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)

Lory D - Antisystem

I woke up around 5am yesterday and checked my BlackBerry for e-mails. Got one from Rom leading to a Discogs reference for Lory D's Antisystem. He says he can't find a copy anywhere and can't blow $250 on a record, so he was wondering if I could find a copy for download. I consider myself pretty resourceful when it comes to such things so I checked the usual places and Google. Much to my surprise, Antisystem appears to be rather impossible to find! Nonetheless, I rarely give up that easily and checked a few other places until I found a friendly user by the name of spongler72 who was nice enough to share a 320kbps rip of the album with me, as well as a ton of other nice stuff! And so, with that I once again thank spongler72 for his or her generosity and planned to e-mail this over to Rom, but after listening for five minutes I knew I should post this here!

As far as I can tell by the aforementioned Discogs reference, Antisystem only saw release in Italy where it was issued in 1993 on RCA in collaboration with Lory D's Sounds Never Seen label. While it clearly had major label distribution, as with most of Lory's SNS releases, its availability has dried up, turning it into a true rarity. Most of the time that's because there aren't more than 500 copies pressed, but I'm not sure what the issue is regarding Antisystem. It's non-availability isn't the reason you should be grabbing this though, rather it's the fierce and metallic techno Lory creates only to bash your skull with! This is dark stuff that gets comparisons to Jeff Mills, Lenny Dee, The Mover and Aphex Twin while remaining all its own. Very heady stuff!

I've heard a few of Lory D's records but trying to sell his wonderment is a bit difficult as he doesn't seem to keep a very high profile outside of Italy. Do a Google search yourself and you'll see what I mean. The best I can tell you is he is looked at as a god for bringing dark techno to Rome in the early nineties and he's an ex-D.M.C. champion which says a lot. He's also still quite active, although don't expect albums as singles are his primary form of output. His most recent release is 2009's Plissken, the inaugural release on the Swiss label, Subdance, and it's a banger! The A-Side is a remix of John Carpenter and Alan Howarth's Bank Robbery theme for a deleted scene from Escape From New York, while the B-Side is an original, but they both kill! You can get it Beatport as well as Lory's releases on the fabulous Wireblock label. Many of those releases are also available at Bleep so make sure you check there too. But first, grab Antisystem and see how many nightmares it gives you!


Lory D - Antisystem

01 5 Minuti Per Decidere
02 Non Fermarti
03 Danger Zone
04 Subcontrol
05 Deviaction
06 Egocentrip
07 Sound War
08 Coldbringer
09 Verso La Fine
10 Lochnar
11 S.N.S. (Stato Neurologico Sostituito)