FREAK OUT

After unleashing South African Clangers rave via DJ Mujava's 'Township Funk', above is the track by Alexander Robotnick - 'Obsession for the Disco Freaks' - that This Is Music will be releasing in 2009 complete with remixes from the likes of Rory Philips and Manchester's own HeavyFeet.

CHIMP OFF THE OLD BLOCK

Ape - the party that's been doing big things at the associated Warehouse Project for a while - takes over Manchester Apollo for another almighty one-off. This is a third Ape offering at the historic Ardwick venue and will feature sets from Goldie, High Contrast, Beardyman, Caspa, Benga, Marcus Intalex and more. It all goes off 30/01/09.

CRECY FOR YOU

You know that feeling you get when you're itching to throw a party? Well, we've kind of got one. If we did eventually do something like that, we'd probably have a light show like Etienne de Crecy's up there (points above head at youtube clip) except with a Manchester twist. So maybe there would be some gravy in there, or a single Nike trainer hanging by it's laces from a power line.

BIG HOUSE

Remember when our friend I Am Sam interviewed Tiga? (The evidence is here should you need to refresh your memory.) Only we just recounted it ourselves as blog rave faves Mansion sent us their illicit reworking of the Montreal prance maven's 'Mind Dimension'. If you want to hear that, you can. Just go here.

IT'S ALL WAVEY

Little Boots. Regulars would've read about her here, maybe even followed us to her micro-gig at the Pop Justice party (yeah, the one where I coughed beer out of my nose onto some students). Well lucky old Manchester because the best thing to come out of Blackpool since ermmm ... well moving on, the electro hotty is playing a proper gig at the Deaf Institute tomorrow night courtesy of our friends at the wonderfully new Now Wave club.

Joining Little Boots are mongrel ravers Heartbreak, mongrels in that they seem to come from nowhere and everywhere. One of these nowhere places is Chester where one half of the band - and ace producer on his own - Ali Renault spent a lot of his life, so it's kind of local gig for him. They will be doing their much acclaimed italo disco thing in support so this really will be a good night.

Top sight of the gig will be Now Wave co-promoter Wes sporting the best hair in Manchester. I saw him giving out flyers once after a club, it was freezing and he had no socks on. CRAAAAAZY.

INJECT SOME PASSION

Last night, Northernights stumbled into The Soup Kitchen to check out the gypsy like goings on at new-ish night Me & You. The promoters have had trouble staying in one venue for any sustained period of time - this might be because they keep being shafted by Manchester's draconian club owners, or maybe they just leave the washing up in the sink and use all the toilet paper and don't replace it. Who knows.

The Soup Kitchen, however, did a marvellous job. It's Berlin-esque minimal decadence works well with Me & You's Berlin-esque minimal digi-dance, we hope they hang around on Spear Street for a little longer.

Brilliantly, upon interrogating the friendly promoter about how all these amazing DJ's are coming over and how they can afford to keep going after the venue changes, I was told that 2008's roster was paid for by doing those human Guinea Pig injection test things you hear about. 2009's line-up is going to be even better apparently (We told him he shouldn't be so big-headed about it, but he told us that it was actually cranial swelling - a side-effect of the last round of jabs).

FLYING LOTUS CANCELLED

Due to the sudden death of his mother, Flying Lotus has understandably cancelled his appearance at The Warehouse Project this weekend.

Flying Lotus/FlyLo/Steven is a really lovely guy (we met him earlier this year) and we hope he's holding up in what are undoubtedly difficult times.

ALPINE FRESH

Sometimes, and it is occasional, you see some great things on the bus home after a night out. One such moment of sheer unprecedented beauty struck me down on Tuesday night when, on the monotonous and unforgiving 142 on Oxford Road, a fur-coated girl came and sat in front of me. Nothing great about that I hear you cry, but it was what she did with her fingers that got me so hot under the collar.

Within 30 seconds of embarkment, she started drawing on the condensation riddled window. Oh, she's going to write her name, draw a heart or something, maybe one of those spikey 'S' shapes you used to do on school exercise books. In fact, she created a sweeping alpine vista - fingers for the moutains, nails for the hovering clouds, the tip of her index digit for a wandering meander trickling down onto the seat. There's a picture of her above, oddly voyeuristic of me I know, but maybe she'll get in touch.

COMPETITION TIME #2

Are competitions like buses?

No.

They're not.

As we're just about to prove, you don't actually need to leave home to catch one. (Nor do they tend to press you against someone that smells funny.)

So stay put.

Right, Rex The Dog plays Romp's 6th Birthday party 27/11/08. How do you fancy going? And taking a friend? And also getting your sweaty mitts on, Rex's album, The Rex The Dog Show? Well that can all be arranged. Just answer this tricky question and we'll see what we can do:


How much is that doggie in the window?


Send your answer to northernights{at}googlemail{dot}com before noon, 25/11/08 with 'Rex' in the subject line and we'll pick a winner at random.

Meantime, you can also read a Rex The Dog interview from a bit back over here.

COMPETITION TIME

How long has it been since we posted a competition? Who cares? Here's an ace one now.

So, Buraka Som Sistema - everyone's favourite Lisbon ambassadors of Angolan 'kuduro' - are joining the similarly língua portuguesa don Edu K at Contort Yourself 06/12/08. A-mazing.

Well, fancy you and a guest getting in for nowt? And do you also desire a signed Buraka Som Sistema poster? And would you quite like their brilliant new album that's on the Fabric label? A long-player called Black Diamond that features collaborations with the likes of M.I.A., Kano and - Edu's mate - the Brazilian baile funk mistress known as Deize Tigrona?

Of. Course. You. Fucking. Do.

Sheesh.

To win (UK entrants only), just answer this:


Lisbon is the capital of Portugal. But what is 'a lesbian'?


Please send your entry to northernights{at}googlemail{dot}com before noon 04/12/08 with 'BSS' in the subject line.

Meantime, the very excellent Get Weird Turn Pro can direct you to a Buraka Som Sistema mixtape if you go here.

AT (B)LOGGERHEADS

Elsewhere in the Blogosphere we've seen evidence that Google - the company that owns Blogger - has been removing blog posts that it believes have linked to copyrighted material.

We thought that we would be okay with regards to this as we're very careful about what we make available for download and we have, we thought, a respectful approach to artists and labels. In fact, what we do here is supposed to support that whole business. And we personally don't make money from any of this. I mean, can you see a banner? Or even those horrible-looking Google AdSense things? Nope, what we do is based around continuing the development of the nocturnal industry that we care about: it's all about supporting the artists, the labels, the DJs (who promote the artists and labels) and the clubs (that support the DJs that support the... etc, etc).

We fully respect the rights of artists and labels and do not condone the infinging of copyright. In fact we get sent material by representitives of labels that want their material up on the blogs. We also post lo-res DJ mixes featuring excerpts from largely marginalised music in the hope that it encourages people to seek out the original records. It's often done to prompt people go to the club nights where they will hear more of that kind of music and maybe even the artists that are creating it. We also make our policy on downloading pretty clear, don't we? And we have never - repeat: NEVER - even had one person approach us and ask for a link to be removed.

However, over the past week, we've had two posts taken down by Google. We're baffled. The first was followed by an email explaining that a promotional downloadable mix went against some policy or other yet there was no mention of what, within the mix, had caused the upset. We can embark on some lengthy process to have the post reinstated but, instead, we just sent a reply explaining our own stance. The second post - a mix from the guys at Jupiter Rooms - just vanished with no explanation whatsoever.

We're incredibly disappointed by Google's Draconian approach. With this blog recently winning a Best Arts & Culture Award (while actually noted for our use of media) and while we're also shortlisted for a national 'Best Blog' prize as part of something that is all about music promotion, it's frankly ridiculous.

Anyway, for the moment we'll be cutting down on what music we post here. For mixes and the like, we will probably start posting the links on our Facebook group that you will find here. Join us. Meantime, we'll also be looking to switch to WordPress.

AND THE NOMINEES ARE...

We got this email from music journalism and PR industry resource Record of the Day inviting us to vote in this year's awards. It has a new category of 'Best Blog'. Anyway, this actual blog - the one that you're looking at with your very own eyes - is nominated in that very same category. Obviously, the recent Manchester Blog Awards prize was a huge deal for us and now this has come along. So if you're an industry type and have any kind of influence do please make us win. We are really nice.

MORE FREE MUSIC

Berlin's K7 label is currently sending out a sampler of its output to anyone who registers for the mailing list here. The tracks include an edit of Carl Craig's 'Brainfreeze', a dub of Hot Chip's 'My Piano', Quiet Village's 'Circus of Horror', Bomb The Bass' 'So Special' and 'The Story' by The Matthew Herbert Big Band.

Above is a picture of the Bluebird K7 on Coniston Water which was taken in 1957.

DISCO-VERY

We did an interview with Serge Santiago a bit back so, knowing our interest in the DJ/producer, the people from XLR8R magazine dropped us an email to let us know that he's recently done a mix for them.

They say:

"His love for disco has turned our weekly podcast into an hour long compilation of classic and new club songs featuring Boytronic, Kebekelektrik and Patrick Cowley. Lately he's been playing all over Europe and Australia while keeping a steady DJ residency in Ibiza."

We say:

"Download it here."

RETURN OF THE MAC

Annie Mac brought some of her favourite acts/DJs to The Warehouse Project the other week. The video above is a short edit of the Radio 1 spinner's report on that date. The full version is here.

Anyway, here's what one of our own disco spies made of the night:


On Toddla T:
"Exciting. Played dancehall-tinged stuff but then morphed into The Prodigy to please the crowd."

On Drop The Lime:
"Likewise. Bass mentalism followed by 'Rhythm is a Dancer'. Grrr."

On Herve:
"Nowhere to be seen. Only Sinden. Who I love. He is mental. He loves Britpop - but shaken down. He's well funny."


So there you go.

Meantime Machines Don't Care (the fidget supergroup that has joined Annie on her tour and includes the above low end theorists amongst its ranks) is putting out 'Beat Bang' from that huge collaborative album - complete with remixes from Action Man (a.k.a. Herve) and DJ Mujava. That's available from 01/12/08 but, in the meantime, grab yourself the Trevor Loveys dub version.

MP3: Machines Don't Care - 'Beat Bang (Trevor Loveys dub)' [Yousendit]

I LOVE YOU

Ever wondered how to say the word 'Love' in a plethora of European languages? Well I've saved you the time of looking them all up by compiling a list, below. It is, of course, essential that we tell each other that we love each other, sometimes you can communicate this most complex of emotions through the medium of disco dancing. Therefore, I've provided a disco dancing song to accompany this expression, and it's one of the best disco dancing songs we've heard at maison NN this year.

обичам (bulgarian) ljubav (croatian) láska (czech) kærlighed (danish) liefhebben (dutch) rakastaa (finnish) aimer (french) liebe (german) αγάπη (greek) amore (italian) kjærlighet (norwegian) miłość (polish) iubire (romanian) ljubezen (slovenian)

MP3: Joakim & The Disco - Love & Romance & A Special Person (Mediafire)

CRIME PAYS

Yes, we did sort of nick our site photo treatments from, Odder bar session, Shoplifters. There's no honour amongst thieves and all that.

Anyway, the people behind it have now retaliated by sending us another brilliant mix. Let that be a lesson to us.

But what else can be said of, resident, Sapnarella who mixed this particular audio excursion? Hmmm?

"Few would expect the population of sleepy northern town Ashton-Under-Lyne to be aware of the burgeoning worldwide baile funk and electro scene. Further still, few would expect it to be birthplace of one of the UK’s hottest young female DJs, Sapnarella, who – since moving to the urban sprawl of Manchester just two years ago - has been tearing up clubs and parties alike with DJ sets packed with a heady mix of dirty basslines, punishing party beats and the scene’s unmistakable vocal hooks.

Part of the celebrated Shoplifters DJ collective, Sapnarella’s eclectic sets take in the influence of Diplo, Kid Sister, Crystal Castles, M.I.A., Buraka Som Sistema and Boys Noize, mashed together into a sound that’s found the young starlet with her own Saturday night Manchester residency and hand-picked for sets at Manchester’s electronic Eurocultured festival, and in London, the annual Camden Crawl and 93 Ft East, plus support slots for the likes of Yo Majesty, Neon Neon and Friendly Fires amongst others. She may be small, but she’s a class act make no mistake..."

Tracklist

1. Diplo - Percão ft. Pantera Os Danadinhos
2. DJ Sega - Bodies Hit The Floor
3. Scottie B - Mais Ela ft. Moleque Bil
4. Crystal Castles Vs. Health - Crimewave [Sinden Remix]
5. Kid Sister - Pro Nails [Gant-Man's Jackin' Remix]
6. Edu K - Me Bota Pra Dançar ft. Marina
7. Spank Rock - Bump [Best Fwends Remix]
8. Mujava - Township Funk [Ashley Beedle Remix]
9. M.I.A. - Boyz [Twelves Remix]
10. Buraka Som Sistema - Yah! ft. Petty
11. DJ Blaqstarr - Shake It To The Ground [Switch & Santogold Remix]
12. Detboi - Jump Up Jump Down
13. Boys Noize - Oh [A-trak Remix]
14. Drums Of Death – Breathe [Drop The Lime Remix]
15. Hervé & Kissy Sell Out – Rikkalicious


It can be downloaded here.