Only 4 minutes into the 2nd side of their 1st Beat Tape, you recognize it from the first sound of that siren. You might call it ‘the hype section of Soupmask‘ (as Kuma’s remix reminds you), but St. Helens call it ‘Ground Effects‘.  Souns tightens it up ’til it almost pops, and Jirku throws it through a wall of synths. Might have been a stretch to call it dub-step back when the original mix was made, but these days that label is sounding more flexible.

1. St. Helens - Ground Effects (Souns Remix)
2. St. Helens - Ground Effects (Kuma Remix)
3. St. Helens - Ground Effects (Extended Mix)
4. St. Helens - Ground Effects (Jirku Remix)

Big thanks go out to Vancouver’s hardest working, heaviest hitting dubstep producers/promoters for the remixes!

Find out what Souns is up to:
www.myspace.com/michael_red
lowindigo.blogspot.com

Find out what Kuma is up to:
www.artofbeatz.org
www.thekonspiracygroup.com/kuma.html

St. Helens
(Rob Warren and Tomas Jirku - Vancouver, Canada)
“Calling On You”
(Digital Album)

Broken techno soul. Jirku and Warren take you through funk and back…
Now available for download in glorious 256kbps mp3 format:

01. St Helens - Hastings Park
02. St Helens - Calling On You
03. St Helens - Crows Over Head

This collection was remastered and assembled as a limited promo CDr a while back, but it seems senseless to me now to keep it limited. Various remixes a few of which still haven’t been released, but they come together into a pretty mean album, so enjoy:

01 - naw - birch bark (tomas jirku remix).mp3
02 - Soundwarp - DK 85 (Tomas Jirku Remix).mp3
03 - naw - 5am westbound (Tomas Jirku’s ”As West As It Gets” Remix).mp3
04 - The Hermit - Home (Tomas Jirku’s Naturhaus Remix).mp3
05 - Sourcecode - Even Numbers (Tomas Jirku’s Number Station Remix).mp3
06 - Marco Bernardi - EF, NG (Tomas Jirku’s Effin’ Great Remix).mp3
07 - LOD - Sabado Gris (Tomas Jirku’s ”Scooby-Doo Gristle” Remix).mp3
08 - Tomas Jirku - The Stickiest of the Icky.mp3
09 - Andrew Duke - Consumer vs User (Tomas Jirku’s Bureaucratic Mess Mix).mp3
10 - Caduceus Music - Factory Sounds (Tomas Jirku’s ”In The Factory Things Are Loud” Remix).mp3

Here’s a DJ Mix I did not long ago for Thoughtless Music (a hot, hot record label from good ol’ Toronto):

DOWNLOAD/LISTEN: Thoughtless Transmission 003.2: Tomas Jirku

Don’t let the kids these days try to tell you what electro is. This is what electro is.
…okay, there’s some other stuff thrown in there too.

A blast from the not so distant past…
Listen and/or download: Tomas Jirku - Top Secret DJ Mix 2006

##. “title” artist [label ###]

01. “Requiem” Gabriel Faure [Capitol P8586]
02. “Polyesterday (Dub Remix by Carl Craig)” Gus Gus [4AD BAD8002]
03. “Numbers / Computer World” Kraftwerk [Warner Brothers PRO-A-973]
04. “AWT” Jeff Samuel [Spectral SPC-23]
05. “Coldsweat” Pilgrims of the Mind [Active Pass APR001]
06. “Can’t Stop the One Two” Frivolous [Karloff KLF-07]
07. “Gone Fishin’” Morgan Geist [Metamorphic MET016]
08. “Cool Down” Tan-Ru [Trelik TR/12]
09. “How Y’All Funk” Induceve [Dubsided DSD003]
10. “Problemz” Designer Music [Planet E PE65255B]
11. “Samedi (G. Martin’s Quiet Village Mix)” Gary Martin [Teknotika GG-42]
12. “Headhunter” Aril Brikha [Transmat MS23A]
13. “Emilion” Mederic Nebinger and Function [Deja Vous DJV002]
14. “Ultraviolet Images” The Martian [Red Planet RP-3]
15. “In Circles (Outcast Productions Remix)” Beaumont Hannant [GPR GENP(S)40]
16. “Man or Beast” Fabrice Lig [Headspace HS 012]
17. “In Gear” Osborne [Spectral SPC-20]
18. “Freak-A-Holic (12″ Dub Mix)” The Egyptian Lover [Egyptian Empire Records DMSR-CD883]
19. “Theme from S-EXPRESS (12″U.S.A. Mix)” S-Express [Rhythm Kings Records Cl 75224]
20. “All Day” Ministry [Wax Trax WAX 007]
21. “Let Your Body Learn (Twelve Inch Mix)” Nitzer Ebb [Geffen Records 20716-0]
22. “Antacid” Link [Warp WAP59]
23. “1969″ Christian Morgenstern [Forte Frt-09]
24. “17&4″ M. Mayer [Kompakt KOM 4]
25. “Sandstorms” Carl Craig [Planet E PE65277]

Tomas Jirku
The Atrocity Exhibition
(MP3 album)

download 256kbps audio:
http://www.riversof.com/RIVER014 - Tomas Jirku - The Atrocity Exhibition.mp3

info:
Sourced from audio experiments that started almost 11 years ago, wherein I built feedback loops through granular synthesis contraptions (sometimes without input as to be manipulating only feedback, other times inputting pop music), this album continues where I left off with my old “Never Say Never” recording. The onkyokei approach yielded more abstract, yet oddly rhythmic results, while the pop machine churned out a washy, melodic drones. Augmented with more recent rhythm and synth programming, and edited to something somewhat palatable, you’ve got what we’ve got here. We can thank J.G. Ballard for the title.

That’s a grouse, and no, it doesn’t say “tweet”, but Tomas apparently does:
http://twitter.com/tomasjirku

Celebrating the first 10 years of the festival, this set contains over 11 hours of audio, a beautiful booklet and a feature length documentary!

20 incredible performances were painstakingly selected by committee from the rich festival history to be shared on one DVD as .wav files* (the best way to fit so much high quality audio). The artists featured on this disc are: David Grubbs, Lee Ranaldo + Dean Roberts, Martin Tétreault, Oval, CiNdy (Sam Shalabi + Alexandre St-Onge), Tomas Jirku, Michael Dumontier, Tim Hecker, My Kingdom for a Lullaby (M. Grill, C. Kurzmann, B. Roisz + M. Siewert), Taylor Deupree, Jason Kahn, i8u, Aki Onda, 3×3is9 + Bernhard Günter, Scant Intone, crys cole, Steve Bates, Sawako, Fletcher Pratt and Oren Ambarchi.

The second disc contains a feature length documentary created by Canadian filmmaker Caelum Vatnsdal. With extensive video footage culled from our archives alongside interviews with festival directors past and present the film not only gives a great overview of what s+r is all about but also provides a rare opportunity to witness incredible performances and events that have occurred at the festival over it’s first 10 years. Featuring several of the artists listed above as well as Peter Brotzmann, Otomo Yoshihide, Christian Bök, Ken Gregory, Steve Heimbecker, Kaffe Matthews, Alexis O’Hara, Peter Cusack, Mitchell Akiyama, Not Half and many more…

This set serves as an incredible archive of audio art, a document of an important Canadian sound festival and simply put an amazing catalog of work!

You can purchase the box set directly from the good folks at Send + Receive:
http://www.sendandreceive.org/10-years-dvd-set.html

audio : CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD MP3 (54 megabytes, 55.49 minutes)

title : “The Future of 227″ Compu-Mix (aka “RIVERCAST014” from ye olde podcast)

artists : Jarl & Fotmeijer, DMX Krew, DMX Krew, DMX Krew, Rundfunk, Stefan Tretau, Sensorama, Former Selv, Duplex, Sun Electric, Future Beat Alliance, Carl Craig, Rei Loci, Strand, Balil

mixed : by Tomas Jirku

I completed a few remixes earlier this year for our friends at Nice & Nasty in Dublin, Ireland… Three of ‘em… Jack Tripper would be so proud.  And they clock in at about 10 minutes a piece… Hey, when I don’t have limited groove-room on a piece of vinyl to concern myself about I just can’t help myself:

T Polar - The Bubbling Brook of Brook Trout Remix by Tomas Jirku
Mick Chillage - Sub Harmony (Tomas Jirku Remix)
Orlando Voorn - Angles (Tomas Jirku Remix)

With those tracks we’ve got our funky, chill and slammin’ bases covered (respectively).
Had a bit of a lull in music production since completing the last one in March, but I have dusted off the motherboard and am now working on a set of tracks that, in a welcome change of format, just might end up on vinyl! I’m going to have to start exercising restraint with tracks lengths again?

I also recently completed artwork for an awesome new Nice & Nasty album from Mark O’Sullivan.  Check out the CD booket, online edition and remix edition graphics: