The Phil-Harmonic Podcast Episode 25

2 weeks gone and life begins to return to normal after January's madness. For me, February began with its own obstacles but, with a fresh verve and focus, another TPHP hones into view. And, boy, it is most welcome. The previous blog was a length Tolkien would have been proud of, so I'll keep this one brief … relatively speaking.

My podcast offering this week is in many ways the direct follow-on from our outing 2 weeks ago. Not least because it finishes tying up the loose ends from the last 2 or 3 months and brings us firmly into 2012.

Like our last episode, there's a rather tasty, back-to-back Anjunabeats double, there's another fresh remix of Sean Tyas' epic Lift, and, once again, we're packed with so much big house and progressive that we're generally pushing quite a steady tempo. Our golden oldie is just as big as last time out and, just as people may have been surprised to hear Rihanna kicking off the podcast in 2012, there's at least one track here that will raise an eyebrow or two. This does feel very much like Episode 24 part 2.

There are a number of tracks here that I've wanted to play for ages; particularly Gregori Klosman's huge remix of Jochen Miller - Flashback, Marcus Schossow - Lights Out, Richard Durand's typically robust single, Chopstick, and Cosmic Gate's track with Arnej, the impressively-titled, Sometimes They Comes Back For More. I’ve also included Gareth Emery’s new vocal single, Concrete Angel. The John O’Callaghan remix is causing a huge stir amongst trance fans at the moment and I guarantee that version will turn up in just about every podcast when it is released. For now we make do with the original version which, like Sanctuary, ain’t too shabby itself.

The tune that will raise the eyebrows is a pretty obscure remix by Thomas You (no, not heard of him either…) of the Mortal Kombat theme from October last year. I remember listening to Swedish House Mafia's Antidote before it went into Episode 24 and thinking that it sounded bizarrely like the Mortal Kombat theme, or at the very least like those cheesey 'rave' tunes of the same era. Maybe that was the attraction. So, it's pretty weird that only months later I've stumbled across an actual electro house remix of this hugely nostalgic film/videogame theme. The final decision to include it, and I did umm-and-arr over it a bit, was purely based on that nostalgia - I had both Mortal Kombats for the gameboy as a kid and I remember endlessly watching the films with my old friend Tom all those years ago - but then again, it does actually have a pretty sick drop on it anyway. Hopefully it will generate more smiles than frowns because it had to go in. Just be glad I didn’t play Scooter – Fire.

By the way, before I receive hate mail for revealing a fondness for the Mortal Kombat films, I do realise that the 2nd one has an IMDB rating of 3.3. It’s a film that has stood the test of time; it was sh*te when it was released in 1997 and it’s still sh*te now.

I found it bordering on the impossible to choose a ‘Tune Of The Episode’ this week. It was a straight shootout between Interno, Chopstick, Hybrid and Giuseppe Ottaviani’s rather slamming remix of Let’s Go Out Tonight. In the end, I gave it to Hybrid as the first grade A, top-of-the-shelf, uplifting trancer of 2012; fittingly released the day of my birthday.

And our oldie, well, it's a monster. Sat at number 16 in my own 2008 rundown of my all-time favourite 150 trance tracks, and coincidentally only one place above Advanced in that countdown, Adagio For Strings is the seminal classical-to-trance reworking. Tiesto's version is the one everyone talks about, and by everyone I mean the 'great unwashed' outside trance music. But Ferry Corsten's remix is head and shoulders above Tiesto's, bringing that burst of euphoria to an already deeply emotional piece of music. Tiesto’s is the ‘clichéd student anthem’; Ferry’s is the ‘timeless trance master class’. Plus, another record I bought an actual CD copy of as an impressionable teenager, one that hold’s pride of place in my CD wallet.

And with that, here it is....

THE PHIL-HARMONIC PODCAST EPISODE 25

1. Tommy Trash – Cascade [PinkStar Records]
2. Jochen Miller - Flashback (Gregori Klosman Remix) [High Contrast Recordings]
3. DJ Analyzer vs. Cary August - Mortal Kombat 2011 (Techno Syndrome) (Thomas You Electro Mix) [Mental Madness]
4. Markus Schulz presents Dakota – Sinners (KhoMha Remix) [Armada Digital]
5. Gareth Emery feat. Christina Novelli – Concrete Angel [Garuda]
6. Space RockerZ feat. Ellie Lawson - So Out Of Reach (Daniel Heatcliff Remix) [Amsterdam Trance Records]
7. Marcus Schossow - Lights Out [Tone Diary]
8. Cosmic Gate & Arnej - Sometimes They Come Back For More (Stoneface & Terminal Remix) [Black Hole Recordings]
9. Richard Durand – Chopstick [Magik Muzik]
10. Arcane Science feat. Melissa Loretta – Confession (Cramp Remix) [Adjusted Music]
11. Tritonal - Slave (Tritonal & Ben Gold Club Dub) [Air Up There Recordings]
12. Norin & Rad – Bloom [Anjunabeats]
13. Ost & Meyer – Scarlet Heaven (Dan Stone Remix) [Anjunabeats]
14. MEM – Interno [Reset Records]
15. Sean Tyas – Lift (Thomas Datt Remix) [Discover]
16. John O'Callaghan & Kathryn Gallagher – Mess Of A Machine (Sean Tyas Remix) [Subculture]
17. Stonevalley – Hybrid [Enhanced Recordings] <<<(Phil’s Tune Of The Episode)>>>
18. Nexus 3 - Last Flight (Activa Rework) [Discover]
19. Simon Bostock – Overload [Discover Digital]
20. Activa vs. Tom Colontonio - Enlighten [Conspiracy Limited]
21. Francis Davila feat. Flaminia – Let's Go Out Tonight (Giuseppe Ottaviani Remix) [Istmo Music]
22. William Ørbit – Barber's Adagio For Strings (Ferry Corsten Mix) [WEA Records]

By the time Episode 26 arrives, The Phil-Harmonic Podcast will be teetering on the brink of its 1st birthday. To mark the occasion, I will be taking the podcast back to my own roots and substituting the house music for more of the driving, up-tempo trance. If the last half an hour of this week’s episode was anything to go by, a full hour of the truly banging stuff is long overdue. See you in 2 weeks.

The Phil-Harmonic Podcast Episode 24

Well, well well - when I said in the blog at the end of 2011 that I probably wouldn’t have time to put together a podcast in January, even I didn’t expect to have the kind of mad month that ensued. Out of 5 weekends in January, I only spent one of those weekends at home. The others have all involved trips to London.

I’ve seen many old faces, cemented some new friendships, watched countless films, consumed frightening quantities of alcohol, travelled miles and miles by train; all at the expense of many hours sleep. Having already welcomed in the New Year, I’ve celebrated 4 birthdays (including my own), seen Paul Oakenfold and Protoculture at Ministry, been nominated for an award at work, witnessed a speech by BBC business Dragon, James Caan… I’ve even queued outside a busy club where several firemen were trying to talk someone out of jumping off a high-rise building. It’s been absolutely sur- f*cking –real. Oh and, the money has gone down on the villa for my 4th trip to Ibiza this summer. I almost can’t quite believe the 5-6 weeks that have just passed.

Given that the podcast has not really had a ‘normal’ episode since the backend of November last year, episodes 24 & 25 were always going to be the ‘catch up’ episodes – sweeping rundowns of my favourite tracks from December through till the start of February. These February episodes have had plenty of time to ferment in my mind and the unforgettable experiences of January have undoubtedly shaped them. To some of you, many of these tracks may seem ‘old’. But in fairness, any episode I do that is a review of any more than 2 months is normally a pretty huge episode.

I had said at the end of my last blog that I wasn’t bringing things back until the 11th of February. Well, I’ve been so long without it that I just had to bring it back sooner than that. For reasons I’m about to explain, I’m itching to get going again. Bear with me while I go on one of my ambles.

We kicked off 2012 with New Year celebrations down in London - the first house party set I’ve done in a while, once again alongside Ben Collier of Room 1ne Sessions. From my point-of-view, it was a mixed evening. Not that I didn’t enjoy myself; it’s just that these things often don’t play out as perfectly in reality as they do in your head.

After turning up in the mood to cause some serious musical damage and, quite frankly, show off, I turned into a bit of a stressing lunatic when my brand new WAV CDs started skipping and my carefully planned set went completely out of the window. The CDJs we were using refused to behave themselves all night which, at first, left me pretty damn frustrated. Panicking a bit early on, I played some tracks that I knew, even as I was cueing them up, were the wrong choices – just to keep the music rolling. I even cued up a track with both channels up for the entire room to hear. Unnerved and pissing into the wind slightly, I was never going to satisfy that die-hard perfectionist in me.

But some good things did come from the night however. A lot of people did still compliment my set, which was great, of course. But moreover, playing back to back with Ben later in the night I actually surprised myself in certain ways. To make it as perfect as I can, my podcast relies a lot more heavily on careful planning, harmonic track selection and a good understanding of the formulaic mathematics involved in beatmatching. Some people (and they really shouldn’t), see that as cheating.

But that night, having to ‘wing it’ a lot more, my beatmatching without those safeguards was actually pretty good. I don’t practice that side of my DJing enough if I’m honest, but it is still in me somewhere and a lot stronger than I realise. As I mentioned to Ben at the time, I thought my mixing was better when we went B2B. Maybe I was just more relaxed at that point, but I even started to impress myself. This is very very rare.

There’s a lesson here for all DJs of all levels; use all the tools you have at your disposal, but don’t neglect the most important side of things – that’s listening closely and trusting your ears. Your jog wheel skill and use of the pitch control in response to what you can actually hear is absolutely fundamental. Just because you can mix anything into anything doesn’t mean you should, but within reason, a good DJ should be able to when required. It just helps your all-round game to practice mixing ‘blind’, as I call it, every once in a while.

But, aside from my own performance as a DJ (which in the grand scheme of things is pretty unimportant), there was a lot of love and goodwill in the room that night. As always, it was great to see.

Given that I experienced a few issues on NYE, this episode is a little bit of an exorcism; an opportunity to reassert my ability and, more to the point, play some tunes that I didn’t get chance to play because of skipping CDs on the night.

In particular, I wanted to play Rihanna & Calvin Harris – We Found Love for Rachel and Jochen Miller – Bamm! for Nish. Both tunes I would’ve played had the CDJs not fucked me around. As is true for Swedish House Mafia’s single with Knife Party, Antidote, and Avicii – Levels, a tune I had planned as the big ‘welcome to 2012’ track. In Episode 24 of TPHP, we put those omissions right.

Antidote is, in fact, a tune I first heard on The Gareth Emery Podcast towards the end of last
year and I always intended to find a place for it somewhere on TPHP - as it is rather massive. News of that one seemed to spread like wild fire. But on a night out with my old History course mates during my second trip to the capital, a DJ at Vodka Revolution (of all places...) saw fit to play this monster and, on a skinful of ale, I saw fit to bust a move – although, I never need much encouragement these days. Consequently, Antidote is now fully part of the mental furniture of that virtual living space in my mind that is January 2012. What piece of furniture? I don’t know – maybe a rather impressive chaise longue.

Sander Van Doorn continued his relentless march in 2011 and, although his sound is significantly less filthy than it was a couple of years ago, I still regard him as one of my ‘EDM heroes’. His track Who’s Wearing The Cap with Laidback Luke was another tune I had waiting in the wings, ready to play in 2012. Listening to the Identity Year Mix on the tube on my way out of London that second time, again feeling slightly emotionally charged from the weekend’s rigours, I heard Who’s Wearing The Cap once again. I walked off the tube into Euston train station feeling like I could have floored Mike Tyson. The power of music for you!

And, the last tracks that I simply had to play in episode 24, the Anjunabeats Vol. 9 duo of Dyno and Mozart. Without doubt, my two biggest trance tunes of the last 2-3 months. I’ve heard a lot of criticism of Anjunabeats and particularly Above & Beyond themselves in the last 3 months – some of it fair, some of it not so fair. Anjunabeats should dabble in more ‘proper trance’; Above & Beyond’s sets are becoming a bit anodyne in some respects… BUT, the label’s output still fully encapsulates something fundamental about the music we love. For me, these tracks (and the new album itself) have reaffirmed my faith in the label.

Oh, and although there is only one track that can specifically be called 'old' in this mix - our golden oldie, for Nish, is the mighty Advanced by Marcel Woods - there are also up-to-date remixes of Sean Tyas' Lift and PPK's ResurRection. Always great to hear a new take on an old favourite.

And for now, we shall leave it there and get on with some music. Because all I really needed to say was: here is the first TPHP of 2012, the very best in dance music from December through till early February – my homage to the epic, breathless month that was January 2012 and my modest thank you to the London gang for their ceaselessly perfect hospitality during my latest 3 visits. I know some of you have been waiting for a while for this! So here it is…. *deep breath*


THE PHIL-HARMONIC PODCAST EPISODE 24

1. Rihanna & Calvin Harris - We Found Love (R3hab's XS Extended Remix) [Def Jam Recordings]
2. Sander Van Doorn & Laidback Luke - Who's Wearing The Cap? [Mixmash Records]
3. DJ Orion & J.Shore - White Birds (Tom Fall Remix) [Silk Royal Records]
4. Jochen Miller - BAMM! [High Contrast Recordings]
5. Mat Zo - Loop (The Essential Unreleased Mix) [CDR]
6. Avicii – Levels [Universal Music]
7. Swedish House Mafia & Knife Party - Antidote [EMI UK]
8. Armin Van Buuren - Full Focus (Chris Schweizer Remix) [Armada]
9. Heatbeat - Rocker Monster [Captivating Sounds]
10. Mike Koglin vs. Genix - Dyno [Anjunabeats] <<<(Phil's Tune Of The Episode)>>>
11. Mat Zo & Arty - Mozart [Anjunabeats]
12. JES & Ronski Speed - Can't Stop (Ronski Speed with Stoneface & Terminal Remix) [Magik Muzik]
13. Beat Service feat. Neev Kennedy - But I Did [Beat Service Audio]
14. Orjan Nilsen - Legions [Armind]
15. Sean Tyas - Lift (Sly One vs. Jurrane Remix) [Discover]
16. Inca - 2012 [Monster Tunes]
17. Richard Durand feat. Hadley - Run To You (Sean Tyas Remix) [Black Hole Recordings]
18. Darren Porter - Culture [Diverted Music]
19. Riialto - Trip To Tivoli [Crystal Source Recordings]
20. Planet Perfecto Knights - ResuRection (Paul Oakenfold Full On Fluoro Mix) [Perfecto]
21. Marcel Woods - Advanced [High Contrast Recordings]

And from here on in we are back to the normal routine... See you in 2 weeks. Love to you all, wherever you are!