basilika

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.

pic via

The work of a re-editor is a complex one. Finding the right track, cutting out the excess, adding your own special source and (most importantly) deciding when enough is enough and that baby is “ready”.

This particular track has been flying round christoph’s harddrive for weeks, slowly making the painful transition from ‘work in progress’ to finished article. Who knows it may get twisted and chopped at again, but right now it feels like something that needs to be shared.

On the hl at 128kbps.

On basilika at 320kbps (for one week only)

runaway love (ulysses82 edit)

Sorry for the slack posting and generally balls-upery on basilika recently. Moving servers turned into a freakin ‘mare and it’s only now, almost two weeks later that things are starting to return to normal.

All of our trax need to be re-upped at some point and there’s probably a good few kinks still to be ironed out. Still we’re home now and safer from the vagaries of cheap-ass hosting companies.

It was basilika at the elbow rooms, saturday, coincidently up against the mighty theo parrish playing just down the road at plastics-(think we’ll call that one a draw)
Thanks to ‘balearic chris’ for the backup and giving the night a whole new selection of angles-here is a little mix live from the night, keeping it pretty classic for the saturday night party people.

basilika (live at the elbow)

tracklisting

mc lyte-listen up/common-the people/roy ayres-we live in brooklyn baby (sasso re-edit)/venus gang-love to fly/ppp feat sa ra-deep inside/lee douglas-oh no not beastday/heatwave-ain’t no half steppin

enjoy.

There’s so much music around. All these amazing music blogs, myspace pages filled with original tracks and edits. It’s a great time to be passionate about music.

In recognition of this sea change in the way we find and consume music, we are starting a new feature guiding lights. Every couple of weeks or so we will be putting together a 30 minute mix of the best of what is available from our favourite blogs. Hopefully it will lead you to discover new places and help deal with the overwhelming quantity of music that’s out there.

guiding lights (edition one)

tracklisting after the jump…..

(more…)

So here’s a monster of a track, whichever way you look at it. Fresh from ULYSSES82, I know that the purists in the glass half-empty camp will be all ‘That’s SO obvious Man.. Wow’.

However, the glass half-full camp will already be on the D-Floor, with their shades on and their light-up LED T-Shirts in full song, wondering what all the fuss is about.

I love all the tracks pilfered for this edit, but rarely play them out on their own because they seem too much most of the time, too easy perhaps, too.. -too obvious. But that doesn’t change the fact that they’re still stone cold classics, which brings me back to that difficult question, when DO you play those tracks which are so great, they’re actually too big for their own good?

I dunno. To be honest, it’s Thursday night, I’ve had me tea and my head’s full of potential Pro-Evo formations and little else. I’m in full on Mongsville, it’s Friday tomorrow and I can smell the weekend already.

So it’s with great pleasure that I present to you a remix that’s proud of it’s roots, certainly doesn’t take itself too seriously, and flicks all my weekend switches to ‘on’. Enjoy.

Daft Punk - Around The World (ULYSSES82 Mix)

pic via

Here’s another* outing for Prince’s alter-ego ‘Camille’, the uber violent, misogynistic parody, Bob George. Apparently, the ‘Bob’ in the title refers to Prince’s Manager at the time, Bob Cavallo and the ‘George’ refers to Nelson George, an outspoken critic of Prince during the mid eighties.

The original version is edgy, dark and funkier than Jaksoul’s socks. I’m re-posting the ULYSSES82 re-edit for your listening pleasure. Cut with the dancefloor in mind, it’s got more of a bass bounce and some synth-stylings to round things off. 320 styles baby – for one week only.

I’m off to see ‘that skinny muther f**ker with the high heels on’ tomorrow night..

I’ll be the other one in the Cubans.

Prince-Bob George (ULYSSES82 edit)

*Both ‘Housequake‘ and ‘Feel U Up‘ were originally on the unreleased Camille album

Taking a (very) slight detour for part five, here is a track from the Prince produced Mazarati. The band known as much for their ridiculous hair as the songs that Prince wrote for them then decided to keep for himself-originally writing ‘Kiss’ as a track for their debut, before thinking better of it. I was introduced to them , very generously by good friend Disco Jesus a few weeks ago and after some heavy tweaking and twisting by those ulysses82 fellas here is the a version of my favourite cut from the album Stroke

masarati-the stroke (Ulysses82 dub)

“In the early years when I toured, I was never a tourist. I was always so focused on the show. I just wanted to tear it up and get out of town.” - Prince

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 wednesday’s Prince gig was great.

It was so good being with so many people that I didn’t know but with whom I had all these shared memories and, as much as you don’t want it just to be about nostalgia, it’s the past that draws you and the the past that will always be Prince’s worst enemy. I guess it’s a good problem to have, a peerless back catalogue, the greatest live act around for the best part of a decade, how do you compete with that ?

Well you don’t really and that’s just gonna have to be fine.

When I was growing up Prince was barely even human. He was this other being, someone to whom the normal rules didn’t apply- the man who feel to earth. He didn’t do interviews, he put freaky record out after freaky record all sounding like nothing you’d ever heard, all drawn from a magical place, Paisley Park, that no-one else could go, like sly stone and willy wonka had some secret love child.

And maybe sly stone is a good a reference point as any, there is something unforgiving about music-the nowness of things seem so massively important.

So he played some hits, he did his thing in a way that, even now, no-one else could dream. It helped us remember all the good times (and bad) to which his songs have provided the soundtrack and, more importantly, it was obvious to us all that he is entirely human, (the guitar solos whilst performing spilts/ the crazy dance moves are long gone) and, strangely, that was a relief. That I could let go of this semi-religious awe and enjoy him for what he is-a supremely talented individual.

Prince-Climax (Ulysses82 redub)

Server problems.

It’s not what you need, hungover, day two of your site relaunch.

Oh well.

I’ll give you a full run down of last night’s gig tomorrow (when my brain is working again), but suffice to say it was a great night out in a facing-up-to-the mortality-of-your-adolescent-heroes sort of way.

o2 is a great (if a bit bluewatery) space, the aftershow was superb, our seats where incredible and I need to go and take some more advil.

In the spirit of keeping things quiet and hangover friendly, here is part two of our Prince-athon, taken from Prince’s unreleased Dream Factory album (the one that eventually got edited down into sign o’ the times). It sounds more like a Bill Evans track than anything else-which is certainly no bad thing.

Shhhhh….

Prince-Visions

[audio:Visions.mp3]