Bass Oddity
David Bowie – Crystal Japan No posts for a while so I thought I’d come through with a little something for the weekend. David Bowie is a rather divisive figure among Dilate Choonz bloggers – some of us think he’s a genius, others think he’s a complete dud. I must admit that listening to 80s albums like Tonight and Never Let Me Down would swing one towards the latter category fairly quickly, but if you look at his 70s work, he put very few feet wrong. Browsing at a car boot sale back in the summer I picked up an RCA compilation album I’d never seen called Rare Bowie. It’s a re

"It has always been there, you just have to discover it".
Robert Leiner – Aqua Viva I’ve been transferring a bit of vinyl to FLAC & mp3 over the last few weeks and there some great records I forgot I even had. Octaves/Tremeloes by Sonic Boom is one. Visions From the Past from Robert Leiner is another. And this is one of the best tracks from that long player, going all the way back to 1993 or thereabouts. Robert Leiner is a brilliant Swedish electronic artist who was capable of both ambient techno and a drop of the harder stuff. Visions… is more on the ambient side, but is not afraid to get a bit beaty on us. It starts off with quite airy, flutey synth

Teenage Genius
Daniel Pemberton – Phoenix A nice slice of ambient here to ease us into November, from Daniel Pemberton, who was just 16 years old when Pete Namlook’s Fax label released his debut LP Bedroom in 1994. The album was recorded in Pemberton’s bedroom (doh!) with only a 4-track tape recorder, a Korg Wavestation synth, an old Yamaha Portasound keyboard and a Boss effects unit. For all of us who have been constantly claiming that we would be able to make good tracks “if only we had that extra piece of gear” – this is proof that you can do without. Those shifting, colliding sheets of sound are certainly the W

"Synth Britannia" tribute
The Human League – Flexi Disc This post was inspired by the BBC4 documentary “Synth Britannia” which aired last Friday (still available on the BBC iPlayer for UK residents) – a good documentary on the late 1970s and early 1980s UK ‘synthpop’ scene. Well worth 90 minutes of your time. Synth-”pop” started out as a bunch of geezers in industrial locations such as Sheffield, Liverpool and East London influenced by science fiction and early Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream records. The Human League were right up with the best of them. This is from the commercially unsuccessful, but more quirky and probab

Free Dust Science!
Here’s a quick heads-up to let you know that to celebrate the launch of their new website Dust Science (home of The Black Dog, along with many other great techno artists) are giving away their latest EP for a limited time. You can download the EP (in various digital formats) from duststoredigital.com. Get over there quick because after 5th November you will have to pay for it! Tracklisting: A1. The Black Dog – Tesco (Dark House) A2. Carl Taylor – Walk O