http://www.failme.net/failcast

Only delivered a year and half after the last one and since then Apple have wisely abandoned listing me in their iTunes podcast directory. Still, I'll aim to be on it month-on-month during 2009 unless no-one bothers subscribing. This 2 hour extravanganza was executed in the dead of night somewhere in deepest Muswell Hill. Neighbours were away and it was an excuse to push my ageing sound system to some kind of limit. All the music featured is stuff I've written about since the last podcast way back in July 2007.

Its a cack-handed mix, I think I'll eventually abandon the idea of 'mixing' and just play tracks in their entirely seperated by either a gap or test-tone or something. Some of the dancier numbers do align up nicely but sometimes the narrative of the mix is interrupted by blends. Plus I'm shit at using Traktor....

Arne Weinberg presents Onmutu Mechanicks: Blossom / Hypophysica (Echocord Colour) - 12"
Luke Hess & Marko Furstenberg: Campfire Dialogue (Echocord Colour) - 12"
Quantec: Ray Of Hope EP (Echocord Colour) - 12"
Sebastien San: Jupiter / Juno EP (Echocord Colour) - 12"

Totally designed to appeal to the vinyl collector mentality. Denmark's Echocord kick start an offshoot label that presents limited run coloured vinyl presented in natty paper sleeves. Filed under 'Dub Techno', it never ceases to amaze me how much mileage artists have managed to extract from this seemingly limited genre.

Arne Weinberg swaggers in with a confident two-tracker. 'Blossom' flirts with the idea of melody but really lets the 4/4 kick do all the talking whilst the flipside drifts on a sustained chord, a la Luomo. The second 12" focusses more on dancefloor dynamics; both tracks revelling in Detroit-bound chordplay, reflective percussion and underpinned house propulsion. Hess's drips with tension although Furstenberg's effort just edges ahead with the 'deepness' quotient.

Quantec is a bit of an expert at all this low-end theory dance music (11 releases in 2 years), so its surprising to hear his contribution falling a little flat. The title track meanders and does very little before quickly fading out without having said much. The remix has more success as it twists the original into a dubstep-inspired shuffle that further binds the two genres together. But Sebastien Sen wins over all with a deceptively simple, reductionist 12" that bypasses all things dubby and German and focusses on Motor-City clatter. A slow brooding exercise in rhythm that seems to do nothing, but is actually doing loads.