Tag Archives: pete le freq chicagohousefm house music deep jackin caboose records llama farm

Time to cut the newbies some slack.

Posted by llamafarm on

I’ve seen quite a few posts recently with various djs complaining about the next generation of djs.

The main thrust of their argument is that technology has taken over from the skills of beatmatching, key matching and the timing of mixing.

 

So what do I think about this? Well, lets look back 15 years. It was the height of big beat, Daft Punk and Stardust were at the top of their game. House music pretty much ruled the charts. Everyone knew someone with a set of decks. Didn’t matter if they were direct, belt or even hamster-driven, there was one or two people out of each friendship group who either attempted to replicate the famous DJs of the day or had a brother (or indeed sister!) who had a DJ for a mate.

I was one the people who took up djing at this time. There was very little whinging from the previous generation of djs – there could even be said to be a bit of excitement about the newbies starting out on their journey of music-related discovery.

As with every fad, some people stuck at it (myself included), while others sold decks, and moved on to the next thing. The ones who kept going, learnt their craft, made different mistakes from the previous generation, and pushed the boundaries more.

 

So let’s compare this to the current crop of wannabe DJs. So what’s changed? In a word, the kit that is used now makes the mechanics of djing easier. And I use that phrase carefully. Because its not really what djing is about. The guys who came up with me from 15 or so years ago learnt on vinyl. Then re-learnt for CD. Then re-learnt AGAIN for mp3 and laptops. But how you do it doesn’t matter as much as what’s being put into it by the dj themselves. Djing is about linking your feelings about music, sharing them with others in a big kind of mutual appreciation session.

Very few people get this straight away. It takes time, experience, observation, a great deal of mistakes and a fair bit of self-reflection before you start to spot where you’re going wrong.

We may have learnt the lessons, but those doing it now don’t know them yet. They may not have experienced the same emotional connection yet, but can we really moan when they are just where we were all those years ago?

 

In conclusion then, we need to give these guys a break. Let them get experience and then see if they stick at it. The ones that do, could well be keepers. So lets not blast them for not knowing what we had to learn ourselves.

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LLAMA025: More Luck Than Judgement: 25 Releases from Llama Farm

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Global Release Date: 01/04/2014

Remixes release weekly exclusives from 11/02/2014

Featuring:

1. Bang Bang – Still Got Feelings (Arco Remix)
2. Ken Venom – Caribbean Nights (Corduroy Mavericks Remix)
3. Bang Bang – Freaky Love (Tom Special Interest Remix)
4. Tourist – Ticket to Ride (The Boogie) (Little Man Big Remix)
5. Bang Bang – Still Got Feelings (Jon Delerious Deep N’ Dub Remix)
6. Tourist – Ticket to Ride (The Boogie) (Freaky Behaviour Remix)
7. Bang Bang – Still Got Feelings (Demarkus Lewis Remix)

 

Well, after 7 years, 2 distros, at least 17 different artists and what can only be described as a sporadic release schedule, Llama Farm has made it to the quarter century of releases. We started out not knowing what we were doing, and eventually we learnt not to worry about it all and go on instinct.

So to celebrate this landmark achievement (well for us, anyway, since most labels don’t do one of these till release 50 or 100), we got together some friends and asked them to take a gem from our back catalogue, update, tweak, caress, and fondle it, and then send it back.

Thankfully, everyone pulled a blinder. So in this package of fondly remembered earworms, we have retouches from the likes of Demarkus Lewis, Freaky Behaviour, Jon Delerious, Little Man Big, Corduroy Mavericks, Tom Special Interest , and Arco.

There maybe even something else on the way from one of our mates too, but why open all the presents before your birthday?

So here it is. Enjoy. And here’s to at least another 25 releases where we made what we liked in the headphones come out the big speakers.

Cheers

Pete Le Freq
Llama Farm Recordings

Special Thanks go to Dimitri @ CMS for the Mastering, and Joe Savoy for his fantastic artwork.

Ned Flanders is back (AGAIN!)

Posted by llamafarm on

LLAMA024
Ned Flanders

Attack of the 50 Foot Llama EP

Global Release Date:
27/5/2013
Featuring:

1. Nothing Can Come Between Us

2. Paradise

3. Rhythm Slave

NOW AVAILABLE EVERYWHERE!

Now available at all your favourite outlets, including:


Llama Farm @Stompy Llama Farm @ Beatport
Llama Farm @ TrackitdownLlama Farm @ Junodownload
Llama Farm Online Shop

Well, you just can’t a keep a good man down. Now fully recovered from his spell in the wilderness, Ned Flanders makes a quick return to Llama Farm with 3 80s soul-jazz-funk cuts to grace your ears.

First up we have a bumpin vocal in the form of Nothing Can Come Between Us. Then the smooth operator that is Paradise, all relentless grooving smooth bass and keys.

To round out the ep comes the crazy as a middle aged woman hula-hooping in front of the Queen, Rhythm Slave. Yup, Ned’s back, and he means business

Cheers

Pete Le Freq
Llama Farm Recordings

Special Thanks go to Dimitri @ CMS for the Mastering, and Tim Wood for his usual high standard of artwork.

Daft Punk: Is going back the way forward?

Posted by llamafarm on

Daft Punk’s new album has got a a lot of people all a-quiver. The hype has been, well quite frankly annoying, due to the sheer scale of people tweeting/facebook posting.

One of the talking points has been its effect on the future direction of the mainstream genre of EDM. Will it cause people to return to house’s roots of disco, soul or funk?

For the last few years, commercial dance music has appeared to be a preset driven, laptop orientated template-fest, where similar sounds dominate. The major labels have employed producers to give their artists a house “edge”, and as I’ve previously written, when that happens, cash drives out the “soul” of music. Its homogenised, safe, and for the house lover, a snore-inducing experience.

So when the house music community saw that Daft Punk where returning to the party, everyone got quite excited. Then it was announced they were working with Nile Rodgers of Chic fame. Could DISCO be back? Will they move the dance music community back towards live sounds?

Err. I don’t think so. Reading the album notes to their new album, the sheer scale of the live element is incredibly impressive. Orchestras, session musicians (some of the best in the world!). This all adds up to one thing. A boatload of cash.

The last EDM push was based on what anyone could make on their laptops. (What I like to call the “Ooh I’ve got Ableton, I’m a producer” factor). What Daft Punk have done, is take the bit they like from that, looked at what worked for them and what didn’t, and decided that actually, the original ways are the best sounding for them. There was talk of experimentation with various ages of microphones for the best sound. Lets be honest, not everyone can afford those.

So what exactly am I getting at? Will the return of Daft Punk have the same effect as their initial impact? Probably not. But at least it might make some pull their fingers out of their backside and delete their templates.

Its only the return of Ned Flanders!

Posted by llamafarm on

LLAMA023
Ned Flanders

Missing a Vital Piece of the Puzzle EP

Traxsource Exclusive:
Global Release Date:

Featuring:
1. All Sheryl Wants to Do
2. Bit Broke
3. Memory Loss (Ned’s Forgotten Edit)

Available here:


Llama Farm @Stompy Llama Farm @ Beatport
Llama Farm @ TrackitdownLlama Farm @ Junodownload
Llama Farm Online Shop

Here at Llama Farm, sometimes we find people who don’t want to be found. Or indeed, they need to be. We found Ned Flanders wandering in the house music wilderness, clutching a usb stick of his productions, dehydrated from a lack of indeedily funkin doodily.

Always happy to help out an old friend, we nicked the usb stick and got those tunes out!

So here we have three of Ned’s best. First up is All Sheryl Wants to Do, which is more than a little bit obvious! Followed up with Bit Broke, which is a kind of mantra for these times. Closing out with a new re-edit of one of his short-lived earlier tracks – Memory Loss.

Then we packed him off to A & E to get sorted out……

Cheers

Pete Le Freq
Llama Farm Recordings

Special Thanks go to Dimitri @ CMS for the Mastering, and Tim Wood for his usual high standard of artwork.

MOSHUN – BLUR EP OUT TODAY @ TRAXSOURCE

Posted by llamafarm on

ITS OUT TODAY PEOPLE!

http://www.traxsource.com/index.php?act=show&fc=tpage&cr=titles&cv=176847

Llama Farm Recordings proudly presents its latest release:

LLAMA020
Moshun
Blur EP
Released Exclusively @ Traxsource: 28/8/2012
Global Release Date: 11/9/2012

 

Featuring:
1. Moshun – Deep Jazz

2. Moshun – I Feel

 

Usain Bolt. Bradley Wiggins. Casey Stoner. All these people move quickly. And indeed, so do Moshun who bring us 2 slices of deep funky jackin house with a bit of techiness and grooves a plenty.

 

First up is Deep Jazz, which hooks you in, hypnotizes you into it and then spits you on to the floor like some dirty house spittoon. Then we have I Feel. And you will, oh yes you will.

 

Cheers

Pete Le Freq
Llama Farm Recordings

Special Thanks go to Dimitri @ CMS for the Mastering, and Tim Wood for his usual high standard of artwork.