92groovz-recordings

[92groovz-recordings]

LCD Soundsytem

Honestly, dont even know what to write about this. It played such a big part during late teen years. Driving all round Hong Kong with friends, getting up to all the nefarious things 17 year olds get up to. 

Im hesitant to say much here, cause honestly I dont think ill be able to do the album any justice, my writing isn't that great yet. Theres a couple things I want to say though, the variety, the musical palette, the sheer audacity of some of the tracks in this album stick with me forever. Take “Beat Connection” for example, its a full 8 minutes long the track, and the first 4:23 is just build up. Let that sink in, yes, exactly. Fucking brilliant. And its unrelenting, the beat just slowly evolves and is layered and layered and layered, then stripped away and the vocal comes in midway through and then it turns into a full on groove session, 6:04 till the end has to be one of the most orgasmic parts of any track you could possibly listen to! 

Its a sophisticated piece of music, the album, but not one to the point it becomes pretentious, it explores areas and grooves I think would scare most performers to try out never mind record an album with, its got this softness to it as well, its not a crazily harsh album, though it does have its aggressive moments, but its just got this super cool flow to it. Its rough where it needs to be and its mellow when required too; usually an absurd combination of both at the same time. Illustrated brilliantly by the juxtaposition of the first two tracks of the album, “Daft Punk is playing at my house” and “Too much love”. Check em out and you'll see what I mean. 

So I haven't really got too much else more to say, other than this really had a big fucking effect on me, it made me realise a live band has more options than just being a regular rock group, or a funk group, or jazz group, they broke down the mental barriers in my head of what a band is supposed to be like, why the fuck not play everything if you can? Might as well.  Listening to the whole album again now, as a piece of production, just wow, some of the evolving patterns in the background ambience of some tracks, can't even imagine the arrangement job that mustve gone into that, definitely spent a lot of time on it! 

Lastly, just please go check out “Yeah (pretentious mix)”, its a full 11 minutes and something, not going to lie to you, but if you're a weirdo like me that spends your time zoning out into music, just lose yourself in it. Its worth the 11 minutes. 

Also heres a youtube link to all the tracks in the album.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7kqfeRb0KY&list=PLeXhUVu_buN6d0_MpS9gMKDDcPkCdQ-KM

[92groovz-recordings]

Nine Inch Nails - Year Zero

One of the first albums to truly deeply affect my musical palette. I remember being with my Pops in a CD shop, he's digging for old school jazz CDs as usual and I see this, the crazy alien hand on the front cover, like a car had just run an alien over or something, just had to have it. Manage to convince the old man to grab it for me and we head home. 

It was 2007 and I was 13 at the time, Id never listened to any grunge or punk music really at this point; this came in and blew all that all out of the water, it blew my head open with distorted, overdriven, crazily layered basslines, just check out God Given, Meet Your Master and The Warning. Fuck man, it was just so pure, so raw. Remember being driven to school one morning by Pops and he wanted to check it out and the look on his face is something entrenched into my memory forever, couldn't believe what it was. Specially in a car music system, was just rocking everything inside, the feeling of the low end shanking the seat is another memory ill always cherish. 

Plus coming into school, listening to Survivalism in the morning was just so much cooler than listening to some bullshit Red Hot Chilli Peppers or Radiohead track everyone else was indulging in at the time. The music just made you feel cool; theres this sinister darkness, apocalyptic feel to the whole LP. 

The low end, the low end in this changed my world, just wow. Are you allowed to do that? Id never heard anything like it, just totally overdriven, brutal, glitched in and out, layered to hell, full of savageness and then sometimes would cut out into pure silence with an ambient drone-ish vibe in the back, unreal. Absolutely unreal. The way the low end was used to create atmosphere and ambience, absolutely surreal. 

I just remember it blew my notion of what music was completely apart, was learning jazz flute at the time and I couldn't look my teacher the same way in the eye anymore, what are you teaching me? is this music? but I want to make music like that! The rawness, the punk, the brutality, the complete mayhem and chaos of the album just started ignited my nature for that kind of, not weird but less trodden path of music so to speak. Its just so fucking cool, having revisted to the whole album just now; a full 11 years after initially having purchased it, still blows my mind, the distortion, the delays, the overdrive, the ways the vocals compliment the instrumentals, the vast array of tracks which all come together coherently to paint this abstract vision of this apocalyptic period of time, yet each of the tracks very much have their own ambience and their own story written into themselves, its got character. 

And for a kid in my generation, overexposed to all the bullshit of social media, collective pop culture and that kind of trash, this just had an element of aloofness to it, I had no clue who the fuck Nine Inch Nails were, were they a band? was it one person? I had no fucking clue and looking back that endears the album to me even more so, it was never about the artist, Trent Reznor never mattered to me when I discovered Nine Inch Nails, it was purely the sound, the unbelievable sound that blew open my definition of what music is supposed to be, obviously as time goes on and you get older, you like to take on knowledge and my respect for Reznor as an artist is immense, he keeps that aloofness, that weirdness, that abstractness, its about the music not about him, and in a world so fucking full of a clusterfuck of overly exposed bullshit rappers and pop stars, he keeps people like me looking for real music, and inspiring many others, NIN definitely changed my life. Hindsight is weird, didn't even know what a synthesiser was when listening to the tracks back then, subconsciously kind of lead me down that route. 

Im not really interested in giving a whole musical, visual, artistic review for this kind of stuff, though I strongly suggest you do some deep diving into the marketing behind this album, I just really want to write about music that set the tone for my musical adventures way back in my early-mid teen years. So that you know what the music means to me, but honestly even if it isn't up your street, if you're a producer or an all round music lover, who's seriously passionate about music, the album is a solid listen to, you can take a lot from it as a producer. But at the end of the day, this album, for me at least will always be a little bit of a driving force and inspiration for me in my life, its the piece of music that keeps me pushing and wanting to pursue everything I do with a passion cause its all about breaking boundaries and rules and with a little bit of a “Fuck you” attitude. 

Long live Punk, long live Rock n' Roll, long live NIN. 

PS, below is a youtube link to all the full album. enjoy. 

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL17F094D97071A637

[92groovz-recordings]

Octave one - Audio, Genève, CH

So, basically wanted to get this blog super tuned towards music and now that I've got an idea of truly where to take it, its time to commit. 

Octave one, what can I say, saw them live on wednesday, 5th September, this club called Audio in my little city of Geneva. Fantastic, what energy behind the decks, ooof, hard to describe, the beginning of the set was a bit static and to be completely honest; only the first time I've seen them live, so need to see them again just to see if they play the same set over again or change it up. 

Either way, they were fucking wicked. Moved right up front to the middle of the pit, right up next to them two, place smelled like shit! purely cause of the sweat of the peeps! gotta love it, do have one critique to make of the sound in Audio though, towards the front right it was perfect, front middle had a bit too much reverb, front left was dim, and going towards the back it got a lot worse, that being said; the layout was completely different from the last time I caught Jeremy Underground there. So there's that, club is pretty wicked cause the layout changes a fair bit whenever they want to change it up, always makes for a new experience. On the down side however, can't re-enter the club once you've already entered, which on one hand I sort of understand but also really don't, just thought you sesh lovers should know. 

There's a second room in the club, to the other side of the smoking area, actually the first room to the right when you come in, I cannot remember the name of the DJ in there, but my days, cool cat was spinning wicked house beats all night long! proper house tunes too, not this beatport bullshit. 

Going back to Octave One, really dont have much left to say that people probably don't know already or haven't said already; I’d like to add that it was really nice to getaway from the usual techno sound you catch here in Geneva, was nice to have a bit of Detroit in town, the variance in their set compared to the usual techno night out was a lovely change. 

Would encourage you to definitely go catch them live if you can, if you're a lover of underground, dance and music, they're some cats you gotta see, cause they ooze thump and proper hard sounds, and bring in the softer sides to match. 

Boss, big up Octave One. Thanks for giving this dance lover a great night. 

Big love. 

[92groovz-recordings]

continuing on my soul-recovery sessions, another few months of this probably. but here you go, one of my personal favourites, best listened to on a winters day, early in the morning when you leave your house to go about the day. just remember, be your own hero. 

[92groovz-recordings]

discovered this song just roaming around youtube one morning while drinking my coffee, love Needs, but instantly fell in love deeply and truly with this beat. Was feeling a bit off too and it just brought me back entirely. Proper smooth house. Perfect heartbreak recovery music! for those oversensitive ones like me, who need to crawl into our chill zones and just tune the world out.