Blog: Best Foot Forward

sonic youth - pink stream (mp3) so much has been said of sonic youth that it's hard to know where to start. described by themselves as "the new beatles, but nobody knows it", or by others as "the biggest band never to sell out", they've stayed true to their early 80's nyc no wave roots throughout a long career spanning almost 25 years, and still to this day they continue to be a band that mean

joel martin disco mix from january 2006 (mp3) here's an hour long radio show broadcast on resonance fm from earlier in the year from the other resident of quiet village joel martin, aka dj zeus. joel has spent a large part of the last few years obsessed with the undead - he was the music supervisor for the belly-bursting shaun of the dead movie, compiled trunk records long overdue collection of

double fantasy - children of the universe (mp3) quiet village - drax (mp3) here at best foot forward we're strong belivers in the age old adage of "talent borrows, genius steals", and courtesty of our oncoming guests, here's a perfect example. a large amount of the quiet village output is based around samples of long-forgotten records from the likes of balearic demi-god demis roussos or

kate bush - king of the mountain (radio slave mix) (mp3) and so begins the build-up to our first birthday shenanigans! if you've been keeping an eye on our "next guest spot" column, or spotted any of the posters around manchester, you'll know we're humbled to have quiet village coming up for our 6th may celebrations. in light of this, i'm hoping to crank out a good few posts in the run up

high feelings - leave norway (mp3) so a moonboots secret weapon finally sees the light of day, but only for the lucky few quick enough to grab one of the 200 copies released. this is one of the tracks from the new 12" from high feelings records (not the correct weblink, but we believe they're related), and is a beach boys inspired sing-a-long, apparently by norwegian rockers motorpsycho . whilst the disco re-edit train seems like it is beginning to run out of steam, forward-thinking tinkerers like the high feelings chaps [...]

neil diamond - delirious love (mp3) scanning through the archives of the hype machine i was surprised to see that not many people had picked up on tracks from oldies favourite neil diamond's new album. with rick rubin at the helm many, myself included, were expecting diamond's credibility to soar, with the hipkids crying his praises to all who would hear. strange how they haven't, but i'll give

randy watson experience - be still my beating heart (sting cover) (mp3) please note - enjoyment of the following post may be dependant on which side of the atlantic you reside. americans seem to love sting, and hold him with a reverence which seems strange to people on this end of the pond. we stare on in disbelief at the scores of sting sample-led hip-hop records which offer him instant

isolee - lost (mp3) there are some things that just radiate quality once they have a nationality attatched to them. english fish & chips. swiss watches. brazilian women. and german techno. nobody (bar the detroit masters) do it like the germans. epic lengths, subtle changes and intricate layers of melody are staple characteristics. rajko müller knows this, knows how high the bar is set, and

darondo - legs (mp3) it's often daunting to think of the amount of quality music there is out there if someone like darondo can go unnoticed for so long. after his track "didn't i" was unearthed by giles peterson for his "digs america" compilation late last year, the la-based ubiquity records have brought together a collection of singles and demo's from darondo's early seventies career and

the temptations - ball of confusion (mp3) eve of destruction, tax deduction, city inspectors, bill collectors, mod clothes in demand, population out of hand, suicide, too many bills, hippies moving to the hills. people all over the world are shouting, 'end the war!' without wanting to to get preachy, i thought this would be a good track to post with the current political climate tempestuous as

munk ft. princess superstar - mein schatzi (zongamin remix, re-edited by midnight mike) this will either serve as an brief introduction or a act as a timely reminder to the greatness of midnight mike. i've been buying his records, remixes and edits for quite a while now, and have constantly been amazed at his focused and often intense production style, which tred on pathways left untouched by

visioneers - runnin' (pharcyde cover) (mp3) the rise in popularity of the cover version over the last two years has been unprecedented, with bloggers continually trying to outdo one another with the latest scoop, and artists now just as happy paying respect to their peers as to their idols. where once a cover version was a nod to a particular songwriter that may have influenced a band in their

chaka khan - ain't nobody (frankie knuckles hallucinogenic dub) (mp3) one of my first ever clubbing jaunts was to see frankie knuckles in manchester, so he'll always hold a special reverance for me. a true forefather of the house scene, he's produced enough quality tracks and remixes to easily fill a full night of aural bliss, and this is just one of his many high points. sorry for the

sebastien tellier - broadway (chicken lips dub) (mp3) it's been almost 2 years since sebastien tellier's "beyond all strategies" 12" fell so gracefully into our lives, and after a whole load of mostly pointless remixes, re-jigs and re-edits of the awe-inspiring and expletetive-defying "la ritournelle" (what exactly did mr dan do with that magic wand of his anyway?) we are finally presented with

gnarls barkely - untitled 03 (aac) gnarls barkely - untitled 04 (aac) gnarls barkely - untitled 05 (aac) here's the remaining tracks from the gnarls barkley sampler i posted earlier in the week. i originally wasn't going to post these, as i only wanted to put up a few tracks, assumed it would have been picked up by someone else by now and also didn't think that these three were as good as the

lindstrom - "another station" (mp3) i'm seriously contemplating renaming this blog "we love norway", such is our fascination with music from the land of the everlasting sunset. i don't really know how lindstrom manages to put out such a volume of work with such unbelievable consistency - it's obvious that he has been "overly influenced" by certain old tracks (see here), but to still come up

gnarls barkely - untitled (aac) gnarls barkely - untitled (aac) i've just been handed a package (read : a zipped yousendit file) which purports to contain new material from the latest super hip-hop collaboration gnarls barkley. it's six tracks, one of which is the all-conquering "crazy", and as far as i can tell it seems pretty legit. here's two of them so you can decide for yourself. i can't

status iv - you ain't really down (jazzanova's hey baby remix) (mp3) we'll continue the recurring theme of playing records that we like by posting a track that's received a rapturous reception down at bff on a few occasions now. it's not a track that does a lot, but what it does do is absolutely beyond compare, with jazzanova taking a 20 year old track from status iv and applying their

todd terje - eurodans (mp3) firstly, we've finally gotten round to getting our own domain and webspace sorted, so we've banished the horrible yousendit links and hopefully we find you all with us still. right, and now that's done ... i doubt i'd be wrong in estimating that about 75% of the top quality nu-disco that has come out in the past 12 months has come from norway , and if so, then 75% of that has come from three distinct nordic countrymen. the first two, lindstrom and [...]

kerri chandler - bar a thym (mp3) inbetween holding down a fulltime job, trying to run and promote a night, searching for a first home, feeding a serious pro evolution addiction and playing steven spielberg for my parents (don't ask), it's proving a little more difficult than i'd like to get new posts up here as often as possible, but i'm working on ways to rectify that, so keep an eye on future developments ... keeping up my "favourite house records of the year" promise, today i'm dropping the bomb [...]