N.I.C.E. Vinyl #7: Alan Braxe - Vertigo

Haven't done one of these in a long time and I thought "why not?", so here is a great 12" from 1997 on the Roule label. The Virgo Edit was created by Braxe and Thomas Bangalter, a fellow many people might know better as one half of Daft Punk. The original version is good but the Virgo Edit is what you should get this for. It's amazingly pumped-up and will get people freaking out in a heartbeat! Enjoy.


Alan Braxe - Vertigo

FLAC
V0 MP3

01 Vertigo
02 Vertigo (Virgo Edit)

N.I.C.E. Vinyl #6: LL Cool J

LL Cool J's I Need A Beat was the very first release on Def Jam back in 1984, that is if you're not counting T La Rock and Jazzy Jay's It's Yours which was a joint release with Partytime the same year. It's a Rick Rubin production as all the earliest Def Jam singles were and while LL is in his early, pre-Radio form, he still manages to rock the bells and keep the crowd moving. This track also gets a co-writing credit from one A. Horovitz, aka Adrock of the Beastie Boys, although his name was strangely removed from the track's credits on Radio. The story I've heard is that Rick Rubin was already getting a little power hungry and decided half of the credit looked a lot better than a third. Of course, it could also have been to establish LL's reputation as an MC and the writer of his own rhymes, but I'm more likely to believe the latter story as Rubin's abuse of his relationship with the Beasties is legendary, especially since they contributed more to the start of Def Jam than they ever receive credit for.

This is the original version of I Need A Beat, as opposed to the version which appears on Radio which is a remix by Jazzy Jay, although it only notes that on the album's inner sleeve. You might have to listen with headphones to notice the beat has been tuned to LL's voice. The credits read "Reduced by Rick Rubin" and list J. Burzootie as the mix engineer. Burzootie also gets credit for a remix on the b-side. Herb Powers gets the mastering credit and the vinyl sounds like a million bucks! There is also a message in the runout groove from Herb, listed there as Herbie Jr., which states "You think this is f____d up, it's gonna get worse".

This and the MCA and Burzootie record, Drum Machine, are both on my dream list of vinyl to own, so I was totally shocked when I came upon this record the other day for a buck or two, and it's an original 1984 pressing to boot! Since I'm still lacking in the employment field at the moment I have made a conscious decision not to spend any money on entertainment, but with the holidays having just passed, me having a little extra cash in the pocket and knowing where I could snag a copy of the Graffiti Bridge soundtrack on vinyl, I decided to drop into a little shop in Kent called, I believe, The Vinyl Exchange. Nice shop, good selection, and lots of expensive rarities all along the walls, though there is a ridiculous section of cheap dance 12"s from the seventies through the nineties in the back of the store and I found this, along with some stuff from Wang Chung, Junior, Greg Phillinganes and Blowfly in that section for a total of less than ten dollars. The Graffiti Bridge vinyl, which is in great shape, was nine dollars and they wouldn't run the transaction on my card for less than ten so I went digging. I thought about posting the Blowfly 12", Rapp Dirty, for which the b-side, Blowfly's Rapp, is legendary, but I was legitimately afraid I'd offend someone, so if people want me to post that let me know. As for the rest of the stuff mentioned, there will be some more vinyl posted in the near future as well as some stuff I've been sitting on.

One important thing to note about this rip, while the vinyl is old and a little beat up it still played rather well, but I didn't bother with manual declicking and used iZotope RX's excellent declicking software. I just didn't want to sit around for an hour and half watching for clicks. As I've said before, all praise to PBthal and the other vinyl ripping geniuses, but I'm definitely not on their level! Enjoy!


LL Cool J - I Need A Beat

FLAC

V0 MP3

01 I Need A Beat (Vocal)
02 I Need A Beat (Zootie Mix)
03 I Need A Beat (Instrumental)

N.I.C.E. Vinyl #5: The Rapture

It's been about eight years since this was released and three or four years since anything of real substance has been issued by The Rapture, but they're still going strong, working on their third full-length with Zdar of Cassius and hopefully picking up right where they left off. This though, this is the sound of DFA Records coming to life and everything changing. The dance/punk sound, so popular in the earlier part of this decade, along with the so-called "electroclash" genre, was coming from James Murphy, Tim Goldsworthy and their friends in The Rapture and other collaborators. This almost didn't come out though, as an argument between the band and their producers had stalled otherwise noteworthy progress which included their mostly finished full-length debut, Echoes. Luckily, whatever the cause of the feud, it was resolved peacefully and House Of Jealous Lovers finally saw release. It was the first record on the DFA label and was quite a success, eventually seeing reissue as a single upon the release of Echoes the next year, but the original single was a special release that doesn't seem to have been given a proper digital issue. The original version of House appeared on the DFA Compilation #1 as did it's b-side, the dub flavored Silent Morning, and House appeared on Echoes with a slightly altered intro, but the Morgan Geist Version appeared only on the 12" and a rare promotional CD. Geist, also of Metro Area, dropped all the vocals and added trumpet courtesy of James Duncan, taking the song from a dance floor destroyer to a slightly mellower jam that could fit nicely in the middle of an intense dj set or mix. I can't go into words well enough to describe how wonderful and classy Geist's version of House is other than to say it's easily one of my favorite remixes of all time, somewhere in an unwritten top ten. The original is utterly incredible, but the remix is just as strong in every way, which is incredible for something that sounds as if it were effortless. All I can say is that you should grab this without hesitation, put it on your iPod, burn it to a CD-R or whatever and go driving on the nearest highway with the first two tracks on replay for about twenty minutes. Silent Morning is something of a downer that was gladly left off the album, but on it's own it isn't that bad, it just doesn't hold a candle to House or anything off of Echoes. Afterward, get Echoes and continue the madness. So what are you waiting for? Download this and rock it!


The Rapture - House Of Jealous Lovers

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V0 MP3

01 House Of Jealous Lovers (Original)
02 House Of Jealous Lovers (Morgan Geist Version)
03 Silent Morning

N.I.C.E. Vinyl #5: Maggie's Dream vs. The Dust Brothers

Yesterday I saw that a nice fellow named Bill left a comment regarding a mixtape I'd posted a while ago. He was happy to hear the Dust Brothers remix for Maggie's Dream's It's A Sin and said it would be nice if I could post the rest of the mixes. Well here they are, ripped freshly today and available in FLAC and V0 MP3 for your listening pleasure.

To give you a little background on Maggie's Dream, they were a band led by Dräco Rosa, an ex-member of Menudo and a very popular star in the Latin Alternative music scene. Their sole album was released in 1990 on Capitol Records and a single for It's A Sin was also released. Dräco is still around and kicking today but Maggie's Dream seems to be long gone. Too bad, but they made damn good music when they were around and It's A Sin is some fine stuff. This 12" was a promotional only item with five different mixes by The Dust Brothers, although two of them are just edits. None of the mixes are all that different from each other but they're all here for the sake of posterity. Enjoy!


Maggie's Dream
It's A Sin (Dust Brothers Remixes)

FLAC Part 1

FLAC Part 2

V0 MP3

01 It's A Sin (Hot Peas 'n Butter Mix) (edited version)
02 It's A Sin (Hot Peas 'n Butter Mix) (long version)
03 It's A Sin (Jimmy D. Is In The House Mix) (instrumental long version)
04 It's A Sin (11th Avenue Mix) (long and hard)
05 It's A Sin (11th Avenue Mix) (not so long)
06 It's A Sin (Album Version)
07 It's A Sin (Acappella Mix)


PS - Sorry I haven't responded to any e-mails. I'll be writing everyone back later tonight.

N.I.C.E. Vinyl #4

This is a rip from the 2010 US vinyl reissue of Refused's The Shape Of Punk To Come. This version was prepared for double vinyl and given a new mastering, unlike the recent CD reissue of the album which uses the same master as all previous CD issues. The CD version of the album, in my humble opinion, sounds wonderful, with the compression and clarity of the recording helping with the band's full blown onslaught, but the vinyl is notably different. It's more raw, to my ears sounding like an eighties hardcore/punk record, although I'd love to hear what everyone else thinks it sounds like. Anyway, without going into some deeper analysis, give it a listen and you'll see what I mean. It's also worth noting that apart from this version, the only other version of the album that was given a different mastering job was the DVD-Audio release, for which a different master was prepared for both the stereo mix, which is the same mix used on the CD, and the 5.1 remix.

It's funny listening to this version because I didn't enjoy it initially. I had made a rip of it and put it on my iPod only to assume the vinyl must have been of lackluster quality. I later went back to the raw files for that same rip only to find it sounded a lot better than I remembered. Pretty strange.

You will hear some surface noise as well as some pops and clicks on this rip, but none of that should interfere with your enjoyment of the album. I made a point not to do much declicking on this album because I thought it sounded great already. And if you don't have a turntable but would like the vinyl anyway, it comes with the documentary DVD, Refused Are Fucking Dead, and a download code for the album which I believe includes the live set from the CD reissue. The live set doesn't sound so great to me and I haven't been back to it more than once since buying the CD version, but the DVD is great and filled with much better sounding live performances. It's very much worth the purchase. Enjoy!


Refused - The Shape Of Punk To Come
2010 Epitaph Double Vinyl Reissue

UPDATE: Okay, in a moment of utter stupidity as I'm used to regarding some of the more bizarre DMCA take downs I've seen, this post got reported and I pulled down the links, only to find someone reported it again, despite a message being placed here noting that the links had been removed. Who the fuck reports posts without actually examining them? Is this like when some asshole reported my post about Neil Young's Le Noise despite the fact I wasn't sharing any links from the album? Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with some people. Are the labels so desperate to protect their interests that they'll kill positive posts about records that don't contain download links without reading them? Whatever the case, they need to wise up! Regardless of that little rant though, this album is available for purchase and I respect the labels not wanting their content shared for free, even if this version of the album is only available on vinyl. I respect Epitaph, Burning Heart and Refused far too much to ever fuck them over so, if you guys are reading this, none of the above vitriol is directed towards you, it's only for the folks who seem to think reporting every story they don't like based solely upon it's title is a wise decision. And so, with that, the links are gone and won't be going back up for this post. Sorry guys, but I've gotta respect the wishes of the artists and the labels. Support independent musicians, labels and record stores as well as any artists or musicians whose works you love!

01 Worms of the senses / Faculties of the skull
02 Liberation frequency
03 The deadly rythm
04 Summerholidays Vs. Punkroutine
05 Bruitist Pome #5
06 New noise
07 The Refused Party program
08 Protest song '68
09 Refused are fuckin dead
10 The shape of punk to come
11 Tannhäuser / Derivè
12 The Apollo programme was a hoax

N.I.C.E. Vinyl #3: Steinki and Mass Media

When Steinski put out his excellent career retrospective, What Does It All Mean?, a few years ago, one of the first things everyone asked is why We'll Be Right Back and Let's Play It Cool, two singles he recorded for 4th & Broadway in the mid to late eighties, weren't included. He later said that he couldn't clear those records and knew there would be issues if he tried to include them on the comp. For a record on illegal art with the infamous History Lesson mixes, tracks which have never been cleared for legal release prior but are available on that comp for the first time outside of a promotional issue, that seems a little odd, but who knows what the true issues at hand were. Steinski has always remained friendly with the Tommy Boy and Ninja Tune people, but does 4th & Broadway even still exist? Anyway, I've had original US twelve inches of both of those singles for a while and I wanted to share them so here they are.

We'll Be Right Back is Steinski's ode to advertising and commercials, the field he works primarily in, and features tons of samples from varying sources, although I remember hearing some if not all of them may have been recorded specifically for the record. Let's Play It Cool is more of a streamlined version of the History Lessons with an emphasis on dance floor mastery. I remember hearing We'll Be Right Back on Open House Party and some other mix shows, but I'd never heard Let's Play It Cool before getting the record. It's fun but a bit dated, definitely not on par with Steinski's other releases. We'll Be Right Back, on the other hand, definitely sounds dated if not a little cheesy but it's got a charm to it that makes it irresistible. If the samples were indeed re-recorded for the release, I'd love to hear the tapes as I bet they're a ton of fun.

If you haven't gotten What Does It All Mean? yet, it's still available for download and purchase at illegal art's website. Like all of their releases, you can get it as 320kbps MP3s for free, FLAC or MP3s with liner notes for $5 dollars (!) and the double CD is $13 dollars with an immediate download. It's well worth your time, especially if you love the History Lessons or the other projects Steinski has been involved with, and the liner notes are very detailed and well written. I'd suggest the $5 dollar version myself, but that free 320kbps MP3 is there if you need convincing first. But make sure you grab the downloads here too. Steinski would have included them if he could have and they are just as important to his career as anything else he has released. Enjoy!


Steinski & Mass Media - We'll Be Right Back

FLAC

V0 MP3

01 We'll Be Right Back (Club Edit)
02 We'll Be Right Back (Radio Edit)
03 We'll Be Right Back (Dub Version)
04 We'll Be Right Back (Bonus Beats)


Steinski & Mass Media - Let's Play It Cool

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V0 MP3

01 Let's Play It Cool (Club Edit)
02 Let's Play It Cool (Instrumental)
03 Let's Play It Cool (Hippieboy's Jungle Mix)
04 Let's Play It Cool (Acapella)


PS - It's worth noting that DJ "Sugar" Kane gets a featured credit on Let's Play It Cool but there is practically no scratching on that record. He does share the production credit on the song but Steinski gets the full writing credit.

PS2 - Wicker furniture FTW!!!

N.I.C.E. Vinyl #2

In 1991 I was obsessed with The Shamen's Move Any Mountain. It was a pretty big hit in the US and UK and I just couldn't get enough of it. I bought the cassette single, the CD Maxi-Single and the album, En-Tact, from which the song originated. This was all in the US and I've always gotten the impression there was some kind of breakdown in communication between the folks managing the release in this country as opposed to the UK. Years later, after having heard the original version of En-Tact, I can verify this is true, but my biggest issue with all this Mountain madness was that I couldn't find the extended version of the album mix, labeled the Beat Edit on the single as it was remixed by The Beatmasters. I went hunting for years, finding promo CDs, promo cassettes from the Sony release network and the US 12" single, only to never find anything more than a dub version credited to The Beatmasters that, while cool, didn't fulfill the promise of an extended version. My brother hated this song and mocked it constantly so I'm sure there was some kind of karmic prize he won for it's non-discovery.

Anyway, a few months ago I found out about the CD version of Progeny, a compilation of Move Any Mountain remixes released only in the UK that actually charted as an album because of it's length. I managed to download a copy of the CD but also read about the vinyl edition, a triple 12" affair with thirteen different mixes, six edits and sixteen samples so one could create their own mixes. Everything from the Progeny CD was included on the vinyl version and the samples and several of the mixes had been released elsewhere, but there were tracks there I'd never seen anywhere else and I was floored by the idea of actually owning that vinyl set, although I figured the chances of me finding a copy of a triple-vinyl, UK only remix compilation from almost twenty years ago in a shop remotely close to me was impossible. Silly me! I walked into Kent's Spin More Records looking for Tom Verlaine on vinyl and found a copy of the triple-vinyl for under twenty bucks! How crazy is that?

For your listening pleasure, I have transferred the entire compilation which is just over an hour and forty minutes long and manually declicked the living hell out of it. That's not to say it's click or pop free, but it's better than my initial unedited rip. All six sides are featured below as individual downloads in lossless FLAC and the entire thing can be grabbed in one RAR as V0 MP3s. As for remix details, a track list follows below with all of that information. Hope you enjoy!


The Shamen - Progeny

Side 1 FLAC

Side 2 FLAC

Side 3 FLAC

Side 4 FLAC

Side 5 FLAC

Side 6 FLAC

All Sides V0 MP3


Side 1:
01 Bang To The Beat Of The Drum
Mixed by 'Evil' Ed and Bryan 'Chuck' New

02 Beltram Dub
Reproduced, Remixed & Edited by Joey Beltram. Recorded & Programmed by Tommy Musto at N.C.P. New York.

03 Rising High Dub
Remixed by Caspar Pound for Rising High Productions, additional overdubs by Lex Blackmore, engineered by Serge Glanzberg at F2 Studios.


Side 2:
04 Alta Vista
Mixed by F. Troop (Colin Shamen, Caspar 'Hippy' Pound, Pete Smith).

05 The Prelude To Paradise Mix
Produced, Remixed & Edited by Frankie Bones. Recorded & Programmed by Tommy Musto at N.C.P. New York.

06 666 Edit
Additional Production & Remix by 'Evil' Eddie Richards for Dy-Na-Mix. Recorded at BAAD! Studio, M.K. Edited entirely with the use of a customized potato peeler.


Side 3:
07 Land Of Oz
Mixed by Paul Oakenfold for Spectrum Sounds. Engineered by Steve Osborne.

08 Beatmasters Dub
Mix & Additional Production by The Beatmasters. Engineered by James Reynolds.

09 The Bones Break Mastermix
Reproduced, Remixed & Edited by Frankie Bones. Recorded & Programmed by Tommy Musto at N.C.P. New York.


Side 4:
10 Beltram Vox
Reproduced, Remixes & Edited by Joey Beltram. Recorded & Programmed by Tommy Musto at N.C.P. New York.

11 Landslide Vox
Remixed by The Kid with John for Chromium Management. Engineered by Kevin White at Rollover Studios.

12 Rude
Remixed by The Goat for Well Hung Parliament Productions.

13 C Mix
Mix by Mr. C, Colin Shamen. Engineered by Ian Tregoning for Memphis P.


Side 5:
14 Beat Edit
Mix & Additional Production by The Beatmasters. Engineered by Steve Osborne.

15 Rude Edit
Remixed by The Goat for The Well Hung Parliament.

16 Landslide Edit
Remixed by The Kid with John for Chromium Management. Engineered by Kevin White at Rollover Studios. Edited by The Kid and John

17 F. Troop Edit
Mixed by F. Troop (Colin Shamen, Caspar 'Hippy' Pound, Pete Smith). Edited by Mads Bjerke.


Side 6:
18 Oz Edit
Mixed by Paul Oakenfold for Spectrum Sounds. Engineered by Steve Osborne. Edited by Mads Bjerke.

19 Bang Edit
Mixed by 'Evil' Ed & Bryan 'Chuck' New. Edited by Mads Bjerke.

SAMPLES:
20 Bass
21 Trumpets
22 Guitars
23 Keyboards
24 Sax
25 Oz Loop
26 Beltram Loop
27 Devil Loop
28 MAM Lo Vox
29 MAM Hi Vox
30 MAM Harmony
31 Monkeys
32 Bang To The Beat Vox
33 No 1 Vox
34 C. Rap
35 Colin Rap


PS - Why does Paul Oakenfold get so much props? I've always thought he sucked. Maybe he was a good A&R but tracks and remixes are all shit.

all hell breaks loose!!!: N.I.C.E. Vinyl #1

Hello again everybody! Before I go any further, if you wrote me and I haven't responded yet, please give me a little more time as I will be replying to all my e-mails shortly. Writing on a BlackBerry sucks. Anyway, a ton has happened. I got a new place, all the important stuff is moved in and installed, and I got fired from the job I've done more or less for the last nine years over some shit I really didn't have anything to do with. Totally SUCKS. So I'm looking for work as I write this but I don't think that will interfere with the site. With that said, I've got a lot of stuff I'll be posting over the next few days but first I want to roll out a new feature called N.I.C.E. Vinyl. The acronym stands for Nightmare Induction Ceremony Excerpt, and doesn't mean anything other than manual declicking is a bitch. Whenever you see a post with N.I.C.E. Vinyl in the title, that post will feature a vinyl rip from my collection available for download as a 16 Bit FLAC and a V0 MP3. There is no specific schedule as to when these will appear nor is there a method as to what is chosen other than the content having to be awesome and not readily available through general channels. Even more so, I want to make it clear that I am in no way on the same level as folks like PBthal, aksman, Kel Bazar or any of the other brilliant vinyl rippers out there. My setup is quite good but it's nowhere as nice as any of theirs and I will not pretend it is. And with that mention, it's about time I explain the details of my setup and these rips.

I have a Technics Quartz SL-QD33 automatic turntable with a Shure M99E cartridge. Unless otherwise noted, this is the turntable I use for all my vinyl rips. I use a BBE Phono Preamp which I run through a Creative X-Fi USB soundcard. All my rips are recorded at 96khz in 24 Bit via SoundForge. Unless otherwise noted I perform all declicking manually which means you may find some pops and clicks from time to time, although I pride myself on removing the really big or problems noises. Afterward, I resample all files to 44.1khz and convert the Bit rate to 16 Bits via SoundForge. These wave files are then converted to FLAC and V0 MP3 via foobar2000 which I also use to add tags. The files are then added to .RAR files with additional recovery data always included.

Now, if you read that and thought to yourself "Hmmm, does this mean that he keeps the 24 Bit versions as well? Will he share them here?", the answers are yes and no. Yes, I always keep the original 24 Bit files which are what the 16 Bit versions will always be derived from but no, I won't be sharing them, at least not here. Rather, I have a buddy named Trey who will be uploading those rips to a certain private tracker. What tracker might that be??? I'm sure you can figure that out, although he or myself may also occasionally share them at the green demon's place.

Please feel free to share my rips if you want to, just give me credit if you're posting them on other blogs or trackers and include my ripping setup info if possible. Here though, I will never include the name of the record I've ripped in the title of the post just in case anyone wanted to remove it if they found it via a google search. I know, that sucks, but I hate to spend all that time uploading a vinyl rip only to have to do it again. So if you want to cut through the crap, just click on the label/tag for N.I.C.E. Vinyl below which will be included with every one of these types of posts. For now though, let's get on to the music in question.

Today's post is one I've never seen anywhere online, at least not in lossless format and not from a transcoded source. It is My Bloody Valentine's Glider EP Remixes 12" and contains Andrew Weatherall's remix of Soon and Kevin Shields' long version of Glider. The Weatherall remix has been released digitally on several occasions but this is the only official source of the long version of Glider, a downright unforgivable oversight on someone's part. It's ten minutes of feedback loops that will send you to the edge of the universe and back. Totally incredible!

I did very little declicking on Soon but did a lot of work on the intro and outro of Glider. There is still a lot of vinyl noise on Glider though, although it's not terribly annoying and sounds a lot better than it used to. If you can do a better job of declicking my rip, please feel free to do so, but I'd love to hear from you afterward and check out your version so let me know. Otherwise, I've normalized each side to -.25 decibels and there was absolutely no clipping on the rip (I generally rip my vinyl at around -4 or -5 decibels and normalize the individual sides afterward before chopping them into individual tracks) so the only additional noise you'll hear is from the record itself. Please let me know what you think and I hope you enjoy!


My Bloody Valentine - Glider EP Remixes

FLAC

V0 MP3

01 The Andrew Weatherall Mix
02 Glider


PS - Someone was telling me I should get a FaceBook page for the site but I don't know what the benefit would be. Any opinions?