A Condensed Decade Of Slightly Wonky Electronic Dance Music (1983 - 1993)

Five very different tunes which, when taken as a sequence, neatly illustrate some of the mutations that took place in dance music between the early 1980s and the early 1990s.

Item 83. Fun Fun - Happy Station (Scratch Mix) (1983)
(more info on Fun Fun)
Bonkers Italo-Disco nonsense, remixed into dizzying abstraction. Its brutally clodhopping heavy-handedness is all part of its appeal.

Item 84. 2 Puerto Ricans A Blackman And A Dominican - No Way Back (1987)
A rambling, episodic, augmented remix of No Way Back by Adonis (which was one of the big early Chicago "jack trax" back in the day). I always preferred this version.

Item 85. Joy - Bloody Murder On That Dance Floor (1988)
An extremely obscure release on Graeme Park's short-lived Submission label, by two Nottingham DJs. Samples Yello, Kraftwerk, Malcolm McLaren...and, erm, Liquid Gold's Dance Yourself Dizzy.

Item 86. Tuff Little Unit - Join The Future (1991)
An early release on Sheffield's Warp records. Smoother, jazzier and warmer than the rest of Warp's "bleep techno" output at that time.

Item 87. Unmen - Also With You (1993)
(official site)
Unjustly ignored at the time, this little beauty emerged at the same time as the so-called "intelligent techno" boom of the early Nineties (Megadog, Drum Club et al). And yes, it really is supposed to end like that.

Update: Sorry - you weren't quick enough. These MP3s are no longer on my server. I generally make them available for a week or so (sometimes less) before substituting them for new ones. Better luck next time!

Having learnt from repeated and bitter experience that New Year Resolutions are never kept beyond the first month, I have decided this year to set resolutions for the month of January only. And here they are.

1. No alcohol. (Except in cooking, of course. Those rum babas yesterday were delicious.)
I'm doing this partly as an exercise in self-discipline for its own sake. Self-discipline not being exactly one of my stronger points. I'm also curious to know just what a month of sobriety actually feels like. Because, quite frankly, I've tried everything else. This is the only experience left. But most importantly of all: I'm looking for ways to tackle this constant state of feeling tired all the time, which has dogged me for years. Which neatly leads me on to my next two resolutions.

2. Out of bed by 7:30 weekdays, 8:30 weekends.
Obviously, this would never be achievable without Resolution #1 also being in place. It's high time I experimented with regular sleeping patterns. Also, I'd quite like Saturdays and Sundays to last a little longer.

3. Sit-ups every day.
Or rather, those stomach "crunches", where you cross your legs in the air and do that hands-behind-head, pointy-elbows thing. Because I'm sick of breathing in when I walk past mirrors. Oh, don't give me your "join a gym" speech. I'm quite vain enough as it is!

4. Read a bloody novel for once in your life. All the way through to the end. By the end of the month, please.
Because last year, I shocked myself with my philistinism. I think this is going to have to be Carter Beats The Devil - because it's already in the house, and the chorus of recommendations has become deafening. I only hope I get on with it better than I did with White Teeth. God, but that was a slog and a half.

5. Finish the various serialisations on the blog, by the end of the month.
Nottingham, My Nottingham - Vietnam Diary - and yes, even the long abandoned Stations Of The Diva. Because they're worth finishing, and because I hate leaving loose ends lying around.

I can do this, can't I?
Wish me luck.

...are back. And yes, I have voted this year.

Pros: Democratic. "Community based" (ahem). Open to all. Not overly high-minded. Doesn't take itself too seriously. Non-commercial.

Cons: Outcome inevitably weighted towards high-profile, high-traffic sites, so little chance for interesting/obscure newcomers to shine through. Same names every year. Fosters a view of weblogs that is centred round a self-congratulatory "A-list". Some people get really upset about not being nominated. Usual risk of mass consensus rewarding mass-appeal, easily palatable blandness. In any case, Wil Wheaton wins everything...

All items on "Cons" list to be immediately and unconditionally retracted if Troubled Diva gets nominated, of course. Well, you can dream, can't you?

1. the streets – original pirate material
Maybe not the most played - but certainly the most original, arresting and affecting. And funny. Entirely new, and yet fitting into a fine tradition of "urban" albums which stretches back through Ian Dury, The Specials, Blur, and Those Of That Ilk.

2. lemon jelly – lost horizons
Because every time I hear it, it just puts me into the best mood possible. Deliciously inventive.

3. jim o’rourke – insignificance
OK, so this is the very template of Uncut magazine approved, finely honed, intelligently crafted, Neo-Americana Nouveau, or whatever we're supposed to call it. But in a good way. Endless richness, variety, subtlety and depth - and I never even got round to analysing the lyrics. Simply put, I didn't tire of playing this all year.

4. ms. dynamite – a little deeper
Because sometimes, the Critical Consensus does get things absolutely right. Admirable, noble, mature beyond its years and - surely? - impossible to dislike.

5. the coral – the coral
Gawd, I'm a bit bloody Mercury Music Prize in my tastes this year, aren't I? I can see why this album might irritate some people (too precocious, too derivative, too bloody Scouse by half) - but for all that, it still scratches where I itch.

6. salif keita – moffou
A late climber up my chart of 2002. In strict musicianly terms, this would be my album of the year without a shadow of doubt. But hey, since when has this been solely about the musicianship? Immaculate stuff, though. If you only listen to one "world music" album from last year, then I urge you to make it this one.

7. solomon burke – don’t give up on me
Deep soul legend returns after many years, with songs donated by all the best people. The result is a slow-burning, smouldering triumph.

8. dj shadow – the private press
Surprise of the year, as I was far from convinced by his alleged "classic" debut, Endtroducing. Can't argue with friskily inventive electronica like this though. We don't still call this Trip Hop, do we?

9. aim – hinterland
Bought it - quite liked it - went right off it - re-discovered it - ended up loving it. Slow burner of the year.

10. charles webster – born on the 24th of july
Moody mood music from Nottingham's erstwhile Mister Moody of deep house, now gone all languidly downtempo and sounding even better for it. Sounds particularly great in the car, when tootling round the Peak District on a moody afternoon.

11. david bowie – heathen
Oh no, honestly, he's really back on form these days! Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look - I've heard Earthling, okay? Except...well, whaddya know? He really is back on form these days. Easily his best album since Scary Monsters. And ooh, don't he look well for his age? And him such a heavy smoker and all...

12. soulwax – 2 many djs
Bootlegs and electroclash: the two big fads of the Spring were combined to stonking effect on this monster monster party jam of a mix CD. "Danger! High Voltage!"

13. papa noel & papi oviedo – bana congo
Congolese-Cuban fusion music. Not half as silly as it sounds. There is the most wonderful sense of freedom, abandonment and experimentation on this record - and yet it is all so exquisitely marshalled into shape.

14. missy elliott – under construction
Back to her hip-hop block party roots, and all that (you've read the reviews, right?) Just the sort of re-connection that hip-hop sorely needs, if you ask me.

15. city rockers present futurism vol.1
A monument to all that was cool and groovy about electroclash (and there was plenty of it, make no mistake). Most of the genre's top tunes can be found right here.

16. koop – waltz for koop
We don't still call this Acid Jazz, do we? A perfect soundtrack for the early evening cocktail hour.

17. herrmann & kleine – our noise
Leftfield obscurity of the year. Everything that Boards Of Canada's Geogaddi promised to be, but wasn't.

18. doves – the last broadcast
And I don't even like overly earnest Epic Rock! No arguing with this, though.

19. blind boys of alabama – higher ground
Ancient old blues codgers show us all how it's done. Just like they did the previous year, in fact.

20. youssou n’dour – nothing’s in vain
Diluted with commercial Western influences, you say? Well - yes, I can see that. Still bloody good, though. Unfairly dismissed by the self-appointed world music cognoscenti, in my humble opinion.

21. lambchop – is a woman
22. beck – sea change
23. cornershop – handcream for a generation
24. joni mitchell – travelogue
25. beth gibbons & rustin' man – out of season
26. fc kahuna – machine says yes
27. groove armada – another late night
28. warchild: 1 love
29. a late junction compilation vol.1
30. orchestre baobab – specialist in all styles

Bubbling under:
chemical brothers – come with us
death in vegas – scorpio rising
flaming lips – yoshimi battles the pink robots
groove armada – lovebox
masters at work – our time is coming
mum – finally we are no one
my computer – vulnerabilia
norah jones – come away with me
pet shop boys – release
sigur ros – ()
soft cell – cruelty without beauty
thievery corporation – the richest man in babylon
underworld – a hundred days off

Delayed but played:
angie stone – mahogany soul
black rebel motorcycle club – b.r.m.c.
blind boys of alabama – spirit of the century
fischerspooner – #1
ladytron – 604
shuggie otis – inspiration information
susheela raman – salt rain

Disappointments:
boards of canada – geogaddi
wilco – yankee hotel foxtrot

Dud:
india.arie – voyage to india

Note that these have been chosen just as much for personal, sentimental, soundtrack-to-my-life reasons as they have been for objective, music-critic, landmarks-in-the-evolving-history-of-pop reasons. Because, at the end of the day, these are singles. That's how they work.

1. the streets – weak become heroes
2. doves – there goes the fear
3. pet shop boys – home and dry
4. sugababes – freak like me
5. x-press 2 featuring david byrne – lazy
6. narcotic thrust – safe from harm
7. pink – family portrait
8. david bowie – everyone says ‘hi’
9. missy elliott – work it
10. db boulevard – point of view
11. truth hurts featuring rakim – addictive
12. shakira – wherever, whenever
13. angie stone – wish i didn’t miss you
14. queens of the stone age – no one knows
15. fischerspooner – emerge
16. doves - pounding
17. sugababes – round round
18. manic street preachers – there by the grace of god
19. frou frou – breathe in
20. tweet – oops (oh my)
21. belle lawrence – evergreen
22. ms. dynamite – dy-na-mi-tee
23. beyoncι – work it out
24. underworld –two months off
25. mull historical society – watching xanadu
26. aaliyah – more than a woman
27. brandy – what about us
28. bright eyes – lover i don’t have to love
29. the coral - goodbye
30. jakatta featuring seal – my vision
31. cornershop – lessons learned from rocky i to rocky iii
32. dj shadow – you can’t go home again
33. who da funk featuring jessica eve – shiny disco balls
34. layo & bushwacka! – love story
35. puretone – addicted to bass
36. chemical brothers – star guitar
37. badly drawn boy – silent sigh
38. the coral – dreaming of you
39. my computer – vulnerabilia
40. the bellrays – they glued your head on upside down

Bubbling under:
alizee – moi…lolita
the d4 – party
liberty x – just a little
justin timberlake – like i love you

Worst single of the year:
atomic kitten – the tide is high

Note that reviews of a lot of these gigs can be found by following the links from the we saw... (live reviews) section on my sidebar.

1. Le Tigre / Valerie
Attitudinous, shouty, colourful, eloquent, angry, groovy, cool, sussed, delirious, provocative, visual, inspirational, timeless/contemporary, femino-punk heaven. As perfect a gig as anyone could ever wish for. What's more, Kathleen Hanna seemed to think the same way. We all struck it lucky that night.

2. Kevin Ayers
Some old heroes actually won't let you down. More than made up for the disappointment of 22 years ago. Great guitarist he's got with him these days.

3. Brian Wilson
Despite some early wobbles, this is a concert that - in my memory of it - has steadily grown in stature ever since. Always a good sign. And he played Pet Sounds in full, and I ask you: what could be better than that?

4. Neil Diamond
A masterclass in how to work an arena crowd. The most extraordinary synergy between performer and audience that I have ever seen.

5. Patti Smith
Age has not dimmed her. Incandescent, righteous stuff.

6. Groove Armada / Dirty Vegas
Groove Armada smash up the coffee table and get back to their dance roots. If only their new album had sounded half this good. Dirty Vegas: best received support act of the year.

7. The Bellrays / The D4
Rock. And. F***ing. Roll!!!

8. Doves / The Coral / Athlete
While the much anticipated Coral mostly disappointed, the previously dismissed Doves had me converted in a trice. Best set opening of the year (Pounding, There Goes The Fear). So good that I even moshed - and I do not mosh. Oh, and we liked Athlete. Nice boys.

9. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
The Jesus And Mary Chain re-incarnated. Actually, I remember very few details from this gig. Which is sometimes the best indication.

10. Butterflies Of Love / Tompaulin / The Chemistry Experiment
And the same thing applies for the Butterflies. Soundtrack to a damned good piss-up, essentially.

11. Richard Ashcroft
First half: pleasant, competent, somewhat dull. Second half: just stunning. Best vocal performance of the year.

12. The Streets / Blackalicious
Mike Skinner makes it all look so deceptively easy. Much sharper than he likes to pretend he is.

13. Kylie Minogue
And she even reached all the right notes, bless her! Spectacle of the year. If only we had danced a bit more.

14. Oasis
This one was all about the crowd. Plus, Liam was born to sing My Generation. He may be a twat, but he still makes a damned good rock star.

15. The Libertines
Full on! An unstoppable force of nature. Shortest set of the year. Not a minute wasted.

16. Badly Drawn Boy
Surprisingly charming. Longest set of the year. Not a minute wasted.

17. Pulp
In Sherwood Forest, no less. Will we ever see their like again?

18. The Musical Box
Genesis tribute band! Oh yes! That Selling England By The Pound tour in full! Yougoddaproblemwiddatorsumpin?

19. Pet Shop Boys
Real instruments! Musicianly values! No dancers! The occasional faint glimpses of emotion! Whatever next?

20. Manic Street Preachers / Ian Brown
The Manics started brilliantly, sagged badly, then rallied just in time. Ian Brown is an arrogant, talentless wanker with no singing voice whatsoever, and turned in by far the worst performance of the year.

Honorary Mentions:

Damo Suzuki’s Network / The Telescopes
Hours and hours of densely improvised goobeldygook which trod a fine line between genius and tedium. And he hugged us! Each and every one!

Mudhoney / The Alchemysts / The Catheters
Skull-crushingly heavy. Not Really My Thing, but plenty of good reasons for being plenty of other people's Thing.

J Mascis
Amazing guitar work and all that, BUT I COULDN'T BLOODY SEE ANYTHING!

Duds:

The Thrills
The next big thing? With the amount of money that is being spent on them, this is entirely possible, I'm afraid. Some undeniably great hooks, but minimal stage presence, communication or (most fatally of all) passion. Careerists through and through. Looked like they were quickly, grudgingly "paying their dues" before that all-important Glastonbury tea-time slot next summer (er, whoops!)

Beth Orton / Ed Harcourt
Suffocatingly one-dimensional niceness without end.

Bryan Ferry
Just another day at the office, was it?

Alicia Keys
Oh dear, she's gone Pop. And stretched every number out to ten minutes plus. Woefully short on focus and...you know...Soul?

This is my entry to The Mayfly Project, which invites you to sum up your 2002 in twenty words. Make of it what you will. But bear in mind that I ended up opting for comprehensiveness over comprehensibility. There simply wasn't room for both.

confidence / consolidation / discovery / epiphany / estrangement.

eurovision / fortieth / fulfilment / gigging / ker-ching.

overwork / resolution / rvt / support / uncertainty.

underwork / unsettlement / validation / vietnam / weblog.

...I should have said:

I don't have e-mail access out here in the wilds of rural Derbyshire - just K's web-enabled laptop, with its irritatingly pinched little excuse for a keyboard. So if you have e-mailed me in the last week or so, and are wondering why I haven't replied, that's your reason. I'll next be checking my e-mail on Wednesday night, and will get back to you after then.

Christmas just isn't our time of year. Never has been. Probably never will be.

I started off by contracting a nasty little bug (aches & pains, fatigue, swollen glands, scattershot snot), accompanied by my worst bout of the blues in over three years. I was not the best of company, shall we say. There was also the embarrassment of phoning into work sick for the two days before Christmas. (Well, what would you think?)

Both the bug and the blues were flushed away by means of a marathon Session on Christmas Eve (with K, his sister and her boyfriend), which lasted until around 3.30 a.m. on Christmas morning. Unfortunately, this also served to trigger K's even nastier bug (all of the above symptoms, plus nausea, sickness and diarrhoea), which kicked in just in time for Christmas lunch (a meal which he was only able to prepare by having regular lie-downs upstairs, in order to get away from the stench of the cooking). Although Christmas lunch was still the customary culinary (and oenological) triumph - the result of many days' careful preparation - K was barely able to eat a morsel of it. The four of us concluded the day by slumping, zombified, in front of the telly. I have never watched an entire episode of Emmerdale before - still less an hour-long Christmas special - and I trust I shall never have that dubious pleasure again.

Some nice presents, though. I have been particularly enjoying the four world music CDs which K ordered for me - a result of many hours of careful and clandestine research during the autumn (Late Junction, the Radio 3 World Music Awards, and Amazon sound samples). I hadn't even heard of three of them before - a rare role reversal, and a mark of K's considerable achievement.

The Boxing Day walk - through Milldale and Beresford Dale - was cut short by a surfeit of mud, a lack of proper walking shoes, and the vicissitudes of K's digestive system.

Friday's excursion - all the way to Barnsley to buy designer clothing, and yes, you did hear me right - was much more successful. There is a shop in the middle of Barnsley called Pollyanna, which specialises in uncompromising High Fashion from the likes of Yohji Yamamoto, Issey Miyake and Comme Des Garcons. Long established, with low overheads (this being Barnsley), and situated within easy reach of Sheffield and Leeds, it has become an unlikely fashion Mecca, attracting a rather older and artsier clientele than most. This is not clothing designed to make stick-thin youths look sexy (Pollyanna's waist sizes for men only start at 32 inches). Nor is it clothing designed with label-flaunting ostentation in mind. Rather, it is the continuation of a sensibility which tends to be rather overlooked these days - clothing as artistic statement, made to the highest standards of craftsmanship, and sitting more or less outside the vagaries of season-dominated trends. "It's above fashion! It's beyond fashion!", we cooed, as we pulled baffling skeins of boiled wool and shredded cotton off their hangers and tried to work out what possible relationship they might have to the human body.

Being strictly a "classics-with-a-twist" Paul Smith kinda guy, I had expected to be the only one of the four of us to emerge from the shop empty-handed. Not so. I ended up with a beautiful and voluminous white cotton Yohji shirt (my first new shirt since July, an all-time record), which managed subtly to redefine the entire shape of my upper body: broader shoulders, wider arms, a stronger back and an invisible stomach. Thank you, Yamamoto-san! However, the shirt looked all wrong with my suddenly very tired looking Diesel jeans - and spectacularly right when teamed up with an unutterably gorgeous new pair of Martin Margiela jeans in a heavy, dark denim. Which in turn simply demanded a new belt - my first new belt in about seven years - a hand-painted Yohji creation with two rows of large circular holes running all the way round it. And as everything in the shop was 30% off, and as the starting prices were lower than normal anyway, the whole ensemble worked out a good deal cheaper than you might think.

K ended up with a rather extreme looking, and quite fantastic, Issey Miyake shirt-and-trousers combo. After strutting backwards and forwards a few times around the cafe area (as the rest of us sipped our lattes and made encouraging noises), he came to rest in front of a full-length mirror and declared, in a loud voice, "I'm just not sure I have the confidence to wear this." Quick as a flash, the shop's owner retorted, "Ah, but only someone with bags of confidence would even have said that in the first place." A good point, and a sale made.

K's sister and her boyfriend went home with an ornamental bowl from a range in the store's "Lifestyle" section. The design was so strikingly similar to some bowls that we had drooled over in Hanoi over the summer, that we naturally assumed that an English designer had gone out there, spotted them, come back and ripped off the design for a vastly inflated price. Not so. Pollyanna import them directly from Vietnam once a year, and charge remarkably modestly for them. In stark contrast to the £1800 pair of Yohji jeans, whch was proudly extracted from a locked perspex case and laid out for our inspection. Firstly, the jeans had been worn by somebody for a whole year, with repeated washes, so as to achieve the proper sort of tiger-striped fading round the crotch and pale patches round the knees. The jeans were then unstitched, stretched over frames, and hand painted by one of Japan's top kimono artists. This took the form of some brightly coloured, highly detailed and absolutely exquisite floral designs, which wrapped themselves around the lower legs. Pollyanna had imported just two pairs, and had already sold one to a customer in London. Oh, how we gasped! Oh, how we gushed! Oh, how we wondered what possible occasion could warrant the wearing of such a fine garment! Oh, how we hoped that these jeans wouldn't just get flung in the back of some rich git's cupboard after just a couple of wears!

By Saturday - possibly healed by the retail therapy of the previous day - K was almost back to full strength, and so we welcomed our next set of visitors, and their two young daughters, for an evening meal and overnight stay in the cottage. About an hour after their arrival, I started feeling aches and pains in my arms and legs. Next, I started feeling hot and cold all over, as all energy drained from my body. Then came the waves of nausea and sickness. As dinner was served and I walked into the kitchen, I realised that I could not actually stand to be in the same room as the food (a harmless selection of cold cuts and salads). Rapidly excusing myself, I went straight to bed - where I remained for the next 13 hours, save for several urgent dashes to the bathroom.

To be struck down by one bug over the Christmas holiday is unfortunate. To be struck down by two is...well...absolutely bloody typical, in our case. This has happened on more than one occasion in the past, the worst of all being the Millennium holiday period, which saw both of us confined to bed for the best part of a week. Like I said: not our time of year.

By Sunday morning, K had also relapsed. "I'm back to Square One!", he groaned, as I struggled into my dressing gown and attempted to compose myself in readiness for our house guests.

Since then, we have eaten nothing but canned soup and dry bread - as all around us, vast quantities of Christmas Treat food slowly, scandalously, heartbreakingly decomposes around us. Although we have stalwartly turned this forced inactivity to our best advantage, occupying ourselves with videos, music, and even (gasp!) books. Yes! I have actually resorted to picking up a proper Book for the first time in I-don't-know-how-long! It's a collection of essays by P.J.O'Rourke called The CEO Of The Sofa, which I received as a birthday present all the way back in February, and - although sometimes requiring more detailed knowledge of US economics and politics than I have at my disposal - it is regularly reducing me to helpless, hysterical sniggering fits. Which, in my current condition, can only be a Good Thing.

D'you know: I had only intended to write a couple of "normal service will be resumed shortly" holding sentences. And now look at me! Why, I must be on the mend after all. Praise the Lord and pass the Cock-A-Leekie!