• Music

    Philip Jeck & Chris Watson – Oxmardyke

    July 27, 2023 - By 

    There’s little I can say to introduce you to the work of Philip Jeck, the turntablist who passed away in March of 2022, nor would I with Chris Watson, the maestro of field recordings and one-time member of Cabaret Voltaire.  This release is a project that the gentlemen were working on before Jeck’s untimely passing.  From the Touch Records release Bandcamp site: “In 2017 I was recording along the north bank of the Humber estuary and one morning driving back from Faxfleet I was stopped at the Oxmardyke rail crossing. The gates were down. After setting up a microphone array…

  • Music

    Milan Knížák – Broken Music

    May 4, 2023 - By 

    Milan Knížák is a hidden treasure from the Czech Republic.  He has been a performance artist, sculptor, musician, installation artist, dissident, graphic artist, art theorist and pedagogue of art according to his biography, but what sets him apart is that he is the true father of turntablism.  All modern practicioners, such as Christian Marclay, the late Philip Jeck, Boyd Rice (NON) and Otomo Yoshihide owe him a great debt.  The recordings are made of broken, scratched and damaged records repurposed for new compositions, and the sounds would have fit perfectly had he had the opportunity to work with fellow Czech…

  • Music

    Otomo Yoshihide (大友良英) – We Insist?

    July 7, 2022 - By 

    I had the pleasure of watching Otomo Yoshihide perform live about 30 years ago in Los Angeles, and his turntable wizardry made me a lifelong fan.  It pleases me to see that labels are still carefully releasing his body of work, and this album is among my favorites.  The album is full of short snippets, records mixed together, sound samples layer one on top of the other, blended, stirred and shaken to make one of the best experimental music albums of the late 1990s.  A must for turntablists.

  • Music

    Cut Chemist – Adidas To Addis​/​Povo De Santo

    November 30, 2021 - By 

    Cut Chemist is an institution in Los Angeles.  I first came across his work as a member of Jurassic 5, and it seems he still has the skills of a groove surgeon. Both tracks are bangers, but the first one is my favorite, as it’s a keep originally recorded by Belaynesh Wubante & Assegedetch Asfaw and arranged by the venerable Mulatu Astaké.