Basilika Saturday was (even by recent high standards) a bit of a classic.
It’s only a slight exaggeration to say that we ‘peaked’ for about four hours solid.
Usually with gigs of that nature, it’s about trying not to play all the tracks your really excited about too quickly, somehow saturday the monsters just kept on coming.

It felt like we were finally starting to make it happen.

Big thanks to the mighty Ibrahim, host of our favourite new night ‘Ain’t it Black‘, for dusting off his morris day moves and getting the party properly started.

Damn!!!

We’ve got load of synth-etic newness in the basilika vaults starting with this robotic analog dub of a (sort of) 80’s classic.

Ulysses 82-Video Games (dub)

So I’ve unintentionally produced a (super) late entrant for August’s Prince Week.

Cutting a mixtape for a friend, this blend was one of those that came together by complete chance and sounded really catchy/post-worthy straight away.

I’m going through the mill at the moment, resulting in (amongst many other things) uber-writer’s block*. So, without further delay I give you

Prince – Controversy (ULYSSES82’s ‘Love for Oizo’ mix)

Peezy,

Christoph

*Regular readers will know that’s a big lie – my writing’s not worth a dime on a good day.

This coming Friday will be the first time I’ve seen Prince live. I’ve now got an interminable five day countdown until the Purple one graces the stage. Already my blood pressure’s 160 over 100, my temper’s shorter than Ronnie Corbett and my laundry bill has sky-rocketed.

Today’s addition to Prince Week has been [kinda] pre-empted by the good people over at Dilate, who I’ve just noticed have posted the full-length version of ‘Housequake’. Shucks.

Anyway, here’s my take on the track – more of a blend and a tweak than an out and out remix, but it got road tested over the weekend and got [at least] my feet tapping. It owes a rather large nod to Greg Wilson and his ‘Galactico’ edit, a fine tune in itself.

Enjoy.

Housequake (ULYSSES82 Edit)

So it’s been awhile.

The basilika update wasn’t meant to take quite so long, but sometimes you’ve got to leave things for time to give you a chance to realize their worth. Basilika started as a blog to accompany a night-three dudes playing great music in a rubbish bar in Angel. But time moves on, things change and basilika seemed to lose it’s way a little, posting became less and less frequent and it became harder to see where things were headed and, more importantly, why we were going there in the first place.

So it took some time but we found the why again.

All this music we track down and hoard for ourselves, the secret unreleased tracks on nerdy obsessive forums, the music we cutup, edit and make our own.

This is where we share it with you.

We’ll try to keep it all as original as possible and not to get too precious with it.

(but you know how these things go)

Kicking things off-as London (and me) go mildly Prince crazy-is a week dedicated to rare and unreleased music from the minneapolis maestro. We’ll try to ignore all the devious ticket manipulations (and the last 8 albums) and concentrate on what makes the dude so worth all the praise in the first place. The music.

For me it’s a journey back to the place where I first got so passionate about music as well as the start (or re-start) of something brand new.

So thanks for coming back and we hope you enjoy the show.

Prince-Feel U Up(unreleased version-Ulysses 82 edit)

In a few years Elephant & Castle will probably be like Angel. Billions of pounds of regeneration money to create a chi-chi make-over for the most stubbornly ‘earthy’ parts of zone 1.

It’s therefore quite possible that future generations will have no idea about the significance of Roots Manuva giving his record the moniker ‘Walworth Rd Dub’. The character of the place will be lost behind a facade of alfresco dining and all makeover money can buy.

It’s not all bad-god knows the place could do with a lick of paint (and a demolition or ten)-but for now lets  love the place for what it is; a multicultural mixing pot, a hundred different nationalities all doing their own thing, hustling and bustling trying to make an honest (or otherwise) living on the unforgiving streets.

It’s one of those tracks that is an anthem for rudebwoys and city bankers alike-anyone who wants to lay their claim to a piece of authentic south london attitude. It’s almost too big a tune to play, so I’ve added an extra layer of classic to give it that basilika style edge.

walworthbelieve-roots manuva/biggie(jaksoul edit)

Just picked up A Taste of Honey – Boogie Ooogie Oogie today. its a monster of a track and heading straight to the top of my chart at the moment. Its got Mizell production and it cost me £1.99 for the 7″. its blinding.

I have my first record dealer coming to my house tonight and bringing a bag of disco and boogie with him. i am quite excited about this prospect, and will no doubt dig up some winners, just gotta keep the cost down. will report how it goes.

illa

Our favourite musical evangelist Disco Jesus, has posted the final part of his epic mix trilogy -Autumn Blessings.

This mix is less eclectic than previous offerings, focusing instead on the period 1978-85 and featuring a deeply personal vision of underground disco with soul, jazz, rock, new wave and electro influences. 

It’s my favourite of the three and features the awesome quartz-chaos (which I’ve always wanted to drop sometime, but it’s never quite seemed to fit)

Anyway download here

And spread the word

After literally years of preparation the brand new firemusic tees are finally done!

The first batch of samples touched down at basilika HQ last night and they are looking supa-hot!!(see above).

In a few weeks we will have the first proper batch in and then you will be able to get your hands on some authentic exclusive basilikapparel-just in time for winter!!

Get your pre-orders in now.

word is born!!

So Madlib last night was pretty rubbish.

Great producer-average rapper-really average drummer.

Highlight of the night was J-Rocc, who is without doubt one of the finest party hiphop djs
I ever seen. Great tunes, incredible technique and a really natural understanding of how to build the crowd and pretty much the only person on stage all night with any sort of stage presence.

It was a damn shame because it was building up to be a killer night-KOKO was packed, you could literally smell the anticipation, I think everyone was really excited by seeing what Madlib would do in a live environment-how the undeniable studio virtuosity would translate.
Bottom line-it didn’t.

The rest of the night was kinda hit and miss. Perci P was nigh on inaudible, Dudley Perkins (who I really dig) just didn’t have the stage presence to maintain the interest of a venue that size and Georgia Anne Mudrow was just straight-up poor.I’m all up for the whole experimenting with jazz tinged vocals, but it really did sound like she was singing to
completely different backing track, I’d like to hope it was a monitoring issue but it seemed to be so wilfully offkey that the overriding impression was of someone walking dangerously close to the ‘crimes done in the name of jazz’ section of the record shop.

So Madlib came on, rocked some typically off kilter flow, which kinda works in an album context cause the production’s so dope. Live, the enthusiasm of the crowd carried the first couple of tracks and then the gaping hole marked ’stage presence’ became the elephant on stage that was harder and harder to ignore. ‘The Red’ briefly brought the crowd to life, but there are only so many times shouting ‘Raise your hand if you love money’ and playing the ‘Respect to Jdilla‘ card can take the place of actually engaging with the audience.

Worse was to come. The much hyped ‘watch Madlib play drums’ section was proof in any more was needed that Studio Genius does not necessarily equal Live Performer. As all but the most hardcore drifted toward the exits, the sound of Madlib’s 30-40 minute drum solo echoed around an increasing empty KOKO and we were left thinking of the emperor, his new clothes and the carelessness of people who should be trying to build not destroy hard won reputations.