Bittles‘ Magazine The rather wonderful album Happiness was released by UK band The Beloved way back when dinosaurs still roamed the earth (or 1990 if you don’t wish to be facetious). The record came out at the very beginning of the new decade which promised a new start after the poverty and depression of Thatcher’s 80s. Acid house, rap, and indie were all meshing together into a somewhat glorious aural mess. By JOHN BITTLES
Bittles‘ Magazine I switched on the radio the other day and the bombardment of crap tunes almost made me give up on music for good. Little Mix, Pitbull, Bastille and more callously abused my poor little ears until I found I could do nothing but curl up into a ball pleading ‘Turn it off, turn it off’. Needless to say the friends who had come over for dinner were not very impressed! BY JOHN BITTLES
Bittles’ Magazine | Interview Looking back it’s hard not to conclude that Anthony Collins has had a pretty damn successful career to date. Gaining his first DJ gig at the tender age of 18, moving to Paris, playing at the fabled Rex Club, releasing tunes on the likes of Get Physical, Poker Flat, and Mule, releasing his excellent debut album on Freak N’ Chic, and being responsible for some of the most spine-tingling house music to hit record shop shelves. An Interview by JOHN BITTLES.
Bittles‘ Magazine As it’s pretty hard to write an introduction to this type of thing I thought I would leave it this time and just get started with the good stuff, the music. We’ve got great new albums that explore gorgeous techno, blissful ambience and rock n’ roll excess from the likes of Illum Sphere, Kaito, Perc, Maximo Park and many more. We’ve also got a few middling releases that give me ample opportunity to vent my righteous rage. Result all round, I guess! By JOHN BITTLES
Bittles‘ Magazine | Interview With the album Uplifting Themes For The Naysayer Walrus Ghost has created one of the most beautiful and beguiling pieces of music I have heard in years. Here gorgeous ambience melds seamlessly with post-rock dynamics to create a wonderfully sumptuous aural landscape that relentlessly draws the listener into a surreal world. By JOHN BITTLES
Bittles‘ Magazine We have all been there! You’re at a show and the sound is so bad you can’t discern the music from the feedback. Or you are squeezed into a corner so tightly by an unforgiving and unwashed throng of people that you literally feel like you might die from lack of oxygen. Perhaps you enter the venue like an eager beaver and scan the crowd for friendly faces only to realise straight away that you have made a huge mistake. By JOHN BITTLES
Bittles‘ Magazine | Interview: Pink Skull It is not often that a dance album makes me sit up and take notice on the very first play. But that is exactly the effect that Huitlacoche by the band Pink Skull had on me. Coming out on My Favorite Robot Records on the 10th of February the record, the band’s fourth in total, is a raw, dirty, funk-filled delight that is perfect for headphones and dance-floors everywhere. An Interview with Pink Skull by JOHN BITTLES.
Bittles‘ Magazine | Album Review Before the term Trance became something to be pitied, hated and despised as well as the dominant force in dance music it was seen as a creative revelation that brought the emotion back to House. The adrenaline-fuelled head-rush of rave was coming to an end, hardcore had become just too hard and the club kids were craving something new with which to get their chemical kicks. By JOHN BITTLES
Bittles‘ Magazine | Album Review You know what! I love January! It’s that whole sense of anticipation of what the new year is gonna bring that leads me to look forward to the upcoming year. Sure, no one is playing any gigs, or releasing music! But that just means you have to look that little bit harder to find the hidden gems. By JOHN BITTLES
Bittles‘ Magazin | See the future! Now that we have taken those first tentative steps into 2014 it is hard not to want to curl up into a ball ranting incoherently at the worry of what the new year will bring. Usually, I understandably, drown myself in a year’s supply of whisky just to get through the months of January and February alone. By JOHN BITTLES