April 2011 Mixtape: Mix For Lucky

This is a break-up mix that I made for someone that doesn't know me but I felt bad about the end of their relationship. They work and live in a field that is not generally accepted by the public and because of that they may be looked at as someone that isn't deserving of love. That's wrong. While I don't know the person in question, they seem to be legitimately good natured and are deserving of love as much as anyone else. So I wanted to make them a break-up/fuck you mix, though who knows if they'll ever hear it or not. Anyway, I think people here will enjoy it, and if you REALLY wanna know the details and who this mix is for you can drop me a line and I'll tell you about it. That said, IT'S NOT ME! Still happily taken by the missus despite the fact I'm an annoyingly obsessive geek that certainly frustrates her to no end, though something tells me she might actually like that about me. Eight years together and she hasn't tried to change me yet, that has to count for something, right? And none of her attempts to take my life have been successful which either means she really loves me or she's lousy with a knife.


The Unheard Music - April 2011 Mixtape: Mix For Lucky

01 Alpha - Over
02 New Order - Blue Monday
03 X - Your Phone's Off The Hook, But You're Not
04 The Staple Singers - Slippery People (Club Mix)
05 Lil Wayne - Show 'Em What You Got
06 Jolly Music - Talco Uno (feat. Erlend Øye)
07 Ween - A Tear For Eddie
08 Glassjaw - Ape Dos Mil
09 Diamanda Galás with John Paul Jones - Do You Take This Man?
10 Aimee Mann - Amateur
11 Amy Winehouse - Tears Dry On Their Own (Al Usher Remix)
12 Elvis Costello & The Attractions - I Hope You're Happy Now
13 The Wrens - They'll Need A Crane
14 Baby Huey & The Babysitters - California Dreamin'
15 Soft Cell - Tainted Love / Where Did Our Love Go? (12" Version)

Phones - Remixes

You've probably heard of Paul Epworth, especially if you've been following the British indie music scene over the last few years. While his reputation has grown, many people are probably unaware of his experience as a remixer for hire under the name Phones. He has described his Phones productions as bad acid house, though I've generally thought it was pretty great stuff regardless of that statement. The acid influence is clear though there is also a healthy dose of skittering beat programming and an unabashed joy of dance music. Phones, at its best, is fun dance music with a mean streak.

Regardless of positive opinions about Phones, Epworth's negative viewpoint regarding his creations were clearly serious as he stated that Phones was dead as of 2008, although he would continue to anonymously remix records. That's a shame as I was genuinely excited whenever I saw a Phones attributed remix, but Epworth left a ridiculous catalog of productions as well as a 10" single with two original Phones tracks, so it's not as though there isn't much to go around. Furthermore, he's still an in demand producer and his productions under his own name, while generally more traditional, are routinely excellent, so it's more the dropping of a moniker than a legitimate death, thankfully.

I've been sitting on this for a while, waiting to post some of my favorite Phones remixes, and when the remix of The Futureheads' Hounds Of Love came on my iPod yesterday I knew this was the right time, so here are fifteen of Epworth's Phones productions for you to drive excessively fast to and dream of the autobahn. A perfect cure for the regularly reoccurring winter blues. And if you're craving more, please refer to Epworth's wikipedia reference as it contains a rather thorough rundown of his remixes and productions.


Phones - Remixes

01 The Kills - Love Is A Deserter (Phones 'Cardiac Unrest' Remix)
02 New Order - Krafty (Phones Reality Remix)
03 The Futureheads - Decent Days & Nights (Phones Bad Acid Remix)
04 Bloc Party - Banquet (Phones Disco Edit)
05 Shaznay Lewis - Never Felt Like This Before (Phones Volt Version)
06 Muse - Supermassive Black Hole (Phones Control Voltage Mix, 7" Edit)
07 Death From Above 1979 - Romantic Rights (The Phones Loves Remix)
08 Tom Vek - I Ain't Saying My Goodbyes (Phones Remix)
09 The Black Ghosts - Repetition Kills You (Phones Chicago Boys Remix)
10 The Music - Freedom Fighters (Phones Electric Eliminator Remix)
11 Wolf and Cub - Thousand Cuts (Phones Slasher Remix)
12 Make Model - The LSB (Phones Latino Remix)
13 The Futureheads - Hounds Of Love (Phones Wolves At The Door Remix)
14 New Young Pony Club - The Bomb (Phones Collateral Damage Mix)
15 Goldfrapp - Ooh La La (Phones Re-Edit)

New Order - 1988 Demos, Rehearsals and Other Ephemera

This is a really great collection of New Order rarities from the Technique era, but rather than go into details about the contents, I'm going to share the original text file included with the FLAC files I've converted these MP3s from. Credit goes out to Tom Hulme for leaking the tape and sharing his thoughts and The Happy One for further elaborating on the details and getting the files out there. Details follow below:

A unique collection of Technique-era demos/monitor mix playbacks/Hooky live playing, as well as several unreleased mixes of 'Blue Monday 1988'.

Digitized from Tom's Hulme's tape, which he received from an engineer at the recording sessions.

He writes:


"In 1988, I was a simple bricklayer working in Box, Wiltshire, UK. Just around the corner from the executive houses I was building was Peter Gabriel's Real World studios.

Incredibly, I just wandered in there one lunchtime to find an empty studio full of instruments, where New Order were recording. The engineer from that recording session gave me a cassette.

The cassette is labeled A&M Studios and has "*New Order* (Various Takes)" typed on both sides. On Side 1 is hand-written "Ideas from Recording etc Jun/Jul etc". On Side 2 is hand-written "Rehersal [sic] - 25/4/88".

Side 1 starts off with some rather tinny jamming, samples, etc. However, the sound quality soon improves and there are lengthy jams, short snippets of conversation (presumably from Peter Hook and Barney Sumner) and various samples of instrumentation, including a couple of rough takes of complete songs. Most of the music has no vocals, but there are a couple of tracks with vocals. Not being a huge New Order fan, I'm afraid that I can't say whether these are early rehearsals of known songs or unreleased rarities!

Side 2 consists of numerous remixes of Blue Monday (I know that song!). They all differ in as far as they have odd samples, loops and synthesizer parts incorporated. It is also interspersed with some rough jams by the boys (and girl!), some bass lines by Hooky and a bit of noodling from Barney.

This tape is totally original and a one-off. I have not made any copies, so it is a totally unique piece of New Order memorabilia."


Tom did a surprisingly good job of summarizing on what was on this tape, and as the following will illustrate, the contents are anything but straightforward for anybody wishing to understand how the group works. Like the best of any sort of art, it raises more questions than it answers!

Incredibly, we have not one but *three* sets of rarities on this tape.

First: unreleased mixes of Blue Monday 1988, different variations made for the band, likely composed for their approval. I believe the version without the 'ah boy this is too much' samples was eventually edited down to become the 7" version, while a version with the samples became the 12" version, though in these mixes the samples are sequenced and are different than the released version. I believe that this is what the "03/03/1988" date refers to.

The entire tape (on both sides) most likely originally consisted of these mixes. Somewhere along the line (likely starting on April 25th) this was taped over with monitor mixes and rehearsals taken from the Technique sessions. You can tell because there is forward bleed-through throughout the first side of Blue Monday 1988, including through a long segment of ambient room recording while the band work on the bass synth line of what I would guess was then known as 'Much Too Old', soon to be reworked into what was released as 'Fine Time'.

Over that, we have a tiny bit of guitar and bass noodling (the latter nothing less than a brief attempt at something akin to 'New Horizon' by Section 25!), and then, for me the highlight of the whole tape, a full demo of Dream Attack, with STUNNING basswork by Hooky at the start. Then we have Hooky playing along live to the backing track and monitor playbacks of the same, similar bass playback along to a work-in-progress Mr. Disco, and various riffs, including a nascent 'The Happy One' and 'All The Way'. This continues on side two, with more Hooky riffing. Then we have rehearsal-type samples of 'Guilty Partner', 'Don't Do It', and what we've termed 'Unknown #2', which didn't survive the cut, though some of the ideas on that number were likely carried into "All The Way"

I believe these all came out of the 4/25 session, as it's clear that the songs were still being composed at that time.

And over that, we have the start of the tape, which totals about 9 minutes, and features more work-in-progress samples of the songs that so far have been composed. Alas, the quality on these is lower than the rest of the tape, I reckon that they're probably at least a couple of generations off. I think these tracks are later than that follows, since we have nearly-complete backings for 'Mr Disco', 'Don't Do It', 'Best and Marsh', and 'MTO' with 'Loveless' being mostly-recognizable. Only 'Run' on here is still in early (slower tempo) form. We also have, for the first time, two samples of songs that never made it to completion. The second in particular features a gorgeous Sumner riff that I swear is naggingly familiar, but I can't place it! I think these were composed over the June/July 1988 timeframe and are what 'Ideas from Recording etc Jun/Jul etc' refers to.

And there you have it!

This version has been mastered by drewc, who also handled some of the live soundboard material that appeared on the first box of tapes which was sold on eBay several years ago.

Where warranted, fades has been inserted, as well as silences, etc being removed, so that the contents could, at 79 minutes exactly, fit onto a single CD. There were multiple playbacks of the Blue Monday 1988 remix material on the tape, all have been included here, although it appears that there's only two different remixes, which were repeated over and over it seems, as can be evidenced by the bleed-through during the long ambient room recording.

Enjoy. I know you've all been waiting to hear this, and I hope it doesn't disappoint!

THO

This is split into two archives for downloading, one for each side of the tape, so make sure you get both. Enjoy!


New Order - 1988 Demos, Rehearsals and Other Ephemera

Side One: "Ideas from Recording etc Jun/Jul etc"

01 Loveless
02 Mr. Disco
03 Don't Do It
04 Run (Early Version)
05 Unknown #1
06 Best and Marsh
07 MTO
08 Unknown #2
09 guitar and bass checks
10 Dream Attack (Demo)
11 Dream Attack (Hooky bass over playback)
12 Dream Attack (monitor playback)
13 Dream Attack (Hooky bass over playback with piano)
14 Mr. Disco (Hooky bass over playback)
15 Low-Fi Hooky Riffing
16 Hi-Fi Hooky Riffing
17 More Hi-Fi Hooky Riffing
18 All The Way (Hooky Bass)
19 low-volume ambient recording (Blue Monday playback plus bass synth to MTO)

Side Two: "Rehersal - 25/4/88"

01 All The Way (Hooky Bass)
02 'The Him' style riff (Hooky Bass)
03 Blue Monday 1988 (No Samples Version, cuts off)
04 Guilty Partner (Rehearsal Takes)
05 Don't Do It (Rehearsal Takes)
06 Unknown #2 (Rehearsal Takes)
07 Blue Monday 1988 (No Samples Version, start is missing)
08 Blue Monday 1988 (No Samples Version)
09 Blue Monday 1988 (Alternate Version 1)
10 Blue Monday 1988 (Alternate Version 2)


PS - If you're craving more New Order gems, you should visit Recycle and The Power Of Independent Trucking. I'm sure you'll find both sites utterly essential, although Recycle is dedicated specifically to the Joy Division and New Order legacies.