Two treats - a new mix by me & The Last Poets (1970)

I've been working on this mix for a couple of nights for my mate Ben. I'm pretty proud of it. It would be better actually mixed and with more adjustments to the noise levels (The Cure track is particularly quiet) but I think its a fairly solid, and nicely eclectic, selection. Unfortunately I still haven't even begun to grapple with mixing technology. One step at a time.

This is probably the most cohesive mix I've published the tracklisting for (and I will get round to uploading all the mixes for the tracklistings I've put up here. One particular highlight is a fantastic Italo track called Secret Life by Material, which I found on Soulseek after someone (Dave Mothersole or one of his guests) mentioned it as one of the seminal Italo tracks which predates even early Chicago house. House, let me take this opportunity to say, is the equivalent of jazz in the dance music world. It is the Daddy of all the forms, the one with the longevity and the scope for constant development. Drum & bass or breaks may be more visceral (depending on what drugs you are on) or garage more sexy, or electro more fashionable, but they are all ultimately more limited offshoots of the source. The source is tribal rhythms and, through the mixing of other influences have given rise to two main forms - jazz and house (I consider rock and hip hop to be basically offshoots of jazz). Anyway, I digress. I never know when a waffle rattling around my head is going to take over.

Another big tune for this set is Collage Of Dreams by John Beltran - an ambient classic. I've been getting into the visionary Manuel Gottsching whose early experiments in electronica still sound like amazingly fresh contributions to the genres of ambient in Inventions For Electric Guitar and house / techno (can never really distinguish the two - nor do I particularly like getting into a taxonomy of music) in E2-e4. Some would call it prog but after having so far failed to get into much of the genre (I like Soft Machine's Third but can't get into Yes or King Crimson) I would tend to distance most of his work from this sometimes undesirable epithet (not Early Water though which I'm listening to now which is like a crisper Tangerine Dream).

I don't want to waffle about every track but I'd like to mention the track by Gentleman which I heard on David Rodegan's Kiss show 4 or 5 years ago and loved but forgot about til recently. Gentleman is a young German man who became influenced by Jamaican music at a young age and travelled there to become part of the scene, the most surprising part of this being that he makes good records, the tune here being a feelgood classic (for me, anyway)

I've also been chasing Paul Raymond edits as avidly as Moonstarrs, Moodymanns or Rub N Tugs after his edit of Chicago's Street Player blew the roof off the Black Note when I played it there a couple of weeks back. His remix here I originally heard as an untraceable white on a GP show in 97 / 98 while I was buzzing off one of my first glorious spliffs which opened my mind to the Music. If I'd smoked more of the righteous herb that Gentleman seems to be enjoying at the top of the page instead of the way overstrong varieties of skunk which were flooding the market in London at that time, I'd be a happier man today.

Anyway, here's the full tracklisting...

1. Mambo El Kingston RED ASTAIRE
2. Drumpan Sound REGGIE STEPPER
3. Heard It Through The Grapevine THE SLITS
4. My Beat BLAZE / SUMO
5. Fire In Cairo THE CURE
6. Secret Life MATERIAL
7. Its Great To Be Here JACKSON 5 / KENNY DOPE
8. Caan Hold Us Down GENTLEMAN, DADDY RINGS & BARRINGTON LEVY
9. Pass It On THE CORAL
10. Canto De Ossanha BADEN POWELL
11. Le Coeur Qui Jazze FRANCE GALL
12. Anambra OZO / PAUL RAYMOND
13. Spanish Joint D’ANGELO
14. Blue Monday NOUVELLE VAGUE
15. Feel Flows BEACH BOYS
16. Collage Of Dreams JOHN BELTRAN
17. Trying Times SIDSEL ENDRESEN & BUGGE WESSELTOFT

And the link

http://s19.quicksharing.com/v/6846022/ben_s_proper_mix_mix.rar.html

A friend of mine was flabbergasted I played The Last Poets during my first set but, as I've been reading, there've been quite a few permutations of the group over the years at one point splitting into an Islamic half and a Def Jam half - guess which half got playedin my set.

Their recording debut came up on Soulseek. Users of the programme know how some items are interminably slow to arrive in your hungry carpetas whilst others zip across. The Last Poets' 1970 debut came up in no time flat and I was so impressed with the raw force of this record I thought I'd better share the wealth. Some will be inspired, others perhaps offended but no-one can deny its power (and trailblazing status for hip hop). Real poetry and bongos business - just like Flanders' parents!

http://www.sendspace.com/file/pcxz7z