Cornershop - '6am Jullander Shere'

Man, this is a huge record. Not production wise, because it's pretty ordinary - low-fi even, on the album mix. But for me, culturally, this is a very significant record. For me, it's about visiting mates in Leeds, about early samplers, about techno-ethno fusion, Megadog, excitement and possibility.

The album mix is a beautifully simple chant (I remember being told it was based on a morning prayer chant) in one of the languages of the Indian continent (I'll guess Punjabi) over drones of string instruments and clunky percussion. I remember listening to it at Brudenell Road (where I would end up living 5 or so years later) and wanting to play it again and again. It's just such a joyful and exuberant piece of music, almost childish in its simplicity, and so almost timeless and placeless.

So many memories: Choque of Black Star Liner covering his car in leopard print (on the outside): buying warm samosas at Maumoniats: the gritty post-industrial feeling of Leeds, finding its feet and making sense of its place in the world at the end of the 20th century. Happy, mad,exciting times when anything felt possible.

I loved this track so much. I dropped the whole of it into a home studio-produced DJ mix, over a beat looped from the Prodigy's 'Poison', and it led out into Cypress Hill's 'Ain't Goin' Out Like That'. Most people I played the mix to had never heard '6am Jallander Shere' before, which to me was baffling, but I guess just underlines what this whole blog is about - personal connection to music.

Catalogue Number: WIJ48L

Tracklist: Jeh Jeh Vocal Mix. All Fetters Loose Mix. Album Mix.

Pressure Drop - 'Tearing the Silence'

This is all about one track for me - 'Up Against the Wall'. It's a bad-ass piece of electronic instrumental hip hop, with a couple of vocal lines sampled over it. It's atmospheric, funky and moody, and contains the shouted line 'up against the wall, motherfucker'. It's a line that still makes me smile, for two reasons.

Wall of Sound were a really cool label at the of the 1990s, and they did a DJ session on Radio 1 as the Wall of Sound Allstars. They played this track, and knowing that they'd been naughty using profanity on late-night radio, turned it into a cheery singalong of 'up against the wall, up against the wall, up against the waaall motherfaahckerrrr'. Maybe they were trying to demonstrate that if you keep repeating profanity, it loses its sting. Or maybe they were just drunk. Either way, it was pretty funny.

The other reason it sticks in my mind is that when we were working on the Overseer album 'Wreckage', Rob wanted to use that vocal sample, but clearance being what it was, Rob elected to 'recreate' it, getting Ricky Wilson (now of Kaiser Chiefs but then in local hopefuls Parva) to record 'us against the world, motherfucker'. I'd totally forgotten that until I listened to 'Wreckage' the other day.

The other memory it brings back is DJing with Moose (Paul Curtis) at the Elbow Room in Leeds. He was (and probably still is) a really good DJ, and I was grateful that he shared his deckspace with me. Now he's doing Symbollix - proof that the cream always rises.

Catalogue Number: HAND024T

Tracks: The Calling. Masher. Part 13. Tearing the Silence. Up Against the Wall. Torn Beats. Call to Mind

DJ Krush - 'Meiso'

God this is a great record. I bought this around the same time as I bought DJ Shadow's 'Endtroducing', and at the time, it seemed as though we - them and us, the producer and the consumer - were reinventing hip hop.

This is a sort of music that is totally stripped back to basics - a simple rhythm, some weird ambience standing in for a topline melody, and a vocal, a willing sacrifice of technical musicianship, an atavistic return to basics. The irony is that it takes a lot technology to make something sound so simple. Of course, you could argue that everything Mo Wax did was just James Lavelle selling a beautifully packaged lifestyle ideal, and you'd be right. But it was such a cool lifestyle that it was hard to resist.

This reminds me of Luke, who married my friend Bekki. He was a real Mo Wax junkie, and sort of still is - he's certainly still got lots of their first editions and box sets. I'll have to have a poke through his shelf next time I'm at their place, as we attempt to arrange a marriage between our children. I guess that makes us grown-ups, right?

Tracks: Only the Strong Survive. Anticipation. What's Behind Darkness. Meiso. Bypath 1. Blank. Ground. Bypath 2. Most Wanted Man. Bypath 3. 3rd Eye. OCE 9504. Duality. Bypath - Would You Take It?

Catalogue Number: MW039LP

Mellowtrons - 'Rhythmwide / Resolution 9'

This is a double A side piece of vinyl by Lee, an old mate from Salisbury. Lee is a bit of a dark horse - when you meet him, he seems slightly scatty and hyper, but underneath that slightly mad disorganised outer shell is a slightly mad but much more organised inner being. I know he's more organised then his outer persona suggests, because he's toured as a techie with Orbital, and I don't imagine you get to do that unless you really know your stuff.

I have lots of vivid memories of time spent with Lee: we turned up at the house of Jack Dangers (of Meat Beat Manifesto) and he played us the final mix of their latest album 'Satyricon' live off his home studio desk: he introduced me to Phil Hartnoll (of Orbital) just before their Manchester Academy gig in 1995 - Phil just said 'awright mate' as I stood there overawed at meeting this colossus of techno. He seemed a bit smaller than I expected, although to be fair to him, he'd have had to have been an eight foot tall robosonic cyborg to have actually lived up to my expectations.

My favourite memory of hanging out with Lee was a night out in London - I forget when, but it may have been the night before I attended the cut of the first Speakerfreaks EP. We were heading to a club with a bunch of his vegan mates, and I realised that I hadn't eaten enough for a night out. I stopped and grabbed a hot dog from a street seller, which sent a couple of his vegan mates a bit nuts. I remember one of them getting right in my face, going 'that's right shove it in', and generally making me feel bad about eating a tube of mechanically recovered meat, with onions and ketchup.

Musically, this is all over the shop. Lee was great at building soundscapes from obscure samples, slapping a funky beat over it (that's funky as in 'on the one') for 90 seconds, then breaking it down into slightly too much sprawling ambience, before hoofing a beat back in again. But give him his due - Chill Out were THE label to be on in 1995.

Tracks: Rhythmwide. Resolution 9.

Catalogue Number: CHILL12010