Upfront 022 / May 4, 2015

Neil Landstrumm

Edinburgh's analogue beast-man takes everyone to school with a new half-live, half-DJed set of raging bangers including a taste of his new Modini project.

About this mix

I call this my Swallow Me Whole Mix. Hardware made, hardware generated live set direct from my tom-cat mess garage / studio - The Witness Rooms in Edinburgh - of new forthcoming material and unreleased works. My collaborative project with Hostage, named Modini, features heavily here with tracks from the new 12" Tart coming this month on Glasgow's Dixon Avenue Basement Jams label and the unreleased Modini track that poses the question: "Get the answer right; How do you go to sleep at night ?"

Answer: I Live To Give

Other novelties and trinkets in the mix are a recent Bangface Weekender inspired jam, a track where "I Trade My Ass For Drugs" and a Chi-town inspired warning against prolonged tanning in the desert sun. The mix is interspersed with my own "Live Bollocks" patterns of joy and the painful: rhythmic gnashing of teeth. I showcase my moche gem from Sunil Sharpe's Earwiggle label called "The Rise of Slime" just in time for the Tory Party's general election campaign and we revisit a memory of eating "Cheeseburgers with Beltram" in Brooklyn many moons ago.

This recent journey through the sullying of my own good character ends with ripping off said Beltram's "Energy Flash" with a unique personal take on the track finally dry climaxing with "Mr Weird Loves Candyfloss" lifted directly from my last LP, Dragon Under. Available now in all good skips round Europe. P.S. can the person that started that Facebook artist profile in my name please take it down now. I don't like it.

Neil Landstrumm

Boiler Room says...

Neil Landstrumm is an inspiration to us all. 20-plus years into his music career, he's still all about precisely the raw, gut-shaking warehouse techno he started out doing. In fact, if anything, he's only got rawer and more belligerent in his delivery.

Sure, he may have brought in the occasional influence from grime, dubstep, bassline, funk, electro and hip hop here and there over the years. And he has collaborated widely: with Cristian Vogel (as Blue Arsed Fly), JD Twitch (Doubleheart), Trash Records's Mat Consume (the awe-inspiring Shit And Cheap), Tobias Schmidt (Sugar Experiment Station) and Bill Youngman (uhhh, Youngman & Landstrumm). But ultimately his sound is entirely his own: trippy, reverberating, and all about the physical impact of sound.

Which is not to say that he's samey. His control of his machines is second to none, so although his tracks almost all revolve around crashing drums, a banging bassline and nagging riffs, every one has its own distinct tweaks, making it ear-wormy as hell and meaning his huge discography is overflowing with gems that are still eminently playable now whatever their age.

From his early days as part of the No Future collective along with Cristian Vogel, Si Begg and crew, through his 2000s output on Planet Mu, to his upcoming Modini project in collaboration with fellow Edinburgh producer Hostage - which is going to see the light of day on a couple of labels including the still on-fire Dixon Avenue Basement Jams - Landstrumm has not once fallen off. And here he is doing what he does best: tonking out the brain-crushing demolition jams.

Joe Muggs

Joe Muggs

Joe is a key Boiler Room contributor. As well as years of freelance writing, he has been a compiler, curator and compere, and he drinks a lot of tea.

Tracklisting

    ← BACK TO BOILER ROOM