Bent
Bent’s downbeat, emotional electronica is irresistible. In 1999 they released their debut album ‘Program For Love’ on MOS/EMI and since then Bent have gone on to produce a further three albums, Everlasting Blink, Ariels and Intercept selling over 350,000 copies. Their music has appeared on adverts for Vodafone, Carlsberg, Volkswagen, Nissan, Absolute and ahem, the Inland Revenue. They also have celebrity fans as diverse as Elton John, Michael Caine and Nicole Kidman.
Bent are 10 years old, and their Best Of released in 2009, is a collection of their greatest tracks and also features additional BRAND NEW Bent tracks. This is a celebration of 10 years and reminder to every one of what Bent has achieved and how they helped shape the electronic ’00’s. Bent have a huge fan-base including a huge affection over the years from the press. We’re expecting an excellent plot to develop for the album with re releases of classic Bent remixes from the likes of Ashley Beedle, Francois K, Soulchild, Toby Tobia, Danny Howells, Nightmoves, Serge Santiago, Reverso 68, PLUSpackage of NEW remixes of some of the Bent classics.
Teenager
“These achingly hip Aussies hop between gonzo rock, shoegazing, and Black Wire-style sex gothisms…the best chemical erection to be found on the internet”
-NME
A super group comprising of Nick Littlemore (Empire Of THe Sun,Pnau) and Pip Browne (Ladyhawke)
Teenager is kinda like the name itself. Young and horny. Unpredictable. Loud. Drunk. Abusive in a loving kinda way. Schizophrenic.
Nick makes songs and sings them. He presses buttons and stamps his feet. Pip makes songs on her guitar and plays them. Loud. She shakes her hair. Oscar bangs and bangs – it’s magic. Deano always has a lesson to teach. Beats come out of a speaker.
Nick plays in bare feet, all pained up, and runs away from everything he wants, except his music – which is dangerous (but always danceable). Pip is too scared to take her shoes off, but she’s the one people fall in love with. Total annihilation of the senses. Pure passion.
We’ve spent 3 years travelling the globe developing our sound, trying to shed all genres to create the most whack collection of ideas and emotions. In Paris we worked with Thierry Muller (a.k.a. Illitch), then in NYC we did three days with Sonic Youth (Lee Ronaldo and Steve Shelley), and whilst there also hooked up with Electric Six and Yeah Yeah Yeah’s guitarist Nicky Zinner. Then it was off to La La land to meet up with Mario C (constant Beastie Boys collaborator), then to London to work with Howie B, Darren Emerson, Placebo and ex Sidewinderer Martin Craft…and finally back to little old Melbourne to work with Birthday Party legend Roland S Howard. Gees.
It’s not a normal band set-up but rather a search for sounds not yet heard. We all live our days as if they’re our last, we know we’re not here for long, we want to struggle for you and your friends. We take the pain so that others don’t have to. We’ll break our necks before your hearts.
Slacker
In his previous life Shem McCauley (AKA Slacker) was considered one of the most prolific progressive house producers in the business. His tracks and remixes were played by the genre’s most popular DJs and they landed on the finest mix compilations. However, with the business changing and tastes shifting Shem grew increasingly frustrated with the type of music “the business” was looking for. So he did the unthinkable – he disappeared. This UK native moved to Bangkok, Thailand, cut of communication with the industry, started a new job…and a new life. So, it’s been two years in Thailand and Slacker is back with an album that could have only been created in total isolation from the industry. It’s not progressive house, but this is progressive electronic down tempo music.
We hate to make comparisons but Start A New Life really does remind us of those classic UK downtempo albums from the 90’s and early 2000’s. It makes sense because Shem was a huge fan of this genre but never had the correct forum to release his own music of this type. The influences are apparent and when listening to Start A New Life you’ll pick of pieces of The Sabres Of Paradise “Smokebelch II (Beatless Mix),” Cocteau Twins “Cherry-Coloured Funk,” Moby “Go (Jam & Spoon Remix), Coldcut “Autumn Leaves,” Boards Of Canada “Music Has The Right To Children, Future Sound Of London Accelerator, Dusted When We Were Young, and of course, The KLF Chill Out album.
“In the 90’s I was doing progressive house and remixes but I originally came from Hip-Hop and rare groove. So my influence was definitely based around funky beats and slow stuff,” Shem says “I always wanted to do an album like “Start A New Life” but never had the balls or circumstance to get it together. Towards the last four or five years of my life in the UK I was completely disillusioned, didn’t enjoy making music and eventually stopped. I made the choice and came out to Bangkok and got happy with my new chill existence. I pulled out the old demos and wrote more and more. [The KLF’s] “Chill Out” and Future Sound Of London’s “Accelerator” are some of my favorite albums, so I started to create an album based on my love of those albums. Stylistically, it might sound like a big change, but for me, it’s like expressing the stuff I never was able to.”
While Shem is back doing music, the intensions to leave his previous career behind was real. In fact, he originally arrived in Bangkok with two suitcases and no equipment. He started teaching Yoga and spent lots of time getting his health back together. When it came time to revisit music there wasn’t a fancy studio or even a traditional space to create in. Rather, Shem wrote the entire album on his laptop in the food court of a Bangkok shopping mall. Yes, it’s a bit unconventional for what we’ve come to expect from today’s glitzy studios and production techniques, but Start A New Life is more honest than anything you’re bound to hear from the genre. After all, It’s a living documentation of Shem McCauley’s new life.
Goose Fair Island
Goose Fair Island, a project by Neil George Tolliday (Nail from heritage electronica duo Bent), came around during the bleak winter months of late 2008.
A decision to shift from liquid to smoke as the source of inspiration was made.
The doors and windows are secured, strange machines are bubbling and flashing, the funk of Dr. Dave’s Bubonic Branches fills the room.
Who stole the wings from the giant Goose?
Napoleon
In the early 1800s Napoleon marched across Europe. A couple of hundred years later a different Napoleon traversed from Nottingham to Ireland and set about a very different type of mission.
Far from a crusading conqueror the modern day Napoleon in question is Simon Mills, a man who spent the majority of the first 00s decade as the diminutive (and occasionally colourfully coiffured) half of Bent, Mills built up a musical portfolio that graced everywhere from Eastenders’ Queen Vic to the Acropolis in Athens and featured cameos from members of Faithless, Simian and The Beloved, not to mention a multitude of revived songstresses from crackly charity shop records.
Now marching out alone under his new Napoleon moniker, Mills’ new sound is more akin to the world of bleep driven club of Manhattan rather than the rural trappings of the Irish coast.
As Bent’s own sound developed from much lauded down-tempo artists to their final swan vitriolic sonic bow, ‘Intercept!’, so too did Mills’ personal DJ style. While his earlier outings on the decks reflected his diverse taste in music and penchant for late 70s and 80s nuggets, his focus begun to fix on a slew of disco-inspired house records from the likes of Daniel Wang and Metro Area – from these foundations the blueprint for Napoleon started to emerge.
While the gurgling warped opening of ‘Destiny’ hints of possible twisted music box folk, it’s follower ‘1973, 1975’ sparks the affair into life with a sparky canon of bleeps and beats. Elsewhere balearic siren song breezes through on ‘Love of a lifetime’ and a cheeky mash-up of 1930s swing and juicy early house morphs together in ‘Jazz Steps’.
Ernest Saint Laurent
Ernest Saint Laurentis a producer and multi-instrumentalist from Paris, France, with a varied musical pedigree. His career started on Yellow Productions( Bob Siinclar ), a small French record label, with the project “We Are One” which he soon followed up with feature appearances on many compilations including Source Material, Trip Do Brasil 2 Kitsune love and Bossa Tres Jazz. In 2001 he started his own record label, FLUID SYSTEM, and released his first single, “Clumsy Lobster “, which was named single of the week by the English magazine New Musical Express. A year later his single “In the Sky” hit number one in UK club charts. As a producer Ernest has remixed songs by Femi Kuti, Grace Jones, Angie Stone, The Avalanches, Zero Seven, etc… among others. Ernest is also working a lot for TV and cinema.
Sister Bliss
Sister Bliss is a name that for many will need little explaining. Best known for her role as a pivotal member of Faithless, the world’s only multi-million selling stadium dance band, the first lady of dance has also found time over the years to release mix compilations, make music for film soundtracks, TV and theatre, and DJ around the world. Her career behind the decks has blazed a trail for female DJs the world over, as Blissy stepped up to play (and often beat) the boys at their own game.
2007 was a big year for Faithless, but now her band commitments have quietened Sister Bliss is highlighting the other string to her bow with ‘Nightmoves’, a double headed package of Bliss beats, set for release on Godlike & Electric.
Thirteen years deep in the game, Sister Bliss is at the top of promo lists the world over and so on this mix is able to drop in major underground talents like Adam K, alongside classic main room anthems courtesy of Underworld and Splittr. Proving she still has her finger firmly on the pulse, Bliss also drops in anthems in the making, with new hits from the likes of Pryda (aka Eric ‘Call On Me’ Prydz), PNAU and her very own remix of The Enemy’s ‘This Song’, alongside fellow Faithless founder Rollo.
Across the mix Bliss pays homage to the styles that first drew her to dance music, touching on acid house synth lines and the warm soulful side of Detroit techno, all the time keeping things fresh and exciting. A spattering of vocal house is also thrown in, blending perfectly with the emotive, electronic, soulful sounds Bliss favours.
Sister Bliss’ love affair with house music first began in 1987 and over the years she has inspired countless other female DJs to enter the testosterone-ridden world of club culture. With both Mercury Music Prize & BRITnominations, six albums – two of them UK number ones, plus countless sold out gigs and headline festival sets the world over, she has proved herself as one sister who, through doing it for herself, has contributed to the club scene as we know it today in a big way.
Now busy working on a 7th studio album, and preparing for a hectic summer of headline DJ sets across Europe – including an exclusive monthly residency at Pacha, Ibiza – as well as continuing her long held residency at The Gallery, Ministry of Sound, Bliss is definitely not one to rest on her laurels. It seems Godlike & Electric have been lucky to capture a mix from a DJ vying for the title of the hardest working woman in dance.