Here's the second half of our video documentary on Celluloid Records. Bill Laswell and Grandmixer DXT, part of Celluloid's production brain trust, speak on some of their production work together outside of the label, including Herbie Hancock's groundbreaking song "Rockit," and PiL's Album with Ginger Baker. Label founder Jean Karakos also speaks about signing Fela Kuti to Celluloid. Hearing info on these projects and more from the mouths of their creators is one of the reasons we love what we do! Change The Beat: The Celluloid Records Story is out now on double CD, double LP (w/ CD insert) and digital download.

One of the most rewarding parts of working on This Ain't Chicago was the ability to learn about the golden age of the UK underground party and acid house scene from the people who were a part of it. By virtue of the word of mouth nature of the scene, the inside story hasn't been widely shared in same manner as, say, accounts of the early days of hip-hop in New York. As a supplement to the music on the compilation (and the excellent liner notes by Dave Swindells), we sat down with some of the major players, including Lesley Lawrence of Bang The Party, P-Mac (producer for May), Kiss FM DJ Colin Faver, and of course Richard Sen, to speak about the parties, drum machines, labels, and drugs that inspired the music. These guys are a wealth of knowledge and talent, and it was an honor to listen to their stories.


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With his two-disc collection of alternative dance music (which he claims could be called "Trevor's Teenage Years") coming soon, the man behind Output Recordings, Playgroup, and too many excellent record sleeve designs to count sits down to tell us a little bit more about the aforementioned teenaged years. His discussion of exposure to London club life as a fourteen-year-old make us nostalgic for one of the golden eras of nightlife. The music on Metal Dance just makes the the feeling hit that much harder...

Encyclopedias of disco knowledge that they are, it's always educational to hear the Horse Meat Disco guys hold court on the subject of music history. One such topic on which they have a lot to say is the after-hours disco sub-genre known as Sleaze, made popular at seminal NYC night clubs like The Saint. In fact, the entire second disc of the London collective's latest mix album functions as a Sleaze survey. Not familiar? See what the guys have to say in an interview with the mighty djhistory.com (encyclopedias in their own right). Both discs of HMD III are likely to soundtrack more than a few parties this summer.

One of London's most respected warehouse party series, DJ Hugo Mendez and his Sofrito crew have built a name for themselves as top quality purveyors of Tropical sounds of all sorts. While putting together their debut compilation for Strut, we sat down with Hugo as well as artist / designer Lewis Heriz to hear the story of how Sofrito came about, how it grew, and how it's amazing poster artwork has developed. Sofrito: Tropical Discotheque will be out in January 2011 on Strut.

Ebo Taylor could almost certainly fill a book talking about his musical history. A close friend of Fela Kuti's and fellow originator melding African music with sounds coming out of the West, Taylor has collaborated and performed with a connoisseur's dream list of African musicians, and is responsible for more than his fair share of classics. On the eve of his first internationally distributed solo album, we had a brief chat with the Ghanaian legend about his musical career and some of his favorite collaborators. Look for more video footage coming soon, and make sure to catch Love And Death, recorded with Berlin's Afrobeat Academy, this October.