The Rebirth Of The Cassette

Roll tape...

In addition to my monthly serving of new tunes, called Digital Kicks, I am now beginning a new series called Cassetricity as a means to introduce you, my beloved readers, to even more music and to share some interesting (perhaps useless) stories about the music and my life.

The culture of cassettes and mixtapes began in the late 1970s and peaked in the mid-1980s, enabling every single person who had a few slabs of vinyl to record, make, package, distribute and share the best bits and their favourite pieces from their music collection. It was total DIY. It was no to low budget. It followed on the heels of punk and was the driving force behind the post-punk ethos. There were no rules and anyone could do it. Everything is digital now but I believe the spirit of compiling and sharing good music lives on. The mixtape will never, ever die.

I have chosen to post, as my first installment of Cassetricity, a cracking little mix of Chillhouse tunes called the 'Foundations' mix. Each of the songs have been carefully selected, sequenced and lovingly mixed to entertain and provide some background to how my love of house music was born and nurtured.

Enjoy the mix and remember that they used to say home taping killed music. Respect the artists and their work! If you hear something that you like, go buy it or download it (legally).

First, the geek stuff.

The equipment / resources used to create this mix was:

01. A Dell XPS M1210 laptop - my stereo and general music container.
02. A Western Digital 250GB external hard drive - stores all of my music in mp3 format.
03. Traktor DJ software - the original and in my opinion still the best DJing software. I bought this in 2001 and have never looked back. I use it to edit and tag all of my music and to compile and store my endless amounts of playlists. I DJ with it as well as record and mix all of my compilations and podcasts.
04. Sennheiser HD 202 headphones - my favourite pair of 'cans'.
05. CD-DA Extractor software - this is the file converter. Once the mix is recorded and exported to a WAV file, this application converts the file to .mp3 format.
06. www.podomatic.com - a good hosting site that is (slowly) getting better. All of the .mp3 files are uploaded to this site and hosted for free. The once agonising slow upload speeds are getting better and I just may eventually start paying for the service to avail of all the extra bells and whistles.

And now, the music:

Normal Bias
Noise Reduction - IN
EQ-70us
C-46

Click here to listen to: Kub - MXT - 001

Side (A) - 'Chill' Side

Orange Sunshine - Superstars Of Rock
Cafe del Mar, Sunset Beach, San Antoni, Ibiza. This is the beginning. Ground zero. Square one. The original chill out. Jose Padilla was the first resident DJ in Cafe del Mar and he will always be the best. When the 'English' invasion began and dance culture was born in the late 1990s, Padilla sensed that things were changing and he left before they went pear shaped. Exit Jose, enter Bruno. Mr. Leparte became the new resident spinner of all things chilled and quality. He had big shoes to fill but he held his own and took Cafe del Mar to even bigger and better things.

'Orange Sunshine' kicks off this mix and is an acapella song that I first heard on a Bruno-compiled and blended CD called Real Ibiza. It is by a crowd called Superstars Of Rock, who as far as I can tell, are not superstars and have nothing to do with rock music. They are, however, a collection of very good producers and musicians. Guest singer Yvonne Leybold talks about "the music, the lights, the sweat and the uncontrollable urge to laugh." Welcome to Chillhouse.

Thru 2 You (CJ One Vocal Mix) – Echomen
When Bruno stepped in to Cafe del Mar he had a huge task ahead of him. The question - how was he not only going to DJ every night but be able to create the same atmosphere as Mr. Padilla while the sun was setting? The answer - do the same thing but do it differently. He compiled and released a couple of Real Ibiza CDs and he carried on the Cafe del Mar CD series as well. But he started a new series called Chillhouse, which took the chill side of the bar scene and combined it with four-on-the-floor House music. The result is what I heard the first time I went to Ibiza in 2001 and it blew me away. I bought Volumes 1 and 2 in the Cafe del Mar shop, played them non-stop for about three months and fell in love with House music. They were like nothing I had ever heard before. The music was up-beat but down-tempo. You could play it in the morning, the noon or the night. You could listen to it anytime and no matter what you were doing or how you felt it was a total lift. A real pick-me-up.

'Thru 2 You (CJ One Vocal Mix)' is actually a brilliant tune from the equally brilliant third volume in the Chillhouse series. The Echomen are Chris Scott and Anton Fielding. They are from the north of England. They make fantastic music that is deep, minimal and overflows with funk. It is the kind of House that is sometimes hard to find but always easy to listen to.

Lone Cat - Ben Watt
Ben Watt has had quite a career. In fact, he has had quite a life.

He began recording in the early 1980s for the legendary independent label Cherry Red. In 1982 he met Tracey Thorn and began life as Everything But The Girl, recording together for eighteen years. In 1995 they took a turn away from their alternative, folk, acoustic focus and embraced dance music. The result was the song 'Missing', which was remixed by Todd Terry and turned to gold. They were a great example of an overnight success that took over 12 years to achieve.

During this time Watt grew very sick and after a long time was finally diagnosed with Churg-Strauss Syndrome. The disease begins with allergy-type symptoms, progresses into acute asthma and eventually attacks the organs. Watt was unlucky because it took so long to properly determine the cause of his declining health but he was lucky because the disease did not affect his lungs. It was treated and he recovered with the only side effect being a permanently restricted diet. The book 'Patient' was written by him and tells his story about the battle with the disease.

In 1998, after recovering, Watt established a Sunday club night with his mate Jay Hannan in Notting Hill called Lazy Dog. The night (in the Notting Hill Arts Club) and the club-based compilation CDs were massive. A cult following developed and the queues to get into the bi-monthly gigs became more famous than the club itself. After an unbelievable five years of sell-out nights, the two decided to part ways and move on to bigger projects.

Ben started remixing. Then he started producing. Then he founded his own label called Buzzin' Fly and toured all over the UK and Europe. When Buzzin' Fly started, the great records came thick and fast and the compilation CDs followed. 'Lone Cat' is a track from the first CD and, like it says on the tin, proves to be 'replenishing music for the modern soul'.

That first Buzzin' Fly CD didn't leave my player for several weeks after I bought it. And it proves what a master Watt is at his craft - selecting and mixing killer tunes with incredible skill. It is one of my favourite tunes because it crosses the (barely trodden) line between House and Rap. Yo.

Long Time - Inland Knights
This track is from an album that had a huge impact/influence on me while I was putting together my first demo in 2001. During that time, I was buying a lot of dance music - mostly mixed House compilations. The reason is because I was learning how to mix and beat match two songs. Part of the process is listening to the pros do it and these guys do it better than most.

Inland Knights aka Laurence Ritchie and Andy Riley are both from Waterford, Ireland. They met and started their careers by organising and promoting free dance events in the 1990s. When the underground dance scene was hit with heavy, curtailing legislation in an effort to stop these massive parties, they moved on. They continued DJing and promoting, started producing and founded their own label, Drop Music, which has seen lots of quality releases over the years.

'Long Time' is lifted from an album called 'Creative Spaces' which I bought in Carbon Records in Urban Outfitters, Temple Bar. I used to shop there all the time and had become friendly with the lads in there who all DJed and knew the score. Basically, I would go in once a week or every two weeks and look for the albums that I had heard about or read about. Then I would ask them what else they could recommend and 'Creative Spaces' was one of the suggested gems.

The CD is mixed but it is in no way boring. The Knights know how to put together a great piece of dance music - good beats, funky bass lines, deep keyboard sequences and interesting vocal samples. They keep things minimal and make house music for both people who love house music and for people who don't like house music (but secretly want to).

I have since bought a few more of their compilations and found them on eMusic and Beatport. 'Long Time' is the only track I have thus far been able to buy from 'Creative Spaces' in it's original, unmixed glory. Listen and be amazed.

Get Deep – Lorenzo
Lorenzo are Joachim Schafer, Tim Bernhardt and (sometimes) Linda Mathews. They make deep, minimal House with other chillful sounds and refreshing beats. Although they are dedicated to the dance floor, they remain very suave and stylish in all of their records.

When I was compiling the songs for this mix, I came across 'Get Deep' and thought that it fit in perfectly beside the Knights' tune. It's funky somewhat filtered sound is also very characteristic of the kind of music that I was trying to find and listen to in an effort to understand the art behind beat matching back in 2001 and 2002.

There is an intentional five second gap in the mix to facilitate the switch from Side A to Side B.

Side (B) - 'House' Side

Finally (Original Album Version) - Kings Of Tomorrow
What can I say or write about this song that has not already been said or written? It is one of the biggest House tunes of all time. Full stop. You couldn't go anywhere - any bar, any club, any cafe, any high street shop or any house party in the early 2000s without hearing this song. It was also featured on every single two-bit dance compilation released by the likes of Hed Kandi, Ministry Of Sound, Defected and Warner (to name but a few). And it became a seminal, Balearic wave-your-hands-in-the-air tune that any DJ worth his weight carried in his record box and caned to death summer after summer after summer after...It has also been remixed about 1300 times by every single producer / DJ looking for a sure fire hit.

Sandy Rivera had been a professional DJ and producer for about eight years when he enlisted Julie McKnight to sing on his new track. In an effort to become a bit more radio-friendly, Sandy dropped his name and adopted the Kings Of Tomorrow (KOT) moniker. It worked and the rest is, as they say, (House music) history.

Music Sounds Better With You (Sinclair Remix) – Stardust
Another larger than life song. This track did every single thing that 'Finally' did but two years earlier. It is one of the tunes, if not THE tune that created the entire 'Superstar DJ' movement in the late 1990s. I heard that entire bands were selling all of their equipment (guitars, drums, keyboards, amps, mics, etc) to buy turntables after hearing this song. I personally have never known anyone who does not love this song and I personally have never seen anyone not turn immediately happy and start moving when the song is played in a bar or a club.

Stardust were Alan Braxe, Thomas Bangalter (half of Daft Punk) and Benjamin Diamond (French singer). The song sampled the Chaka Khan's 'Fate' which was buried deep on her 1981 album 'What Cha' Gonna Do For Me'. And, perhaps most importantly, the song was a one-off. There was no album, there was no second single, there was no tour. Stardust were a true one hit wonder and that has probably only added to the love of the song.This version was reworked by Bob Sinclair and gives the song a darker, deeper sound. It's a great tune to break out after midnight when the night starts to move on.The