Tha is the second track from Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works 85-92, a landmark ambient techno album released by R&S Records in 1992. Elsewhere on these pages I’ve deconstructed Xtal, but recently I transcribed this track for my Music Theory and Composition foundation students to demonstrate syncopation, and I thought I’d share it on this blog.
Discovered this song in an awesome playlist by AAA Badboy, which was 60s, 70s and 80s soul music sampled in Jungle records. Check the playlist out here.
After finally sitting down watch the Netflix series The Crown last year I was really blown away by the excellent soundtrack. English composer Rupert Gregson-Williams along with scotsman Lorne Balfe composed the music for season one and two.
An incredible track from Erykah’s 1997 Baduizm album. Otherside of the Game was written by Badu, Questlove, James Poyser and Richard Nichols. Wikipedia describes it as “effectively showcases Badu’s debt to jazz as well as soul”, which I can’t disagree with.
Get Down Saturday Night was a 1983 hit for Oliver Cheatham written by himself and Kevin McCord and released on MCA Records, peaking at #38 in the UK singles chart that year.
With my drafts folder brimming with 80% finished long-reads I thought it a neat idea to get out a really quick recreation of a classic Ibiza house record.
Ridley Scott’s 1982 Cyberpunk film-noir adaptation of the 1968 Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? changed science fiction forever. Similarly to how Star Wars and 2001: A Space Odyssey had done previously, and how later The Matrix would, the genre could never be the same after Blade Runner.
Taken from their 1974 Light of Worlds album, Summer Madness is perhaps one of Kool and the Gang’s coolest tracks in a slew of well known dancefloor fillers.
The Fat of the Land was the Prodigy’s third album, and a huge commercial success. Released in 1997, I still remember buying it on cassette and taking it home to listen to for the first time (there were no leaks or previews in those days!)
Aphex Twin is the moniker of Richard D. James, a Cornwall native whose output spans three decades, releasing on such labels as Apollo (R&S’s ambient sister label), his own imprint, Replhex and of course British indie Warp.