Spanish label Blanco Y Negro recently released “I Love Bobby “O”", a compilation 80s dance and hi-nrg pioneer Bobby Orlando’s greatest hits. Michael F. Gill at Stylus Magazine give us an excellent take on the release.

[Stylus Magazine review of I Love Bobby “O”]

Aside from my adoration of many of his productions, I am endlessly fascinated with the lower points in Orlando’s career, including shameless use of an ever-changing line of studio musicians and lip-syncing front women (years before Milli, Vanilli or Ashlee), his highly ironic homophobia, and his regrettable recycling of hit melodies and lyrics. One of the worst examples of said recycling is his reincarnation of the lusty hi-enegry hit “I’m So Hot for You” as a whiny midtempo ballads ala “I am Hot for You (and You’re So Cold)” by the New York Models.

For more insight into Bobby O’s somewhat checkered past, Global Darkness, home of dutch electro labels Bunker and Cremé Organization, offers a 1987 feature on Orlando published in British mag The Face.

[Bobby Orlando - The story of O @ Global Darkness]

It’s Giorgio Moroder Week at synth and music blog Musicthing.co.uk, and they’ve got more hilarious and obscure facts about Moroder than a circa 1980 Moroder has hairs in his ’stache. Did you know that in a 1978 interview with NME, Moroder accused Kraftwerk of selling out?

My personal favorite: Part 3.5’s pictoral spread of lesser-known and pre-disco Moroder album covers, including “Hilly Billy Man”, “Moody Trudy Stop” and “BLA-BLA-DIDDLY”.

[Click here for the 1st of the 7-part Ode to Moroder series]

thanks erin @ a brooklyn life for the tip!

Liz Copeland and guest Clark Warner host a special Underground Resistance edition of The Liz Copeland Program, aired November 18, 2004 on Detroit Public Radio station WDET. The show features a rare in-studio visit from “Mad” Mike Banks and takes a chronological journey through the UR and Submerge catalogue from 1990 to the present. An essential techno history lesson!

[Click here for tracklisting and download]

thanks to mad wax @ the vocode project for the tip!

Matt MacQueen over at Sonic Sunset posted a great laptop DJ set by BMG (aka Ectomorph of Interdimensional Transmission fame) for download. BMG performed on Matt’s Clinally Inclined radio show, based out of Chicago, late last year. Visit Sonic Sunset for more info and an interview between Matt and BMG.

[download - 1:11:15 min - 66.8 mb .mp3]

tracklisting:
B-52’s “Mesopotamia”
Trevor Jackson “Pink Lunch”
Savas Pascadilas
No Doubt
Bohannon “Lets Start the Dance” edit
Marvin Gaye “A Funky Space Reincarnation”
Gherkin Jerks “Din Sync” Larry Heard
K Alexi “My Medusa” Mayday MLK Mix
Rinder & Lewis “Gluttony” Moxie edit
Ectomorph “XXX”
KDJ 30 (prince intervied by mojo) (more…)

Gerald Donald, the man reponsible for many seminal and mystery-shrouded electro projects (including Dopplereffekt, Japanese Telecom, Arpanet and Der Zyklus), assumes his Heinrich Mueller identity and communicates with Polish online music magazine GAZ-ETA about the scientific concepts behind the new Der Zyklus release, Biometric ID.

[Interview with Heinrich Mueller by Pawel Gzyl]

.mp3 audio samples courtesy of Clone.nl:
Der Zyklus - Biometry EP (Dub Recordings)
polar coordinates
eigenface
iris-retinal scanning

Der Zyklus - Biometric ID LP (Clone)
biometric id
biometric system

Rushhour has posted some great mix sets by the superb DJ Yoav B of Delsin Records fame. His sets cover all sounds classic, from 70’s disco to 80’s funk and soul. Don’t miss!

[download ‘Boogie to the Top’ - 1:05:03min - 61mb .mp3]

Or visit Rushhour.nl and check out earlier mixes and tracklistings by DJ Yoav B and other goodies as well.

On repeat this week: Jena Paradies of Lifeform Project mixing up a perfect balance of haunting deep tech and cheery techno pop.

[download - 46:13 min. - 63.6 mb .mp3]

tracklisting:
Jackmate - Wolfen (Resopal)
Kiki - Up (BPitch Ctrl)
Basteroid - Against Luftwiderstand (Remix by Ada and Jake Fairley)(Areal)
Quarks - Königin (Tunnelblick Mix von Turner)(Kompakt)
Losoul - You Know (Playhouse)
Kiki - So Easy to Forget (BPitch Ctrl)
Rex the Dog - We Live in Daddy’s Car (Kompakt)
Frivolous - Can’t Stop the One, Two… (Karloff)
I:Cube - Arp Surface (Versatile)
Marco Passarani - Clair (Peacefrog)

Richard Juzwiak chats with Environ label head Morgan Geist about his new Unclassics mixed CD at Stylus Magazine. Is Unclassics the inverse of Mixed Up in the Hague? Could Purple Flash and Plutons and Humanoids be the same person? Is the Cybernetic Broadcasting System responsible for ruining the disco vinyl market? What does Geist think about unlicensed bootleg series like Automan and why does he no longer release charts? These and other secrets revealed at StylusMagainze.com.

I found Geist’s conflicting attitudes about “success” and media attention interesting. In the interview he reveals that both him and Darshan Jesrani as Metro Area were uncomfortable with the amounts of mainstream hype that Metro Area received, yet Geist seems defeated when he predicts that only music nerds will actually care about the Unclassics release. He ditched his original idea of re-mastering and releasing all of the tracks unmixed with liner notes and photographs, and he dismisses the idea of a co-producing a Plutons and Humanoids album because only ‘like four people” would be interested. I hope the Unclassics mix will prove to be a financial success, if not a mainstream one, so that Geist will be encouraged pursue some of these “crazy” ideas, and at minimum, keep the the Unclassics series alive and well for a while.

Join DJs Jon G. and Bethany Benzur this Friday night, November 19, as we explore the best of the past and present of electronic dance music, including electro, 80s, techno, house and italo-disco.

more info here…

ATLectro favorite and Seattle resident DJ Misha is occupying our speakers once again with a new dreamy deep techno and electro mix featuring the sounds of the Kompakt, Nature, Ghostly labels and more.

click to download [90mb mp3]

Tracklisting:
01. Ada - Eve
02. Sid leRock - Bull Dozer
03. Superpitcher - Mushroom
04. Miguel Tutera - Retraso de Informacion
05. BRS - Spring Dom
06. John Tejada & Arian Leviste - Fairfax Obsolete
07. Offset - Electro-Menager
08. Raiders of the Lost Arp - Funk Series Part 2
09. Daniel Wang - Berlin Sunrise
10. Jeff Bennett - Signposts
11. Phonique - Monster
12. Slabb - Relax Beat
13. Tomie Nevada - Night Becomes Day
14. Adam Sky & Shafiq Ettienne - Larnyx
15. Brian Aneurysm - Succubus
16. Minx - A Walk in the Park
17. Abe Duque - What Happened