C/D: Boomkat.com

"Essential" = nice
"Ace" = ok
"Check." = shit

The new jukebox function now makes these ill-mannered marketing strategies a bit unefficient.

The worst purchase I did was Kareem's "Ramadan" ep that was supposed to sound like a hiphop version of Basic Channel, but which just consisted in boring, run-of-the-mill rap beats that desperately needed an MC.

But ok, I'm still receiving their newsletter, and I can happen to buy their stuff.

totally dud for idm hell, overhyping of so-so records (skam / ai / most trapez releases / anything from manchester) and having a bee in it's bonnet over anything dfa related. if they hate this stuff so much, why stock it?

The do play up a lot of labels too much. I suppose a bit of a dud is that they are also linked to a major distributor, which is more the "vested interests" than CCO will ever be.

Pelicanneck = classic shop, though.

They still work it though. I was in there a few months back, and learnt from my time in the shop another of their methods. It was based around the selection of the tracks for the jukebox.

3 = they think its very good (even on albums)
2 = It's good (alright on albums)
1 = Poor

The record in question ended up with one sample on the jukebox, with the comment "I am really struggling to find 1 minute on this worth going on the website".

"
SEX IN DALLAS
Everybody Deserves To Be F**ked

Deerie me. Truly horrible, pitiful, supremely whack self-combusting slice of nastiness on this new Kitty Yo 12" that's, apparently,"causing a stir in the Berlin underground dance scene". Even the assembled remixers Tomcats in Tokyo and the Hacker can't turn this baby around. Play this to the one you love and we guarantee you really won't get f**ked. Ever.

"

The reason I say this is that there is a similarly enthusiastic piece about the new gonzales thing on there this week.

http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=21612

Trapez ltd number 43 is doing nothing different and to be brutally honest, i think they should have stopped this offshoot some time ago. Minimal boredom and preset knob twiddling, a shame as many classic tunes have graced this by now highly august imprint. Franklin De Costa is doing nothing special for the Postwendend side - filled with semi interesting noises and rather gauche, overly simplistic, straight forward beats. Nowt special.

but ON topic - Their mp3 store. Pretty good no?

http://www.boomkat.com/mp3.cfm

still a very small selection of labels (and the obvious "killer!" affiliates), but hopefully it can fill the eMusic/iTunes/bleep/kompakt-mp3 gaps (hmm... maybe there aren't so many gaps after all) and you don't need a subscription.

well, previews are still full-length (much nicer than bleep.com) but with a (pretty unobtrusive) bleep every 30 secs or so to stop tightwads ripping the audio. good stuff.

whole damn Bpitch Control catalouge (as far as I can tell... beatport has a few ommissons, prob the same ones here if I looked) is on there now! some of it even in FLAC lossless. And loads more labels since last time too

still haven't recieved my tussle 7". it's been like, 3 days.

single of the week: classic
album of the week: dud

Boomkat are the online equivalent of Mary Anne Hobbs: both of them absolute masters in bone crushing hyperbole.

the blurbs for each release get me excited. shame the music doesnt always live up to them.

Thanks to FACT Magazine for outing this review of Hudson Mohawke's 6X7 EP. Awful guff!

'Star Crackout' initially sounds like the decimated love child of Kraftwerk and Daedelus, before slowly burning into an insanely smart shoegaze vibe with what could be a campfire crackle, or possibly the march of a thousand penguins swamping the whole thing into a psychedelic mush worthy of Paavoharju. This is spine tinglingly brilliant stuff, check the samples and get the feeling.

'Root Hands' dips deeper yet with a throbbing bass lead groove that sounds like Theo Parrish jamming with Boards Of Canada and mixed by Moritz von Oswald, high praise in anyone's books, but final track 'Everyone Else is Wrong' manages to fly off on yet another unique tangent with a purest mind trip into 2030 electro funk, and a place where robots smoke pure THC and eat liberty caps for breakfast.

£30 for a hyperdub tshirt with a tiny logo on the arm. you deserve all you get.

Essential!

Their 14tracks site is kind of nice in that the songs are half-priced downloads if you buy them all.

not denying that mike slott blurb is guff but i fail to see what distinguishes it from their other 'reviews'

the boomkat "bleep" drives me nuts!

yeah. necessary since their mp3 store allows you to listen to whole tracks... they should use two separate jukeboxes tho....

i think the bleeps probably neccesary on the 30 sec player too, ableton live djs and all that

come on, what dj is going to take an incredibly lo-fi 30 second bit of audio and use it in a dj set? any that would are unlikely to be buying music to begin with. juno give about 90 seconds with no bleep.

a shite dj. considering how many turds play youtube/myspace rips out and how many techno records they stock which which are 2 bars for 8 mins they i thinks its fair enough

staightola talk.

it is fair enough but it drives me nuts and definitely makes me less inclined to purchase their wares that i can check out elsewhere without getting a headache.

right enough, a gap or a hiss would be much easier on the ears than that beast

for years ive thought that this site was called bookmat until i was looking at the back of my new demdike stare lp and realized that ive been dyslexic all this time. ive even ordered shit from this site before

classic. love their selection and the comprehensiveness of material from different labels, and love the look of the site.

dud unless ben ufo is playing it.

Picked up the first three volumes of the B12 Records Archive last night. £3.99 each on cd! Not a difficult decision.

Still the only place that gives me FLACs for not much more than .mp3s

and the web site is pretty easy to search.

the "boomkat beep" is always good when you listen to tracks that the beep doesn't sound incongruous.

Boomkat is my favourite download site by far. One of my least favourite for physical purchases because everything is reliably more expensive than elsewhere.

Virtuosic turntablist Mariam Rezaei returns with a batshit genre meltdown that uses next-level techniques to gesture towards Éliane Radigue, Vengaboys, AFX, Sonic Youth, Merzbow and Battles

Never change, Boomkat.

(But yes, I am intrigued. So, job done)