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Saturday 29 September 2007

The Preacher

Hi all,

It's been another busy old month in the life and Andy, and as such, the life of Colatron has taken a back seat. Silly amounts of work and account managing large designer retail outlets (they give me a nervous breakdown twice a month), amazingly late nights on a school night meeting and greeting new friends, losing old ones, all amounts to a tired Andy (I'm sleeping a minimum 12 hours per day on a weekend).

As a result, my musical output has dropped considerably this month plus the ideas well had dried up.

But after the feedback I received on Ms. Nelly's Nightmare, it dawned on me how much I miss the old skool sound. I regularly listen to my old mix tapes anyway and comilation CDs, but it has been superceded by mash-up mixes and jangly acoustic singer-songwriters as of late.

So for inspiration, I dug deep in to my old tapes. Looking for anything with a beat I could use. This proved to be very successful, but those mashes aren't quite ready yet, so keep 'em peeled in the forthcoming weeks. There are some really old skool dark tracks coming up.

But this one retains the spirit of the old skool, reminding me of the darkcore days of '93-'95. I had a cool 'pella that Lee Spoons of 10000 Spoons fame sorted me out, of Bloc Party's 'The Prayer'. A wicked band I've seen a couple of times now, probably one of the only bands from the last 3 years or so I've actually taken notice of, daring to be a little different to the moppy haired, skinny jeans wearing teenage angst that seems to be the fad at the mo.

The track has a cool sub-drum n' bass vibe, which Lee Spoons demonstrated so abley on his amazing "The Man Don't Give Two Forks" mix, so I wanted to have a go. Now anyone who has tried mashing D'n'B will tell you, it's a nightmare finding the right beat, but I think I lucked out on my first go.

I was in the car the start of this week, listening to the awesome Essential Mix that UNKLE did for Radio 1 years ago, which has the awesome ending of Leftfield's "Phat Planet" mixed with the Doors "The End" (if anyone has a 'pella of the Doors, I'm begging ya for it!) and the idea struck me that maybe Phat Planet would work with The Prayer; I love it's throbbing bass and the track was the backing to one of my fave adverts ever - the Jonathon Glazer-directed Guiness ad featuring the surfers and the crashing waves that become black horses.

One quick search later and I lucked out even more finding a brilliant d'n'b remix of the original, which was just obviously the perfect fit. To spice things up, I thought, "what if I had some actually prayer on the track?". This proved a little harder, as finding a decent recording of people in prayer is nigh on impossible, even more so finding a none guitar based version of the Lords Prayer! Still, a few sermons downloaded, a bit of church congregation and some aramaic preaching later, and I had the samples I wanted.

I did very little to the tracks involved in terms of sound effects apart from the odd bit of reverb here and there and a little noise reduction, but the Bloc Party 'pella did need a lot of pitching up to fit in key.

So here it is, my first mash to technically feature the 'vs. Christianity' moniker, although I've dropped this for fear of appearing pretentious :D

The Preacher

Leftfield vs. Bloc Party
(Phat Planet (Lethal & Imaginary Forces Rmx) vs. the Prayer)



Download page here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?62jmyit3lxp

Last resort ZShare link here:
http://www.zshare.net/audio/391655225104b1/

Thursday 6 September 2007

Ms. Nelly's Nightmare

Well, not one to jump on the bandwagon, I've been noticing a little bit of a resurgence in the "old skool" over at GYBO recently, thanks to the genius of the NME labelling anything in skinny jeans and day-glo t-shirts as "Nu Rave". What an awful label for anything! You can always rely on the old NME to go down the boozer on a quiet day, chuck a few cut-out random bits of paper with various adjectives written on in a cap and pull out the next big style they're going to push....

Anyway, as mentioned, there has been a crest of excellent boots recently making the most of the musical legacy that I grew up on and got me in to music in the first place. The old skool. I can stil remember the excitement of heading in to the city centre on a Saturday to the legendary Depot, or Circle Records to pick up the latest Fantazia flyers, Dreamscape, Perception...etc. The legendary Institute was at it's peak (I ironically live around the corner from there now, with it's god awful student nights), the Hummingbird was sharing debut nights with Nirvana, alongside the likes of Ratty, Ratpack, Ellis Dee....etc. (I'll never forgive me friend Rachel's dad (and also my mum's ex-neighbour) Paul for closing the place down! As nice a bloke as he was...). My first tapes.... the awesome Top Buzz with MC Mad P (still my fave to this day), the legendary New Years Eve parties, The Book of Love, Micky Finn, Tribal Gathering (my first festival all those years back). Aaaahh.....the best music ever. Period.

So the mighty Dunproofin has chucked out a couple, notably his excellent Felix boot with the Gossip

http://dunproofin.blogspot.com/

and a cheeky Slipmatt boot (one of my fave moments from Helter Skelter was when Ellis Dee dropped that tune)

And the brilliant 10000 Spoons knocked out the (I wish I'd thought of it myself) Liquid Killers

http://10000spoons.blogspot.com/

featuring one of the all-time greats, Liquid's "Sweet Harmony".

I had the itch - what to mash. I literally had 100s of tracks to choose from. Do I go with Italian Piano, raging breakbeat, darkcore d'n'b? I settled for an old skool classic, the infamous 4Hero's "Mr. Kirk's Nightmare" with it's apocalyptic warning of ectasy overdose. One drop in of a vocal later (yep, another Nelly F boot!), and the track wrote itself (with a little tweaking of bpm). I didn't even add that many effects, it just seemed to fit together so well (there is a little bit of filter on the bass and vocal toward the end).

And the artwork wrote itself too. Hehe

A simple track with a heavy vibe. To be included on my forthcoming proper attempt at a full-length mix. Pull on your white gloves, pass round the Swan Vestas and overdose on Vicks. 'Ave it!

Ms. Nelly's Nightmare

4Hero vs. Nelly Furtado
(Mr. Kirk's Nightmare vs. Say It Right)



Download page here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?9uvmsnmrywn

Last resort ZShare link here:

http://www.zshare.net/audio/34976006c017e2/