Twelve years too late

One of the crazy things that happens frequently as I'm researching tunes to put on the station is that I find some random stuff that I've never heard of that is just a hidden gem.

I think I first heard Urchin probably about ten years ago on the Winter Chill compilation which included the track Candlelight. It's a dark, mysterious track with some deep instrumental trip hop influences and though I loved the track at the time, for some reason I didn't follow up at the time to see if their other stuff was any good.

Flash forward to 2011 and on a whim I decide to check out their eponymous album which came out back in '99 (put into perspective how long ago that was...Hanson was big then) and of course the damn album is dope. Now I feel like an idiot that I didn't know about it sooner.

Composed of producer Jez Coode and DJ Nic One, this album's calling card is sinister beats and samples reminiscent of DJ Krush, DJ Shadow and Portishead. I even hear one of my favorites in there, namely Teargas & Plateglass, which is really too ill to get much play on this station. Think dark menacing beats that get into you skull and get your head bobbin and the boots knocking. This stuff is addictive, albeit best in small doses.

I've included the songs The Peddler and Ice Cream Van on the playlist this week. You've been warned.

Bollywood Week on Seduction City (aka Featured artist -- Paul Riordan)

If you listened to Seduction City over the last few weeks you heard an extremely well-produced song called "My Soul Is At the End of the Universe" by an act called Rados. Frankly, I can't even remember where I first heard it but I liked it enough to start digging a little to find out who the hell Rados was and what else he/she/they did.

What I discovered was that the brain behind Rados was not named Rados at all, but rather a British musician/producer with the more pedestrian sounding name of Paul Riordan.

A few years ago Riordan released a project called Two Hearts
which combined samples from old Bollywood movies with modern-day soundscapes -- in other words, perfect fodder for Seduction City. It's all kinds of awesome, and I've added a few to the playlist this week. Just goes to show that inspiration can come from interesting places.

So enjoy. And don't say I don't take care of you.

Get Bent

Taking the blue pill and going all the way down the rabbit hole this week, Seduction City is getting bent.

We are referring, of course, to the British duo Bent, purveyors of a trippy, cacophonous brand of downtempo aural-ness (probably not a word) that enchants, challenges, mystifies, and just plain tempts it prey. While solid producers in their own right capable of synthesizing samples and creating something wholly enthralling, they are also amazingly adept at remixing other acts' music and adding a sheen of coolness to it.

Listen for it this week.

The Thievery Corp Conundrum

Everybody seems to love Thievery Corporation, with their Kruder & Dorfmeister-flavored brand of trip-hop/downbeat grooves. Truth be told, I have mixed emotions about a lot of their featured albums but one thing that is beyond dispute is that they can remix the hell out of a song. In almost every case, I find their remixes to be preferable to original versions. And that is why their album "Versions" is the featured album this week on Seduction City, landing an unprecedented trifecta of tracks on the playlist. If you like TC, this album is essential. For everybody else it's highly recommended.

Here are some samples -- of particular note are the tracks "Angels," "Nothing to Lose" and "Desert." And if you like any of what you hear and click through to Amazon via the below link to purchase, Seduction City will receive a small commission which will go right back into improving the station and paying the bills. Win-win all around.

Rising from the ashes. Like a Phoenix. Reunited with its lead singer.

Why do great bands break up?

Vanity and egos, mostly. Usually the individual parts of the groups become too big for their britches and feel like they are being dragged down. So, the egos in question dump their minions to go it alone.

Sometimes it works (Michael Jackson, George Michael), sometimes it doesn't (Mick Jagger) and sometimes it's a mixed bag (Sting, David Lee Roth).

Like spurned lovers, the remaining members are left to pick up the pieces. Some soldier on with new singers (Van Halen) and some just close up shop and pursue their own projects (The Police).

File Morcheeba under the former category. After lead singer and face-of-the-band Skye cashed out to pursue the mythical "solo career" in 2005, the remaining producing/songwriting Godfrey Brothers released two albums without her to minimal notice. At least, I didn't notice. No Skye, no Morcheeba as far as I'm concerned.

They were so off the radar that I didn't even realize that they had triumphantly reunited and released a new album, "Blood Like Lemonade."

And shocker, the new album is good. Because it sounds like Morcheeba again.

This song "Self Made Man" especially caught my attention and is on the playlist this week. You can hear it in the YouTube clip below (note: not the official video).

Scooby-Doo and the case of the missing trip-hop band

Hey...there'll be a lot of new stuff hitting the Seduction City airwaves this weekend, but keeping with the theme of obscure trip hop outfits that seemingly disappear after one album (Kolida, we hardly knew ye) I added a nice little ditty today from a Philly duo called Beauty's Confusion. The song is called "Walls" and is from their solid debut titled "Breathe In" which came out in 2004.

They have since followed that up with...well, nothing as far as I can tell. Their Myspace page says that something was supposed to release in 2009 but that year came and went with nary a whisper from them. Add to that the fact that their official website is basically dead and you get the feeling that they never made it big and there is no follow-up. That said, aside from the lousy name there is a lot to like here, especially this song Walls and several others on the album. You can hear some samples below:

Bullet-time...Every time.

So like almost everybody else, I'm a fan of the original Matrix movie that came out in '99. The sequels, not so much, but the original movie was sick. Great action, great story and of course, the great music. But that's actually not what I'm writing about here.

Of course everybody remembers the great "bullet time" sequences in which the camera roams around a scene in which everything appears to be slowed down or stopped in motion. That movie was my first glimpse at visuals like that and was a true pioneer in special effects. Or so I thought.

Turns out that the effect had already been developed and used well before then in a few movies and music videos, including the official vid for Smoke City's Underwater Love
(which is on the Seduction City playlist this week) back in 1997. Check it out, it's pretty cool: