TXL=>SFO

Hot off the press...a new mix for ya'll. I've really been feeling the 4 on the floor lately, and wanted to meld a bit of the Berlin and the Bay. Enjoy! Click through to the full site to download in high quality and add timed comments!

TXL=>SFO by cmdr.xndr

back like a heart attack

Nobody Listens to Techno is back! I couldn't keep hiding behind the "file host isn't working" excuse any longer (seriously, it was messed up for awhile though...), plus the tunes have been piling up during the downtime. In the interest of keeping the small talk to the minimum, I'll get back to business. So what's been bumping my headphones recently? I'm not gonna lie, I've been feeling the dubstep. Not your father's dubstep with the grinding WAHH WAHHH LFO-basslines, but the techno influenced stuff everyone seems to be calling dubtec (I think techstep sounds better, but I guess no one listens to me). I love the dichotomy of the broken beat and four-on-the-floor feel, dubby snares, and range of emotions the combination can evoke throughout a track.

Appleblim and Komonazmuk demonstrate this perfectly in their dub of Sideshow's "If Alone". What starts out deep and brooding moves into a a beautiful and atmospheric breakdown, which somehow builds into what I can only describe as a 2-step ball of energy around 4:50. It took me a few listens to really get my head around it, but now I can't stop listening...


Sideshow feat. Paul St Hilaire - If Alone (Appleblim and Komonazmuk Dub).mp3


We've posted about Moderat (Modeselektor+Apparat) before, so no introduction necessary here. "No. 22" off their new self-titled album quite simply kills. I completely lost my shit awhile back when Ellen Allien dropped this as her opening track at the Happy Birthday B-Pitch party here in SF. Having no idea what track it was, I accepted the fact that I'd never get my hands on it, but now the tables have turned! When the beat drops, there's no denying it's a dubstep track, but it's full on 138bpm jump up and down action--no half-time nonsense.


Moderat - No. 22.mp3

Enjoy!

wha happened?

Don't fear! Nobody Listens to Techno hasn't gone anywhere, we've just run into a few kinks which need ironing out before we can get back to delivering you the goods. Namely, our file host--Boxstr--has mysteriously ceased functioning. We are currently in the process of either finding a new host or buying our own domain so we can migrate our old files and get back in business. If you're itching for some tunes in the meantime, check out the blog links on the right.

See you soon,

The Nobody Listens to Techno Crew

bring it right back

We've been all over the world with our posts so far, and have been seriously neglecting the great music our hometown of San Francisco has to offer. I could never do the entire SF scene justice in just one post, so I'll start somewhere near and dear to my heart: the the Big Bad Bird. Back when I used to spin breaks in college I got my first taste when I picked up the Stanton Warriors remix of Claude VonStroke's "Who's Afraid of Detroit?" on vinyl. Later, after moving into the city, littleV and I stumbled upon one of the Dirtybird monthlies at Shine. And before we knew it, monthlies at Shine were replaced with quarterlies at Mezzanine, as each member of the label jetted off for European residencies. Despite the success they have enjoyed outside of SF, there's something unique about the Dirtybird sound that is distinctly Bay Area--playfully funky tech-house, which never takes itself too seriously, paying respects to both the Detroit techno of old and that ridiculous Oakland hyphy bass of, well, almost new. I guess you can take the Bird out of the city, but you can't take the city out of the Bird. Enjoy...


Claude VonStroke - Who's Afraid of Detroit (Stanton Warriors Refix).mp3


Tim Green - Revox (Justin Martin Remix).mp3


The Martin Brothers - Dum (Hookerz and Blow Short Bus Acid Mix).mp3


Zombie Disco Squad & Solo - The Dance.mp3

down the rabbit hole with SIS

One of my favorite ways to find new music is to start with a song I know I like, Google it, and follow random internet breadcrumb trails to other songs. I'll look at the other tracks it's grouped with in a blog post, click the "related videos" on YouTube, or hunt down individual tracks in a mix. I was listening to some of Ray Opkara's music (which I intend on posting soon) and decided to check out all of his labelmates on Cecille Records. I wasn't having much luck until I stumbled upon SIS' track, "Nesrib." I was instantly hooked, and set off down my new search trail.

Turns out there's not much digging you can do on SIS. He has the requisite MySpace page, and I was able to uncover that he's a Turkish DJ by the name of Burak Sar, living in Berlin. Other than that, there wasn't much.

A subsequent search later revealed that "Nesrib" was voted best single of 2008 by Beatportal. Come again? Best track of the year, and this guy barely has any internet presence? There's no mention of this honor on his or his label's MySpace pages (he doesn't even have the song posted), virtually no blog posts of the track, and only a handful of reviews online. I'm not sure why SIS remains such a mystery, but I'm happy to devote a lowly blog post entirely to him.

I like "Nesrib" because it has glimmers of that early 90s jam feel that I love so much. Must be the sample - I found out after listening that it's Vanessa Williams. I think the way SIS manipulates the sample is borderline genius, but unfortunately, the sample is the very reason why the track was never released - it was never cleared. Sample aside, "Nesrib" has a great tech house skeleton with lots of tribal, world music elements. Its multiple layers start to feel a little overwhelming and frenetic towards the end of the song, but it's so inherently joyful that it keeps the listener engaged.

SIS - Nesrib.mp3

Like "Nesrib," "Orgsa" is composed of a great tech house beat with interesting vocal manipulations, but "Orgsa" is darker and moodier. It retains the same world music feel, which I think sets it apart from some of the really bland tech house I listened to the other 90% of the day. I'm inclined to round up on my ratings and give each of these tracks A-s. This guy deserves more attention.

SIS - Orgsa.mp3

ich bin ein berliner

Exciting news - Nobody Listens to Techno is headed to Berlin! We've been dreaming about visiting Berlin for a while now - with it being, you know, only the center of the world for the kind of music we love, but it just wasn't possible financially or logistically. We had moved it to our "Things to do when we win the lottery" list, but then we stumbled upon the trailer for a new documentary, "Berlin Calling," and were bitten by the German bug. Amazingly, fate aligned with desire, and an imploring Kayak.com search delivered tickets that were almost too cheap to be believed. Berlin was indeed calling, and we couldn't resist her any longer. We'll be stopping over in London between May 12th and 15th to catch a Nobody Listens to Techno favorite - Moderat - live at Roundhouse. Then we're zipping over to Munich and slowly making our way to Berlin to end our trip on the 25th with what will hopefully be an epic weekend.

Of course, we know many of the big names from Germany - Ellen Allien, Modeselektor, Booka Shade, Tiefschwarz, Digitalism, Boys Noize, M.A.N.D.Y., etc. (don't forget Real McCoy and La Bouche... holla!), but we're on the hunt for some of the great German musicians who aren't as well-known internationally. If we're lucky enough to have any German readers out there (or those who have had the pleasure of visiting), please let us know who your favorites are. Venues too. We already have the extravagantly hedonistic Berghain on our radar, but we'll have time to check out other parties too.

I think what we're most looking forward to is experiencing the true passion for techno that the Germans, particularly Berliners, seem to have. As people whose lives are consumed by music, we can't wait to be crammed onto a sweaty dance floor, surrounded by people who truly understand our love affair with techno. And come on, just watch the aforementioned "Berlin Calling" trailer and try to tell me you don't want to hop on the plane with us.

Tonight's tracks are from two German artists - Thomas Muller and Paul Kalkbrenner. We saw Muller last month with Ellen Allien, and our favorite part of his set was when he dropped his track with Okain, "I Tele U Bo." It's funky enough to flirt with being classified as house, but has plenty of techno quirk and bounce. It's a good song to get people in the mood for dancing.

Thomas Muller and Okain - I Tele U Bo.mp3

Kalkbrenner produced most of the soundtrack for "Berlin Calling." It's really a fantastic piece of work, and I highly recommend listening to the whole thing. It was hard to single out only one track, but I picked "Azure" because it's a nice Sunday evening song. It's pretty, atmospheric music, but has a beat so insistent and driving that it makes me feel almost restless. It's the kind of track that you would hear at the end of a movie, as the main character runs through the dark beneath the stars, perhaps crying, perhaps having a grand epiphany about life. Perhaps the kind of track that will pop into my head as we drag ourselves out of a Berlin club and trudge back to our lodgings in the sobering light of the morning.

Paul Kalkbrenner - Azure

pink moon rising

Quickie number two: it's been a busy week, but you can expect a longer post this weekend. I ran into this one over at sQuare Productions and Prismatic. Show both sites some love--sQuare just finished what looks to be a great documentary on techno around the globe, and prismatic has some great tunes (they wanted me to be sure to remember that "WE listen to techno"...). Here, DJ Koze turns Sascha Funke's "Mango" into an epic, 12 minute electro-opera, if you will, with the help of vocals from Funke's "Fortune Cookie Symphony". I've always been a sucker for these type of spoken word samples in electronic music, but then again I got turned onto electronic music through trance, so that probably disqualifies me from claiming there's no cheese in this. Regardless, DJ Koze skillfully uses the vocal to serve as the thematic glue that holds together seemingly disparate variations of the original "Mango" melody. This kind of theme-and-variation is seldom seen in electronic music, which makes this track sound even more unique. When I play this one live--and this is something I can't say for more than 99% of the tracks in my live sets--I'll definitely be playing out the entire 12 minutes and 13 seconds in all its glory...

Sascha Funke - A Mango Cookie (DJ Koze's Pink Moon Remix).mp3

all nite

Just a little quickie here. Spettro and Thomas Sahs' slick rework of Bryan Garrard's "All Nite" is the perfect track to gently ease you back into the work week. It's soft and undeniably sexy, but with enough chop and bounce to keep it interesting. The slowing down and speeding up of the tempo in the middle of the song will get your blood flowing. B+/A- depending on my mood.

As a sidenote, please don't listen to the horrifically cheesy original, or look at Garrard's sleazy aviators-and-porn-stache pic on his MySpace page - they're both total bonerkillers.

Bryan Garrard - All Nite (Spettro and Thomas Sahs remix).mp3

deep thoughts (the dubstep edition)...

Sometimes LittleV likes to give me a hard time for my "deep thoughts" when I take silly rhetorical questions a little too seriously and spring into a long-winded rant. In an attempt to battle my tendency to over-think things, I figure I might as well start a regular "deep thoughts" post where I turn the tables and let you all share your thoughts instead of forcing my prolific musings on you. Please, take a listen, and add a comment or two to save me the embarrassment of talking to myself...

1. Snoop Dogg + Dubstep = ??? In my mind there are two possibilities here. Either Snoop has gone full circle--from underground to top 40, and back again--or dubstep just went pop in the worst possible way. I'll let you be the judge:

Snoop Dogg - Snoop Dogg Millionaire.mp3

2. I love the concept of remixes: you take a pre-made track, and rearrange/resample/recreate any way you want. Hell, with the abundance of cheap/free production software, anyone can be a remixer these days. DJ Mujava's Township Funk, with its oh-so-many remixes making the blog circuit rounds more times than I can count, has been prime fodder for the remix-happy. Yet to my knowledge no one has managed to do anything creative with the addictive, gets-stuck-in-your-head melody. Skream takes a cross-genre dubstep approach--surprisingly absent from the all-knowing hype machine--which sounds cool in theory, but ends up disappointing. He manages to only switch up the beat while leaving the melody intact. What's going on here? Has Mujava created such an instant classic that it is "unremixable"? Or does this represent a collective loss of creativity?

DJ Mujava - Township Funk (Skreamix).mp3

don't stop, get it get it we are your captains in it

Thursday. Ughhhh. We've been having a pretty rough week over here at Nobody Listens to Techno. Fortunately, we never underestimate the power of a solid playlist of cheery tracks to help get us through the day. Having to rely very heavily on this playlist all week gave me the idea to start a recurring feature on NLTT for tracks that will help you get to your happy place. One of our (already!) loyal readers suggested naming this feature "Feel Good Inc" which I think is pretty fitting. A cheesy title for batches of songs that will admittedly be mostly guilty pleasures.

I'm also going to try out something new and start grading some of the tracks I post. When I read music blogs, I'm usually left wanting a better idea of what the blogger thinks about the song. Are they posting it merely because it was sent to them by the record label? Would they throw the song into their own mix or dj set? Will they actually remember the track when it comes time to compile their best of 2009 list? Here at Nobody Listens to Techno, we'll never post a song we don't legitimately like, but hopefully the grades will give a better sense of which tracks are true standouts. Let us know if you like this system.

First up is Zombie Disco Squad's remix of Bunny Lake's "Into the Future." Bunny Lake has been getting a lot of hype recently, but I'll be honest, I hate the original of this track. It's a testament to Zombie Disco Squad's talent that they can turn a dance-rock disaster into such an entertaining track. The tech house-y, electro-y remix starts off with an innocent-enough loping beat, then drops in some killer bass around 1:20. It sounds amazing on a loud sound system. Plus, I'm a huge sucker for the video game-y "bloop bloop" sound effects. The vocals might get a bit cloying as the song wears on, but they drop out at just the right time, and come back at just the right time. And anyways, you're having too much fun by that point to care. It's solid B territory for me.


Bunny Lake - Into the Future (Zombie Disco Squad remix).mp3

Next is Luke Chable's take on Gwill Morris' "Time." I have to offer a disclaimer: this track is probably not for everyone. Some might say it veers into "cheesy" territory, but to that I say listen to the original and tell me Chable hasn't twisted a generic house track with bad vocals into a pretty and tantalizing breaks slow burner (ok, admittedly the end result is still the tiniest bit cheesy). Like the Bunny Lake track above, the original is almost unrecognizable. You have to have a little bit of patience with this one, as it takes about six minutes to really get into its groove, but trust me, it will turn out well in the end. I really like this song because it sounds like it's about to erupt into one of my favorite guilty pleasure early 90s jams, but ends up being one enormous tease. Give it a whirl and keep an open mind. B+ here.


Gwill Morris - Time (Luke Chable dub).mp3

Taking it down a few notches, I'm going to close out with a song I genuinely love - "Love is Real" by Rusko. It's well-established that people associate specific memories with music, and that phenomenon probably accounts for a significant chunk of my love for this track. I first fell for it when the cmdr played it out in the desert, so subsequent listens instantly take me back there... being with some of my favorite people in the world, watching the sun begin to peek up over the hills, and fervently dancing to stay warm. I think I must have listened to it at least 15 times on repeat when I got back to the real world, and I smiled like a maniac throughout the entire song, every time. It's a great dubstep track with an ethereal string section and incredibly beautiful melodies and vocals. Just listen to it. A+, honestly.



Rusko - Love is Real.mp3

Keep an eye out for future editions of my favorite guilty pleasure songs. I promise you they'll get more guilty (read: embarrassing) as we go on. If you have a favorite feel-good song, let us know in the comments!