Sorting my CDs - Rage Against the Machine, Switch, Apples, and SebastiAn

“one from the vaults” on offer today for your listening pleasure, as well a couple that are a little more recent.

I’ve been getting more and more irked by the weight of my record bag when I DJ these days.  I thought moving onto CDs was meant to make everything lighter, but it would seem not!  As such, I’ve recently been trying to compile a small(ish!) selection of CDs that will cover most of the bases should I need to do a guest set, or a shorter than normal night.  Basically, it’s all the biggest club tracks I have in about 12 CDs, rather than the 300 I normally have to carry around.

Of course, the process has led to much soul searching, but also happily it’s led to me rediscovering some cracking tunes that I’d all but forgotten about, specifically remixes/covers of Rage Against The Machine’s ‘Killing in the Name’ by SebastiAn and The Apples, and an awesome Switch remix of Hot Chip’s ‘Hold On’

Many many people have covered ‘Killing in the Name’ over the years – I used to have a funky house version by some outfit called Metal Fusion – and the trend doesn’t seem to show any sign of slowing down.  Even Pendulum keep promising a version, and we all wait with bated breath for that, but in the meantime two of my favourite versions are by Ed Banger’s SebastiAn and crazy Israeli-American jazzsters The Apples.

SebastiAn’s mix is as you would expect.  Loud, electronic, and very dirty.  It oddly reverts to the original track about half-way through, and the ending is a bit hit and miss, but you can’t beat the look on people’s faces when the overdrive synth kicks in for the first time at the start.

SebastiAn - Killing in the Name of SebastiAn

And now for something completely different!  The Apples are a jazz outfit from New York.  Their track ‘Killin’ was added as a bonus to their excellent 2007 album ‘Buzzin’ About’.  Basically it’s a Ronson-esque horn reworking of RATM’s song, with scratching, trumpets, bass and skiffle taking the place of any singing/shouting.  It also happens to be possibly my favourite cover of any song, ever.  I have never played this in a set without at least one person running up, inane grin on their face, to ask what it is.  Funky, fun, and great to dance to!

The Apples - Killing

Finally, a track that I was humming and hah-ing about sticking into my ‘best of’ CD wallet, Switch’s LA mix of Hot Chip’s ‘Hold On’.  It was the big bass drum and the live crowd noises that swayed me.  You have to have some live crowd noises, dontchaknow…

Hot Chip - Hold On (Switch LA Mix)

Enjoy!