In 1982, Tadao Kikumoto invented a little box supposed to emulate a bass player and thus help bands rehearse without one if need be. Unfortunately for him, that box didn’t sound anything like a real bass, got dissed by every self-respecting garage rock bands and was removed from production less than two years later.
In 1987, Nathaniel Pierre Jones (just Pierre, to his friends) wondered what would happen if you were to tweak the knobs on this funny little box in ways that had probably not been intended by its creator, while playing it really really loud.
Seven years later, Joshua Winkleman (Josh to his friends, Wink to his fans) wondered what would happen if you were to tweak the knobs even more while playing with it.

Much tweaking and bleeping ensued.

Good part about dragging an eye more bloodshot than a flock of Transylvanian bats is that I can’t do much, except stay in the dark and make noise. Which in turn means I’m holding pretty good with my average two-three-mix-a-week production plan.

This mix is also kind of old school. Wait. Come back: there’s no Prince this time. I’m talking about the other Old School.
If you’ve ever gone dancing in the outdoors sometime during the past fifteen years, chances are you know most of these tracks. If you’ve not, then here is your chance to see why you missed out. Suffice it to say that one of my favorite instrument of all times is heavily represented (and I’m probably going straight to Musician Hell for even calling that an instrument).
So this is yet another nostalgia mix, I know, but for aforementioned strained-eye reasons, I really cannot stare much at a computer screen these days, and that reduce by as much my options in terms of making bleeping sounds of my own to go on a mix. Good part about this old school is that I got it all down there on lovely vinyl.
As a result, no prod on this mix, save maybe for some liberal use of sampling trickery, but that doesn’t really qualify…

And before you go and enjoy, I should probably add a fair warning: some of the music on this mix probably could be considered… huh…
“agressive” is not quite the word, but…
OK, let me put it this way: there are basically two type of reactions to it… Some people will shake their head rhythmically while making weird little snake movements with their hands, while others will repress tears of pain and clench their teeth to make sure their fillings do not come out while addressing a quick eulogy to their late eardrums.
Rule of thumb is that people past their thirties tend to belong to the latter category, but go ahead, make the stats lie!

And now that you’ve all been warned:

Don’t cry Sunshine, next week will be back to good ole’ Funky House. Promise.

Keywords: techno, electronic, psychedelic house, 303, more 303, noisy, tweety-tweety-tit, Underworld, Rollo, Josh Wink, Arrigo Boito, Grayhound, Mefistofele, rez, no sleep, people, consciousness many levels higher…

Oh yea, that first track on the mix…

Ten years later, this is still one of my strongest memories, ever: wandering in the middle of Black Rock desert at dusk, when my ear caught this infectious melody playing somewhere in the distance, amidst the bizarre art installations and the group of camping freaks. It was impossible not to start walking toward that sound, if only to make sure it was not an aural illusion. And I was not the only one either: people everywhere, it seemed, were irresistibly drawn to that sound and it was nearly comical to see us all walking blindly through the camp, looking for that invisible pied piper (may I add, importantly enough given the location, that this episode happened during one of the rare moment where the author of this post was under no chemical influence whatsoever).

The track was Rez, by Underworld, and it proves, if there was a need, that modern electronic music (and I am not talking about “contemporary” electronic music) can sustain the comparison to even the most entrenched classical gems in terms of talking to the soul and the mind beyond the boundaries of human language.