The lights have been on late at Blunt HQ, to allow Agent M to record his latest mix, entitled “Machinesoul”. It’s a collection of less well-known electronic music, fused with a few classics just for the hell of it. The man himself explains more:

“I was looking through some old house tunes that I hadn’t heard in ages, and I started thinking about how timeless some of it sounds. It could have been made yesterday. I got thinking about how much of an impact the whole house music culture has exercised on just about everything, then my mind started wandering off into early electro sounds, and some of the ground-breaking records that were released in that scene. They’re still influential today. Some of them more so than they were at the time.”

“I figured it would be cool to record something from across the genres, and across the years, but not just all the big tracks. Not the same old classics that get rolled out time after time. I’m not knocking great tunes (!) - I’m just saying it’s easy to overlook a lot of stuff, and, like any musical style, the work of the early pioneers is often overlooked or simply not known about”

“The result is this mix. it’s by no means an exhaustive or absolute list. If it was, we’d be here all day. It’s a collection of some less well-known electronic tunes, with some house, some acid, and a touch of electro to create something that has a common thread. Electronic machine music. The session start with an old electro track called “The Soul” (by Hashim). For me, this is one of the definitive tracks of it’s time, summing up the buzz of electro with the fusion of hip hop beats and electronic noises, setting an edgy and futuristic precedent for years to come. Personally, I put it up there with “Planet Rock” by Afrika Bambaataa, and “Hip Hop, Dont Stop” by Man Parrish. It still sounds great after all these years.”

“The mix of influences in this recording stretches across the world, from the spiritual home of Techno (Detroit), to the Southern Coast of England (Aphex Twin), to the Belgian legend of electronic music (R&S Records). However, I’ve tried to keep a common thread with the tunes in so far as they all, individually, are great stand-alone pieces of music for what they are.”

“It would have been easy to go off, and do an uptempo mix, or a classic sort of house mix. What I’ve tried to do here is pretty much the opposite of that school of thought by showing the versatility of the music that we now call house/techno/trance/electro/acid/whatever, after all these years. I’ve tried to do this by picking some of the less well-known, or rare tracks, from both classic and independent labels. Also, I’ve thrown in a few classic tracks that simply don’t get heard enough, such as “Nurture” by LFO, and “Thank You” by Jordan Fields.”

(Interestingly enough, “Thank You” was released on the UK downbeat/hip hop/experimental beats label Mo’Wax Records….Sorry…..Trainspotter mode…)

“Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. The mixing is a bit questionable in places (!?!), but, hey, the tunes are good!”

A full tracklisting for this mix is below. Click here to listen to the mix

1. Al-Naafiysh (The Soul) - Hashim (Network)
2. Dave Brubeck - B12 (Warp)
3. Intro - Kenny Larkin (R&S)
4. Mind Games - Basic Bastard (Ignitor)
5. Cathedral - Tournesol (Apollo)
6. Heliosphan - Aphex Twin (R&S)
7. Nurture - LFO - (Warp)
8. Six Pak - Tipper (Fuel)
9. Ware Mouse - 2 Bad Mice (Moving Shadow)
10. Ozone Breakdown (original version) - Renegade Soundwave (Mute)
11. All Night - Interfearance (FFRR)
12. Sola Cola - Cooler (?)
13. Guilty (Francois Kourkain mix) - Gintare (Amber Recs)
14. Nocturnal - Kenny Larkin (R&S)
15. Thank You Part I - Jordan Fields (Mo Wax)