Gathering the leaves...

Loving Jochen Trappe's new single on Connaisseur. Of course a lot of you will be well on top of Connaisseur by now, they've been emerging as one of the coolest Berlin house labels for some time now. Trappe's EP comes out of leftfield tho, gone is the deepness of earlier releases, this is red hot techno. It's difficult to pick one clear winner on a very strong release, both "Bypass" and "Crosstalk" are instantly arresting, edit heavy lo-fi techno in the style of DJ Koze, a real change of pace for Connaisseur.

Also worth checking out is Sender's third great release in a row after what seemed like months of forgettable 12s, that's Jens Bond and Benno Blome's "Tentacular". Jens Bond had his debut on Highgrade records recently which found its way onto the radio show, loved "Rocket Queen" in particular.

A little disappointed by the new Heckmann/Zenker on AFU, the follow up to Heckmann and Kaufelt's "Kookaburra". Really loving the new Mobilee Back to Back 12s, even the Jesse Rose mix, I may have to break my irrational prejudice towards Jesse, not least since I hear on the blogvine that he is mixing the new Body Language CD on GPM.

Andre Kraml has done a great remix of "Sideways" by Miss Yeti, great skulking house music. And I'm really feeling "Edie 11" off the new Weatherall 12, dubby house with cut up acoustic guitar, has a different feel to it.

Also really feeling Nass's productions lately, his housey 12 on Firm is great, with a nice Basic Channel vibe to it. And his "Teil" release on Nummer is also brilliant (another stoic techno label which has been releasing great and surprisingly crossover smashes that would probably be a lot bigger if they weren't in such serious looking sleeves) Both of these are in recent radio shows linked below.

Since you read all that and hopefully feverishly took notes, here's the Weatherall and another little treat: Ripperton's majestic reworking of Bjork's Pagan Poetry, in all its unmixed glory. This is forthcoming on vinyl so if you really like it go out and buy it.

Oh yeah and a final word to say adios to Carbon Records, I worked in Carbon Dublin for 2 and a half years and learned a lot while I was there, sold a lot of records, sometimes I knew exactly how to help people get great stuff they liked, other times, say with funk and soul for the first year or so, I just bluffed and gave people records based on which other regulars had bought them. But hey it always worked!

I guess nowadays the "hub" of the record store is a thing of the past, people take control themselves and buy records online, and post on blogs and forums to meet like minded heads. So despite the sadness of these local stores closing, I'd argue that the acceleration of consumption in the dance scene in the last few years, while ruthless, breeds a more informed punter. There's a lot more power at the fingertips of the amateur DJ and fan, and the hegemony of big DJs being the ones in the loop has been kind of smashed.

If you're in tomorrow (Thursday evening), between 21.00 and 22.30 GMT, check out the radio show, if you're not in watch this space and I'll post an mp3 of the show up on Friday morning. Most of the above mentioned new tunes will be played, looking forward to it...