Erlend Øye - DJ-KiCKS (Original Version)

Erlend Øye is best known as one half of Kings Of Convenience and the leader of The Whitest Boy Alive, but he has also worked with a number of producers and written some wonderful music on his own. His only solo album to date appeared in 2003, named Unrest, and featured a number of collaborations with electronic musicians like Morgan Geist, Prefuse 73, Schneider TM and many more, although their productions were far more relaxed than their traditional output to fit with his style.

Shortly after the success of Unrest, the Studio !K7 label approached Øye to produce a mix for their DJ-KiCKS series, though Øye felt his mixing skills were not good enough for such a project and decided to take a different approach. Receiving assistance on the mixing side from producer Phonique, Øye chose the songs and added a truly unique touch to the collection by singing a cappella over several of the songs, making it almost as much an Erlend Øye solo album as a DJ mix. Add to that the overall vibe of the mix, European minimal techno that sounds of the eighties while remaining current rather than nostalgic, and Øye's mix is a fast classic. It's something you can dance with but just as easily relax to at home or wash the dishes to. It's living music.

Prior to Øye's DJ-KiCKS compilation's release, promos were sent out specifying that a song by The Rapture had not been cleared yet and that the final track would feature Øye performing an a cappella rendition of Feist's then unreleased song, Intuition, over Ada's Luckycharm. The notes didn't specify that the Luckycharm/Intution medley wasn't cleared but something must have went significantly wrong as it was dropped from the final release of the album. As great as the released mix is, it was a beautiful ending sadly muted from the final release.

Prior to the album's release, while surfing a budget bin in a used record store, a copy of the mix appeared to me and I grabbed it, assuming it would be the same as the soon to be released final version. Guess I got lucky that day since the version I have has that extra track on it. The mix isn't terribly different without that final track but it's just as wonderful with it, so I figured I'd present it to you for your listening pleasure today. I'm also including an unmastered advance of Øye's Unrest for you to peruse. It features a different track order and a slightly unfinished mix of the Prefuse 73 collaboration, Every Party (Has A Winner and A Loser), but is otherwise mostly the same as the released version. If you enjoy these you should definitely pick up the final, retail versions. Unrest has particularly great artwork and the vinyl issue of Øye's DJ-KiCKS features unmixed versions of several of his a cappella performances from the mix. Wonderful stuff. Enjoy!


Erlend Øye - DJ-KiCKS (Original Version)

01 Jürgen Paape - So Weit Wie Noch Nie
02 Erlend Øye - Sheltered Life (Remix) / Fine Night (A Cappella)
03 Cornelius - Drop (Kings Of Convenience Remix)
04 Phoenix - If I Ever Feel Better
05 Jolly Music - Radio Jolly / Prego Amore (A Cappella)
06 Alan Braxe & Fred Falke - Rubicon
07 Avenue D - 2D2F
08 The Rapture - I Need Your Love
09 Uusi Fantasia - Lattialla Taas / Venus (A Cappella)
10 Justus Köhncke - 2 After 909 / Intergalactic Autobahn (A Cappella)
11 Erlend Øye - The Black Keys Work (Phonique Remix)
12 Jackmate - Airraid
13 Röyksopp - Poor Leno (Silicone Soul's Hypno House Dub) / There Is A Light That Never Goes Out (A Cappella)
14 Skatebård - Metal Chix / Always On My Mind (A Cappella)
15 Ricardo Villalobos - Dexter
16 Minizza - Winning A Battle, Losing The War
17 Morgan Geist - Lullaby / A Place In My Heart (A Cappella)
18 Ada - Luckycharm / Intution (A Cappella)


Erlend Øye - Unrest (early, unmastered version)

01 Ghost Trains (produced by Morgan Geist)
02 Sudden Rush (produced by Kompis)
03 Sheltered Life (produced by Soviet)
04 Prego Amore (produced by Jolly Music)
05 Symptom Of Disease (produced by Mr. Velcro Fastener)
06 The Talk (produced by Bjørn Torske)
07 Every Party (Has A Winner and A Loser) (not final mix) (produced by Prefuse 73)
08 The Athlete (produced by Minizza)
09 A While Ago and Recently (produced by Kilogram)
10 Like Gold (produced by Schneider TM)

Jollymusic - Jollybar

I don't remember what year it was, which only serves to frustrate me further as there is no year listed on the packaging, but I was in a shop run by a very unfriendly person, so unfriendly that I won't mention that shop's name, and he was playing this CD. It was bouncy and catchy, sounding like someone managed to mine the seventies vibe from thrift store records while maintaining a loose theme throughout the grooves. That might not sound terribly original but what stood out was the record wasn't ultra polished or necessarily club ready. It had half-finished musical interludes, people yelling at the DJ in Italian and the general sense that someone was having a lot of fun in their bedroom. Not a recipe for chart-topping sales by any means but certainly memorable. This was Jollymusic, the duo of Francesco De Bellis and Mario Pierro, and the record was the initial release of their debut album, Jollybar.

Jollymusic attracted enough positive attention that Illustrious, a dance extension of Sony UK, came calling with an offer to reissue Jollybar with better distribution. Jollymusic returned to the studio, tweeked the album a bit and it saw reissue under the slightly confusing name, Jolly Bar. Apparently, they felt that since the source material was taken from the original Jollybar album, that the new titled should only be a variation, though that certainly doesn't scream multiplatinum success anywhere that I've been.

This is where the story gets kinda fuzzy because I've read that the revised album didn't see release, but it clearly did and there were several singles issued including a Prefuse 73 remix and appearances from KT Tunstall. You can view details and scans of the packaging on it's discogs reference and while I don't own a physical copy of that reissue I do know people have it as I have a lossless rip myself. Regardless, it's obvious Jollymusic didn't set the world on fire and the duo of De Bellis and Pierro don't seem to have issued anything under the Jollymusic name since 2002, so I think it's safe to say they've hung up their hats on that project, but the music lives on regardless.

This is the original issue of Jollybar from 2000, ripped from my original copy of the album. If you're listening to this and are reminded of Daft Punk, albeit with more of a focus on vinyl and samples than drum machines and synths, that's alright because there is definitely a bit of that same joyful feeling here that permeates throughout Homework. Put this on in the background and it sounds like a million things you've heard yet totally unique. An easy starter for me is the wonderful Joolyo but the whole thing is great. Maybe we'll get lucky and Jollymusic will put something out with a bit better distribution. Enjoy!


Jollymusic - Jollybar

01 Intro
02 Piano
03 Disco Disco
04 Joollyo
05 Les Figalles
06 With Love
07 Talco Uno
08 Drago
09 Crazy Simon
10 Talco Due
11 Kfun
12 Crociera
13 La Dolce Vita
14 Daddy
15 Tape Jam
16 Borotalco
17 Reversi
18 Anicafill
19 Angel