Test Pressing Podcast

Happy to welcome the man like Pavel back to the fold. A serious collector and mix. Go Pavel... (http://testpressing.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/165-PAVEL-PLASTIKK.png) Download (http://testpressing.org/audio/165_Tree_Line.mp3)

Brand new mix from Manchester-based James Walker for you here. A journalist and former music reviewer for BBC Manchester and the Manchester Evening News, James started producing mixes a few years back, and is a regular contributor to music websites including dirtyRadio. Taking in transatlantic low-down vibes from Jon Lucien to Zoo Kid, The Low-life Elite has become a swan song to yet another mental summer. (http://testpressing.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/164-WALK-MUSIC.png) Download (http://testpressing.org/audio/164_The_Low_Life_Elite.mp3)

DJ Milo needs no introduction to most of you. From Wild Bunch days right up to now with the Nature productions. Here he is with a mix in tribute to John Peel. I'll leave it to the music... (http://testpressing.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/163-DJ-MILO.png) Download (http://testpressing.org/audio/163_John_Peel_Tribute_Mix.mp3)

New mix from Ali Renault previously of Heartbreak fame here. His new self-titled album 'Ali Renault' has been described as sounding 'like one of John Carpenter’s themes, at others like a ZTT away day in Warriors-era New York' which sounds pretty good to us. It's out on November the 7th on Cyber Dance records and to have fun and promote it they are throwing a free party at the Baby Bath House on November 11th. For what you can expect on the night check this mix. Am liking his mangled twisted take on electronics. (http://testpressing.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/162-ALI-RENAULT.png) Download (http://testpressing.org/audio/162_Ali_Renault_Mix.mp3)

Mori Art Museum / Metabolism / The City Of The Future / 17092011 – 15012012 (click on poster for link to the Mori web site) Mori Art Museum (http://www.mori.art.museum/eng/index.html) (http://testpressing.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/metabolism-resize.jpg) I have to admit that this was hard work. I know nothing about architecture so I had to read every board. It took me about two hours to go round the exhibition. And because nothing was immediately aesthetically capturing, there was no, brain switched off, “Oh, I like that”, buy a postcard. It`s not as simple as that. It`s all about ideas. I did learn a lot. The first hall lays out the roots of the Metabolism movement. The need for cheap and easy-to-build accommodation following the destruction wrought by World War II. I was shocked by the Hiroshima landscape (an illustration of my ignorance), and surprised and disgusted by the pictures of fire-bombed Shinjuku (in much the same way as when I first saw pictures of Dresden). The History writers always seem to feel the need to beat the shit out of the already defeated. “Let this serve as an example”. Yep, that seems to have worked doesn`t it? Nothing bar a church in Hiroshima, and the remains of a railway station in Shinjuku, left standing. In all honesty looking pretty similar to the recent shots of Miyagi we posted from Japanese TV. Metabolism set out to address this problem with architecture based on prefabricated repeating units. Designing structures that could grow “organically” as required, simply adding more units, like a cell dividing. Some members of the movement took the cellular analogy more literally than others, and as a result proposed living spaces look like cross-sections on a microscope. Terracing like golgi. Communal pools like dividing nuclei. (http://testpressing.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/nakagin-capsule-tower.jpg) Post-War, as Japan entered the now barely-remembered economic “bubble”, the government anticipated a huge population increase (which never happened) and the “Metabolists” set about floating cities, reclaiming the sea and reaching for the sky. There are amazing models of cities based on DNA helices, spiraling further and further into the stratosphere. (http://testpressing.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/eco-polis.jpg) I guess the most well known example of the movement would be 60s capsule-living. Space Age batchelor pads where all you really need is a bed and a hi-fi (a drink and a hot lady?). The flagship for this domicile of the future was the Nakagin Capsule Tower Building, which I don`t think is still standing, but the idea obviously continues to the present day in the legendary capsule hotels that provide travellers in Tokyo, worse for wear or running late (usually both – career ladder karaoke to blame), somewhere clean, safe and inexpensive to sleep. (http://testpressing.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/capsule.jpg) One extension of this prefabricated, self-contained, gadget-assisted, leisure-filled future was the Discotic Space Capsule. A night club in a box. A reflective steel shell installed in the basement of a Tokyo hotel. Looking at the photograph, we were wondering what it must have sounded like. Pretty heavy on the reverb was the consensus, which, since it was host to mainly Japanese psychedelic bands, probably added to the experience. Visions of a room full of loaded hippies bumping into polished metal. Following a fractal or looking for the toilets. (http://testpressing.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/discotic-space-capsule.jpg) In all honesty, the plans and models in the exhibition are awe-inspiring, and demonstrate far-reaching solutions to problems that may be more pertinent now, with Daiichi and Daini only flirting with control (believe me everything is relative and the need for clean up colossal) and the globe locked into climate change. What was actually built is largely less inspiring. Prefabricated concrete tower blocks,

Arthur Baker was always pretty much there when we were kids. From the early days of trying to breakdance to 'Planet Rock' on a cadged piece of lino through to watching videos with best friends of him and New Order playing reels at the club that they'd just completed in the studio. From there he had some big balearic moments and massively did his bit in the forward movement of dance music. Dr Rob has as ever compiled a great mix of his best moments so here we go in the next compilation in the producers series. (http://testpressing.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/161-P14-ARTHUR-BAKER-FRONT.png) (http://testpressing.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/161-P14-ARTHUR-BAKER-BACK.png) Download (http://testpressing.org/audio/161_The_Producers_Series_-_14.mp3) Thanks to the man with the knowledge Dr Rob for compiling.