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Saturday 20 December 2008

Hallelujah double-pack

This has absolutely nothing to do with X-Factor, though I did indeed vote for Alexandra Burke last Saturday....twice.....

The most beautiful song in the world. Jeff Buckley's definitive version. A thousand covers. And a rush for the coveted Christmas number one spot in the music charts. My contribution....

Rapture

Semi-inspired by the latest classic by the maestro, Flying White Dots' "3D" album (you MUST visit here ), and utilising 4 tracks from my favourite album of the last 12 months, the most ambient of Hallelujahs, to take you to the next level




Burial - Endorphin (i)
Imogen Heap - Hallelujah (a)
Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah (live at Sin-é) (i)Burial - Untitled (both tracks from Burial, and opening track from Untrue)Jeff Buckley - vocal sample





Faithless Praise

Taking on a whole new dark undercurrent, surprisingly thanks to pop princess Rihanna, Imogen gives praise to being cheated on


Rihanna - Unfaithful (i)
Imogen Heap - Hallelujah (a)
Jeff Buckley - vocal sample

Right-click save
LINK UNAVAILABLE



A huge thanks to Gav of the Reborn Identity for sharing the Imogen vocal with me....I hope I've done it justice for you.

Happy Christmas everyone
Andy

Monday 8 December 2008

I'll Be There In Twin Peaks



The surprise hit of the summer.

Audio by Colatron (with Wax Audio)
Video by The Reborn Identity ( http://www.rebornidentity.com/)

The best thing I ever made?

Saturday 6 December 2008

Please Don't Stop This Feeling I've Got



Whilst on first listen, this may appear to be a simple A+B, trust me - it wasn't.

Beginning life back in August, literally days before I got sucked in to the Mashed In Plastic project, this began as a sweet sounding mash, based upon the first bar of Rihanna matching up perfectly with the musicbox-esque chimes of Razorlight's guitars. Her voice soared above the melody, and I knew I had to finish this one. However, th tempo on either the vox or the instrumental was killing me - I may be imagining it but it seems to head all over the shop, and I had to wrestle to keep this in line.

Dipping in and out of it over the last 4 months, each time has been faced with frustration and pushing to the back of the queue to be returned to. However, this week, I decided enough was enough and I had to finish it or abandon all together.

Some micro-edits throughout the body of the vox helped, giving the timing a more natural fit, and finally it all began to take shape...until I hit the Mama Say Mama Sas....

For some reason unbeknownst to Johnny Borell and crew, when building up in to the outro, they decide to change the count to what I think may be 2/4 instead of 4/4 (as some of my fiercest critics have noticed, I am CRAP at counting beats). It's only briefly in 2/4 but it completely messed up my plans for the Mama Say Mama Sa section of the vox. What to do? Do I just leave it?

Nah.... despite Rihanna's pleas, I stopped the music.

Before building back in to the outro again.

So here we are 4 months on, and a relatively simple track is made, but behind the scenes, I'm breathing a sigh of relief and mopping my brow. I only hope this feeling of relief doesn't stop....

Please Don't Stop This Feeling I've Got

Razorlight - I Can't Stop This Feeling I've Got (i)
Rihanna - Don't Stop the Music (a)

Right-click save:
LINK UNAVAILABLE


And this may not be the last of Borrell-bothering I do....watch this space....

Sunday 30 November 2008

If I Were Stevie Wonder



Another week, another quick pop-tastic mash.

Does the world need another Stevie Wonder mash? Do they require yet another Beyonce mash? Maybe not, but I'm a sucker for making the obvious...

If I Were Stevie Wonder

Beyonce - If I Were A Boy (i)
Stevie Wonder - Superstitious (a)

Edit:
Ok - I don't do this often but I've gone back and tweaked this. The 'pella wasn't clean enough for my liking, but thanks to Virtual DJ, I found a slightly better version direct from the multi-track masters so I've remade it from scratch. I've also added 6 tracks (!) of the original Stevie keyboard now within the final couple of bars to give a nice climax to proceedings. Think of this as version 2

Right-click save
LINK UNAVAILABLE

Doing the hard work so you don't have to...

Sunday 23 November 2008

Dope Your Mama Up



Well, after the unbridled success that was Mashed In Plastic (several blog and forum platitudes, one Mash of the Week, etc. so far, and apparantly a serious contender for compilation of the year), I can finally get back to 'normal' and concentrate on my own tracks once more.

It's strange heading back to normal everyday music, and the urge is constantly there to drop in a little Twin Peaks sample, or some Badalamenti strings, but I must resist.

So, opening up my projects list in Acid, I saw I had about 3 or 4 proper contenders to finish off. So what I do I do? Start something completely new instead!

Here's a quickish mash I put together, mainly to proove to myself I can still do it, and do it well.

French sex botherer Serge Gainsbourg glams up the already glam Scissor Sister to the max, with extra 70s glam effects on the vox. All whilst me ma gets high

Now with direct hosting too! Many thanks to me good mate Gav of the Reborn Identity identity for sorting this out for me. At last after 18 months, I've finally got it sorted!


Dope Your Mama Up

Serge Gainsbourg w/Jean Claude Vannier - Cannabis (i)
Scissor Sisters - Take Your Mama Out (a) + (i)

Right-click save:
Dope Your Mama Up


I'm off to play jump-rope with Puff the Magic Dragon, see ya later!

Sunday 16 November 2008

Mashed In Plastic: The David Lynch Mash-up Album



It's finally here. After several months of hard work and international collaboration, today finally sees the release of Mashed In Plastic: The David Lynch Mash-up Album.

I love the films of David Lynch. The man is an auteur. On first viewing, his films can seem empty, confusing, intangible...it is only when one looks deeper you release the simplicity of the message he tries to deliver - good vs. evil.

Containing a variety of grotesques mixed with the innocent and angelic, he has created some of the most startling and iconic imagery ever seen in recent times on celluloid (or indeed digital media). A hideously deformed mutant baby being serenaded by a fat cheeked girl inside a radiator; a man tragically mis-formed on the outside and yet so perfect on the inside; an ex-Police man with blue eyes riding giant paprika worms in the desert; a gas-breathing sexual psychopath who's every sentence includes the word fuck and has a penchant for vintage love songs and an irrational fear of Heineken; an insane bank robber with bad teeth (and a decent performance out of the irritatingly wooden Nicholas Cage) who ultimately loses his head on so many levels; a murdered girl floating down a river wrapped in heavy duty plastic and a backwards/forwards speaking dwarf with a peculiar love of jazz, rings and creamed corn; a schizophrenic jazz musician living out his own ideal world in the same world in which he murdered whilst a mystery man in black displays bi-location and films on his handheld camera; an old man driving across America on a tractor encountering cyclists and deer; an aspiring actress again lives out her memories/fantasies in an idealised world full of shady film corporates who are particular about their coffess, cowboys, paint covered directors, pendulous breasted hotties and a verging-on-the-shady porno cinema of the 70s vibe music club where everything is played back on tape; and suffocating rubber clown suits. Unforgettable stuff.

But whilst the visuals are incredible, an often overlooked aspect of Lynch's movie-making excellence is his choice of music and sound. Frequent collaborator, and part-time Lynch regular actor, is Angelo Badalamenti - the Italian-American composer who gave us the haunting scores to Twin Peaks, a scorchingly dark soundtrack to Blue Velvet and a suitably Hollywood-esque atmospheric piece for Mulholland Drive. Other contributors included luminaries of the rock scene such as David Bowie, Trent Reznor, and Rammstein. And then there is his love of all things nostaligic from the 50s and 60s, pop songs, jazz, etc.

It is this music that drives this album.

Beginning life on the 21st July, it all began by accident. I'd just posted a mash I'd created named Twin Hearts which I made as a result of stumbling across a collection of Badalamenti soundtracks. The slinkyness of the Man From Another Place's jazz theme with Kylie cooing over the top was enticing enough to get me some great feedback over on GYBO, and various awards on other mash producers sites. I was chuffed I'd managed to receive a virtually universal approval from people I considered to be my peers, but never expected what came next. GYBO posting legend Linus, aka Alan Black started a correspondence between he, myself and The Reborn Identity aka Gavin Burrell, another producer I had long admired and who had been more than kind on some of my previous tracks. Alan suggested, he would like to hear more Lynch-based tracks, if not an album's worth, such was his passion for all things Lynchian. It turned out that Gav was a Lynch-nut too. Whilst never sure if it were possible to create a whole album of material ourselves, it was something that excited us. We threw out a call on GYBO to see if there were any other Lynch-obsessed producers who would like to join us. I never expected any response but the response we received was incredible.

The person who showed the most enthusiasm was Wax Audio, aka Tom. Now some of you may have heard me talk before of my love for all things Wax Audio. The guy is a production genius, producing many memorable George Bush based tracks and an incredible fusion of two of my favourite local bands - Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. To have a producer of this calibre on board for me personally was a huge creative incentive, and drove me on to find as many musical combinations as I could.

Other high quality producers came forwards with contributions - the incredible G3RSt (my pre-nom for masher of the year '08), french superstar ToToM (creator of fantastically one off acapellas), GYBO superstars Voicedude and RIAA who have produced some of the most consistently good tracks of the last 3 years, personal faves and masters of insane fun and bass The Who Boys, budding new superstar and thoroughly top chap Neiltomo (one to watch!) and recovering melancholic, the one and only Phil RetroSpector. We had ourselves a genuine prospect of actually getting this album made. Scary

And so make this album we did. Gav acted as Director, co-ordinating people across 3 continents to gather and quality check, all the while making his own incredible contributions, making incredible videos for as many of the contributions as possible AND (AND!!!!) beginning to fashion and build the website. The man cannot sleep, surely? Alan became more and more excited at the way things were progressing and so since this was his own idea, why not include him in some form or other, and so he became the writer for the website, a pure stroke of genius on our part since he is indeed a script writer in Southern California! Writing beautiful, witty and intelligent track notes, Alan gave credibility to the creative ideas behind this album. He also wrote all other text that appears on the website, and was invaluable in troubleshooting the website and maintaining the high quality of pretty much everything. He also emails as much as he posts on GYBO and has kept me smiling for the last 3 months or so. God bless you sir!

And another stroke of fortune/genius on our part was to designate Tom as our sound producer. Not only did Tom want to contribute tracks, he also became the audio genius who took all submissions and mastered them in to something beautiful. He took all submissions and was at times, brutally honest on what worked and what didn't, but in his honesty maintained a quality that I believe would make this album worthy of a proper studio release. He also took the spirit of Lynch than oozes throughout the album and made it transcend the normal bog-standard compilation release by creating several segues and transitions between tracks to create a truly cinematic experience. People, this IS David Lynch.

And myself? I made a couple of little tracks and most of the artwork on the site. And sent constantly irrelevant emails at 3 or 4am. Not a very big contribution.

And so, a labour of love is now complete. Gav, Tom, Alan and I have now become known collectively as 1086 Productions - with a view to maybe working together again in the future (maybe months, years, maybe never, but either way its been a gas guys). We have an incredible website, we have incredible music and incredible video. We have something I believe David Lynch himself would enjoy. And I now have some incredible friends around the world. Everyone's a winner.

TRACKLISTINGS:-






1. The Voice of Love is Crying - [Colatron]
2. Blue Rigby - [Wax Audio]
3. Twin Hearts - [Colatron]
4. Heaven's Drive-In - [Phil RetroSpector]
5. Tori's Deranged - [Wax Audio]
6. Something Stupid This Way Comes - [G3RSt]
7. I'll Be There in Twin Peaks - [Colatron]
8. The Pink Jack - [Wax Audio]
9. Lauren's Opus - [The Reborn Identity]
10. Frank's Here - [The Who Boys]
11. The Elephant Connection - [The Reborn Identity]
12. I've Told Every Little Pumpkin - [ToToM]
13. Violent at Heart - [The Reborn Identity]
14. Don't Go All Wicked on Me - [Neiltomo]
15. Eraserhead Serenade - [RIAA]
16. Velvet Dreams - [Voicedude]
17. In My Twin Life - [Phil RetroSpector]
18. This is David Lynch - [Neiltomo]

The full breakdown of each track is available on the website. As mentioned, we also have videos for several of the tracks, the 'Cabinet of Curiosities' containing bonus tracks, wallpapers, extra artwork etc. On the About section of the website, learn more about the creators of this project, including a Q+A that borders on the surreal.

The album is available in two flavours, either as a full length mix in 2 parts - our recommended form of download, enabling the music to be heard in its intended form with full transitions - or as a single tracks in a collected ZIP file.

All material can be found over at

http://www.mashedinplastic.co.uk/

Please do take the time to look around the whole of the website as this is so much more than a download site, and if possible, please do leave a comment on the guestbook page. Please also take the time to visit the respective creators' websites, available from the links on the left side of my site.

I'd like to take the opportunity now to thank all people who submitted to this project, whether included in the final cut or not - you all helped this get off the ground and you made several Lynch geeks very happy with your interpretations of the music and themes. Special thanks to Phil for doing a heck of a job, not only with his inspired music, but his inspired promotion of the website here there and everywhere.

Big thanks also Scott Johnson as always at Ramdom Thoughts podcast for being kind enough to play a couple of the tracks as exclusives and keep the buzz going. And thanks to Virtual DJ too, for getting the word and several glossy flyers handed out to the beautiful people at the MTV EMAs the other week. You're the man!

Finally, a huge group hug goes out to Gav, Tom and Alan - great friends, great minds, great times hopefully to be continued for a long time to come. My 1086 tattoo is in planning as we speak :D

Dedicated to my beautiful friend Angel, for having the belief in my tunes and giving the encouragement needed to keep doing this stuff. And for listening to Brooklyn Sweet Freakphony every single day. Love ya honeybee

At last, it's gonna feel good getting back to the 'normal' world of mash-up.....watch this space....

Tuesday 28 October 2008

The good Andy is trapped in the Lodge...


... and with the forthcoming release of the Mashed In Plastic album, he doesn't want to come out. The music is all too beautiful.
On release November 16th 2008, head over to




and bookmark it. There's a couple of hidden videos there already that'll give you a taste of what's to come. It's a sign of the times.
Featuring the talents of superstar mash-up producers, Wax Audio, The Who Boys, ToTom, G3RSt, The Reborn Identity, Phil Retrospector, Neiltomo, RIAA, Voicedude and yep, me - Colatron, I personally guarantee you've never heard anything quite like this.
And for a further taster of the Lynchian delights contained within, head over to me good buddy Scott's podcast, Ramdom Thoughts and listen to show #125. We've 3 preview tracks on there. A big thanks to Scott for playing these out along with the promo.




Be sure to subscribe to the podcast too - as you've heard me say before, it really is a top show.
Don't take the ring Andy....don't take the ring.

Thursday 2 October 2008

I'll Be There...

Endless Avenues

It's official...I'm all Lynched-out! All my submissions have been made, there's only the artwork left to finish for the website, and so at last I can get back to reality (kind of...). More details will be released over the next few weeks, but provisionally we're working to a release date mid-November. It's going to be a doozie.

In the meantime, I can concentrate back on my normal mashes. And here's the first of the next batch. I've haven't done a ballad mash before, so fingers crossed, this one will tug at the heartstrings.

This was a weird one in that I made about 20 seconds of this track, before heading off to do the artwork. You should never do artwork before you've finished a track, as I've found out to my cost a couple of times now. Sometimes those tracks just don't come together and before you know it, you've wasted an evening on Photoshop.

Still, this one didn't give me too much trouble in the end, and came together in the course of a couple of hours so I struck it lucky on this one.

Welsh siren, Duffy seems to be everywhere at the moment, and fair do's to her, she sure does have a certain retro-appeal that I find irresistable. So imagine my joy when I came across this instrumental of her very whistle-able track, Warwick Avenue. A tale of heartbreak and deceipt, who can fail to be moved by her tears in the video that accompanies it?

On the flip side, you have the sickly sweet musings of Messrs Richie and Ross. This material should carry a health warning, so sweet it's trappings, dental practictioners worldwide must fear its effects of making teeth drop out!

But lo! Put the two tracks together with some of Duffy's ascerbic lyrics, and all of a sudden, Richie and Ross take on a whole new sinister context. Yes, if you listen to the two sets of lyrics put together, we have a whole new story of how Richie and Duffy were together in love, and Ms. Diana Ross comes along stealing Lionel right from under Duffy's nose, the smug Commodore boasting of his new undying love for the harlot. This is a tale of adultery, wanton lust and shattered dreams! Give it a listen and see exactly what I mean...

To quote the Peoples' Princess
"There were three people in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded..."

And going back to that artwork, I was torn between two final images so hell, let's make this a double cover and you can choose yourselves which you'd like to keep.

The traditional



The Warped




Endless Avenues

Duffy - Warwick Avenue (i) + (vox)
Lionel Richie and Diana Ross - Endless Love (a)

Direct Download
http://www.mediafire.com/file/mljmymkyqyq/Endless%20Avenues.mp3

I'm off to dry my tears...

Saturday 13 September 2008

Sexual Brass



How guilty do I feel?

It seems like an age since I completed anything new to be posted here on Colatron.com, and I must admit, I have let it slip. Whilst not deliberately ignoring my website, I've been so busy working on the Mashed in Plastic project that everything else kind of went by the wayside. The MIP project is coming along nicely though, and whilst I've submitted 3 new tracks myself for possible inclusion, the other material that the guys have come up with is simply breathtaking (The Reborn Identity and Wax Audio have produced some of the greatest, most beautiful mash-music I've ever heard...simple as...). Watch this space for more details over the next month or so.

So ever concious that my site has remained devoid of new music for a good month or so now, I set out to rustle something up, to keep you all going. I had around 3 or 4 tracks on the go before I headed off to work on the MIP project, but none of them seemed to be my thing at the moment - I always find the best ideas come from the music you are currently listening to. And so this one became the obvious choice to make.

DJ Yoda had just released his excellent contribution to the Fabric Live series, and it contains many mind-boggling mashes of its own - the Violent Femmes classic 'Blister in the Sun' combined with some funky beats, the Coral's sing-along belter "In the Morning" bleeding in and out of the Chemical Brother's hilarious 'Salmon Dance', a geat mix CD and thoroughly recommended; but one track caught my eye more than any other on the CD. The Hot 8 Brass Band's startling cover of Marvin Gaye - 'Sexual Healing'. Funky swing if ever I heard it, and completely unexpected in the context of the CD.

Tracking down the original of it, it clocked in at over a mighty 9 minutes, whilst the most complete pella I could find was only around 4 and a bit long. Some creative editing was required here!

I was pleasantly surprised too with the fact they were in key. The hardest part of making this track, was that although I could get the Marvin vox in tempo, they required some major duty snipping to fit the swing rhythm of the instrumental. In fact, this has resulted in me setting a P.B. with approx. 160 individual cuts being made to the vocals. I wouldn't normally bother... :D

I couldn't find anything suitable samples from Britflick "Brassed Off" so a heavily edited sound clip of Marvin on SoulTrain completes the track off.

And yes, I know what you're thinking - that is indeed the legendary Marcy Tigner and her trombone on the cover artwork. With friends....

Sexual Brass

The Hot 8 Brass Band - Sexual Healing (i)
Marvin Gaye - Sexual Healing (a)

MP3 download page here
http://www.mediafire.com/?xc6xcuevyfs

Right - I'd best shoot off, as the Red Room is calling me again, but until next time (and I'll try not to leave it so long next time).... adieu

Monday 25 August 2008

A call to arms....

Howdy all,

Well, as you may or may not all be aware, myself, The Reborn Identity and a collection of fellow mash producers (tentatively known as 'the Lynch Mob' ) are working on producing a compilation album of David Lynch based mashes. We already have a number of tracks made, and a couple more are on the way (I have a second track virtually completed myself as we speak), but we need more contributors.

The work in progress is known as "Mashed In Plastic"



Is there anyone out there who would like to come onboard the Good Ship Lynch? Do you have a track, or artwork, or even an idea you'd like us to hear? If so, please drop me a comment on this post with the details and myself or The Reborn Identity will get straight back to you (I'd post me email on here, but those ruddy spammers have been at it on my Facebook page...grrrrr......).

Be a part of Lynchian history - sign up today.

Sunday 17 August 2008

Mashed in Two Minutes

Well, after a two week hiatus away from doing any tracks, I thought it were time to return to the stage. The success of the Twin Hearts mash completely blew me away, and to be honest - left me scratching my head as to how I could follow it up. I thought it best to walk away from the PC for a while to clear my thoughts and start a fresh (that, plus the fact I've been out virtually every night on the lash, watching mates' bands and getting to know amazing girls on the other side of the Atlantic ;D )

There's a couple of ideas floating around for the much touted David Lynch project and some wonderful contributions have already been made by the awesome Voicedude and The Reborn Identity, so that's turned up the pressure on getting my other ideas finished. Plus, I'm still getting the itch to make the follow up to the EVP mix....but in the meantime, what could I release quickly to get one on the board?

The answer was staring me in the face. (or at least in the title of the track I was going to use). Taking a huge detour away from the sultry jazz of Twin Hearts, I've returned to the classic sunrise anthems of the early 90s. I was having a revival night here in the lounge one day and looked up several websites that gave the top 100 hardcore/acid house/rave tracks of all time and I made it my duty to try and gather as many as possible. Amongst these was my 2nd favourite 3am tune of all time (I'm already working on a mash with the 1st!) - Bug Kann & the Plastic Jam's "Made in Two Minutes". Bleep-tastic!!

Continuing on from the success of Kylie's vocals in the last mash put out, it seemed obvious to continue on with the pint-sized pop-tart in this one. But the Slow sample itself isn't the longest and so some extra bits and bobs were needed to help flesh out the mash for the 6 minutes required. Well, if I'm going to use one old classic house anthem, why not use another. The legendary Balearic vocal house screamer "You Used to Hold Me" from pioneer Ralph Rosario. And for good measure, add a dash of electro-punk mate of the masher, Princess Superstar with a clip or two from 'Perfect'.

The irony is, it was mashed, in something like 2 minutes...


Mashed in Two Minutes

Bug Kann & The Plastic Jam - Made in Two Minutes (i)
Kylie Minogue - Slow (a)
Ralph Rosario - You Used To Hold Me (a)
Princess Superstar - Perfect (a)



MP3 Download page here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?rijfrj5eqp6

Roll on the next genre for me to have a pop at....see you next time

Wednesday 6 August 2008

Twin Hearts (The Movie)...

....or Fire Mash With Me.

Well, the request went out, and one, highly talented mash/vid-mash producer answered the call. The Reborn Identity, a fellow Lynchian obsessive, kindly offered to put together the video I really wanted for the Twin Hearts mash, and oh my god, if he didn't nail it on the head. This is exactly how I envisioned it looking, almost as if he'd been given a curious painting by Mrs. Tremont and her nephew Pierre, in which he'd entered the Red Room via my dreams.... man, I gotta stop eating creamed corn.

Although RI had already ripped the scene and so I'm sure it would have made the cut anyway, my one and only contribution to this (music aside) was the suggestion of the "Lets Rock" intro, and with hindsight, I really wish I'd dropped that sample in. It makes the whole track.

There's so many surprises in here, and some great symbolism in true Lynch style - I won't give them away but you'll see what I mean. And the timing on everything is just insanely accurate. I truly recommend you all head over to Identity's excellent site, and check out his great video mashes and excellent bootlegs. It's over at

http://s225705621.websitehome.co.uk/

and whilst you're at it, be sure to head over to his Youtube Channel and leave him some top comments on this and his other works at

http://uk.youtube.com/user/gavdget

If you ask him nicely, I'm sure he'll give you the link to the VERY hi-def original MPEG2 vid which has to be seen to be believed for the quality of DVD-rip imagery going on in this video. Damn Youtube and their pesky compression!

Alternatively, you can comment the work here or at the posting on me own wee, tiny addition to BoobTube at

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=TMgekGH8dlo

Or just be lazy and hit play below. New mashes on the way shortly....until then....Let's Rock!!!


Monday 21 July 2008

Twin Hearts

Garmonbozia - Pain and Sorrow

I'm 12 years old and a cultural phemonenon enters my life. The forerunner of today's epics such as Lost, Heroes, Prison Break etc., Twin Peaks remains for me, the greatest TV event of our generation, if not the greatest TV show of all time. The only programmes that ever came within a whisker for me would be The Prisoner and Buck Rogers (yeah, you guessed, I'm a cult TV geek).

I could sit here all night and type out a full length essay on why this programme was so important to the progression of television as a cinemtaic medium, it's hidden symbolism and witty mysticism, the invention of "The water cooler moment", and so on, and so on. In fact, I used to pride myself (before I realised the whole ridiculousness of it) on the fact I once sat at a PC at University on a break for 4 hours and typed out my thesis on the true meaning of Twin Peaks, to send by email to a guy in the US. I wished I'd saved it now...he agreed with every thing I said.

Episodes on video tape, the soundtracks to the series and the film, the diaries of Cooper and Laura Palmer, the movie script (a must read - it will open your eyes more so than watching Fire Walk With Me), the official fanzine....every scrap of TP memorabilia I could, I would collect. And so when I first purchased my PC last year, one of the first albums I got was the Angelo Badalamenti soundtrack.

The guy is a scoring genius. Aside from the other work he's done for other movies and artistes, including the likes of Orbital, this must be one of the most memorable pieces of music to ever hit television. Who can forget the dreamy jazz themes, with the enigmatic dancing dwarf in the Waiting Room to the Black Lodge? Or the menacing synths, sampled by Moby so skillfully. Or the haunting piano refrain, Laura's Theme, accompanied by the image of the Homecoming Queen.

This track takes my favourite piece from the show - the jazzier side of things. Cooper's dream, so integral to the whole meaning of the show, was accompanied by this - the defining iconic moment of the two series was when the Man From Another Place turned to Cooper, 25 years in the future, sat in the Red Room/Waiting Room, and declares..."Lets Rock!". He proceeds to make apparantly random statements (which trust me, all make sense) before saying

"Where we're from, the birds sing a pretty song and there's always music in the air"

Then the most funky, spooky jazz bassline kicks in and the most amazing of dances is demonstrated to a befuddled Coop.

Imagine my surprise on Friday night last week when I was playing around with the files on my PC and Kylie of all people instantly fitted this instrumental.

As happens to me every now and then, I got really really excited by the prospect of the mash, and I had to complete it asap. I love the sound of Kylie, as if she's in some seedy gin joint in downtown '30s Manhatten, sounding beyond sexy as a tiny man in red performs his awkward jerky dance around her.

The addition of series' sleazeball/drug dealer/pimp Jacques Renault delivering another of the show's iconic lines - "Bite the bullet baby", hopefully all contribute to what I think you'll find is a pretty hypnotic mix, fan of the show or not.

And I'm particularly chuffed with the artwork for this one. While not as striking as some of the images I've made over the last few months, I love this one for producing a photo-mash of Kylie performing in the lodge for Coop from what was initially a pretty bad source piccie.

Twin Hearts

Angelo Badalamenti - Dance of the Dream Man (i)
Kylie Minogue - Two Hearts (a)



MP3 Download here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?lnxgdnb92wn

So set the lights to flicker, set your log to the side of you, not far from your Minah Bird, make sure the Dugpas in the hoodies aren't outside loitering with the One Armed Man, grab a slice of warm cherry pie with a cup of damned good coffee, and enjoy this surreal slice of Americana with a dash of Antipodean. Remember, the owls are not what they seem.

Lets rock!

PS. Still working on the hosting thing. I've found a pretty reasonable hosting site now to host my files and hopefully get the direct downloads up and running. Just got to read the instruction manual now, before I sign up! And I think I've found a pretty good preview flash player too. Watch this space.

PPS. The good Kylie is trapped in the lodge and can't get out

PPPS. I didn't ask last time, so was a lovely surprise when a video was made for one of my mashes - I'm actually begging someone to make one for this! Purrrrrrlease?

PPPPS. If any of you do not have a Scooby what I've just ranted about in this post, go check out the iconic dream scene for yourselves




EDIT: Yay! Good old Bobby M gave me the clap.....




.....'em over at

http://bobbymartini.blogspot.com/2008/07/bobby-martini-my-week-in-review-friday.html

and call my mum - I'm famous. I've achieved a career dream by finally receiving Mashup of the Week from the highly influential Attuworld, and the wonderful Simon Iddol. I can now give it all up and retire (as if...) ;D

http://attuworld.com/music/mashup-of-the-week-79.html

Friday 18 July 2008

Hustlin' Love

Well, I had to get one more in before the Leona backlash takes hold. Within the space of one week since posting my Coldplay mash with Leona, I have literally seen a dozen or more Leona mashes floating around on the boards, and it seems that everyone is getting sick of it! Not since the heady days of every other boot being a Destiny's Child mash, or Eminem, or Michael Jackson have I seen such an influx of different takes on one track.

As a result, I've decided to put a halt to the other 4 or 5 versions I was working on for fear of my flat being mobbed by Leona haters (who could be such a person?!), which is a real shame if only as I had two old school techno tracks going with this, that would have been worth the price of admission for the pun/titles alone...both were promising, although quite out of key, and instead of spending the next 3 months fiddling with pitch, I thought I'd sack it off and stick to this one. If you really want to know what I was planning, leave me a comment - you won't believe me when I tell you!

A quick 5 minute mash (he says having had it sat on his PC since last Saturday....sigh....too many nights out, not enough time!) this shows Leona should have been a disco diva instead of Cowell's patsy.

An instant idea in my head, although admittedly I was planning on using Van McCoy for something else - I'm fairly hopefully both are in the key of Fmajor so hopefully this will be more palatable to a few peeps.

It was good while it lasted Leona... I still love ya...

Hustlin' Love

Van McCoy vs. Leona Lewis (w/ Diana Ross)
The Hustle vs. Bleeding Love



MP3 Download Page Here
http://www.mediafire.com/?hlzmbzyr0mz


Still working on that MP3 Preview thingey! Anyone got any ideas...drop me a line.

And next week...a definite change of pace. The next track I'm just finishing is straight out of (Compton?) leftfield...in the words of the great Shaw Taylor - "Keep 'em peeled"

Sunday 6 July 2008

Talking Love

Yay! It's double release weekend! And I make no apologies for overloading you with tunes either.

I can't believe I didn't know about this earlier. Imagine my shock yesterday evening when browsing GYBO, I stumbled across a rather spiffing mash of Leona Lewis and Duffy, utilising an acapella of "Bleeding Love". Imagine my disgust with myself for not realising the STUDIO QUALITY acapella has been on release for a couple of weeks now and I hadn't picked it up! How many Leona mashes are already out there, I don't know, but I had to jump on the bandwagon and search down said acapella.

For you see, I make no secret of the fact that I am in love with Leona. Back on X-Factor a year or two ago now, Saturday nights would not begin for me until I had heard her sing. And I make no secret of the fact that everytime she sang, I cried like a baby. It's rare that a vocalist can have that effect on me (Jeff Buckley springing to mind as someone who could do it to me) but there was just something in her voice that sent the proverbial shiver down my spine, coupled with the fact she just seems so damned nice too!

So I managed to find it, and imagine my joy when I heard the quality of the MP3. In many ways, you don't need to mash it, since her voice is just spot on. I've rarely heard a pella so pure in its quality and beauty. As you can probably tell, I am REALLY excited by this pella (the last time I got like this was after grabbing a hold of Alicia Key's "No-One" - another high quality performance).

In fact, the original plan was to release an EP of Bleeding Love mashes, for I have approx. 5 other tracks I'm in the process of making with this vocal, but this one excites me so much, I couldn't wait, and just had to get it online. Needless to say, the others WILL show up on here shortly, and some of you may be surprised what I've mashed it with (think up-tempo and you're getting there).

But until they are ready, I hope this makes you all as happy as it makes me. If only as I've finally managed to use that pesky Coldplay instrumental I've had on my PC for 9 months!

Real chilled out indie rock with THE vocal of 2007. I'm in love...

Talking Love

Coldplay vs. Leona Lewis
Talk vs. Bleeding Love



MP3 Download Page Here
http://www.mediafire.com/?cmjami9t2tj


Don't worry, I am still working on a couple of other tunes not involving Leona, but if I can pull off the others I am doing, this could well become a Temple to Leona Mashes overnight! Hehe...

Saturday 5 July 2008

Give the Robots Their Liberty

Here's a quick one whilst I scan my musical brain for the next track.

This one originally came about when I first grabbed a hold of the Liberty X acapella a few months back. I was testing a few things out and this made the final list of tracks that could work; eventually this was pushed to the side whilst I worked on and released "Liberty Bell" instead, but when putting together my guest slot for Ramdom Thoughts, I was after an exlcusive track to play and instead of starting from scratch, I thought I'd be lazy and revisit this one.

The actual placing of the Liberty X vocal didn't take too long at all; no, the main amount of time was spent on scouring the internet for suitable robot samples! They're harder to come by than I imagined! I think I did ok in the end though, with some random ones, a touch of R2D2, some Cylon madness, and the dude from Lost in Space. I had to stop myself from adding a dose of my fave robot of all time though, the no-sh*t droid with 'tude, Twiki from Buck Rogers.

Good old Kraftwerk too, a million years ahead of their time.

Give the Robots Their Liberty

Kraftwerk vs. Liberty X
The Robots vs. Just a Little



MP3 Download Page Here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?3memmbtx21z


Right, I'm off out shopping - I'm out of WD-40...

See you all next week no doubt

Friday 27 June 2008

Comfortably Ray

The old ones are the best...can you believe the instrumental on this is 20 years old?

Not too much to say on this this one, save that I've been rediscovering some classic acid house/hardcore/jungle techno the last 2 or 3 weeks, and this is one of the results from that. There's hopefully much, much more to come...

Legendary trippy beats from back in the day, by Moss Side's finest export, clash with feel-good pop cover of a prog-rock classic straight out of New York. With digitally painted artwork of East End hardman actor, Ray Winstone.

Comfortably Ray

A Guy Called Gerald vs. Scissor Sisters
Voodoo Ray vs. Comfortably Numb



MP3 Download Page Here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?xnepnm02dwz

Pull on your 21inch bell bottoms, your Global Hypercolour shirt, head down the Hacienda and pretend its '88 all over again.

Saturday 21 June 2008

Ramdom Colatrons



"This is Radio Luxembourg"....the first English words spoken on the legendary pirate radio station, by Stephen Williams.

When me good friend Scott Johnson sent an email round the gang, saying how he was taking a break from producing my fave podcast, Ramdom Thoughts, and that he was was looking for guest presenters to stand in, in the interim, my somewhat booze addled brain immediately turned to the idea of a pirate radio broadcast 'taking over' the podcast. I loved the concept. Bobby Martini had turned in a cracking podcast before when standing in for Scott, and I had so many tunes on my PC that I wanted to share with folk, I just had to have a go myself. The notion of the Voice of Colatron, stealing the airwaves and hijacking the show was appealing. Scott had mentioned the rules - the show must include the presenter's voice, but then as no-one on t'interweb has ever heard the true voice of Colatron, if I did my normal thing, would that be breaking the rules?

Starting with the concept of opening the show as per normal with Scott's jingle, my trademark DJ Shadow-based beat would kick in, before I would announce my presence and intention to entertain for the next hour or so. Straight away, I began racking my brain for samples and audio clips that could achieve this - I remembered straight away, the old opening to the Outer Limits sci-fi show, where the mysterious voice from beyond would declare "We are controlling transmission" and within 3 minutes of googling, I had the sample I needed. It's crazy how these things all fall in to place as I'm going along (much like how the whole EVP mix came together as a result of goold old Vrilon of the Ashtar Galactic Command - and wouldn't you know it, the old bon viveur makes a brief appearance here too! The Rotter...)

So with an intro made, I had to choose the tracks to play. Now bearing in mind, I have been listening to this genre of music since '00-'01-ish, and so that be a WHOLE LOT of mash-ups to choose from. Considering Scott at any one point has a playlist of around 700 tracks, this was not going to be an easy task. Initially, I wanted to play the tracks that first got me in to the scene, the big hitters, the producers who inspired me to get a hooky copy of a well-known DAW and have a go myself. The obvious legends of bootleg jumped to the forefront, but then I thought to myself, well, I would like if I can to try and get a bit of mixing in there too, to give the podcast a flow - not a full continuous DJ mix as such, but something a little different to the normal introduce each track and away you go type thing. As most of you know, I'm no DJ and mixing can be an absolute chore to me with beatmatching and the like and a lot of the big hitters best tracks would not be easy to put in to a coherent danceable mix. So I had to cast that idea aside. Tracks that inspire me came to mind. Then the new breed of producers and some of the most update tracks seemed like a good idea. But in the end, it just made sense to have a wide variety of tracks in there. The tracks that I couldn't mix, I would mask with my usual intermissions/samples/comic relief.

So which tracks did I choose? And why?

RX - Imagine...Walk On the Wild Side (John Lennon vs. Lou Reed vs. George W. Bush)

A fondly remembered but much mis-identified bootleg track. Even I was convinced it was by Wax Audio, and I still can't remember to this day whether or not Coldcut play it in their now legendary Essential Mix session - I wouldn't mind but I only had it on the other day in the car! Had to include this as it was the inspiration behind my own Bush-massacre, the two parts of Six Day War I made. And Bush-bashing is fun, especially when he's so close the end!

The Who vs. iLS - Baba O Reilly (VIP)

Another track I had listened to recently, and so it was fresh in my mind - it appears on the great Eddy Temple-Morris CD, "Dance Rocks". E T-M was an early champion of the mash sound so if it's good enough for him, its more than good enough for me. And besides, the Who kick ass, Baba O'Reilly being in my top 10 tracks of all time. And a wicked film about the Who was on when I was compiling the final tracklist so it's fate this was included.

Bobby Martini - Offshore and Lazy (Chicane vs. David Byrne)

Most people know by now, I like to consider Bobby a great friend in the world of mash. He's held in high esteem, and so it's a big confidence booster that he has the time to give me help and advice, and kind words on my own material. Besides, he has no ego, which makes him a ruddy bloody bloke in my eyes. This was one of his standout tracks from last year, and a little known fact is it inspired at least two Colatron tracks. Chicane brings back so many great memories of clubbing in Ibiza in the late 90s, and one of the first times I became truly aware of bootlegs, was when Dave Seaman mixed it with Power Circle - 'A Little Love' on an old Renaissance CD I had - must dig that album out, that track was bloody outstanding!

Flying White Dots - True School Walrus (the Beatles vs. Coldcut)

FWD is simply astonishing. His two mash albums were easily the best things of the last 12 months, and I remember all the hoo-ha about whether it was really Fat Boy Slim doing bootleg, or whether GHP had a secret identity, etc. etc. I chose this track for the simple reason, I had some great John Lennon samples I wanted to drop in the mix, but as a track, it kicks bootie anyway

Go Home Productions - Rolling Confusion (The Rolling Stones vs. The Temptations)

The Return of the King! No, not a film about hobbits and nasty demi-gods hiding in the shadows of Mordor, but Mark Vidler, aka Go Home Productions, the man who is single handedly the biggest reason for me being in to this music; he quit it all about 6 months ago, only to return with the most amazingly sublime album "Spliced Krispies" featuring tracks that simply should not work, but in GHP's hands do and he makes it sound so bloody easy! This was the standout track for me, mainly due to the awesome Temptations vocal which was sampled so well on one of my favourite UNKLE tracks, 'Eye for an Eye', but anything Rolling Stones is going to grab me by the throat and throw me around the dance floor too. I don't know if he'll stick aorund in the mash scene any longer but his legacy is incalculable.

Lenlow - It's Time We Ramble On (Led Zeppelin vs. Buffalo Springfield)

I've admired Lenlow's tracks for some years now. Not as prolific as some in terms of output, his tracks seem all the better for it, as you can hear the love and care put in to each one (unlike me and my 5 minute mashes!). This is one of the best, if only because I MARK OUT BEEEEEEG for the mighty Zep, and Buffalo Springfield was constantly on my playlist at Uni (I was such a tree-hugging hippy back then! Lol)

Z*Trip - Immigrant Noise (Led Zeppelin vs. Public Enemy)

I've mentioned my love of Z*Trip here many a time before, the guy is a genius - Shadow remains my fave, but Z*Trip and his live mashes can sometimes steal the thunder! Seemed like the natural progression from the previous track too, to carry on with some more Zep. Man you gotta love the Zep. Thanks to Butch too for posting this MP3 on his blog a few weeks back. Damn, Z*Trip takes me back to sitting on a beach in Thailand with the girls from Melbourne....sigh.....

The Outlaws - Chiq (ABBA vs. Prisoners of Technology)

In the words of the dude from the EVP mix who flies in to Area 51, "Let's crank this thing on up!". The Outlaws are just mental. Straight up. When I first encountered them, I thought it was all about the bootleg. Then it was crazy radio samples. Then it went to insane post-rave rave. You can't pidgeon hole them which is what I like. But this track is straight up mash-up at it's best (and most eclectic!). Taken directly off their Soulwax-ribbing "Too Many Fools..." CD, I had to do some fancy chopping to get this in, but worth it for the bone-crushing bass that takes Abba, kicks them hard up the posterior and makes them relevant once more. "How the f**k do you feel?"

10000 Spoons - Sweet Killers (Liquid vs. The Killers)

Oh yeah! Now we're talking. The track that launched a hundred (or at last count, approx. 15) Colatron old skool mashes. Top bloke, Lee Prince took an all-time classic and put it with a new time classic, and shook me to the bone with this one last year. So blindingly obvious, and yet I missed it at the time - this track makes me wanna don the gloves of white, smear Vicks under me eyes and bounce on the spot like a demented grasshopper all night long. I only regret for the purposes of this show, I had to speed it up slightly, so apologies for any noise artifats that distract from the sound quality - I really must start looking at beat warping in Ableton and leaving Acid behind...

Loo & Placido - Toop Toop Groove (Cassius vs. Madonna)

Second only to GHP are the French masters of the scene, Loo & Placido. True superstars with their productions for MTV and others, again, a duo that much like GHP make everything sound so bloody simple, but as someone whos had a go at this stuff, you come to realise that what they do is something magical. This was a more recent track of theirs, and again, makes me want to hit a dance floor everytime i hear it. The sign of a great bootleg is when you actually believe that the two or more tracks that have been combined were always that way anyway (if that makes sense? My grammar is awful sometimes). The Cassius track IS the instrumental to Into the Groove. Simple as. Formidable mes amis!!

2 Many DJs - NY Lipps (Soulwax vs. Lipps Inc)

Where would a mash-up podcast be without the guys who took it to the mainstream. Again, without "As Heard on Radio Soulwax", there would be no Colatron (so blame them!). Pioneers, and it scares the bejeesus out of my when I think back to when I saw them perform live as Soulwax back in the tiny Cockpit venue in '98 in Leeds when Stephen Dewaele stood next to me to do the beatbox section to the song '2 Many DJs'. God moves in mysterious ways...

DJ Schmolli - Justice for Billie Jean (Justice vs. Michael Jackson)

Bllie Jean.
D.A.N.C.E.
Is it not obvious why this is in here?

Colatron - Give The Robots Their Liberty (Kraftwerk vs. Liberty X) **EXCLUSIVE**

Hehe....erm....not sure how this made it in here....I originally began work on this a few months back before I struck gold with pairing Liberty X with Orbital instead, but never one to give up, and needing a quick mash-up to include on the show, I put the finshing touches to this. Now includes added R2D2! Cylons! B9 Robot of 'Lost in Space' fame! This should probably have made it on to the soundtrack for I, Robot. Go on, let them go free....

AplusD - Love Will Tear You Apart (She Wants Revenge vs. Joy Division vs. Bauhaus)

APlusD are another set of characters, that just make it sound so damned easy. I love the sound they get and the production is second to none. And they throw bloomin brilliant parties (if only I lived in San Fran...sigh....). Now I must admit, when I first heard this, I didn't like it. I probably just didn't get it, especially not knowing the band She Wants Revenge. And then one day, I heard it again in a mix by GK, and it clicked. Oh my god, can I not got enough of this track now?! Seems silly looking back I never got in to this at first, since I love Joy Division, the Bauhaus track is constantly on in the car (I only come out at nights) and She Wants Revenge are obviously influenced by both bands. I think the power/ambiguity of the lyrics was what finally made me click with this track. Who can resist the line "I wanna f**king tear you apart"?

The Who Boys - Strange Pyramid (Radiohead vs. Billie Holiday)

England's own, the Who Boys. This is so off the wall, it makes me head hurt. How can you take one of the trickiest time signatures in music, and apply such an old, old song to it! One of the most emotional vocals ever sang? How do you think of these things! Seriously. Truly haunting, the boys describe it best on their own website - "A cautionary tale"...

Nu Yorican Soul - I Am The Black Gold of the Sun (4Hero Remix)

A classic summery vibe, d'n'b remix of a soul classic. I always play it this time of year and it never fails to put me in a good mood. I thought it would be nice to share that mood with you all.

Divide & Kreate - Always With You (U2 vs. Willie Nelson)

A great parting gift - again, this is inspired, if only as I have the sample pack on my PC that D&K fuses over the top of the mash and I never would have thought of using Willie Nelson, let alone the U2 track. D&K again, has a sound all of his own, unmistakeably his. And yeah, Colatron is always with you....


In amongst the madness, as I say, you'll find the trademark Colatron sample frenzies, intermissions, mood pieces and narratives. I had great fun putting those together. And what I said earlier about sticking to Scott's rule about presenters' voices...? Well, technically, I did. The "True Voice of Colatron" appears in there as a sample. See if you can spot me. It's the audio equivalent of "Where's Wally/Waldo".

I must say a big thankyou to Scott for the opportunity to host the show. It was an absolute pleasure. And a big thank you to the producers who make this stuff. you are all truly inspirational (and a big sorry to the fantastic Party Ben also, I only wish I had the space to squeeze in 'Galvanise the Empire'!).

Anyway, enough of my ramble. You can download the show directly from here

http://media.libsyn.com/media/ramdomthoughts/RT108.mp3

but please, do go and visit the Ramdom Thoughts website at

http://www.ramdomthoughts.co.uk

where you can subscribe to the podcast, listen to and download previous shows, and leave comments on the show for Scott to read and respond to.

You can find links to most of the producers' websites on the left of this page, so go along and support these guys and gals too. If you got any questions, feel free to drop me a comment or email (if you know me email address that is!)

So in parting, I sailed the seven seas, I boarded other ships and took their bootie, I was the scourge of the shipping lanes. I was Radio Colatron.

And dont forget, Tony Blackburn got his big break in pirate radio; could I be next...?

Saturday 14 June 2008

D.A.N.C.I.N.G. Round the World

Yeah, I know...we've already heard a million mash-ups featuring Daft Punk and Justice, and a million more mashing the two, but I never get fed up of that repetitive vocal or that beat, so here's my little contribution to the mix. And besides, technically, this ain't Justice, hehe....

This was bashed out in a day to keep you all going until I can nail the next project I'm working on...

D.A.N.C.I.N.G. Round the World

Get Cape, Wear Cape. Fly. vs Daft Punk (with a hint of Justice)
D.A.N.C.E. vs. Around the World



MP3 Download Link Here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?10utx1zxnub

Another new track has also been made and will feature as an exclusive on me Guest Slot for Ramdom Thoughts. Watch this space!

Thursday 5 June 2008

A quick update

Hey all - just a couple of words to let you know whats going on in the crazy world of Colatron at the moment.

There won't be a new track on line for at least another week or two, as I'm currently working on a (not-so) top secret project that some of you will know about. All I'll say is it's inspired by the old boys of Radio Luxembourg and it's coming hopefully to the 'air'waves near you soon (if I can stop watching bloody movies on TV and getting blind drunk at concerts, that is! Saying that, I've just watched Blade Trinity again on TV and my god, the put-down that Ryan Reynolds gives HHH toward the end of the movie will have me chuckling for weeks to come. Why someone can't use it in a promo on Monday Night Raw I'll never know....).

The most exciting news I've had in years though came through t'interweb today, regards the mash you'll find directly below here - American Finale. It's gone down particularly well with the boys from Pimp My Tune, with talk of it being played over the summer at the fantastic sounding nights they have coming up (I WILL attend at least one of them - I'm think H20 in London!), and dream of dreams, the incredibly talented VJ DANO went and made a little video for it!!

When making the track, I really wanted to see a video mash for it and could envision it perfectly, but not having the software, I couldn't do anything. Never one to be cheeky, I didn't appeal to the various VJs out there on the scene either, so imagine my surprise when I found an update on GYBO that DANO had made one. Seriously, it's one smooth piece of work, and I think it actually makes my mash sound better than I believe it to be! So VJ DANO, I owe ya one big time my friend.

Do watch the video below and be sure to check out DJ VANO's other works at his Youtube Channel

http://uk.youtube.com/user/VjDano

and support him and all the guys over at

http://www.pimpmytune.com/

I'll be back after these commercials....


Sunday 25 May 2008

American Finale

Haha, the mash that took twice as long as it should have to make!


I began work on this approx. 2 weeks ago after hearing a top mash on GYBO 5, by Synchronize (Calvin Harris' "Acceptable in the 80s" with Estelle's velvety vocals over the top; a great summer tune) - I was desperate to do something with that vocal, as I'd class it one of my favourite pop tunes of the year so far. High and low I searched for the acapella but to no avail. I did however come across a copy of the Promo CD, which had a great instrumental on it.

Initially I started out with a couple of house vocals, namely Ce Ce Peniston's "Finally" and Degrees of Motion "Do You Want It Right Now", the second being dropped as it was quite out of key, and I couldn't be bothered playing with the tunings (my ears are pretty naff at these things). But as much as I love "Finally", the vocal is actually quit repetitive, and so I needed a second vocal in there. Cue the Beach Boys' "God Only Knows". God only knows how many times I've started a project with that song over a house beat!!!

Considering how easy it sounded to beat match and chop up the vocals, it actually took me ages to get a structure in place that I liked, with a couple of pan-effects, and my first foray in to EQ.

But the BB vocal was leaving me cold. A little too dry I thought, and not really setting me dancing feet on fire. So what to do? When in doubt, fire it across to the Maestro of Harmonius Mashing, Bobby Martini!! As you know by now, Bobby's a great mate, and I value his opinion highly on these matters, as let's face it - he is the king of production for getting stuff crisp and spot on.

Imagine my surprise when it wasn't actually the effects on the vocals that Bobby picked up on but the fact that the BB vocal was out of key! This is the 'legger's curse - you need to refresh your ears every 60 minutes if not more because you will seriously lose the plot on picking up things like that.

So what to do now? I didn't want to go back to the Degrees vocal, for the aforementioned key problems, and I was struggling for inspiration. It was staring me in the face though - the Estelle vocal as mentioned is probably my favourite pop vocal of the year so why bother looking anywhere else!

Fortunately in the CD Promo, there was a nearly full length version of the song without Kanye's rap so I loaded this back in to Acid agains the existing project layout and proceed to snip parts away that I didn't need. But I needed a little bit of a rap in there to break up the last quarter of the track, and I wasn't overstruck with Kanye's lyrics. Searching through my 'pella collection, I recalled the Usher mash I made for the EVP mix, and Ludacris' rap was pretty much the kind of lyrical pacing I was after - a bit of chopping and tempo changing and it was in there, sounding sweet.

Of course, the Estelle full track was slightly out of time with the instrumental and as such, I was getting all kinds of superposition (consturctive and destructive - sorry, that's the Physicist in me coming out again) so I had to kind of do a makeshift DIY acapella out of the full track to stop the beats clashing, thus adding more delays to getting this out.

Still, it's all done now, and here is the result. Sorry if this entry went on a little, but I thought it would be a good read in to the strains and stresses of being a 'legger. What starts off as a simple track that seems clear-cut in terms of making it, very rarely turns out to be that simple!

American Finale

Estelle vs. Ce Ce Peniston (w/Ludacris)
American Boy vs. Finally (w/excerpt from Usher's 'Yeah')



MP3 Download Page Here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?1jt3q4ujxdx


In other news, a big thanks again to Butch for all the kind words on Brooklyn Sweet Freakphony over at the Isle. and also another big thanks to the awesome GK of Cuts and Mouse fame - GK has played me before on his show, and recently once again played a Colatron track, this time "Liberty Bell" - thanks mate, and keep up the good work, I absolutely love the show! Check it out over at

http://rowolo.de/radio/index.php

Right, I'm off to pretend it is actually Summer outside and not torrential rain... gonna get me a tan

Cheers,
Andy

Friday 9 May 2008

Brooklyn Sweet Freakphony

Well, this is officially my first collaboration in more ways than one.

As some of you may remember, about 6 months ago, I made a little promo one shot for Scott over at Ramdom Thoughts, which was basicaly based upon an idea that me sweet sweeeeet Angel gave me. We were chillin' over at my flat one night when she mentioned the Beatnuts' tuned that was sampled on J-Lo's "Jennie from the Block". I wasn't familiar with the original so I googled "Brooklyn Bomb" upon her advice. I eventually came by a little instrumental jobbie, by some unknown artist that sampled several beats from various hip-hop superstars, that included the Beatnuts that I fell in love with immediately. This became the basis for my instrumental, and eventually after trying a few other instrumentals over the top of it, the Verve's legendary "Bittersweet Symphony" fitted it perfectly.

You have to remember, when I first went to Uni, my musical life revolved around house, old skool and d'n'b. I'd grown up hanging out at my mates' houses listening to the likes of the Smiths and the Roses, and even though I was in denial to be controversial, I did like guitar based/indie music, but it was all about the beats for me at the time. I went along to the V98 festival in Leeds more for the drinking than the music, but it all changed once I saw the Verve headline on the Sunday night. It's an old cliche about life changing moemnts but this was literally just that. I have no qualms about admitting, I cried me eyes out to the live version of "Lucky Man" and "History" still sends a shiver down my spine, but "Bittersweet Symphony" remians for me, THE defining song of the 90s, Needless to say, it's still my most favourite gig I've ever been to (and there's been a few now!) and the Verve's "Urban Hymns" is still in my top 5 albums of all time. It inspired me to learn guitar and wear flares. That's powerful music!

Anyway, so the promo was made with my trademark Colatron voices and samples, and it was well received, generating more traffic to the site, plus it earned a fair few downloads for a short piece. I had to try and make a full length track out of it.

So off and on, over the last 6 months, I've revisited the Acid Pro session, completing the instrumental part of things around the same time as I finished the EVP sessions. I just did not have a vocal to fit it.

An avid reader of the Island of Misfit Songs blog by the incomparable Butch Rosser (aka DJ Brother Darkness) in the US, I'd clocked a few months back that he occasionally posts a list of ideas he has that he'd like fellow mashers ot throw together for him. A few ideas have really excited me, but I've just never got around to making them. But on the last challenge, Butch had the genius idea of pairing Adina Howard's "Freak Like Me" (butchered by the Sugababes) with soul classic, "Mr. Big Stuff" by Jean Knight (which holds another special place in my heart ever since my good friend Kirsty was the Soccerette of the week on Sky Sports Soccer AM show a few years back and she had to do that catwalk thingy to it). In theory, a great pairing, but in practice, my laziness prevented me from putting the effort in to match the two.

Another of Butch's ideas involved matchign Biggie Smalls with the Verve - I've never been a Biggie fan as such, but as mentioned, I'm a HUGE Verve fan. The cogs were turning in my head. I have a Verve track, with a strong back beat made, hmmm.....

I dropped the Adina vocal in and well, excuse the French but shit me if it didn't virtually fit immediately.....

3 weeks later, playing around with various track placings/cuts, and looking for that final touch (I went for a home-made Bittersweet Symphony acapella to bring the anthemic lyrics back in) and here it is. I have to give a little it of credit to Angel, you are quite literally the best hon (you need to meet this girl - 6ft 2" of ex-model/dancer perfection, now signed to a NY rap label - she is simply awesome) and I have to give a whole load of credit to Butch for giving me the inspiration to take two of his ideas and mash them. A mash of a mash. Crazy. So yeah, this is essentially, Colatron & DJ Brother Darkness on the ones and twos. I love it, it's going back to the hiphop beats of early Colatron, and it's freaky like a monkey

Colatron & DJ Brother Darkness present....

Brooklyn Sweet Freakphony

featuring
Pharoah Monche - Simon Says (Intro)
Unknown - Brooklyn Bomb (feat. Slick Rick, Crooklyn Clan, Bad Boy, Beatnuts, Time Zone, Biggie, Jay-Z, Mase, Mobb Deep & Nas)
Adina Howard - Freak Like Me
The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony (both instrumental and DIY acapella)

and vocal excerpts from the following movies

Hideous!
Timerunner



MP3 Download Page Here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?gpd18kr2wjv

Don't forget everyone to check out Butch's blog. Its a cracking read with some wicked interviews on there too with some luminaries of the scene. It's over at

http://theisle.wordpress.com/

And show some love for me Angel over at MS&M records. And if you need more info on those movie samples, check out my favourite new site at

http://www.badmovies.org/

If anyone does know who did the Brooklyn Bomb mix, let me know; it's driving me nuts, and I'd love to give it a bit of credit.

Colatron's off to get tipsy and consider heading out to DJ Yoda tomorrow. I'm looking for inspiration for the next one...

Ciao for now

Saturday 3 May 2008

Burn Beachball Burn

Well here's a special one.

About 2 or 3 month's ago, I had an email from Scott Johnson, talking about how show #100 over at the Ramdom Thoughts blog, was going to be a little special (it's pretting special anyway!) and every track played was going to be an exclusive. Having contributed towards the show for the last year (yep, a whole year having a go at this crazy little thing called mash, and I still don't know if I've got any better), the challenge was on to make something to put towards this monumental moment in mash-up. As it happens, I was 3/4s through making the EVP mix, so I started to panic a little - would I have time? Would I have the source material? And so on....

Fortunately, I didn't have to worry. As an avid user of a certain P2P platform (ahem....I'm sure a legal disclaimer should come in about now), I searched for my usual terms, "acapella", "Instrumental", "obscure tibetan prayer chant"....and I stumbled across a VERY usable acapella of the Trammps classic "Disco Inferno". The bane of many a drunken student night out at the Ritzy, Yates, School Disco etc., it's often forgotten that the vocal on this track is actually, ruddy incredible, and is thought of as another boozy cheesy night-out track. Which is a crying shame.

I wanted to give it a modern vibe, but yet, at the same time, I was working on a few house classics such as the Bucketheads for my "Way I Bomb Your Body" track so I was firmly stuck in the mid-90's. One track that I remembered fondly was the trance classic, Nailin & Kane's "Beachball". God I used to love that track. I was sat in the car one day on the way to work just trying to remember the hook, as it was always one of my favourite tracks from the days of Oakenfold live at the Que Club (the Essential Mix live, from one of my local clubs - a must hear event every Friday between '95 - '96). I came by a few different versions of it (I had the CD single but a certain good DJ friend of mine has them in a black binliner down in his posh flat in London...the swine!) and one was just about the right length. The usual drag and drop in Acid Pro, and Bob's Your Uncle....it sounded good! I had to put a bit of work in to the section where the break down comes in as I lost the beat, but I think I managed to find it again.

So, a relatively simple A+B, but the synth just really brings out the Jimmy Ellis vocal, which at one point just soars....check it out during the breakdown when the raw power of "Satisfaction....came with a chain reaction" is sung. Spine-tingling.

As expected, show #100 was a top event, so here's to another 100 shows minimum for you Scott. Thanks for the challenge, and thanks for playing this little Colatron ditty. I hope everyone else out there enjoys this slice of trance disco.

Burn Beachball Burn

Nailin & Kane vs. The Trammps
Beachball vs. Disco Inferno



MP3 Download Page Here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?bw17jsxihzk

PS. Next week's post I am REALLY looking forward to. Another challenge, this time set by me good friend Butch Rosser out in the US of A, which has led to possibly one of my most exciting Colatron tracks yet. Can't stop hammering it on the playlist, and apparently, Butch likes! In the words of Shaw Taylor, "Keep 'em peeled..."

Friday 25 April 2008

Liberty Bell

Bit of a flurry of activity going on this week, considering that I didn't have time to get anything done last week. It's an early treat this week, mainly as I'm out partying on Friday, tomorrow night, as opposed to my normal routine of a few beers on the way home from work, followed by a couple of hours of mashing beofre relaxing with a bottle of vino and Star Trek:TNG (yep, geeky!).

Here's one that I'm quite chuffed with if only because it came about exactly as planned. As I came across the Liberty X vocal a week or so ago, I was struck by the idea of doing a mash based on the pun of the name of that icon of America, the Liberty Bell.

Two tracks into looking for something that involved bells (my first choice was Slo Moshun's classic, "The Bells of NY") and I had my candidate - the sublime and legendary Orbital classic "Chime".

And the best part was, the vocal virtually fitted the length of the 7" mix of Orbital straight away! A little bit of tempo changing, a few irksome vocal cuts here and there to try and get it in time, and the track was made.



A straight-forward A+B mash, with possibly my most favourite title I've ever given to one of my works :D

Liberty Bell

Orbital vs. Liberty X
Chime vs. Just A Little



MP3 Download Page Here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?4xzpp0visr3

In other news, keep an eye out for the much anticipated show #100 over at Scott's excellent as ever Ramdom Thoughts podcast

http://www.ramdomthoughts.co.uk/

This one's an extra special show for obvious reasons, as every track featured is an exclusive. I've had the skinny from Scott and it sounds like it's going to be a top show, and yep, I have a track in there meself too, as well as an extra special little gift to Scott himself, in the form of a "virtual musical birthday card". The only time you may ever hear DJ Shadow, Altered Images and Marilyn Monroe in one place. Expect the exclusive track up online here in the near future...it's a summertime doozy!

Also, I've had the pleasure of getting in to the top ten of one of me fave blogs on t'interweb, the resplendent Butch Rosser's Island of Misfit Songs blog. It is a cracking site with some great interviews, listings, a great Muxtape and the odd idea giveaway here and there. Anyway, cheers Butch, the cheque's in the post mate. Check it out over at

http://theisle.wordpress.com/

But another thanks has to go to Butch for giving me a great great idea that I can hopefully finish off this weekend and get up online here next week-ish. I can't stop whistling it in the shower! Cheers again dude!

Anyhow, I got Monday Night RAW on me TV at the mo. So I'm offski to throw a few powerbombs in the flat. Until next time, adeiu...

Saturday 12 April 2008

Bullying Kills...

Another week flies by... another new tune...

As mentioned on my Colatron Facebook Fan Page, I get inspiration from the strangest places. I was literally taking the trash out the other night when this one popped up in my head. I've been trying to do a few more guitar based tracks, and I had a couple of top indie band Killers acapellas so I was set on doing something with them. However, I also had acquired an instrumental of top electro-punks the Audio Bullys "We Don't Care" which was one of my fave tracks a few years back, with it's thumping kick drum. So much for the guitars...

This one took 2 nights and one afternoon to put together; it would have been a lot quicker if only for the fact I was subconciously recreating the great Loo & Placido's "Fat Utah Bullys" track from my favourite mash CD, [S]mashingmachine -101% Bootleg. Yep, I basically put the whole track together starting with the Audio Bullys and Fatboy Slim's "Star 69" - I thought I was on to a winner until I realised the track already exists and Colatron always tries to originate. However, I left the Fat Boy Slim vocal in as a snippet as my little tribute to the mash-meisters. A dash of Benny Benassi helps fill out the middle part.

So I didn't get my guitar track, but then there's always next week to make one... instead, sit back and turn up the bass, and enjoy what happens when the Killers pull on their electro-boots...


Bullying Kills

Audio Bullys vs. The Killers vs. Fat Boy Slim vs. Benny Benassi
We Don't Care vs. Somebody Told Me vs. Star 69 vs. Satisfaction



MP3 Download Page Here
http://www.mediafire.com/?rs3b5v2wau1

Saturday 5 April 2008

PaulEssence

I'm feeling particularly lazy this week, so no new tune as such, although this is a recent bass shaker I came up with for the EVP mix. Besides, after last week's dedication, I had to get this one in if only to dedicate it to number one Sean Paul fan Big Sam Henstock.



As mentioned elsewhere in these pages, I was a huge Perfecto fan in the mid-90s and one of my fave tunes that Oakenfold would spin was the classic goa trance track "Floor-essence" (had the pleasure live at Tribal Gathering '97 - what a mad night THAT was...). This was when trance was trance, none of this Cascada nonsense (although she is the future Mrs. Colatron) or that kind of pop trance silliness that permeates the top 20 nowadays. No, this track had balls, and although not as hard as some trance I've come across recently (Full Moon party in Koh Samui - my brain still hurts) at the time back in '96, it sounded like the end of the world.

And then there is Sean Paul - the man winds me up like you wouldn't believe, and yet I still find him strangely catchy and listenable. He ain't no Supercat, but then not many people are.

The mighty Divide and Kreate did an amazing mash with Sean Paul and Yaz called "Temperaturized" and I wanted to have at go at doing something similar. Whilst I'm not as good as he at keeping things in key, I like to think this is strong enough to get a dance floor going, and if not, I'm packing my bags to head over to Goa to bang it out anyway.

Oh, and to give you the skinny...my new exclusive is done and dusted and hopefully queued up for play on Scott Johnson's show #100 in a couple of weeks over at ramdomthoughts.co.uk. I'm super-chuffed with it, and I think it may be my second fave tune I've made this year ("Edwards' Theme" still does it for me) so keep 'em peeled. Should be on line in a couple of weeks.

PaulEssence

Man With No Name vs. Sean Paul
Floor-Essence (Dayglo Mix) vs. Temperature



MP3 Download Page Here
http://www.mediafire.com/?tmutcmv9aco

Sunday 30 March 2008

Kayleigh's Superstitious

Well, I don't often do requests unless it's a really great idea (as Dr. Phil gave me in the pub last night - I'll try and get to work on it in the next couple of weeks), but two of friends have been on at me to come up with something the last couple of weeks.

First up was Uncle Shaun - not my Uncle of course, but a very good friend who enjoys all things musical. He's been obsessing with Stevie Wonder's "Songs in the Key of Life" for a while now, and although this track is in fact taken from "Talking Book" it is probably the most defining record in Stevie Wonder's vast back catalogue.

Secondly, the lovely Kayleigh White has been singing to me for ages now, trying to give me ideas. In fact, her singing gives me the heebie jeebies (only joking chick!), but she has been singing Timbaland's "Scream" constantly for a few weeks now. I became determined to make something that she would know and enjoy (and possibly dance to like the whirling dervish she is!).

I started off trying to do something with "Scream" but it is actually a lot harder than one would think. I had one idea mixing it with U2, but the tempo was all over the shop and I couldn't be bothered to mess around with getting it in key (although I may revisit it one day - the chorus worked at least!).

Instead, I thought back to when I made "The Way I Bomb Your Body" - I had so much fun making that track, and I was so happy with the results, I decided to revisit it, but this time with the instrumental as opposed to the vocal. Working through my collection of 'pellas I came across a couple of Stevie vocals and the great DIY 'pella of Superstition made and donated on GYBO by Aggro 1 (one of my fave mashers) - I could kill two birds with one stone, hopefully making Uncle and Kayleigh happy with one blow.

Slotting it in, it worked surprisingly well, until I got to the choral breakdown "When you believe in things...." which didn't seem to fit the beat. No probs I thought, I'll just keep repeating the verses until I get to a part of the 'mental when it should finally fit back in. And that part actually came (which was a nice surprise!). Then I decided to drop a little bit of Keri Hilson's wonderful vocal back in for some sweet backing vocals. Bear in mind, "The Way I Are" is probably my favourite pop track from last year, and I can't explain it but her vocal sets me on edge every time I hear it, so she had to go back in the mix, even if only at a low volume. A touch more of Timbaland's "uuhs" and "yeahs" add the final touch, and some great vocal syncopation towards the end.

There's been a million and one mashes of Superstition, but I'm proud to add this as my contribution - I hope you all like it, and Kayleighbear, this one's dedicated to you

Kayleigh's Superstitious

Timbaland feat. Keri Hilson vs. Stevie Wonder
The Way I Are vs. Superstition



MP3 Download page here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?miwmcom119e

Oh yeah, and I made, as promised, Kayleigh-a-go-go the cover star. Big Stevie loves having you on his arm hon!

Dedicated to the dancing queen



I'm off to make my Chris De Burgh acapella, I can feel another dedication coming on....lmao......

Saturday 22 March 2008

No One Looks Further

Well, hot on the heels of yesterday's release of the EVP mix, I thought I'd drop y'all a bonus treat for the weekend, the first new track I'll release from the mix itself, "No One Looks Further".

A bit of a prequel/sequel to my "Edwards' Theme" track, this one was a bit of an accident. As you all know, I love Alicia Keys and if I've done one tune with her, I've done a million. The last thing I intended to do was make another one, but when I was trying various vocals over the Dennis Edwards instrumental, this one stood out like a sore thumb and I couldn't ignore it. Plus I'd promised a few more 80s tracks for the guys at the pub.

Don a powersuit, and crack open a bottle of Babycham and dance like the 80s never happened...

No One Looks Further

Dennis Edwards & Seidah Garret vs. Alicia Keys
Don't Look Any Further vs. No One



Download MP3 Here
http://www.mediafire.com/?gtgomodnu4i