Features
This is the spout box, of music - be it Northampton or wider, let us know your opinions, all welcome, please email chrisjwood500@gmail.com with a topic
03. Record Label Focus - Buzzin Fly
These early releases coincided with parties being thrown at Neighbourhood from 2003 - an almost future predicting Sunday day time through to evening - where have we seen that replicated onwards???
The first mix came in 2004, this is where I really joined the party: https://www.discogs.com/release/399117-Ben-Watt-Buzzin-Fly-Volume-One-Replenishing-Music-For-The-Modern-Soul compared to the more feel good emphasis around at the same time this felt like a balanced approach to a house label. I do say this with the true feeling of hindsight of course - I was deep into Defected's sound at the time I will admit, a regular buyer of their records and attendee at their parties in London and Ibiza. With this in mind however let me balance things out as well by presenting a label mix to you available by the player here. I did this mix in 2014 as a retrospective at the time so you'll have to excuse my radio voice - it was actually on www.dhpradio.com - a site run by the legendary Timmy Richardson in Brooklyn - but thats another story for another time. Please enjoy.
Buzzin Fly, Ben Watt's label that started in 2003 holds a special place in my heart, from the jazzy 'Stronger man' to the dark brooding and pulsing 'Lose control' by Darkmountaingroup - the label had such a variety that i'd not seen before from one output.
At the time it sat along side Defected, Soulfuric, Subliminal, Sondos, King Street, but it always felt - different, ahead of its time. Whereas the artists from the aforementioned labels have come and gone or evolved, Rodamaal, Justin Martin, Two Armadillos (inc a young Giles Smith), Solomun, Stimming and many more appeared in the early days, and have stuck around. Ben knew what he was doing...
It all started with Lone Cat:
02. The CD Single
I struck gold last year, 200 dance CD singles from a single collection bought between 1993 and 2000. It was pure nostaglia going through what was someone's obvious effort and cost at the time to compile.
I started to DJ in 2003/2004, being a student still at school I had to go through the time old saving routine to acquire my first set of DJ tools - a mismatched pair of Numark CDJs with a very simple 2 channel mixer. It was a baptism of fire (and even more so when I tried some Pioneers for the first time - another story for another time). Vinyl at the time was £5 per disc, CD singles were from £1.99, readily available on the second hand market at virtually nothing, and best of all major labels contracted remixes by the hundreds so were often filled with interesting versions to make the most of the space (time) on the disc. They were just better value all around.
They also helped the music reach a wider audience and consumer - I saw vinyl as 'exclusive', and the trips to record shops as a little daunting (i've grown up since then!). The accidental buyer, stumbling on something that looked interesting but at a good price was what the record labels wanted to hook people onto their sound - more singles, compilations and mixes would follow.
And so started my CD collection, I've never looked back since, even when the car with the CD player disappeared, I actually went to get a car with an autochanger deliberately to get me back playing CDs again. I came across the aforementioned collection on Facebook marketplace last year, and after a week of deliberating I went for it based on a few vague photos. I'm so glad I did - the collection could have been made by Sasha, and actually included some of his tracks (it wasn't unfortunately). It was a delightful time combing through each one to rip and listen through - it literally took me weeks to get through them all and a few have escaped i'm sure. I even created a mix using them and sent it to the buyer who expressed their gratitude that someone was using them.
Its a format never to been seen again i'm sure, with the streaming sites now dominating, and vinyl never to die seemingly despite it being a luxurious use of plastic that often gets overlooked by environmentalists (i'm not bitter). Long live the CD in our house... and that's fresh
01. Ricardo Villalobos
57 minutes...
I can't claim to have listened to every minute of it, but the longest track I have from Ricardo is 57 minutes long. That is as long as most mixes I make containing 20+ tracks - and happens to be the case for the special feature mixes I've made celebrating his music - see media 001 of Media of the Week
I have 80 tracks in my itunes library (more on that later) totalling 1087 minutes - or 18hrs and 7 minutes - meaning the average track length is 13.5mins - i'm pretty glad my enthusiasm for his tracks hasn't crossed into vinyl... So why the feature? Rather than cover the usual back story (pretty well covered here already, albeit from 2009: https://ra.co/features/1128), I thought i'd try to explain it from my point of view - a 39 year old living in Northampton, a world away from the typical cities that Ricardo holds many residencies in.
Alter Ego - Daktari (RV remix) was the first track I heard - and it took a while to get my head around, this was in the heady days of the early 2000s when minimal techno was about to slam through clubs creating a new world order in Ibiza and other locations more used to screaming diva vocals.
I was blown away by what I could only describe as a dark, gritty and liquid based track - reminding me of oil moving over sand. I began to dig deeper into his tracks at the time, including the infamous self styled Fabric mix made of his own tracks - a move that was considered arrogant by some - and genius by others. Around that time I was lucky to be able to get to Fabric and experience him DJing for myself - famed for late starts (or early depening on your view) it was a 5am kick off which went well towards lunch time ending with what I can only describe and remember as jazz dub.
Since then i've been in awe at this almost mythical figure that who can basically get away with anything - even remixing Cafe Del Mar, a track that most wouldn't have thought have entered RV's musical orbit. I love the individuality and playfulness, with the seriousness of the high quality productions and varied artist collaborations - from soulful vocals from Yuma, to long time parter (RIP) Jay Haze.
His own productions have also taken on a cult status - "Easy Lee" and "Dexter" being the key two, with vinyl prices reaching eye watering values, it was extremely pleasing to find so many RV tracks on accessible download sites such as Amazon, the options running into the hundreds. This really indicates that RV's passion is something to not hold back or be exclusive with. If you've never heard his music i'd encourage you not to listen to a YT playlist - start with this mix:
https://soundcloud.com/chris-wood/rv-greatest-hits-vol-1
Los updates - 4 wheel drive (Ricardo Villalobos remix)
Alter Ego - Daktari (Ricardo Villalobos remix)
Ricardo Villalobos - Neunachi
Thomas Dolby - One of our submarines (Ricardo Villalobos remix)
Ricardo Villalobos - H.E.I.K.E (Mood mix)
Ricardo Villalobos - Ichso
Ricardo Villalobos - Skinfummel
Sven Vath - Cala Llonga (Ricardo Villalobos remix)
Nightmares On Wax - Back to nature (Ricardo Villalobos remix)
Ricardo Villalobos - Easy Lee
Rhythm & Sound - Let we go (Ricardo Villalobos remix)
DJ Red - Raw cacao (Ricardo Villalobos remix)
Ricardo Villalobos - Minimoonstar
Shackleton - Blood on my hands (Ricardo Villalobos remix)
Prins Thomas - C (Ricardo Villalobos remix)
Ricardo Villalobos - Lazer@present
Senor Coconut - Electrolatino (Ricardo Villalobos remix)
Shangaan Shake (Ricardo Villalobos remix)
Two Lone Swordsmen - Bunker (Ricardo Villalobos remix)
Envoy - Seawall (Ricardo Villalobos remix)
Ricardo Villalobos - Dexter
It is an intense listen - but I believe it nicely captures the variety of an intensely passionate producer.