The origins of the words and music are somewhat vague, but the accepted story is that the melody is a traditional english ballad and the lyrics were written my Georgia Turner and Bert Martin. The earliest recorded version is attributed to bluesman Texas Alexander but it wasn't until the 60's when the Animals version popularised the song and everyone with a guitar decided to give it a go.

There's some question as to whether the song refers to a real place - one book asserts that the real House of the Rising Sun was at 826-830 St. Louis St.  which in the 1860's was purportedly named for its madam, Marianne LeSoleil Levant, whose surname translates to "The Rising Sun."

Ogenki Clinic is a collaboaration between Gwill Morris and James Holden - they've really only put out two releases, but First Light is just one of the few high points in trance from the 21st century. It's like taking the early morning twilight and crystalising it into sound, it's the kind of record that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end... and dance in unison.

The lyrics are something to do with being on a plane, while eating the inflight meal of curry chicken, and suddenly there's an engine failure, but instead everyone decides to dance, without wearing their seatbelts. Maybe it was a dream or maybe the lyrics were translated using babelfish - whatever - the remix is one of those records that is a sure thing in this town.

Seelenluft is a pseudonym for Beat Solèr who hails from Zurich, I'm told that Seelenluft is german for 'Soul Air' which I guess sounds like his surname.

The biggest record at the Miami Winter Music Conference in 2004, at the time it was their first original record in half a decade and it didn't disappoint. Catchy guitar led house record, and with appropriately crunchy breaks remix from Meat Katie this is an indispensible slice of vinyl for any dj. (Well except for those goatee adorned minimal techno types who never smile)

The game that launched the phrase 'All Your Base Are Belong To Us' - everyone knows the intro, but here you can see the ending to this otherwise forgettable 16 bit shooter.

http://www.gamerevolution.com/goodie/endings/zero_wing_ending

Kind of an anti climax really (although not nearly as much of an anti-climax as completing the mammoth 'Lords of Midnight' and merely getting a one line reward).

It's easy to see right now, rising in the east as the Sun sets and peaking in the sky at midnight. Right now it's in the constellation of Cancer and is right next to the Beehive cluster in the sky, so it looks pretty neat though binoculars. Of course, I've got my telescope and a new 5x barlow lense to boost the magnification - I got a pretty good view last night and could resolve the Casinni division in the rings.

The TRUE cover of Madonna's new album. It is Stuart Price's direction, inspiration, leadership and knack for an 80s groove that makes the album sing. Madonna is merely a trendwhore riding on the coattails of far more interesting musicians who are making far better music than she could ever hope to.

But it's not like she doesn't deserve credit. Madonna is, after all, a master of this sort of thing. She probes the underground, find out what it's doing these days, exploits it, and sells a cheap, plastic pop version of it to the masses for commercial digestion. The big irony to all this is that by the time the mainstream catches on to these trends, the underground has already moved on.

(note: the next part I posted in a couple forums, and it got some headwind and cutnpasted around the blog community, so I'm immortalizing it here in case anyone comes looking for it)

1990: Madonna looks at the underground New York gay fashion scene, full of style, excess, posture, and that lovely Italo House with those piano hooks. She rips off the scene and releases Vogue.

1992: Madonna focuses her sights on the emerging club kink/fetish scene, exploits it, and churns out Erotica. (and releases a raunchy book too, perfect for the art-house crowd).

1998: Madonna sees the growing fascination with trance explode everywhere, seeks to exploit it, hires William Orbit to be her Producer, and the end result is Ray of Light.

2000: French house is king in the club circuit, Madonna notices this too, seeks some funky french filter beats on her next album, which becomes Music. The real genius behind this album? Mirwais.

2005: Now electro-house rules the dancefloors. Naturally, Madonna wants to co-opt this and pretend it's something she invented too. So Confessions on a Dancefloor has got the neo-synthpop sound through and through. The smartest thing she did was hire Les Rhythmes Digitales (aka Jacques lu Cont, aka thin White Duke, aka Stuart Price) to be the mastermind of it. While the pop world will commend her genius and vision, those of us in the underground know better.

For all her staying power, Madonna is really only good at one thing: Surrounding herself with the best people she can find. She is a clever businessperson, a scenester, a poser, and a fronter all in one. But not really a musician. She's good at what she does, but she's really only a hollow faceplate--a shallow shell of what's actually there.

http://www.ishkur.com/

Skye's really coming on in her education, walking everywhere, climbing stairs, and working on her mixing skills......

http://www.djsnm.com/baby_scratch.3g2

Laurent Garnier is a legend, the godfather of French techno who serves as an inspiration to legions of gallic DJ's and producers. This track is his most accessible moment, a deep techy house record with a saxophone liberally layered over the top of it. Yes it shouldn't work, saxophones just don't go with house music, they turn up on so many awful house records that by the end of the 90's every dj who valued their credibility knew that the sax was a sign of a bad record. But Laurent proved his genius by delivering probably my favourite record of 2000 - yes even better than Doom's Night.

The title refers to Laurent's inspiration for the track, when he played sax his face would turn red from the effort.

If any of you have ever listened to the old episodes of my radio show 'theDMZ' you'll have heard this track at the start of every show. I just love it for the 'watch your bassbins..... slamming beats' sample which performed admirable service as a launch pad for the show every week.

The Bassbin twins have been doing breaks for what seems like all eternity, they are practically part of the firmament of breaks culture with highly prized early white label releases (I own #2!) that'll set you back a pretty penny if you ever want the owner to part with a copy.