Mind Pump Media

Thanks to a roster including Cocteau Twins and Pixies, UK imprint 4AD has maintained its status as a force in independent music for more than 30 years. Author Martin Aston talks about his exhaustive new history of the label.

Collection of 30 CDs on various styles (Love, Movies, R&B, Country, World and Rock). Although you may find the collection a bit outdated since the release is from 2001, it contains some great songs… so enjoy.

Live & Remastered is not just a deliciously put together compilation, but a time capsule of the history of house music. In the early days, the men and women at Ministry of Sound hit the record button on their DAT machine each week and captured mind blowing sets from the era’s finest DJs.

Based upon Ratkje´s music created for the ballet ”Sult” (”Hunger") by profiled director Jo Strømgren for the Norwegian National Ballet, this is a departure from records and live settings normally associated with Maja S. K. Ratkje, as we find her placed behind a modified, wiggly and out of tune pump organ, singing songs and improvising. Metal tubes, PVC tubes and a wind machine were built into the organ; guitar strings, a bass string, a resin thread, metal and glass percussion and a bow are also utilized. With little or no previous experience, she had to learn to play the thing live, using both hands and feet at the same time as singing. Maja played live on stage during every performance, but later modified and recorded the music especially for this record, with Frode Haltli co-producing. It´s a freestanding document, an entity of its own, but the atmosphere is very much the same as in the play: the dusty city of Kristiania in the 19th century, the street noises and the sounds.