#old school electronic music

[vintage-tigre]

[possible-streetwear]

[edmpublishing]

Daft Punk with Neil Aline on his BPM radio show on WNYU, NYC 1997.

[randomvarious]

Today's mix *and* compilation:

The Best L.A. Funk! 1985 Hip Hop / Electro

Good lord, this is such a beautifully strange artifact from 1985, man. A disco-and-dance label called JDC Records issued a now very hard to find cassette called The Best L.A. Funk!, and while you might then naturally think that staples of L.A.'s own funk scene would be on it, like Parliament-Funkadelic and Zapp & Roger, what this actually is is a showcase of the city's own electro-fied mid-80s hip hop scene instead, which had taken a whole lot of its own cues from what Afrika Bambaataa had been doing since the early 80s a few thousand miles away over in New York.

Wikipedia's article on the electro genre barely makes mention of Los Angeles at all, but the A-side of this tape—an excellent DJ mix by JDC in-house remixer Juan Hielscher and member of short-lived local group Knights of the Turntables, Curtis Harvey—does a magnificent job of capturing the essence of this goofy, vibrant, and important Afrofuturist scene, just a few short years before N.W.A would successfully flip the script in redefining L.A. rap with gritty, lewd, and violent portrayals of gangsterism instead, bringing its spectacular luridness into the national spotlight.

But there were common threads between that significant lurch from sci-fi to the streets, and the most important figure of them all, the one-and-only Dr. Dre himself, is on this mix, as a teenaged member of one of L.A. electro's own foremost acts at the time, the World Class Wreckin' Cru, which fellow future member of N.W.A, DJ Yella, was in too. Here we get two offerings from the WCWC: "Surgery," on which Dre flexes his prowess as a turntablist, and "Juice," which, I think, when it comes to this whole scene, is pretty much an un-toppable, uptempo dance classic, with Yella on the scratches and an implementation of electro's signature monotone and robotic talkbox vocal too🤖.

And another member of the Wreckin' Cru, The Unknown DJ, gets his own "808 Beats" on here too. Unknown's also one of those links between electro and gangsta rap as well, because the year after this tape was released, he also produced Ice-T's early L.A. gangsta classic, "6' 'N the Mornin'," and then later went on to work with L.A. gangsta legends MC Eiht and Compton's Most Wanted too.

So therein lies all the beauty of this tape, but now here's why it's also pretty strange. One, this lovely DJ mix on the A-side actually isn't exclusive to this album. In fact, that same year, JDC issued it as its own standalone mix with Dunk Yer Funk Records under the title of L.A. Beats: The Definitive Street Funk from the West Coast. And on top of that, the UK, who were also developing their own electro following at the time too, also imported this mix in '85 as the second half of a release on their Street Sounds label called New York v L.A. Beats, which pitted the electro sounds of both American cities against one another.

But the other weird thing is also this cassette's B-side. The aforementioned Knights of the Turntables kick it off with "Techno-Scratch," which also appears on the A-side mix, but then that song is followed up by the inclusion of another JDC hip hop release called Nuthin' But Beats by some act called Igor RX-15. Originally, these tracks were issued on a 12-inch, and while their sparse and rudimentary instrumentals sound like they were made for others to scratch and rap over, they serve little purpose on this tape itself, because you can't scratch a damn cassette tape, man!

So, at the end of the day, I really don't quite understand what the point of this whole release was. I mean, the A-side mix makes for a superb window into L.A. electro in 1985, but the title of the tape itself is very misleading, JDC had already issued the mix on another of their own releases, and the B-side could've definitely been used more effectively too. I'd recommend that anyone listen to Juan Hielscher and Curtis Harvey's work here in order to get a cool sense of what L.A. hip hop sounded like before its big pivot, but you can obtain it so much more easily than the way I did. I snagged a copy of this cassette once I saw it put up for sale on Discogs, but JDC's L.A. Beats record is going for under $5 and the New York v L.A. Beats one is less than $20 too (all without shipping). And I'd imagine it all sounds better on vinyl anyway 😮‍💨.

Listen to part 1 of the A-side mix here and part 2 here.

Highlights:

L.A. Dream Team - "Rockberry Jam" Unknown D.J. - "808 Beats" D.E.F. With D.J. 3-D - "D.E.F." World Class Wrecking Crew - "Surgery" Egyptian Lover - "Egyptian Lover" World Class Wrecking Crew - "Juice" Unknown D.J. - "Let's Jam" Knights of the Turntables - "We Are the Knights" Chris "The Glove" Taylor - "Itchiban Scratch"

[yallitsvivian]

Working on some old school hard trance

[dankalbumart]

The Bass That Ate Miami by Various Artists Pandisc 1989 Hip Hop / Electro / Miami Bass / Bass Music

[adaist]

Fun fact for those who never wanted to know

The album Relapse by Eminem is actually very well designed. The album being about drugs and the state of psychosis,

Eminem chose to have an artist arrange his face with colored pills and tablets,

a clever move. Ignoring most of the fine details

The label is designed like that of a medication bottle

with small features such as the refill date being the day the album released and the prescription being assigned by Dr. Dre. Also, it's addressed to 8 Mile Road in Detroit, Michigan.

This album was Eminem's experimentation with Dr. Dre's beats

And it wouldn't be much of a stretch to say that this could play into the theme of Eminem's experimentation with prescription sleep medications, also, notice the fire themed colors, like a candle, that you'd read beside your bed with, or the colors of the room when a smaller dimmer or redder light is flashed. Sleep again!

(Kindly ignore what I named my headphones)

[lilysnodd]

This song is so good I wish more people listen to this I think this song is better then some music today and the beat is amazing you don't hear it everyday has a unique sound to it.

[cynicalmusings]

omg guys… musician!anaxa au… can you see the vision

[tunalad]

[8th of June 2025] Patron Requiem - Шуморење

https://youtu.be/QUrKCGmWzIQ

https://patronrequiem.bandcamp.com/album/--6

non dungeon rap release this time, just regular ambient/dungeon synth.

Initially, I made this for the previous PR release (the "Монах" one). I made the beats and everything, but I didn't feel like the music fit this artwork, or the saint's story in question. Artwork feels more like a forest synth demo, so I made some forest synth for it (to be fair it's more like regular old school dungeon synth)

Saint in the artwork is Prohor of Pčinja, a hermit who lived in a forest and who told Diogenes that he would become the emperor

[vintage-tigre]

The Story of Iggy Pop aka LSD Iguana.

While Iggy Pop is widely hailed as the godfather of punk, few know of his secret role in the acid house movement.

In the early '80s, after a rough patch in his career, Iggy retreated to Berlin-not just to escape, but to experiment. There, in the grimy basements of Kreuzberg, he stumbled upon the Roland TB-303. Intrigued by its guttural squelch, Iggy began crafting raw loops of distorted basslines and whispered vocals-half Dada, half Detroit.

By 1985, he was a shadowy figure in Chicago's underground scene. DJs like Pierre and Ron Hardy speak in hushed tones about a leather-clad man who handed out cassettes full of twisted 303 loops and German mutterings. "He told us to make the machines bleed," Pierre once said. Some of those sounds would form the basis of what became known as acid house.

In 1986, under the alias LSD Iguana, Iggy recorded Neu! Sensation, an acid house album pressed in ultra-limited quantities. Rumor says he destroyed most copies, calling them "too dangerous." One track-"Electric Veins" - surfaced decades later and caused a stir among electronic artists like Aphex Twin and Helena Hauff, both citing it as a forgotten masterpiece.

Though Iggy never claimed the scene, many say his chaotic spirit lives in every acid line that spirals out of control. To this day, old heads in Detroit and Berlin refer to certain records as "Iggies"-wild, unpredictable, and a little unhinged. The godfather of punk? Yes. But perhaps, secretly, also the ghost in the machine..

[possible-streetwear]

Douglas John McCarthy Born September 1st, 1966. Deceased June 11, 2025

[randomvarious]

Today's mix:

Scratch & Break 1983 Hip Hop / Synthpop / Electro / New Wave / Funk / Disco / Pop

God, this record really is just so emblematic of what the 80s were all about, folks. Nowadays you have more and more DJs who fit a specific niche and only play one type of music that's set to one type of vibe, but back in the 80s, it was really pretty much 'anything goes,' and everyone was totally fine with it. Disco, synthpop, new wave, electro, funk, hip hop, post-disco, dance-pop, hi-NRG, dance-rock, freestyle, house—all this shit and more just coalesced into one big beautiful ball of party music where everything was accepted and embraced. If variety truly is the spice of life, then your typical club dancefloor was never as spicy as it was throughout the 1980s, because the total eclecticism of what used to get played at those venues is basically extinct at this point; and obviously, we very much need that spirit back.

So here's a full slate of dance bangers that was issued in 1983 in West Germany by EMI. Scratch & Break's one glaring flaw is that it's partially mixed horribly, but if the very awkward cut-offs and sharp transitions won't sour you on the whole experience, then you're still in for a full-on treat here, with an excellent blend of bops that hail from the US, the UK, and continental Europe as well.

And, I guess, since the legend is recently departed, we'll start with the one and only Sly Stone here, who isn't on this record himself, but to whom there are a couple superb connections anyway. Directly speaking, there's a group who close out this album called T.B.A. that deliver their own tremendously funky and dancy pop cover of Sly's biggest commercial hit, "Family Affair." I have absolutely no idea who T.B.A. is or are and the only thing that they ever released was this song itself, which is shockingly somehow currently at under 1,000 plays on YouTube. Funky and highly active deep synth bassline, hard snare, vocally monotone female-led verses, coked out electric guitars—just an absolute beast that probably came from somewhere in Europe that makes for pure 80s party bliss 😌.

And the other Sly connection we have is his own cousin, the evidently underrated Moses Tyson, who's had a career that's mixed both gospel and secular. In 1983, he released "Keep Dancin to the Music"—which was very possibly a reference to Sly's own lively funk classic, "Dance to the Music"—and while it's clearly inspired by the synthesizer melody of Prince's "1999," Tyson manages to turn in one of those feelgood funky dance beauts that's made for clapping, stomping, and all-around grooving to with this totally underrated heater of his ☺️.

And there are so many other quality jams on this record that I could keep on gushing over too, but if we wanna get to the hip-hop-ness that you'd probably naturally expect from an album called Scratch & Break that has graffitied album art on it, then another one to definitely look out for is K-9 Corp. + George Clinton's "Dog Talk," which samples Clinton's own electro-funk classic "Atomic Dog," and is another one of these songs by an act that only ever ended up putting out one record while also being another clap-and-stomper too. And there's a bunch of old school pitter-pattered rapping on it as well.

So, maybe you wouldn't expect such a great selection of funky rap, synthpop, disco, new wave, etc. tunes to make its way over onto the record shelves of West Germany in 1983, but I think one common misconception that American folks may have about hip hop in general is that they think it took a while for the music to emanate its way out of the New York area over into Europe. But it's not true at all. Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight"—the second ever released rap tune in history—fared far better on the commercial charts throughout Europe than it did in the US, and it wasn't very long until others in Europe started rapping on their own records too. Austria's Falco delivered "Der Kommissar" in 1981, for example, before New York acts like Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five and Afrika Bambaataa & The Soulsonic Force would release some of hip hop's earliest classic cornerstones in "The Message" and "Planet Rock," respectively. And so, I think it makes a place like West Germany actually more than well-equipped to manifest a compilation like this. Like, this isn't a corny, inauthentic attempt at introducing this music to this country; they already knew about it and the overall product here is genuinely terrific, real-deal stuff.

Now, if you wanna listen to this album, feel free to message me, because I don't think there's a very easy way to find a copy of it online that you can stream. And not to toot on my own horn here too loudly too, but if you love this eclectic dance concept of the 80s like I do, one of my favorite playlists of mine that I've ever made is crafted in ode to that same exact attitude. A few years ago, I put together something called 1980s NYC Block Party, and I happen to think it's a killer mix of hip hop, dance-pop, disco, post-disco, electro, freestyle, funk, synthpop, house, and new wave. Just set your Spotify crossfade to about 5 or 6 seconds and enjoy a 3-hour-plus journey of 80s party-rocking greatness 👍.

Highlights:

Boytronic - "You" Bandolero - "Paris Latino" Kajagoogoo - "Big Apple" Moses Tyson - "Keep Dancin' to the Music" Heaven 17 - "Crushed By the Wheels of Industry" K-9 Corps + George Clinton - "Dog Talk" Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five - "New York, New York" Thomas Dolby - "Get Out of My Mix" Project Future - "Ray-Gun-Omics" Light of the World - "Jealous Lover" Gang of Four - "Is It Love" T.B.A. - "It's a Family Affair"

[coco-crimson]

The Invincible Spirit - Push!

[dankalbumart]

The Miami Bass Express by Various Artists Pandisc 1989 Hip Hop / Miami Bass / Electro / Southern Hip Hop