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interview Blues in Britain

Some of the music behind Bluestronica has been part of the Black & Tan Records catalogue for many years. Black & Tan started releasing blues and roots music in the 1990s, working with artists including Boo Boo Davis, Rosco Chenier and Big George Jackson.

Over the years, some of these recordings started to suggest another possibility. What happens when music that was originally recorded as traditional blues is placed in a completely different production environment? That question eventually became part of the idea behind Bluestronica. The connection between the two projects was recently discussed in an interview with UK blues writer Norman Darwen, published in Blues in Britain.

The article talks about the Black & Tan catalogue, Bluestronica, reworking older recordings and the idea of introducing this music to listeners outside the traditional blues audience. The original recordings remain at the centre of the story. Bluestronica is simply another way of hearing them.

Read more about Bluestronica.

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review miXendorp in Blues in Britain

miXendorp – bluestronica EP nr 1

Ah, but is it blues??
Shortly after I “discovered” the blues back in the day via Mayall, Hendrix, Fleetwood Mac etc. I also got interested in electronic sounds c/o Tangerine Dream and similar bands. The two streams of music have been constants in my life since (among many others) to the point where now I make music it often starts with an ambient drone and adds bluesy slide. So the title of this alongside a cover photo of a complex modular synthesizer system piqued my interest. It’s a 3 track instrumental cd which he describes as “xperimental trance electro blues”. ‘Rimzi’ opens with blues harmonica wailing over I assume synth generated rhythm track with an almost North Mississippi Hill Country feel. Some nice guitar/slide thrown into the mix. ‘Precedence’ keeps the Hill Country vibe, opening with guitar then adding the beats, some nice overdriven guitar sounds in there as well. ‘SwingStraight’ opens with boogie bass and guitar sounds overlaid with vocal effects for an almost “standard” 12 bar. A review elsewhere has said “the down home qualities of the source material jostle intriguingly with the superimposed urban beats”, and I guess that describes it well. Not too much information available about miXendorp, so it’s difficult to know how much is live instruments and how much is electronically manipulated samples. Sounds good though. If you’re up for trance like blues, and not too sniffy about whether the sounds are live or electronically produced have a listen. Is it blues then? Well it sounds pretty bluesy and the ep has garnered lots of airplay on blues programs around the UK and Europe, so that sounds like a yes. Available from the usual digital platforms.
Arthur Ely