Friday, February 27, 2009
Welcome Back
Alongside, the likes of Transmat, Warp and Underground Resistance, R & S is one of a handful of dance music labels truly deserving of the title 'legendary'. Just scrolling down their list of releases on Discogs takes an age in itself but when you start to dig around to see what's in there you really start to remember what classics they were responsible exposing to the world. Sure, the real stars are the producers themselves but the label's owners are no doubt more than a little proud of providing the homes to such greats as Beltram's Energy Flash, Jaydee's Plastic Dreams and CJ Bolland's awesome Horespower as well as classic albums from Model 500, Derrick May, and Aphex Twin plus of course not forgetting their In Order to Dance compilation series and whole host of other quality stuff.Anyway, after having being largely dormant for the past few years, 2008 saw them come back to life by not only remastering some of their classic albums but also unleashing brand new material on the world with a 12" from Radio Slave and some remixes from the likes of Redshape and Audion for a new compilation.
As well as planning to put out more new music, 2009 sees the label finally go digital and will ultimately reissue its entire back catalogue on mp3. Given the amount of tracks to encode its perhaps not surprising that this is going to be a phased release and to help entice people on board the label is offering a free download to people joining its mailing list with promise of more offers in the future.
No doubt there was some debate within the R&S camp as to which track to select from such a quality list as the one that was going to entice people to sign up for their mailing list and while their are numerous worthy candidates, it's fallen to Aphex Twin's Xtal to provide the honey pot.
Aphex Twin - Xtal // R & S Records
Labels: Aphex Twin, Audion, Beltram, Derrick May, Jaydee, Model 500, R and S Records, Redshape, Techno
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Golden Touch
A track on the new Hyperdub release by King Midas Sound (Kevin Martin and Roger Robinson) has got me all a flutter for its use of some inspired sampling of Techno legend Derrick May. The Dabrye remix of 'One Ting' utilises a lo-slung Hip Hop break and a hushed spoken word style vocal about love and heartache. It is the soaring pitch-bending strings that is May's hallmark sound however that elevates this track to the stratosphere. Would it have the same impact without them? I doubt it.King Midas Sound - One Ting (Dabrye remix) // Hyperdub buy
The samples in question have been taken from a track that was chopped up and used as intervals between tracks on the classic Transmat compilation 'Relics', One of the best Detroit Techno compilations ever. You can find a vinyl copy on Amazon and also Discogs Marketplace
Here is the sample track in question
Derrick May - Interval I // Relics Transmat
Labels: Dabrye, Derrick May, King Midas Sound, Relics, Transmat
Sunday, December 02, 2007
Timeless
Derrick May's importance to the history of electronic music hardly needs hitting home again and it's just a shame that he hasn't been in the studio more often over the last fifteen years. As if his own production and DJ skills weren't of significant enough greatness, he is also responsible for setting up the seminal Transmat imprint, one of the most important labels in the early days of Techno.Twenty years on since techno was born and there aren't that many labels out there capable of putting out a compilation of such high quality as 'Relics' which was released back in 1992 (actually on Buzz records but as an approved Transmat product) and even then many of the tracks were several years old. Virtually all of the full length tracks on Relics are considered to be stone cold classics and these are neatly woven together using orchestral 'intervals' from Carl Craig. Relics came out on both LP and CD and despite my love of wax, the CD version had the benefits of extra tracks including the amazing version of Wiggan (Wiggin) featured below.
Time:Space came out in 1999 and despite not being quite as close to perfection as Relics was (few compilations are!) it's still a superb release. This time, the compilation featured tracks from largely European producers although they had clearly all been influenced by the Detroit sound.
There's also a Time:Space 2 but as this was only released in Japan I haven't heard the full contents and can only hope it gets a wider release at some stage in the future.
BFC - EvolutionMayday - Wiggan(Re-Mix)
The Vanisher - Elementary
Rhythim is Rhythim - Beforethereafter
Buy Transmat releases here and here
P.S. Sorry for the zShare links but we're currently having issues with our hosting service - direct links will be back ASAP.
Labels: Carl Craig, Derrick May, Techno, The Vanisher, Transmat
