Heres what records and cds are new on the block at the moment and JON D's views and reviews.
COMPLIATION OF THE MONTH (JUNE - JULY 01)
Darren Emerson. Singapore. Globalunderground.
DISK 1#
1. Remote Control - Bruno
2. Ramirez - Hablando
3. Boy Versus Girl - BOOM ! (Peace Division's Boomin' Dub)
4. Medicine - Junior Aspirin
5. Orlando Careca Vs The Cosmonut - I'm a Sexmachine
6. A2 - Do You Like The Way You Feel When You Shake? (Mix 2)
7. Hatiras - Spaced Invader (Darren Emerson Underwater Remix)
8. Jose Nunez - Harmonizer
9. Jeremy Sylvester - B-Bop
10. Medicine - Universal Personal
11. Nitzer EBB VS Thomas P. Heckmann - Join In The Chant (Knarz Is Machine)
12. Thee Cat In Da Hat - Thee Rush
13. Circulation - Purple
14. UBU - Pixels
15. Remote Control - Bruno (16b Arrangement Edit)
DISK 2#
1. Shyman & DJ Ljk - Make Me Do Right
2. Inland Knights Feat. To-Ka Project - Back Aagain
3. The Unlikely Lads - Two Of A Kind
4. Circulation - Magenta
5. George T - Iinteractive Night
6. Jori Hulkkonen - Man From Solaris
7. Slam Feat. Tyrone - Lifetimes
8. Sandy Rivera Feat. Lt Brown - Come Into My Room
9. Juan Recoba - Alpha
10. DJ Sneak - Wickedy
11. Soul'Amour - Algeria (Phearce Barbarela Mix)
12. KC Flightt Vs Funky Junction - Voices (Pete Heller Main Mix)
13. Laurent Garnier - Man With The Red Face (Darren Emerson Remix)
Emerson's Post-Underworld production career began with a bang when he hooked up with Sasha to record one of last Summer's most delirious housey hits: 'Scorchio'. The trip to Punta Del Este, where Sasha also happened to be chilling with Craig Richards and Lee Burridge, was where the idea for the collaboration first came up. "That happened after an in-depth conversation," says Darren. "We followed it up - for once. You know what DJs are like."
Going solo is clearly working out for Darren - who was an early pioneer of British house long before Underworld got big enough to headline Glastonbury (he remixed Gat Décor's progressive classic 'Passion', along with acts as big as Simply Red under his Steppin' Razor alias). His DJ sensibilities were always a key part of the Underworld magic, and he's now in more demand than ever, with a schedule that catapults him all over the world.
Emerson has just spent a month on Australia's travelling Big Day Out festival with Placebo, Coldplay, the Happy Mondays and PJ Harvey. "It's like being in a family, being in a tour like that," he says. He's started work on his solo album. His deep house label Underwater is preparing two artist albums from new acts. This Summer he's teamed up with New York DJ/producer Erick Morillo to host alternate nights in Ibiza's luxurious Pacha club - Morillo's Subliminal label will take charge one week, Underwater the next and the pair have hired a villa for the duration. Once every two months, Underwater also take over London's The End club. And he's working with everyone from South Wales breakbeat act Hybrid to house producer Tim Deluxe.
"I've always had targets. DJing was one - that's accomplished, I can do that quite well. Underworld was another." The solo career is clearly next. "A lot of people don't know who I am - that bloke from Underworld."
Emerson is one of the brightest, most amenable DJs there is, but he also has a sense of perspective that's wider than many of dance music's tunnel-vision obsessives. Maybe it's nine years in Underworld, who arguably did more to bring convert rock audiences all over the world to live electronic music than anyone bar the Chemical Brothers or Fatboy Slim. Or maybe it's family life with his young daughter. Either way, this exhilarating, free-flowing mix sounds bigger, somehow, than a straight-up club mix, yet no less dynamically funky.
Where his Uruguay mix was considered, Singapore is irrepressibly breezy: the sound of a world class DJ having the time of his life, plundering classics from the back of his box to set up the latest fresh grooves. It's a reckless roller coaster of wild house, dangerous dub, and wide-boy techno, driven with ruthless, unblinking control. A set that swings from the robotic, industrial disco of Nitzer Ebb's vintage 'Join In The Chant' at one end, to the delirious Latin show-down of Soul Amour's xxx, with its piercingly potent lead trumpet, on the other.
"I've taken it to extremes," Darren says. "It's a mix-up. I'm always trying to put new things in. You can't be anal. There's no rules." There's no pre-amble either as Emerson's mix roars CD1 straight into life with 1992's classic Italian romp Å’Hablando' from renegade techno accordionist Ramirez. He accelerates through the siren calls and boombastic basslines of Junior Aspirin's 'Medicine' to the dub-wise rollings of UBU's echo-drenched 'Shaboom'. CD2 starts with a forgotten groove: Shyman & DJ LTJK's spacey, tense 'Make Me Do Right'. It throttles through the quirky chug-chugging basslines of Joni Hulkkonen's 'Man From Solaris'. Then speeds off into the sunset as the vocal intensity of Pete Heller's remix of another early 90s classic, KC Flight's 'Voices', bleeds into the ruthless club dynamics of Darren's own mix of Laurent Garnier's sax-house monster 'Man With The Red Face'.
It is a set that, despite its perfections, feels raw, organic, human. You can feel the DJ's skills, not the computer's. That's the way Emerson likes to mix it. "Still a bull in a china shop. I never practice. It doesn't go - it's like riding a bike!" he grins. "I have to take two record boxes with me when I'm DJing cause I never know what I'm going to play next. I like to be spontaneous." But while that makes for a ride full of risky maneuvers, a master like Emerson never loses control as he races the styles. Just thank fuck the 'King Of Siam' wasn't at the wheels.
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Heres what coming out of my record box at the moment