Released on Hot Creations in September, the foursome’s singular effort, according to Kid Enigma, “is about someone getting over their own self-consciousness and realizing that they can be ‘Krispy’ just the way they are.”
We recently caught up with Harvard Bass, who has released on Relief Records, Turbo Recordings, TUSKEGEE and Bump City Records, and asked him to share five of his current go-to records. Continue Reading →
London-based DJ/producer/musician Omid Nourizadeh – a.k.a. Omid 16b, a.k.a. 16B, a.k.a. $16 Million Dollar Man – has been championing a bespoke dance floor sound since the ’90s. When the world was a slightly saner place, he contributed greatly to the genre that came to be known as tech-house.
All these years later, Omid continues to push the creative envelope, and the proof is in a discography full of brilliant productions, remixes, mix CDs and albums.
His decades of experience in the studio and DJ booth have taught him well, and he remains as busy as ever.
In April, he contributed “No” to Freq Traxx Vol. 3, a four-track compilation released on Superfreq. Three months later, he unveiled the majestic, multi-genre full-length Silenciety. The meticulously produced album is a vivid, cinematic affair full of lush orchestral arrangements, ambient textures and dreamy downtempo. Omid carefully peppers the tracks with dollops of proper electro and deep house.
We connected with the Alola Records boss and asked him to share how he got here from there.
How he got his artist name
Partly my parents: Omid means ‘hope’ in Persian, and 16B was added for good measure.
Earliest clubbing experience
Eight years of age and accidentally walking into some strange sex club party/cinema in Frankfurt!
Most surprising success
To have a family and still be able to dip in and out of the music world without being owned!
Most surprising failure
To have strong political views but lack the urge to make them public!
DJ set he’ll never forget
Going to see Laurent Garnier with Martin Watson (RIP) at the Gardening club in 1995. Chain-smoking one after the other, rushing and dancing all night!
Why DJing is important in his life
Because I still love it after all these years!
His most memorable song
ORN’s “Snow’ produced in 1996. That period in electronic music was unmissable!
His most memorable remix
The Cure “Wrong Number” recorded with my first Neve desk experience at Matrix studios. Plus, I got to travel to Rome to meet The Cure at one of their shows.
What it’s like running a label in 2019
Like a robot that has human tendencies! The world is one big online store unfortunately!
Song it took the longest amount of time to finish
“Hope” (Silenciety LP)
Song it took the shortest amount of time to finish
“Hiding” (Silenciety LP)
Moment when he wanted to quit the most
Waking up next to a full ashtray or straight after swimming.
Artist he wants to collaborate with
Trentemøller & Russell Brand at the same time.
The secret of his success?
Go with your instincts; they rarely fail!
BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel was the ultimate music tastemaker. During his 35-year career Peel never adhered to musical limitations and earned a faithful following due to his warm, engaging style.
Before his death in 2004 Peel began writing a memoir, which was completed by his wife, Sheila Ravenscroft. In this excerpt from Margrave of the Marshes (Chicago Review Press), Ravenscroft recalls her husband’s fondness for The White Stripes (guitarist Jack White wrote the book’s forward), Jeff Mills, grime and underground DJ culture.
Words: Sheila Ravenscroft
In the last few years, John seemed to acquire new motivation and energy. He was thrilled about the kind of artists who were doing sessions for him, first at Maida Vale, beginning in May 1998 with 60ft Dolls, and subsequently here at home. John enjoyed the Maida Vale ritual immensely. The evening would begin with him and the production team having dinner at a nearby Thai restaurant; sometimes the musicians—such as Loudon Wainwright III, Underworld or the Immortal Lee County Killers would come too. When the meal was finished, John would be brought a hot towel, despite the fact that the restaurant didn’t provide hot towels for its clientele; this was a special treat just for John. He would usually leave ten minutes before everyone else, at which point the others would smoke the cigarettes they had been holding back in his presence. John then went and sat in the booth in Maida Vale on his own and listened to records until his colleagues arrived with beer for the audience, and the band got ready to perform.
There were some incredible sessions there: Melys played a storming set the night Liverpool won the UEFA Cup; Melt Banana, Herman Dune, T. Raumschmiere and DJ Rupture were also among John’s favorites. The White Stripes did a Maida Vale show in July 2001, the day before their gig at the 100 Club. John had been playing the seven-inches that Jack White had sent him, and had got his mitts on White Blood Cells just before Jack and Meg arrived in the UK.
John Peel at home, digging through stacks of music.
When John and his producer Anita turned up at Maida Vale, the band were sound-checking, so John grabbed the chance for a nap. Anita told me she remembers Jack and Meg waiting expectantly for John to wake up. When he did, they all went to the Thai restaurant and talked about the blues. Jack quizzed John about the gigs he’d attended, and John told him all about having seen Gene Vincent. It seems strange in hindsight, but John had little sense of how the White Stripes were poised to explode in Britain. On the way back to the studio, he said to Anita, “They’re very sweet, aren’t they? We must make sure we mention their tour dates so they get a good audience.”
The White Stripes rattled through three sets of three songs, and the faces in the audience told the whole story: no one could believe, from that fearsome sound, that there were only two of them in the band. Anita asked if they could do one more song as a finale. In the event, they did three. The last number was Gene Vincent’s “Baby Blues.” John just welled up. You couldn’t have prised the smile from his face with a crowbar.
Another session that was very dear to John was the one by Jeff Mills. In fact, John was so excited when he heard that Jeff was booked for the show in May 1998 that he asked the producer to check that it was the Jeff Mills. When he arrived, John nervously watched him through the glass, eventually plucking up the courage to go in and say hello. He had thought Jeff looked like the silent type, but he couldn’t have been more wrong. Within seconds, Jeff was asking John questions about records he had played and artists he’d met. Jeff had 50 records with him, and John gently suggested that he had probably brought too many for the 30-minute set. Jeff just smiled to himself. The set was amazing, with Jeff flitting effortlessly between the three decks, spinning around, dancing—and he played all 50 tracks. John was buzzing about it for weeks.
In the same year, he turned over an entire show to the techno label Tresor Records to celebrate their hundredth release. Until that point, techno acts hadn’t been invited on the show, for the simple reason that John and his producer Anita thought they would be too cool to accept. But the likes of Pacou, Tony Surgeon, Carl Regis, Tobias Schmidt and Neil Landstrumn were overjoyed to perform, and the session was revelatory. Tony used the opportunity to try out some new, moodier mixes; Neil claimed it was better than a gig; Carl provided a pounding, teeth-rattling finale. John, for his part, was simply bowled over.
It was lovely to see him so swept up in the music. He was the same when he devoted the program to the then-emerging grime scene in May 2004. John had started playing grime three months earlier after listening to the pirate station Rinse FM and had picked up some of the twelve-inches—including the first grime track he played on air, “Battle” by Jon E. Cash—from Black Market Records in Soho. On John’s initial visit there with his assistant, Hermeet, the guy behind the counter, Nicky, had handed them a pile of grime records and said, “Pioneer.” John asked if that was the name of a grime act, but Nicky explained, “No, you’re a pioneer, sir, and I just had to say it!” John laughed it off but it clearly made him happy.
Whenever John and Hermeet went record shopping after that, Nicky would present them with new grime twelve-inches. Invariably, John would flick through them and say, “Got this one. And this. And this one,” like a boy swapping football cards in the playground. He’d bought so many that there wasn’t enough new stuff coming in to satisfy him.
The grime night arose because John and Hermeet realized there wasn’t anyone playing this music on Radio 1; that made it even more exciting. The studio was overflowing with young DJs whom Hermeet had spotted at a club night in Brixton—there was DJ Eastwood and the Renegade Crew, which comprised MCs Purple, G Double E, IQ and IE. Those among them who had started shaving weren’t old enough to drive; those who could drive weren’t old enough to vote. Most had previously been used to mixing in their bedrooms or among friends, and now they were going out live on Radio 1. It was quite a gamble putting on these relative unknowns; the music was so under-represented on radio that it felt doubly important that the show was a success. John was just pleased to have showcased grime when no one else was playing it; he found the rawness and vitality of the scene rejuvenating.
DJ/producer/remixer Steve “Silk” Hurley has been at the forefront of house music since the genre’s infancy in the ’80s in Chicago. Brandishing a style that holds true to the underground while embracing R&B, soul and pop, Hurley has worked with a who’s who of talent, remixed the biggest artists in musical history, and has topped the charts and received four Grammy nominations in the process.
In this revealing interview ahead of his DJ gig at House Vibrations at The Great Northern in San Francisco on July 21, Hurley retraces his beginnings, dating back to the breakout success of his 1987 classic “Jack Your Body” and his role as one-half of JM Silk, through the ups and a few downs of his storied career. He also reveals what inspires him to keep his indie S&S Records going in a changing musical landscape and his plans for the future.
Favorite memory of the early Chicago house scene
Steve “Silk” Hurley: My fondest memories of the early Chicago house scene were all the times that I played my bedroom demos from a Pioneer RT-909 reel-to-reel deck or Tascam four-track cassette recorder at parties all over the city. At times Lil’ Louis and I looked down at the crowd of thousands from the balcony DJ booth as we each played our unreleased tracks at the downtown Bismark Hotel. Other times, a thousand young teens connected with my tracks at Jam Master Jay’s events (at Glenwood Roller Rink in South Suburbs of Chicago). In either case, it was a sign to me that our new music was being embraced by the teen-aged crowds everywhere, and we needed to feed the demand in a hurry!
How he got his nickname, “Silk”
Ironically, it originated in my early teen years, before I even became a DJ. We had a neighborhood dance group that consisted of my muscular friend Reggie, called Herc, a lanky friend Rudy, whose long arms earned him the name Stretch, and me, a kid with wavy hair who they gave the name Silk. When I started learning to mix records as a DJ, I kept the Silk moniker as a reminder to me that my blends should always be as smooth as silk.
Most surprising success
Although I didn’t know the magnitude until several weeks after it exploded in the U.K., “Jack Your Body” had to be by far my most surprising success. It was created in fun and was my most experimental record ever, combining blues riffs, comedy, and a nonchalantly sung vocal sample over a house groove. I didn’t expect it to go number one on any charts. What was more surprising was JYB topping the U.K. pop charts for two weeks. It was purely an underground track to put out to be a filler track in DJ sets, which is why we came up with the label called Underground Records to release it. I even drew my own artwork just for the fun of it.
Most surprising failure
After the massive hit “Jack Your Body,” I felt like I had a few under my belt. But my most surprising failures came soon after that when many of the songs I wrote didn’t become hits. However, I realized then that it would be my failures that would actually give me long term success. In other words, the more failures I had, the more I would perfect my craft…and the closer I would come to writing another song that connected with the masses. I also found out that sometimes those failures weren’t failures at all. They were just songs that were ahead of their time. It may be years later that a song becomes marketable. From that point on, I have always embraced each failure as a learning experience that made room for the next success. Continue Reading →
