This is the second of the three Vanity label 7"s. There isn't much info available for Mad Tea Party on the web. The only other recording I know of from them is their track from the excellent Foam compilation posted here last year. As with the other two singles, this has a paste-on b&w picture glued onto the sleeve.
All three tracks vary in style. The first track, Hide and Seek, is a rock track with a garage sound and a punk-like bass line. It eventually cuts into an amazing break that I have not only sampled, but used as a ringtone for a while as well as my morning alarm on my Nabaztag. Yet another timeless gem from the Vanity label.
Modern Time's Pop is a drastic change to the previous track. A lighter piece with schoolgirl-ish singing and talking/muttering over backwards music. This is the closest to their contribution on the Foam compilation. I think it falls somewhere between Position Normal and Takako Minekawa.
The last track, In a Tea Bag, is structured around a version of Hide and Seek heavy on drum effects with minimal vocals.
So, as I mentioned above, I liked the drum break on Hide and Seek so much that I sampled it. A few years ago, I put together an instrumental edit version of the track. I also worked on a remix that I never quite finished. Recently, I dug into both of these again and cleaned them up a bit, removing some sections, making them flow better, etc... They are both credited to AtlantisAudioArchive to avoid mistaking these for part of the actual release. The edit is based entirely on samples from the original track. The remix features bits of the original in addition to a few other samples.
Leave a comment and let me know what you think of these. I promise the third 7" will be posted much quicker than this one....
Enjoy.
6 comments:
hmm... mr.a.a.a at first i must tell you that you're a lazy guy... :o)
checked your blog nearly daily for new posts and by the time i was afraid that it might be closed down... but luckily that doesn't seem to happen...
okay i think the second mix is a bit better than the first one... but overall i prefer the original song... i think it's much harder to sample a guitar than a drum line or in general a track that's already based on looped sounds and sound snippets like severed heads for example... the thing that doesn't work in my ears very fine is the fact that you can figure out the break in the first mix really well (especially after 1.40 minutes) this is a bit too much sampling in my ears... as i said before it's hard to find the exact point for a break to sample a guitar or a "floating" piece without sounding a bit abrupt...
btw. your qualities as blogger with great taste are some of the best in the web ;o)
Thanks for posting this, and all the other Vanity stuff you have been putting on this great great blog. And your Hide & Seek Edit is absolutely brilliant !!!!!!
WP - I've been busy, not lazy ;-)
A couple dj gigs and a trip to NYC in the last couple weeks got in the way of this last post...
Thanks for the critique of my tracks. I was going for a choppy approach with the remix. I wanted it to NOT sound smooth. I like confrontation in music. For instance when the 'dance' 4/4 beat drops in, I purposely picked a sampled loop that would not be perfect rather than using a quantized drum pattern.
When you mention the 1:40 point, if you are speaking to the edit track, and not the remix, that was my lame attempt at trying to emulate rapid guitar notes, like a guitar solo using bits from the same MTP guitar loops. You should have heard how out of control it got before I cleaned it up. I went a little wild.
I'm glad you like the music I post.
PW - Thanks for the comment/compliment and glad you dig the Vanity stuff. I hope to get to a couple more 7"s this weekend.
if you(AAA) are still checking this blog, a recent vanity records comp called "Vanity-Finest Selection 1978-81"(french label SAVE MUSIC BEFORE LOOSE IT) uses your 3'03' edit as mad tea party's track on the comp. if you are not directly tied to this release(which i purchased) i would be unhappy to know that whoever released it credits the song to 1980 despite the post-millenium reworking by you.
Anon - A friend of mine mentioned the comp to me last month, but I haven't seen or heard a copy. I saw the artist list and wondered if this blog could have been a source for some of the material but I didn't think anyone would press vinyl from mp3. thanks for the heads-up on the MTP edit. I'm not sure how to respond to that. *+*
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