Beats + Pieces

Dublin punk-funk outfit Hystereo – aka Conor Murphy and Jack Byrne – have just released their critically acclaimed debut album, Corporate Crimewave. The talented twosome have been causing a stir with their fresh and vibrant style of electric house music since they were first spotted by Scottish label Soma two years ago.
Their debut single, ‘Winters In The City’, was released last summer to a huge clubland response. While their latest, ‘Validity Reason’, sounds like the bastard offspring of Daft Punk and The Prodigy.
Jack and Conor have been working together for five years. A mutual love of house, hip-hop and techno brought them together, fuelled with an anti-global disregard for the multi-national monopoly.
“There’s so much bullshit in the lives of these people,” says Murphy. “Not the local knob-end down at the office but the big corporate criminals at Exxon and Enron executives. It was clear there was a need for an album of this nature.”
Hopefully, Irish fans will get to see Hystereo’s highly-rated live set before the end of the year.
With albums from Dublin breaks duo Splitloop and Belfast drum ‘n’ bass don Calibre already confirmed to follow later this month and next month respectively, the announcement of a new album from DK7 (the duo featuring Cork producer Mark O’Sullivan from The Mighty Quark and Ork Recordings), Disarmed, on the Output label means it’s genuine boom time for Irish electronic music. O’Sullivan and his DK7 partner, Jesper Dahlback, precede the October opus with the single, ‘Where’s The Fun?’, on September 16.
An Irish electronic album rated by many as one of the best homegrown releases of 2005 is Moonpool from Galway-based Cane 141, which surfaced earlier this summer and saw the band record sessions for BBC Radio 1 and London’s XFM and Capital Radio.
A new single from the album, ‘1-10 And Back Again’, is set for release this month and it includes the previously unreleased ‘Like A Wild Stoned Cowboy’ as a bonus track.
It’s a busy time for international dance album releases too. Pick of the bunch this fortnight are German duo Bazoo Bajou’s Dust My Broom (out on !K7), a stonking dub meister-piece, and AGK’s The Liking Of Things (The Big Chill), which does the ‘80s retro thing so impressively that the trio have been invited to remix Depeche Mode, Moby and Goldfrapp.
Watch out also for Martin Solveig’s Hedonist, a diverse fusion of clubby flavours (Defected), Pest’s wacky hip-hop set All Out Fall Out (Ninja Tune) and Princess Superstar’s My Machine, which is produced by the likes of Arthur Baker, Armand van Helden and Jacques Le Cont.
Meanwhile, Le Cont’s Les Rhythmes Digitales album, Darkdancer (Wall Of Sound) is reissued with a bonus disc of remixes and videos.
New compilations surfacing include The Raid (Jalapeno), a funk and breaks fuelled collection of past Fort Knox and Jalapeno releases, Evil Nine Presents Y4K (Distinctive), a slamming breaks set featuring The Glimmers, Freeland, Riton and Minotaur Shock, and The Club (Perefecto), a compilation of new and rare Paul Oakenfold mixes featuring U2 and The Doors.
U2 also feature on Rush Hour 3 (Universal), a new old skool set which also boasts David Holmes among its three CDs of contributors. Osymyso’s The Art Of Flipping Channels (Antidote) mashes up TV theme classics with the likes of Coldcut and Bomb The Bass, while WipEout Pure is the official soundtrack of tracks from artists such as Freq Nasty and Paul Hartnoll created exclusively for the much-hyped new Playstation Portable game.
Last but not least, Little Movies Big Noises is a stunning DVD singles compilation from New York hip-hop stamp Definitive Jux.
And on the singles front, New Zealand funksters Fat Freddy’s Drop (who play Half Moon Theatre in Cork on September 9), release ‘Roady’ (Kartel) in new mixes from The Nextmen. Elsewhere, Detroit legend Kevin ‘Reese’ Saunderson is back with The Reese Project after a 10-year absence.
‘This Means That’ (suSU) will be followed by remixes of the old TRP classics such as ‘Colour Of Love’.
Word also comes our way that Saunderson will announce a couple of Irish club dates in the near future. Elsewhere, Miss Kittin (who plays TBMC in Dublin on September 10) teams up with The Hacker again on ‘1982’ (International Deejay Gigolo).
Fergie (who has just launched his new website at www.djfergie.co.uk) returns to Lush on September 10, ahead of visits to the Portrush club from Nick Warren (17) and Marco V (24). Silver City, from the 20:20 Vision stable, will play Bodytonic in Dublin on September 23.
Drum ‘n bass pioneer Andy C plays Remedy at TBMC on September 24, the same night that Dublin drum ‘n’ bass club Bassbin celebrates its 9 birthday at Pogo. All is changed at Spirit in Dublin on Saturdays. ‘Dreams’ is the name of its new weekly performance, and Al Gibbs from FM104 is now running it from the club’s main Body room. In the Mind room, meanwhile, Those Meddling Kids (aka Paolo Taylor and Barry Dempsey) claim to be the first Irish resident DJs performing on a weekly basis without the use of CDs or vinyl.
And finally, the Amsterdam Dance Event celebrates its 10 birthday from October 27 to 29.
More than 45,000 clubbers and 1,500 industry members are due in the Dutch city for the club culture conference which Tiesto claims propelled him to stardom. To book your place at this year’s event, log on to www.amsterdam-dance-event.nl … THE BEAT GOES ON!