The Poisonous Gases camp from America just upped a new compilation to their bandcamp page. Entitled Skweee Cruise the 18 track collection listens like a veritable whose who of synthetic electronic funk, with outstanding contributions from Myor label boss Coco Bryce, our good buddy Boss Kite, the incredible Slow Hand Motem, the innovator himself Daniel Savio and... um... yours truly - with a tongue-in-beat I made some time ago for Slugabed called, 'Greg Says...'
Available digitally for under $10 US dollars the album is also seeing a physical release across 2 x 12"s which you can pre-order now for $19. The LP version promises to be shipped on or around the 21st January.
In honour of their 1st birthday celebrations on 20th May, Brighton based club night Donky Pitch, have bestowed on us the honour of hosting the second piece of exclusive content - the first being a Fulgeance mix featured exclusively on Rhythm Incursions - in promotion of their first anniversary. The DP guys have tried their utmost to bring the sound of skweee to the South of England, placing it in a 'beats' context, booking skweee pioneers and UK beatheads alike whilst fully supporting UK artists like SR chums Rekordah and Slugabed.
Having run for a full 12 months now, we've been very vocal in our support of the DP family, co-hosting TOKiMONSTA's Sonic Donky mix when she came over to grace Brighton's pebbles last year and surprising DP resident and UK skweee producer, Boss Kite, with our use of his interview answers to form one of the most enjoyable editions of our Quietus column to date. And the reason for our continued support?
Skweee.
Having stumbled across the sound of Scandinavian synthetic computer funk through people like Randy Barracuda or Rigas Den Andre and on compilations like the Ramp/Flogsta Danshall released Skweee Tooth or Harmönia's International Skweee Volume One it became somewhat of an borderline obsession, infecting both home productions and writing schedules. It's all about tunes like this...
Anyway - point is, they're a year old, and - being that we know a little of what it means to put all your energies into something for an extended period of time - we'd like to take this opportunity to officially say: happy birthday! Its just a testament to their attitude and friendly demeanour that they've allowed us to say it with an exclusive retrospective mix of skweee pioneer Randy Barracuda, put together by Kidlogic, so we sought them out to say their piece...
Sonic Router: What's been Donky Pitch's highlights this past year?
Donky Pitch: There are a few…definitely the ‘We Call It Skweee’ screening. We packed the venue on a Tuesday night. It was great to see 70+ people reach that on a cold winter night. Debruit’s set in February was awesome, we’ve never been in a club so jam packed with such a great atmosphere. He slayed it. And being asked to play the Skwee-a-thon in Helsinki on May 16th is pretty dam cool. We’re the only UK crew on a line up that features artists from Finland, Norway, France, USA, Spain amongst others...
Randy is the Tits. What does it mean to you guys to have him come over? What's so special about him?
We’ve been representing the skweee sound all year, but Randy is different to anyone we’ve booked before. He’s one of the originators, a true pioneer. From his early tracks to his newest single he has always been on point. We’re wet with excitement at the thought of his live show; Ross ‘Boss Kite’ almost puked when we told him.
Whats in store for the bday?
This is our biggest and funnest line up to date. We’ve been after both Barracuda and Fulgeance since day one and were seriously happy when we confirmed them both. It also brings together all the local producers and DJs that have ‘pitched’ in over the year to make all our parties so damn fun. We’ve printed up some T-Shirts and other Donky goodies to giveaway. Expect some drunken fools throwing badges into the crowd at 2am.
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Donky Pitch turns One at The Volks in Brighton on Thurs 20th May 2010 with Fulgeance, Randy Barracuda, Slugabed, Rekordah, Ghost Mutt and Boss Kite.
1. Ketamine Strut 2. Black Vaseline (Featuring Mesak) 3. Love Axe/Heavy Metal (Featuring Michael Black Electro) 4. Duck Butter 5. Adult Games (Featuring Mesak & Michael Black Electro) 6. The High 7. Skweee Like A Pig 8. Rick James Is Dead 9. Overnight Romancin' 10. Group Sexxx (Imatran Voima) 11. Streisand Effect
After listening to a lot of the margins music commonly referred to as 'skweee,' of late I'd been mulling over the best writing options afforded to me in my quest to document a style of music I was becoming more and more besotted with. Not knowing much of the gentry or history behind the movement itself - hailing from Scandinavia, the primitive sound has really blossomed over the last few years - but sharing a common love of the sound I approached Brighton based producer Boss Kite, hoping to harness his passion for the genre and his productions as the source of a further investigation.
Catch him in the chat and the mix over at The Quietus.
After a quick nudge in the right direction by the minds behind Brighton's skweee heavy night, Donky Pitch, we've come across a gem in Boss Kite and his free 4 tracker 'Clef Basset.' Drawing from the same circuit boards as his Scandinavian synthesizer bretheren he's got an impeccable talent for swampy bass frequencies and glittery flutters of uber melodics.
