I'm writing this week's post from my hospital bed, readers. I've been diagnosed with severe caving in of the skull, but I should thankfully recover in time to write next week's post from the comfort of our Eastcote lair.
Over the weekend, I made an ill-advised decision to launch my DJ tribute act career with my turn as Frankie Nicholls - Ruislip's premier Frankie Knuckles tribute - at Champers on the main Eastcote drag. The night started well enough, I was playing all of his big hits one after the other, mixed, and all of the punters were raising their hands in the air in appreciation. Some of them were even dancing.
About an hour in, I received my caving in of the skull after one of the bouncers saw me crab scratching with Caucasian hands and realised that I'd blacked up and wore a brown swimming cap to portray the Godfather of House. I was dragged out of the DJ booth in the middle of his Love Hangover remix and beaten half to death on the dance floor whilst YOUR MOTHER walked over my now-purple carcass with another round of Sambuca, which was a shame - but it was fair enough, I suppose. You just can't do that anymore, and if I could turn back time, I would have just put a pair of reading glasses on and gone as my Surgeon tribute act, Doctor Doctor...I Feel Like A Surgeon!
Doing the right thing all of the time is tricky, especially when you're making things up on the Internet like I do, but I'll tell you something now, I am cancelling my booking for The Red Lion in Walsall. I was due to travel up there and perform on Sunday night as my drag Kerri Chandler tribute act, Kerry Chandler, but it's not worth the trouble.
And I've run out of CONTENT REMOVED BY LOONY LEFT WOKE BRIGADE BEST PROMOS LAWYERS
To ease the throbbing headaches I'm suffering with due to being bounced around Champers, I'm writing this with the sounds of The Rain In The Trees ringing in my ears. No, not the rain in the trees, The Rain In The Trees. It's a new ambient thing album by Graintable on Ransom Note Records. It came out the other week and I bought it from Bandcamp for just £7. You can buy it as a cassette, too, but you've got to be a bit too much of an east London try-hard to get genuinely excited about tapes these days. Come on, guys, it's 2022! LOL hehehehehehehehe.
Some people think that Ran$om Note is just a website. It is so much more than that. Ran$om Note, whilst not a way of life, is certainly a way of living, and in a world that just can't get enough of dance music and underground dance culture and DJing and producing, it (Ran$om Note) provides a great service to that underground market. But it's so much more than that. Ran$om Note also make tote bags and throw parties, like the long-running Disco Biscuit with Joe Europe and that one they used to do at Farr Festival. And they do records, and all, like The Rain In The Trees by Graintable, and podcasts. You can't move on the Internet for Ran$om Note. I think.
You can tell that Graintable has put a lot of thought into his record, and it's not thumping like the stuff R$N puts out by Bawrut, and it is breathtakingly mastered, so I'm going to award The Rain In The Trees a more than respectable 10/10
Buy it here: The Rain In The Trees
Follow Graintable on Twitter: @Graintable
Follow Ran$om Note on Twitter: @RansomNoted
If my skull wasn't caved in, I'd be listening to the brilliantly mastered Bawrut EP, In The Middle (Extended). What a record! Records always sound brilliant when they're mastered brilliantly, and this brilliantly mastered record is no exception.
In The Middle (Extended) is the add-on to last year's LP, In The Middle, but it's kind of like remixes of tracks from that album for the dance floor. Soulwax did something similar with Nite Versions, and The Human League with their Unlimited Orchestra thing. It's a great concept that works best when the music is mastered in the right way, and let me tell you now, In The Middle (Extended) is brilliantly mastered. You gotta hear it!
Mentira is my favourite track on this EP, because I think it samples Wannabe by The Spice Girls; the bit where Scary Spice shouts, "Welllllll..." before singing, "I'll tell you want, what I really, really want..." Correct me if I'm wrong, Bawrut.
Because of how great the mastering is on this, and of how much it must mean to Bawrut to be featured on a blog like Best Promos, I therefore award this release a WHOPPING 10/10 !
Buy it here: In The Middle (Extended)
Follow Bawrut on Twitter: @BawrutSilencio
I was going to do a bit where I'd had angry letters written to me from angry bin women about the use of the term, "bin men", I'd used in previous posts, and how I was now going to adjust my language and use, "bin people", from now on, but I think that was funnier in my head when I went for a wee at 3am this morning than it is on my screen now, so I'll scrap that bit and instead shine a light on an up-and-coming UK DJ called Ben Sims. Have a listen to a DJ mix that he's done for the BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix series.
I've abandoned the ambient Graintable music I had on because my skull isn't really caved in, so I don't really need to be listening to ambient anymore. This Ben Sims mix is a bit like having a headache, though, so it's keeping me in character. The music he's playing is fast techno, and you can tell it's fast techno because the tempo is fast and there's hardly any claps or snares on the 2 or 4 on any of the tracks. Actually, the one on 1:18 has a clap on the 2 and 4. Apologies.
The tracklist alone reads like a who's who of global underground techno, every mixed transition is beat-matched to a very high standard, and the UK dance legend Pete Tong even pops up at the beginning and end to talk about how great Ben Sims is. I can't think of many DJs Pete would do that for, so Ben should feel very proud of himself.
It's a fab mix and Ben Sims seems like a nice bloke. He's got a very friendly face, so I can't give this mix anything other than a 10/10
Follow Ben Sims on Twitter: @DJBenSims
Follow Pete Tong on Twitter: @PeteTong
I think that's all from me. Bye.
Bye...maybe forever...? Certainly, if I'd kept the boot polish line in, this blog would have had to shut down immediately.
Email me: BestPromos4Eva@gmail.com
Tweet me: @BestPromos4Eva
I don't get it, but Instagram me: instagram.com/bestpromos4eva
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