Ruffneck Yavahn
Everybody Be Somebody

To understand Didn't You Hear the soundtrack it's important to get a bit of the back story behind this obscure and genuine rarity. Didn't You Hear the movie was a little-known and unarguably strange 1983 cinema release that barely made it to many screens, but was notable for two reasons - it's one of the earliest acting credits given to Gary Busey, and it features one of the first all-electronic scores, by non-other than Canadian composer and synth pioneer, Mort Garson.The work still sounds impressive. For the most part it clearly feels like a film score, but some tracks more than stand up on their own grounds. The subdued chaos of 'Bamboo City' could be used by techno and electro DJs today, 'Virgil's Theme' is a reflective slice of melodic ambience, while 'Death Talk & Jeep Approach' is a sparse, minimalistic electronic-classical masterpiece.

41 years after its original release, it's hard to grasp just how revolutionary the New Age Steppers self-titled debut album was. The brainchild of the Slits' Ari Up and producer Adrian Sherwood, the set brought paired the cream of the post-punk scene (including the Pop Group's Mark Stewart and journalist Vivian Goldman) with a string of experienced dub-wise players to create a set that genuinely took dub and roots reggae in thrilling new directions (think alien noises, industrial sounds, experimental effects and squally guitar textures). Now available on vinyl for the first time since its original release, New Age Steppers is an album that should genuinely be in every serious music-head's collection.

Le label Born Bad a sorti une compilation rendant hommage à l’europop et à la proto-house française des années 1990 à 1995.Curaté par les DJs Belec et Sainte Rita, l’album revient sur l’histoire de « la variante franchouillarde de la dance pop anglaise », s’interrogeant sur l’arrivée de la house en France et ses liens avec la variété de la fin des années 80, alors que les premières musiques électroniques étaient à la fois omniprésentes et diabolisées.Au programme : dix pépites nostalgiques francophones agréablement kitsch aux influences new beat, dream house, pop, trip hop et rap, reflétant parfaitement l’ambiance ingénue et rêveuse du début des années 90.While the French were building towards the global explosion of French Touch and the arrival of Daft Punk on the world stage, the British were busy getting off their tits in fields up and down the country to a mix of rave, breakbeat and jungle. This fascinating collection is the sound of a load of French artists essentially having a go at British dance music, aping rave culture and emulating club trends. It's curious and fun, with melodic tracks, expansive grooves and plenty of sinewy synths all making a new dance language that is familiar yet different to the one we all know and love. Importantly, it all works well.

For their 7” debut on Where To Now? U mines the considerable depths of his MPC hard drive to present 3 snapshots of an artist shaking off their formative influences and commencing the journey to unexplored realms of the sampler’s universe.'Junkies' has classical string stabs (that would later become a focal point on the sound of “Vienna Orchestra” (WTNLP05)) driven forth by dark, jazzy double bass licks, all shrouded in vinyl crackle and forced forward by a 2-step feel on the drums. It would have the essence of an early 2000s instrumental hip-hop track were it not for those drums shuffling off on a different tangent.'Too Good For Me' toys more with the sampled nature of the music, throwing abrupt rewinds and record manipulation into a melange of rumbling industrial sounds led by a pulsing high-pitched melody. This is underpinned by a Bossa-styled beat that further unsettles the murky atmosphere of the track.Finally 'Almost Man'’s exotic plucked strings and booming bass-heavy beat roll into snares in a marching rhythm that could reflect the march into the future for this unparalleled producer taking the lonely road to the outer edges of modern composition and electronic production.