Don't fight it, feel it

oystered 07: Stoned to say the least (may ’06)

Side 1
1. jetone sufraise ii (sundown/apnea)
2. scsi-9 elegia (the line of nine/kompakt)
3. marsen jules rainy days in milan (silva/miasmah)
4. matt john landing (superloooongevity/perlon)
Side 2
1. stephen beaupré misshapely (macro-house/~scape)
2. taylor deupree northern (northern/12k)
3. lee van dowski the last bounce (original mix) (the last bounce/num)
4. kalabrese skamel (superloooongevity/perlon)
Side 3
1. felt primitive painters (gold mine trash/cherry red)
2. the field istedgade (sun & ice/kompakt)
3. und rodeo (rodeo/trapez ltd.)
4. tomas jirku weltschmerz (weltschmerz/all you need is love / defrag sound processing)
Side 4
1. g-man the way you move (the way you move/wir)
2. ricardo villalobos balacharde (superloooongevity/perlon)
3. richard youngs & simon wickham-smith 2002 (5 years/vhf)
4. mapstation valencia was asleep (distance told me things to be said/~scape)
Side 5
1. dominik eulberg & gabriel ananda harzer roller (harzer roller/traum)
2. giuseppe ielasi untitled (3) (giuseppe ielasi/häpna)
3. bulgur brothers pinto (jaffa/karat)
4. horror inc. the absent (superloooongevity/perlon)
Side 6
1. baby ford & zip morning sir (superloooongevity/perlon)
2. machinefabriek wolkenkrabber (marijn/lampse audiovisual recordings)
3. pan american from here (for waiting, for chasing/mosz)
4. oliver hacke millepieds (anders ilar rmx) (millepieds remixe/level records)

Okay, so this is the last mega-set for a while. This was the last month neptune was open, and I was grabbing a lot of techno 12”s. Unbelievably (and happily so) we sold nearly all the inventory that last month, slashing prices everyday, basically giving shit away. We even sold most of the fixtures, and some of the homemade wood bins the records and CDs sat in, and they found some good homes too. Thank you to everyone! So, getting back to the post, that’s a lot of what this mix is made up of: juicy, vinyl only cuts from Jetone, Stephen Beaupré, Lee Van Dowski, The Field, Und, Tomas Jirku, G-Man, Dominik Eulberg with Gabriel Ananda, Bulgur Brothers and Oliver Hacke. Jetone is Tim Hecker’s techno alias, Mapstation is one-third of To Rococo Rot, Bulgur Brothers is Sweden’s techno super-group featuring Mikael Stavostrand, Johan Skugge and Andreas Tilliander, Horror Inc. is none other than Marc LeClair aka Akufen and Pan American is Mark Nelson from Labradford.

Felt’s ‘80’s anthem “Primitive Painters,” featuring none other than Cocteau Twins’ Elizabeth Fraser, might feel out of place here, but I just had to include it for its antiquated timelessness. The Field’s “Istedgade” is a vinyl only exclusive, only available on the Sun & Ice 12”. I wish the Italian non-pop, techno duo Und would reappear – really quite unique in their approach, adding a bit of quirky humor to their tracks. Baby Ford & Zip’s “Morning Sir” is really addictive while Anders Ilar proved 2006 was definitely a good year for him (keep your eye on future posts) with his mesmeric remix of Oliver Hacke’s “Millepieds.”

So, even though the economy’s in the tank, and gas prices and food prices and everything are through the roof, how’s come we still have enough money to spend on fancy coffees and going out to dinner and bars, but think the price of buying CDs are unreasonable? Sure, the major labels could afford to lower their prices, but the indie labels don’t sell as much per unit, and the $13 - $16 price range for CDs really hasn’t gone up at all since the day they came out. And they’re something that’s both audio and visual art, something that you can keep forever. When I think about it, if anything should change, it’s that downloading prices are too high. Legal downloading should be about half the price that it is. I can’t believe it costs three-quarters of the price of a CD or LP to download it. What do you really have then? What happens when your iTunes gets a virus? At least if you illegally downloaded those songs you’re not out anything. Many independent record stores now have excellent mail order service, and up-to-date websites with what’s actually in stock. I guess we all just spend our time (aka our money) on what’s really important to us. Maybe music just isn’t hard enough of a drug. I still think vinyl’s gonna outlast everything.

Here’s to rolling out the next post a lot quicker. Hope you enjoy.