the sun can't compare / to your light

After a week or three wallowing around in musical nostalgia, some of it albeit fresh, but nostalgia nevertheless, its time to move on…..2007 calls…

One of the disadvantages of living on the far side of the world, in a third world nation is the endless waiting for mail to arrive….and wait I did for the Dixon Body Language mix I’d been promised…waiting, whilst I read others getting all hot and bothered about this…the track listing was enough to make me go a little weak…..I love the drift towards a folkier, deeper sound in techno-ish house in the past year or two. The boundaries between deep house and techno are blurring quite nicely again. I have to be honest though…after all these years I still don’t understand what a techno record is and what a house record is, and, more to the point, where the line lies, not that it matters. It's all jazz, it's all soul, it's all disco....

But three days ago Ketut from the Denpasar post office rang to say a parcel had arrived. It’s a nice touch…when did the Wellesley Street PO ever ring me to say a parcel had arrived. Then again he often asks, in a strictly non-official way, what is in the parcel. I smile and show him the CD or book and he looks puzzled and we go our ways until the next parcel arrives.

And I’ve played it over and over again since then, in a way I haven’t done with a mix since last year’s Henrick’s DJ Kicks set. I can live without the last track, a remix of Matthew Herbert’s Moving Like a Train, which is far too sub Derrick Carter bad flapper jazz bompity for my liking, but that aside, this is nearly perfect. Stefan Goldman’s mix of the unfortunately named Women in Toilet by It is minimal and pluckingly lovely and the mix from it into one of the best singles of the last year, Larry Heard’s sublime The Sun Can’t Compare, and then into the still-works-for me Where We At (the more subtle, pianoy Pt. 2 mix which I’ve not heard before) is quite something.

I never get sick of this stuff…

A few tracks I’ve also been playing a lot include (for a change) Carl Craig’s mid paced dubby remix of the Brazilian Girl’s no-wave-ish Last Call; Andres Trentemoller’s very bluesy, noodley, almost early Doors-ish (think Break On Through) An Evening With Bobi Bros; Stardivers’ Moroder-ish techno-by-numbers-but-it-works-especially-when-it-gets-all-rocky Another Moment of Silence; & Trusme’s Nard’s, a throwaway few minutes of inspired disco re-editing, all swirling and all, which I love to bits right now but have no doubt I’ll hate in a few weeks, that being the nature of these things. Kathy Diamond’s Over has just come my way too…almost (and I meant almost) Dusty-esque in it’s feel with a wonderful Hammond (?) solo that dominates the soft centre, quite incredible organic electro pop from the unerring hand of Maurice Fulton. Oh, and I’ve been going through another Mint Chicks phase, as you do….

Just thought I’d mention it….