Another fortnight, another Pipe, another mish mash of tunes.

Human Beatboxing, New Beat, Ambient and a track by someone called CheekyWeeBudgieBoy?

Are you ready to be Served?

A quick MP3 Blog round up before we get started -

Firstly, CultureDeluxe is back up and running for all your classic and new bootleg needs. The Chart is back in place and there is now a "New Release" section. / Fluxblog has the forthcoming and excellent new Kylie Minogue tune that is a collaboration with the Scissor Sisters (don't let that put you off...) / Spoilt Victorian Child has just finished a week of Sheffield themed tracks. So some early Human League, some vintage Pulp and one of the brilliant Jarvis Cocker penned tracks from the current Nancy Sinatra album are available over there. / Silence Is A Rhythm Two has been rummaging through some old 45's and knocked up an Eighties Week, so go check out some Bomb The Bass, Gary Numan and Rockers Revenge amongst others. / Those with an ear for some out there stuff might want to check out Bumrocks as over there you will find people like Stockhausen, Brian Eno and Steve Reich sitting pretty next to acts like Zongamin, the awsome Theo Parrish and Sir Mix-A-Lot! My favourite over there at the moment is the Dashiell Hedayat & Gong track "Love Song For Zelda" / Finally, House Of Cuss member SafeAsFuck has started his own "anti-bling" Hip Hop blog and is well worth checking out for some classic beats by folk like Kool Moe Dee, The Pharcyde and A Tribe Called Quest...

The Fat Boys - "Human Beatbox"
Rahzel - "If Your Mother Only Knew"

As a nod to SafeAsFuck's blog, I've plucked out 2 classic human beatboxing tracks, one old, one fairly recent and both should be played at loud volume to Daniel Bedingfield to show him how it's really done and to make him realise he should stop trying to do it...

First is Brooklyn's Fat Boys with the "Human Beat Box" track from 1984. Twenty years on and it still makes me grin and nod my head. 2 minutes worth of old skool rhymes ("BRRR! STICK 'EM! HA! HA! HA! STICK EM!") over Darren Robinson's booming vocal talents.

Next up is The Roots member Rahzel. "If Your Mother Only Knew" is his take on the Aaliyah hit "If Your Girl Only Knew". Tucked away at the end of his "Make The Music 2000" album, this track is legendary. Want to know why? Download and hear the man sing and beatbox at the same time...

Fat Boys "Human Beatbox" MP3
Rahzel "If Your Mother Only Knew" MP3

The Abduction Of The Art Of Noise

From the art of beatboxing to the Art Of Noise. I stumbled across this Remix / Tribute album last night by accident. It seems it has been out for a few years now and for some reason had slipped under my radar.

The Art Of Noise were a big influence on my musical tastes as a kid. When "Close (To The Edit)" came out in 1984 I couldn't believe that I was hearing a top ten record comprising of rhythms made from everyday sounds like cars starting, doors slamming and rulers being pinged on desks. Then when they expanded on this sound over the course of their debut album, "(Who's Afraid Of?) The Art Of Noise!" I was hooked. Couple that with strange facelessness of the band, the Paul Morley devised sloganeering and iconography that was attributed to mask the identity of them to create some sort of spin on the Dadaist Movement and also the fact that the label they were signed to, ZTT, was pretty much the big thing at that time, being home to Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Propaganda, this was all eye and ear opening stuff to me and dragged me away from my Electro compilations.

The band, whose memebers Anne Dudley, Trevor Horn, Paul Morley, Gary Langan and later JJ Jeczalik, came and went at various stages in their career, knocked out 4 outstanding albums, the afformentioned "(Who's Afraid...)", "In Visible Silence", "In No Sense? Nonsense!" and the rarities collection "Daft". These 4 albums were important to me with their mix of samples, beats, orchestras and found sounds. Then it went a bit patchy with "Below The Waste" and then they broke up only to reunite 10 years later in 1999 to create "The Seduction Of Claude Debussy".

In that 10 year gap numerous producers were citing the Art Of Noise as being a major influence on them and so a few remix albums started to appear on the shelves. The only decent one was Youth's trip through their quieter side, "The Ambient Collection", which was an excellent chill out compilation. Then came the poor dance remix compilation with folk like 808 State's Graham Massey and Carl Cox reworking the music. It was disapointing to say the least with only The Prodigy churning out the album highlight, a remix of "Instruments Of Darkness". Next up was the slightly better "Drum And Bass Collection" in which the Art Of Noise sound was remixed in that style by folk like J Majik, PFM and Doc Scott.

Which brings me to this, "The Abduction Of The Art Of Noise". It was with some trepidation that I started to download this, but after hearing the first track, that was it... I don't know the history behind the project, but these guys have treated the original tracks with respect and updated them and remixed them with aplomb to create a very coherant and impressive album that is head and shoulders better than the last 2 Art Of Noise remix albums.

The two tracks below are by a producer called EtherReal. Both tracks have a similar feel to them that remind me of the glory days of the Belgian New Beat scene. Especially the second one. The original version of "A Time For Fear" can be found on the Art Of Noise's debut album and the original of "Instruments Of Darkness" can be found on "In Visible Silence".

Art Of Noise / EtherReal "A Time For Fear (Timeless)" MP3
Art Of Noise / EtherReal "Instruments Of Darkness (Stay In Step)" MP3
The Abduction Of The Art Of Noise Site and Album

Party Ben - "Boulevard Of Broken Songs"
Party Ben - "There's No LSF"
U2 Vs Way Out West - "Vertigo (Party Ben's Breaks Mix)"

I don't know much about Party Ben and his website doesn't give that much away about himself, which is a shame. But, I can tell you that he has skills and these 3 tracks are fantastic.

First up is a mash of Green Day's "Boulevard Of Broken Dreams", Oasis' "Wonderwall", Travis' "Writing To Reach You" and a tiny snippet of Eminem.

Next is a blend of Blur's classic "There's No Other Way" and Kasabian's excellent "LSF".

And lastly, and he's quick off the mark with this one, is U2's forthcoming "Vertigo" track given the breaks treatment by adding some Way Out West.

Party Ben "Boulevard Of Broken Songs" MP3
Party Ben "There's No LSF" MP3
U2 Vs Way Out West "Vertigo (Party Ben's Breaks Mix)" MP3
Party Ben's Site

NOWMASH - "Powerless Love"

Now for some nice filtered house action... NOWMASH, who I think is a scottish guy called John Marr and who used to be known as SCO Network (his Britney Spears / Cutback boot was featured in the first Pipe) has taken the vocals from Nelly Furtado's "Powerless (Say What You Want) and added them onto that great filtered dance track from a couple of years ago "So Much Love To Give" by Daft Punk's Thomas Bangaltar & DJ Falcon. Quality stuff.

NOWMASH "Powerless Love" MP3
NOWMASH Site

Thriftshop XL - "Two Timing Touch And Steppin' Stone"

It's pretty obvious from the title what this is... The Hives "Two Timing Touch And Broken Bones" mixed with The Monkees "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone". The Hives track is very similar in the first place to "Steppin' Stone" so this works a treat.

Thriftshop XL "Two Timing Touch And Steppin' Stone" MP3
Thriftshop XL Site

DJ Zebra - "Boombastic"

Another obvious title? It doesn't give much away, but let me tell you if you love guitar riffs then your gonna love this as it's Shaggy doing "Boombastic" over Rage Against The Machine of all people. Im a huge fan of DJ Zebra and I've featured a few of this frenchmans tracks before, his Princess Superstar / Clinic / Von Bondies / Fatboy Slim track from a couple of months back is one of my favourites and did anyone get his Sex Pistols remix that was hiding amongst all my ramblings in the last issue? If not, then you know what to do...

DJ Zebra "Boombastic" MP3
DJ Zebra's Site

5 Of 6 - "Atmosphere"

Campino is an occasional poster on the House Of Cuss forum and he let me know that he has a couple of tracks kicking about on his site. I could only find one, but hey it's a good one at that. Called "Atmosphere" it's an, erm, atmospheric downtempo track in which he was trying to emulate Air. As he says on his site it features "2 Vocoders! Moog! Piano! Flange!" Is the flange that funny sound that is going through the majority of the track?

5 Of 6 "Atmosphere" MP3
5 Of 6 Site

CheekyWeeBudgieBoy - "H.D.S"

Finally, a track by me. After Jimmy The Flid sorted me out with the software and then he helped me put this together (many many thanks!) I can now let you hear something that I used to do on my decks a good ten years ago.

Being infatuated with Ambient music I used to spend hours using 2 Turntables, 2 CD Decks and a microphone hanging out of my bedroom window and knock up tapes full of Ambient mixes.

The track below is really just a short extract from an even longer mix, which seeing as I now have the tools I should be able to knock up again.

"H.D.S" features tracks by No-Man, Brian Eno, B12 and an excerpt from Ry Cooder's "Paris Texas" soundtrack.

Please excuse the levels as it was my first time using ACID and I hope you enjoy it. Also, thanks go out to Sie for hosting the file.

CheekyWeeBudgieBoy "H.D.S" MP3

Right, I think that's enough for another 2 weeks. I hope there is something amongst that little lot that you enjoy. Let me know via the House Of Cuss forum.

Budgie.

[ please note that there are no files held on The Pipe or House Of Cuss, all MP3's are linked to other sites. If you do not want me to link to your files then please let me know, via the forum, and I shall remove the link. ]

10 Deep Fried Mars Bars?

Winning the Lottery but you can't find your ticket?

Clicking on the latest issue of The Pipe and not finding any bootlegs?

Riding Vanessa Feltz?

This issue of The Pipe focuses on the rather nifty site called eSpew.

The site was brought to my notice by Jeebus over on the Chutney board as an alternative for looking for MP3's instead of a peer to peer program.

The site works as a huge search engine for music files that are currently residing on the web. Type in the name of the artist or the title of the song and the site will throw up (no pun intended) tracks that are available.

Unfortunately the only draw back is that the site is so popular that it's server is forever being overloaded and searches can fail with time out errors, so bear with it as it can be temperamental. But when it works it's well worth the occassional hassle.

So seeing as there hasn't been that many noticable bootlegs that I have stumbled across this past fortnight, then I thought I would knock up, in fine Chutney tradition, a "Back To Mine" style 10 track compilation using stuff found on eSpew.

1. The Go! Team - "Junior Kickstart"

First up, the marvellous Go! Team. I have mentioned their album "Thunder, Lightning, Strike" over on the forum a couple of times and it is one of the best albums I have heard all year. A loud, brash, tinny blend of beats, guitars and old hip hop samples. This tune, "Junior Kickstart", sounds like some band trying to rehearse in someones living room whilst trying to watch some old 70's cop show on the TV very loudly.

2. British Sea Power - "The Lonely"

British Sea Power are one of my favourite bands and they are one of my all time favourite live bands, I mean who could not fail to be entertained by some lads pretending to be some sort of 50's army that are besotted with nature and into creating noisy, hook laden songs? "The Lonely" is them in a more reflective mood and this song, one of the highlights from their debut album, is them creating a song David Bowie would kill for. And top marks for the line "Just like Liberace / I will return to haunt you with peculiar piano riffs".

3. Calexico - "The Ballad Of Cable Hogue"

Calexico are a band that I can never quite put my finger on and now I just expect the unexpected from them. At first I thought that they were part of the Alt.Country thing but the more I listened to them the more they seemed to veer away from that sound, and though they did have their roots in it, they now seem intent to create their own mixture of that sound but with things like Spaghetti Western soundtracks and Ambient music involved, not to mention them pushing things further by having their work remixed by leftfield people like The Cinematic Orchestra, The Gotan Project and Jazzanova. "The Ballad Of Cable Hogue" is just a straight forward song, a duet with singer Marianne Dussard, and sounds like something I would imagine Nick Cave would probably come up with if he lived on the Tex-Mex border.

4. Talking Heads - "This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)"

My favourite Talking Heads song changes incredibly frequently, some days it's "Stay Hungry" with its Eno-esque keyboards kicking in at the end, some days its the tightness of "Born Under Punches" that I favour. "This Must Be The Place" is the one I have been playing the most recently. A lovely, simple song that always makes me smile, especially on the last line where David Byrne sings, "Hit me on the head / I go, Oooooooooooooooo".

5. Stereolab - "Ping Pong"

This takes me back to the nights I used to go to my local Indie Disco and if you were lucky inbetween the Blur and Cypress Hill tracks you sometimes got to hear bouncy pop gems like this. I think that this was the single that really kind of got them some sort of chart recognition in this country but then after that it was back to their lab to knock up more experimental and retro / futuristic pop goodness, but they never dented the charts again. Shame as some of their later stuff is very good indeed.

6. Slowdive - "Some Velvet Morning"

It wouldn't be a Budgie's "Back To Mine" without the inclusion of a Slowdive track. I adored this band, and even though they are no more, I still do. They were always the butt of jokes during the "Shoegazing" scene in the early 90's but its only now that people are really starting to realise just how good a band they were, especially in recent years with the Morr Music label doing a tribute album to them. They only made 3 albums and the transition from shimmering and feedback laden guitars through dub and then to ambient was seemless. "Some Velvet Morning" is a cover of the Lee Hazelwood & Nancy Sinatra classic.

7. Ulrich Schnauss - "Nobody's Home"

Berlin's Ulrich Schnuass was one of the artists who contributed to the Slowdive compilation "Blue Skied N' Clear" that was mentioned above. He covered "Crazy For You" from their final album and the song was picked up and used by Lucozade in the advert that had the woman that was made of liquid running through water. Schnauss has released 2 albums and he has managed to create an incredibly layered and ambient music that sounds like bands like Slowdive and The Cocteau Twins jamming with people like the Boards Of Canada. "Nobody's Home" is taken from Ulrich's first album "Far Away Trains Passing By". I can't recommend it, and it's follow up "A Strangely Isolated Place" enough.

8. Kraftwerk - "Das Model"

Everyone knows this and here is the German vocal version still sounding great some 26 years on.

9. Curve - "Chinese Burn"

Curve are another of my all time favourite bands and I always go into broken record mode when talking about them and mentioning the fact that Garbage ripped them off big time, polished the sound and became more successful. But hey, listen to "Chinese Burn" and you'll see Curve were and are still the better band and that Curve's Toni Halliday is miles better looking than Shirley Manson. You may recognise this tune as it was used years ago in one of Sony's MiniDisc adverts.

10. New Order - "Confusion (Pump Panel Mix)"

Always end on a high... And you don't get bigger and louder than this. New Order remixed out of oblivion by the Pump Panel and "Confusion" turned into an epic 10 minute 303 noisefest. The 2 minute break down from the 6 minute mark is unbelievable... Oh, and it featured in the original "Blade" film too. What more could you ask for? And here was me going to include the Felix Da Housecat remix of their "Here To Stay" track instead...

As mentioned above, eSpew can be very busy at times, but stick with it and you should be able to get those tracks, no problem.

Hope you enjoy the tracks, feel free to discuss them in the Forum, or even suggest your own eSpew finds.

Budgie

[ please note that there are no files held on The Pipe or House Of Cuss, all MP3's are linked to other sites. If you do not want me to link to your files then please let me know, via the forum, and I shall remove the link. ]