Kerri Chandler

Clubland


Kerri Chandler once said that in order to enjoy your (house) music all you needed was “a basement, a red light and a feeling.” The simple truth spoken many years ago still holds today, as does the career of Mr Chandler, with his ongoing production of impeccable classic house cuts and a slight tweaking of that red light into a red laser.
House music in 2008 is seeing a renaissance, partly thanks to a backlash against formulaic minimal-by-numbers releases finally reaching a point of unsustainable dehydration. It's not that house music went away or anything, just that more DJ's are switching back to something a little more hefty in the soul department for their sets.

14 Tracks

It's a fast paced world out there. Too fast to nestle down to the computer night and day to forage for hidden delicacies of the musical variety, let alone group a bunch of them together in one silken, sonorous swag bag.
Good thing is, there's someone out there doing it for you.
14 Tracks is an affiliate of the mighty Boomkat on-line store out of Manchester. Those gorgeous little dance-wise goblins serve up weekly release sheets of the top end techno, dubstep, far out electronica and experimental whateverness. Most of it is on a dub tip, all of it quality.
Anyway back to 14 Tracks. Subscribe to this modern marvel of the new musical age and get a slippery electronic slice of mail inserted into your inbox on a weekly basis, updating you on the latest fourteen nuggets of sound gear assiduously assembled on whatever that weeks theme may be.
The best of dubstep, the most coveted covers, rootical radness, Kompakt's finest moments... the list goes on. A single track will run you 99p, the whole bunch you can net for a measly £6.86. As for the quality of the tracks selected, well just go to the site and find out.
Utterly ridonkulous!

Shackleton

Is this the end of the line for Soundboy? Has his bleak penchant for, well, bleakness finally become too much for him?
Soundboy's Suicide Note becomes the latest bassbin biscuit on the Skull Disco imprint to demand instant purchase; four tracks to measure your resilience to murderous low end frequencies by.
Vengeance Tenfold blathers beat-esoterica over the grim 'The Rope Tightens...', '...But the Branch Is Weak' offers brief respite, while the two cuts on the B-side dive into further subterranean duress.
Essential listening.

DJ BONE

CLUBLAND

The term underground gets thrown about like kids toys these days, without meaning, for almost no reason. It has been a long time since dance music could be denoted underground and have that really mean that it was pushing against the trends, forging new ground, remaining true to itself without following a bigger trend. With a recent purchase I was reminded of one artist I truly consider to be underground; evidenced by his longevity (yet relative anonymity) as a DJ and producer, uncompromising ideals and do it yourself spirit.