The last few weeks have seen a good reimagining of what mixtapes are all about. First there was that peerless box of misshapes whittled by Jarvis Cocker and Steve Mackey. Next there was Joey Negro’s smooth little trickbag of soul, again for that very same ‘Trip’ series of anthologies. This time around it’s James Holden ‘At The Controls’, a 2 CD collection that flagrantly contradicts his natural pop aesthetic and draws a big, fat stonking highlighter pen around his love of psy-trance, 70s krautrock, lo-fi electronica, minimal electronica, dub and new school electro; the mainstream dance pop personality that got stamped on Positiva, New Order and Britney Spears literally disappearing into the mist of dark, recursive techno and unchartered fractal strobescapes. Plastikman, Trans Am, Aphex Twin, AFX, Massive Attack, Nathan Fake sit alongside such gorgeous, abstruse departures as Kate Wax’s ‘Angel Eyes’ and the mind boggling, infinite universe that accompanies ‘Anita Barber’ from Death In Vegas.
Holden’s idea was to make a good compilation from things he really loved, using tracks he’d never even dreamed of getting cleared and turning out a broad, varied cross-section of music that would even include recommendations from Holden’s hairdresser in addition to the firmest of counsels from his very own iTunes folder. For Holden this mix also represents a technological evolution from 2003’s ‘Balance 005’ mix which utilised a Cycloops sampler and CDJ-1000 wizardry. To some: geeky music made with geeky technology for geeky electro people. And whilst this is an understandable criticism, the success of the record is that for all its apparent ‘weirdness’, obscurity and geeky-ocity it’s rarely an indulgence and is as likely to appeal to progged-out indie lovers with only a passing familiarity with all this shit as it is to experienced techheads everywhere. So if you were the sort of indie-nonce that got turned on to electronica by guitar sensitive musos like The Chemical Brothers, Death In Vegas, Lemon Jelly and more recently M83 then see this as the second phase of your education; no guitars, no Noel Gallagher, no Tim Burgess, just wall-to-wall, end-to-end digital.
An excellent digression and solid, music counselling all round. It’s like the machines have started talking to us, man!
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