Marc Acardipane - The Most Famous Unknown Expansion Packs 6 & 7

Many more remastered classics here. Still the most modern music you'll here this year!

90s Acardipane Again

Primitive GLOOM/DOOM-CORE at its finest. Gabber stripped down to an elemental level that's almost subtle but it's not though if you you know what I mean. Sometimes I think this is just the best sound ever created, why would you need anything else?

Marc Acardipane is so in the zone here. I reckon he could have stayed there for another half an hour at least. I guess this is like an acid counterpart to the first tune.

Noisy gabber shit. An unhinged trip!

Maximal noise overload. An incredible concussive racket that goes fucking mental but somehow doesn't become a mess. It is a perfect cacophony till the end. How the hell does he do that? Acardipane at the peak of his powers. Surely one of the finest musical (?) moments from the 90s.

These 4 tunes are all by Marc Acardipane and are taken from the compilation PHUTURE released on PCP in 1994. When his day of recognition is coming I don't know but it's absurd that it hasn't. He was one of THE two or three great sonic technicians of the 90s.

Gabba

I was thinking the other day 'We've been waiting for some kind of gabber recommencement since 2016 flipped into 2017 but nothing's happened.' I guess the scene has probably continued on in the same way that drum'n'bass still exists. What I really mean is that gabber/doomcore/gloomcore godfather and legend Marc Arcardipane hasn't resurfaced as far as I can tell (not that I've really looked). In the 90s Arardipane had this logo on many of his releases See You In 2017. 

Here are some dudes (below) with the historical knowledge of gabber giving it a retro-gabba crack (Via Energy Flash).



I wish this lecture (above) was real and was going to continue on for another 45 minutes. The track by DJ Balli & Giacomo Bella ChickenFIAT that was posted at Energy Flash is fun but hardly revelatory, hey what is these days?



God I love that thick squally synth sound! Rotterdam Terror Corps were mentioned in that above trailer.



Hardcore



70s rock (Queen samples, traces of Sabbath riffage in the synth) influences in 90s Hardcore!





A Cold Rush. Atmos-Fear was recorded several years earlier than the other above tunes. This is Marc Arcardipane & Marc Arcardipane ie. he is The Mover & The Rave Creator. This is the true soundtrack for 2017.

It's 2017?
Where are you Marc?

Cherry Moon On Valium....again

Sorry this isn't something new, just the old Cherry Moon On Valium mix from 2011 but I just watched this for like the 20th time and I never get sick of it. They should do another mix. I converted this to mp3 and put the audio into my i-phone a couple of years ago and it is one of the most played things ever on my phone. I keep meaning to make a compilation of all the original tracks at their real speeds, I think I've probably got half of them. Then just looking at the track list I realised there's a few I haven't recognised in their slowed down form. Anyway I posted this ages ago but hey it's fucking timeless, innit?

Beatking - Houston 3AM

Beatking aka Club God aka Club Godzilla aka Club King Kong...

He's back thank God(zilla). The only rapper along with Kevin Gates who is currently keeping my eyeballs on the rap scene really. I was a bit confused as it started with Stopped but this is a better version than the one on Club God 4 from earlier this year. It's some kind of weird tradition to chuck an old song here and there onto your new mixtape in the rap game ie. Houston 3AM also includes a version of Keisha which originally appeared on Gangster Stripper Music 2. Something I'm yet to fully understand, whatever, I suppose. I was a bit worried on the last mixtape, as Beatking was second guessing himself. He was trying to appeal to his new white and Asian hipster audience as well as his usual hood/club fan base. He even said he recorded a whole new tape during this time and released that instead of his original recordings. He had no need to over think things though because he gained a wider audience by just doing what he does. The best way to go is to just keep on truckin at what you do best and that will keep you true to yourself and your fans. Otherwise you could lose your fans altogether and then you're fucked. Suffice to say this is way better than Club God 4 which was pretty good anyway.

This is the best release from rap zones since King Kev's Luca Brasi 2 and Beatking's very own absolute classic belter Gangster Stripper Music 2. The Club God's consistency is incredible and it continues here. Don't worry he's sticking to his classic themes here: strippers, headjobs, clubs, cars, thowin ass, his dick, paper, Houston etc. He pulls off his usual subject matter with such aplomb you don't get bored with it. Sonically he's got an array of styles as usual like ratchet, trap, 90s European tech flavas and softer soulful R&B. These styles are all intermingled now and just come out as Beatking music. Last year I asked the question, on this here blog, whether he was into rave, hardcore, gabba, doomcore etc.? He gave me an answer on Nervous, the outro, to Club God 4 by admitting his love for Neophyte the Dutch gabber crew from the 90s who had a slew of 12"s on the legendary Rotterdam Records during the golden age of gabber.

On Houston 3AM he even adds to his flavas with a hint of Calypso, Boogaloo, sweet soul and even a lil' bit of old school. I Got Hoez is state of the art Beatking with its low-key ominous yet sumptuous keyboards, brittle drum machines, subtle abstract background samples and great raps from Club King Kong himself and Short Dawg. Beatking's own productions are fine as per usual like Holup, Holup with its intergalactic siren stab, Donkey Kong soundtrack soundz, minimal keys and a wasted crawling vibe. This is shit hot! For a man who is known for being crass he can be incredibly understated at times. Not Right has got the best bass pressure on the tape while the rest of the tune has an opulence you want to get inside of. The Club Godzilla might on first impressions seem amoral or downright up in your grill immoral but he is slowly revealing a particular moral code. You might not agree with it but he does have one, not that I could give a fuck. It's just interesting in a Tony Soprano type of way. His contradictions and sophistication could be a reason for Beatking's continued artistic success though. Houston 3AM Freestyle is an unusually funky electro party jam that is soo superfly good. X-Files includes a sample of, well, the theme to the X-Files that sounds v cool you want it to go way longer than its interlude length of 1 minute. Actually the previous tune Isolated was possibly using the same notes or something very similar come to think of it. Squad keeps the spacey X-Files feel going as well but in a more 80s Casio cosmic tone setting.

One of the highlights here is Deposit which features fellow Houston rapper Sauce Walka who released the funny Sorry For The Sauce mixtape earlier in the year. There's a great bit of Twin Peaks style freaky/disturbing backwards Beatking rapping at the end of No Sleep, I like. That Ain't My Thot features a great boogaloo feel which is pretty much a wholesale appropriation of the 90s tune It Ain't My Fault by Silk The Shocker and Beatking ends it in skit style. Here he talks about strip club addicts who think they're gonna go home with the stripper because they've pumped so much money into her g-string throughout the night but they just end up getting turfed out of the club when the morning light starts appearing under the club doors. Swangas is the Beatking givin us a bit of sugar with a 90s sample I can't quite put my finger on and it's driving me mental. H is a fabulous slow jam informed by subtle gloomcore along with sweet soul vibes provided by Chalie Boy. H is obviously a love song to the city in which he resides H-Town ie. Houston. On Japan Beatking samples an artist who might be Juicy J or Chad C Pimp Butler (of UGK fame), correct me if I'm wrong and he's (the sampled dude) talking about country rap and how that became a style and an inspiration for regional and southern rap, I think? Beatking saves the best till last with the self indulgent navel gazing of What I am that's not uninteresting because he doesn't get where he stands in this mp3 generation. In the past (pre mp3) he would have been able to measure success by record sales. How do you measure it now though? He's well off, where he wants to be, got people calling him a legend, MTV playing his videos etc. but he can't seem to grasp where he fits in the larger cultural picture. I guess he is still a cult concern but maybe that's not enough for him no matter how large the parish. He never says he wants a Grammy or a Number 1 single though, I mean that's how some old people measured popularity and success. Now it's all social media hits and Datpiff & HotNewHipHop download stats. After the Club God is finished with his mini self therapy session he throws in an unexpected and secretive classic cut featuring Gangsta Boo that didn't make it onto the great Underground Cassette Tape Music joint from last year. It makes you want Beatking to collaborate with Boo again and again. This tune contains brilliant horror movie motifs, a looped scraping violin and John Carpenter-esque minimal keyboards.

I feel like my world is back on its axis with this new Beatking mixtape and hey there's a new Kevin Gates one too (more on that soon). My faith in rap is has been restored thanks to Beatking. This might be the best recording of the year. He's still the Club God! Still the Club Godzilla! Still the Club King Kong! Still the fucking Beat King mane!!

Gabber Christmas

Merry Xmas Humanoids. Here's some lovely Christmas tunes for y'all. I'll paraphrase Jesus here from John 10:10 "Live life in abundance" Check out the theology man! That quote is particularly relevant to Xmas but also for hedonism and existential Nihilism. I better stop there before, you know, I start ruffling a few feathers and my comments box gets filled with nutters. Then again shouldn't it be called the nutter box?

Hardcore Dutch Sylee!

I love the eastern motifs on The Tower it makes it unlike any tune from the era that I can think of. That movie/tv sample has got to be Ice-T but I don't know what it's from nor do I particularly care.

*All three of these tunes were on the compilation Ruffneck Collection Part V from 1995 which I've been listening to today for some reason.

Books That Should Be Written

After reading David Stubbs Future Days I was left with a feeling of "Is that it then?" Perhaps it wasn't a book for me, I mean I knew all the records mentioned and the bands. I'd read most of what was in the bibliography. I didn't find out much new. This is not to say it's not a worthwhile book but maybe it's for new comers. Why didn't he write it in the 90s when Krautrock was Tres Hot? Perhaps he saw a gap had opened up in the market due to the never to be reprinted Krautrocksampler by Julian Cope. What it did make me wish for was a comprehensive book on German Post-Punk aka Neue Deutsche Welle like what Simon Reynolds did for British and American Post-Punk in his great Rip It Up And Start Again book. Stubbs covered a little bit of the NDW scene in a slight chapter towards the end of Future Days. Come to think of it there may be a German book on this topic from maybe 15 years ago (I have a vague recollection of this, maybe) but obviously it hasn't been translated into English, unless I missed it.

It got me thinking of some other books on music that are yet to be written. A definitive book on Australian Post-Punk would be a prime example of this. I'd also love to see a book on the mid 90s Memphis Rap scene. Information on that topic seems thin on the ground and somewhat confusing. There was an incredible amount of excellent music made in Memphis at this time, so shedding some light on it would be great. Is there even a book on 80s underground New Zealand music? Surely there'd be a market for that. I mean there's been like 3 books on the No Wave scene. A book covering Japanese music post Julian Cope's Japrocksampler would be great ie. Noise, Merzbow, the P.S.F milieu, Otomo Yoshihide, The Boredoms and whatever else happened. I could go on - Italian Soundtracks and composers, Belgian electronic dance music, a guide to Library Music or like a top 100, Gabber, Sweden's 1960s experimentalists Parson Sound and their following web of groups into the 70s etc. I always thought Simon Reynolds could expand his chapter from Rip It Up & Start again on San Fransisco's proto-post-punk scene and turn it into a whole book

Remember they used to do books on current cultural activities? Someone could probably do something on the topic of Atlanta Rap or the current state of music in general. Anyway just a thought......

Young Thug

Stop The Music

Tune!

Uh...Hold on to the love...wicked!

Stuff On The Interweb

There's been heaps of good stuff over at blog to the oldskool including this mini mix from junglistz Foul Play and this 20 minute documentary on Gabber. This is quite bizarre and a little bit scary. It's a portal into a very specific time and place. Check out some of the most mental dancing from the 90s! It's funny now how tame and normal a lot of gabba now sounds. I'm in the 90s now.

Here's an excellent interview with Julian House the dude from the GhostBox label and man behind The Focus Group over at The Quietus. Here's an old bit on Julian from 2006 at K-Punk. Over at bandcamp there is a 19 minute track from The Children Of Alice, a trio made up of House and 2 members of Broadcast, called The Harbinger Of Spring which is well worth your 3 quid!

I only just discovered this Moon Wiring Club Mix Midnight In Europe over at NightVision here which is a bit different than MWCs usual mixes. This mix is of 90s ambient post rave electronica and includes Woob, Baby Ford, LFO, Biosphere, Luke Slater and many more. I'm in the 90s now in a chill-out room. Do they still have those?