NSB NYE CD SWAP (Oh, hello)

Blimey, it’s been a while since I graced this pages with my presence. Instead of just filling in a several thousand word report on what I’ve been doing over the last… lots of months, I’m just going to cut to the chase and tell you about a new project, started very recently.

The NSB CD Swap for NYE 2009/2010

The lovely Henry aka Skywave Systems, who runs the Myuzyk net label, set this up on the www.nuskoolbreaks.co.uk forum just the other day. The concept, for those not already aware, is that group of forum members, all put together a mix/compilation cd, complete with packaging and all. When all the names are in (this is capped at 30 participants) everyone produces as many copies as there are names on the list. They send all of these to the person organising the swap, and he then sends out a package to each entrant with a copy of each mix in. Simples.

The numbers for this are steadily building, with about 26 already signed up. So far there are a lovely selection of names already joined, people who readers of this blog will most likely be familiar with; DVNT, Jung, Benny(Metroboy, Ben&Lex, everythingelseunderthesun), James Fox, Clodhoppa(midnightminustwo boss man) and of course, Henry Skywave himself. Needless to say, there are going to be some pretty special mixes coming out of this.

Anyhow, what with being the massive over achiever I am, I’ve already finished my first mix (that’s right, I’m putting together two CD’s worth of goodness), and made good progress on the cover.

So far, the mix is a pretty hectic affair, with lots of techno, electro, breaks, glitchy, heavy, bassy nonsense, a little portion of hip hop, and some stupidly fast tempos here and there. I’m pretty chuffed with it so far. I’ll keep you up to date with the happenings of this.

I must be off now… Bestival is tomorrow and I haven’t packed a sausage. Ciao.

I don’t usually do this, but I felt strangely compelled…

If the dates on this blog are to be trusted, (and I am reasonably sure that they are) then it appears I have not written anything on here for over three months. So what’s going on?

Production on our short film; Flutter is going well, we’re shooting this weekend has it happens, which is very exciting, if slightly scary considering the amount of work it’s going to take to get the house in shape. The battle we’ve been through with actors was finally won yesterday, as we found our leading man, so from here onwards, it’s just a case of getting the job done.

Holy Fuck it’s time to go to work, I’ll finish you on my lunch break.

Lunch break eh? I make that four days ago, Bloody typical.

Filming has been going well, on it again tomorrow for the last day. No doubt things will be slightly hectic, trying to get everything finished in time, but I’m pretty confident we’ll get it all done.

In other news, I’m taking over Ollspin’s Sunday Roast show on Brap.FM next Sunday. From 6pm – 8pm I will be playing a fine selection of music, focusing mainly on the dancier end of my spectrum, Breaks, Techno, Dubstep and Electro, along with all the things that fill in the gaps between those. I was originally just going to be doing an hour guest mix, but he has kindly offered me the whole show. Win.

Other musical happenening in my world include the release of St. Vincent’s wonderful album; Actor, and the rapidly approaching release of Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest. The former was a relatively random purchase, and my first encounter with Annie Clark aka St.Vincent. Oh how I’ve been missing out. Actor is a really beautiful album from start to finish; it blends pop, folk and electronica with big helpings of baroque and avant-garde in a way that sounds both vintage and cutting edge at the same time. What really shines through on this album is personality, which oozes out of every little detail. Fans of Laura Marling, Imogen Heap and Grizzly Bear should love this, I know I do.

As you can see, my last post on here, all those months ago, was heralding the release of Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest. The wait is nearly over I exclaimed, somewhat inaccurately.  Now, on 24th May, the wait really is nearly over! My pre-order version should be with me by Friday at the latest, and I’m getting rather excited about that prospect. I’ve exercised a massive amount of self control and not taken up any of the leaks offered to me, partly out of respect for the band, but mainly because I don’t want to compromise the enjoyment of opening the CD case and listening to the album for the first time. The tracks I’ve heard so far have been nothing short of stunning, the lead off single Two Weeks is a beautiful pop song, more accessible than anything from Yellow House, but retaining all of the magic. A few people have been disappointing me massively by telling me that Two Weeks is the best track (it’s never nice to know you’ve already heard the best, means it’s all downhill from there), but I’ll have to wait and see. In a rather impulsive move, I purchased a ticket to see the Bear at KOKO in August. At the moment I’m the only person I know with a ticket, which would be a slightly annoying situation to remain in, but I couldn’t live with myself missing the opportunity to see them headlining a club like KOKO, even if I will be seeing them play Green Man Festival later that week. I’m going to be Grizzled out.

I think I’d better leave it at that to be honest, I’ve got lots of work to do in preparation for tomorrows filming.

Let’s see if I can make another post before August eh…

Stuff and Things.

Snow, snow snow.

Falling from the sky, covering everything in sight with a thick, crunchy layer of innocence and nationwide paralysis.

Or so I’m told. Us lucky sods in Bristol seem to have managed to avoid every last flake. Tucked away in the snug little crevice between Wales and the southern leg of England, the UK’s sweaty little cleavage stays nicely sheltered from any unwanted attacks of that awful stuff. A taxi driver once told me that his two sons had never seen snow, I seem to remember they were aged around five and seven. Now, I’ve learnt to take things that taxi drivers say with a sizeable pinch of salt, but then as the old saying goes, there’s no smoke without fire. (Or a smoke machine, guffawz. That isn’t smoke you silly buggers.) But I haven’t gathered you here today to moan about snow, or the lack thereof.

No, I have updates.

First of all, I would like to extend an invitation to you, dear reader, to the Brap Vs Void Winter Warmer All Dayer. Taking place on Saturday 21st February 2009, at The Farm pub, St. Werberghs, Bristol.

SOUTH COAST ONLINE COMMUNITY OUTOFTHEVOID.CO.UK AND INTERNET RADIO STATION BRAP.FM PROUDLY PRESENT

VOID vs BRAP WINTER WARMER ALL DAYER
SATURDAY 21 FEBRUARY 2009 AT THE FARM (BRISTOL)

PART OF OXJAM MUSIC FESTIVAL SUPPORTING OXFAM

South Coast dance music scene online community http://WWW.OUTOFTHEVOID.CO.UK and Brighton based internet radio station http://WWW.BRAP.FM are joining forces for an all dayer charity fundraiser party! The list of DJs involved is as diverse as it gets, serving up all sorts of musical styles including dubstep, hiphop, breakbeat, jungle, breakcore, techno, house and much much more.

The event will be taking place The Farm, Hopetoun Road, St Werburghs, Bristol, BS2 9YL Click here for map.

1pm – 2pm … ollspin … hiphop, funk, jazz
2pm – 5pm … Dr Fish vs HiHat … hiphop, funk, breaks
5pm – 6pm … Jellybass (dj set) – dubstep, bigbeat, hiphop
6pm – 7pm … Mr Minimax … electro, techno, breaks
7pm – 8pm … odc04r … house, breaks, electro
8pm – 9pm … Paulie P … house, electro, techno
9pm – 10pm … DVNT … techno, breaks, darkfloor
10pm – 11pm … Deadman DJ … jungle, drum&bass, electronica
11pm – 12am … Boy Hoover … breakcore, gabba, hardcore
12am – 1am … JDO … dubstep

All proceeds from this event will be donated to Oxfam as part of Oxjam music festival. At previous events in 2007 and 2008 we have raised almost £1500 for Oxfam. We hope to continue this fundraising success long into the future.

Now, for some reason I have been listen on the flyer as playing Minimal Techno and Progressive Breaks… Anyone hoping for a bit of deep, spacey Max, I regret to inform you that this will not be the case. I will instead by playing a set of “proper electro” funky acid, hip hop, wonky techno and a bit of ghetto tech thrown in there for good measure. As much as I would have liked to bring a bit of deepsexy techno to the line up, I hardly think it would transition well from Hip Hop, Funk and Bigbeat, into darker, heavier territory as the night progressed, and after all, electro badness is much more my style. For anyone who hasn’t been to the Farm, it’s a lovely pub, good selection of beers and ciders, and with all that great music for free, there’s really no excuse not to get yourself down there.

In the lead up to this, I will be doing a guest set on Void head-honcho Ollspin’s Sunday Roast radio show on good old Brap.FM.  That’ll be taking place on Sunday 15th Feb, 6pm – 8pm GMT.  I’ll be playing the same sort of tracks as I will be at The Farm, so any fans of Electro, Bass and Acid, be sure to tune in, and anyone who isn’t already a fan, tune in and find out what you’re missing. Maybe I could convert you…

In other news, a little change of plan in the Valentines Lucid line up, means that I am now playing 2 sets! I’ll be in the main room, early on in the night, playing big, fat, dirty breaks and psy-breaks, then after that I’ll hop over to room 2, where I will be taking things down a slightly more experimental route, lots of glitchy rhythms, bits of techno, step, electro.

I’m pretty sure that’s about it from me for today. I really aught to get round to uploading a few of those mixes I spoke about all those weeks ago… maybe later.

[Chart] Mr Minimax’s January 2009 Chart

I don’t do these all that often, partly because I find it near impossible to pick favourites out of all the tunes I play, and partly because I don’t buy all that much “new” music.

I have now managed to put together 10 tracks that have been making me smile more than most recently.

I’m going to try knock one of these up every month from now on. They won’t necessarily feature “new” music, and they’ll usually have tracks from a wide range of genre’s, but they’ll always be a good indication of what I’m listening to, and kind of thing you can expect from a Mr Minimax DJ set.

Here we go.

2562 – Movern [Tectonic]
A beautiful piece of deep dub techno with a half time snare drum to squeeze a bit of dubstep appeal in there.
Works equally well in the afternoon sun as it does at 4am. Top Stuff

Baobinga & ID – Jump Up Get Hype (Gella’s Hardsteppin’ Remix) [Fat!]
A cracking re-rub of a cracking tune. Virus Syndicate never fail in my opinion, and here, Gella adds a lovely set of  steppy drums, a nice amount of glitch and a new bassline that easily matches the original.

Bassbin Twins – Pig Pen [Cool and Deadly]
Anyone with their finger vaguely on the breakbeat pulse, will have heard Woppa doing the rounds over the last year or two, possibly the most hotly anticipated single ever, but yet when it finally came, I barely touched the original, due to this outstanding piece of breaks-dubstep-techno-I don’t know what. One of the most innovative tunes in recent years, anyone trying to pigeon hole this one is wasting their time!

Drop the Lime – Good Inside [trouble & Bass]
This track is pure hype. No pretence, just a mountain of rave.

Eero Johannes – HAL Manifesto [Planet Mu]
Taken from his debut album “Eero Johannes” this is probably the most DJ friendly track. Slightly bizarre and cheesy electro, with a dash of 80′s. More home listening than dancefloor, but can do brilliantly in both environments if used right.

Kid 606 – Get In The Way [Tigerbeat6]
Another track that just doesn’t want to be defined, switching between dubstep, techno, electro and god only know what else in a matter of bars, this is wonky mayhem at it’s best.

Luke’s Anger – Jerk Chicken [Tigerbeat6]
More wonky as sin techno from the Tigerbeat camp, after a couple of minutes of driving beats, wacked out sound effects, and nicely moderated glitch, it drops down into a delightfully wonky bassline

Si Begg – Are You a Big Boy DJ? [Noodles]
This one is led by the mother of all basslines, the drums stay nicely reserved, just adding a bit of step. I would have to whole-heartedly agree with the lyric: “You can’t be that big if you ent go this in your box”

the wee djs – Base [Touchin Bass]
A bit of an oldie by some people’s standards(2006). Those people are missing out. I’ve been playing the “Fear and Lothian” album to death lately, and it was near impossible to pick a favourite to go in this chart. I went with this because it’s got a deep dirty vibe that mixes perfectly with a lot of the other tracks in this chart.

TRG – Oi! Killa [Cool and Deadly]
And finally a bit of straight up step action. It’s got crunch, dirty sub bass, and a nice set of old skool rave stabs. A brilliant example of just how right Cool and Deadly is getting it at the moment.

I hope these tracks bring you as much joy as they have brought me.

[MIX] Mr Minimax – Breakfast at Milliways

Hello hello hello…

I’ve finally gotten round to uploading this mix, that I put together a while ago.

It’s done in ableton, with extra beats used throughout, taken from a forthcoming track by me, named “The Atheist”

Tracklistinge:

Chris Clark – Pleen 1930s
Benga – 3 Minutes
Radiohead – Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box
Acidwolf – Valley Shuffle
Amon Tobin – Verbal
Bitstream – Anno Domini
The Knife – We Share Our Mother’s Health (Trentemoller Remix)
Luke Vibert – Freak Time Baby
Autechre – 6ie.cr
Squarepusher – Fat Controller
Alex Smoke – Vaporub
Radiohead – Idioteque

+beats: Mr Minimax – The Atheist: featured throughout.

DOWNLOADHEREDOWNLOADHERE
DOWNLOADHEREDOWNLOADHERE
DOWNLOADHEREDOWNLOADHERE
DOWNLOADHEREDOWNLOADHERE
DOWNLOADHEREDOWNLOADHERE

Enjoy vigorously.

Brand New Live Set to Download + Lots of Minimax Updates

Hello…

It’s been a while since I’ve graced these pages with any new material, so in typical fashion, here is a massive update all at once.

First off, have a copy of my latest Live set.

Recorded by me using Ableton Live on 11/10/08.

Hosted by the lovely Henry at Myuzyk. Download it now and Enjoy it loudly.

+ Mr Minimax live 11.10.08 52:25 | 192kbs | 71mb

Recorded in one hit and made up from unfinished tracks, loops, edits and stray shrapnel.
Broken beats, electro stylings and techno with slabs of bass.

live + other sets and mixes
http://myuzyk.net/overflow/mixes.php

direct link
http://myuzyk.net/mixes/Mr_Minimax_live_11.10.08.mp3

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Now, as some of you may know, I moved house about three months ago. Left Oxford and re-located myself down to Bristol.

I’ve been without internet for a while (crivens!) and the connection I do have now, is pretty shoddy. So as a result of this, I’ve had to cancel my Brap.FM show, much to my dismay.

However, being the resourceful character that I am, I’ve managed to get a few guest slots on other shows.

The first, was a 2 hour mix on the Out Of The Void Show on Brap.FM, broadcast from Void HQ in Bristol, that one is available to download HERE. No tracklisting unfortunately, as I turned up to play with a bag full of vinyl, only to discover, Ollspin has no turntables… cue half an hour of scrabbling about Spollin’s CD collection trying to find bits and bobs I recognised. It starts off with a couple of random tracks, then gets into breaks for the rest. bits and bobs of tearout, electro, and some nice good old fashioned breakbeat.

The next radio appearance was for Ollspin’s Sunday Roast Show, I played an hour set in the middle of the show, spanning, dubstep, techno, breaks, drum and bass and a bit of breakcore for good measure. There IS a tracklisting for this one… Download here and check out lots more Spolliny goodness.

ollspin

MIA vs Super Mario Brothers – Superlangalang! – unsigned
Stabilizer – Bounce (Si’s Super Ska bootleg) – Plastic Raygun
DJ Moule – Positive Walk – unsigned
DJ Shadow – The Number Song – Mo Wax
The Guns – Truly One – Jumpin & Bumpin
Mad EP – Acid Jig – Mutate
Red Snapper – Some Kind of Kink – Warp

Mr Minimax

Skream – Monsoon (Loefah remix) – Tempa
Andy Page – Porcelain Elvis – En:vision
Benga – Drumz West – Tempa
Bassbin Twins – Pigpen – Cool & Deadly
Smithmonger vs Kobi – Grizzle – Vertical Sound
Squarepusher – Red Hot Car (Girl) – Warp
Nils Noa – Stereo Style – Lot49
30hz vs Vlad Sokolov – Get Low (Baobinga remix) – Vertical Sound
Meat Katie and D.Ramirez feat. Oddisi – Stop The Revolution (Dubfire’s Arrowhead dub) – Lot49
Richie Hawtin – Twin Cities – M_Nus
EBE – Busted – Grayhound Recordings
Will Saul – Fast Lane – Simple
James Zabiela – Human – white
Optiv and Gridlock – Panache – Project Fifty-One
Noisia – Concussion – Vision
Calyx & Teebee – Cyclone – Moving Shadow
Enduser – The Return – White
Squarepusher – Come On My Selecta – Warp
Shitmat – Hallie Selassie Rules O.K. – Planet Mu

ollspin

Rude Bwoy Monty – Warp Ten – United Music
unknown – Gimme Some Dub – white
FX909 – Darling – Step Express
High Contrast – The Ghost of Jungle Past – Hospital
Gyu – Mettle – Urban Scrumping
Wascal – Hidden Place remix – unsigned
Johan Soh & Myagi – Still (Stefan Goodchild remix) – Sound of Habib
Vorpal – Gymnopedie – Cock Rock Disco

I’ve got another appearance on Void Radio coming up at the end of November, which is most likely going to be full of Rock, Metal, Indie and other lovely guitary music. Full details and promotional spammage will be farmed out closer to the date.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

In other news, I’ve done a mix for the latest Brap.FM Podcast, which should be available to download from the Brap site soon. It’s a 45 minute mix of hip hop, downtempo, chill out and electronica, from the likes of Bonobo, Boards of Canada, Flying Lotus, Jurassic 5 and Prefuse 73. Spammage coming soon.

I also have two other mixes coming… One of hard dirty techno, and one of acid electro and idm. Keep an eye on these pages for more news.

That’s about it for now, but there will be a lot more updates in the next few days, so stay tuned.