Mofomatronix

I first heard of Mofomatronix when Jackmaster (the guy who runs the Dress2Sweat record label, Numbers club night and many, many more things) played me some of their tracks when he came to play my night. He tore it up that night but that is a different story.

I was really impressed by the production style they displayed and looked them up online to discover they are a couple of producers and dj's operating from Montreal. They run the Turbo Crunk night in Montreal and Toronto with their pals Megasoid, Blingmod and Lunice and also the Many Brain blog.

They took some time out from making crazy beats to answer some questions for me and you.

EB: What is and was the club scene like where you guys grew up? Did your night start because you were following suit from other hip hop nights or were you starting from scratch with it?

MFMTRNX: The club scene is Montreal is similar to most other big cities nowadays. The serato-DJ plays the same artist remixed by the same producer at the same horrible bitrate, and that phenomenon is very much present here. However there is a subculture of interesting club nights with considerable draw that have been around and were popping hard by the time we got our first monthly going proper dumb. The like minded homies would be Ghislain Poirier and his infamous Bounce Le Gros nights, Khiasma and his Baile MTL super-eclectic parties, and of course the Megasoid dudes. So as much as we weren't exactly following suit with the club scene of the city, it'd be a lie to claim ownership on what we did or say we started from scratch, as it was a select few monthly parties all individually pushing more diverse interesting sounds that made it good for everyone.

EB: How is your sound recieved in Montreal and Toronto where you run your nights?

MFMTRNX: To our surprise, our "thing" has been accepted as a legit club sound. whether pushing obscure Hyphy tracks, the latest Atlante club anthems, our own sounds or those of our friends and peers around the world like Lazer Sword, we've always been amazed at how it has not only kept clubs popping, but has often dragged people out to dancefloors. Curiously enough this has happened a few times when we were playing on bills alongside techno/electro DJs, and a few hours at 130bpm, we'd come on and play what is even to us at times the weirdest club music imaginable, people got to the dancefloor and really "get it". It's great.

EB: Are there any local mcs that you work with or plan to work with in the near future? (I ask because there are loads of mcs here but the dj scene is so far from the mc scene that the two rarely mix and when they do there are differences due to djs being more geeky about what they listen to and mcs having a hard time grasping where they fit in the hip hop food chain)

MFMTRNX: The thing is, there aren't many MCs in Montreal (at least since Giovanni Marks moved!), and truthfully we haven't really looked. However we have a few people in Chicago, LA, Texas and San Fransisco that we are supposed to work with in the near future. Hopefully we can hook up with some UK peoples as well. Though that's definitely a good point about producers and MCs often being on different wavelenghts, the scope of our beats covers many grounds and we have our secret stash of straight up rap beats that we could possibly throw at an MC, get the acapella back and flip it from there.

EB: Which producers have inspired you so far past and present?

MFMTRNX: Kraftwerk, Traxamillion, Bangladesh, Pinch, Droop-E, The Neptunes, Timbaland, etc. Anything from a banging strip club Collipark Snap beat from the southern States to a solid german Ellen Allien techno tune will inspire us tremendously.

EB: Have you thought about taking that leap and making uptempo music using the same production style? I mean that Common tune is at 120bpm and the Ne-Yo tune is even faster.

MFMTRNX: We don't force any tempo on our tracks and just come up with a melody and see at what speed it would work, otherwise with remixes we'll start from a rap we really like and work around its tempo. We have a few 110+ tracks, and I believe our set goes up to 120bpm right now, but then you gotta do something with it... like make all the verses 60bpm, some polyrhythms, fuck with the dancefloor a tiny bit. Fast bpms give us headaches. And for what it's worth it's not entirely unusual for rap or hip hop to reach those speeds whether full on or half time. My Love and Gossip Folk are both 120bpm.

But essentially if you're going in that bpm range, I bloody hope it's just a vicious transition towards 65bpm hahaha.

There you have it, bass heavy hip hop that works for the dancefloor, check the remixes from them and their fam.


Nas - Made You Look (Mofomatronix Remix)

Kinfolk - So Krisy (Mofomatronix Remix)

Busta Rhymes - Whoo Hah (Lunice Remix)

There are loads more delights to be sampled over at the Many Brain blog so get on it.

Also Mofomatronix are playing at The Ballers Social Club night, in Glasgow, at The Ivy with Rustie and Eclair on Saturday the 8th of August.

Don't Call It A Comeback

We've been here for... well, a year i guess.

There has been a bit of a gap in the posts of late, which i am sorry about. The Electrique Boutique night on the Monday came to an end to be replaced by The Black Tooth Lounge, a rock night which is going really well. They had The Deathset playing the other week which was an awesome gig.

Electrique Boutique will now be run on Fridays at Snafu, which is a much better slot for it. Upcoming guests confirmed so far are Duke Dumont, Sinden and Herve, Crookers and Jojo De Freq, Andrew Weatherall, Erol Alken, Felix Da Housecat, Slam, Percy X and a load more i will keep you up to date with.

To get back into the swing of the blogging malarkey i have a mix from Kid Bell. I have played with him a lot in the past and always enjoyed his dj style and banter. I remember once djing with him and singing 'Brazilian Rhyme' into the mic whilst he mixed the original into my horrendous warblings. He also ran the Goodfoot night at the Tunnels which i used to love going along to get down to some soulful flavours. Their guests included Mad Matts (owner of Gamm records) Zero Db, Quantic, Monk One, Benji B, Domu and a few others i cannot remember off the top of my head.

Kid Bell - Tuesday Night At Seymours

Tracklist:
Detroit Experiment - Higher
Maspyke - No big deal
Viper Squad - Case closed
Dj Day - A Place to go
Soulphiction - Prison song
Inohs Sivad Feat. Diamondancer - Somewhere Else
Soultoursit - Side dish
Mark E - Scared
Linkwood -Piece of mind
Waajeed - Tron
Imagination - Just An Illusion (Lindstrom dub)
O Boogie - Paper Chaser (Tom Trago & Maximillion's Big Business Remix)
Metro Area - Pina
Steve and I - 96
Patchworks - Celebration (Amp Fiddler instrumental)
Christian Prommers Drumlesson - Rex Drums
Alice Smith - Love Endeavour (Maurice Fulton remix)
Trusme - Working nights
Chic - I want your love (Todd Terje Mix)
Mark Murphy - Love is what stays (Henrik Schwarz remix)
Milton Jackson - Ghosts in my machine
Deetron - I Cling
Flying Lotus - Dance Floor Stalker
Thom Yorke - Eraser (Dixon edit)
Build an ark - You gotta have freedom (2 banks of 4 mix)

Bonus Ghettotech bootie

Skream - Midnight Request Line (Cutlass Supreme Remix)

If you are out in Aberdeen this week, come check me out, i am playing at Snafu on Thursday (filling in for Steven Milne) and Friday, 99 on Saturday and i am Back in Snafu on Sunday djing for this bartending competition.

Live from Electrique Boutique

So i recorded my set last night in the club and even though i am far from happy with it i am offering it up here for download. It's not bad by any stretch, just not as tight as i am usually.

Live at Snafu pt 1


Live at Snafu pt 2


Tracklist

Vincent Price and Michael Jackson intro (i actually stopped the music in the club to do this bit)
Digital Mystikz - Anti War Dub
Benga - Crunked Up
Skream - 2d
Mala - Left Leg Out
Marc Houle - Techno Vocal (Dub)
Pirate Soundsystem - Scream if you wanna go rasta
Underground Resistance - Footwars
Smith and Mighty - B-line fi blow
Bok Bok - World Changing Dub
Blaqstarr - Shake It To the Ground (Claude Von Stroke Mix)
Hannah Holland - Crackney
Crookers - Para De Graasinha
Congorock - Exodus
A Hundred Birds - Jaguar
Danielle Baldelli - Safari
Rhythim is Rhythim - Strings Of Life
Snoop Dogg - Sensual Seduction
Nuyorican Soul - Nervous Track
Efdemin - Lohn and Brot

Part 2
Efdemin - Lohn and Brot
Isolee - Do Re Mi
Green Velvet - Shake and Pop (instrumental)
Jerome Sydenham - Timbuktu
Jess and Crabbe - Council
Jesse Rose - Wake Up
SL2 - Djs Take Control
Bassnectar - Yo (Speakerpunk Brazilian Rave Remix)
Bassment Jaxx - Hey U (Switch and Sinden remix)
Dr Evil - Mary Jane (Solid Groove Remix)
Bonde Do Role - Solta O Frango
Ludacris - Roll Out
Radioclit - Divine Gosa
Elite Force - Used and Abused (Zodiac Cartel Remix)
Bell X1 - Flame (Solid Groove Remix)
L-vis 1990 - Mr Wobble
Twocker - Stitch
Sawtooth Sucka - Crazy
Pase Rock - The Motherfucking Rave Is Over
Bassment Jaxx - Nifty
Rod Lee - Understand
Pitbull - Move Shake Drop
Benni Benassi - Satisfaction (Mowgli Bootleg)
Duke Dumont - Lean and Bounce
Mattew Jonson - Followed By Angels

That is not a picture of me btw

Bulgarian Interview

The Bulgarian is a producer from (wait for it) Bulgaria, now staying in Cape Town. We are pretty big fans of his music under the names The Bulgarian and Mr Elastik over here at Electrique Boutique so we were pretty chuffed when he agreed to do an interview for us.


Electronic Boutique) So you have quite alot of respect for releasing records as Mr Elastik, what made you want to release the Bulgarian stuff as well? Most of the people who i know who play your Mr Elastik records kind of look down on the fidget house genre for not being very serious.

Bulgarian) Really? Haha, thought it was the other way round. ;) Actually mr. elastik and The Bulgarian came about at around the same time. I was really into all the minimal stuff but then I heard “A little bit Patchy” by Switch (the original dubsided release)... and didn’t really like it. But the flip-side was really dope. So i started checking this sound out and really got into it. Back then it still didn’t have a name so i was calling it ‘electrojack’... thank goodness someone thought of Fidget, much better name.


EB) Was there a record or producer that inspired the switch over of style?

B)I never really switched, rather expanded, but yeah, as I mentioned above it was “The Something Like” on dubsided 005, the flip to “A Bit Patchy”. That, and hearing Switch playing later that year at the Exit Festival in Serbia that sealed the deal for me. It was just a real breath of fresh air at the time!


EB)What other producers do you feel an affinity to right now?

B)I value the people more than the products and our personas are just that: products. So I’ll rather just mention some of the cats i’m getting along with at the moment that i think are cool; Bryan Cox, KiNK, my man Vlad Sokolov and also my Potty Mouth cohorts. I’m also on good terms with the Crookers, me and Phra have some funny msn conversations!

EB)Where have you found the Bulgarian sound goes down best? Are you booked to play alot as him in Bulgaria or South Africa for example?

B)Never actually played in Bulgaria! Hoping to change that soon, but i haven’t lived there for a long time and there’s not that much of an underground scene. South Africa is also a very tiny tiny fraction of the musical pie but it was where “The Bulgarian” was born so yeah, played here a bit. ;)

As to where the sound goes down the best... ... i’ll let you know! ;)


EB)Do you feel that the Cape town scene is particularly different from Durban or Jo'burg due to it's Cape Malay, San etc population - the sheer mix of ethnicities must make for some different vibes - the Cape Flats are a hot bed of kwaito right?

B)South Africa is a very colourful place in general and yes the cities are quite different, not least of which is their relative isolation from one another due to the sheer distances between them, JoBurg is about 1500Km from Cape Town and Durban is just over 1000 i think, so cross-pollination is hard, but Kwaito is definitely a national sound! In fact myself and my old studio partner Damien have been credited by some of the local media as having invented a new genre as the Tone Deaf Junkies: We call it Kwaitech, think electronic tech-kwaito. ;)

EB)It was your Discobelle mix that turned me onto Brabe, which in turn revealed Rene Van Munster and Bootlickers. How on earth did you discover him? I have tried looking for music i like on Myspace before and it is a soul destroying task.

B)I have a very time-consuming habit of checking out every single myspace page of everyone i get a friend request from as i think its polite and you never know what you might find. Of my nearly 2000 friends i’ve hand approved and looked at every single one of their pages Brabe and Rene were among those. So if your friend request is taking a few days to get approved its usually because im trying to find some time to get through a whole bunch of back-logged requests.


EB) Are there any other up and coming producers you want to big up right now?

B) While he’s been around for longer than me and is not really doing badly by any means he is still up and coming and so i have to give a shout out to the other Bulgarian. My man KiNK (on my top friends on my myspace page), the dude has talent, especially when you see what he works on!!!

The Bulgarian - Uptown Jack


The Bulgarian - Barnyard Dance


Remember to support the artists we feature here on the blog, if you don't they might not bother making the exciting music that you enjoy dancing to.
Buy his stuff.

Juno

Beatport

Bass in your face

Just a quick post because our friend L-Vis (See here for our interview with him) has done a wicked little Hyperbass remix of Benga and Coki's Night record.

Benga and Coki - Night (L-Vis 1990 Hyperbass remix)



Since i am posting some borderline Bassline/Niche badness i'm gonna hook up the hottest 4x4 banger of the moment remixed by the man who gave us the Pow! rhythm, Dexplicit.

Kasia - Over You (Dexplicit Remix)


We are coming up for our 100th post so i might do something special for it. I might not though so don't get your hopes up.

Once you enter my house it then becomes our house

This blog is actually here to advertise my night in Snafu, so i figure i should post some of the songs that get played on the Monday night mashup that is Electrique Boutique.

Recently it has started to get pretty busy again and i have been able to play slightly more aggressive, faster music. I have a theory that songs with big breakdowns or periods with no beats don't really work too well outside of massive clubs. However this Nacho Lovers edit of Laidback Luke and Steve Angello's possible summer anthem 'Be' blows that theory right out of the water. It actually got a cheer when it dropped into the break on Monday.

Laidback Luke and Steve Angello - Be (Nacho Lovers Edit)


Here is a cheeky bootleg that blends it with the Robin S fairground classic 'Show Me Love'

Laidback Luke and Robin S - Be (Show Me Love Blend)


Dubstep and 4x4 isn't really well represented up here in Aberdeen, which i feel is a shame as there is a market for it in my opinion. My biggest tune at new year was Benga and Coki's 'Night' and after i started spinning a few 4x4 tunes i had people coming up to me asking why there weren't more people playing this music. Admittedly 4x4 doesn't have the best reputation and hearing T2's 'Heartbroken' blasting out of the windows of lowered Vauxhall Corsa's doesnt do much to help belay this chavvy rep that it has. Here is the afforementioned dubstep tune and a slightly slowed down more dancefloor friendly version of the Burial classic 'Archangel' by Trouble and Bass's Boy 8 Bit.

Benga and Coki - Night


Burial - Archangel (Boy 8 Bit's Simple Remix)

I wanna make love in a train, cross country

I probably should have posted this Madonna related song yesterday but i forgot about it completely. It is the Sonic Youth cover version of 'Into The Groove', retitled 'Into the Groovey' with the band renamed as 'Ciccone Youth'

Ciccone Youth - Into The Groovey


Keeping with the spirit of things here is another cover version, this time The Go! Team covering Sonic Youth.

The Go! Team - Bull In The Heather

Alien Delon

Alien Delon is a young native Russian from Moscow, with an unfinished classical education (female choir conductor) and about 8 years experience in electronic music. His introduction to electronic music is thanks to Oleg Kostrow, his first teacher, future collaborater and then band member of well known Russian band 'Messer Fur Frau Muller'. He released two albums and a 12" single with him and a female singer under the name Supersonic Future and soundtracked two theatre pieces. His sound has a distinct italo and 80s soundtrack feel to it, part Alexander Robotnick and part Giorgio Moroder.


EB: So why the funny nickname?
AD: First - i think that everyone on this planet (me too!) feel themselves a little non-human at the start of new millenium, and second - because messier Delon is the best french hero-lover for all times.

EB: Where are you musically at the moment?
AD: Now i'm only starting my musical career. But i already make my own sound and feel myself free in all technical aspects of my art. For the base i took the early 80s music - Italo-Disco and Electro-Hip-Hop. Also i remain inspired by Patrick Cowley's endless disco anthems. In that golden times, dance music sounded like a song, with rich analog arrangements and hard beats, voices from distant space and naive simple melodies without many of modern limits.

EB: What music did you first hear that inspired you to have the sound you have now?
AD: My first electronic music experience was then i was about 10 years old - I heard The Orb or The KLF - some 90s stuff, I don't remember... Before it i knew of only Classical and Pop - and it was the great revelation that changed my life.. 80s music i found some years later - and I listen to it to the present day.

EB: You're top ten has some pretty hard to find records in there, can you recommend any underground Russian electro gems that we might never know about normally?
AD: Hmm... I think you might not know the first russian 1980s new-wave band "KINO" they have a cult status here... Soviet movies have really great electronic composers like Eduard Artemjev - the first use of electronic music in movies. I can name the minimal-house project released by KOMPAKT - "SCSI9" Maybe you've heard about new russian collective,
"My Space Rocket", they released a single on Greg Wilson's label, but it's more 90s-deep-house style.


EB: What is your setup like? It sounds like you are using some hardware in the mix.
AD: Yes it is. I try to use only analog synths from non-MIDI era (1979) - because any part of my song I play live and then cut on the computer.
I noticed that live-played melodies sound more natural and enjoyable for people and have not such a robotic feeling. I'll name a few of my friends: Korg Mono/Poly, Moog Prodigy, Roland RS09-SH2, SIMMONS SDS1000, Tr606 and more. Also I use some USSR-made synths like Polivoks, Electronica EM-25, Marsh BeatBox etc.
Sure I use modern techniques too, because we live in 21st century and many standards have changed. I cannot use same amount of reverb like the 80s masters used,
but otherwise everything is nearly the same.

EB: Are there any clubs in Moscow that play electro/italo sounding stuff where you can try your stuff out at?
AD: Unfortunately we're all here under nu-rave-electro-house-crap attack, and I can name only one or two nightclubs rarely playing such music. We had a Casco DJ-set last month here, I hope everything can change.

EB: What have you planned for the coming year?
AD: except my instrumental tracks, I'm working on two projects with singers - all in russian.
"Eulalie" - with a female singer - more lounge but a lot of italo-electro too.
We will release our debut CD in spring, maybe in Europe too. I'm working on myspace now and we have to shoot our first videoclip, so wait for some news on that!
The second project, called "U.R.A.N." is my collaboration with poet-singer Alexey Chulansky.
Something like Klaus Nomi meets Sami Liuski in the bedroom, New-Wave-Electro-Disco with Alexey's esoteric lyrics. This projects remain unfinished, so I'll keep the tracks undercover now.

Alien Delon's influential top 10

1. Kraftwerk - Metropolis
2. Patrick Cowley - Sea Hunt
3. Verycheri - 69 Cancer Sign
4. Ice-T, Chris "Glove" Taylor, Dave Storrs - Reckless
5. Brooklyn Express - Sixty-Nine
6. I.M.S. - Dancing Therapy
7. E.T. 84 - Hello Somebody
8. Jean Paul Gaultier - How To Do That
9. Kano - Ikeya-Seki
10. Krono - Jamaica Electric

Alien Delon - Virtual Viktor


Alien Delon - Guarana Night Drive


Alien Delon ft Tanya Litvinenko - Casino


Check out Alien's Myspace for more of his music and news on new releases.

Switch Post

As i'm sure you are aware, if you live in Aberdeen, we had Switch playing at Electrique Boutique recently.

It was a really good night and he came out and partied afterwards, leaving his passport at someone's house. I nearly got fired from my job because of the night for opening up the shop to get booze at 5am but it was (nearly) worth it.

Anyway here are some of the remixes he blessed my hard drive with:

Klaxons - Golden Skans (Switch Mix)

Claude Von Stroke - The Whistler (Switch Mix)

I'm not sure that the second one is The Whistler or a Switch mix but that's what it sounds like to me. I might stick some of the other ones up later depending on whether or not i am feeling generous.

We Are...

Electrique Boutique is a night of new wave, punk funk, electro, indie and trash-pop every Monday at basement venue Snafu in Aberdeen, Scotland.

So far, we've entertained and been entertained by: Filthy Dukes, Switch/Solidgroove, Uncle Buck and Colon Open Bracket, with other similar-minded acts scheduled soon.

Resident is Giles Walker who likes to play to himself a lot, but hey, people still come and dance so something must work!

If you would like to check us out, come down any Monday (check www.clubsnafu.com for listings) from 10pm. The drinks are cheap - all house spirits for £1.50, Apple Sourz £1 and Sambuca £2. Monday night raving y'all!!

If you'd like to guest at one of our nights, please email gomes@clubsnafu.com.

Rather than just shamelessly promote our night, we thought we'd blog everything that makes us tick. Here we present MP3's, music website links, far-out clothing, wack art plus any other random trash we come across...if we blog one of your MP3's and you ain't happy, then email above and we'll gladly remove it.