The End of An Era...

Tonight see's the last edition of Always Fridays @ Egg in it's current weekly format. Let's all take a moment to praise what is a great dance music institution.

Highlights in the great three years have included very early shows for the likes of Crookers, Friendly Fires, Little Boots, Autokratz, The Bloody Beetroots and Renaissance Man, to name just a few. However, the organisers felt that 2010 deserved a well needed push to strive for something fresh a new, with some one-off nights and special warehouse parties to be organised later in the year.

The first event outside of Egg will take place in Berlin! On Feb 27th, taking over a room at Ritterbutzke, with Always Fridays residents, Jacob Husley and John & On playing all night.

For the very last event at Egg, Always Fridays will be signing off in the same way they have always done, in style. Boasting a huge line-up that include the likes of Zinc, MJ Cole, Malente, Green Money, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, Roska, Tempa T and lots more with what is sure to be an absolute roadblock!

Always Fridays themselves have been kind enough to get in touch with us and are offering two free guestlist places to our readers... bigups for such a prestigious prize Always Fridays!

For a chance to win this awesome prize... just email us the answer to the question below... Due to the short notice, I need to get your name off to Always Fridays before 6pm to guarantee your place on the guestlist. So, whoever can email me the answer to the question below FIRST will win this great prize!

Which famous French DJ headlined The Basement on the Saturday night of Always Fridays' 2nd Birthday celebrations @ Egg last June?

Get in touch via... apheticstate@googlemail.com ... BEFORE 5:30PM with your full name and the name of a friend to claim your free guestlist places!

Zinc - Crack House July Mix

The next installment of Zinc's wonderous 'Crack House' (a term actually coined by myself back in January, because I hated 'Fidget' probably just a coinsidence though) has been uploaded to his MySpace and you can catch it here.

I've done my best to try and make something of the tracklisting. It's understandable sometimes when you don't really want others to know exactly what you're going to be playing in the clubs, but I envy his current style so much that I can't help but try and figure out exactly what every song is if I don't recognise it at first. so here goes, enjoy! It's is pleasing to know that he's chosen Boy 8 Bit's Chapel of Ghouls as one of the first tracks... it's the opening song of my August mix coming soon :D

DJ Zinc - Crack House July 09'

Tracklisting:
Zinc - Pimp My Ride
Boy 8 Bit - Chapel of Ghouls
Laidback Luke & Diplo - Hey
Roska & Jamie George - Wonderful Day
Q project - Champion sound (Total Science Will Never Die Remix)
Jack Beats - U.F.O
Tea Diss ???
The Requesters – Strong Love
Dizzee Rascal - Stand Up Tall (??? Vs/Remix/Edit)
Nathan Boon & Kelevra - Like To Freak
Zinc - Watch Dis
Cannibal ???
Kylie - He Was Like ???
Gev Abril - Spells of Yoruba
Zinc - Jekyll n Hyde
Mange ???
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Zero (Erol Alkan Re-Work)
La Roux - Bulletproof (Zinc Remix)
Convicts ???
Altered Natives - Rass out
Tiga – What You Need (Proxy Remix)
Chai ???
Jesse Rose - You're All Over My Head
Outlander - The Vamp (??? Remix)
DJ Zinc – Killa Sound (feat Nolay) (Acapella)
Kewok ???
The Proxy - Raven (Nolay Vocal Rap)
MJ Cole ft. Serocee - AO (MJ's Open Your Gob dub)
Latina Cafe - Power To Conquer

Still a few tunes I'm not sure about... the ones with ??? next to them, but I'll keep updating the post in the next few days if I can't figure any of them out!
Much Love!

The Squeaks & The Bleeps

Well... that's easter over... Christmas anyone? 

To be honest, with the current state of the economy at the moment, I wouldn't be surprised if shops started banging out all the X-mas related stuff now! Personally, anything involved with Christmas that I see happening outside of December makes me feel sick... I completely reject the idea of the whole 3 month build up period to one day of the year. If you think about it, that's a quarter of your life spent building up to one day a year! I could do better than that... How about a build up to the festival season instead. Glastonbury is now under 70 days away. It lasts five days (if you get there on Wednesday to pitch your tent)... and is a much more beneficial use of your money and your life.

Here's a whole new breed of posts for you, featuring tunes we think are hitting it big at the moment. The first is called 'The Squeaks & the second 'The Bleeps', which will be landing on a weekly rotation aimed at spanking your sound system with five new tunes of disgusting electronica. On 'The Squeaks' there'll be a strong focus on everything Uplifting/Progressive/Minimal/Ambient and all the bits and bobs in between. Typically music you'd expect to hear @ Fabric or Ministry of Sound on a Saturday night... or Berlin's Berghain as a typical example. The one thing you won't see on this post however is Trance music. I've nothing against the genre personally, and I've always enjoyed going to The Gallery @ Ministry of Sound in the past. However, it's a scene and history that I've extremely minimal knowledge of... and blogging on something that you have no knowledge or first hand (raving) experience of, is something I'm whole-heartedly against.
Then, alternatively on 'The Bleeps' there'll be a huge mash-up of tunes with a distinct rave and bassy feel. Here's where you'll be updated with some of the newest Fidget/Dubstep/DnB/Breaks style of tunes; the kind of stuff you'd expect to hear on a Friday night @ Fabric for example... lots of beats and bass with plenty of balls, basically.
To get things kicked off here's three tunes from each 'scene' I suppose, the first three relating to stuff featured on 'The Squeaks and the second three on 'The Bleeps'

Tiga- Shoes (DJEdotronic Remix)

It's taken a little while for a full 320 version to find it's way on the net, but thank god it has... Annie Mac delivered it to my cranium on Friday night before I hit Matter... it was the perfect warm-up to Simian & Timo Maas. The original production was good enough for me but Edotronic has really given this track a new lease of life. I'm really feeling the builds in this remix

Fatboy Slim & Koen Groeneveld - Rockafella Skank

One of my favourite tunes around at the moment that's been getting a lot of love from Dave Spoon recently, and courtesy of the Hijak Allstars I was lucky enough to hear it bangin' out on a tasty Martin Audio system over the weekend. It's simply a stunning piece of work... Norman's old vocals really are the cherry topping on a roaster of perfectly layered synths, snare's and penetrating kicks.

Joris Voorn - Addict

Currently the hottest producer in the Techno scene currently... he's drawn unprecedented praise from DJs and Clubbers alike with the release of his 2CD mix compilation 'Balance 014'. I can't recommend that album enough to you, it's simply startling and really showcases everything startling that's coming out of the Techno scene currently. He's also been given the thumbs up by Radio 1 and will be taking to the privileged Essential Mix decks tomorrow night, expect that to explode over the blogospheare over the weekend. For now however, just marvel at this six minute acid infused adrenaline ride.

deadmau5  Feat. Kaskade - I Remember (Caspa Remix)
Currently getting love from a range of Radio 1 DJs at the moment, this tune has been neatly placed in a nice new sub-genre of dubstep people are called 'Balearic Dubstep' (as if we really need anymore sub-genres in the current scene). Probably the least likely two producers you'd expect see working on the same track, it's not quite up there with 'In For The Kill' but Kaskade's vocals are really add to the whole vision Caspa is trying to create here. You know I wouldn't be surprised if we now see Skream giving Milton Jackson a make-over at some point this year... if he ever managed pulled it off, it would be one hell of a tune.

NAPT vs. Kish Mauve - Lose Control

2008 was a huge year for this Breaks duo and i was gutted to miss their closing set for this year's Breakspoll Awards where they took away the prizes of Best Producers, Best Track and Best Remix. Although I'll get my chance when they headline Room 3 at this month's Playaz night @ Fabric. Lose Control is the duo's first release of 09', and it seems they're continuing on their N-Funk quest to change the face of Breakbeat. It doesn't quite stand up to the class of 'Gotta Have More Cowbell', but to dismiss it as just another track would be an insult. Out last month on Funkatech, it's sure to be one of the biggest selling Breaks releases of the year.

DJ Zinc - Submarines

After the legend pretty much abandoned his DnB roots a couple of years ago, many were about what he could achieve moving over to more House-y beats. However, he seems to sceptical have found his feet and with regular House sets @ Fabric, has been coining his own new sound, dubbed Crack-House. Last year's original Blunt Edge was hailed by many DJs from the Fidget scene and this latest work is no exception. Bassy heavy wobbles and Dubby vocals under a House beat confused me at first... but after a few listens it all starts to make perfect sense. Welcome back to the big-time Mr. Zinc... we've all missed you dearly.

Hope you enjoy the tunes... coming soon is a great artist feature on Dubstep producer Thrills!