From our viewpoint...

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(http://twitter.com/therealbasscat)

This year has been a phenomenal year for us. Really. 

We've completed the '12x12', conceptualised (and realised) 'Manchester : Remixed', two projects we're immensely proud to have done, off our own back. We've remixed fourteen (from memory) tracks, for both major labels, and indies, put out three free bootlegs, completed a debut three week Australia and New Zealand tour, worked with BBC 2 on the Stargazing project, continued to build and grow with our friends at Gio Goi, seen the support we receive from BBC 1Xtra and BBC Introducing reach an amazing point, begun a weekly Saturday night radio show (started in February on Unity FM in Manchester) which has gone from strength to strength, plus somehow around our studio schedule, we managed to squeeze in a couple of UK festival gigs, and appear on a couple of industry panels... I'm sure there's more, but it seems sensible just to mention the events that come to mind easily. Phew.

It's very easy to think all this has happened because of the amount of graft that we put in in the studio every day of every week, and in many ways, it has, but it's very important for us to recognise the people around us who aid us in achieving our best, creatively and artistically, but also those who really help get our music out there. In particular, we'd like to thank Andi Durrant, Andy Booth, Aniff Akinola, Anton Powers, Chris Long, Dom Keegan, Kevin Grainger, Melissa MacTavish, Mike Toner, Nick Bright, Neil Briggs, Stretch Armstrong, Stefan Kazassoglou, Stevie Mac, Tim Medcraft, Tom Howell, Zed Bias... and of course, Mike Kelly, for once again ensuring we maximise our potential as artists and individuals, on time, and with a smile on our faces.

A big thanks to all the artists, managers, radio people and labels who were involved in the '12x12' and the 'Manchester : Remixed' project for allowing us to work with you. You were all amazing and we are very grateful for your involvement. It was good to get some really wholesome, unique Manchester music back on the map in 2011 in the form of a remix project! A big shout to our other 2011 collaborators, Nate James and Nick Thayer, too. As always, a huge shout to the DJs who support our music in clubs and on the radio airwaves across the world, as well as the respected radio producers/teams... there really are a lot of you who deserve a mention! Big up all the promoters who we've had the pleasure to play for across Europe, Australia and New Zealand too, and thank you to those labels we've been fortunate enough to work with this year. 

Ultimately this leads us to thank those of you reading this, who purchase our music, shout about what we do, and support what we're in the process of steadily achieving here. Your support is unbelievably appreciated, and without it, we couldn't keep doing what we do. So, without further ado, roll up 2012, lets get into this!

M&J

Filed under  //   12x12   2011   HeavyFeet   Manchester Remixed  
Posted December 31, 2011 by HeavyFeet 
 

Manchester : Remixed (free remix album download)

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As you know, we completed Manchester : Remixed during the month of July. All eight remixes are now available to download, for free, in one handy zip below:

Filed under  //   HeavyFeet   Manchester Remixed  
Posted October 17, 2011 by HeavyFeet 
 

HeavyFeet remix on BBC Radio 1 with Huw Stephens

Following on from the premiere of 'Manchester : Remixed via BBC Introducing in Manchester (see previous blog post) last Sunday (7th August), Huw Stephens has picked up and been playing our remix (one of the eight remixes we completed during our 'Manchester : Remixed' project) of Dutch Uncles' fantastic 'X-O' on his Radio 1 show. He's also put it on his podcast this week, so if you'd like to hear it in full, click here for the downloadable (you can listen online too) podcast link.

Mike HF 

Filed under  //   BBC Introducing   BBC Radio 1   Dutch Uncles   HeavyFeet   Huw Stephens   Manchester Remixed  
Posted August 13, 2011 by HeavyFeet 
 

Premiere: 'Manchester : Remixed' on BBC Introducing

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Last Sunday the premiere of 'Manchester : Remixed' took place via BBC Introducing, on BBC Radio Manchester, and you can now hear all eight remixes below! 

July was a crazy month for us, I'll say it again, absolutely crazy. There was so much to do, believe us. Eight remixes in one calendar month, all of which varied in genre, with different instruments, voices, time signatures, etc, really had us working flat out, every single day, and bar the weekends we had gigs, and to sleep, we literally didn't leave the studio for the month of July. We're very happy with what we've created and how the project came out, not to mention how much we've learnt. A fantastic experience, I must say.

A big shout to all those involved in the project, especially the bands, managers, labels, PR's and the BBC Introducing team. A big shout to those of you who spurred us on via social media at time when we were feeling disheartened (which fortunately was only a couple of moment!) also. We'll be beginning to give all eight of these remixes away for free from the middle of next week. Please let us know what you think to the remixes, and the project as a whole, via the usual mediums of Facebook and Twitter.

Mike HF

Filed under  //   Airship   BBC Introducing Manchester   Delphic   Dutch Uncles   HeavyFeet   I Am A Camera   Jessie Rose Trip   Kirsty Almeida   Manchester Remixed   Michelle Hussey   Santiago St. Machine   Spokes   The Whip  
Posted August 13, 2011 by HeavyFeet 
 

Manchester : Remixed - Day 10

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Today we've had to work on our radio show for a few hours (which is broadcast every Saturday night, 11pm-1am, on 92.8 Unity FM Manchester) but we quickly got on to the final arrangement, the I Am A Camera (pictured above) remix. Fortunately, as I think one of us mentioned earlier in the week, we had the basis of it down and ready to go, it just needed to be worked on. I'm very pleased to be able to say that I'm currently sitting in the studio reviewing roughs of all eight arranged remixes, as I type.

It's been a good week. I'd like to leave you with this I Am A Camera video (just to show you how great they are, more than anything...)

Mike HF

Filed under  //   HeavyFeet   I Am A Camera   Manchester Remixed   Unity Radio  
Posted July 15, 2011 by HeavyFeet 
 

Manchester : Remixed - Day 6

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Day six, and this (the daily blogging aspect) is starting to get a bit easier to (remember to) do. Like anything, when something becomes part of the daily routine, it becomes second nature. A bit like remixing. As many of you will know, we've done a hell of a lot of remixes of the past three years, and they should be something that come to us pretty easily. Not today. 

We spent the first part of the studio session working on the Santiago Street Machine remix, getting more and more frustrated with why some of the audio wasn't sounding right. Eventually we realised one of the audio stems had a bar of silence at the beginning (not the fault of the person bouncing the audio for us originally, I doubt, more likely to be something we'd messed up when importing the audio into the project a week ago during pre-production) of it and this was the problem, but then we started moving everything else to compensate and the arrangement all went a bit wrong. Fast forward an hour or so and we'd sorted it and were back to playing in the additional parts we wanted to create for the remix, and I'm happy to announce, it's now sounding pretty good.

As I type, James is working on the I Am A Camera remix, and I'm about to go an join him. Tomorrow is Saturday, which I think we're both glad about, as it's been a pretty intense week (standard), and we're off to play in Wales at Wakestock, in the VIP room, of all places. I think we're going to stick around overnight too and catch up with some of our friends who are also playing, so fingers crossed the torrential rain holds off. Tune in for more remix news on Monday! Have a good weekend.

Mike HF  

Filed under  //   I Am A Camera   Manchester Remixed   Santiago St. Machine   Wakestock  
Posted July 8, 2011 by HeavyFeet 
 

Manchester : Remixed - Day 5

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So, today has been particularly successful, studio-wise. We've nailed the Airship remix, and we're very happy with it's direction and how it's sounding. At present, we're now working on the Jessie Rose Trip (above, well, just Jessie...) remix and that, again, is really starting to take shape. On Monday we were a bit concerned that these two might take us a while to become happy with our efforts, but it seems that a non-boiling hot studio day and getting out of bed this morning on the right side, seems to have triggered some sort of wonders.

In other, not that interesting but I'm going to tell you anyway, news, my Macbook now has a brand new underside. If you follow us on Twitter, you may have seen me post a picture of this issue last week where the rubber underside had begun to come unstuck. This pushed me to sort out an appointment with the Mac store in Manchester, and a very helpful bloke (called Chris) replaced it within five minutes flat, at no cost. I'd read online that Apple don't like their products looking scruffy, so they generally fix cosmetic issues for free. Jobsa.

Tomorrow, I predict we'll be working on the Dutch Uncles and the Kirsty Almeida remixes. We want to get these two a bit further forward before the week ends. Neither of us have said too much on the Santiago Street Machine and I Am A Camera remixes as yet, but we know where we're taking those two, so we've been focusing on the ones that we were initially unsure on a direction for.

Finally, I had a lunch meeting at Soup Kitchen in Manchester today. One of the best lunches I've had in a while. Very hearty. They have school dinner style trays, tables and benches, plus those stacking trolleys you had to put your tray in once you'd finished with at school. Quirky, but good fun. The lentil dahl special I had was booming.

Mike HF 

Filed under  //   Airship   Dutch Uncles   Jessie Rose Trip   Kirsty Almeida   Manchester Remixed   Soup Kitchen  
Posted July 7, 2011 by HeavyFeet 
 

Manchester : Remixed - Day 4

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Today's studio session has been made up (again) of nudging three different remixes that bit further forward towards arranging them. We've been ploughing on with our versions of Airship (above), Jessie Rose Trip and Dutch Uncles for the last eight hours now. It's mainly been a case of going back to what we'd been looping up of the original audio parts from the tracks, then playing in some variants of each line, working on sound selection and making some decisions about what is staying and what is going from each original track, parts-wise.

The working day is about to get cut short as it's Wednesday, and we generally try and be vaguely social on Wednesdays, so it's out the studio and in the pub for a couple of hours. Tomorrow I foresee more work on the I Am A Camera remix and the Kirsty Almeida one also. By the way, if you haven't yet downloaded our Delphic 'Doubt' remix, then you should do so. It can be found here: http://snd.sc/liMMVX

More updates on the News of The World scandal have been keeping my mind busy since I woke up (at 6.30 am, for some reason unknown to me) today. The Guardian has once again proved more than worthy of providing the information. David Cameron has promised a public enquiry? 'Excellent', I hear you say. That's two years 'investigating' and £20 million of public money down the drain, to probably conclude very little, or it was all Andy Coulson's fault, by which point he'll be living in a different county and the people who vaguely care about the latest N.O.T.W scandal will be left saying, 'Andy who?'. These lengthy public enquiries are a great way for everyone who sort of cares, to give up caring, whilst we stop hearing about a story in the news. For now, I'm undecided on what is a better option than the great public enquiry that be will no doubt, but watch this space. 

Mike HF

Filed under  //   Airship   David Cameron   Dutch Uncles   Jessie Rose Trip   Manchester Remixed   News of the World  
Posted July 6, 2011 by HeavyFeet 
 

Manchester : Remixed - Day 3

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Today, we've mainly been working on remixes for Spokes (see above, sort of...), The Whip and Kirsty Almeida. All the pre-production is finished for the project, and we're good to get into some arranging from tomorrow, which we're looking forward to. Today has certainly been a better working day (not being hungover!) and although it's not been as sunny today, the studio still been pretty baking, which never helps. Despite having a window and an industrial fan, it's no air conditioning!

Additionally today, the day has been full of further abhorrent scandal in the UK news (I hope this reaches the international newspapers), with the information breaking that the News of the World (involving several key players in Murdoch's media empire, which I detest...) have not just allegedly hacked Milly Dowler and the Soham murder victim's parents' mobile phones, but allegedly also several high ranking police officers involved in high priority UK murder cases. If you haven't read the news today, you should, and going here is probably a good start. 

Anyhow, we're having a quick half hour break from a fairly hectic day (which started with me writing a track from scratch with our friend Lenny Smart at 11am) and listening to some M.A.N.I.K (check him out here), who makes really great deep house-influenced music, before jumping back into the studio for a couple more hours to finish off some other 'Manchester : Remixed' bits before we continue tomorrow. 

Mike HF

Filed under  //   Kirsty Almeida   Lenny Smart   Manchester Remixed   Spokes   The Whip  
Posted July 5, 2011 by HeavyFeet 
 

Manchester : Remixed - Day 2

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So last night we went and drank lots of cider in the local pub and then proceeded to, rather amusingly, head up to the highest point around to drink some more and look at the most amazing views. As pleasant as this was, this meant hangovers were the order of the day today; not perhaps the most welcome thing when embarking upon the second day of Manchester : Remixed!

Today consisted largely of continuing where we left off on Friday. We've been going through each track one by one and throwing down some rough ideas to go into each remix and trying to make decisions on what sort of track we want each remix to be, how much vocal we're going to use, whether we keep the song structure intact, etc. etc. We now have a rough objective for all of the 8 remixes, with just a couple more things to play around with and settle on before we can start getting into the fun part of laying down some arrangements and getting a real idea of how this project will sound and, hopefully, translate to the club!

James HF

Filed under  //   Manchester Remixed   Mellor Cross  
Posted July 4, 2011 by HeavyFeet