Always a pleasure to have a mix from Lexx and this is as good as ever. Also check his mix live from the Folk party at Boutique Hostal Salinas in Ibiza here. Download

Credit: Richard McGuire

Anton Esteban could become a new underground hero of ours. He seems pretty busy, what with DJing and making records as Ghost Note on Golf Channel as well as being a filmmaker. This is one of those mixes where I haven’t got a clue what any of the records are but it’s all the better for it. We asked Anton what it was all about and here’s his reply… “This music was what originally inspired me to make Ghost Note II. I went to the Philippines last year and took a trip around my country with an old friend and it deeply affected me. The original title of the mix, which eventually became the title of the A side of Ghost Note II, is ‘Kapwa’. Translated from Tagalog, it means seeing yourself in the other. I thought it would be interesting to make a mix and then a song about the dual nature of man. The mix and the song both have a dark and bright side. The word caught my attention when an artist named Kidlat Tahimik (translated Quiet Thunder) explained the significance of the word to me. ‘Kapwa’ is the original fundamental value of pre-Hispanic Filipinos. A sense [...]

Looks like the NME got well acid house in October ’88. If you haven’t seen these they came courtesy of the Archived Music Press (via Legendary Children) and are a fine read. There’s more on the Archived Music Press site to have a dig through.

Right, here’s the next of our pretty irregular Test Pressing interviews – this time with Trevor Jackson of Underdog/Output fame. Trevor has long been known for his music but is also a hugely respected graphic designer so we decided to use the sleeves discussed to illustrate the interview. It’s good to interview someone whose not scared of being forthright and having strong opinions. I was first made aware of Trevor through his work as the Underdog – firstly with The Brotherhood and then in turn with mixes for Massive Attack amongst others. From there it was a short step (through tough times by the sound of it) to starting East-London based Output recordings with releases from LCD Soundsystem and Kieran Hebden’s Four Tet. Right let’s kick off with the basics. Where are you from originally? I’m from Edgeware, North West London. What was it like? What was the first scene you got into? When I was 12, or 13, Edgware was mainly a Jewish area, there was a whole scene almost like the Jewish version of casuals called Becks, all these kids that would wear Fiorucci and Kickers and hang out at Edgware station. It was a big thing at [...]

Here’s the final part of Jon Savage’s Sun Songs series of radio shows. Maybe one to re-approach in a few months time but as always its fantastic music crossed with good old knowledge. Download Tune in weekly to ByteFM for the Savage Music shows.

Thought and fine design on show here. Stolen wholesale from Trevor Jackon’s Facebook page (more from him soon).

Part three of the Sun Songs programs in the series of four – here’s Savage Music. This one starts off with a cut up of ‘Yellow Sunshine’ by Yellow Sunshine that he got from Downstairs Records in New York then into new psychedelic band The Assemble Head and a recent Bernard Sumner track. As ever, Savage is smart and informative. Download Tune in weekly to ByteFM for the Savage Music shows.

Matt Moroder has the perfect surname to be involved in the disco scene and was behind one of our favourite releases last year, ‘Secret Secret’, the first release on his own vinyl-only Little Leaf imprint. It was a slow-mo version of a Bowie track looped and looped on chunky drums with the vocal kicking in after some time. A hypnotic effective dancefloor jam (thanks Sleazy Beats) that came in a sleeve that showed love and care. Check it if you haven’t yet. Little Leaf 002 is out towards the end of this month with one side being a remix of a Shuggie Otis track by Moroder himself with the flip being a track by Erobique that uses samples from the late great Arthur Russell. Moroder has been Djing since the 90s and initially got into the scene with his first label Glossy. He is soon to visit Vienna on the 27th of this month for a date with the dancefloor there. You can find Matt on Facebook, Soundcloud, Resident Advisor and the Little Leaf Facebook page. Enjoy the mix. Download Thanks to Matt and Anna (who is also behind the Little Leaf design).

This one comes from i-D – October ’88 edition. Nicky Holloway already has a bit of a CV by this point and clearly had an eye for taking it to the masses.

One of our favourite records of the year was the Gala Drop 12″ on Golf Channel so we got in touch with Nelson Gomes (below) of Gala Drop to ask for a mix and also a few quick questions on the band and what it’s all about. The mix shows their eclectic tastes are and the interview hopefully explains more on the band and where they are going in 2011. Picture by Marta Pina Who is Gala Drop? Me, Afonso, Guilherme and Tiago. Where are you based? Lisbon. How did you guys meet? We all met in different periods in time (between 2003-2005) at a place called ZDB where i used to be the music programmer. What do you each bring to the party? Electronics, guitar, percussion and drums. How did the hook up with Golf Channel come about? Tiago met Phil a few years ago in New York and gave him a copy of our first record at the time. Phil loved the record and suggest that would be great do something with us in the future. Have you been to one of their parties in NYC yet? It’s on our list of things to do… We played at [...]

Basically this is a guide to how to get stoned with your mates and this all sounds rather ridiculous now but has anyone got any of the DIY tapes they mention from a Monday night? They sound kind of good.

Our friends in Australia, The Blackmail, got in touch to see if we wanted to run an interview that they had just done with Harvey for their site. We of course said yes. To be honest I don’t quite understand the cult that is developing around the man but you have to say he’s got it right – the parties, the space in Hawaii and living the happy life. On top of that he seems totally genuine and speaks total sense. So over to Mr Michael Kucyk of The Blackmail and on with the program… Text: Michael Kucyk Images: Harvey Bassett Spanning many scenes and sounds, Harvey Bassett has been unconsciously carving his global cult notoriety for almost 25 years. As a DJ, Harvey is like no other. His infectiously positive personality seeps into his eclectic sets that aren’t limited to meaningless genrefication and often journey for six hours. Harvey will play whatever he feels, how he feels, and will never spin a lyric out of context. Inspired by his encounters with Larry Levan, he started the lewd label Black Cock with fellow Englishman Gerry Rooney and released legendary reel-to-reel edits which became heavily sought after and widely bootlegged. With [...]

Andy Blake’s back with some more balearic nu-beat hip hop business. This one hits a groove and stays in it with a lot of it sounding like that early early druggy hip hop (think ‘Beat Bop’). Good sound. As you may know Mr Blake is resident DJ alongside Joe ‘the Body Hammer’ Hart at World Unknown in London’s Brixton. It’s a great party and the next one is happening on the 17th of this month. Click here for more information and mixes in a similar vein. Download

‘Widow Basquiat’ by Jennifer Clement is one of those books that once you pick it up you don’t want to put it down. Written in conjunction with Basquiat’s muse Suzanne Mallouk it’s a sometimes distressing read into life and love with the artist. It doesn’t hold back about their various drug addictions as well as opening the door on the 80s New York scene – the galleries and the parties. The author attempts, and manages, to open the door on Basquiat’s paintings, giving a clear understanding of their meanings. I am not really one for books on art but if they were all like this one I’d be an expert. For a quick overview of Basquiat’s life I’d suggest listening to the Radio 4 show – Decoding Basquiat which we’ve ripped below. The show was produced by Somethin’ Else (fine work chaps) who have a history in clubs so if anyone is reading this from there and wants us to pull it down get in touch. In Decoding Basquiat, the poet Benjamin Zephaniah travels to New York to speak with Suzanne Mallouk (who chooses Riding With Death from 1988 (above) as her favourite painting), gallerists, musicians and graffiti writers who [...]

Sunday means Jon Savage and here’s this weeks show, the third and final part of the Moon Songs trilogy. From Nick Drake, to Bowie, Can and Byrne and Eno… Download Tune in weekly to ByteFM for the Savage Music shows.

We had a bit of an issue with our hosting company telling us off for using too much bandwidth so had to archive loads of the mixes but we’ve moved to a new server (thanks Gareth, James and Neil) and we are all back live. They should all be on iTunes as podcasts as well in the next few days. Thanks for everyone who gave us mixes. Hopefully more classy numbers to follow soon. And while we’ve got you Bad Passion have the Idjuts playing on the 17th of March so get on their Facebook and get down there. Be nice to have them north of the river. Have been listening to a lot of their mixes recently and for joining the dots they are pretty special.

BLAKULA / BACK FROM MYSTERY CITY / BEAR FUNK Italian Horror with a post-punk funk edge. Metallic echoes of Levene. Wobble-like bass. Richard Sen’s Padded Cell with harpsichord flourishes, thigh-bone trumpets and the Jajouka’s rhiatas. Sharing Barry Adamson’s “Moss-Side Story”s obsession with the night and musicians in sharp suits, Cold War spy theme guitar riffs double-cross Jim Thompson 50’s noir sax solos. A touch of the Heliocentrics in the Sun Ra back from the car boot sale percussion. Strange strings and things. John Cale’s viola is set adrift in Wim Wenders` desert. Bram Stoker’s Carpathian mourns a love centuries old. A mission impossible hurtles towards the point of self-destruction. Electric Miles’ “Dark Magus”. Clarinets conjour Hubert Selby’s “Last Exit”. Redemption. By any means. A juke joint tassel twirler sings a junk-yard blues. Sonica’s final stand. If this record had been made in 1970 it would be setting you back 200 euro. If you found it in a Parisian flea market you would not believe your luck. Timeless. Priceless. Highly collectable. Bear Funk Soundcloud LAUER / PHILLIPS / RUNNING BACK Jefferson. Ten City, without Stingly’s righteous falsetto, but aching under the reality of love’s weight all the same. An Italo sunrise [...]

Having been with Psyche rockers Apryl Fool and Folk rockers Happy End during the late 60s and early 70s, a then successful but still pretty conventional singer song-writer, Haroumi Hosono, famously put together the Yellow Magic Orchestra, recruiting session players Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yukihiro Takahashi, and in doing so changed the face of Japanese popular music. Such was the grip of the YMO and it`s founding members on Japanese music in the 80s that you would be hard pushed to find a record from that time that doesn`t bear a credit for at least one of them. Young Japanese people, understandably, rebelled and dismissed them as the establishment. Many of my generation are now re-evaluating this decision, but I am sure that younger generations are completely unaware of the innovations made by the group, particularly in the area of electronics. Hosono`s solo and production work is pretty varied, but I think that all of it – the ballads, the complex but funky electro, and the ambience, both conventional and tone poems – display a real sonic playfulness and betray his love for the Exotica of Arthur Lyman, Martin Denny, and Les Baxter. A complete belief in the need for fantasy [...]

Having been with Psyche rockers Apryl Fool and Folk rockers Happy End during the late 60s and early 70s, a then successful but still pretty conventional singer song-writer, Haroumi Hosono, famously put together the Yellow Magic Orchestra, recruiting session players Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yukihiro Takahashi, and in doing so changed the face of Japanese popular music. Such was the grip of the YMO and it`s founding members on Japanese music in the 80s that you would be hard pushed to find a record from that time that doesn`t bear a credit for at least one of them. Young Japanese people, understandably, rebelled and dismissed them as the establishment. Many of my generation are now re-evaluating this decision, but I am sure that younger generations are completely unaware of the innovations made by the group, particularly in the area of electronics. Hosono`s solo and production work is pretty varied, but I think that all of it – the ballads, the complex but funky electro, and the ambience, both conventional and tone poems – display a real sonic playfulness and betray his love for the Exotica of Arthur Lyman, Martin Denny, and Les Baxter. A complete belief in the need for fantasy [...]