Music Death Conspiracy Special

Thanks for coming back. Appreciate it. Have a handful of Skittles. No problem. No, take as many as you like, it's fine. No, really. It's fine. As many as you like. Don't then.

I was going to write this post as a Music Death Conspiracy Special based on the amusing premise that Freddie Mercury was alive and well and living in the city of Bacolod with a handmaid. I knocked up a mock-up photograph of him and ran it through the Bigger, the Old HD and the Moustache filter in FaceApp. I sent the picture to my sister on WhatsApp and then screen-grabbed it for this blog. I was going to write about how the Mainstream Media (MSN) don't want us to see the photo because...and that's where I lost interest in it. This blog is purely for reviewing dance music and looking at all the latest dance music promos, the Best Promos, and that's how this blog shall stay/remain.

#Remain

Heavenly and Andrew Weatherall go together like a horse and carriage. You might even say they are like a marriage...a marriage made in Heaven(ly). Heavenly. I even overheard a bearded fisherman in a Brick Lane vintage clothes shop telling his trendy son that Heavenly and Andrew Weatherall are like two sardines in a pod. Inseparable.

They're not inseparable, though. ALFOS and Ivan Smagghe will tell you that, but they were always very good pals, and this week marks the week that during this week a new promo is raining down on all of the DJs of the world this week, and it's this one:

Andrew Weatherall remixes 1&2 Heavenly volume 3&4, no, hang on, sorry, Heavenly volume 1&2 Andrew Weatherall remixes 3&4. Shit, sorry. Bear with me. Sorry. Forgive me. Sorry. Hang on.

Heavenly remixes 3&4
Andrew Weatherall volume 1&2

YES.

Heavenly remixes 3&4 Andrew Weatherall volume 1&2 is out Friday 28 January 2022 and comes ramma-jamma full of wonderful Andrew Weatherall remixes of artists and songs in the Heavenly atmosphere/label. I just pre-ordered both digital albums (volume 1 & 2) on Bandcamp for a combined cost of only £1998! You really can't say fairer than that.

It's only money. You don't take it with you. You're a long time dead...almost as long as Weatherall's Flowered Up remix! LOL.

As entertaining as this new blog is, it's not as entertaining as pressing play on your MP3 player and getting out of your mind on beer to both of these volumes and trying to imagine how good it would have been to be dancing in a warehouse or Shoom to all of these remixes as new instead of swaying side to side in your back extension looking back blindly on an era you were too young and too far away to enjoy at the time, and for those reasons, I give both volumes an impressive 10/10

Pre-order Heavenly remixes 3&4 Andrew Weatherall volume 1&2
here: volume 1
and here: volume 2

I went to watch Teleman with a tall, old friend of mine last year and was impressed by their musicianship, by their promptness on stage, by their manners and by their fashion sense. Who said normcore was dead? The best dressed member of the band was the drummer. I enjoyed his cool way with fashion so much that the very next day, I went to Uniqlo on Bond Street and bought a pair of black cords and a white roll-neck, long-sleeved top. I then went to the Bandcamp shop and bought Autumn Colours. I then went to Muji and bought a pair of white cotton trainers, but they got ruined a few weeks later after going back and forth on the school run in the middle of winter. They're black now, so I bought a pair of Stan Smiths last week from Size?. I am finally happy with my look, and feel as though if someone saw me standing next to Hiro Ama from Teleman in a wine bar, they might think we were in the same band or club.

Hiro Ama's new EP is brilliant. It's called Animal Emotions and I'm basing its brilliance on the Autumn Colours song I bought last year, the Free Soul track you're able to stream on Bandcamp and Hiro's clothes. I'm giving it a whopping 10/10

Animal Emotions EP comes out on Friday 20 May 2022 (that's ages away!)

Pre-order it here: Animal Emotions EP

Klubikon · PREMIERE: Thakzin feat. Kitty Amor - Khoisan

I've never been to South Africa, but I do enjoy Bob Mortimer's South African stories on Athletico Mince, so I was overjoyed to see that one of my favourite labels was releasing an album by South Africa's best producer, vocalist and singer, Thandi Draai. Africa Gets Physical Vol. 4 on Get Physical comes out this Friday, and I caught up with Thandi in McDonald's on Ruislip High Street last night, and she had this to say:

"What a time for Afro Tech House, it’s alive and vibrating through the whole Universe right now. I am super honoured to be compiling this year's Africa Gets Physical Vol 4 and for the opportunity to work with such amazing artists from right across the African continent. I’m coming through unapologetic about our African electronic dance music. Camagu!"

Camagu indeed, Thandi. Thanks for the chat. I haven't had a Big Mac in a long time.

If I had to choose between giving this release a 1/10 or a 10/10, I'd have to give it a 10/10

Pre-order Africa Gets Physical Vol. 4 here: AWOOGA

Next time, I'll be looking forward to/promoting Erol Alkan and Ivan Smagghe's ALL NIGHT until 4am nightclubbing Easter rave at Studio 9294 in Hackney. Tickets are available here if you're not bothered about hearing what I have to say about it first.

Speaking of Bob Mortimer, it occurred to me last night that you could make an amusing dance music/Bob Mortimer-related t-shirt with the characters, 808 Mortimer, on it. Or any DJs who think DJ names like Jichael Mackson and Simmy Javile are funny could call themselves, 808 Mortimer, because 808 looks a bit like the name, BOB.

I'm all blogged out now. Bye.

Email me any promos you want reviewing in the future: bestpromos4eva@gmail.com

Tweet me: @BestPromos4Eva

January 22 One

Welcome to this week's mega post on your supa-soar-away * ORIGINAL TEXT REDACTED BY SUE GRAY * ORIGINAL TEXT REDACTED BY SUE GRAY * ORIGINAL TEXT REDACTED BY SUE GRAY * ORIGINAL TEXT REDACTED BY SUE GRAY * ORIGINAL TEXT REDACTED BY SUE GRAY * ORIGINAL TEXT REDACTED BY SUE GRAY * ORIGINAL TEXT REDACTED BY SUE GRAY * ORIGINAL TEXT REDACTED BY SUE GRAY * ORIGINAL TEXT REDACTED BY SUE GRAY * ORIGINAL TEXT REDACTED BY SUE GRAY * ORIGINAL TEXT REDACTED BY SUE GRAY * ORIGINAL TEXT REDACTED BY SUE GRAY * ORIGINAL TEXT REDACTED BY SUE GRAY * ORIGINAL TEXT REDACTED BY SUE GRAY *

The only way it won't be a lorra fun is if I get bored after this week's post and disappear for another four years.

Last night, I was laying awake at night, last night, wondering how many dance music promos I was going to be waking up to this morning after deciding over the weekend and last night to start a new blog about dance music promos called Best Promos and, boy!, I was not disappointed! When I opened my peepers, I caught a glimpse of a fat, jolly old man all dressed in red with a long white beard carrying a sack, clambering out of my bedroom window with a merry, "Ho! Ho! Ho!". I jumped out of bed in amazement and saw him squeezing into a Ford Sierra RS Cosworth (I don't know what colour it was, it was five o'clock in the morning) and he sped off with real confidence. I think he did a wheel skid, too. When I turned the lights on, I spied a giant sock hanging on the door handle that helps to open the door of my bedroom and it (the giant sock) looked full to bursting with goodies. I crept over to it like a midnight lemonade drinker and peeked inside the massive sock with desperate anticipation, precipitation and perspiration. Yes! Lynx Africa with Lynx Africa socks (normal size). Double Yes! A Cadbury selection box! Triple Yes! Hundreds and hundreds of dance music MP3s!!!!

It was like Christmas had come early, and in many much ways: it had. I was now the proud owner of hundreds of MP3s that the ordinary boys and girls on our street would have to wait weeks to listen to. To say my head had grown would be an understatement; it was now enormous. With a self-satisfied grin and some chocolate around my mouth, I felt cocky and, if I'm honest, a little bit more brave in the face of this never-ending Covid-19 pandemic. If that dumpy, pissed-up, scruffy smirk of a PM we have these days (I've been telling people that PM stands for Party Minister, which has got me A LOT of laughs recently) won't wrap his flabby arms around the country any more, then armed with a big sock full of dance music promos, we at Best Promos will (wrap our arms around the country).

How?

By writing some reviews once a week of the BEST promos I've received in the previous week to help you decide which ones to buy the following week.

Best Promos 4 Eva.

 

Why everyone goes mad about vinyl is beyond me. You pay about £15.99 for the A-side and two or three remixes max, and you can’t even play them in your car! You spend the same amount of money for a CD album with anything between ten and fifteen songs on, and you can play them in loads of different machines. No wonder we're still in the middle of a credit crunch; people are wasting their hard-earned cash on vinyl because dance snobs say it's cool when, in my important opinion, CDs are cost effective, space effective and they look far more futuristic and 'cooler' than a massive black circle ever will. MP3s are just as impressive as CDs because they're invisible. Playing an MP3 is exactly like watching a magic trick in Las Vegas.

Saying that, The Launch by DJ Jean was the first 12" vinyl house record I ever bought, and I’ll never forget how special it felt to have that 180g slab of wax in my mitts. In the summer of 1999, I handed over £15.99 to that rude, skinny, ginger lad at Hard To Find Records in Birmingham, the one whose face looked like it was being sucked backwards into his skull through his eye sockets by a rare brain disease. If you were there, you know. The odd bod handed over the record with a scowl and I went back home to listen to it on my brand-new Gemini belt drive decks. It was then that I realised that if I wanted to be DJ, I had to buy more than one record. I went back the next day with my tail between my legs and bought Big Love by Pete Heller for £15.99.

The Launch still goes down well today and holds up when dropped. I remember Move D (pronounced Moved) dropping it at an Electric Minds loft party in 2011. The place went bananas. In November last year, Justin Robertson dropped it at The Social. The place went bananas. This morning, I opened the windows and dropped it in the living room. The bin men went bananas.

In the early noughties, I used to play the DJ Disco Remix out in the Pen and Wig’s Sunday night hard house night in Walsall. It had the “5 4 3 2 1 Ignition” vocal, a donk in between every beat, loads of scratching and those famous DJ Jean trumpets. Magical. You never get those days back.

I'll give The Launch by DJ Jean a solid 8/10 and Big Love by Pete Heller an impressive 9\10

The Launch 2022 remixes will be available to buy exclusively on Bandcamp in May. You're looking at just £2.00 for a squelchy 303, 808 and 707 acid workout with retro M25 vibes and icy rear-view window feels by Posthuman, a moody yet uplifting, forward-facing 105bpm chugger from the Holy Land by Moscoman and a full-on glittering shoulder-pad techno vocal edit by Jumpin' Jack Frost and Billy Bunter.

Pre-order here: The Launch Remixes

I'll be back next week with at least THREE dance music reviews from my massive sack of box fresh MP3s.

Email me your best promos for review on bestpromos4eva@gmail.com

Tweet me on @bestpromos4eva