― Barima (Barima), Thursday, 28 August 2003 12:30 (twenty years ago) link
― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Thursday, 28 August 2003 19:25 (twenty years ago) link
― jed_e_3 (jed_e_3), Thursday, 28 August 2003 19:30 (twenty years ago) link
― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 28 August 2003 19:41 (twenty years ago) link
― jed_e_3 (jed_e_3), Thursday, 28 August 2003 19:47 (twenty years ago) link
― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 28 August 2003 19:52 (twenty years ago) link
http://www.the-universal.com/artist.asp?artist=unkle
― strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 28 August 2003 20:17 (twenty years ago) link
― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 28 August 2003 20:23 (twenty years ago) link
― oops (Oops), Thursday, 28 August 2003 20:23 (twenty years ago) link
Confused? i am!
― jed_e_3 (jed_e_3), Thursday, 28 August 2003 21:43 (twenty years ago) link
― jed_e_3 (jed_e_3), Thursday, 28 August 2003 21:44 (twenty years ago) link
― Mark (MarkR), Monday, 3 October 2005 16:53 (eighteen years ago) link
I can't say that I've listened to that first album at any point in the last five years to be honest, however the remix of can's "vitamin c" is a recent rediscovery, and it is fiiine. I may have to hunt for this "djed" remix.
― haitch (haitch), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 08:56 (eighteen years ago) link
― mark e (mark e), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 09:21 (eighteen years ago) link
― Mark (MarkR), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 12:06 (eighteen years ago) link
― N_RQ, Tuesday, 4 October 2005 12:09 (eighteen years ago) link
― Telephone thing, Tuesday, 4 October 2005 12:39 (eighteen years ago) link
― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 12:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― vinegar (Koens), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 12:46 (eighteen years ago) link
i've been listening to it recently, i think it's ok but shows up the problems with collaboration between people who don't really know each other very well. i think the vocalist all brought their c-game, y'know? the thom yorke track is almost great, but his vocal is same-ol same-ol and the film sample in the middle is JUST TERRIBLE>
― N_RQ, Tuesday, 4 October 2005 12:48 (eighteen years ago) link
― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 13:02 (eighteen years ago) link
― N_RQ, Tuesday, 4 October 2005 13:22 (eighteen years ago) link
― Pashmina (Pashmina), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 13:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― kit brash (kit brash), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 13:34 (eighteen years ago) link
― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 14:15 (eighteen years ago) link
i really like the track and it's very evocative of this time of year, when it weas released. i should maybe get over disliking lavelle when he brought out so many records i like.
trip hop film samples can be amazing, eg 'bladerunner' sample on 'aftermath', but on the unkle project, i thought they were really lavelle imposing himself over shadow's work--especially the 'hearts of darkness' bit.
― N_RQ, Tuesday, 4 October 2005 14:27 (eighteen years ago) link
― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 14:29 (eighteen years ago) link
― vahid (vahid), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 14:30 (eighteen years ago) link
― N_RQ, Tuesday, 4 October 2005 14:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 14:45 (eighteen years ago) link
― N_RQ, Tuesday, 4 October 2005 14:47 (eighteen years ago) link
― Orange (Orange), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 16:24 (eighteen years ago) link
― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 16:30 (eighteen years ago) link
has anyone seen him actually dj solo? i've heard he doesn't do it very often, despite all of "his" mixes that are now available. it was always dj shadow, or the scratch perverts, or whoever else he could dig up. a friend saw lavelle by himself once and said it was pretty bad.
― mike h. (mike h.), Tuesday, 4 October 2005 16:30 (eighteen years ago) link
Agreed. One of my favorite ever film samples, mostly because it's a (relatively) subtle one.
but on the unkle project, i thought they were really lavelle imposing himself over shadow's work--especially the 'hearts of darkness' bit.
Really? To me it seems like one of the only clever samples on the entire record, maybe commentary from Shadow on Lavelle and the UNKLE project, both of which he was seriously disenchanted with before it was over... Then again, I'm probably reading too much into it and Lavelle just had him slap it in because it was WICKED AWESOME.
I've never seen him, but I have heard live bootlegs and they are wretched. You know the kind of bedroom DJ who has one "perfect" playlist that s/he never deviates from? That's Lavelle. Dude's released the same goddamn mix like five times already for Global Underground and as "bootlegs" with suspiciously wide distribution and snazzy packaging (Big Brother Is Watching, Do Androids Dream of Electric Beats, some others I've thankfully forgotten).
― telephone thing, Tuesday, 4 October 2005 16:54 (eighteen years ago) link
― N_RQ, Wednesday, 5 October 2005 07:40 (eighteen years ago) link
― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Wednesday, 5 October 2005 08:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Wednesday, 5 October 2005 08:44 (eighteen years ago) link
― N_RQ, Wednesday, 5 October 2005 08:50 (eighteen years ago) link
― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Wednesday, 5 October 2005 08:54 (eighteen years ago) link
― N_RQ, Wednesday, 5 October 2005 09:00 (eighteen years ago) link
― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Wednesday, 5 October 2005 09:24 (eighteen years ago) link
― N_RQ, Wednesday, 5 October 2005 09:26 (eighteen years ago) link
― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 5 October 2005 11:49 (eighteen years ago) link
― N_RQ, Wednesday, 5 October 2005 11:56 (eighteen years ago) link
Even the DFA remix is boring.
I say thee, nay.
I've seen Lavelle DJ twice. Decent, but admittedly samey sets. He's also a lot less cooler as a person than Shadow, after meeting them both repeatedly during my student years.
The first 3 tracks on Psyence Fiction are probably the most classic the record gets at any particular points, especially if you rewind the CD to the beginning and have fun with the snippets of popular hits that form the "real" intro.
Best non-album track is 'Garage Piano' from the old Headz 2a compilation. Trip hop Barabarella space trips are hard to beat.
― BARMS, Wednesday, 5 October 2005 14:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 5 October 2005 15:19 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ronan (Ronan), Wednesday, 5 October 2005 15:22 (eighteen years ago) link
He's also a lot less cooler as a person than Shadow, after meeting them both repeatedly during my student years.
Wouldn't he have to be at least reasonably charismatic to get all these people to collaborate with him and pay attention? Also, am I the only one who occasionally gets a weird Lavelle vibe off of Pharrell whenever he brags about having his own shoes or talks about hanging out with Nigo?
― mike h. (mike h.), Wednesday, 5 October 2005 15:23 (eighteen years ago) link
I feel kinda bad for DJ Shadow. He can't really do the thing he used to do that he was amazing at (although I feel like the climate around samples has relaxed again, unless you're making Kanye/Jay-Z money? But he's still done it many times over already, and doesn't want to be retro.). He's released recent tracks without samples that are really well produced, but that sort of make him just another Soundcloud trap/EDM producer.
He did do a big DJ tour a couple of years ago where he was playing all current music (beat scene, footwork, etc), that was cool.
― sam jax sax jam (Jordan), Wednesday, 30 March 2016 15:43 (eight years ago) link
too future
http://pitchfork.com/news/49027-listen-dj-shadow-shares-the-too-future-mix-that-got-him-kicked-offstage-in-miami/
― the late great, Wednesday, 30 March 2016 15:56 (eight years ago) link
lol damn that sounds horrible
― r|t|c, Wednesday, 30 March 2016 16:46 (eight years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSVeqb6-NWU
miami bass mix shadow did for the bbc as unkle promo in 98 is still great if anyone's never heard
― r|t|c, Wednesday, 30 March 2016 16:49 (eight years ago) link
I saw James Lavelle DJ back in 01/02ish. He was a prick and the set was horrible. Basically he played really obvious progressive house and tech house. That night instantly ended any concern I had for him or his music.
― brotherlovesdub, Thursday, 31 March 2016 01:34 (eight years ago) link
Psyence Fiction has really grown on me over the years, i like the songs i didn't use to like. i think maybe my estimation of it is higher since shadow's output got less and less good after it came out.
― lute bro (brimstead), Thursday, 31 March 2016 02:14 (eight years ago) link
i'm a disgusting richard ashcroft stan, however.
did anybody listen to that multi-disc "the four track years" set of pre-endtroducing stuff?
― lute bro (brimstead), Thursday, 31 March 2016 02:15 (eight years ago) link
jeez there's this thing too:
https://www.discogs.com/DJ-Shadow-Total-Breakdown-Hidden-Transmissions-From-The-MPC-Era-1992-1996/master/463345
(maybe those guys did DJ a lot in the 2000s, i have no idea...)
Shadow continued to tour a lot, alternating live-ish shows playing his own stuff with high concept four-deck DJ sets in collaboration with Cut Chemist. 2014-15 they were touring with [selections from] Afrika Bambaata's own record collection, so you could hear the same skips and pops that a 1981 audience did, but mixed and scratched elaborately.
Lavelle's DJ sets used to be him smoking while between 1 and 3 of the Psychonauts mixed records; he started mixing himself in the '00s to universally terrible reviews. And formed a semi-consistent lineup of UNKLE for the first time, that played doomy rock music, and toured with that. Presumably smoking while someone else played keyboards.
― glandular lansbury (sic), Thursday, 31 March 2016 05:02 (eight years ago) link
I actually really liked the last (?) "doomy rock" album they put out.
― licorice oratorio (baaderonixx), Thursday, 31 March 2016 08:38 (eight years ago) link
I bought the first Unkle album because of the hype, but it turned out to be indie rock instead of the sort of instrumental rap/blunted beats Mo' Wax had put out before. (The only good track was the first one with actual rapping.) Didn't fall for that trap again.
― Tuomas, Thursday, 31 March 2016 11:06 (eight years ago) link
That doc sounds like it could be genuinely interesting. Saw Lavelle DJ about 2005 under protest, it was crap, but he managed to pack out a normally quiet venue.
― Chewshabadoo, Thursday, 31 March 2016 14:02 (eight years ago) link
i will never be able to thank that guy enough for the major force vinyl box that he put out. it's one of my prized possessions and i will be buried with it in my tomb. such an inspiration to me to this day. also, i had no idea he was 18 when he started the label! that impressed me.
― scott seward, Thursday, 31 March 2016 15:15 (eight years ago) link
Yeah, that Major Force box is one of the top 10 compilations of all time.
― Tuomas, Thursday, 31 March 2016 15:39 (eight years ago) link
the 'Superstar DJs' book reminded me what a kicking the first Unkle album got in some places. from the book; ".. he was crestfallen. those reviews hurt. worse, deep down he knew they were right.. then everything started to go wrong.." good book all told. cautionary tales left right and centre.
― piscesx, Thursday, 31 March 2016 15:58 (eight years ago) link
Ah, I'd forgotten about Psychonauts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJXcO9h5zH4
― djh, Thursday, 31 March 2016 19:22 (eight years ago) link
i think for a lot of those guys the answer would have been to reinvent themselves as celebrity DJs and play obscure library funk tracks and garage rock or something.
i would suggest that shadow, along with cut chemist, actually kickstarted the lost library/funk/garage mixtape groove thing off with the (still brilliant) brainfreeze releases.
oh, and for the record, i really like the doom goth grooves of war stories/where did the night fall/another night out.if its a guilty pleasure for nick cave, then it is good for me.the mix of electronics, guitars, bad moods, ian astbury, and bowie samples is always going to tickle my sweet spot.in fact, i listen to the instrumental versions of the albums more than the guest stuffed versions - they sound amazing.i care not that james supposedly does sweet fa in the studio/live.he is the person putting it all together and using his address book to get to the end result.
all that said, as someone who has followed the story for a long time, its clear that he has struggled, and the current state of the kickstarter campaign, comes as no shock.i was very tempted to join in, but was worried it would end up like this.
tl:dr = i would like to see this film.
― mark e, Thursday, 31 March 2016 19:59 (eight years ago) link
wonder if i still have dj shadow-era unkle live sets somewhere. lots of interpolation of album tracks, the samples, scratching, some of his own material
i mean, with a couple exceptions, that first unkle album was basically endtroducing 2 plus vocals with james lavelle sitting around telling shadow which samples to use. after he bailed, it was lavelle standing around behind different dudes, like sic said
I really liked this mix at the time, no idea how it holds up: https://www.discogs.com/Psychonauts-The-Time-Machine-A-MoWax-Restrospective-Mix/master/33010
― μpright mammal (mh), Thursday, 31 March 2016 19:59 (eight years ago) link
even after all this time i have never seen a cd copy of that mix in a shop.
― mark e, Thursday, 31 March 2016 20:08 (eight years ago) link
Musically, I always considered Psyence Fiction to be right there with Endtroducing.
― Austin, Thursday, 31 March 2016 20:13 (eight years ago) link
oh, and while everyone thinks that others did all the work, other than that mix, the psychonauts didn't exactly score big with their own material.the same could be said for richard file.so, yes, james was the wired or fugged to max studio layabout, but it seems he knew how to get the good stuff out of his collaborators.
― mark e, Thursday, 31 March 2016 20:15 (eight years ago) link
I think that cd is pretty rare? my friend was one of those mo'wax beardo types who owns nearly every one of the releases
― μpright mammal (mh), Thursday, 31 March 2016 20:27 (eight years ago) link
its very rare.
― mark e, Thursday, 31 March 2016 20:35 (eight years ago) link
the mo'wax aftermarket must be in a slump, on discogs:13 For Sale from $11.31
― μpright mammal (mh), Thursday, 31 March 2016 20:39 (eight years ago) link
oh wait, that's on vinyl (?!)£15.00 for cd
― μpright mammal (mh), Thursday, 31 March 2016 20:40 (eight years ago) link
£15 is a lot for those of us that live in the world of zoverstocks.
― mark e, Thursday, 31 March 2016 20:55 (eight years ago) link
oh, and just for the record, the UNKLE vs QOTSA stuff is ace.
― mark e, Thursday, 31 March 2016 21:42 (eight years ago) link
but it seems he knew how to get the good stuff out of his collaborators.
motivating others was always his skill, from selling records in a shop to signing acts to his not-yet-existent label to hustling Mo'Wax releases to the press.
also see Alex Paterson, very nearly as musically and technically incompetent as Lavelle, yet no matter who he's working with, the end result sounds distinctively like The Orb and not that person's other work.
― glandular lansbury (sic), Friday, 1 April 2016 11:40 (eight years ago) link
did George Clinton do anything practical in terms of music-making once the Parliaments stopped being a harmony group? either way, his array of insanely talented players rarely wrote a stunning or memorable song outside of his orbit
― glandular lansbury (sic), Friday, 1 April 2016 11:45 (eight years ago) link
Yeah, there are many of people in electronic music like this, especially among those who started as DJs. For example, Westbam is a great live DJ, but most AFAIK of the actual production on his own tunes is done by his silent partner Klaus Jankuhn. And one of my favourite "sampladelic" albums is Hal Willner's Whoops, I'm an Indian, but based on the liner notes it seems Willner's main job was to provide the samples on it from his vast record collection, and most of the production was done by Mocean Worker. And it's still different and better than any Mocean Worker record I've heard.
(xpost)
― Tuomas, Friday, 1 April 2016 11:52 (eight years ago) link
I think Goldie, at least early in his career, also didn't much know about music production, and most of the technical work on his classic records was done by Rob Playford and Mark Rutherford. But he had a vision of what he wanted jungle to sound, and those records became more groundbreaking than anything his partners had done on their own.
― Tuomas, Friday, 1 April 2016 11:57 (eight years ago) link
http://www.electronicbeats.net/mentors-how-4hero-programmed-goldies-software/
― KitevsPill, Friday, 1 April 2016 13:15 (eight years ago) link
Goldie is definitely a good example
― μpright mammal (mh), Friday, 1 April 2016 14:01 (eight years ago) link
is this supposed to sound like old library music? 2015! who knew?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1lwvxyveJQ
― scott seward, Friday, 1 April 2016 14:31 (eight years ago) link
That talk talk sample on rabbit is dope
― kolakube (Ross), Saturday, 3 March 2018 20:34 (six years ago) link
even i found the latest album somewhat lacking ...
― mark e, Saturday, 3 March 2018 20:37 (six years ago) link
did unkle come up on the record collection music thread? because...
― mh, Monday, 5 March 2018 19:42 (six years ago) link
b**** n**** with the audacity to blaspheme megot yourself caught in a motherfucking tragedy
― the late great, Monday, 5 March 2018 19:48 (six years ago) link
I was maybe too persistently mean about James Lavelle in here
so that documentary that apparently came out(?), did anyone here see it?
― mh, Monday, 5 March 2018 20:03 (six years ago) link
i dunno, lavelle is pretty lame, as good as his label was ...
― the late great, Monday, 5 March 2018 20:08 (six years ago) link
apparently there's also the issue of a kickstarter campaign from 2013 that has yet to deliver:https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mowax21/urban-archaeology-21-years-of-mowax/comments
― mh, Monday, 5 March 2018 20:08 (six years ago) link
new Ronin album/mixtape starts off with the usual UNKLE widescreen/downtempo/moody excess, and then takes a swerve.best thing james has released in ages.
― mark e, Thursday, 1 April 2021 17:10 (three years ago) link
Admittedly I just skimmed through it — from what I heard the production is fine for the most part if still mining around that good ol prog house vein. Some of the vocals are less than appealing.
― recovering internet addict/shitposter (viborg), Friday, 2 April 2021 21:26 (three years ago) link
tis all about the 'if we dont make it' edit that uses a sample from an old soul classic for me.of course, its UNKLE, and so, its never going to break boundaries.but i am a sucker for the UNKLE thing.
― mark e, Friday, 2 April 2021 21:31 (three years ago) link