new track with Claude under his Grizzl moniker for his vinyl imprint Krush Groov, BkupGrl, and of course my favourite, (another one I’ve been waiting patiently for) J Phlip’s OMG Remix of Russ Yallop‘s Rock Me, which is a bootleg and sadly not due for release (I think)… but you can hear it 12 minutes into this mix from March this year: Claude VonStroke – March 2011 Tour Mix by Rainbow Venues
Fun fun fun was the Jackmode party on Thursday night in a tennis club high in the hills overlooking the city (complete with a slide and see-saw) and it was nice to see Oliver $ drop his own Doin’ Ya Thang to a crowd very happy to try to sing/shout along. Oliver $_Doin´ Ya Thang by oliverdollar
All the beautiful people were at Ghoa Beach Club for the Hot Natured party all day on Friday. Dancing bodies filled the pool while we danced on ledges to the stealthy bass of Thugfucker’sDisco Gnome (Tale of Us Remix). Download here.
A-Trak at Sonar Night on Friday was ridiculous. His hands were moving so fast on the decks he looked like a smartly-dressed robot. He gave us a little taster of his new ‘mystery’ track Big Bad Wolf, which when it comes out on Fool’s Gold is going to be immense.
We rounded the week off in fitting style with the Sunday parties, and a massive thanks to Culprit vs Leftroom for good sunny times on the roof at Hotel Catalonia in the day, then Get Physical for putting on a beach party at Mac Arena Mar through to 3am. Just enough time to pack and get to the airport for a Monday morning flight home (those crazy enough to go to work on Monday). So for now, we put Sonar to bed for another year, and content ourselves with hastily booking some flights to Ibiza, stalking producers until we get our grubby mitts on the tunes we heard, and re-living some of the joy at 5 Years of Leftroom (with Room 2 hosted by Hot Natured) at Fabric on 2 July. See you there.
Friday hangover part III (apparently it was my idea to start adding Jaeger into the mix in the early hours of this morning), and it’s all thanks to our good friends Lunar, who brought the mighty Blawan to The Nest (Moby‘s playing there on Saturday) last night with Goulcher and Waylayers. This is going to be a monthly night so we’ll post the details for the next one and you can come and join us.
Tomorrow there’s an ultra trendy Love Fever party at Shoreditch Studios, and Fake Blood, Boy 8-Bit and Bowski play at XOYO for Bugged Out, which, needless to say, is going to be BIIIIIIG. Mulletover celebrate their 7th birthday by doing what they do best; a great big dirty rave at the Great Suffolk Street warehouse. Get Physical take over Fabric, with their all-stars Catz n Dogz, Heidi and M.A.N.D.Y. BUT what excites me the most, is the re-launch of Steve Lawler‘s Harlem Nights, moved of course from it’s old home The End to 7 – 9 Crucifix Lane (what was the excellent Counter Culture, great venue). Whoop!
Put on your dancing shoes we’re going to the disco.
DJ T‘s much awaited third album The Pleasure Principle was sent from Get Physical last week and hit us like a giant house meteor. The success of the first track Burning, featuring Nick Maurer (one quarter of Greenskeepers with James Curd) and its Art Department remix was phenomenal (seemingly everything they touch turns to gold), and the album is a collaborative affair, featuring the likes of Jaw (dOP), and Dave Aju, which gives it the quirky Circus Company essence, coupled with the depth of a Get Physical release. Intense and deeply melodic, it traverses the boundary between club and afterparty.
Alongside the release, Thomas Koch (also previously editing German magazine Groove as well as co-managing Get Physical and being responsible for the opening of Frankfurt superclub Monza) is on a world tour all the way from April to December, starting with Miami and Berlin for album release parties and concentrating on Europe for the summer. Catch him at Fabric Saturday 2 April alongside Catz n Dogz, Heidi and M.A.N.D.Y.
In the mean time, here’s a little preview of The Pleasure Principle, which you can buy here.
Album Tracklist
01. Same Plane feat. Jaw & Ginger
02. Opera Buffa
03. Unconditional Love
04. Burning feat. Nick Maurer
05. Yesterday, Tomorrow feat. Dave Aju
06. Nothing Even Comes Close
07. City Life feat. Cari Golden
08. Sense feat. James Teej
09. Pattern Exit Drama
10. Leavin Me feat. Khan
11. Remember the Future feat. Jaw
A huge huge thank you to the Ed Banger crew for giving us a slice of winter wonderland at The Warehouse Project last week. We’ve included two Carte Blanche tracks this week as Mehdi and Riton absolutely blew the roof off, and I’ve very much enjoyed watching their sets come together this year and distill into something completely reactive. We’re heading North again tonight for another monumental Warehouse lineup: Simian Mobile Disco, Holy Ghost!, Aeroplane and Tensnake to name but a few.
More Thursday parties too as this week Night Slugs bring Bok Bok and L-Vis 1990 to East Village and Counter Culture host Esper Magazine with Homework and Worthy. Counter Culture closes on 1 January so you really should get yourselves down there before then – it’s got that real house party vibe that we love.
Here are some tracks that will help you flick the bird at winter:
DJ T (Thomas Koch), one of the great founders of the dynamic Get Physical label, has been locked on my CD player since the brilliant Fabric 51 dropped on my doormat back in March. I was therefore pretty happy when I found out that shortly after its release he appeared on John Digweed’sTransitions, laying down a slinky little guestmix with tracks from some of my favourite producers: Loco Dice, Matthew Dear, Seth Troxler and SIS. A smooth fifty-five minutes for a new week:
Greg and Voitek from Catz n’ Dogz are the busiest men on the planet. They are prolific with their releases on all sorts of labels (Get Physical and Nurvous being the last two but of course they’re regulars on Dirtybird too), they find and release new talent on their own label Pets Recordings, they attend more or less every festival in the whole world; where they play about a million sets but still manage to attend five or six other parties a night to watch their friends, and now they’ve just completed their Body Language compilation for Get Physical, which I absolutely cannot wait to get my hands on.
