Posted by Budgie at October 19, 2005 06:50 PM

Two tracks to make you look like a nodding dog...

Firstly, I have to thank Jimmy The Flid for giving me the heads up on this Modeselektor track and secondly, I have to give a mention to the excellent blog Moebius Rex for having this track up just now, thus enabling me to get my mits on the full version.

I've mentioned before about the soundsystem in The Flid's car. He doesn't have some pimped up buggy with huge woofers and bassbins in the back, just some factory staple CD player and speakers in his Ford whatever-it-is. But boy, every now and then you hear something in that car that rumbles your ribcage, has you grinning like a loon and nodding your head like your neck is made of springs.

The track below is one of those tracks...

Track : MODESELEKTOR ft. TTC - "DANCING BOX"

He's been namedropping Modeselektor around me for ages. I hadn't heard much from them other than their head messing remix of Jahcoozie's "Black Barbie" which he got onto this years edition of the "Church Of Chutney Hymnbook", compiled for the regulars over on Chutney.

Then over the past couple of weeks their name has been cropping up a bit on the odd blog, namely on Music For Robots and the aforementioned Moebius Rex. Alas, I never downloaded those tracks that they had put up. Well, not until today...

Last night The Flid handed me a sampler for the recently released Modeselektor debut album, "Hello Mum!". The sampler has snippets of all the tracks from the album but mixed in with a fake and funny New York radio station, kinda like a GTA style thing.

The first track on the sampler, and it's the opener on the proper album, is their collaboration with the French hip hop crew, TTC. When it kicked in it practically ripped the roof of his vehicle. I was grinning and laughing at just how heavy and beautifully fucked up the track, "Dancing Box", is.

I just love the way that the beat constantly flips between a Hip Hop tempo and then a balls out 4/4 one. But being Modeselektor things are not as simple as that as they like to glitch, flip and twist most of the components of the tune, and that goes for the guest vocals from TTC too. So it doesn't matter if you passed your French O' grade as their words get chopped up and stretched so as they soon become totally incomprehensible. All in all, it fair works a treat and with those beats, you're head should be bouncing up and down by the end of the tracks 4 minute length.

The rest of the album, from what I can gather from the sampler, definitely sounds as though it's a good 'un. They swing from Electro to Techno to Minimal House and even have a few more collaborations too, including the girl from Jahcoozie, who I mentioned they had remixed above.

Should be well worth checking out.

You can hear their "Hasir" track - another head nodder with a glitched up Sitar (?) all over it - on the above "Music For Robots" link...

Track : TTC - "COFFEE SHOP (INSTRUMENTAL)"

As a wee bonus, as TTC were involved in the above track, I thought I'd put up a track by them from back in 2001.

"Coffee Shop" appears on their "Elementaire EP" and again was introduced to me via The Flid as it was frequently played whenever he was let loose on my turntables. The beats and atmosphere of the record were great and thankfully TTC put an instumental on the 12" as I wasn't that much of a fan of the vocals.

This record was always a staple if the dub version of Roots Manuva's "Witness" was ever brought out onto the decks. They complimented each other so well, and if the truth be told, they were both quite easy to mix with...

It's just a great wee instrumental with it's freaky, spacey sound effects over a DJ Shadow-esque beat and with a tiny snippet of some female Indian singer.

Oh, and it should make you nod your head aswell...

Go Buy : Modeselektor - Hello Mum!

Go Visit : Modeselektor
Go Visit : TTC @ Big Dada

Feel free to leave a comment about these tracks in The Pipe section of the forum.

Ta,
Budgie