Underground Misery

I've not been terribly pysched to get out climbing since I got back from Alps, I was enjoying the warm glow from that for a while and its got to that time of year in Edinburgh when the drinking season starts in earnest and the thought of rock climbing doesn't really feel that appealing. Maybe I just need a sunny day down in the county to sort me out? However, the long range forecast charts have been suggesting some fairly interesting weather for the end of this week and next, the gimp suit has been taken down from summer storage and my picks are quivvering in anticipation...



Anyway, this weekend was the misery meet and for once the weather was ok and the walk in and out was just about bearable. Duncan came up with the cunning plan of getting the bus to drop us at Bridge of Orchy where we got the train to Corrour (the station at the end of trainspotting that is only accessible by rail). We had to leave Edinburgh promptly at six, which led to a few comedy moments mainly involving Mike having to chase the coach down Lothian Road on his bike on the way back from work. Getting a train doesn't have quite the holiday feel of a ferry but was still pretty cool. On Saturday I walked up quite possibly the most boring Munro in Scotland - Beinn na Lap, its only redeeming feature being that it was about an hour and 45mins round trip. General banter was had on Saturday evening at Staoineag bothy, mainly involving finding out what made people tick, some tribal drumming on the walls at 3am to try and rustle up some more booze, a broken (fucking) hippy's drum and Wallbank's frankly disgraceful behaviour involving a sealed bottle and the fire. On Sunday we walked 16kms to Kinlochleven in the drizzle.



A couple of weeks ago I went and saw Underground Resistance live in Manchester at the warehouse party thing under Piccadilly train station. UR are a sort shadowy, militant Techno collective formed Mad Mike and Jeff Mills in the late '80's and who emerged as part of the '2nd wave' of Detroit (where it all began) artists in about 1989 - the first wave being Derrick May, Juan Atkins and Kevin Saunderson. They're fairly ideologically driven and espouse a lot of political rubbish (the quote below is their 'creed' from their webpage) but have made some outstanding, genre defining and technologically mindblowing music. The best things to listen to to get a flavour of what they're about is Interstellar Fugitives (an album from 1998) and the Galaxy2Galaxy compilation which contains most of the classic early hits. I've got both so if you're interested...



Underground Resistance is a label for a movement. A movement that wants change by sonic revolution. We urge you to join the resistance and help us combat the mediocre audio and visual programming that is being fed to the inhabitants of Earth, this programming is stagnating the minds of the people; building a wall between races and preventing world peace. It is this wall we are going to smash. By using the untapped energy potential of sound we are going to destroy this wall much the same as certain frequencies shatter glass. Techno is a music based in experimentation; it is music for the future of the human race. Without this music there will be no peace, no love, no vision. By simply communicating through sound, techno has brought people of all different nationalities together under one roof to enjoy themselves. Isn't it obvious that music and dance are the keys to the universe? So called primitive animals and tribal humans have known this for thousands of years! We urge all brothers and sisters of the underground to create and transmit their tones and frequencies no matter how so called primitive their equipment may be. Transmit these tones and wreak havoc on the programmers!



Back to the night, Francois K was on first who is a legendary DJ from New York, I reckon he's probably awesome if you see him on his home turf at his night Deep Space in NY but was pretty average the other day, basically playing a 'top 40' of techno set although it was cool hearing Groove La Chord out on a big system. UR were bloody awesome, a great mix of techno/electro with loads of classics thrown in. My major gripe was that they didn't do 'Amazon' or 'Jupiter Jazz' my two favourites. We left half way through Jeff Mills who wasn't as good as the last time I saw him at the End in London (a proper six hour stomp) but he did play some riduculous sounding full on monster as we left. The train journey down to London at 5am was interestingly messy...

Also got a new mix online, you can get it here (October 07)

1.Steve Bug & Cle - Behind the Curtains [Poker Flat]
2.Moonstarr- Detroit [Sonar Kollektiv]
3.Tony Allen - Kilode (Carl Craig Remix) [Honest Jon's]
4.Hercules - Classique #2 [DFA]
5.Phuture - Rise From Your Grave (Tiefschwarz Remix) [Strictly Rhythm]
6.Sascha Funke - The Acrobat (Efdemin Remix) [Bpitch Control]
7.Simon Baker - Confused (David K Remix) [Infant Ltd]
8.Roland Appel - Dark Soldier [Sonar Kollektiv]
9.Kevin Saunderson - Till We Meet Again (Carl Craig Remix) [Planet E]
10.Einzelkind vs Meat - Words from the Front Line [Get Physical]
11.Cybotron - Clear (Cobblestone Jazz Remix) [Juno]
12.Redshape - Unifinished Symmetry [Present]
13.Taho - The Hybrids [Ovum]
14.Kiki & Sasse - Grand Cru [Mood Music]