THE WORLD CANNOT GET ENOUGH. FOUR MORE REMIXES OF ZOMBIE NATION BY HARVARD BASS, JORI HULKKONEN, REBOLLEDO, AND ITALIANS FRANZ & SHAPE.
Feel free to combine this release with your MP3 copy of the LP to make a delightful Deluxe Anniversary Box Set (a selection of stunning digital boxes will be made available shortly at the Turbo Store. You can suggest a color, but the choices are currently limited to topaz and fudge).
This remix package beat out a host of other proposed concepts, including:
- Remixes of the remixes. Imagine scruffy up-and-comers like Reggie Rhythmbaker and Kevin Eleven taking these floor-fillers up a floor…or two.
- Zombielicious covers album, featuring Nickelback, Sophie B. Hawkins and Michael Bublé (ft. Zombie Nation).
- Five year anniversary reissue in 2014. Five CDs. Five different covers. Five million copies pressed.
Yet another release that confirms Turbo’s commitment to both restriving and reimagineering. Sometimes, we care too much.
Mike Mind’s only previous release, 'Acid Machine,' has been Tiga's most played record since it was made. A full-time Turbo employee, he’s spent the past few years getting his brain around making techno, and continues to impress us with his output. His debut EP, “Resonate”, is something of a departure for our label, and one we’re very proud of.
It's amazing to have this kind of music coming directly out of Turbo HQ; it nails a sound that we've always tried to cultivate. Minimal without being boring, trippy without being predictable, unafraid of melody, and with just enough analog imperfection and warmth to it.
All three of the remixers we chose represent different sounds in techno that have influenced Mike's sound.
1: Scandi Acid
Kebacid is the production alias for Turbo all-stars Jesper Dahlbäck and Jori Hulkkonen. Their previous releases on Jesper's defunct BLANK LTD are some of the best acid tracks of the decade. This is a monster that ought to keep all the die-hard Turbo fans happy.
2: Sophisticated Italian Groove*
Giorgio Gigli is an Italian minimal-trance maestro, an incredibly modern renaissance man who is also a trained sommelier.** He's rising in the ranks and catching up in profile to his occasional production partner, Donato Dozzy. Hopefully we'll have more of his tracks on Turbo soon.
3: M_n_m_l
Hobo is a fellow canadian best known for his excellent work on M_nus. Rumor has it, he borrowed Richie's quad-macro template file to finish the final version of this remix... whatever he did, his second effort came up huge, this mix is excellent.
All this is wrapped up on two separate, stunningly designed 12"s that are out November 23.
Enjoy!
Thomas Von Party
* I have to include the word GROOVE in every Turbo onesheet I write, it's either that or washing my hands constantly.
Bodo Elsel has only done a handful of records (that I knew of*) and the two that I've known and loved since 1998 were put out on Playhouse, the excellent housey sister-label of mighty Klang Elektronik. One track in particular, Discount Baby, has always stood out in my mind as a high water mark in the sacred art of groove (you may have heard of it). Punchy accents and resonant bass layered with trippy vocal loops; it's dubby acid house of the highest order, made by a mysterious German Lego-master, who the A&R team of Mike Mind and Thomas St Shindig managed to coax back into activity.
It only took Bodo a year to answer Mr. Mind's email, but he eventually delivered three amazing tracks... Haustier revitalizes piano house. Mai is incredible, and Mein Haus is one of the top few all-time expressions of the greatness/meaning of Germany, putting it in the fine company of the Autobahn, Sven Väth and Christmas-Market Schwein. NICE WIBES!!
The icing on the cake was that Bodo made it very clear he wanted no part in royalties or any of that business crap... he just wanted 42 copies of the record. Yes. 42.
We were so inspired by all of this that we decided to put this record out in a different way for us that just feels right this time.... If you want to find out just how good the Mein Haus EP is, you'll have no choice but to buy a copy of the 12" because this one is a VINYL EXCLUSIVE!
Love from Montreal,
Thomas Von Party
* correction from Bodo Elsel: I've done 3 records on playhouse, about 6-7 records on different labels as 'Sandbenders' with a good friend of mine, 5 7inches as NEON, 8 records on my own label ZEHNKAMPF (=decathlon) with several other artists/friends and some other stuff...**
The following are excerpts from the world’s first-ever non-interactive CD-ROM, “Funksta 2 Funksta: Tiga Unleashed” Here, he discusses his full-length album, “Ciao!”
Q: What do you think sets this new album apart from your past work?
A: Writing songs before I record them. It thought this would primarily entail aging sheet music with teabags, but I quickly learned otherwise. It’s ultimately a matter of trusting yourself, of having the courage to say, “These are the times, and these are the rhymes.”
Having now been through the process, I feel I have become exactly what Leonard Cohen would be if he owned a jetski with a detachable sidecar. Or a bicycle built for two where the riders face each other. I call it a Spicycle.
Q: You work largely within a group of friends who are all established, respected musicians. What are the most important things you contribute to these collaborations?
A: To Soulwax, I am The Ravenaïf Whose Eyes Will Not Stop Gleaming. To Jesper Dahlback, I bring vision and viscera to the Funky Picture Show. To Gonzales, I am The Man with the Toggle-Switch Eyebrows. To Jori Hulkonnen, I am Futureface. To James Murphy, I am the Off-the-Wall Montrealer.
I have always felt that playing instruments and touching equipment is beneath me, so I am forced to communicate all my ideas with my voice. Around the studio, they call me The Vibesayer. To my face.
Q: What is it to sing?
A: (Singing) “My friend, I never dreamed that / I would get to sing / Never knew the fun and passion / That my voice would bring.”
I have learned that the voice can lift what muscles mustn’t. I’m talking about the human spirit, jerk. Do you sing people over cliffs, or down from ledges?
Q: Are you happy with what you’ve been able to achieve?
A: Once you realize you have the power to rent a limo anytime you please, you know in your heart that you’re not like other men. To hear 10,000 people chant your name and then have them locked inside the venue until you have had a chance to learn all of theirs. My goal has always been to become the most famous man in the world by the time I am 50. Failing that, I will assume the identity of a respected physician. My album’s success will determine whether the world will ever come to know Dr. Timothy Tiga.
Turbo is happy to announce a new series of Ciao! remixes in the following months, starting with Sex O'Clockremixed by Playgroup, Matias Aguayo, and Jamie Lidell out Jan. 11th on Turbo / Pias!
The world we live in, on a very fundamental level, is flawed.
On the eve of my tenth album release I'm still writing my own bio and wondering if I should refer to myself in third person, analyze the past 15 years and justify bad career moves as artistic integrity, and promote myself as the unsung hero of techno and house; a mere victim of poorly timed strokes of genius (numerous!) and being born in the wrong part of the world.
Well, sarcasm never really did become me, and irony works only if unnoticed. Double fail.
It's easy enough to google up some old Jori Hulkkonen bio with real biographical info, or check out my discography from my website so I'll spare you the boring details of my "career".
Ever since the late 80's when my obsession with all things music started to manifest itself with an increasingly verstaile record collection and eventually some synths and experiments in songwriting, it has been quite clear to me that I'm destined to create my life's work within the business. The problem is that as an idealist cynic with tight grip on realism I'm well aware that 'the biz' is a sinking ship more or less, and I'm already dancerously close to the waterline. But the good news is that I stopped caring.
Here's why:
Having released my first proper artist album in 1996 for the French label F communications (defunct now since 2008, with my album "Errare Machinale Est" as their final release -coincidence?), I've managed to do something I never thought would be possible, something that I'm the most proud of all things in my career: never becoming popular.
After nine albums, dozens of pseudonym releases on superhot labels (like Rekids and Get Physical just to mention a couple from the past few years), close to a hundred remixes, my own radioshow on national radio for more than a decade (in Finland though, so it may not count), thousands of DJ gigs all over the world under my belt (OK I never actually counted but a quick calculation tells me it must be close to 2000 now), producing and writing songs for the likes of Tiga (whom I created in the first place), and having a reputation as a producer who can make an 808 kickdrum sound like a jazzy flute, you'd expect that there was a time when I was The Shit. But I never was!
Sure enough there's a lot people who never were "big", but are they still working? Releasing albums, singles, getting remix requests and DJing all over after 15 years? No. But I am. And this I see as my greatest achievement and there's a lesson to be learned everyone: If you never become trendy it's impossible for you to become untrendy.
Will all this change now though with my hotter than hot new album on Turbo, or the buzz around my Acid Symphony Orchestra (a piece I wrote for ten tb-303's and a 707, conducted by me)? Or the rumoured collaboration with Chris Lowe of the Pet Shop Boys?
It remains to be seen but I'm dedicated to give my best shot to not let it happen.
Man From Earth, my tenth studio album, is the first "Jori Hulkkonen" album not released on the now defunct F communications.
How will this change of label affect my sound? Is this the end of ballads, jazz and ambient? Of course not -not even for me - but the album is a deliberate (as in not forced) departure from the bedroom vibes with focus on jams for the dance crowds.
Recorded at my alppIVhouz studios, most of the tracks were intended for 12" singles so they are not album tracks as such, therefore the album is maybe not as coherent and subtle as some of my previous efforts. But what it may lack in atmospheric synthpads, "scandinavian mooddesign" and social commentary it makes up in catchy basslines, sizzling hihats and semi-danceable tracks.
On the A-side, the Loco Dice Dub is a perfect set-builder, one of his best remixes to date. Purist Loco fans might also be happy to hear that Tiga's vocal has been 99% extracted from this version, leaving behind only the echo of disco-pop in a solid, DJ-friendly groove.
Kaine's mix keeps things closer to the original, emphasizing the pop punch-lines with staccato beeps and a chunky beat. Positive vibes here from a bright young UK producer.
Finally, space-disco maestros Emperor Machine turn in another epic roller complete with a brilliant analog synth jam finale.
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