Southern Outpost

Just wanted to mention some great music that I have picked up recently…

- Aguirre (Haswell & Hecker Remix) - Popol Vuh - Mego Editions
If your a fan of Haswell & Hecker, you know what you are in for with this remix. Starts very innocently, spacious and ambient, but very soon gets very dark, frantic and as you would expect noisy. The mastering on this is superb, done by Rashad Becker @ Dubplates and Mastering. Mika Vainio does his reworking of Nachts: Schnee on the other side.

- Indio-Inca EP (Parts 1 & 2) - John Beltran - Rhythmic-Tech Records
I really haven’t been keeping up with Beltran’s releases for some time, but these two releases have given me a wake up call and to be honest breathed some new life into ‘real’ techno. Personal favourite is the A side of part 2, really reminds me of those early Detroit records that made the hair stand up on the back of your neck… lush and moody strings, layers of syncopated percussion and that banging kick! I doubt i’ll hear this out in San Francisco on a nice loud system, but I can only hope.

- Watamu Beach Rework (Moritz Von Oswald) - Sebbo - Desolat
Great to hear some production (well… remixes) by Moritz again. As with most of his other work, especially under his Mauritzio alias, this track takes it’s time to develop, taking up the whole side of the 12″. It’s stripped back right down to the *really* thumping kick and the groove of the simple bassline, only occasionally breaking into some distant pads and trademark echo.

- Eichenholz ep - Leftover - Baum
For the fans of deep dub techno or for those who miss the sound of the M series. I like them both, so this works for me ;) Lots of echo, straight up mid paced beats and low bass. This is just smooth all over. Need to check out more of his stuff.

image via Hans Veneman

One of the “silent” legends of Detroit Techno, the behind the scenes guy who made it possible for all of Detroit’s early pioneers to make those records you know and love, Ron Murphy passed away Saturday 12th January at 4pm.

He was one of unsung heros of Detroit Techno. When one thinks of the legends, you immediately think, Juan, Derrick and Kevin. But Ron was the one who helped propel these guys into the limelight, with no fuss, no claims to fame, he just loved what he did. You often don’t think of the mastering engineer when thinking about these artists, but his audio mastery made those records so special and so “Detroit”. He cut pretty much all the Detroit labels for many years, UR, Metroplex, Transmat, KMS, Planet E, even all the early Southern Outpost records were cut by Ron. He really had a knack of making those DATS/CD’s/Tapes into something really special.

There was nothing like going to visit Ron when he was cutting your record. His studio was old school, no digital equipment, computer or “plugins” all hands on analog gear he tweaked on the fly. That’s what made the records sound so good, the analog warmth of that amp he had in the rack really made it something special. Watching Ron at work was amazing, it schooled me on how records are made and how they should sound. Once his work was done, he always took delight in chatting about the state of music today, reminiscing on the old days of techno and was always a great resource of funny stories about various producers who came through his studio. Ron told it like it was and that’s why he was so respected… and he’ll always be respected by those who knew him and even to those who only knew of him by seeing his “NSC” etching in the runout grooves of the records he cut.

Ron, you’ll be missed greatly, you may never really know what an impact you made to the music that so many people all around the world respect so much.

I picked up a copy of the Model 500 ‘Starlight‘ remixes on Echospace records… oh man.. what can I say. I never thought anyone would touch the original track as it’s such a masterpeice of electronic music, but these remixes by Deepchord, Echospace, Convextion and Soultek do it so much juctice and more.

I’m really getting into the Deepchord and Echospace mixes, nice deep spatial recordingds, bringing in a touch of the original here and there. The mix and mastering on this doublepack is incredible, it doesn’t get much better than this.

The Crème/Bunker/Clone/Marguerita US tour hit’s San Francisco tonight! Featuring a live performance by COSMIC FORCE with DJ: TLR (aka Mr.Clavio) (Crème Organization, Bunker Records) plus local dj’s for support.

Li Po Lounge
916 Grant St at Washington St, In Chinatown, Grant is between Kearny and Stockton

Finally SF gets some great music that’s not minimal! ;)

For more info about their tour, check out: http://www.smack-dynamik.com/smack_dynamik/viewtopic.php?p=70024#70024

About 4.40am this morning an earthquake hit San Francisco, actually the epicenter was over in Oakland. Registered 4.2 on the Richter scale over there and about 2 in SF itself.

I just want to asure everyone out there that it absolutely had nothing to do with me playing the new upcoming SO record around the same time. If it was an SO record, it would have hit at least 6.0 on the scale.