No Filler Music Podcast - Properly Chilled: The Downtempo Mixtape

Episode Date: September 6, 2021

We wrap up our batch of episodes devoted to all things downtempo with 10 more tracks from 10 different artists under the downtempo umbrella and it's many adjacent styles. From the classics like Portishead and Massive Attack to video game scores and underground DJs, this is our final attempt to convince our listeners that downtempo is a genre worth paying attention to. Kick back and chill out with us as in this music-heavy mixtape episode. Tommy Guerrero - Spider And The Monkey Mikael Delta - Swimming Portishead - Pedestal Aim - Interview Irresistible Force - Nepalese Bliss DJ Unknown Face - Dat's Cool Kodomo - Concept 16 Leon Vynehall - Saxony Massive Attack - Mezzanine Tosca - Sala Ed Harrison - Stopgap Big Muff - Poppy's Song This show is part of the Pantheon Podcast network. Pantheon is a proud partner of AKG by Harman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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My name is Quentin. I've got my brother Travis with me. as always. And this is it, dude. Our last effort, our last ditch effort to play some good down tempo tunes

to sway our listeners, the last few that are holding out saying, like, I'm just not sure about this down tempo music, you know, I'm still on the fence about it. This is it, dude.

This responsibility weighed on me quite a bit, actually. And I'm not even kidding, dude. This was very difficult to name. narrow down, because I've been working on this playlist for like weeks, you know. Yeah.

And it just been struggling to narrow down to five. Well, look, dude. I think I think I did it. We're just having fun here. We are. Always remember. We're just having fun. We are.

And you know what? There's always what you heard, you know? That's right. We can always sneak in a down tempo track on a what you heard episode and get that fix in there, you know. But yeah. That's right. I'm happy with my choices.

I'm curious to see if you and I have any overlap in artists. I mean, I doubt we'd have overlap in songs, but maybe artists, but I doubt it. So this is our down-tempo mixtape. It's going to be the same format as our Watcher Heard's, which we just did last week. We're each going to bring five songs to the table, but this is going to be just kind of a mix of, you know, some of our favorite down-tempo songs and artists. going back as far as, you know, the early 2000s when we got into down tempo for the first time. I mean, yeah, I've been listening to Down Debo ever since then. So years and years and years of Downtobo all distilled into five songs, cute.

This is tough. So this is just a way for us to share, you know, Rapid Fire, possibly 10 different artists and just knock it all out in one episode rather than continuing to do downtempo episodes for the foreseeable future because we could. Yeah. We could easily do that. Definitely. And I gotta say, some of these artists I'm bringing, I think deserve a full-length episode

at some point, but, but, well, you know, not for a long time. I think, I think we've gotten this out of our system, especially after this episode. We're going to, we're going to circle back to, to some rock music, to our wheelhouse, right? But, yeah, this is it, man. I'm excited. So let's just dive right into it, man. Now, are you going to be bringing songs that are loosely fitting into this category? Or you stick into the basics?

What do you mean? So I feel like I'm going to be our true north for the episode. Okay. If you steer us kind of to the left, take a few, you know, a few streets down from the down-tempo block. I'll be turning left a few more times to get us back where we were. You know what I mean? So a call back to our underworld episode where I had a really terrible analogy about if down tempo or I guess if electronic music was like a neighborhood, you know, down tempo is on this one street

and underworld is like a few streets over, right? Yeah. Yeah, I do think that I'm going to be, you know, I'm going to be turning left and maybe, you know, right a few times. But that's the thing. Here's the thing. And we'll get into this because of the tunes I'm bringing at least. Down tempo gets mixed with a bunch of other sounds and stuff, right? So it's just one of many genres and styles that goes into, to me, kind of like what we talked about with Underworld. Underworld's not strictly down tempo. But it sounds like what you're saying is that your tunes that you're bringing are strictly down tempo. I ended up, you know, I was all over the

plays too for a while with my picks, but then almost without even intentionally, my songs just ended up, the five that I landed on were just straight up true classic down tempo jams. A lot of them are the old ones, you know, old songs that have been sitting in my pocket for years. Okay. Well, I intentionally brought five tracks that have like a wide range of sound. So that'll be good. Yeah.

All right. So you're going to kick us off, Q. Yep. And I'm going to kick us off with another artist and song from the Elemental Chill collection, dude. Okay. We stumbled upon this collection of down-tempo tunes. It's a compilation, like, four-disc volume through like Soul Seek or something back in the heyday of pirating music. Yeah, you know, basically you go to look for an artist and you end up with a compilation record that that song,

peered on. Yeah, it'll show any record. It doesn't matter what that features this artist. And this artist here is, his name is Mikal Delta. Good pronunciation, Q. Not what I'd have gone with Michael. I could be Michael, dude.

But no, I think McHell, that's probably right. You like that? This is one of my favorite down-tempo songs. Still to this day, I love this song. I love everything about it. Now, correct me if I'm wrong with. This is very guitar-driven, right?

right? Yes. Okay, cool. And here's the cool thing about it. I learned that the Elemental Chill compilation, they did kind of like their own mixes for these songs. So I looked up this song elsewhere with, you know, from other sources like YouTube or Spotify doesn't sound the same. So I went back, I pulled up my old hard drive and grabbed the actual mix that's featured on Elemental Chill. So do we have any knowledge on like who mixed it? Was it like another producer or something, electronic producer? It doesn't say, I'm guessing maybe whoever pieced together these compilations maybe had something to do with it. Yeah, yeah.

Kind of like the DJ Kicks records, you know. Those are always mixed by whoever brings, you know, the collection together. So, all right, here is, again, an oldie, but a goodie in my heart. I will always love this song. this is mackel delta the song is called diving i haven't heard that song in years man it holds up right yeah it does and like here's the thing though cue i would if i were to throw other styles on that you know it's very dancy and it's very ambient too there's a little bit ambient to it so like you know if we compare that to theory corporation or quantic or taska it's very

very much, I would say, more dance-oriented with that beat in the background. Yeah, I would kind of put it in the same campus, Quantic and Thevery Corporation. Really? But there's no samples in it. There's no jazz whatsoever. Maybe the jazz, maybe the guitar is a little bit jazz-oriented, but, I mean, there's a little bit of another kind of genre in there besides just jazz. Well, it's very, like, chill-out and music. Definitely, definitely, yeah. So here's why I've always loved this song. I think this might be the first song on that elemental chill collection that piqued my interest, even though it is very musac, like, you know, you step into an elevator.

Yeah. Or, you know, you're at a bougie cocktail party. Right. This is the first one on that collection. So probably one of the first down-tempo songs that really stuck. with me that does that style, but in a really effective way. Yeah. And it's with those great guitar stylings.

I'm sure that's McCall doing those. Probably. In studio. Yeah. Yeah, probably. So that is off of an album of his called Halcyon Days. Came out in 2001. All right.

So that is, I feel like that's a good way to kick things off, dude. Sure. Just kind of kick us off with the classic. So I'm going to pass it on to you, dude, what you got? Well, speaking of classics, Q, it doesn't get much more classic than this record that I'm going to start us off with here. I'm talking about Portis Head. Does that ring a bell to you, Q? You probably recognize the album cover.

Yeah, it's mostly blue, right? Yeah. A woman on it. Yep, that's right. That's the singer. Portis Head to me is the down-tempo group. and Massive Attack is on the same level to me, where they really lean heavy on the female vocalist.

Definitely. Portisad especially, because that's, the main vocalist is a female. Massive Attack has a couple of male singers. But for Portisad, it is Beth Gibbons, is the primary vocalist. And here's something that blew my mind, dude. Giof Barrow or Jeff Barrow. is the second member, the second founding member of Portishead.

He's the guy that did the Annihilation soundtrack, the ex-Moccius soundtrack, and the Devs soundtrack, which is, I brought that last year as one of my best of 2020 tracks with Ben Salisbury. That's the guy? Yeah, I had no clue that he was from Portishead. Shows you how much I know. Anyway, so this is their debut. record, it's called dummy.

And your IQ, it's very blue. The album art does feature a female, which is Beth, the singer. So, yeah, you're right, dude. Moody is definitely the right word to use. Her vocals are kind of compared to Billy Holiday, which I think kind of adds to like the, you know, that's sort of like ghostly vibe to it, if that makes sense. That old-timey, she's got a very classic sounding vocal delivery, which I think works really well with the beats and whatnot, right?

So this is, I think more so than down tempo, this is a trip hop record. And I feel like those two, there's so much crossover with trip hop and down tempo. But this song I'm bringing in is a good example of what I think of when I think of a trip hop. All right, so let's just play the track here here, Kew, and then we'll talk about it. This song is called pedestal. Yeah, that's like the trip hop, a classic trip hop, right? because what I mean, the reason it's called trip hop is because it borrows from hip hop, right? It's pretty straightforward. Like with the beats and the, and the record scratching sounds and stuff like that, right?

Yeah. But yeah, this record is a, is just a quintessential trip hop down tempo record. It makes the list, every list you can think of, you know, that's going to say the name off the top 10 for sure. Yeah, definitely. It's up there. So I'm going to quote a pitchfork review. a guy named Philip Sherburn. He says, despite its reputation as dinner party music, it is straight up discomfort food,

curl up and die music, head under the covers music. It's dark, dank, and quintessentially Bristol, mingling a chilling harbor fog with the resin of a thousand spliffs left to burn down in a haze. Damn.

Pitchfork, man, they like to be wordy and descriptive. They like to paint pictures cute better than I do, that's for sure. But yeah, they're from Bristol, England. That's what he was referring to Bristol there. But yeah, it's just moody. It's like you just think of like a smoke-filled room or something like that, you know. Right, like speak-easy, classic jazz from like the 30s, 40s. That's her voice, man.

The Billy Holiday sounding voice. Yeah. But yeah, Rolling Stone called the record Gothic hip-hop, which I think was another good. descriptor. But yeah. I brought a couple of of like heavy hitters today. Portishead is one of them and you actually named it earlier.

But yeah, massive attack is also one of my top five. So I'm bringing a massive attack track later. So I'm sort of like sandwiching my picks with these two like you know, titans of this genre. But anyway. So yeah,

that is Portishead. The song was called Pedestal. It's off of their record. Dummy. All right, cute. I'm going to throw it back to you for your next pick. What have we got? Are we, so now, you know, Trip Hop, we sort of, we turned right a little bit. Are you going to, are we going back?

Are we circling back to the down-tempo drive? So this guy, I know you're a fan of this guy as well. His name is Andy Turner. He also goes by Aim. I've brought one of his songs before. I would maybe put him under Trip Hop. So would you say that Trip Hop, It does, leans more heavy on sample-based tunes.

Oh, I actually wanted to say, speaking of, I wanted to bring that up. The drums and the trumpet that you heard on that Portishead song were not samples. You might think that they were, but they were actual musicians. A guy named Clive Deamer on drums and Andy Haig on trumpet. Just wanted to make that point because, you know, you may have thought that that was a sample. If it was Quantic, or at least Quantic's first record, it would have been a sample, right? Same with Theory Corporation, but no. Well, at least the albums that we talked about.

But anyway, yeah. So you were asking about Trip Hop being sample-based? Yeah. It's really almost synonymous with down-tempo, honestly. But, I mean, I think Trip-hop to me is like, you know, when you hear the record scratch or even some rapping, like some Trip-op has rap in it. But you're just saying that this is kind of more like kind of your classic sample-based kind of music,

this guy, AIM. Yeah, he does a lot of that. So he does bring in the trip-in. pop elements. He has a lot of songs where he works with, let me see if I can find his name, because I love, he has a hip-hop artist that sings on a bunch of his records. His name is QNC. So AIM was part of this collective back in the 90s. Q&C was part of that group. But he also does a lot of great down-tempo, like breakbeat music. So I just looked up break music because I've always been curious exactly what the definition of breaks is, like what it means.

Breakbeat. Breakbeat, yeah. So it's primarily a mid-90s to mid-2000 style combining elements of progressive house and trance, but with syncopated percussion patterns, which are electro and or breakbeat sample-based. So, yeah, Ames one of the best, dude. I love his stuff. One of my favorite albums of his is Coldwater music that came out in 99.

and I'm going to bring a song from another record of his that came out about seven years later called Flight 602. This song is called Interview. Yeah, so many cool moments in that song. Yeah, dude. Such a slow build, too, with that super ambient intro. I mean, that was almost like, yeah, that was almost like a minute-long intro.

Yeah. So you talk about him being sample-based. Do you know what he sampled in that track? I probably look it up real quick. Yeah, let's try that who sampled. Because like, that sounded kind of like... It almost sounded like Smokey Robinson or... Yeah, something like that, yeah.

Well, who sampled.com has brought at least one of the samples. You want to play some of it? Yeah, let's see what it was. So he sampled from a song called When You're Walking, a band called Black Sugar, from an album Sono Radio from 1971. Let's see if we can pick up on it. the whole thing that's it yeah dude he just repeated that the whole song yeah that's cool man it's not you don't have to listen hard for that you don't get to listen carefully yeah that's it

you don't have to yeah so yeah i love that kind of stuff man so he so he pulled the um the majority of the of the beat the entire melody i'm sure he added some some some of his own you know beats to it maybe on top of it like maybe maybe a snare on top of the snare or something you to give it a little bit different sound. But yeah, man. Cool. So, yeah, that was AIM. One of my favorites, dude.

One of my favorites. That was an album called Flight 602 from 2006. That song was called Interview. Pass it back to you, dude. What you got? So this guy is like a legend in the underground, like, UK electronic music scene. Like, he's been in the game forever. He started making music under the name, the Irresistible Force.

in 1987. So his name, his, I guess his DJ name, is Mix Master Morris. So yeah, this record that I'm going to play a track from here is called It's Tomorrow Already

was put out on Ninja Tune. So this is the first release under Ninja Tune. He had a couple of other records before that one. But, yeah, this came out in 1998. But yeah, so let's just play this song. This is a really interesting album. And it's got this really, a certain quality to it. But I'm going to play the track here.

He relies heavily on sampled, like, vocal tracks from, like, movies or TV shows or whatever, right? Which I typically don't like, but this record, he does it really well. So this song is called Nepali's Bliss. Hey, kids. And kids. Commit a minute. I've got a good sang for you. I've got to sing for you.

Trippy. Shake the Jeep kind of stuff. Like the bass was heavy? Yeah. That was your takeaway? That was my takeaway. What did you think about the, you know, Nepali's Bliss is obviously referring to like some drug, right?

Yeah. Because in the background, the vocals are like, If anybody ever offers you a hit of Nepalese bliss, like, you know, I guess you should take it. It's what the song is trying to tell you. But anyway, so, yeah, the whole record is like that. Really, like a lot of textures and like a warm synths and stuff like that in the background. And it has this kind of dreamlike quality. Yeah.

Sort of like this. Big sound. Yeah. Like engulfs the room kind of. kind of feeling. Yeah, definitely. So this guy, here's an interesting fact, Q, he put out one of the very first

chill-out compilation records. You know, we've been talking about those forever? Yeah. The last few weeks at least. In 1990. Damn. There you go. He is still, according to the Ninja Tune biography

about him, is still one of the UK's most popular DJs. He has been the resident DJ at the Glastonbury Festival for six years. Nice. Warming up for acts like The Prodigy, Chemical Brothers, etc. So anyway, you know, this is just like just one of those staples in the game, you know. But anyway, that record was called It's Tomorrow Already.

I highly recommend it if you like that song because the whole record's like that. Really interesting vibes the entire time. You should take a hit of something before you hit for it because it's probably, it probably enhances the, the playback experience. All right, Q, I'm going to throw it back to you. What do you got here for us? All right, dude. Well, speaking of compilations,

you may or may not be familiar with this one, dude. So this one's going all the way back to 96. Oh, dude, we almost had the same track, perhaps, because I was also going to bring. I pulled this up and pushed play on this record because I remember it. It's great, man. Sorry, I just stole your thunder. Yeah, dude.

Kind of. You know, you kept it very very. egg. But Cruder and Dorfmeister. So they're another one of the, I'd call them founding members of the genre. Yeah. Trip hop downtempo. Richard Dorfmeister is one half of Tos, who in my opinion, probably one of the greatest downtempo duos out there. I would agree with that, yeah. Yeah. So I never actually got two into Kruder and Dorfmeister. But they have a really great compilation record, kind of like a DJ kicks in a way, called conversions. And, did I'm curious if this is the song that you were thinking about bringing from this

record. It's the first track on the album. It's from a DJ who goes by DJ Unknown Face. There's really not a lot about Unknown Face. So the name is fitting. and it looks like he or she oh it's a she Stacy really only released a couple songs

and one of them is one that it shows up on this record it's another one of those mainstays for me dude this is a classic example of down tempo this song is called that's cool yeah it's interesting because

both Cogs and Wikipedia both label this as drum and bass and that's all the only genre attribute that gets added to it which is weird because

you know drum and bass maybe a little bit there well it is like I mean that's front and center is just a very repetitive looped drumbeat right but to me drum and bass is like the kind of stuff that Eamon Tobin does on his records where it's like just

Yeah. Like just the drums are not possible to do as a human drummer, you know? Right. But yeah, this is just another one of those. Like you said, it's borderline elevator music. Right. And that sounds like a dig at it. But keep in mind, this came out in 96, so this was right.

Yeah. I think this was right when there was a split among DJs and producers, you know, with the classic kind of dance club music that you heard, kind of like what we talked about with Underworld. And then these DJ, you know, like Thevery Corporation and Quantica, who were starting to do more like lounge kind of chill out dance music. Yeah. And I think Kruder and Dorfmeister were one of the, I mean,

I don't know for sure. This is just my speculation, but I think they were one of the first ones to start doing that. They're definitely like a legendary name. Yeah. You know, Kruder put out a record that he's pretty unknown for. I think he went by Peace Orchestra as well. You remember Peace Orchestra?

I don't. They were featured on, damn it, what's it called? The movie where he tattoos himself to remember shit. Memento. Memento, yeah. Actually, interestingly enough, Thievery Corporation song also. was featured on the Memento soundtrack, one of the singles from the mirror conspiracy,

the record that we did. Anyway, well, I feel like I should probably queue up that soundtrack. That's a good soundtrack, dude, for sure. Dude, I didn't even realize. Carrie Ann Moss is in Memento. She's in The Matrix as well. Speaking of The Matrix, dude,

did you, have you heard the rumors about... Yeah, of course, dude. Hell yeah. Kianu and Carrie Ann. one back, reprising their roles. I feel like that's kind of what Keanu is doing right now, you know. He just put out Bill and Ted, you know.

He's like, what can I dust off the shelf? What else could he do, man? That's really the only two. That's really it. He could put out another John Wick movie, but that's been his main dig for a while now. Yeah. Anyway. All right, man.

Well, that's it. That's just, again, with that one and the McHale Delta, those are my two classics that I'm bringing to the table. Okay, okay. So I'm going to pass it back to you, man. What else you got? All right. I'm going to do a left turn for sure.

Now we're jumping a decade to 2008. So I would put this artist more under the IDM umbrella. So think Tyco. And this guy, his name is Kadomo. Anyway, this record is still life. and this guy his name is like I said his name is Codomo but his actual name is Chris

Child and the word Codomo is the Japanese word for child Q Whoa so it's both a reference to his last name and the fact that he actually grew up in Japan

pretty cool Neito so yeah this guy he's he's known for some of his video game soundtrack work this record is not a video game soundtrack so like I said this record is called Still Life came out in 2008 and apparently the this kind of reminded me of Lossil a little bit as far as like his approach to the record so that it's highly conceptual

in which the music was all inspired by a set of photographs taken during his travels in the U.S. and abroad right well this song it's called concept 16 tycho vibes at the very end right that definitely lends itself well to video game scores that style yeah that style right and as you know q i love this kind of stuff oh yeah you're all about it dude so what how does this fit in and into the down tempo umbrella for you so is it more like the repetition i think this is a good conversation in the layer building yeah i think it's a good conversation because i feel like you're your definition of down tempo i think it's very rooted in jazz it is okay Very much so.

Yeah, and I don't think that's what what down tempo is about. Down tempo is just like a style that you can add to a bunch of different things, right? Okay, here it is, dude. I got it, man. Yeah, this is perfect. So this is where what I, the down tempo tag to me. Yeah. Is, I think it's outdated because it was originally intended to refer to 1990s to 2000s, chill out music that has a slow.

rolling hip-hop or dub-inspired groove with sampled beats and which can be broadly categorized as primarily jazzy, primarily duby, or both. Yeah. That to me is down tempo. Well, so I'm stuck in the, you know, to the early 2000s up to that era. In my mind, that's down tempo. Yeah. Well, you're cute.

Now your, your label has expanded. This is the first sentence on Wikipedia here. Down tempo is a broad genre of electronic music characterized by an atmospheric sound and slow tempo beats. And it says here, examples of down tempo subgenres include trip hop, chill wave, cybeant, which I've never heard of, and lofi hip hop. So jazz not mentioned once in there. But like, you know, that's why, you know, when you think about that, theater corporation, like we said, it might be jazz, it might be like Latin music,

it might be, you know, Middle Eastern psychedelic type music that they kind of pull in. But at the base of it all is those beats, right, the slow tempo beats and stuff. Yeah. Anyway. So for me, when I'm, you know, when I'm trying to figure out five songs to bring to the table for our down-tip on mix, you must have had a pretty narrow scope, good. Yeah, I did, man. But that's okay.

You know what? like I said. So to me, true North for down tempo is that for you early 90s to to early 2000s specific definition of it. Right. That is outdated apparently. Well, not that it's, yeah, I don't think it's necessarily outdated. Well, that was the original. Where did you read that? On discogs. Oh, discogs. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. But I think bands like Massive Attack and Portishead were sort of like the origins of it. And they don't really incorporate jazz at all into it. So, yeah, I think my guess is that like the term down tempo was probably used exclusively to describe that kind of jazz-centric stuff by some group of people maybe.

Right. Maybe, maybe at some point. But yeah, to me, although I would say massive attack and porticide are more trip-pop. But, you know, at this point, it's almost like we're having a conversation about Dream Pop versus Shugays, you know. Right. It's one of the same. They're one of the same. They do tend to mean different things, but they're all under the same umbrella, you know.

For sure. Anyway. All right, Q, well, that was an artist that goes by Cadomo, and that was a song called Concept 16 off of a record called Still Life. All right, Q, I'm going to throw it back at you. Well, I am bringing an artist that has been featured on No Filler before. I brought one of his songs for. from the same album as what you heard back in the day before we did what you heard as a full

episode so um this guy is named leon vinehall i love his stuff so he is under the house deep house down tempo genres and he's got an album called rojas i think it's rojas but it's u s not a s so it's not the color red. But this is a more like classic, like club kind of dance vibes. You know, very four on the floor kind of stuff. I absolutely love it. I brought a song of his called Paradisia back in the day, sometime last year. I'm going to play another song off of this album.

You're going to love this, dude. This song is called Saxony. A little taste of those vocals at the end, dude. Yeah, I love the harp sample that he pulled in. And then there was like just a flute that came out of nowhere and then it never came back again. I mean, maybe it comes back later, but I heard a flute. Well, let me tell you, dude. That is that is something that I love most about his music is he's very good at just kind of introducing something quickly and like only once maybe.

Yeah. And you don't hear it again. And he's very good at the layers, you know. Yeah. So let me ask you this. Let me ask you this. Okay. What about that?

is jazz to you? Nothing. Now, let me say, when I said I was, you know, bringing the classics, I didn't mean strictly jazz. Okay, okay. And I don't think down tempo is strictly jazz in my mind. Okay. Jazz heavy. All right.

But it's that more classic like Musac, you know, boogie cocktail party. Sure, sure. When I think downtown, that's what I think. Yeah, I got you. Yeah. So, yeah, this came out in 2016. Wow. 2016, yeah.

He hasn't actually really has a, really has a lot of, yeah. been doing this for too long. He's been active since 2012. He's on Ninja Tune. He's on quite a few other labels. Cool. Yeah, dude. So again, that was a song called Saxony from an album called Rojas from

Leon Vinehall. All right, dude, we're rounding third bass. We just got three songs left. What's you got for us? All right, Q. I think I'm going to go to Massive Attack next.

So here's another another classic downtempo record. I would call this more trip hop. There's the down tempo stuff that you've been talking about where it's very like, like you said, the music stuff, the lounge music, right? And then there's bands like, or there's groups like Massive Attack and Porta's Head who really embraced like the trip hop stuff.

And I think with Massive Attack, it's back to that same kind of dark mood that like Portishead has, right? It's everything about these bands. Like their imagery. Right. Everything about them is just like dark and kind of mysterious.

Yeah, there's this giant like bug on the cover of this record. Oh, you're bringing mezzanine. Mezzanine. Everybody knows this record. This is on the top 10 for sure, every list ever. Yeah. For trip hop and down tempo.

Yeah, and just best of the 90s too. Both Portishead and Mezzanine. Best of the 90s. Like this record, like debut at number one. the UK when it released. Like this was a huge, huge record. So I'm going to bring, and I actually brought a song for what you heard a long time ago. So this isn't the first time that this group has been on no filler.

But I'm going to bring the title track to the record, which is not a single. I made sure of it. But this song is, of course, called mezzanine. I was watching your face. and you didn't seem too too interested with this track here. Not my cup, dude. Not your cup.

I like everything but the vocals. Okay. You know, it's probably one of those things where, much like a Tom York or a Paul Banks of Interpol, you either love it or you hate it. Well, you know, I like the, it's got like,

it's got like, it's got like the end. It's got that industrial like cold Yeah The darkness Yeah which is what I like about it But like Yeah I think what I like about his voice is that

Much like Ozzy Osbourne Like it just pairs really well With The vibe and the mood It's like the sickly kind of voice Almost But that's the thing like

What's what's so great about this record is that you've got his vocals, you've got the other guy that was kind of doing the spoke of word stuff in the background throughout the record. But then you also have a very well-known, let

me look up her name, but it's the yeah, Elizabeth Fraser of Cocktow Twins shows up on the record. She sings on Angels, she sings on group four, and she has this very like classical much like the Portishead singer almost operatic kind

voice, right? So you hear her really like angelic, beautiful voice, and then you hear his, like, grating kind of sickly voice, like, throughout the record. And it's just this very, you know, it just all works so well together, especially on songs I grew before where both of them are featured. But this is like one of those records that you push play and you let it sort of like envelop you. You know what I mean? It's like this. It's a mood, it's a vibe and like an experience. Well, hey, dude, that was a rare occurrence On this episode, dude On this show, I mean, not on this episode

Yeah, on this show Yeah And you know what, people need to hear it Well, here's what I would like to say, Q, give the record a shot I feel like I owe it to Music fans everywhere I need to listen to mezzanine at least once in my life, right? Yes, I think it is one of those records

Ironically enough, I think it does show up on that very well-known coffee table book, 1001 records to listen to before you die. I know the dummy Portishead record is on there, but I'm pretty sure massive attackers too. So, yeah, you do need to listen to it. Well, okay, let me say what I liked about it. I liked their choice in sampled sounds

to use for drum beats. I don't think any of that was actually, you know, anywhere near an actual drumbeat. Yeah. Yeah, that's cool stuff. And the atmosphere and the space around it and the reverb and everything was really cool. I'll tell you about Q. Listen to Group 4, the very next track.

Okay. It's got her very beautiful, beautiful vocals by Elizabeth Fraser. And this came out in 98. 98. Yeah, that's worth noting. Yeah. All right, Q. Well, here's your last track, Q, Q, what's it going to be?

well dude i'm going to stick with with one of the greats i mentioned i was going to bring a to the toska track so this is the second uh richard dorfmeister track to appear on that not not really i mean cruder and dorfmeister mixed that dj unknown face that's true okay good good point that wasn't one of the yeah good point um but yeah i'm i'm bringing up richard dorfmeister again he is in the group tuska which is probably one of my favorite. They're down tempo. One of the greatest. Yeah, they're one of the greatest.

And I would argue they're probably, probably the first down tempo group that sort of like hooked us in. Yeah, that we really got obsessed with. Yeah. We did do an entire episode on their album, Suzuki, that came out in 2000. And I'm going to bring a track from their album. So I guess the second half of Toska is Rupert Huber. I should mention his name.

Hubert, maybe. Hubert or whatever. Not sure. But their fourth studio album is one of my favorites, J.A.C. This one's got a mood, dude. And I love it, man. And this song is so, like, dark and moody. You know, I love dark stuff.

And, yeah. And the way that they produce and mix their albums, dude, it's just something else. No part of their songs really sound sampled, you know?

Like, they're just so good at it. Right. All right, so this is, again, off of Toska's album from 2005, JAC. This is track 10. This song is called Sela. Yeah, I'll tell you what makes Tosca different. Like, there is no mistaking.

a Tosco song. Like they have a very definitive sound that they've cultivated and like masters. It doesn't get much better than that, dude. Yeah.

Like you, yes. Yeah, I agree. Like the, they have a signature sound, I guess. They have figured out their, you know how like

in our, in our episode on Tyco we quote, voted him as talking about like how he once he got his settings correct he never touched them again right because like he figured out his sound he uses the he uses the exact same equipment and yeah purposely doesn't upgrade his equipment because it's an instrument he treats it like an instrument right right if you once you buy a guitar that's your guitar like you could play around with like effect pedals and stuff but it's still your guitar right your tone once you get your tone mastered you know a lot

of guitar players like they work toward getting their tone figure it out Like with Tosca, like they, they have that, that synth sound that I associate with Tosca. Is that kind of like, you know, that sort of, you know, the sound that was the main melody, kind of that was carried throughout. And even the bass, the way the bass sounds, it's like, there's no mistaking that that's Tosca. Yeah, and their, all their music, like, it may have that repetitive layer building kind of down to tempo quality. but it like demands your attention you can't just ignore it yeah and this this particular track puts you in a trance right and we talked about how down to both songs can kind of do that because of their repetition but i think that one definitely kind of lulls you into like a trance a little

bit yep especially with the delay like you know how they do that delay they do that a lot where it's the echo delay kind of echoes yeah yeah dude so i figured i'd wrap it up with with one of the greats, dude. So again, that was Sala off of Toska's album from 2005, J-A-C. All right, dude. How are you going to wrap it up for us? Okay. Well, I'm glad I didn't play mezzanine last because I had planned on it, but at the last second, I decided to switch and flip these two tracks cute because I wouldn't want to go out on a track that you didn't like, but I am confident that you're going to like this one. So, surprise, surprise, I'm bringing in a video game soundtrack. Ooh.

Now, that's, I think I've talked about this before, what I love about video game soundtracks is that there's literally every style of genre, you'll find a video game soundtrack that falls under that genre, including down tempo. So this is a guy named Ed Harrison. and this album came out in 2009. It's for a video game called Neo Tokyo. It's a cyberpunk first-person shooter game. I have never played it.

But this soundtrack is something else, man. And, you know, it's a video game soundtrack. So there's a lot of different styles of songs, I guess, on the record. Because, you know, you've got to match the level. You know, you've got to match the intensity of the action or whatever, right? So it has the down tempo label, trip hop, ambient, and IDM. This song in particular, I'd probably put under the more under like the IDM down tempo umbrella. But the song's great, man.

And I'm confident, Kew, that you're going to love it. So here we go. This song is called Stop Gap by Ed Harrison from the video game soundtrack for Neo-Tol. Tokyo. It's awesome. Yeah, it's great, man. The whole soundtrack's like that, by the way. Cool.

Like I said, there's 27 tracks on this record. There's a bunch of different kind of vibes, but there's a lot of that for sure. That was really unique. And you're never going to hear that, dude, if you don't tune into some video game soundtracks, man. I think once I discovered, like, figured out. I'm not tapped in like you, man. Well, I go in cycles, but electronic music has always been like one of the cycles I find myself. in, right?

Yeah. Well, hey, man, once I get this degree and I'm diving into the world of IT, I guarantee you I'm going to be coming to you, and you're going to just give me, you know, just the floodgates will open with all these playlists that you've been making over the last, you know, decade. Well, all I know is Q, as a, as a bona fide, soon-to-be developer, who's going to be more of like a cloud back in type engineer guy. Yeah.

The Doom 2016 soundtrack is going to be your best friend. Okay. Is that going to be my starting point? Well, no, you got to bring it out for certain, like crunch time type moments, you know. Okay. Yeah, dude, I'm going to be coming to you, man, for all the moods I need, like, hey, man, I'm stuck in this, there's this bug I can't figure it out. You're going to be like, here you go, dude. Yeah, put this song on and the solution will come to you.

Awesome. But, yeah, like I was saying, you know, video game soundtracks, there's every style imaginable. Like, the Doom 2016 soundtrack is one of the best, like, heavy metal records, like instrumental, heavy metal, progressive, like heavy metal music. I mean, it's just one of the best, right? Anyway, all right, Q. Well, that's it, dude. We're done with down tempo. We're done.

It's over. We're done. It's over. You heard it here. We're done with down tempo for the foreseeable future. You know what? The funny thing is, Q, like, I burn myself out on this music pretty quickly. Like I said, I cycle.

I go on cycles, right? Yeah. So, like, I'm saying that to myself, too. Like, I'm done with down tempo for a while. I think I'm with you, dude. I think I'm with you. Especially since we've been, like, knee-deep in it for the last, like, three, four weeks. Yeah.

It's time to go back to our roots queue. We're going to start in the 80s. and actually did we decide that we're going to do a no-fieler like a rewind next week? Yeah, so I'm gearing up to take a really hard exam, the security plus for you IT nerds out there. So my study needs to kick into high gear over the next couple weeks. So next week we're going to just drop a no-filler rewind and pull from the vault we're going to revisit our episode on television and their album Marky Moon.

And that's going to be a great way to kick us off, dude, before we dive deep into this era. Yeah. Of post-punkage. Totally. Yeah. And so what we've talked about doing so far, at least, is, like you said, Markey Moon, our television episode, we'll dust that off of the, bring it out of the vault, the no-filler vault. Now that came out in 1977, not the episode, but the album Marky Moon. So that is right at the beginning of this stuff.

And then we're going to do Talking Heads. And we're going to talk about their record, Remain and Light, which I am really excited about. I'm really excited about that too, man. So here's the thing about Remainting in Light. And obviously we'll get into all this, but Remainting Light has one of their most popular songs ever on it, once in a lifetime. everybody knows that song but all the other stuff that happened on that record is so like out there and experimental and like um they pulled in so many different genres and i'm fairly confident you that that that you have not listened to any of this is that right that is correct man i have

you yet i know i haven't done it yet you have not really have not dove deep into talking hands yet man this there's yeah well anyway we're going to bring i got a few tracks off of that that we're going to play. And then I think Talking Heads is a perfect segue into Sonic Youth. And that's what we're going to cover after Talking Heads. And we've got a very special guest in store for you guys. And we'll maybe tease that in the Talking Heads episode. So yes, if you're if you've been waiting for us to stop talking about down tempo, the wait is over. We got it out of our system. We're done. It's over. back to our roots.

It's all. Because after this stint of new wave, I think we're going to stay in the, in the 2010s era, indie music for the foreseeable future. So, because we could spend, we could spend years. We could do an entire podcast. Yeah, this could be a 2010s podcast. Yes, absolutely. I'm glad it's not. But anyway.

All right. Well, yeah, man. that's it. That's our down-tempo mixtape. I hope you enjoyed it. We'll put this, maybe we'll put the Spotify playlist up on Instagram of these tracks. Yeah, we'll turn this into a playlist for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, maybe what we could do is put every single down-timple track that we've covered so far.

So we'll put the quantic stuff on there, the Thiebry Corporation. Maybe we could even go back the Tosca stuff, the Tyco stuff. Any song that we've played on this podcast that would fall under this umbrella. Maybe we can make like an ultimate no-filler down-tempo playlist that we could share with you guys. That's a good idea, dude. I like that. All right. All right, man.

Well, that's it. So, speaking of Instagram, you should follow us on Instagram. So, yeah, just look us up, no-filler podcasts. We're trying to be a little bit more active on there. Share more content, more interesting kind of content compared to what we used to do on on Twitter. So yeah, follow us there.

You can also find us on the Pantheon Podcast Network. That's Pantheonpodcast.com. We'd also like to thank our sponsor, AKG. That's it. So let's, we're going to outro us out,

as we have been doing on these down-tembo episodes with, uh, we're just going to tune in to Soma FM on their groove salad classic radio station. And I'm just going to press record, whatever's playing on that station is going to be our

outro music for this episode. Their Groo Salad Classic station is all the down-tempo tunes that you would have heard if you tuned into Soma FM back in the 2010s. So classic down-tempo tunage will fade us out with that. You can find our episode track lists if you want to know what the artist is because I don't even know yet. I haven't done it yet. So thank you, Soma FM for the awesome Groove Salad Classic radio station. That's going to do it for us.

Thank you, as always for listening. My name's Quentin. My name is Travis. You all take care.