A(nother) weird experiment by Jeff Mills, tampering with 'Three Ages', a 1923 silent comedy by Buster Keaton (his first production) and Eddie Cline. The movie follows a simple yet sufficient theme. Keaton tries to win his beloved one from co-star Wallace Beery in three different timelines: in the Stone Age, classical Rome and the Modern Age (the '20s that is). The film besides being funny also gets quirky (in a good way), with all that jumping through the different eras and developing the stories in parallel; you have to like silent films, though.
The release included a CD with the OST and a DVD with a restored version of the original, a Mills interview and some thematic video remixes he did himself on certain film scenes, using a CDJ1000 as controller (there's also a 'making of' on that).
The music is rather typical Mills; techno and atmos, yet obviously less fierce or dark than most of his similar works (say, 'Metropolis'). For fans of hardcore techno it could even get indifferent at times, yet I understand that he willingly understated the weird and groovy percussive elements that make his tracks what they are, focusing more instead on creating a score, a soundtrack for the film, with themes and motifs and all. And the film is more or less comical, so the music is more or less non-industrial, even bright at times. On the other hand it's still Mills we're talking about, so there are good club trax; the Roman theme is definitely wonderful.
I wish you'd watch the film first, then come back to the CD, but connection problems are frequent lately here and I cannot post something so big yet. Hopefully in the near future there will be a repost, I'll let you know.
Jeff Mills - 2004 Three Ages OST
Info here.
Three Ages
Clicks & Cuts 4
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Well, here is Part 4, a single CD this time. Leeched from the share net; credits to the original uploader. I just replaced the Twerk track with the proper one (see the discogs info and you'll understand). For further info on the series, check parts 1, 2 and 3.
VA - Clicks & Cuts 4 (2004)
Info here.
P.S. Link erased after label's request.
Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out
How can you go wrong with unkle Tim?
Summaries of his life's story can be found in various sites (start here; then see Wiki); I won't try an account of his deeds. It's just that I've began reading 'Death Plan' and I wonder a lot about him. Though a lot of (very powerful) people discredited, slandered, humiliated, judged, even imprisoned him and forced him to exile, he stayed as optimistic and open minded as very few of the (seemingly luckier) rest of us have ever been. He lost everything, yet managed to find happiness in life, to stay true to his principles and, by the way, to help many many people around the world through his books, his lectures, his professional work; most of all his example.
This is a recording of him speaking over an early '70s psych background of weird echo effects, tablas and sitar and all. Some may find it anachronistic, others just plain hippy shit. In the right set of mind though it's beyond interesting. It's intense.
"Where are you? Did you get lost on the trip?
Did you get trapped in memory? Did you forget?"
Dr.Timothy Leary -
1967 Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out OST
Info here.
Picked it up somewhere around, I've included the accompanying text. Credits to the unknown original poster(s).
This is from where PWOG took the 'Return To The Source' sample for 'Exit 23'.
Clicks & Cuts 3
Not much more to say; this is the third part of the Clicks & Cuts series by Mille Plateaux.
Check the previous two parts here and here.
I remember at that time I was a bit bored of the click scene, so I passed by. But a few years later I started revisiting many ghost-towns from the past, to put it lightly; so I started hunting down certain labels and artists, mostly used records in Discogs and eBay. It's not really difficult to find this one, even you care only about mint CDs. Well, it's here now.
So.. no comments. Since I've just got it, I'll listen to it with the rest of you.
VA - Clicks & Cuts 3 (2002)
Info here.
P.S. Links erased after label's request.
Mutant TG
You and I
You and I
You and I
United
Love Is The Law
Love Is The Law
Love Is The Law
United
Time will see us
Time will free us
Time will be us
We are everywhere
There is no why
There is no sky anymore
There is just us
United
Throbbing Gristle - 2004 Mutant TG
Info here.
P.S. All TG lovers check this page. Now. Thank you Roddus.
Diggler. Dirk Diggler.
These are the two out of the three albums that Andreas Mügge from Hessen, mostly known as D.Diggler, released in Raum...musik.
Post-rave mentality, techno beats, funky basses and acid lines clash on deep, sweet, fat and complex synth melodies; the overall sound balancing somewhere in the middle of deep techno and trance era 1992 with modern drum sounds and massive production. It's the closer you can get to the harder Cologne sound without actually coping it, it reminds me at times of Gabriel Ananda. Music for the mind and the body alike. If you know D.Diggler only from his recent reduced and rather dry releases in Resopal you'll possibly be shocked.
Btw, if anyone has the first album of the three (info), I'd be much obliged if you upped it, and I'm sure that everyone else would also be; I got stuck on D.Diggler the instant I heard 'Boogiemonster'.
D.Diggler - 2001 Atomic Dancefloor
Info here.
D.Diggler - 2002 Sounds Fiction
Info here.
FYI, Dirk Diggler is the name adopted by the central character in magnificent 'Boogie Nights' by Paul Thomas Anderson, played by Mark Wahlberg; a small epic that depicts the rise (and fall) of a male porn star in the late'70s and early '80s with (hidden) references on the life of the legendary 'Big' John Holmes and comments on the film porn industry in general. I guess Mr. Mügge wants to avoid legal prosecution, so he uses only the initial of 'Dirk'. An extra touch is that the letters spelling 'D.Diggler' in the covers have a neon-like glow.
Watch the clip here where the name's potential is described and you'll understand.
Tokei
Icelandic techno deepness, somewhere between BC and Studio1 with that extra northern ice-cold techno touch; heavy dubby minimalistic techno rhythms pave the way through the snow, as NordLead synths paint the sky in pale colours.
Its creator comes from Iceland, yet this is a Force Inc. record. Ozy was in the roster of the now extinct Thule label (with what might possibly be the most appropriate label name ever) of Exos and Thor. Due to the label's uncompromising approach, open-mindness (check the sublabels) and the sheer quality factor, Thule became an ideally underground channel where the past influences (the Detroit-Berlin axis once more) and new tendencies merged, to provide a sound that encompassed the spirit of '90s techno and pushed the underground elements forward. I guess it was the association with the Force Inc. front that made them famous, still their collective releases are many and diverse in style and mood (from house and listening music to hard bangers).
Recently Ozy made a comeback by playing the 'minimal' card. Still, I consider this album to have more personality than the new stuff; and it doesn't sound old at all, at all.
Ozy - 2002 Tokei
Info here.
Atlantis
Where were you in 1500 BC ?
X-103 - 1993 Atlantis
Info here.
Thera, the island depicted on the cover, is better known as Santorini, famous destination for tourists and a place of impeccable beauty. Further back though it was known for its active volcano, that provided the greatest volcanic explosion of the ancient world circa 1500 BC. It raised a tsunami in the Mediterranean Sea, then contaminated the soil in a radius of hundreds of miles, while destroying cities and killing thousands. It was considered to be the last nail in the coffin of the magnificent (yet possibly already declining) Minoan civilization of nearby Crete.
Many people consider this culture to be the basis for the idealistic phantom one described in Plato's works (the only historical source mentioning the well known story of Atlantis). It was supposedly non-militant, based on trade and producing astonishing works of art, as well as the last cradle of matriarchy in the Mediterranean. Its destruction hastened the growth of the copper-based warrior cultures in the mainland of Greece that later lead to the so-called 'age of heroes' and the establishment of war as the typical cross-cultural transaction for the next thousands of years (I hope you don't think this is over). In all, it was a terrible destruction for mankind caused by powers 'divine' (outside of the human grasp, that is), expressed through the Eruption of Thera; the map in this cover is more than relevant.
X-103 are Jeff Mills and Robert Hood. This is the Tresor CD version. A seminal, groundbreaking work, blending deep techno and grinding hardcore with eerie atmospheres and minimalism.
Interesting parallels can be drawn between this release and the (just surfacing at that time) Drexciyan concept.
