Erol Alkan - Fabriclive 77 (2014)

 

The Erol Alkan album I picked in my favourite albums was his "Bugged Out Mix/Bugged In Selection" from 2005. The "Bugged In Selection" included some pretty weird records and the point was these were all records that had nothing to do with clubbing and actually turned out to be the CD I'd listen most by far out of the 2.

This Fabriclive mix he did though very much of the "Bugged Out" variety though. It came at a time when I was still going out to see Erol Alkan play and on that basis it does sound quite familiar to me.

Erol Alkan is one of those DJs who has always made a point about staying underground and was therefore unlikely to go down the more lucrative EDM route.

One thing of note that's different to the "Bugged Out Mix" is that he has tunes of his own in the mix this time. I do recall around this time listening to his actual tunes on YouTube and liking them.

Also amongst the artists that feature on the compilation are Andy Meecham of Bizarre Inc fame and Tom Rowlands of Chemical Brothers fame. You start to get the impression this isn't so much showcasing young new talent, more the old guard making new tunes. That's no bad thing, if the kids are making awful EDM music then it has no place on this album.

It's not groundbreaking by any stretch of the imagination but it follows the formula of several compilations I was buying 15 years ago which is simple no nonsense house music. Sometimes that's exactly what I want to be listening to.

Last 10 Years

Yesterdays post about Fenech-Soler brought back memories of other music I was listening to when I first discovered them. Basically I didn't think I was old enough to reach the 'better in the old days' stage of my life and made an effort to keep my music tastes current.

One thing I did was pick my 25 favourite albums. It was a very biased list favouring the more recent albums though, 17 of them were from the 21st century and the other 8 were from the 90s. It also included an album which had only just come out at the time.

Nowadays I'm at a point where I'm not even up to date with a lot of artists I've liked in years gone by. Some went to to make some truly dreadful music and others I just forgot about. I do sometimes seek out new music from an artist if I'm going to see them in concert, but many don't really bother making new music anymore and stick to the classics.

It got me thinking, what albums have the 25 artists of those albums I picked released in the last 10 years. Well here's the answer:

2 Many DJs - No albums

Norman Jay - 2 albums: Skank & Boogie (2015), Mister Good Times (2017)

Portishead - No albums

Massive Attack - No albums

High Contrast - 2 albums: Night Gallery (2017), Notes from the Underground (2020)

Plump DJs - No albums

Jacques Lu Cont - No albums

Erol Alkan - 1 album: Fabriclive 77 (2014)

Spiritcatcher - No albums

Various Artists - N/A

DJ Shadow - 2 albums: The Mountain Will Fall (2016), Our Pathetic Age (2019)

Tiga - 1 album: No Fantasy Required  (2016)

Air - No albums

Fatboy Slim - No albums

Sander Kleinenberg - No albums

Snoop Dogg - 6 albums: Bush (2015), Coolaid (2016), Neva Left (2017), Bible of Love (2018), I Wanna Thank Me (2019), From tha Streets 2 tha Suites (2021), BODR (2022)

Jurassic 5 - No albums

Kruder & Dorfmeister - 1 album: Johnson (2022)

Zero 7 - No albums

Mylo - No albums

Digitalism - 2 albums: Mirage (2016), JPEG (2019)

Underworld - 2 albums: Barbara Barbara, We Face a Shining Future (2016), Drift Series 1 (2019)

LCD Soundsystem - 1 album: American Dream (2017)

London Elektricity - 2 albums: Are We There Yet? (2015), Building Better Worlds (2019)

Propellerheads - No albums

Just 11 of the artists have released an album in the last 10 years and only 3 of them have released one in the decade so far. Only Snoop Dogg has been prolific with none of the others managing more than 2 albums in a decade.

This leads to another question, are these albums any good?

Just one way to find out. I'm going to give each of those albums a listen and post what I think of them here.

My 25 Favourite Albums: Erol Alkan - A Bugged Out Mix/A Bugged In Selection

I'll begin with an extract from the liner notes:

The only reason I agreed to do a commercially available CD was so I could compile a second CD which had nothing to do with nightclubs and losing your mind along with your mobile phone on the dancefloor.

It's most likely for this reason that this album makes it onto my list. It isn't just a dance mix, it's also a selection of tunes that have nothing to do with dance music.

Bugged Out is a dance music event that's been going since 1994 and this is one of several albums they've put out. Erol Alkan is a well known DJ in the dance music world.

The "Bugged Out Mix" begins with the most unlikely of tunes, "Hush" by Deep Purple, though it is just a 30 second extract which then goes into "E Talking" by Soulwax. Next up is "The Creeps" by Freaks which of course was a big hit, but that was in 2007 and this mix came out in 2005.

The mix follows that electro formula throughout and includes tunes from the likes of Tiga and SebastiAn and perhaps the best known tune in the mix was "Rocker" by Alter Ego.

A great mix, but what truly made the album was the "Bugged In Selection".

This isn't your usual chill out compilation that you might expect, it's a wide selection of tunes which go back as far as the 60s.

The opening track is "Passing Through" by Rare Bird which is from the 70s. We also have a mellow version of the Rolling Stones song "Miss You" by Swedish group The Concretes. The oldest track is "End Of A Love Affair" which is from 1962.

The selection becomes more upbeat when "Lollipop Minds" by Wimple Winch, a psychedelic tune from the 60s appears. The tune that follows was "Rainbow Chaser" by Nirvana. That's the original Nirvana from the 60s, not the Kurt Cobain one. I'd known such a band existed since the early 90s but had never heard any of their music until listening to this, and it's a good tune.

There is one well known tune on the CD which is "Just An Illusion" by Imagination. The tune that follows is the strangest one, "Holland Tunnel Dive" by ImpLOG.

The final track is "Big City" by Spacemen 3 which never seems to end, but that's a good thing because you know it's the final track and once it ends, so does the compilation.

When I bought this album, I was wanting a dance compilation first and foremost. But seeing Deep Purple on the track list did make me intrigued as to how that would fit into the compilation. I also knew that the Nirvana featured were the 60s Nirvana so also wanted to hear what they sounded like.

I didn't think that the CD of random tunes would be the one I'd listen to the most, I think I was more particular about what I listened to at the time. I guess what this compilation taught me was that there's lots of great music out there outside of the genres I'd typically listen to.