Soundhog - Radio Soundhog Vol 7

Soundhog, a bootleg legend in my book, has a new long mix and it's brilliant.

In his own words...

"Well, what the fuck happened here, then?

Good question. How anyone can spend three and a half years putting together a simple mix of old records? Well, it's not quite that simple, as I hope you'd expect from my previous stuff. The amount of time I actually spent working on RsH7 since April 2006 could be compressed down into a few weeks, perhaps. I probably spent twenty times as long staring at blank sections of an Ableton project, wondering what the hell to do next. This would usually turn out to be deleting whatever I'd done previously. People forget about you when you go quiet, if indeed they knew about you at all. I withdrew from the battered remains of the bootleg scene as it got swallowed up by the m@$h up monster. I stopped looking at certain internet forums for the sake of my blood pressure. Often there would be gaps of three, four or five months in between opening and closing the mix project (usually with no results anyway). I reeled in horror as a Kid Rock record hit the charts which featured a combination of tracks I'd put into the mix a few months previously. Tunes which were box fresh when I decided to work with them turned into golden oldies. One thought would continually buzz around my head as I looked at the screen: "What's the bloody point?"

I've still not answered that question.

Two and a half years later, I managed to get an hour's worth of audio together, which was broadcast on a friend's radio show (to no reaction, save for a select few mates) just before Xmas 2008. I wasn't happy with it, but I'd had a deadline and it was finished off in a drunken rush the in the early hours of d-day. A further 10 months passed before I could stand to revisit the thing, replace the bits that had nagged me and get it to the state it's in now, which still isn't perfect and I know I'll regret bits of it as soon as it gets into the wild. Ah, well. Too bloody late now, eh?

**Dull technical bollocks alert**

The mix contains 4,130 individual samples/clips spread over seven audio tracks, with a large number of effects and EQs running in real time. All audio manipulation is done within Ableton Live 5 with nothing (apart from a few snippets of speech and the odd cymbal sample) prepared 'offline', if that's the right term to use. Every track is chopped up and processed as required within the single project file. The upshot of this is nearly 3.5gb of audio 'raw material' to deal with. My computer is over 8 years old, with a 1.4GHz P4 processor and 512mb of RAM. To say it was "struggling to cope" with all of this activity is quite an understatement. By the final stages, any modification to any part of the project (moving a sample, changing a volume setting, altering an effect's automation etc.) would result in four or five minutes worth of hard disk churning, and very often a total system crash. As for processor usage, don't even go there. I doubt any of this ridiculous detail will be apparent in the final result, but perhaps that's a good thing. They always say a good edit is one that nobody hears. How apt...

So, here it is, then. My last will and testament, and all that. I'm way beyond being objective about the result. I hope that you enjoy it as much as I didn't. The game's very much over."

Grab it HERE! (zip file including artwork)

Tracklisting (not in order of appearance):

Add N To (X) - Metal Fingers In My Body
Adina Howard - (Freak) And You Know It
Amerie - One Thing
Aphrodite's Child - Air
Bad Bascombe - Black Grass
Banbarra - Shack Up
The Bar-Kays - Son Of Shaft
The Beat - Mirror In The Bathroom
The Beatles - Strawberry Fields Forever
Black Heat - Love The Life You Live
Black Sabbath - The Wizard
Broadcast - Phantom
Can - I Want More
Capricorn - I Need Love
Coke Escovedo - I Wouldn't Change A Thing
Curtis Mayfield - Move On Up
Delia & Gavin - Relevee
Depth Charge - Number 9
The Doors - Peace Frog
D.O.S.E. - Crack Man In Bat Den Sex Shock
Faust - Läuft...Heißt das es läuft oder es kommt bald...Läuft
Four Tet - As Serious As Your Life
Freedom - Toe Grabber
Fuzzy Haskins - The Fuzz & Da Boog
Gang Of Four - I Found That Essence Rare
Giorgio - Utopia
The Go Team! - Grip Like A Vice
Graham Central Station - The Jam
Half Man Half Biscuit - Irk The Purists
Harry Stoneham & Johnny Eyden - Coming Home, Baby
The Human League - Love Action
The Jackson Sisters - I Believe In Miracles
Jeans Team - Keine Melodien
The Jimmy Castor Bunch - It's Just Begun
John Baker - Structures
Johnny Scott - Race The Devil
Juicy Lucy - Who Do You Love?
LCD Soundsystem - Get Innocuous
Liquid Liquid - Optimo
Mansun - Take It Easy, Chicken
Martha & The Vandellas - Dancing In The Street
Marvin Gaye - I Heard It Through The Grapevine
Mc Duke - I'm Riffin'
Melvin Bliss - Synthetic Substitution
The Meters - Here Comes The Meterman
Mr Oizo - Positif
My Bloody Valentine - Soon
New Fast Automatic Daffodils - Big
Orcop - Tyrant Human King
Pepe Deluxe - Salami Fever
Rage Against The Machine - Renegades Of Funk
Rusty Bryant - Fire Eater
Sharon Phillips - Want 2 Need 2
Simple Minds - Theme For Great Cities
Sound Experience - Boogie Woogie
Tears For Fears - Shout
Warren Zevon - Werewolves Of London
Wilson Pickett - Get Me Back On Time, Engine #9
The Zombies - Time Of The Season
ZZT - The Worm

Plus guest contributions from:

George Martin
Stephen Fry
Kenny Everett
Dr Jack Van Impe
Jon Pertwee

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