mu-Ziq Planet Mu Listening Club

[YangYing]

that frost jockey album is awesome

[Extralife]

that frost jockey album is awesome

[KovalainenFanBoy]

 

that frost jockey album is awesome

 

 

Not much more to say about this tbh, he nailed this one. Finally I can stop replaying the Universal Indicator mix

[KovalainenFanBoy]

woops forgot about this. this'll be up til friday

 

ZIQ017

Leafcutter John

Concourse E.E.P.

Released 24-04-2000

Planet Mu site: https://planet.mu/releases/concourse-e-e-p/

Planet Mu store: https://planetmu.bleepstores.com/release/68816

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/4Q6TgyoCqlH7Sk1y15n9YZ?si=ZHr_Zo9rSMCCopM3FGL-Xg

 

1. Catho - 7:32

2. Woktech - 6:38

3. Fan Heater - 4:55

4. Cromer - 5:22

5. Woods And Rivers - 5:17

6. The Brown Man - 11:32

7. Aonscht - 9:06

8. Beat - 2:40

Debut release from John Burton. Extended EP of electro-acoustic computer jazz.

 

John’s debut release, the “Concourse eep” (ZIQ017) came almost fully formed from the first demo that John sent me. It’s refreshing to receive music which is so obviously created out of a love of sound and musical structure, rather than people second guessing what you want to hear, which is what normally happens. John’s music is a thing of rare beauty & subtlety, closely related to the electroacoustic compositions of Pierre Henry & Bernard Parmegiani as well as contemporary acousmatic music.

 

Recently John’s music has taken a more lyrical direction as can be seen on his fourth album ‘The Forest And The Sea’ on the Berlin label Staubgold Records (July 2006).

 

He writes his own software most of which is available for free from his website. He has given talks and exhibited software across Europe (including the ICA) and is also a regular guest speaker at the London College of Communication. He also is a member of the Mercury nominated band Polar Bear

[KovalainenFanBoy]

anyone know, from the forums or anything, why would mike try to pass off burgundy trax as the work of someone else? I guess it's just for the fun of it, but still. A shame that he would do that for some of his best work

[Extralife]

anyone know, from the forums or anything, why would mike try to pass off burgundy trax as the work of someone else? I guess it's just for the fun of it, but still. A shame that he would do that for some of his best work

I agree.

 

Bambi?

[Hugh Mughnus]

For the rush, adaptation, and general backwardness of the act?

[chronical]

not my favorite leafcutter john release.. much prefer whistleblower fred äLpi

[perunamuusi]

 

anyone know, from the forums or anything, why would mike try to pass off burgundy trax as the work of someone else? I guess it's just for the fun of it, but still. A shame that he would do that for some of his best work

I agree.

 

Bambi?

 

I am guessing it's cause it was a kinda throwback sounding release in an era when everyone was all like check out my cutting edge next level beatz yo...

 

 

Dunno. Bambi?

[KovalainenFanBoy]

I've never heard much of Leafcutter's stuff apart from remixes and some comp tracks, which I all found interesting. I'm not too big on electroacoustic noodlings - I enjoy it when it happens to pop up on a comp or wherever, but I never feel like actually putting it on myself and listening to a full album like Concourse. I enjoyed it, but more in terms of certain sounds and ideas/snippets than full tracks, so I don't think I'll ever feel like listening to this in full again... maybe it'll grow on me. But for now I'm more interested in what he came up with after this, than in this per se

[hello spiral]

Housebound Spirit is aces

[KovalainenFanBoy]

ZIQ010
Kid Spatula
Full Sunken Breaks
Released 17-04-2000

Planet Mu site: https://planet.mu/releases/full-sunken-breaks/
Planet Mu store: https://planetmu.bleepstores.com/release/68845
Bandcamp: https://mikeparadinas.bandcamp.com/album/full-sunken-breaks
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/4rRq31CoOf3slIoZDOsKcV?si=L2RYgc1YSI6pVkHgVtAxWA

 

1. Dirtwah - 03:57
2. Come On Board - 03:02
3. Nordy - 03:36
4. Hard Love - 05:43
5. New School Bikes - 04:50
6. Epic Blusta - 02:29
7. Otdok - 01:38
8. XXX - 02:44
9. Dancing Demons - 04:53
10. Milk Bottle Tops - 04:16
11. Another Fresh Style - 02:28
12. Manfright - 01:01
13. Beaver - 03:44
14. Snorkmaiden - 03:22
15. Jar Jar Binx - 04:21
16. Qisope - 02:29
17. Not The Fear - 04:33
18. Kid Spatulet - 04:57
19. Hill Street Blues - 01:31
20. Full Sunken Breaks - 05:03

It’s a full 7 years since Mike Paradinas delivered his debut µ-Ziq album. Far from taking his lead from Leftfield, Stereo MCs or the Stone Roses, however, Paradinas has subsequently averaged 2 albums a year ever since. This, his second as Kid Spatula, represents album no. 13 and, as you would expect from any of his various aliases (Jake Slazenger, Gary Moscheles, Tuscan Raiders, Mike & Rich, Slag Boon Van Loon and, of course, µ-Ziq), it’s an album saturated in splintered breaks, abrasive ambience and warped funk… and a ton of that old hardcore attitude. Legend has it that when Paradinas first created his distorted vision of idiot techno, he was only trying to make hardcore – he’d been to the raves, wired up a makeshift studio, and was intent on becoming Mr. Top-One-Nice-One-Hardcore-You-Know-The-Bloody-Score. One can only assume that someone slipped something strange into his circuitry because the avalanche of chaos that ensued stood so far apart from its surroundings that the words ‘maverick’ and ‘loner’ were bandied about like cocaine at an A&R meeting. Since then, Paradinas has remained on this idiosyncratic course, delivering music that could only have come from his head; brave, pioneering music that long since stopped being flavour of the month and has subsequently become a constant presence, an entity unto itself. If last year’s µ-Ziq album ‘Royal Astronomy’ offered the pop side of the Paradinas mind, then ‘Full Sunken Breaks’ finds him once again immersed in those obsessions of old. On the one hand, we have his classic, ironic hardcore – harder than a month of Atari Teenage Riots and funkier than a weekend of porno flicks; and on the other, we have the sleazy listening ’70s soundtrack slut, cheeky like a cache of Carry Ons, twisted like a snatch of Derek And Clives. Not that this is in any way a cheesy album. In each finely crafted, adrenalised idea-rush, he manages to make the most ridiculous sound, wayward idea and obtuse rhythm sound completely natural. On ‘Hard Love’ he practically dons the white gloves for the ravetastic samples; ‘Dirtwah’ melts glam rock and Middle Eastern samples over hi-speed breaks for a flash of ’92 inspiration; while ‘Beaver’ emerges like a timid cuddly toy before revealing industrial-strength claws and a taste for blood. With a melodic yet twisted underbelly, Full Sunken Breaks always threatens to drag the beats screaming into easy listening, test-card territory. Take ‘Dancing Demons’, with its acid-soaked, ’70s spy thriller soundtrack, or ‘Another Fresh Style’ and ‘Nordy’, with their psycho-nursery rhyme melodies. Then there’s ‘Snorkmaiden’ (!), which presents playschool b-lines over Bluff Limbo ambience. Works of near genius, one and all. In today’s cynical world it’s the creative mavericks who continually lose out to the mainstream moguls – it’s safer to roll your eyes and dismiss ‘yet another Mike Paradinas album’: in so doing, however, you’re ignoring one of Britain’s truest unique talents. He may not be a beardy nutter like his mate Aphex Twin but he’s got more essential music to his name than Virgin Records in their entirety. All hail the Spatula boy.

Hard Love was released a few months prior on a split 7" with Jega:

ZIQ009
Jega / Kid Spatula
Unity Gain / Hard Love
Released 26-07-1999

Planet Mu site: https://planet.mu/releases/unity-gain-hard-love/
Planet Mu store: https://planetmu.bleepstores.com/release/69269-jega-kid-spatula-unity-gain-hard-love
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/70Fo3pYK9DMO96bhsct8Hc?si=yOi_9O8hTTS66r2tWA50sQ

1. Unity Gain - 6:36
2. Hard Love - 5:43

Split single. 500 copies only on Clear vinyl in a clear pvc sleeve.

[Hugh Mughnus]

I really do love that release. It's... different, quirky. Interested to hear what you think of it. 

[Tricone RC]

Hard Love has been on my phone for years. One of my fav Mike Ps.

[Tricone RC]

idiot techno,

Harsh

[KovalainenFanBoy]

Hard Love has been on my phone for years. One of my fav Mike Ps.

 

[BaggerMcGuirk]

I haven't heard that before.  I'd love to hear where the Hard Love samples were from, specifically.  It's one of my favorite Mike P tracks ever, even though I'm a little lukewarm on the album as a whole.

[BaggerMcGuirk]

I haven't heard that before.  I'd love to hear where the Hard Love samples were from, specifically.  It's one of my favorite Mike P tracks ever, even though I'm a little lukewarm on the album as a whole.

 

Edit:  Found one.  

 

https://youtu.be/MTPhLVkfBv4?t=280

[YangYing]

yea it's p disgusting (1:41 in that ultimate damage track)

 

he did the same later w grape nut beats sampling witch hunt (edit: altough that was more of a remix thing iirc)

 

other than that I rlly like the kid spatula stuff, is fun

[KovalainenFanBoy]

interesting tidbit:

Yes, it’s a pseudonym of mine and it’s only fitting that when those times come (you know, when cash-flow is getting a little “tight”) the moment has come to release another Mike Paradinas effort. They puff up the Planet Mu bank balance nicely and without Full Sunken Breaks there would have been none of the records that followed. So here I wait until needed, willing to prostitute myself to the cause of releasing other’s music. FSB isn’t bad though, it’s kinda good. The best selling release on Planet Mu so far by quite a margin. Hey, I am so big-headed – it’s great. look that’s me on the left. At Istanbul airport, taken by Bjork, she’s a mean photographer, I almost look good. The music? Listen to the mp3’s – it’s a bit like µ-zig, heard of them?

[KovalainenFanBoy]

full sunken sounds like an early muziq album but with (then) current muziq tracks, if that makes sense. Which is to say it's a mess of an album, but the good outweighs the bad I'd say, for the most part. Nordy, Kid Spatulet, Qisope, Not The Fear, Another Fresh Style and Hill Street Blues are a really nice and cohesive set of tunes, and would've made a perfect companion to Royal Astronomy, really enjoyed those. For me the rest range between nice enough and why would you release this, mostly the earlier. muziq definitely has his own sound, gotta give it to him

[KovalainenFanBoy]

ZIQ019
Phthalocyanine
25 Tracks Fer 1 Track
Released 10-07-2000

Planet Mu site: https://planet.mu/releases/25-tracks-fer-1-track/
Planet Mu store: https://planetmu.bleepstores.com/release/68654
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/1OtqkAgUypGFTI60IACFlR?si=R-ptNTCwSr2uki06kgWX2Q

 

1. Valids.2 - 13:33
2. Vints.73 - 13:48
3. I'm Blu - 8:55
4. Liph;39/41 - 6:01
5. Fer U 53 - 8:24
6. Spokes.29 - 14:45
7. Bag - 8:00

Aka Dimitri Fergadis from outta LA.., I first met Dimitri in ’95 when I was playing some gigs in San Fran for the Reflective posse (inc O.S.T/Chris Douglas) and he seemed a very quiet, well-behaved young man. But his music is just pure fucking emotion and if you don’t get it you never will so just immerse yourself in it.

“Phthalocyanine’s lo-fi electronic adventuring is dense and massively messy. It obeys its own auto-destructive, scattershot illogic, stuttering and leaking lo-fi noises in a staggering, multidirectional chaos. Crude beat-blasts occasionally puncture the mix. Rhythm clips ricochet off sounds like bursts of small arms fire. Prismatic melodies circle off-pace. Foggy banks of synth noise puff up and seep out across a bubbling swamp of electronic noise.” (THE WIRE)

[caze]

His stuff never clicked for me first time around, spose I should give it another go...

[KovalainenFanBoy]

this album sure lives up to its title, i'm on track 3 of 7 and already feel like I've listened to a whole albums worth of music

[caze]

yes, it's ridiculously dense, and quite tiring on the ears as a result. the production is quite rough too, which doesn't help. there were lots of genuinely great moments, but I can see why I never went back to it.