The story of Blip Discs is the stuff of record label fairytale. After graduating, Tom Blip applied for a university grant to press their first release on vinyl – O’Flynn’s Tyrion / Desmond’s Empire. With zero reputation or marketing know-how to fall back on, it ended up taking the the year by storm, picking up plays from Gilles Peterson and James Blake on the radio and being a regular in Four Tet sets. Sounds easy right? Not at all. This debut, and its two successors from Tom and O’Flynn have been bold and their indifference to dance music trends and, as a result, have become firm dancefloor favourites. With a life-changing project in the works that we can’t reveal just yet, Blip Discs will not be sitting still.
As a DJ Tom’s interests are nice and diverse and so we challenged him to get imaginative with this ten track playlist: “I guess this is pretty apt giving that I’m named after a synthesizer sound. Starting with new and going way back!”
Catch Tom at Queen of Hoxton this Friday for Rigid Disco. As for releases, Tom’s Wrong Guanco repress on Blip Discs is out now and his remix of Werkha – ‘Through The Wall’ is coming soon on Tru Thoughts.
Solar Shield – Reesis (Nov 2014)
The first release on ABC (short for Austin Boogie Crew)! Chris Coupe (from FYI Chris) put me onto this one during a nice hungover Sunday record digging session in Rye Wax. Just before I listened to this record I spilt my taco all over the floor. This track really cheered me up after that.
Glowing Palms – Rouge (Jan 2013)
Mind blowing. I cannot believe this guy is my friend – his music is too good! The term I always use to describe a lot of Ruf Kutz material is ‘Super Mario House’. Could you imagine bouncing around screaming ‘yahoo’ to these kind of tracks? I sure could.
Mono/Poly – Needs Deodorant (April 2011)
This was included on a sampler by Brainfeeder, a label I had started to get into after hearing the kind of madness that Samiyam created. Amazing label, FlyLo does it right.
Arp.101 – Dead Leaf (July 2010)
Eglo Records take a straight up DnB legend and get this unbelievable synthy hip-hop two tracker out of him – bravo!
Dam-Funk – I Gots 2 B Done Wit U (Jan 2010)
In terms of a whacky synth comp pretty much ANYTHING from Toeachizown by Dam Funk is fair game. This one in particular though…
2000f & J Kamata – You Don’t Know What Love Is (Feb 2009)
Emerging out of the post-dubstep galore is this amazing 140 synth heavy track with absolutely no holding back on the vocoder.
J Dilla – B.B.E (Big Booty Express) (Mar 2001)
Dilla pays homage to Kraftwerk in this one! Check the whole ‘Welcome 2 Detroit’ album for more synth funk.
Dr Octagon – Earth People (May 1996)
A homicidal alien from Jupiter posing as a gynaecologist so he can carry out his murderous doings on planet earth. No, really. Aside from Kool Keith’s amazing verses, this whole album is jam packed with untouchable instrumentals from Dan The Automater. Plus, DJ QBert is doing a scratch solo pretty much the whole way through the album. Completely mad.
Zapp – Dance Floor (??? 1982)
Absolutely NO whacky synth comp is complete without a mention from ZAPP & ROGER! The synth funk originators! Still sounds very fresh even today.
Gene Harris – LatinFunkLoveSong (October 1974)
This one is dedicated to my musical brother Francis Bavetta (or Chef Bev as we call him in Leeds) who put me onto a few of these tracks. I keep hounding this guy for a release but he never gives me anything… just makes MPC jams and loses em when he goes to bed at night and turns the damn thing off. I’ll get him one day.
