This is the archive of gabba.cc, one of the first mp3 blogs.
I'm sure you all know Gabba is my baby and since the re-launch a while back we've had a few false starts and annoyances getting it to work as a meritocracy, I'm sure you all also know I can be a little heavy handed in judging posts.

So to re-address the balance, and hopefully encourage a few more flippant posts me and Mister Jib have agreed to flood the site with the finest "nearly made it"'s and "couldn't figure out what to say"'s and "been posted elsewhere"'s, to inject a bit of fresh vigour into the site..

First Up: John Baker. That something so stupid and playful probably took 3 weeks to compose from tiny slithers of cut up tape could probably be seem as a metaphor for Gabba, lots of code just so y'all can grab 3 minute chunks of the latest Swedish pop nonsense..

Following the Radiophonic template but rather than tape loops Sakamoto uses almost all the synth's available back in 1978, this again has that fuzzy analogue sound, somewhere between organic and plastic, like bamboo...

Lets go JK!
This sweet jap bit pop band seem to have a love connection with the greys, but hey, i dont really understand a word of it.

Doctor who-oo! Oi! Doctor Who! this is taking some inspiration from them klf folk or well, old kiddy fiddler. I know jk prefers 'borderline' from this album, but what with the sax on that track - it's another case of knowing when to suck...and when to bl0w, what d'ya reckon lunsti?

I've been trawling the post punk vein since getting into Josef K a couple of years ago. This is from a little know Australian band, and was a real lo-key surprise amongst all the spiky funk and arch electronics from this compilation > Can't Stop It!

From Frederic Galliano's Kuduro Sound System comp - his who's who of them Angolan young folk who have developed the Kuduro phenomenon. Another track that i dont have a clue what they're (in this case) spittin about, never mind i'm enjoying it's upfront hip-hop style mixed with the congotronic rhythms and the neat little touches of acid.

1981 off kilter post punk, Neneh Cherry's vocals are full of youth (she sounds about 12), she got that stuff in her eyes...what ever that stuff is? she's got it.

Base Bass. The best music always goes for the jugular, there's not much to this but a wobble a infections New Orleans call and response rap and a retro sounding drum machine clap, do you need any more.. 

Smooth Metropolitan electro, crisp as a 808 snare anonymous as public transport..

Radioclit have been busy lately - shit i wish they'd come to birmingham, i first heard of them at the time when you could browse all users of gabba - whats going on with that link that dont work jk? this was the last track from their last podcast and is now available on their cd thats being deservedly hyped all over mp3 blogland. I effin love the clit.

So if I'm going to post 10 tracks surely I can get away with this one.. From the master of the smooth r&b electro hook, last years Ryan Leslie album seems to have gone under the radar, maybe the record label are re-recording it with some bigger stars.

Hey thats nothing jk - this is just god damn odd, but great. the weirdest cover version i've possibly heard. in many respects just like the track at the bottom of this list - ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST!

Back to reality...One of hundreds of amazing lost classics rediscovered by the CBS robots and there associates, this is the sweetest plucked disco bubbler..

At the beginning of this track it sounds like its gonna be a fresh electronic instrumental "moodmusic or dance music, which rely much more on the groove and the ambience of the song to emote", which it (almost) is.

for cellophanesky :)

Working backwards. A lot of the Fields music from the new album sounds so deceptively simple it could almost be a by product from an automated process, like the first Pole albums sounded like fragments from Stefan Betke's cutting from floor at Hardwax, the Field sound like a even more digital version, data in echolalia.

Sonic Youth's Rather Ripped, though i hate to lazily tag it was probably my favourite album of last year, and for something I've listened to so often I'm finding it hard to say anything about this track, so i guess, just enjoy...

Hey I'm expecting some stick for this. it's surely more self indulgent than andre's XTC post  for example. this '87 Arthur Baker mix oozes the balearics and is definately a classic that i think still sounds great.

if your flooding the place, let me break the levee. this has been kicking around for a while. Panther seems to really annoy some people,and i like that. i think this track is great too. 

the disco legend Patrick Cowley. i think this came out on his first proper album which was released just after he died in 1981. or as it says on his biog site " he got the decease when his music was reaching top ".  a great track, which WILL move a crowd ( of non chin touchers). are we drowning yet?

Experimental Minimal techno act from Ekaterinburg (Russia). Fresh and groovy sound.

Boo Radleys 'Lazarus' remixed by Saint Etienne.

6 minutes 22 seconds.

from Boo Radleys 'Lazarus Remixes' released in 1994.

file under alternative.

a great track by Boo Radleys remixed by a great group - Saint Etienne.

the remix is (almost) unrecognizable compared to the original track, and really doesn't sound like Saint Etienne either - but it's good.

you can tell Saint Etienne must have been listening to a lot of Warp's Artificial Intelligence series at the time.



Well hello Gabba, long time no see.

This tune has been on loop most of the day. It's absolutely great, sounds like a glitchy Daft Punk, and I reckon would destroy any dancefloor. Enough said :)

1983 synthetic goodness and vocals from a band strangely born in Tempe, Arizona. This song is from Tone Set fantastic LP "Calibrate ".

After much morning after deliberations between myself and Misterjib and many changes of mind i finally settled on this to bust my Gabba cherry so here is a piece of 8bit nonsence from a man better known for his parisian gitchcore. Pop it

Defining Moments. More optimism and self congratulation as we're 5 today, so here's DJ Hells first record, before the haircuts and the clash-fashion nonsense that the original International DJ Gigolo is now associated with this slice of European visionary electronics happily defies fashion, as I hope Gabba will for the next 5 years. Thanks Dee x

I admit I don't follow Kompakt releases religiously but 2007 has been rather a good year for the label and I've found myself enjoying very much their last string of releases.

Opening this year they released the single, Trauermusik, which has become one of my favorite tracks coming from the label. The song was created by the collaborative unison of Ewan Pearson and Al Usher under the moniker, Partial Arts. Ever since I first heard it in February it's been on constant repeat on my player and I can safely say it hasnt lost one inch of splendour.

Stylish Parisian sounds released on MoWax circa '94, remixed by Richie Hawtin into this warehouse friendly monster. I'd forgotten how good this is. infact its making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up - but it does bring back great memories for me. Louder the better - dont even bother playing it through tinny laptop excuses for speakers.

Fake New Order, but fake New Order done exceptionally well, right down to the melodica and perhaps intentionally hokey lyrics. A Piano Magic side project, but more poppy.

My first gabba post - a twitchy techno classic from the elusive Jamie Hodge.As far as I know this only ever appeared on the first Trance Atlantic cd ( don't let that put you off ! )Never the most prolific artist he's more recently been prone to electronic jazz noodlings, but the drum roll in the middle of this still gets me every time!

A Perfect Cliché, this is taken from DJ Hell & Thomas Bar's New Deutsch compilation and could almost be a prototype for all the more self concious electro fabrication that Gigolo specialised in during the 90's..

RIP Kurt Vonnegut. Here's proof that we're living in the future where nuclear bombs really do sound like synthesisers.

Hot Odessa and Rainy St.Petersburg. Two producers. One Dj. And old good mash up technique.Latin drums, strong bassline and voice like a Capitan Spaulding, hero of a "House of 1000 corpses". Enjoy.

This is just odd but i can't help but like it, from the grandfather of the Parisian Electro scene, Mr Ozio; who ignited the scene with flat beat and consistantly turns out one querky track after another. "Post op pre op i just can't work it out"  

this track is bl0wing up in th UK right now!

chek the video on YouTube!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-MYVv4tgQc

hope this will get my points back?



Sorry for the last post, I have to be more exclusive in the future: so here's Fall out boy's new single!!!
No seriously, Familjen is from the same small Swedish town as Andreas Tilliander. This is one of the instrumental tracks on the album - the rest of the vocal tracks is in swedish.Good stuff.
Also check out the video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=4HK5fCS0_II

Spring Heel Jack's 'Root'.

5 minutes 16 seconds.

from Thurston Moore's 'Root' released in 1998.

and Spring Heel Jack's 'Oddities' released in 2000.

file under electronic.

the genesis of this track was a one minute guitar piece by Thurston Moore, which was then transformed by Spring Heel Jack into what we have here. Thurston Moore is of course the guy from Sonic Youth, but this doesn't sound like them. it's also not what you would expect from Spring Heel Jack. they're probably most well known for their earlier drum and bass productions, but their more recent stuff has been more abstract and experimental, and this track is no exception.



WAP 4 (a) . Following a similar groove to the Neil Landstrumm Kids Wake Up track posted a while back, more full spectrum re-imagining of the Bleep sound.

Like a lost Yazoo record or maybe a Knife B side. Vintage lost flexi pop from the 80's discovered with an amazing amount of other stuff from the unofficial historian curators who put together the "the anaesthetic's wearing off" CDR compilations (this is from the 10th(!) compilation)..

Concrete Music. A Wiley remix from 2005, Coming on like a sonic assualt; Car alarm vamps, machine guns and pnumatic bunker-bass.

Breaking my own rules..Major label sponsored Remixes seem to be default mp3 blog fodder by the looks of the Xeroxed blogs on the hype machine, much as remixes used to be the way of selling rather weak re-packaged CDR singles for 99p a few years ago.

Anyway, I'm not sure this remix is major label sponsored and its certainly not weak, Trevor Jackson takes this potential electro-pop-radio monster back in time to somewhere between hip-house and old-rave (1990 to be precise), a Waltzer favourite..

Here is an interesting take on the hip hop classic The Message originally by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five reworked here by Datashat in a vocoded Italo stylee, I like it even if it's a bit of a cheep shot.  

Do you feel a sense of dread at all this unseasonal sunshine? Well if it's going to be lovely weather for the appocalypse, here at least is your soundtrack. Think Cola Boy era St. Etienne, light as a feather and camp as tits but just the ticket for dancing on a beach as the sea encroaches to drown us all.

With 80's pop nostalgia showing no signs of abating maybe this summer we'll finally get the full on freestyle revival I'm always hoping for. In the meantime here's a couple of original latin pop nuggets to keep you going. Timbo / Nelly eat your heart out ; )



What can I say. It may be cheesy, but when the sun is shining it doesnt really matter does it?



someone asked for it, but I don't remember who

Plaid's 'Fell'.

4 minutes 23 seconds.

unreleased from 2001.

file under electronic.

according to discogs, this track's only official release was as a bonus track on the japanese version of 'double figure'. for the rest of the world, it can still be found on warp's 'double figure' microsite. there is also an unreleased track called 'awotm' on the 'spokes' microsite.



This is one of the German MIAs, not the Sri Lankan/British MIA - this is Michaela Grobelny, who runs the Sub Static label. She's been putting out tracks for a long time; this one's off her new album, Bittersüss. Starts of sounding like the sort of melancholy techno that Lawrence/Efdemin/Pantha du Prince make, but with vocals that aren't quite decipherable. About halfway through, a growling bassline arrives that sounds like it escaped from a Dominik Eulberg production. Just the right mix of understated and flamboyant.

I think this song is one of those you either lover or hate. I love it.

Boom Bip returns after a few years absence and seems to have totally taken a U-Turn production wise. Gone are the lush strings, deep bass and hip hop style production in favour for a more electro style sound. This is taken from the Sacchrilege EP and might sound like a lot of music out there but as a Boom Bip fan not only was i suprised by the change of style, i was impressed by the production. Looking forward to the new album 

Mix Mash-Up by DI OmaR

ACD-Voice/Saint-Denis/Mille et Une Nuits (DI OmaR "Marché Aux Puces" Mash-up Mix) / sleeparchive/Grand Corps Malade/Shahrzad

on [1P01] DI OmaR - Lavazza EP (May 2007)
White Label: 1Pures.

Look for the 2d part, a sublim oriental voice, with winds and a flute, under this monumental sleeparchive (minimal) track

Tek it !

I'm finishing up a master's thesis on ghettotech (don't ask), the raunchy electro sound from Detroit; this has turned out to be one of my favorite tracks in the genre, from Chicago's DJ Deeon. Simply, dirty, and under my skin for weeks now.

More Sleaze. In response to Gavin's upload, some ghetto tech with a slightly more feminist (!) slant, a smooth yin bass loop to dj deeons yang pelvic bass thrust.