Rinsing the New Year’s Eve gunk out of your brains, here’s part two of the Best Of 2008 Mixes:

The Advisory Circle – Civil Defence Is Common Sense
The Bug – Freak Freak
Karl Hector & The Malcouns – Psycles
Q-Tip – Dance On Glass
Wayne And Max – Boston Jerk
These New Puritans – Numerology (Kleptones Quick Cumbia Over Dub)
Chancha Via Circuito – Cumbia Murguera
Drums Of Death – Ozzzy!
The Bug ft. Killer P & Flowdan – Skeng
Benga & Coki – Night
Caspa – Born To Do It
Vex’d – 3rd Choice (Loefah remix)
Matty G – 50,000 Watts (VIP mix)
Matty G – The 808 Bass
Rusko – Love Is Real
Sunship ft. Warrior Queen – Quita (Kaibata remix)
Skream – 2D
Rusko – Cockney Thug
The Advisory Circle – A Clear Yarn Warning

Soundcloud pulled it for some reason, but direct download here: MP3 or FLAC

Enjoy some bass with your hangovers…

Okay, the egg nog and mulled wine put us out of action for a few days as expected, so there’s a backlog of stuff to finish and get up, starting with the sort-of traditional megapost of the year’s best. As always when starting one of these, I think to myself “There’s not really been that much this year worth compiling, has there?”, but a swift look in the bulging box contradicts that pretty sharpish – It’s been a most excellent year for music, and what’s more, the main succeeders of the year (both for me, and in general) all seem to have come from left field, which is most pleasing.

Still, in a year dominated by Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver, Elbow, Portishead and the like, the three albums that got the most plays from me are as follows:

The Advisory Circle – “Other Channels” (Ghost Box) : Jim ATT100 tipped me to this on our now sadly defunct radio show, which was quite a surprise. I’d been keeping an eye and ear on Ghost Box’s releases, but had thought till now that they hadn’t quite found the sound to match their splendid eye for design (check their website to see) – “Other Channels” is the record to rectify that – a deranged collage of music concrete, lost 70s educational TV soundtracks and fragments of vintage Public Service films that blend into the perfect backing track to one of your strangest “Back To School” dreams/nightmares.

The Mountain Goats – “Heretic Pride” (4AD) : There’s almost nothing more satisfying than discovering a band and then finding they have a lengthy and impressive back catalogue to dig into – once you’ve got over the “how the hell did I miss this lot before?” stage, of course. John Darnielle has been recording as The Mountain Goats since 1991, and has gradually updated his sound and style from lo-fi cassette recordings to recent full blown studio experiences, courtesy of a 4AD bankroll. The sound may have got clearer and tighter, but there’s no denying the man’s exceptional ability to write fine tunes.

These New Puritans – “Beat Pyramid” (Angular) : I genuinely expected this to be a smash hit this year, but that shows you how much of a fashion barometer I am… Why not? I don’t know – Too arch and knowing? That chestplate? No marketing budget? All I know is this is the sound of two very current worlds colliding with excellent consequences – grime-y tech-step beats rub shoulders with Wire-y guitars and chanted vocals to fine effect. The frantic pace makes it a great “music to work to” album too which is probably why it got the most plays from me this year :)

So here’s part one of the five mixes. Five? Yes! Rather than bundle stuff into CD sized chunks, things seemed to sound nicer in smaller sections, so I’ve rolled with it. Hope that’s okay with you? Good.

Plenty fine stuff in part one, from Breakbot’s French House-meets-Hill Street Blues take on Pnau, DJ Downfall’s poptastic down-home distorted charm (and winner of the Mr Kleptone Award for best Genesis sample of the year) , Pearson & Usher’s symphonic deconstruction of Kelley Polar and yes, three Aeroplane remixes. It’s been another fine year for our cosmic Belgians, and my fingers are firmly crossed for their debut album, which should be landing sometime next year!

Direct download:MP3 or FLAC

Pnau – Baby (Breakbot remix)
DJ Downfall ft. Gene Serene – Seven Dials
The Shortwave Set – Now Til’ 69 (Aeroplane remix)
Ricardo Villalobos – Enfants (Olin fix – Kleptones edit)
Samos – Alpha Storm (An-2 remix)
Lovelock – Maybe Tonight (Kleptones Quick Instrumental edit)
Lullabies In The Dark – Song For Marie & Elise (Aeroplane remix)
Kelley Polar – Entropy Reigns (Pearson & Usher’s Second Law instrumental)
Ajello & Daniele Baldelli – Magic Feet
Nomumbah – Like A Rainbow (Dub mix)
Kelpe – Yippee Space Ghost (SID version – Kleptones edit)
Grace Jones – Williams Blood (Aeroplane vocal remix)

Hope you enjoy! Next part to follow very, very, shortly!

All change round here, as someone with access to a cob pipe and a garden fence might say whilst surveying the landscape.

Firstly, Very sad to bid bye-bye and good fortune to my fine friend and erstwhile Radio sparring partner Jim of All Time Top 100 as he moves up to that London to try his luck as an apprentice underling in the Corridors of Power. Yes, I know it’s not that far, but it does render rather impossible the continuation of Eric & Jim’s Look-In. Shame really, just as we were getting our speed back up after the first sacking hiatus.

But Lo!, being as the ratio of clouds-to-silver-linings is equivalent at the moment, the sad ending of the Look-In gives forth more time with which to improve and continue the Hectic City podcasts. Oh Yes!

So here, without any further delay (ha!), is HC7 – A mix made initially to soundtrack a hazy afternoon garden party or simple cocktail on the terrace in May, although it’s sure to keep for a while and be an equally fine dinner companion for the rest of the summer.

The tracklisting may look slightly unusual, and it did indeed surprise me whilst digging for appropriate tunes to suitably bookend the fine grooves of Al Usher and Aeroplane, but the end result is, I think, quite piquant:

As I haven’t dropped one of these for a while, there may be a brief but immediate period of digging around in the back with plugin updates and wiggling bits of wire to get it to fire up satisfactorally, so if the link is dodgy, let me know in the comments and we’ll have someone round in a jiffy with some molegrips to sort you out.

Tracklisting:

Al Usher – Here Today
Aeroplane – Aeroplane
Force Of Nature – Liberate
Chris Rea – Josephine (Vista & Meyland Rain Edit)
Brian Briggs – AEO (Parts 1 & 2)
Timmy Thomas – Why Can’t We Live Together (Pressure Drop Remix)
Aeroplane – Above The Clouds
Can – Vitamin C (Eli Escobar Re-Edit)
Mugwump – Boutade
Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Rage Hard (Young Person’s Guide To The 12-Inch Mix)
Pimps Of Joytime – San Francisco Bound
Paul Simon – Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes (Todd Terje Edit)
Coyote – Too Hard (Aeroplane Remix)

Direct download: MP3 or FLAC

Till next time… (sooner than you think :)

Yo all, back again with HC6 – A change of direction from the past three sets of fresh, exciting new shit – Here’s a solid hour of fresh, exciting old shit :) – A good dig through the realms of 60s garage punk, proto rock and pumping mod. Most of the tracks date from round 1964-66, with a couple of later ones, and they’re mostly from the UK (the American equivalent deserves a mix in it’s own right, as does the rest of the world!)- Anyway, some you might know, some you might not, but just putting this together has got my pulse racing 10-20 BPM faster than usual, so hopefully it’ll have a similar effect on your good selves! Enjoy :)

Tracklist:

The Birds – Leaving Here
The Creation – Biff Bang Pow!
The Easybeats – Friday On My Mind
The Beat Merchants – Pretty Face
The Koobas – Face
The Boys Blue – You Got What I Want
The Clique – We Didn’t Kiss, We Didn’t Love, But Now We Do
The Attack – We Don’t Know
The Lancasters – Satan’s Holiday
Fire – Father’s Name Is Dad
Davy Jones & The Lower Third – You’ve Got A Habit Of Leaving
The Creation – Making Time
The Haunted – 125
Them – I Can Only Give You Everything
The Primitives – You Said
The Outer Limits – Help Me Please
The Movement – Tell Her
Cuby & The Blizzards – Your Body Not Your Soul
The Chasers – Inspiration
The Mickey Finn – Garden Of My Mind
Paul & Ritchie & The Cryin’ Shames – Come On Back
The Poets – That’s The Way It’s Got To Be
The 5AM Event – Hungry
The Beat Merchants – Messin’ With The Man
Ipissmus – Hold On
The Blue Stars – Social End Product
The Birds – No Good Without You Baby

Direct download: MP3 or FLAC

Okay, here be HC3c – The third and final installment of our favourite tunes of 2006. It’s been a lot of fun compiling this lot, have to say, and it’s reminded us that this year has been rather good all round for fine music. Our hats come off to all the artists featured over the past three weeks – Thanks!

Since you ask, if we had to pick out a couple of albums and say they were the best of the year, it would fall to a close tie between these three, we reckon:

The Joe Beats Experiment – Indie Rock Blues

Guillemots – Through The Window Pane

Spank Rock – Yoyoyoyoyo

Brains, balls and soul all present and correct in the highest of levels within all three of those, which is just the way we like it. You really should listen to them from start to finish, if you haven’t already. Well worth it.

Anyhoo, tracklist for HC3c is:

Brightblack Morning Light – Everybody Daylight (from their eponymous album)
Scritti Politti – The Boom Boom Bap (from the album “White Bread, Black Beer”)
Guillemots – Through The Window Pane (from the album of the same name)
Lupe Fiasco – The Instrumental (from the album “Food & Liquor”)
Ty – Don’t Watch That (from the album “Closer”)
Cunnilinguists – Hellfire [Joey Beats Mix] (unreleased)
M.Ward – Sad, Sad Song (Joe Beats Experiment Mix) (from the album “Indie Rock Blues”)
The Grates – Rock Boys (from the album “Gravity Won’t Get You High”)
Subtle – Midas Gutz (from the album “For Hero For Fool”)
Union Of Knives – Opposite Direction (from the album “Violence And Birdsong”)
Scuba – Twista (single)
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Phenomena (from the album “Show Your Bones”)
Mew – The Zookeeper’s Boy (from the album “And The Glass Handed Kites”)
Cynic Guru – Drugs (single)
Extra Golden – OK-Oyot System (from the album of the same name)
Eliot Lipp – Rap Tight (from the album “Tacoma Mockingbird”)
Trentemoller – While The Cold Winter Waiting (from the album “The Last Resort”)
Matthew’s Celebrity Pixies Tribute – Wave Of Mutilation (website)
Jarvis- Running The World (from the album “Jarvis”)

That’s yer lot for ’06 – Hope you enjoy!

Direct download: MP3 or FLAC

Ah, the Festive Vortex. That most fidgety period of days twixt Xmas and New Year. The lucky amongst us can easily fill this time with noble pursuits and endeavours, but spare a thought for the unlucky ones, who have no alternative than to either vegetate in front of their television munching endless rounds of turkey sandwiches, or maybe take another trudge round the already well-combed winter sales. Yes, for some the Vortex can be a tough time.

So to raise the spirit of the times, and to enable mental preparation for the coming New Year celebrations, here’s part two of our skip through the records that made our switches click in 2006. Hope you enjoy.

Tracklist:

Hollertronix – Gold Digger (single)
Spank Rock – Bump [Switch Remix] (single)
Motor – Black Powder (from the album “Klunk”)
The Come-Ons – I Feel Love [Michael Ivins Flaming Lips Remix] (single)
Wolfmother – Woman [mstrkrft remix] (single)
Superqueens – Per Ardua Ad Strangeways (from the album “Royal Shit”)
The Rapture – Whoo Alright Yah Uh Huh (from the album “Pieces Of The People We Love”)
Cansei De Ser Sexy – Alala [Bondo De Role Remix] (single)
Peaches – Do Ya (from the album “Impeach My Bush”)
Peter, Bjorn & John – Young Folks (from the album “Writer’s Block”)
Grandaddy – Elevate Myself (from the album “Just Like The Fambly Cat”)
The Emperor Machine – Bodilizer Bodilizer (from the album “Vertical Tones And Horizontal Noise”)
Distance – Traffic (single)
Amy Winehouse – Rehab (from the album “Back To Black”)
DJ Farrapo & Yanez – Baiano Vem Baiano Vai (single)
Eagles Of Death Metal – I Want You So Hard (from the album “Death By Sexy”)
Dev2.0 – Boy U Want (from the album “Dev2.0”)
Ali Love – K Hole (single)
Kelis – Bossy [Cavemen Remix] (single)

Pulled by Soundcloud, but direct download here: MP3 or FLAC

Feeling chock full of festive cheer, having just returned from late-night food shopping, it’s time to present the third Hectic City – The first hour of a three part sort-of-mixed run through of some of our favourite tunes of the year.

Originally I was going to do some talky-talky in between the tunes, but once the pile of possible tracks had been assembled, it proved so difficult to trim them down that it was the talky-talk that ended up on the cutting room floor, the better to make way for more of those fine tunes.

And it has been a fine year for tunes. No links on the tracklist, sorry, but everyone there is easily googleable, I think, so please don’t let that deter you from searching out some fine tunes.

Hope you enjoy. We did. Part two and three to follow.

Tracklisting for part one:

Cornelius – Music (from the album “Sensuous”)
7L & Esoteric – Play Dumb (from the album “A New Dope”)
Paul Simon – Outrageous (from the album “Surprise”)
Dondolo – Dragon [Brennan Green Remix] (single)
5 Mic Cluster – Basildon Lover (from the EP “Crystal Mic”)
Cansei De Ser Sexy – Let’s Make Love And Listen To Death From Above [Spank Rock Remix] (single)
LCD Soundsystem – Time To Get Away (from the album “Sound Of Silver”)
Nicky Van She & Dangerous Dan – Around The World Again (single)
New Young Pony Club – Get Dancey (single)
Luke Haines – Off My Rocker At The Art School Bop (from the album of the same name)
The Legion Of Doom – Crazy As She Goes (bootleg)
Breakout – Planet Rock [part one] (single)
The Gossip – Listen Up [mstrkrft remix] (single)
My Robot Friend – Swallow (from the album “Dial 0”)
Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve – Dig (from the mini-album “Spring”)
Zero DB – Bongos, Beats and Basslines (from the album of the same name)
Girl Talk – Bounce That (from the album “Night Ripper”)

P.S. Oh, by the way, New Year’s Eve is now sold out (although it looks likely that it’ll be running until the morning, so if you come down from 4am onwards there’s a pretty good chance you’ll get in), but if you do want some K-action, don’t forget Eric’s doing a set at Bust The Box on New Year’s Day – it’s free, but always packs out, so get down early and claim your corner!

Happy holidays :)

Direct download: MP3 or FLAC

Something a little different for the second installment of the Hectic City mixtapes. I guess we should be flattered that we’ve been given the String Quartet Tribute treatment – after all, many artists of our stature have had this unusual form of honour bestowed upon them, so we must feel safe in their company, if a little bemused.

Unfortunately, as yet we’ve been unable to get hold of a full copy of the album, despite repeated requests, but as the next best thing, we’ve managed to record several excerpts played on recent BBC Radio broadcasts. These bootleg recordings have been edited together and we now serve them up to you as Hectic City mixtape No.2.

Direct download: MP3 or FLAC

Okay, well, let’s get away from the heavy duty stuff for a bit, and get back to the music, and finally (well, for me anyway) I’m proud to announce the first Hectic City mixtape! Yay!

(FX: Champagne bottle smashing against server. Several people cheering half-heartedly.)

Fingers crossed, this will be a regular event. This time there’s a DJ Mix from earlier in the year – Not a full mash-up mix, although there’s a couple in there, but some good tunes all round, I think.

Direct download: MP3 or FLAC