News
Exclusive promos from THIS WAY UP now in the vinyl shop.
16th July 2007
Not available anywhere else for up to 3 months - we have exclusive stocks of the first 5 12inch promos off This Way Up.
Click on the shop link to check audio links and more info.
Also just uploaded into the Odeo media player is a fresh new Aquasky breaks mix featuring many exclusvie tracks including material from This Way Up.
Click on the 'Launch Music Player' text on the top right or here is a link to download the whole mix:
http://aquaskyaudio.com/Aquasky-exclusive-July-2007-mix.mp3
Here is the low-down on the promos and This Way Up.
Released 31st September 2007 ‘This Way UP’ will feature new music from DJ Phetsta, Nick Thayer & Micah, Element, Klaus Hill, Dopamine, Kid Blue, Rico Tubbs, Rob Le Pitch, Backdraft, Friction and Timmy Schumacher and more, all of which will be released over the rest of 2007 as a series of 12” and digital downloads ‘This Way Up’ is one of the most exciting album projects in 2007. Trust.
cat. PASA033:
'Scrambler' by Nick Thayer & Micah
'Four:Eight:Three' by Phetsta
audio clips
cat. PASA034:
'Have A Good Time' by Aquasky featuring Acafool.
'Have A Good Time' (The Count of Monte Cristal & Sinden remix)
audio clips
cat. PASA035:
'Machine' by Rogue Element & Tom Real
'Gurn Face' by Klaus Hill
audio clips
cat. PASA036:
'Control Freek' by Friction & Aquasky feat. Spyda
'Crunch' by Kid Blue
audio clips
cat. PASA037:
'Freeze Dried' by Backdraft
'Flapjack' by Dopamine
audio clips
More info will be in the next Aquasky / Passenger monthly email.
To join put your email in the box on the right.
Cheers, Dave + crew.
Posted on 16 July 07 | »
Seville, Spain Saturday 16th June 2007
Due to circumstances beyond my control I have not been able to fly out to Seville, Spain for the party tonight Saturday 16th June.
Without going into detail there was a small mistake in my name on the flight booking and the airline failed to find my name on the passenger list which I find hard to believe as it was still obvious that my name was there.
Sorry to everybody going to the party tonight and hopefully we will be out again soon.
Dave Wallace (Aquasky)
Posted on 16 June 07 | »
It has been a few months since I tapped away at the keyboard...
...and brought to you some stories from my travels. It's been pretty hectic here at Aquasky HQ. Things are calming down a little a bit now as we are near completion of a boomtastic new Passenger compilation 'This Way Up' featuring a right bunch of rowdy so and sos from all over our fine globe. More on that later but lets get on with some travel exploits, this time my recent jaunt out to Hungary for the Fresher crew who I have been working with for the last 4 years and who throw the best breakbeat parties in Hungary. Bohhh...
As I write this I am listening to the first ever radio show we did as Aquasky back in 1996 on Paul Thomas' Kiss FM show 'The Chill Out Zone'. Thanks to Vigsy for finding this old gem in his cassette draw and copying it for us. I am going to put it up onto our website (www.aquasky.co.uk) for you all to check out what we were listening to and playing 11 years ago. By gosh, it's a far cry to what they heard in Budapest the other week!!! I am not sure what my comments on Austin Maxi's and Princess' are all about (old 70's British cars) but I suppose it's evidence that I have always found it hard to concentrate with that task at hand and tend to veer off track, often proved when righting these myspace blogs! Poor old Paul Thomas, such a great guy as well (we have stayed in contact with him over the years and he is a top bloke).
Right, Nu Era has just kicked in on the Kiss mix and it is forcing me to write about this journey of mine (4 Hero are mighty talented chaps and are pals from our old Reinforced days)...
It was another early start but thankfully this Friday I was flying from Southampton which is just up the road and even though I had to get up at 5.45am, I was grateful that it was a short spurt up the motorway to get to the airport and being that it is a small airport check in was easy and I was hanging out at 7.30am drinking hot chocolate and waiting for the 9am flight. Bonus...
Today Air France was running a bit late and I got on the little propeller plane and fell asleep, landing in Paris just before midday. It was a mad dash though to get my connecting flight to Budapest, which left in 50 minutes. I had to run like the clappers through the Charles De Gaulle airport and was out of breathe by the time I got to the gate. Thankfully I had a bottle of water to refresh me on the plane. I was rushed through security getting the customary frisk that ex-jungalists endure on the regular. It must be in the eyes!!! Got my stuff back and... what, where's me water!!! Oi, no, I don't believe it, they have confiscated it. The bastards... Dejected, yet extremely grateful to have made the flight I slumped into my designated seat, the last person to get on the plane. Have you ever had that? All eyes are on you and the stares, ouch!!! I kept my head down and slowly dehydrated until refreshments were brought round. "Yeah, mine's a vegetarian... what do you mean it wasn't ordered, you are joking, what am I suppose to eat?" This is a regular conversation I have on flights with the attendants. No food again for Brentie then... Asssss!
We landed smoothly onto the runway of Budapest's Ferihegy airport. It felt good to be back. As regular readers of my rants will already know, I have an endearing love for Eastern Europe. It started back in 1997 when I first went on a trip to the Czech Republic to search for records and this continued through the late 90's when my mate DJ Format and I often went to ex-communist countries looking for jazz and prog rock LPs, hunting down rare drumbreaks and awesome samples. Whenever a gig came up in that area of the world I always arm-wrestled Dave and Kieron for it. My passion extended from the records to the people, the food, the culture, the architecture, the adventures, the communist stories, the cultural shifts, the fun and the games... I often think I could move out to the east one day... time will tell I suppose!
So I disembarked and made my way to the luggage carousel. I new we had a long road trip ahead of us as Pecs is about 3 hours from Budapest, the city that would be hosting the first night of the 2007 return of Aquasky. Hmmmm... what's happening here then, why am I and only a handful of people left standing here? And why has everyone else walked off with their bags and mine have yet to appear? Christ, not again, not all my bloody records and clothes, please!!! The airport Gods don't like me I swear this year, and I found myself cuing at lost luggage with a severely pissed off face. There were quite a few passengers who had lost their luggage that day, obviously a common problem, as I seem to keep discovering! But I doubt anyone else had to play to a club full of people without any records later that evening!!! I was given a little travel bag by Air France to keep me ticking over containing a t-shirt (Air France logo on the sleeve no less... styling) toothpaste, razor etc... I have lost my bags all over the world by various airlines and this is the first time I have ever been given a travel bag. Such a good idea when stuck in a jam, why don't more airlines offer this to their customers??? As pissed off as I was I still found time to thank them for this gesture of goodwill. Pure Britishness I suppose!!!
Ten minutes of form filling later I walked through and met my hosts and friends Attila and Orsi, who I found were filming me for a little Fresher video they were compiling (see elsewhere on our myspace page for this). Dejected and carrying a plastic carry bag I looked forlorn but soon cheered up on seeing my pals again, pretty much exactly a year since they waved me off at this very airport back in 2006. We jumped into Atilla's macking Chrysler pimp-ride and sped off to Buda, the older brother of Pest and the original foundation of the city, where we docked up and had dinner in a rather swanky little restaurant where I ordered a nice white tomato soup with a prawn peeking his cheeky head out of, followed by fillet of halibut and a mustard sauce, it was pure joy on a grand scale! This may seem like over excited words but I was pretty glum from the prospect of not having a wash and having any clean clothes for the next 3 days and also doing a tour without any records to play. These little things do wonders in cheering up a battle hardy traveller! Orsi hatched a plan, maybe we could ask Palotai, the godfather of the Hungarian DJ scene if he could loan me some records... sounded like a brilliant plan to me and I knew Palotai well and was aware that he owned some Aquasky and Passenger records. All was not lost and we jumped into the Chrysler and scooted over the River Danube into the streets of Pest and over to Palotai's.
There I was met by his smiling and adorable family, his wife Isabella and his daughter Monica. It was lovely to be with them all again and we caught up with the usual chat and had a laugh about how disastrous my previous attempt to visit Pecs was back in 2005 (a loooong story and a very annoying one as well. I apologise to all the people in Pecs who didn't get the chance to see me back then. It was an extremely fraught experience and out of my control). Thankfully the city of Pecs did not harbour a grudge to me as I found out later that evening...
The fog was thick and low on the ground, bringing visibility to about 30 metres, coupled with the sun rising, glaring through the windscreen; these conditions had blighted our return journey from Pecs for the last 3 hours. I was not totally freaked out to look over to my companion in the driving seat and see him with his head cocked to the side and his eyes closed, slowly veering to the central reservation of the motorway...
I had handpicked my way through Palotai's record collection, carefully choosing records I knew and excitedly stocking up on anything that was Aquasky related or on our Passenger or 777 labels... Yes, I felt slightly more comfortable now that I had some records that I could piece my evening's set together. Palotai mentioned I was the first person he had ever loaned any records to and I felt truly honoured and humbled that he felt confident in me enough to break any vinyl collectors golden rule, never loan your records out, cos generally they either come back ruined or not at all!!! He also had a gig that evening so I bid him and Monica farewell and headed out into the crisp evening air with Attila and hopped into the pimpmobile. We stopped over at Orsi's and picked her and her friend up and we were ready for the road trip, 3 hours of fun, frolicking and a few cheeky cans of beer.
We pulled up at the club at about 11.30pm and it was great to see a queue at the door. As I said earlier, it had been a few years since Aquasky had been to Pecs and it was also Fresher's first gig outside Budapest city. I was quietly confident it would be a good night and this only bolstered my inner vibe. Leaving the Bat Mobile outside the entrance to the club I grabbed my makeshift box of vinyl from the boot and entered the venue, greeting Steve from Fresher on the door. It was busy and jumping. Dope!
The residents were in full swing and had already captivated the audience with some tight mixing and some fat tune selection. I went into the backroom and met Bergi, a Fresher Budapest resident and said my hello's and had my introductions to the others in the room. Also in the backroom was Ludmilla getting geared up for her set which was soon to commence. Aquasky remixed a track that she did with her partner in crime Beatman a few years previous titled Amira. It was championed quite heavily on Radio 1 here in the UK and notched up about 10 plays from Zane Lowe which did surprise us as we didn't realise he was into his breaks!!! Unfortunately, as is often the way in this game, we didn't get all the money we were owed for the mix and fell out with the label involved, though I have to say I can't actually remember the label responsible for stiffing us on our payment as we were only sent one white label copy of the remix! That copy I still play in my sets now...
Ludmilla jumped up and got deep into the mix, tearing out some quality selections and proving she is the queen of the Hungarian DJ's. She had the crowd lovely and amped up for my arrival. I hit the decks at 1.30am and let the battle commence. The crowd were excellent and you could get a good read on what they were wanting to hear and thankfully the Palotai record collection was helping me give that to them. It went pretty well as I free styled my way through a 2 hour set. The crowd was jumping, the guys were shouting and the girls were screaming. I was bouncing about behind the decks, loving life, happy to be back in the city of Pecs. I was told whilst I was playing that they had filled the club with 550 people and it was impossible to let anymore in. Apologies for all those that couldn't get into the venue that night and I hope I can return and play again for all of you, this time with my own records (depending on how the airport Gods are feeling towards me and how my karma is bearing up I suppose!) It was the busiest night they had ever had in the venue so I am sure breakbeat has now got another city in Hungary to embrace and to nurture. Fantastic news.
Bergi stepped onto the decks after me and we stayed until 4.30am listening to his electrohouse/breakbeat selection. I could see that Attila was feeling a bit tired and wanted to hit the road so we bid our farewells, shook various hands, signed various flyers and slinked out into the foggy morning and jumped into Atilla's car for the adventurous journey home. I fell asleep for the early part of the journey, only to be woken by Orsi saying that we need to keep Attila awake as the conditions were getting a bit treacherous. She was not wrong, I saw after wiping my eyes that the fog had got thicker. We pulled over into a garage and grabbed a double espresso and some cans of Red Bull. We were all in this together and we had to keep our friend focused. I do not blame him for feeling tired, after all I had been slumped in the front passenger seat for the last hour sleeping, probably snoring!!! The sign came into view as the daylight eclipsed the morning, 30kms to Budapest. Wicked. Nearly back... Then it happened. I felt that the car was slowly drifting across the lanes but I didn't immediately feel panicked. I just thought we were changing lane... then the crash barriers were looming in. Damn, I think he has nodded off. I glanced with angst at our driver and he had fallen asleep. I grabbed his leg and squeezed whilst shouting his name "ATTILA!!!" Bang, like a robot he woke and straightened the wheel to prevent an incident. We were back on course and I think this moment was what awoke us all and as a team we focused on the next 30kms and got back to the hotel safely. I checked in with my little travel bag of Air France goodies, had a shower (no soap in the hotel room and no soap in the travel bag... great!) and crashed into bed. Suddenly I was woken by a Hungarian man shouting over a tannoy system... Jesssuuussssss!!!!!!!! Now what's going on??? I opened the curtains of my room to find that I had the Budapest local outdoor swimming pool outside my window hosting some rather determined gentlemen doing time trails. Why is my life never simple I thought as I pulled the duvet over my head and tried to get back to sleep!
I woke again at 4pm and called my buddy Attila... "Yo mate, what's going down??? You ready to rock???" Oh yes, he sure was and the news he gave me made me smile. They have found my records and clothes and they will be coming into Budapest later. Brock-Out... Hungary is going to get it LARGE tonight I said to myself. Attila swung by and handed me some soap, deodorant and some clean socks. I hopped in the shower and quickly joined him outside the hotel where he was waiting. We picked up Orsi and went for all you can eat Sushi. I was starving and I managed to tuck away 25 different dishes in that sitting. I was looking at getting my monies worth as I hadn't had dinner the night before and it was nearly a day since I had a proper meal. Lush! Bloated I waddled out of the restaurant, trying not to make eye contact with the staff who were scrutinising me for being a fat greedy bastard!!!
Steve the promoter met us with my belongings and I returned to the hotel to have the first proper wash and change of clothes for over 36 hours. I opened my record bag and everything was intact. I was happy to be reunited with my beloved vinyl and I chilled out for the next few hours watching Hungarian Party Poker on the TV.
At 10 we went to the freshly relocated and refurbished Radio Café, a radio station which broadcasts across Hungary. I did an interview with my pals there, Axim and Attila number 2! It was pretty light hearted stuff with some monkey business thrown in for good measure. I did them a little live mix on air and then we ordered a taxi to take me to the venue for tonight... the legendary A38 boat on the River Danube. My third visit to this venue and I knew it was going to be a supercool evening. We strolled over the walkway and crossed onto the boat where I proceeded to retrace my previous steps over previous years and climbed up onto the stage where I was greeted with a grinning Bergi who, shouting over the load monitor speakers, told me he continued to play in Pecs till 5.30 in the morning and the club was still packed with excited punters. He was nursing a severe hangover as he continued to drink until the last record of the night played out. Hardcore lovers of life!
I regrouped with Orsi and went upstairs to the restaurant where I had a beer and some dinner. I was awaiting 1am, Aquasky crunchtime!!! I looked across the Danube as I ate. It was a full moon tonight, a night when all the freaks in all the cities across the world come out and go wild. It's funny what a full moon does to people, me included. It was also a double solar treat this evening as it was an eclipse, lighting up the city with an eerie orange glow... the ware wolfs were out, the witching hour was in full swing and the goblins and ghosts were ready to party. It was my cue to go downstairs and crank up the wheels of steel. Oh yes, lets have it!!!
Me old mucker Palotai was up on the decks letting off double barrels of breakbeat bullets. The boat was packed out and there was a really good, positive, if somewhat freaky vibe going down. We chatted briefly about the night before and I thanked him again for being such a lifesaver with his records the previous evening. I promised to hook Palotai up with a fat wad of records for being such a sport. A promise I kept...
I opened up my set with the new Miami bass track we have done with Tampa MC Acafool. It was the world debut of the track as we had only finished it the day before I left for Hungary and it had been missing in transit for the last day and a half, probably racking up some air miles of its own whilst we were temporarily separated!!! I then went into full overdrive, driven on by the solar flares hitting me from the sky above. The set built and built as I cherished my precious records and their audible delights, excitedly airing them for the A38 Fresher party people and giggling as I dropped the volume on certain words of certain tracks, getting the whole venue shouting the missing words back to me dead on time. Oi Oi!!! My set was scheduled to be 2 hours but as so often is the case I just kept on going and going, getting to nearly 3 1/2 hours before Ludmilla brought me back to the land of the living and we doubled up for a little while before I made my exit from the stage and into the Budapest chilly morning, back to the hotel where I got some sleep for a few hours before I had to jump in a taxi for my early flight home. It was another fantastic evening and I thank all that were involved in getting the party to be the success it was. But of course the party would never have been such a ramjam session and as fun as it was had it not been to the wonderful people of Budapest and a little dose of full moon madness... a vibrant combination!!!
Till I return, stay safe Budapest, keep out of trouble and make sure you continue doing what you do best... having fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Brent Newitt. March 13th 2007
17.10pm
Posted on 09 May 07 | »
Being that it was just after New Year...
...I was staying the night at my parents' house just outside of Southampton. I had to have an early night but before hitting the hay we watched Celebrity Big Brother. It was the first one and with all the house guests going in. Only the day before we were discussing the film director Ken Russell, as he lives round the corner to the folks and I hear he likes to prop the bar up nearby. I also heard he was quite the dashing hero when his house recently burnt down running home from the pub and kicking the door down to rescue his ex wife who was in the property at the time. Thankfully she had escaped but alas his house was reduced to embers as so many thatched cottages tend to be these days.
But there he was, entering the Big Brother house and few months shy of his 80th birthday doing an impression of a Tourettes suffer, swearing like builder and glammed up like an Eastern European cobbler. I suppose he needed a roof over his head but seeing him on screen (I had to confess to my parents that I didn't really know who he was the day before) the courageous house rescue impressed me even further. Go on Ken...
So, the alarm was set for 3am. It was painful as I hadn't nodded off til gone one in the morning. A quick shower, a cup of tea and a brisk warm up of the croissants I bought the evening before and I was off into the night, matchsticks holding my eyes open. These proved uncomfortable after a few miles and hindered my vision somewhat so I switched to a previously proven way to keep me awake, the sound of Black Norwegian Metal, Dimmu Borger being the choice that particular morning. It has the desired effect though I wouldn't recommend it to the faint hearted or devout Christians.
I arrived at Heathrow at 5.15am and checked my car into the airport carpark. It was still pitch black and I had followed on the Norwegian sessions with a blast of my favourite band Cradle of Filth, which I politely turned down upon entering the car park. A quick jump onto the courtesy bus and I was at Terminal 1 cueing up for Kaliningrad, Part Two.
Regular readers of my mindless ramblings will know that back in November the wonderful Lot airlines had let me onto the airplane at Heathrow (which has a 3 hour stop over in Warsaw) even though the Kaliningrad airport was shut due to snow. That day in November I had the pleasant time of spending 6 hours in Warsaw Airport before being flown back to London, much to the annoyance of my Russian hosts and the breakbeat fans of Kaliningrad.
I wrote a letter of complaint. Again, readers of this site will know I enjoy any good reason to write a load of crap for others to read and over the years I have had many free flights, bottles of wine and refunds given to me due to my, yes you have guessed it, mindless ramblings!!! I have to say that Lot were fantastic in helping me reorganise my trip and I had my expenses and flight reimbursed. I was surprised though that they didn't hook a brother up with some first class action though and I was put into economy. Don't they know who I am!!! Yes, they probably did, hence the economy seat!!! Buggers!!!
Thankfully this time round I got my connecting flight out of Warsaw and was on a twin propeller plane heading out to Kaliningrad. An interesting fact here, there is only one commercial flight a day going in and out of Kaliningrad, so if you miss that you are in the shit. Not a problem for me my friend, I was on my way but... my records were not. Oh yes, nothing ever goes that smoothly for me. On arrival to Kaliningrad I was stood, choking on the intense smoke from all those heavy Russian cigarettes that filled the air of the baggage area, looking lost and fearing the worse, staring at the little conveyor belt, trying to use my Jedi skills to coax my records through the hatch. Those skills didn't work for me when I was 11 and they weren't working now, 20 years later. Arse...
I walked across the terminal which is no bigger than my front room and registered my lost luggage. Lot airlines were closed in Russia til the 9th January, 5 days time. There was nothing the airport could do but send me on my way. My hosts were there to collect me and I have to say were very mild mannered regarding my lost records... I was fuming! I suppose they were grateful that I myself had made it this time and the records were a mere hindrance in regards to the bigger picture. We jumped into the waiting Mercedes and scooted down some rather poorly maintained roads into the city. My hosts for the next 3 days were Andrey and Andrey, 2 of many Andrey's that I would meet over the coming days, both of them real nice guys.
We went straight to a traditional Russian restaurant for a dinner, and boy do I love all the wonderful food they have over there. I ordered potato pancakes and pickled herring followed by salmon and salad. Lush... With a little banter over dinner regarding the scene in Russia and the history of the city, we paid for the meal and cruised over to the hotel, which was a traditional old school hotel, random and odd furniture filled the room and masking tape held a couple of windows in place!!! Aquasky styling it up!!!
The following day, after buying a toothbrush and some socks and turning my boxers inside out (due to hand luggage restrictions in the UK I put all my wash stuff in my recordbag along with my undies which I always use to pad the records out to prevent damage) I was driven to a crazy industrial area and to a ominous building with no frontage, through a door and down some steps into the basement, down into the dark depths of the Russian underbelly. Oh yes, Brent was out digging for records armed with his trusty portable player. A pastime which I enjoy with a passion. There is nothing more rewarding (well, in all honesty there are many things far more rewarding, but for the sake of this story there aren't!) than getting into some dusty and dark room, trying to overcome the language barriers and the odd and somewhat possessed stares of bewildered passer-by's wondering what the hell an Englishman is doing here armed with a plastic recordplayer, and just discovering new music and samples. That day I unearthed a few gems that now proudly sit in my vast record collection including the sample to Non Phixion's 'I shot Reagan', a Russian banger of a loop!
I got back to the hotel at about 8pm after being shown the sites of the city and checking out some old Russia U-Boats and a ship that was kitted out with satellite tracking equipment which was used to monitor Sputnik. One of only two boats left from the old Cold War Era. It was an impressive site for those of us, well me basically, that has a fascination with the old ways of Communist Russia and Eastern Europe. We also had a dodgy meeting in a carpark with another local DJ. It felt like a Russian drug deal but the guy was bringing me more old Russian vinyl instead of hard illegal contraband. I suppose vinyl is like a drug or an addiction to me so there is an element of irony there. The glorious thing though, on arriving to the hotel, there was my lovely recordbag, popping its cheeky head out from behind the reception desk. Oi Oi, we are now back in business Rodney...
I was collected at 10pm and we went for sushi, and incredible sushi it was too, before heading onto the club which was in fact an old Orthodox church, very haunted in appearance. We entered via the backdoor and snuck into the dressing room equipped with an ironing board which I always insist on and is enforced within my rider!!! I was taken for a tour of the club/church which was fantastic, reminding me very much of a local cheese venue to us called the Oprah House. It was a full house, everyone was having a great time and the place was buzzing. Maybe this was due to the fact of the last performance being cancelled, heightening the sensation. I thought I would get lynched for the 'no show' but everyone was very cool about it and I was grateful for everyone's hospitality... I had my first beer of the year (new years eve killed me and I was fearful of having a hangover similar on my long journey home!) It went down very nicely indeed, Latvian I believe.
I did a quick interview with local journalist Liza, had some photos taken due to being such a studmuffin then was taken on stage for the performance. I followed on from my host Andrey, who had followed on from another local DJ called Andrey! The time now being 2.30am. I had a two hour set to play but as the crowd were so wicked I rolled it out for 3 hours, dropping all the classic Passenger gems and some future bangers. It was a dream gig and so much fun I was gutted I was leaving in a few hours time but grateful that I had 3 supercool days in Kaliningrad. I was taken back to the hotel where I slept for a few hours before being picked up by Andrey No. 2 who was my translator for the visit and a well nice chap. We stopped off at some mad Russian supermarket where I bought headache tablets and water for my hangover, thankfully not quite on the scale of new years eve, and we watched people riding past along the pavement on customised Shetland ponies with fancy brass trinkets hanging off the side and pleasant knitted attachments...
I arrived at the airport, dreary eyed and battered and checked myself in for the long journey home with a delightful 6 hour stopover in Warsaw. Was it worth it? Yes it was. Would I go back? Yes I would. Am I going back? Let's hope so!!!
Thanks to everyone who came and saw me and to the Andrey's for being such wonderful hosts. I miss you Russia and hope to be back soon...
Brent Newitt
13.49pm, January 17th 2006
Bournemouth
Posted on 21 January 07 | »
Thanks for all ya support
It's nearly little baby Jesus' birthday. He would be 2006 years old if he were still alive but Ponchus Pilot put pay to that along with his wicked henchman Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve apostles, the son of Simon Iscariot. Those dark days are buried way in the past, along with many a forgotten story and adventure...
But Aquasky are still rolling deep, still banging out the beats and rinsing out the clubs with feverish results. Many have tried to crucify Dave because of his dancing, Kieron because of his three deep studded treat and me, Brentie aka Pixie Pete for my fetish in, well errr... pixie boots! But it will never happen, probably because there are now far easier ways to bump people off that doesn't involve big wooden devices and because of the times that we live in, all that wood would have a terrible impact on the environment. I know, I have been watching David Attenborough. Along with the my daily fix of Noel Edmonds. 22 identical sealed boxes, 22 different sums of money and no questions... except one... Deal or no deal!
This year has been the most hectic and most rewarding to date. We moved into our new hi-tech studio block. We have a proper office for the labels. We released the Teamplayers album along with the latest installment of Breakbeat Bass. We have released singles by Noisia, Rob Le Pitch, Backdraft, The Breakfastaz, Jim Shimmer, The Ragga Twins, Kool Keith, Sprayhead, Tayo and Def Inc and a few Aquasky joints. But we made a conscious decision not to release any new Aquasky music since Teamplayers. We presently hold the crown for the most amount of breakbeat tracks in the market place and thought that it was time to produce some other artists, do some remixes and really go all out on the labels... It's paid off and 2007 is set for big tings...
Including a new compilation of exclusive tracks titled 'This Way Up' featuring some whoopbangers of the musical world. We have Klaus 'Heavyweight' Hill brocking out, we have Dopamine unleashing fury, we have the awesome Backdraft letting off shots, we have the drum and bass don that is DJ Friction, we have Kid Blue dropping a future classic, we have Tom Real and Rogue Element doing what they do best, we have Phetsta from the Technique Recordings dropping some fatness, we have Rico Tubbs back again in the Passenger stable, we have Nick Thayer fresh from his banging mix of Kool Keith. It's some nest level sounds and it will be out in May...
We are also presently putting together a tour for it and need your help... Do you live in an area that has a serious breaks scene? Do you wanna party like Prince did in 1999? Do you want Dave Wallace drunk and crawling around on your dancefloor doing little hops like a bunny rabbit? If the answers to these questions are yes drop us an email or our agent, the wonderful Rory Natkiel of the fantastic Fat! DJ Agency: rory@thefatclub.com
We also really need some dates to fatten up our Australia and New Zealand tour which is late May early June. If you can help drop the groove-a-licious Jessica at the Fuzzy Agency an email and she will help collate the info. After this years amazing tour Fuzzy put together I am sure 2007 is going to be off the wiz-all: jessica@fuzzy.com.au
Other areas we are touring are Japan, China and Asia and also America and Canada. For the latter we have our good friend and party babe Sondra at Premiere piecing things together. She can be contacted on: sondra@premiereartistsgroup.com
Again, this will be around May/June 2007 though we can not guarantee Kieron's studded power belt will make it through customs due to the Offensive Weapons act which Customs and Excise are quite stringent upon so we are told!
I am now nursing a sorehead after attending the awesome Cradle of Filth's final tour date for their new album Thornography last night. After being stuck out in the cold queuing for an hour (my breakbeat badge of honor unfortunately opens no doors in the black metal scene!) and missing the Swedish act Deathstar I got in just as Sabbat were taking stage at the London Astoria. Rahhhh... these guys are outta Nottingham and are a serious thrash metal band. But come 9.30 the lights dipped and on came the Filth. With a backdrop of a haunted forest and all kinds of evil symbolism being flashed upon the back screen, this is as far removed from Christmas you are likely to ever witness. The place was jammed to the rafters and I felt naked without my corpse paint and am pretty sure I was the only person in there with yellow converse trainers... I was probably the only person in there with shoes that weren't black. But it ain't about the colour of your sneaker, its what's inside that counts... and that night I had a black heart and cold blood running through my veins! Next time I am going full hog and unleashing the corpse paint... its gotta be done.
Good books to read this month are Jon Ronson 'Out of the Ordinary - True tales of everyday craziness' and Louis Theroux 'The call of the weird - Travels in American subcultures'
Righto... I hope you all have a top notch festive season (if you celebrate Christmas) and a memorable new years eve, or should I say I hope you have a wicked new years eve as the memory part may be asking too much!!!
We will speak again in 2007. In the meantime hit us up on Myspace or drop us an email via our website where we have loadsa exclusive mixes for you to download and vinyl and mp3s to purchase. Here's to the ever increasing global presence of breakbeat. Chin chin...
Brent
Posted on 21 January 07 | »
Remix!!! Remix!!! Remix!!!
The shouts gone down and our main man Paul from the delarge.co.uk camp has stepped up and taken on the challenge of remixing and revamping our website. It's been 12 months since the last upgrade but due to the last guy disappearing we couldn't finish off all the label sub-sections or basically get any updating done. It was a pain but Paulie is here to make life better and stress free for us and hopefully also for all you guys out there checking this refreshed site out...
So what have we got gwarning? Well, we have a fully updated Aquasky and all our aliases discography completed spanning nearly 15 years of producing, from the old school rave that Dave and Kieron use to do before Aquasky and the hip hop that Brent did with Dave back yonder years. There is some rare stuff to listen to and we have even managed to locate all the artwork for each release (this was completed by purchasing a few items from eBay!)
We have a FlickR gallery which we can easily update so you can see us aging gracefully and wonder at what beauty cosmetics we use to stay so young and healthy looking! Beer and late nights we find is one of the better anti-aging devices! There is also the video library where we have a few videos available to download from the Passenger catalogue and also some randomness which we wanted to share, you know you love it!
As mentioned earlier, the exciting new addition is the label sub-sections, something we have wanted to do for a while now. Here you can browse the extensive catalogue of both our Passenger and 777 labels, learn something about the artists and see what ya favourite producers look like. Eventually, time permitting and these days there aint much freetime at Planet Aquasky, we want to host mixes by all our artists and do a little Q&A with them. We will see if we make our fortune in the coming months, then we can have some downtime and handle some stuff that is well overdue doing. Put it on my list of things to do!!!
Talking about things to do, we are presently compiling an awesome album for April 2007 on Passenger with some absolute cracking guests. So far we have Klaus Hill, Dopamine, Nick Thayer, Rob Le Pitch, Backdraft (who are also writing their debut album for Passenger), Kid Blue, Tom Real and Rogue Element, Noisia, Friction, Phetsta, Ragga Twins and Aquasky. Titled 'This Way Up', we will keep you informed on it's progression.
Dave no longer does his weekly radioshows but we are, as always, uploading fresh mixes from us and those who appear on our labels. As well as that we have been trawling thru the vaults finding mixes from time ago, just so you can cop that Aquasky vibe of yesteryear!
We have also hooked up with an old friend from back in the old rave days who is still staying true to the scene, the south coasts DJ Turner (brother of Flaps from the Outkastz DJ crew). He has done us 4 top notch mixes which shows the progression of the rave culture out of house and into what later became known as drum and bass. These mixes showcase what we were listening to when we first got into music production and also will hopefully give the listeners an insight into how we kicked off the genre of bassline breaks and the vibe we tried to recreate when we recorded our 'Beat The System' LP and '777' EP from Botchit and Scarper 5/6 years ago. Turner also presents his perception of what Jungle Techno is in both written and musical form. This is a widely debated topic and is the generic step between the Detroit/US/Belgium house sound of the late 80's and the UK's breakbeat sound of late 89 onwards... As Turner states, it's a lot easier to do it with a mix than in writing and hats off, he has done it well. Pure history class sessions!
What more can I say... I am sure you are going to love the site and all the hard work Paul has been doing behind the scenes over the last few months. A few websites to check when you have finished with ours:
delarge.co.uk
owenp.com
myspace.com/aquaskyuk
myspace.com/passengerrecords
www.myspace.com/777recordsuk
As always, thanks for supporting what we are doing. If we are playing in your town come down and check us out and say hi. If there is anything that you think we should add to our site, let us know at the usual email…
Till we meet again, this is Brent Aquasky tapping the laptop keys humming Lionel Ritchie songs to myself. I bid you goodnight!!!
Brent Newitt
Posted on 02 November 06 | »
