Rothmans latest - The Alberto Tarantini release

So those chaps at Rothmans ,fast becoming my favourite label, have done it again with the latest vinyl offering from them for our yuletide pleasure.Sporting a little bit of facial fuzz Alberto Tarantini slipps one in to the back of the net with some help from messrs Fairplay,Gobi,Walker and Essa with total passion for the game.Timothy Fairplay dons his minimal moodscape cape and gives us a slinky little clunker with a mildly upbeat chi town rhythm and Tommy Walker 3 carries the sounds and builds them to a cheeky peak culminating in a wonderous swirl of noise and emotion.Max Essa provides the excellent (in sound and title) Stereoscalpedmysexpool,which you must have heard out in all the best/dirtiest chug dens this fair isle has to offer in the latter months of this year.Rounding this hot cacophony off is Al Gobi,who I am not aware of until just right now but I like it,it being a track titled Quibble and so will you.

 Listen here


 Out now,grab a copy before it's too late!
 The Alberto Tarantini Release

Adidas EQT Running Cushion and Running Support Re Issues for early 2014

Now I like a good trainer re issue and as I have stated a few times already Adidas are killing the competition on this front,Nike seem intent on rehashing the same old stuff much to my annoyance (although I am  are a retro of the Hua light is making an appearance next year,a given after the light free model) and losing ground.
Yes the new technology is good and you must keep evolving but what most "heads" my age want is a good solid retro.
Case in point being these two future releases from the brand with the three stripes,the EQT Running Cushion (in white,blue and red) and Running Support.Still attaining daft prices on ebay (999 euros in one recent auction) these are ultimate must haves for collectors and are rare as hens teeth to find in even a halfway decent condition,so these coming releases make me all warm in my suede and mesh orientated heart.Not content with the Allegra,Tech Super and nomalicious (soz) Integral S retro releases this year,2014 sees even more releases from the vast and shockingly untapped vaults at Adidas in the form of these superior runners.Throw some lesser seen ZX series in the mix,the 710 and 100 to name a few and the retro onslaught against Nike continues apace with no sign of letting up,this is good.

via sneakersaddict

Nike x Roundel by London Underground Air Max Collection

The iconic Nike Air Max models and the London tube have inspired this latest collaborative effort by the Swoosh. Inspired by the famously bold seat upholstery found in the underground cars, a strong patterned London fabric has been used on the sneakers of this limited edition collection.For me it harks back to my youth (?),even outside of London public transport had a distinct character of its own before the uniformity and plastic molded seats appeared a few years back.

The Nike x Roundel by London Underground Air Max collection, consisting of the Nike Air Max 1 Jacquard and the Air Max 90 Jacquard, debuts December 14, 2013 at select retailers.

Via Highsnobiety

Plastic Poople

So last week I popped down to London on Thursday for a bit of,what turned out to be,tricky treating. Plastic people was the destination for an intimate ALFOS soiree among the like minded appreciators of heads down,get yer shuffle on chugthiasts.What started out as a standard but welcome sound increased the pace and went quite house with a garage (old housey garage) flavour.Only spoiler on the night was having to use the loo to discover a lack of loo roll,cue me waddling to the ladies and excusing myself whilst I grabbed some clubland tracing paper and waddled back to the solitary cubicle queue in the mens (not being able to find the flushy handle didn't help either,turns out it's all infra red hand waving based flushy). Crisis averted the night was a resounding success and we ambled back in no direction finding people and losing others, for me to eventually curl up on a friends floor and drift off til the sun struggled to break the blanket of grey.

ALFOS at Plastic People,31st Oct 2013.

If you squint you can just about make out no one.

On the Friday it was back to Manchester for HomoElectric at ,what is hopefully,it's new residence at Antwerp Mansion just outside of the city centre.Moving to a venue outside of a standard clubbing hub is a gamble outside of the capital but it worked well as the run down/falling apart setting is a natural progression from the former rave caves of Legends (wipes tear from eye).Rooms were to the standard scenario of Jamie Bull opening and closing either side of James & Jim Horsemeat Disco,however the tunes were far from standard fare from all those playing.Downstairs Chris Massey opened up with a slightly differing sound for the night but fitted in perfectly overall and did a perfect job of warming up for Dan Beaumont,the second of the secret guests.Will Tramp closed the room perfectly,all in all the venue has a lot of potential,fingers crossed for many a good night in the future.

 Treasure Hunting Volume Two is the second,yes really,compilation release via the Astro Lab label from France. This release sees a more varied selection style wise from volume one,mixing dark brooding tracks with more cosmic melodies whereas the first compilation was much more a 4 to the more techno affair in style.Featuring production from artists like Jokers of the Scene,Eskimo Twins,Deadstock 33's and other newer/lesser known talent  it's very much a statement of how proud they (Astro Lab) are in being able to bring you these tracks as opposed to just trying to sound current or fashionable.

tracklisting:

CD1:
1. Canyon Cosmos - Fear Of Plastic (Pilooski Remix)
2. Hiem - Tokyo Night
3. Rodion & La Royale - Chamorro Tomorrow
4. David Shaw And The Beat - Sex Gang
5. Carreno Is LB - Pitch Housing
6. She Lies - Needed You
7. Remain - Noses, Claudine & Horses
8. The Deadstock 33's - Reverse The Role
9. Jimi After - Looking Glass Feat Gina Olafson
10. Red Axes Vs Moscoman - Wire Conflict
11. Vosper - Interstate
12. Javi Redondo - Lonely
13. VoX LoW - I Wanna See The Light (Ivan Smagghe Version)

CD2:
1. Capablanca Vs La Mverte - Distortion
2. Mar Pinol - The Fix
3. Offset - Milky Polar Bitch
4. Eskimo Twins - Skraeling
5. Morgan Hammer - Moonshining
6. Club Bizarre - What Is That About
7. People Get Real - Blurred Vision
8. Crackboy - Ride
9. Jockers Of The Scene - Jots Silencio
10. Monoblok & PSLKTR - Spooky

Available now on double cd.

 A recent release on Leng is Auf Togo's latest works,Old Models/Waiting For Beggi. Old Models drives along with an air of Adriatic sunshine in its step,making you want to get off yo ass and shimmy even if you've been skulking in a corner for the first half of the night.Waiting For Beggi is equally as chilled but strangely able to lull you into a focussed groove with it's deceptively simple percussion and lazy hazy sweeping synth sounds.A worthy purchase if you can find it!

End Of Year Riot! This was announced last week,as you ought to know it is an institution in Manchester post xmarse and pre new year to get merry and indeed messy or even just celebrate the drawing to a close of the year gone by with a killer line up.This year is set to be a good one with guests as solid as Horse meat Disco,Chris Duckinfield,Justin Roberston,Il Bosco,Joes Bakery and the Unabombers of course. What grabbed my attention was that one Derrick Carter is commanding one room all night long,6 hours across the board!Cannot wait for that,as good as he is I was getting bored of him "doing disco". The venue is of course The Factory FAC251,so those leccy types follow in the tradition utilising spaces sought out by its cuz HomoElectric,which is no bad thing. Tickets are available from Skiddle as well as in paper flavour from Piccadilly Records and Electrik bar next week.

Adidas Torsion Integral S - OG vs 2013 retro

So the retro of the much lusted Adidas Integral S is nearly upon us and Sneakers Addict have done a pictorial comparison of the origninals in comparison with the new retro model.

The largest bone of contention with appreciators of vintage models a profile not being quite like the original,ffrom cries of "shape's way off" and "look at the toebox,not right at all" and so forth.Now we can see here the front is indeed boxier than the OG but considering how much of a better job Adidas do than Nike with retros I can forgive this one,compare the OG Tech Supers and the re issues to any Nike retro (Air Base II,i'm looking at you) of late and you must surely agree.

The colours are spot on,I had feared they wouldn't get it right from early  images I had seen but once again Adidas have pulled it around to great effect.

The darker Grey of the OG I  am putting down to age,I am however liking the addition of the trefoil however pointless it actually is.

The toebox looks more rounded  on the OG,however this may be down to age and wear. All in all,a good retro of a much sought after sihlouette,I doubt it'll bring OG prices down but it is a definite winner from Adidas in a year of quality from  them.

 

Recent music - Cosmic machine , Rothmans & Tornaado.

Hello you,thank you for persevering and taking the time to have a read of these ramblings of mine. Recent releases I've enjoyed in no particular order coming up.

First up is a compilation entitled Cosmic Machine - a Voyage Across French Cosmic & Electronic Avantgarde (1970 - 1980). Absolutely brimming with artists you will have heard of and others you may not be aware of but have undoubtedly heard the music of at some point in time.From the Gallic standards of Serge Gainsbourg,Jeanne-Michel Jarre to the disco keystones of Patrick Juvet and Cerrone and many more in between this is most certainly a must if you enjoy electronic music of any kind as influences on current electronic artists become apparent upon listening. I am fairly sure some of these songs were used by primary school teachers in the late 70s and early 80s during PE classes where upon we were freeform danced like nobody's business.This compilation also contains the absolutely boss Magic Fly by Space , along with Jean Jacques Perry's E.V.A which had a resurgence in the early noughties (sorry) through being used in an advert for something or other....I think.

Next up is a label I have mentioned before and hope you took some notice because this latest release is probably sold out in most places. The fourth EP from the Rothmans label is upon us, the Claudio Gentile release sounds a little leaner in terms of the track styles ,more focused so to speak towards one sound but by no means is the quality of the tracks diminished.
Posthuman put in a sterling show in the form of Make More Man,sounding unrelentlessly dark with a driving but simple percussion track.Partnered perfectly with Lean On Me (Felix Dickinson Foolish Dub) by Cage & Avery,Dickinson pushing the light sprinkling of acid with great effect. Ali Renault provides is with a genuine future chug classic in the form of The Black Heart and Iron Blu finish us all off with Oiche Shamhna,a track with film score overtones pinned down by some low frequency acid rumblings.

Finally we have Tornaado,something a touch different but ace for the fact it has been released at all. The group Tornaado hailed form Tallinn in Estonia and released six instrumental tracks named after different sailing classes in the Olympics to garner attention as the Moscow Olympics were to host the sailing events in Tallinn in 1980.Apparently they were more pop orientated than the tracks here but the plan worked and their music was used with frequency by the broadcast media in Russia.Unreleased before and in limited quantities it's worth grabbing if you want to impress with some real yacht rock/jazz/disco/pop/easy listening....

All these records are available from Piccadilly Records .

Speaking of tornados, one Tornado Wallace is playing in Manchester at the Soup Kitchen on the 26th.

With support from Jason Boardman and Annabel Fraser this is definitely worth attending if you're about next weekend. Tickets available from here

For your attention

Out on Is It Balearic is this lovely little 10 inch treat from Felix Dickinson entitled Ousana,with a Coyote remix on the flip side.Sounding like a fond farewell to summer and containing all the elements to make this track work on a boat,beach or a club with its hypnotic bubbling bass, sweeping synths and simple vocals being enough to reel you in.

 

Ousana

 

The Coyote remix slows things down yet at the same time making everything slightly more intense,in a drawn out but better manner (I personally am hearing a little bit of Voodoo Ray in the remix but I am probably imagining it......).

On a blissed out tip is this release from Circuit,Burns & Hawk on Legal/Rush Hour with two tracks simply titled track 1 and track 2. A collaboration (or meeting of minds even) encompassing the talents of Secret Circuit,Torn Hawk and Willie Burns this plays out like some seriously slo mo balearic sunset/rise tuneage. All of the component sounds are in no rush to get to a point but manage to carry you on a journey you were not expecting regardless.

Here is a recent(ish) mix by Torn Hawk for your goodselves to wrap your ears around.

Both these are available now from Piccadilly Records and other good outlets.