The first refeatured artist since Thoughts for Tonight began is going to be… Organ Morgan. I reviewed his brilliant Avalanches-esque debut, the Cocaine Afternoon E.P. last year. This weekend he was kind enough to tweet about his new mixtape. I’ve been in a bit of a mixtape frenzy of late, having spent numerous hours streaming Mr. Scruff’s various five to eight hour sets from his Soundcloud, so the chance to see Matthew Mayes’ first under the Organ Morgan guise was met with much approval.

While DJing electronic music obviously requires considerable talent – knowing when to drop a certain tune, reading the crowd, and the technical knowledge to seamlessly mix hours in front of a club – it still doesn’t show off a record collection in the ways that other DJs can. Organ Morgan’s Garden Party Mixtape takes you on a four hour tour into the musical mind of Matthew Mayes. Loosely this mixtape does what it says on a tin, and if this was being played to you at a casual, sun soaked Garden Party you’d be thrilled, but there’s an eclecticism in play that pushes past the mixtape’s name. The result is euphoric and melancholic, happy and sad, drunk and sober, dancey and relaxed, up and down, and all mixed together subtlety with perfect timing.

From the electronic jitterings of Nathan Fake and Four Tet, to the sample-laden inspirational Avalanches, the chilled out nostalgia of Royksopp to the folk of Yeasayer, the girlpop Shangri-Las to the soulful smoothings of Tina Britt. The mixtape is relaxed, it’s calm, but it’s fused with an energy, and a commendable balance and pace that, unlike so many other mixtapes of this length, keeps you listening throughout.

The song selection will be familiar to many, certainly not all of it, but for the most part the likes of The XX, Gold Panda, Passion Pit, and The Go! Team will be recognisable. This is not to say it is not without its surprises; mid-way through I hear the psych-fuelled “What’s In It For Me?” by Avi Buffalo, and an hour later the afrobeat Amadou & Mariam segues into the chirpy pop of The Go! Team perfectly. I discovered a lot of good new (and old) music that I didn’t know or remember before, mixed together with three more hours of music I loved.

The Garden Party mixtape avoids the temptations to flood the listener with hours worth of rare and unheard of soul and jazz records; wonderful no doubt, but you’re always left dying to hear something you know as well. Instead it opts to educate and please, and where it educates it does so within the boundaries of what you will almost certainly like and love.

This mixtape reiterates that Matthew Mayes has got brilliant taste. His producer releases gets to chop and sample thirty songs to four minutes, but this mix allows for an expansion that is perfectly welcomed as well. Organ Morgan impresses again.

Download the Garden Party Mixtape (link via sendspace)

Click “Read More” to see the full tracklisting for the mix.

(more…)

The Good Natured a.k.a. Sarah McIntosh is just about to have a remix of one of her electropop songs featured on the latest Kitsune Maison Compilation. Over the Easter holidays she uploaded a Cure cover to her Myspace for fans, just a bedroom demo, but alluring nonetheless. We caught up with her for a quick Q+A.

It’s been just over a year since The Guardian named you their New Band of the Day, how have things come along for you, since February last year? 
After I was named Guardian New Band of the Day, I had to take a break from music to focus on my A levels, as getting good grades was really important to me. After that I picked it up again. I am still doing much the same, gigging and writing lots, but I have had time to develop my sound and find my own direction, which I am really pleased about.

What’s your recording process at the moment; equipment, software, etc?
It depends who I am working with. My demos are all done on Cubase which I have at home, but when I work with producers its usually Logic or Protools

Your electro-pop has prompted allusions to the likes of Kate Nash, Bat For Lashes, Lady Gaga, and Lily Allen. How do you feel about these links? 
I really like Bat For Lashes and Lady Gaga is an amazing writer and performer. To be honest I don’t really think much about comparisons; I just do my own thing.

The music press has a tendency to immediately correlate female artists with one another on the basis of sex, what are your thoughts on this?
Yeah there is, I actually think every female artist out there at the moment is very different and unique in their own way, it is shallow to group them all together because of gender.

Am I right in understanding you’re also at University? What are you studying?
No, I differed my studies in order to put maximum time into my own music, hoping it will pay off!

How did the Zebra and Snake Remix come about, and what’s it like to have one of your songs remixed? Is there anyone you’d like to work with, in terms of remixes, in the future?
Dan, my PR guy, also does press for Zebra and Snake, so it came about through him. Its great to have one of your songs remixed and really interesting to see which elements remixers pick up on in the song. Not really sure about who I would like to remix me in the future – I haven’t thought about it too much!

How do you feel about being being on the new Kitsuné Maison compilation?
Its really great, it will be great to get the exposure from it , they are a brilliant label.

Why the choice of Lovesong as a Cure cover?
Ha, I don’t really know. I did that cover on Easter Day whilst eating lots of chocolate, its not very good quality but it was a bit of fun and I am really glad people like it. I think its a beautiful song, so I guess thats why I chose it.

Finally, what are you most looking forward to in 2010?
Playing festivals in the summer, as I have never done that before, so I am really excited about it. Most of all though, I am excited about releasing “Your Body Is A Machine” as my single and showing people the video.

Thanks to The Good Natured for the track and Q+A.

Lovesong (Cure Cover)

In an interview I read recently with Mount Kimbie they commented on the fact that “electronic music doesn’t really lend itself to albums.” This, certainly, is something that I feel plagues a lot of electronic producers; too used to producing singles, or tracks for DJs to spin in clubs, the process of an album, seems to lose momentum. In fact, despite my love for electronic music, the number of whole albums that I see could stand up against non-electronic counterparts is depressingly thin.

It may be the sheer nature of electronic music; it is meant to be heard through a soundsystem where the bass vibrates throughs, the high-frequencies shake you, and the melodies warm you. But I do not believe that the electronic full-length is forever doomed to such a fate.

Bonobo’s latest album ‘Black Sands’, is my all means an album, a full-length, a record of mood, rather than a collection of songs strung together. The downtempo, trip-hop Simon Green has returned. His previous albums often lent themselves to criticism of being a tad too close to the lounge side of chill-out, but fears of the same this time around will quickly be diminished.

Black Sands is still downtempo, it is still relaxing, you can most definitely still chill out to it; but there’s a new dimension here that he left from his first records. All In Forms warms you like nothing he’s done before, Animals breathes jazz influences like label-mate Mr. Scruff does, and El Toro has one of the best brass sections an electronic song has seen in the past decade. His landscapes are lucid, and they merge together perfectly.

‘Black Sands’, like the best jazz records, moves as a lulling progression, up until that penultimate track, and then the title-track slows the pace; rebuilding, replaying, and re-evoking all emotion that’s just flooded your ears for the best part of an hour. The collaborations with Andreya Triana have been creating quite the storm, and rightly so, her effortless vocal is perfectly at home, especially on Eyesdown, and Stay the Same. The album’s real highlights lie elsewhere though. Whether it be the Prelude into Kiara that plays beautiful eastern-influenced strings with dirty bass that Bonobo seems too scared to have given away in the past, the wonderful Zero 7-esque Kong, or We Could Forever that has a chopped, distorted guitar sample that reminds you of Brian Eno & John Cale’s Spinning Away.

The most refreshing thing about ‘Black Sands’ is how perfectly it works as an album, and this is far more evident than in his previous releases. This record will lose you on a journey that only the best triphop can do, and by the time the Black Sands‘ final guitars are fading out, you’ll be left nothing but breathless.

Kiara
Black Sands