Like some cross-dressing mashup of Minty meets The Presets via Front242 and Depeche Mode (and a faint whiff of Jonny Slut’s band Atomizer or is that just me?) San Francisco’s Ejector are not only rubbered up and bear-friendly (and probably NSFW in this video, but whose work doesnt like greased up wrestlers and techno bears dancing in rubber?) but they seem to be creating an interesting mix of influences here…from the EBN/Cabs early 80′s cutup/terror style video to the style and music. Other tunes are a bit more camp and in your face Bowery style, or just pop – but I prefer the darker EBM sound of this one.

And to keep it on the track of mashups – just to show you the Depeche Mode influences (they also covered Photographic) bandmember Ricky Terry’s tune Deep is mashed here with Everything Counts, neatly colliding with my own current Depeche Mode mashup obsession

If you’re using LAME MP3 encoder like I am, and upgrade to LAME 3.98.2 and hear whispery phasey effects, try either 3.97 or 3.98 as there seems something slightly odd with the codec, or at least working with RazorLAME.

I’ve just upgraded and degraded to 3.97 final – hmm maybe best to leave alone I was wondering whether they’d fixed that vbr track length problem with iPods.

I’d love to find a decent still-written Windows LAME MP3 encoder that allows -presets, tbh. RazorLAME looks like it won’t work with newer LAME codecs.

‘Dark electro / Disco noir’ is what I call a certain type of music referencing or sampling certain horror movie soundtracks from Goblin to John Carpenter that’s popped up recently in certain electro / electro house quarters, and it’s a music that I can connect to for several reasons, it’s dark and broody and seems to fit the state of the nation at the moment (and I also love the music of those 70s and 80s horror movies).

It seems like a lot of new bands from the French (Zombie Zombie, NOTe Found, daRoc, Justice, Maesthelvin, Mustard Pimp) to the British (Padded Cell, Emperor Machine, Does It Offend You, Yeah? and Sisters of Transistors) and even further outposts (Rico Tubbs, Tsk Tsk, Presets, Supermayer) have a common basis to me, so this is also a manifesto of sorts linking these bands together with older and less obvious inspirations (or just my guilty pleasures!) such as Fad Gadget, David Shrigley, Meat Beat Manifesto and Peter Gabriel.

So although not a ‘Halloween’ mix I’ve mixed together these horror-inspired tracks with some of the original tracks that I think inspired them, and thrown in some horror movie samples (can you spot where they are from?) as a nod to Halloween…and this is the first in a series. It’s also the first mix I’ve done in Ableton.

Thanks go out to several blogs that have helped inspire this in posting various tracks, and are blogs I regularly read also:

• Discodust
• Discoworkout
• Valerie
• Trashbagkids

Instamatic – Dark mix 1 Remember a Monster mix is not just for Halloween (113Mb, 109 mins)

• Justice – Planisphere 1/2
• NOTe Found – Error 403
• Zombie Zombie – What’s happening in the city ?
• Fad Gadget – State Of The Nation
• Late Of The Pier – The Bears Are Coming (Emperor Machine Remix)
• Padded Cell – Savage Skulls (Extended Version)
• Fad Gadget – 4m
• Maethelvin – Lost In Big City
• John Carpenter – The Bank Robbery
• David Shrigley – Loathsome
• Sage Francis – Civil Obedience
• Fad Gadget – Love Parasite
• John Carpenter – Escape From New York
• The Sisters of Transistors – the Don
• Padded Cell – World Of Mouth
• Fad Gadget – 4m
• Rufus Wainwright – Tiergarten (Supermayer Remix)
• Padded Cell – Far Beneath London
• John Carpenter – The End
• Meat Beat Manifesto – Oblivion/Humans
• TSK TSK – Un-Mustered
• Peter Gabriel – Of These, Hope
• The Presets – Girl and the Sea
• Justice – Phantom Pt2 (Soulwax Remix)
• John Carpenter – The Shape Stalks Laurie
• Does It Offend You, Yeah? – Weird Science
• Detroit Grand Pubahs – If Snow Was Black
• The Presets – Kicking and Screaming
• David Shrigley – The Jist
• SebastiAn – Victimo
• John Carpenter – Arrival At The Library
• Ragga Twins – The Homeless Problem
• Giorgio Moroder – If You Weren’t Afraid
• Mustard Pimp – Zombie Revenge
• Rico Tubbs – Gangsters (Original Mix)
• Mustard Pimp – Oh la la Satan (Stereoheroes Remix)
• Glowstyx – 7 Daze
• Legowelt – Electro Race
• Vangelis – End Titles
• DaRoc vs Preston Park – Serie B aka The Ice Entrance
• Eric Idle – That’s Death

OK you techno-g33kz out there can help me – I have been creating video podcasts but having nothing but problems, because although if you follow Apple’s specs for video that will play on an iPod, it still won’t work depending on what software you use (does this sound familiar? And people wonder why I have a dislike for Apple – it’s like QT Pro encoding, it runs really fast if you upgrade to Pro, and use their presets – yet runs slow even then encoding from other programs..hmm).

Sadly the best encoder I don’t have a copy of *ahem* and is really really slow – the first video podcast I did was created using the rough n’ready export function of After Effects – really slow, needs literally 10′s of Gbs of space otherwise it balks out, but weirdly the most compliant. How odd).

Anyway as I don’t have a video iPod or Zune I’d be really grateful if some of youse fling these files at them and see what happens (and yes surprisingly Zune does mp4 and m4v, at spookily the same specs LOL).

And can you let me know what iTunes (if you use that) says if you (right) click and say ‘Convert for iPod’ whether it says ‘No conversion needed’ or tries to do so, and if the original file works regardless.

Video podcast – encoded by QT Pro, Mp4

Video podcast encoded for iPhone, m4v

Video podcast encoded by Videora – 5G iPod, 320×240

I won’t include the iTunes created version. It seems to think everyone wants a m4v file at 640×480 HQ at 110Mbs. Nice. Thank you Apple for your bloat-friendly AppleTV-stealth-supporting specs. I’ll let you know when I win the lottery and can afford the bandwidth/file storage, mmmkay?

Thanks in advance – I’m this close actually dropping support for downloads/devices and going YouTube only, ironically that’s far easier, unless I can find a solution.

And they wonder why video podcasts didn’t take off like YouTube? I think their answer is right here in this post….

EDIT: I think I partly worked it out – strangely old MPEG-4s seem to not need being recoded – looks like only certain sizes or certain types (?) of H264 files are supported, but I’m still interested whether the iPhone ones work with iPods too. The first one should be the most compatible – or is it?

And yes those of you who’ve had problems playing it on your iPod try that one – it’s a new (not H264) version.

Skip to the End 10 Podcast with DJNoNo is live – crazy talk, crazy tunes and crazy three times ten minute mix from a certain insane little red robot DJ. Occasional transient noise outbursts by DJ Lumpy and Mr Herring, and hosting and the rest of the excellent of the tunage from Pete Juxtaposeur, going from rave to dubstep, electro, drum and bass to silly mashups, cutups and breakcore.

Includes 30% more unheard DJNoNo and Instamatic tunage too – some of which won’t be heard for a while, or not in this form.


Here’s the tracklist of the mix, featuring kazoos, accordions and banjos, and err, death metal…

Calamity Metal Party

Humpback Whale – Also Sprach Zarathustra
DJNoNo – Imperial Nanny (Bomb mix)
Wahkazoo – Rainbow
The Toy Dolls – Livin la Vida Loca
Darrell Glenn – Banjo Mambo
DJ not-I – Whatcha Waiting For, Get A Move On (Gwen Stefani vs. Mr. Scruff)
Dj Moule – Dance to my Hump
DJNoNo – Fuck Me Rock (aka Fraggle Ross)
Larry Tee Feat. Princess Superstar – Licky (Herve Goes Low Remix)
The Presets – Talk Like That
Instamatic – White Witch Dub
Amorphis – Light My Fire
DJ Donna Summer – Push It (DJ Donna Summer Edit)
Ten Masked Men – Push It
CheapyD – Ass & Tetris (You Forgot Poland)
Ed Cox – The Tetris Theme Tune
Bong Ra – Hello, My Cock is an Aardvark
DJNoNo – Cross Channel Pigeon
Aaron Spectre – You Don’t Know
Delia Derbyshire – Time to Go

Go on. You knows you want to.

P.S. Thanks to Jeb for pointing out the the Licky song