Author Archives: Ned (Was Ist Das)

And now the end is near….

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…sort of.

If you’re reading this, then thank you.

This website has now been running for 20 years (with a few months absence in 2008 after which it had a big reinvetion).

A lot has changed in that time. 20 years ago Was Ist Das? was where I wrote about music in my own unfiltered way. Nowadays, I don’t really write about music. There doesn’t seem to be the time.

Was Ist Das? is now a record label, a radio show, a social media account.

And so, just 3 days after the landmark 20th birthday, as I pay my hosting bill, I ask myself “Why?”

What am I doing with this site? There’s nothing new. It’s time to let go. Everything else continues. This ends in one month’s time. I paid my final hosting bill. I cancelled auto-renew on the hosting and the domain name. Everything else continues as usual.

The countdown to 50 ends

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The final radio show counting down to my 50th birthday. This month we tackle 2015 to 2024. Intriguingly, I think its easily the best mix of the series. Tracklist below player

Big Blood – Planet Caravan
The Unthanks – Magpie
Black Market with Mired & Wise Owl – The Hitchhiker
Equinoxx – Last of the Mohicans
Dean Hurley – Electricity II
Daniel O’ Sullivan – The Pendulum
Blanck Mass – Chernobyl
All Them Witches – Hares on The Mountain
Sharron Kraus – Man Who Says Goodbye
Astral Social Club & Grumbling Fur Time Machine Orchestra – Ozone Antifreeze Intelligence
Six Organs of Admittance – Drunk And Lost In Heaven
Lankum – Bear Creek
Jacaszek – November Late
Black Market // Chundan – Phantasm dub (Black Market remix)
Einar Selvik – Drenglynda Skáldið  (Skaldic version)
Teleplasmiste – An Unexpected Visit
XIXA – Tombstone Rashomon
Knight of the Round – Opening/Bombing Mission
Mr. Bungle – Anarchy Up Your Anus
MOTHERMARY – Catch Fire
Green Lung – Graveyard Sun
Warrington-Runcorn New Town development Plan – Built By Robots
Sunburned Hand of the Man – Flex
Wau Wau Collectif – Legui Legui
Heilung – Anoana
Earth – Angels (The Bug remix feat. Flowdan)
Forest Swords – Caged
Dunza – Another Life
John Carpenter – Chariots of Pumpkins
Michael Begg – Ronne Ice Shelf  II
Craven Faults – Long Stoop
Meg Baird – Willow’s Song

December 24 Radio show – 2004 to 2015 music

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Astral Social Club – ASC #2 Track 3
Andrew Liles – The Milky Way seen through the Cripple’s Telescope
Belbury Poly – A Thin Place
Coil – Fire of the Mind
Songs of Green Pheasant – Nightfall (for Boris P.)
Six Organs of Admittance – Eighth Cognition / All You’ve Left
Max Richter – Harmonium
Meg Baird, Helena Espvall, Sharron Kraus – John Hardy
Hush Arbors – Nine Bones
Belbury Poly – Pan’s Garden
SUNN O))) & Boris – Etna
Ulver – Eos
Acid Mothers SWR – Mastering Master Builder
Ben Frost – Theory of Machines
Cardiacs – Ditzy Scene
Kyle Gabber – The Goo Filled Hills
Grouper – Heavy Water/I’d Rather Be Sleeping
Les Discrets – Apres l’Ombre
The Myrrors – Burning Circles In The Sky
Natural Snow Buildings – Snowbringer Cult
Wood-Land – Rippling Through Time
Shigeto – Relentless Drag
20 Guilders – Trembling Voice, Sinking Room
Richard Youngs & Simon Wickham-Smith – Lament for North Weald and Ongar
Art Error Ist – The Drummer Is On Valium
Bjork – Mutual Core (These New Puritans remix featuring Solomon Island Song)
Zola Jesus – In Your Nature (David Lynch Remix)
Killing Joke – Money Is Not Our God (Babylon Mix)
Lankum – Drinking Song From The Tomb
Divil A’ Bit – Do As The Ghost Bids Ye
Father Murphy – A Purpose
The Bug feat. Liz Harris – Black Wasp

95 to 04 tracklist and link

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For the November radio show, I mixed sequentially my favorite sounds from 1995 to 2004.

Fila Brazillia – A Zed and Two L’s
Brion Gysin – Kick That Habit Man
Massive Attack Vs Mad Professor – Radiation Ruling The Nation
Scanner – Pudenda
Michael Gira – Blind
Cathedral – Vampire Sun
Mr. Bungle – Merry Go Bye Bye
Cardiacs – Wireless
Thievery Corporation – Shaolin Satellite
Sepultura – Ratamahatta
Coil – Lost Rivers Of London
Spiritualized – Ladies And Gentleman We Are Floating In Space
Primal Scream – Wise Blood
Bjork – All Is Full Of Love (Secondotted By Funksorung)
Sunburned Hand Of The Man – The If With The Golden Qualm
Mousse T. Vs Hot ‘n’ Juicy – Horny (A Capella)
Innerzone Orchestra – Bug In The Bassbin
The Roots feat. Erykah Badu – You Got Me
Calexico – Ballad Of Cable Hogue
Hiss Golden Messenger – I’ve Got A Name For The Newborn Child
Makoto Kawabata / Richard Youngs – Blue
Fantomas – Spider Baby
Kylie Minogue – Can’t Get You Out Of My Head (Soulwax Elektronic Remix)
Fridge – Ark
Jonny Trunk – Don Male
David Byrne – The Great Western Road
Leviathan – Blood And Thunder

85 to 94 track list

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The October radio show is now available to listen to again on Mixcloud, so here is the tracklist:

Laibach – Cari Amici Soldati
Kate Bush – Running Up The Hill (A Deal With God)
Killing Joke – Love Like Blood (Gestalt Mix)
Prince – She’s Always In My Hair
Current 93 – KillyKillKilly (A Fire Sermon)
Revolting Cocks – No Devotion
High Rise – Turn You Cry
The Chills – Pink Frost
Public Enemy – She Watch Channel Zero?!
New Order – Round And Round
The KLF – 3 A.M. Eternal (Break For Love)
Angelo Badalamenti – Audrey’s Dance (Instrumental)
The Heart Throbs – She’s In A Trance
Will – Crowning Glory
A Tribe Called Quest – Scenario
Sleep – The Druid
Spectrum – The Drunk Suite
Main – Time Over [Dub]
Iron Maiden – Fear Of The Dark (live)
Spiritualized – Smiles (live)
The Sabres of Paradise – Smokebelch II (Beatless Mix)
KK Null & Jim Plotkin – Lost (Held Under)
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Nobody’s Baby Now
The Sabres of Paradise – Tow Truck
Material – Words of Advice

Countdown to 50

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Looking down the barrel of being fifty years old, I’ve decided to do a themed set of radio shows. Each one will cover 10 years of my life through the music of the time, in chronological order but mixed. The final show will go out a couple of days after my 50th birthday

Here’s the track list:

Malcolm Clarke – BBC2 Serial
Black Sabbath – Hole In The Sky
Brian Hodgson – Cathedral of Space
Nuevo Mexico – Dreams
Embyro – New Ridin’
Eroc – Chaotic Reaction
Can – Smoke (E.F.S. No.59)
Harmonia – Notre Dame
Neu! – Hero
Popol Vuh – Letzte Tage Letze Nachte
Dorothy Carter – Ukrainian Carol
The Upsetters – Zion’s Blood
Peter Howell – The Astronauts
The Clash – I’m So Bored With The U.S.A.
Goblin – Suspiria
Les Rallizes Denudes – Reapers of the Night
Iggy Pop – Funtime
Suicide – Rocket U.S.A.
Fela Kuti – I Go Shout Plenty!!!
L’Orchestre Kanage De Mopti – Sorry Bamba
The Only Ones – Another Girl, Another Planet
Philippe D’Aram – Fascination
This Heat – 24 Track Loop
Nurse With Wound – Two Mock Projections
Public Image Ltd – Memories
John Carptenter – Theme from the Fog
Einsturzende Neubauten – Steh auf Berlin
Siouxsie & The Banshees – Spellbound
Front 242 – Kampfbereit
The Cure – Play For Today
Holger Czukay – Cool In The Pool
Talking Heads – Once In A Lifetime
New Order – Your Silent Face
Butthole Surfers – Cherub
Jah Shaka meets Mad Professor – Claps Like Thunder
Cardiacs – To Go Off And Things

Was Ist Das? does The Wicker Man

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Isn’t that some awesome cover art from Richard Wells aka Slippery Jack?

Anyway, its taken 18 months to put together but managed to get 17 of our favorite artists to cover the soundtrack of the Wicker Man.

It’s coming out on double LP and CD (plus high quality digital download) via Bandcamp.

Its been such an epic undertaking that it requires its own section of our website.
For the full scoop, see https://wasistdas.co.uk/Ballads/

Though if you’re in a rush, just go pre-order it from here:

https://wasistdas.bandcamp.com/album/ballads-of-seduction-fertility-and-ritual-slaughter

Was Ist Dub?

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The Dunza “Star Client” tape we just put out really set off a dub binge and following a dub-only poolside playlist, it felt like the time to do something different this month: WAS IST DUB? for our radio show!



Here is the tracklist:

0:00:00 – Augustus Pablo & King Tubby – Keep On Dubbing
0:02:45 – Black Market & Chudan – Dojo Dub
0:06:43 – Bomb The Bass – Bug Powder Dust (K & D Session TM)
0:14:01 – Scientist – Dance of the Vampires
0:17:23 – The Orb – Perpetual Dawn (Solar Youth mix)
0:20:46 – Easy All-Stars – Karma Police
0:25:17 – Black Market with Mired & WIse Owl – The Obsolete Man
0:29:01 – Dunza – Disowned
0:37:00 – The Pop Group – She Is Beyond Good & Evil (Dennis Bovell dub version)
0:42:57 – Killing Joke – Requiem (A floating leaf always reaches the sea mix)
0:53:54 – International Observer – Binman Dub
0:57:16 – Phil Pratt – Tower Dub
1:01:52 – Panchasila – Chao Na
1:06:22 – Fred Myrow & Malcolm Seagrave – Phantasm Dub (Black Market remix)
1:10:23 – The Upsetters – Zion’s Blood
1:14:10 – Al Cisneros – Carport Dispensary
1:17:35 – Massive Attack vs Mad Professor – Protection (Radiation Ruling The Nation)
1:25:56 – Primal Scream vs Adrian Sherwood – Wise Blood
1:30:53 – David Bowie vs Black Market – Let’s Dance
1:40:27 – Yabby You Meets Mad Professor & Black Steel – Dub Trap
1:45:16 – Serge Gainsbourg – Aux Armes Dub
1:49:23 – Sumac Dub – Old Man Willow
1:53:17 – Michael Jackson vs Black Market – Billie Jean

Please do not adjust your set

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Normal service will be resumed shortly*

First of all, a cautionary tale. Parts of the site are made with WordPress. I use lots of plug ins with WordPress and I do update them regularly BUT some old, abandoned by their inventors plug-ins actually took out all my WordPress pages last week.

Well, those pages (like this one) are all back online now BUT there were two that just couldn’t be saved for some reason: BEER and TOR IST DAS!

Beer was a bit under updated, perhaps our most neglected page and so some future rebirth is due. Tor Ist Das! was kept alive secretly out of pure nostalgia. Oh well, we’ll always have our memories

Future updates and changes ahoy but first I’m finally doing something I’ve been meaning to do since 2011: change web host. When my current hosts CEO was outed as an elephant shooter back in 2011 I wanted to leave but a Dad with a full time job fears complications.

Well now the deal is done and the wheels are in motion. Hopefully we don’t fall off said wheels and all is smooth.

The September radio show is now on Mixcloud

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And, boy, is it another great one. So much good music been sent to me the last month that I even got some killer tracks bumped over to the October show.

Its a privilege to have such amazing music sent to me. So, who was it? Here’s the full tracklist including the albums the songs were taken from:

New Age Doom & Lee Scratch Perry – Conquer The Sun – Lee Scratch Petty’s Guide To The Universe

HMOT – Goodbye Black Sky – This music greets death 

Grouper – Unclean Mind – Shade

Mega Bog – Obsidian Lizard – Life, And Another

Hyacinth – Tower – Seasonal Hits

Brigid Mae Power – May Morning Dew – Burning Your Light

Spacelab – Jewelled Tears – Dead Dimension

Maurice Louca – Bidayat (Holocene) – Saet El Haz (The Luck Hour)

Ulver – Bounty Hunter – Hexahedron

Kristen Gallerneaux – Closed Loop – Strung Figures

Den Osynliga Manteln – Vortexlopare – Insektfolk

Michael Chapman – Naked Ladies and Electric Ragtime – Trainsong

Jjjjjerome Ellis – Loops of Retreat – The Clearing 

Ben Chasny – Six Diamonds – The Intimate Landscape

Warp Trio – The Well – Warp Trio’s Pandemic Disco Fantasy

Harmonious Thelonious – Apakapa – Instrumentals

Tara Clerkin Trio – Night Steps – In Spring EP

Vanishing Twin – Zuum – Ookii Gekkou

Charles Rumback – Regina – Seven Bridges

The Answer Lies In A Black Void – Mina – Forlorn

The Crazies – Body Bag – A Simple Vision

Ty Segall – Feel Good – Harmonizer

Charbonneau / Amato – Light Memoir – Synth Works Vol.2

W.H.Lung – ARPi – Varieties