Like Like A Motorway

As the title of the blog suggests, this isn't going to all be about photography. Music is probably a bigger part of my life, and as the weather turns and the light's not so good, I doubt there will be so many photo opportunities between now and spring.

So then. Music. I could briefly mention what I'm loving at the moment. It's been a good few weeks for new releases. I could wax lyrical about the 808 State reissues - I've only bought Ex:El so far, which is probably the album that got me into dance music (but that's a whole other blog post I reckon). I could enthuse about Those Dancing Days, who were great live at Kings College last week, and whose album "In Our Space Hero Suits" not only has the best title of the year, but is also one of the best pop albums this year. I could rave about Rikkalicious, the new 12" by Hervé and Kissy Sell Out - a real dancefloor killer. But I won't because they've got nothing to do with the Title I used.

Six weeks ago, I went to go and see Saint Etienne at Queen Elizabeth Hall. It was a brilliant gig (though my opinion is probably biased being such a big fan). It had never occurred to me, though, how timeless Like a Motorway is. It sounded just as fresh as anything any of the Nu Rave kids are putting out these days. So I figured I'd try and play it amongst a whole load of new stuff when I next DJed, and I ran aground slightly. While live it sounds vital and NOW, on cd it's just a touch too slow (110bpm vs ~125bpm), and production has moved on a bit since 1994, or whenever Tiger Bay came out. So, I've taken it upon myself to spruce it up a bit. Speed it up, and beef up the bass. I haven't done much, just enough that I can play it out without it sounding too out of place. I worked on the version from Smash The System, which was a good move and a bad move. It was good because STS was remastered, so that's the best sounding version to work from. It's bad because it only uses the single version, rather than the extended version on Tiger Bay, which means I had less to work with. Anyway, you're probably bored reading all that, and want to listen to it (hopefully). Get on the download here:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/scv4qd