Mad Man Scratchy

I was introduced to dub in 1982, at the tender age of 12. My best friend at the time had an amazingly cool older sister who had absolutely flawless taste in music (as well as other charms that are better not discussed here...) and she was immersing herself in all dem tings dat make de dub; King Tubby, Prince Jammy, etc., etc. And while I was completely sold on the sound, one artist in particular absolutely fascinated me: Lee Scratch Perry. He's incredibly talented, prolific, and unquestionably out of his mind. Legends of his various oddities range from the unbelievable (some say he used to get high by drinking tape cleaner fluid...) to the certifiable (he burned down his Black Ark studio because he had become convinced that it had become possessed by the devil...). Regardless, I loved his music and his techniques, which he proffered to a wide array of artists. Anyway, I've been meaning to do a mix of his stuff (including stuff he produced), so I cobbled this together. 22 tracks, 77+ minutes of The Computer Master... Dub Organizer Supreme... The Original Upsetter.. Lee... Scratch... Perry.

01 Tom McCook & The Upsetters - Cloak & Dagger
02 Junior Byles - Curley Locks
03 Lee Scratch Perry - When Knotty Came
04 The Mighty Upsetter - Fungea
05 Lee Perry - Golden Locks
06 Sir Lord Comic & The Upsetters - Django Shoots First
07 The Upsetters - Dubbing Sandra
08 The Upsetters - Freedom Dub
09 Lee Scratch Perry - Huzza A Hana
10 Max Romeo - Public Enemy Number One
11 Bob Marley & The Wailers - Small Axe
12 Augustus Pablo - Hot & Cold
13 Lee Perry - What A Botheration
14 The Stingers - Preacher Man
15 The Upsetters - Bury The Razor
16 Lee Perry - Blackman Time
17 Junior Murvin - Roots Train Number One
18 The Upsetters - Black Ipa
19 Junior Ainsworth - Thanks & Praise
20 Lee Perry - Justice To The People
21 Lee Perry - City Too Hot
22 The Upsetters - Dub Fu Ye Rights



Your can sample the dubbiness here and also head over to the DJ Abstract website for more interesting tuneage.

Babylon be torn down by:

Various - Mad Man Scratchy
(ruder and crazier than you)

Various - Ground Into Dust
(because sometimes heavier just sounds better)

Various - Soulful Jazz Lounge Funk'n Breaks
(funk 'n' bumps)

Godflesh - Messiah
(as I said, sometimes heavier just sounds better)

Beef Terminal - Anger Do Not Enter
(definitively plantive)

Hackers Suck

So I've been seeing a considerable increase in traffic to the Machine Tribe Recordings website, but only one order has been placed. At first I thought it was a) that my music was crappy (tho I assumed folks liked it if they were coming there) or b) the site was ugly or too hard to use. I decided to start a redesign. During the course of downloading my existing files, my virus detector kicked off. Turns out SOME ASSHOLE HACKED MY SITE. All of the people who tried to place orders were being sent to some random Japanese website.

I am going to find this person and kill them.

Anyway, it's been fixed. So if you went to the site and had a problem, please go back. Pretty please. I'll waive shipping (as usual) and toss in a free sampler as well.

Son of a bitch.

STOP THE PRESS! PS

I don't know if I've mentioned in before, but I came across an excellent internet radio program called Bleepshow some time ago. They'd played a Breaks The Blank Day track about a year ago, so I asked the host, Pete Cooper, if I could send him some demos. He said fine. I sent the demos.

Guess what? He liked them.

AN ENTIRE SHOW devoted to my music.

ANOTHER ENTIRE SHOW devoted to my music.

WHOOT!

My ears overfloweth

Two luscious chunks of Abstract-related audio for today's charter:

Firstly, I've been following a great mix site called SubNav. It's moderated, so you have to submit your mixes for approval and they decide if it gets posted or not. Anyway, I threw caution to the wind a couple weeks back and sent them a couple of my mixes. Lo and behold, they just posted my Ashes And Dust Mix. For those of you who missed it (or want to check out the nifty artwork SubNav threw together for it), check it out. Pretty cool to feel appreciated.

Secondly, another mix has fallen out of the sky and hit me in the head violently.

I may have to apologies for this one in advance. After doing Soft And Broken, I was really in the mood to do something HEAVY. I'd been kicking around a couple of tunes that were pretty klangie and loud and sent myself a couple of emails (subject line: "Hard Mix"; how's that for creative?) with an ever growing list of tracks. Once I'd gotten enough together, I started to work.

"Kur" is just plain nasty, a harder track by Heinrich At Hart off the Position Chrome label. Huge, pitch shifted breakbeats, etc. Just how I wanted it to sound. Mobthrow's "Deathstep" continued the heavy feel and added some dubstep feel to the mix. This logically lead into "Painkillers" by Ebola (more squelchy bass and twisted beats).

Then things started to go off the rails.

I hadn't mucked about with the Blacklands track "Solvay Bliss" in a LONG time; last time I spun it was probably in 2005. Still, it seemed to fit. Kinda. And then the weirdness just built up. "Stalingrad" is completely epic and dark and possibly my favorite track off Blackfilm's debut album. But then TA came back with the bass and then Ice smothered everything.

Blah blah blah.

Suffice to say what started as an attempt at 70 minutes or so of headcrushing music ended up (as usual) all over the place. Parts of this mix are really nasty, while other parts are headnoddy, isolationist, etc. Bit of a mishmash, but I like it.

Hopefully you won't all hate it. I don't want to get voted off the island.

So hang on.

Ground To Dust
01 Heinrich At Hart - Kur
02 Mobthrow - Deathstep
03 Ebola - Painkillers
04 Blacklands - Solvay Bliss
05 Blackfilm - Stalingrad
06 Techno Animal - Bass Concussion
07 Ice - X-1
08 The Dustmite - Assassin Of Memories Track 12
09 The Unknown Ghosts - City Of Ghosts
10 Scorn - Flick
11 Alec Empire - City Of Lights
12 Hive - Vaya Con Dios (A Suspended Remix)
13 Witchman - Palace Of Angels



You can click here to take a listen and, by all means, head on over to my website to find more tasty ear candy.

Feeling the fists of love with:

Various - Ground To Dust
(flatten your cranium in one quick and easy session)

Various - Lee Perry: I Am The Upsetter
(4 discs of premium Scratch)

The Dustmite - Assassins Of Memories
(deep dark hop)

Nitzer Ebb - That Total Age
(because I wish to join in the chant)

A Great White Bird - Adventures In Ornithology
(continuously mixed by your's truly)