Carl Craig / Paperclip People – 1991

Oh yes Carl, come on, scream your soul out and be yourself, man. You're acting the tragic and grace-touched really, really well. Lovely orangey hues by the way, very vintage late 90s techno artwork, absolutely love it.

Paperclip People – Gypsy Man (He's a Hobo)
(Tick the case, then click on "Rapatrier" on the upper left side of the screen)

Carl Craig did this nice Crystal Waters/Basement Boys sampling track in 1991 (so that's 15 years before T.I.), as part of a cult Paperclip People 12 inch mostly known for its classic breakbeat title track, "Oscillator", arguably the tune that really got me into techno (and which I discovered listening to the greater than great "Mondial Twist" show on parisian radio station FPP). Anyway, this is marvellous, speedy and juvenile, excited and classy. Should be spun today, shouldn’t it ? Btw much love to Crystal, who's still in the business apparently :


(Crystal Waters with dancers Antoine (l) and Kevin (r))

As a bonus, for those who don’t know it, here’s "Oscillator" itself. I don't have the original version with the long intro on this computer, but I'll upload it this weekend.

Take care. Special hello to you if you're coming from DC's.

Gherkin' Jerks [Larry Heard] - 1988-89

Needless to say Larry Heard, aka Mr Fingers, was and still is a genius producer, blah blah blah. Thing is, only a few of his fans know about his incredible Gherkin' Jerks project – among other obscure projects of his. Two strange EPs (especially the 1st one, loosely based around the "sympte" medical concept) were released under this pseudonym. Some of the tracks sound like vintage 80s Larry, deep and hypnotic, eerily soulful, kind of upliftingly bitter. But some others, as I hope you'll notice, sound pretty remote and estranged from your usual Larry material. Let's take "Acid Indigestion", for instance : far from being a deep/acid serene number in the vein of "Beyond the Clouds", it seems to be a nervous "message-track" adressing the acid flooding of the Chicago house market at that time, but it is nevertheless a wonderful, fucked up acid track. "Saturn 5" is space-dramatic in a good way, a bit early-Carl Craig-ish (think Psyche/BFC Carl more than 69/Paperclip People Carl). "Din Sync" could be a proto-filter house track, complete with anguished soulful male vocal samples. "Blast Off" is almost Detroit techno (slightly synth-saxed-out!), and it's gorgeous – rather unsurprisingly, when you're familiar with Heard's general vibe. "Strange Creatures" could be a Millsart demo. "Don't Dis the Beat" and "Midi Beats" sound like the first scientific clandestine German tests made on "what we think will be called minimal techno or micro-house [but it's top secret material for the moment so please don't tell anybody]". This is pure machine music on these two.

Anyway here are the two Gherkin Jerks EPs on a zip. Enjoy, this is good good shit, esp. the lush gherkin logo below! Sorry for the sometimes low (yet listenable, imho) sound quality.

WRCP Show : Swizz Beatz special !

Swizzy, c'est le meilleur pour souffler les bougies d'anniv, mais aussi et surtout pour faire des beats à plusieurs vitesses qu'il claque en dix minutes, mettre des sons de Casio tels quels dans ses tracks et faire en sorte que ça pète plus que tout, mêler le martial au grotesque, le classieux à l'absurde, faire cohabiter grooves sur-huilés et dysfonctionnements arbitraires en arrière-plan. Ultra-minimaliste là où ses prestigieux contemporains Timbo et Pharrell ont (le plus souvent) préféré l'opulence, Swizz Beatz incarne subtilement le courant régressif-nihiliste, presque pervers polymorphe, de la production rap et r'n'b actuelle. Et je défie quiconque de pouvoir pomper son style, même mal, à part ses anciens collègues producteurs de l'écurie Ruff Ryders – je pense notamment à l'ancien old-schooler DJ Scratch qui avait signé plusieurs sons très swizziens tellement réussis qu'on pourrait presque les classer parmi les meilleurs prods du "maître" lui-même.

Ça faisait longtemps qu'on voulait lui consacrer une émission dans WRCP, et maintenant qu'on peut faire des spéciales webexclusives, on s'est dit que c'était le bon moment. Tout cela est animé avec fougue et passion par Frelon, Voltask (tous deux du démoniaque blog Corporate Bloggin) et moi-même.

Première partie
Deuxième partie

Egalement en streaming et podcast sur le site de la radio et sur le blog Corporate Bloggin.