DHS 11 - Part 5 (H)

D
Households - this is really very lovely and and is a bit too short in my opinion!  Would like to hear it grow further!
Not Giving in - not really my scene poppy d'n'b, but this is passable likely due to the soulful vocal/s
Cream - raised a smile when it kicked off the recent OOTO......
Butterflies - can't put my finger on why this is so good but it really is a superb jump-up track.... think this might go well with "Wallace" by Andhim........ when you get to 3 mins it really starts to deliver.  great party track.
101 - as ever totally sultry, lush vocals.... want to give this LP a good listen soon.  Comfortably up there in my top three female soloists of the modern era.

S
Woozy with Cider - I really don't know what to say about this track just yet.... i know it's beautifully melancholic but i just can't really make out how i feel about it.... very enigmatic - will be revisiting quite a bit i imagine.
Matildas Dream - for some reason this makes me want to drop the Chuck Roberts vocal over the top... just a little bit, not for the whole thing....in the beginning there was Jack...maybe it's just my ears playing up again....great track, straight into my masterlist.
The Fugitive - straight up modern deep house classic, Ben Watts Buzzin Fly label, i believe - wouldnt expect anything less in terms of quality - mint tune.
Schwindelig (IOD rmx) - I wrote something quite vitriolic about this and then remembered myself and thought it was both immature and unneccessary.  Suffice to say: I feel let down by the remix (especially given the man in the chair doing the job, whose work i am usually fond of) considering the absolutely outstanding class of the original track.  Hugely disappointing.  I made it all the way through on the third attempt in order to be able to pass judgment fully and I'm really sorry, I have tried, I just cannot 'do' this remix.  Part of it is like a fucking Guetta track (sorry that just leaked out at the end - I tried my hardest)
Sedulous - my #2 track I've heard this year thus far... monstrous.  Highly, highly addictive.

H
INFLUENCES PT.III
The Charmels - stone. cold. classic.....music; vocals; production all 100% perfect.
Wu Tang Clan - hopefully this explains the title of your recent house track on OOTO...taken from 1993's best hip hop LP by a country mile... this was THE tune of the year..that's not conjecture it was voted in Hip Hop Connection magazine by the readers and industry alike during 1994 (yep I do remember it, sdly).  nb/ I think, I stress the word think, that after this track the slang cheese or more recently "cheddar" became widely used and accepted as a nickname for money (and later drugs also, because they obviously = cash, ultimtely) in gangster lingo in the USA ... Cash.Rules.Everything.Around.Me (cream) .... hopefully don't need to explain the link further...enough dairy related ebonics.  Onward...
Chromatics -  there's a few important tracks off this LP which i only heard a couple of years ago (one of them being edited and included on the Drive soundtrack a year or so ago).... poisonous guitar lick, some nice melodies and a quite saddened yet intruiging vocal which shows tinges of hope then tails off into sounding almost "I'm quite bored"... makes it almost all the more appealing somehow - again; might just be my ears.
Erol Alkan - what better way to evoke the 80's than become obsessed and inspired by a track written in 2007, get yourself hopelessly high, waffle down a microphone about dolphin love and people with no hair, write a quite soul destroyingly beautiful synth melody, drop prelim beat, let it go electronically weird/introverted for a minute, use tacky bubble-gum electro-pop drum pattern, throw beautiful synth back in, let it all mingle and build.......surely all that's left to do is drop in a melancholic balearic guitar solo to finish.  Your work here is done Erol.  You nutjob.  p.s I love you.
CeCe Rogers - undoubtedly one of THE most influential tracks in the modern era of electronic music, not just because of that piano lick but because of the sentiment at the heart of the record which is subconciously/consciously one of the reasons we, of the rave generation, love dance music.... equality, superb shared experiences, freedom, coming together to enjoy life.  Finding out about this record as a kid researching Liquid's sample was like a monumentous epiphany - I swear down; I almost cried.  It's the soul equivalent of a hippy record, but fuck me hard is it good.  Only sorry I couldn't find a fuller version on Spot.

KOKO,
H x

DHS 11 - Part 4 (S)

H
Clark - Black Stone - latest addition to the DHS tradition of an occasional, mournful, piano piece.  Lovely.
Goth-Trad - Man In The Maze - First time through I didn't like it, second time was better - listening now it's ok and I'd like to hear it placed in the context of the mix you originally referred to when you picked it...
AES DANA - Borderline - *ahem* First time through I didn't like it, second time was better - listening now it's ok and I'd like to hear it placed in the context of the mix you originally referred to when you picked it...
Erol Alkan & Boys Noize - Waves (Chilly Gonzalez Piano Remake) - get quite excited by the first two minutes of this each time I hear it, then it just tails off somehow...
Lee Burridge & Mathew Dekay - Fur fie Liebe - quite simply just a very, very good record - beautifully understated, wonderfully economical - EVERY single little component adds something and there isn't a gramme of flab on it

D
Sleeping At Last - Households - it's growing on me.  Slowly, but it is growing.
Rudimental - Not Giving In - I get the sentiment aspect but I struggle with the fella's voice a bit, which is a real shame 'cos the ebb and flow of the track, especially its peaks, are lush.
Claptone - Cream - Heard this a couple of times at Adrian's and a couple more since on LSD2 - very nice indeed - the rising/falling strings in the middle remind me very much of a blue vinyl bootleg I used to play *gets distracted searching on Discogs*
Justin Martin - Butterflies - noticed this was on Sasha's recent Beatport chart, and it's well-picked by you from there - made me dig out some other Justin Martin stuff, see below...
Alicia Keys - 101 - hmmmm, I've tried but I can't get it to work.  Bound to be one of those tunes that I hear sometime later this year playing out of someone's window or something and will hit me instantly...

S
Woozy With Cider - worth including for the name alone.  Could easily get pretentious about this but will suffice to simply say it's lovely.  Really, really, lovely.

Matilda's Dream - I placed this at number three in my top ten tunes of last year, describing it as, 'trench-deep-squelchy-acid-spangles.'

The Fugitive (Sei A Remix) - triggered by D's inclusion of his Justin Martin track above.  Possibly the first bit of work by Sei A that I picked up - absolute stonker from a few years back - played this on many an occasion and think I used it in a mix but can't remember which one...

Schwindelig (Ian O'Donovan Remix) - first time a track by Kollektiv Turmstrasse has made a DHS list - somewhat surprising but...  There are some tracks you just KNOW are big.  This is one of them.

Sedulous (Mickey Remix) - second appearance for Sebastien Tellier on DHS.  First time round for him went very well - I'm pretty confident this will do fairly well for him too.  Used it on LSD2.  As ever his lyrics simply aren't worth the effort required discern them - just make up some sounds of your own that fit and bounce along to it...

DHS 11 - Part 3 (D)

Evening all, today sees me back from the VSO Assessment day so am in a very buoyant mood which is well needed considering how much Ive had the shit kicked out of me at work over the last couple of weeks. Still, some of it was deserved and medicine has been taken and the road back to the top is a long one and it wont be easy but Im up for the challenge. As ever music has been the salvation and a couple of goes on my favourite guilty pleasure singalongathon album has really helped. As has the new music provided by you two gents which as ever has my undying thanks. So, to business:

Sully - well, electro has never been a big love of mine really. Some of it I think is really wicked but mostly it fails to register too much for me, so your selection really took me out of my comfort zone musically - never a bad thing though. First up was 'Al-Naafyish -Time' which to be honest didnt do much for me, BSEF I would say Im afraid... 'Computer Age' put me in mind of some stuff that came later in the nu-romantic stage surprisingly, but rarely does a vocoder do anything for me which rather spoilt this track for me 'Running' I would definitely say is a stage along, electro / nu-romantic crossover even but again doesnt register much - I wasnt really a nu-romantic fan either, sorry ! Boogie Down Bronx is much better for me though, great riff and despite a little vocodering (which is actually bareable), some nice rap action although surely that cover is just a random picture of someone because I cant square that away with the guy thats rapping... ?? 'Lesson 3' is very much a come and sample this invite, not sure how many I could pick out as a) having been taken from somewhere before and b) used since again. A definite step in the evolution of dance music and sampling which im sure was way ahead of its time but hasnt dated well I dont think. Sorry Kev, not much love there which isnt deliberate, I tried !

Hodgson - a piano line rarely fails to get my attention, so kicking off with 'Black Stone' was a winner, if slightly melancholy, nice first choice... 'man in the maze' is a fucking sinister piece of music isnt it ? Almost sounds like the score to a chilling horror film and doesnt do much for me Im afraid. 'Borderline' is real mood music I think, doesnt do much but does set a scene, not surprised Warren kicked off a mix with it, you could really build a musical landscape from here. Fuck, did I really just say that ? What a cunt. Then what for me is the stand out track of your 5 fella 'Waves' has some totally class piano action with a wicked build and when it kicks in at about a minute it really gets me going - this lad is bang handy on a piano. Love the second bring-back and even when it gets a bit floaty towards the end. Into my personal faves, no question. For 'fur die liebe' I totally understand what you mean by 'lovely and clean' which this certainly is. If DHS was a class of pupils this track would be the neat and tidy quiet kid who always did his homework on time and never caused the teacher any problems. Has a real deep vibe to it though, especially with the sparingly used vocal. Nice.

So to my selection, well:

Sleeping at Last 'Households' just love the simplicity of this track that was used in the 'kid president' you tube clip I sent you recently, which I love and must have watched a dozen times now 'NOT COOL ROBERT FROST !'

Rudimental 'Not Giving in' I love the voice this guy has, and the tempo of this record which builds up and then goes a bit excitable, the drops make it all worthwhile - and the sentiment resonates a lot with me.

Claptone - 'Cream' is the opener from our latest mix effort which you really should listen to Hodge, not least because one of Kevs tunes will drop your jaw, so it will. This track is extremely quirky and thats why I love it - original riff and a fat bassline give this some oomph.

Jamie Martin - 'Butterflies' also from LSD2 this too has a touch of the quirk about it, but is a much bigger record for me and the drop in the middle is enormous and worth the admission price alone, before it goes back to doing what it was doing without much fuss. Original.

Alicia Keys '101' a piano lick got me, and the lyrics are the best Ive heard since 'read all about it' (which are possibly unbeatable) and we all know about Keys' vocal delivery which gets its full range here. Also check the reprise which sounds just like Sigur Ros for the first 30 seconds !

Hope at least one thing here helps keep the darkness away...

One love