The Track or Album of the Week, Number 15: Joseph Capriati/The Gallery.

Album der Woche, Album of the Week Joseph Capriati/The Gallery.

Once upon a time, a very long time ago. The first festival of a not-so-young upcoming DJ. It was late at night and the dance floor was relatively empty. Up to that point, the program included a strange mix of reggae house and hip-hop. The frustration on the part of the up-and-coming DJ was quite high. So he thought, forget about the prepared set and let it rumble. And against all expectations the dance floor filled up. Shortly before the end of his set he played this track. The sound system was great, the bass was gigantic and the dance floor was full again. All’s well that ends well.

Have fun listening to the album of the week:

The Gallery: https://youtu.be/SqLXjChy6Lc

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The Track or Album of the Week, Number 14: Bob Marley/Babylon by Bus.

Das Album der Woche. The Album of the Week, Number 14: Bob Marley/Babylon by Bus.

An old love, lost and then found again. Immediately before I fell in love musically with punk music, I was an enthusiastic reggae fan. At that time my hair was still long and my shoes not yet pointy. A highlight from that time is Bob Marley’s live album, Babylon by Bus.

I believe I once owned this record, but sold it as part of the musical purge of my record collection (a punk doesn’t listen to reggae). Somewhere in the last 15 years I got the idea to dive back into my musical past. The result of this dive was the insight that I still love reggae, so I bought this album as a CD again.

In my opinion, better than all the studio albums, because on stage Bob Marley could really let off steam and transport the energy of his music in an ideal way.

Have fun listening to the album of the week:

Positive Vibration: https://youtu.be/lmaAp0K9W-o
Exodus: https://youtu.be/43cfPgZ8cU8

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The Track or Album of the Week, Number 13: Adam Beyer/No Defeat, No Retreat.

Der Track/das Album der Woche, Ausgabe 13; One Track or Album per Week, Number 13: Adam Beyer/No Defeat, No Retreat.

There are many people who generally reject everything that comes from Drumcode (https://drumcode.se). The reasons are manifold: not enough underground, 08/15 techno, unimaginative. I would tend to agree with that, but there are really good exceptions to the rule, including this mini-album by Adam Beyer.

2 really great tracks. No Defeat, No Retreat is an intelligently produced, interesting track. But the smash hit is Park People. A remake of an ancient track from Liaisons Dangereuses – Los Niños Del Parque. In retrospect, you could almost say that this track was close to being techno, even though at the time (1981) the genre hadn’t even been properly invented yet. At the time, I celebrated it with enthusiasm. Adam Beyer has respectfully edited it, sped it up quite a bit (from 115 ppm to 130 ppm) and added some interesting musical add ons.

Have fun listening to the track / the album of the week:

No Defeat, No Retreat: https://youtu.be/CF02HZ3iblU
Park People: https://youtu.be/ju7hePNRfng

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One Track or Album per Week, Number 12: Sampler/Kill all the Hippies.

One Track or Album per Week, Number 12: Kill all the Hippies. Punk-Sampler.

I bought this CD in London in 2002. At that time I attended an English course for professors in Saffron Walden – a small village in the south of London near Cambridge. This course ran for a total of 4 weeks. The weeks themselves went by relatively quickly, but on the third weekend, on Saturday I went stir-crazy and just wanted to go home.

I sat in my room at my host family’s house in the morning and cultivated my frustration.Not feeling like having a frustration weekend, I decided to go to London, visit the British Museum, and then just walk around the city.

The museum visit was a special experience as usual and shortly after I ended up in a cheap CD store. And there I found, among others, this CD for £1. I discovered on it many favorites out of my punk phase. At that price I didn’t have to think long, I just bought it.

Back in Saffron Walden I grabbed the CD player of the host family, put in this CD and felt really young again. The frustration was gone, I looked forward to the last week with excitement and everything was good again. Have fun listening:

New York Dolls/Give Her Great Big Kiss: https://youtu.be/jH-1VGoOZfg
The Damned/Neat Neat Neat: https://youtu.be/lyt5FNDx9IY
The Adverts/Gary Gilmore’s Eyes: https://youtu.be/ZA58GjoTmes

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One Track or Album per Week, Number 11: Alan Fitzpatrick – Prometheus.

One Track or Album per Week, Number 11: Alan Fitzpatrick - Prometheus

Last Friday it was finally time again. The dance floors were opened again. At just before 3 in the night – as the crowning glory of the entire evening, in a way – I couldn’t resist playing my absolute favorite techno track, Prometheus by Alan Fitzpatrick. It crossed my path in 2013 or 2014 (I don’t remember that exactly) as one of the very first tracks from this genre. Before that, techno for me was Wsetbam, Dr. Motte or Marusha. Didn’t like all of them. And then Prometheus came and changed everything. Have fun listening:

Alan Fitzpatrick – Prometheus: https://youtu.be/rG-i9203Hew

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One Track or Album per Week, Number 10: Puccini – Madame Butterfly.

One Track or Album per Week, Number 10: Puccini - Madame Butterfly.

I was already a fan of classical music – at least a secret one – when I was young. However, every month I had to decide whether to invest my pocket money in current music or in classical music. Well, you may guess three times what the outcome was. When I started to study, I could give in to my enthusiasm more often. After watching the lovely romantic movie “Zimmer mit Aussicht” (Room with a View, 1985!), it was clear to me what investment I would make shortly after: Madame Butterfly by Puccini. Here we are. An ancient CD. What I love about Italian operas? The lively, sparkling sound; like a Prosecco. Quite the opposite to the operas of Wagner. Those have never been my cup of tea. Have fun listening:

Puccini – Madame Butterfly; Un bel di vedremo: https://youtu.be/1woH96ROG-c

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One Track or Album per Week, Number 9: David Keno – Canares.

One Track or Album per Week, Number 9: David Keno - Canares

Sunday evening, not much time and furthermore there is no story about the track. It’s just good stuff. Calm, ideal for the end of the week. The photo is misleading, but the track is the highlight of this sampler. Have fun listening:

David Keno – Canares: https://youtu.be/yT_4pM3YtFI

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One Track or Album per Week, Number 9: Deine Lakaien – Acoustic.

One Track or Album per Week: Deine Lakaien - Acoustic

Today we dive a little deeper into my music history. Not as deep as with “The Cure”, but a few years later. We are in the 90s, in the middle of the Darkwave, Electro Wave, New Wave and Post-Punk era. I have no idea how I stumbled across the formation Deine Lakaien, but from the beginning I liked the combination of the dark, yearning sound, the focus on electronic instruments and the singer’s sonorous voice.

This week’s album of the week is a live album, recorded in 1995. What I like most about this album is that, for once, there are only vocals and piano. Not electronic, only analog. For me personally very exciting interpretations of the classics released up to that time. While researching on the Internet I found out that I am the proud owner of a limited edition. Quite a long time ago. Have fun listening:

Love Me to the End: https://youtu.be/uUn19ajnJc8
Wasted Years: https://youtu.be/Pt9yiqzi8_Y

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One Track or Album per Week, Number 7: The Cure – Boys Don’t Cry.

One Track or Album per Week, Number 7: The Cure - Boys Don’t Cry.

One of my all-time favorites. No idea how old I was when one of my friends came along with this LP. Of course I recorded it on cassette and listened to it hundreds of times with enthusiasm. And that’s why I bought the CD a few years ago.

There is not much to say about the sound, in my opinion the freshest and also one of the most positive CDs of the band. Many of the following albums are definitely much too gloomy for me. Have fun listening:

Boys don’t cry: https://youtu.be/latEhwt1uis
Accuracy: https://youtu.be/wH-9cFLACNY

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30 records in 30 days from 2 collections from one household, day 23: Gang of 4, Hard.

A Challenge: 30 Platten in 30 Tagen / 30 records in 30 days Gang of 4, Hard

30 records in 30 days goes into the 23rd round: A piece of your heart can be found in every good car.

Today we will close my musical new wave era with one of the best albums from my whole collection, Hard by Gang of 4. As always, I took a quick look at Wikipedia to get an assessment of the music genre. It was quite surprising what I found about Gang of 4:

“The band played a stripped-down mix of punk rock, funk and dub, with a lyrical emphasis on the social and political ills of society. Gang of Four are widely considered one of the leading bands of the late 1970s/early 1980s post-punk movement. […] Their early 80s albums (Songs of the Free and Hard) found them softening some of their more jarring qualities, and drifting towards dance-punk and disco.”

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_of_Four_(band) )

As audacious as it sounds, it’s a very good description of the sound of this LP. Have fun listening to it.

Man with a good car: https://youtu.be/XvNmQGol9FM
Woman town: https://youtu.be/bR-y-I9qTUk
Is it love: https://youtu.be/xQOJ6Va03B0

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