FROM THE SOUTH-WEST CORRESPONDENT…WHAT’S IN YOUR BOX (19)

Banging Heads and Banging Tunes

From the South West Correspondent : Whats in Your Box Part 19

Various Artists – ‘The Science Behind the Circle’.

You know when you get on a bus and there is always one joker at the back (baseball cap, tracksuit, sovereign ring) whose music you can hear above the sound of the engine – and its always techno or ‘happy house’ blaring out. That’s what listening to this weeks CD(s) sounds like. For today, I embraced dance music big style. Out of the box came a double CD of techno and house music from 1996 called ‘The Science Behind the Circle’ which features tracks by Secret Knowledge, Carl Cox, David Holmes and Andrew Weatherall. I however have no idea about the idea behind the CD or if it was released to tie in with a club or something like that. Further knowledge is scarce on the Internet as well.

The only problem is that today I am poorly, I have man flu. As you can image at times its been touch and go and I drift in and out of consciousness and I have the ambulance folk on speed dial. This CD is what I would refer to a ‘Bangin’ but only because I’m too lazy to think of any other words to describe music that involves the use of a 303 (again, I have no idea what a 303 is, or whether or not, these tracks actually do use a 303). What this CD has taught me is though is that someone out there is releasing records as Vinyl Blair, which is a frankly marvellous name. I await DJ Noel Edphones releases with baited breath.

Dance music sounds weird when you are too tired to listen to things properly, you miss things, the little bleeps and bips become annoying and the euphoria of doesn’t quite work when strongest drugs you have ingested is Lemsip. Normally when I am poorly I listen to things with acoustic guitars or I dig out Four Tet and play it until I fall asleep. It is impossible to fall asleep listening to this, and I have to say my headache got slightly worse whilst this was on – not because its terrible but because it does just bleep, whoomp and dof a lot.

The standout tracks for me as ‘Drive Me Crazy’ by Secret Knowledge (Secret Knowledge is the band formed by ex-journalist Kris Needs and I recommend them) and ‘Grumpy Flutter’ by David Holmes – which was the only track on here I’d previously heard. The Second CD is a little more laid back than the first one – although its still pretty uplifting stuff. It’s a good album, its got Andrew Weatherall on it, so it can’t be bad at all, its just a shame that right now I’m not in a place to enjoy it.

mp3 : Secret Knowlege – Drive Me Crazy

mp3 : David Holmes – Grumpy Flutter

Pass the Strepsils, see you next week.

S-WC