European Tour

I'm off on a school trip today, away for the next six days with six colleagues and fifty five teenagers, on a three country tour of Europe. We're getting the ferry from Hull later today, a night crossing to Rotterdam and then we're in Amsterdam until Monday. Our itinerary includes the Anne Frank house, the Herzongenbusch concentration camp near Vught, a canal cruise and some time in Amsterdam. From there we head to Ypres and the First World War battlefields and cemeteries, the Menin Gate, the Flanders Field Museum, Passchendaele and some chocolate shops. We're also crossing into France to go the Somme. It's a trip I've done before and well worth it, an unforgettable experience for our young people and a good way to finish the school year. Weather forecast is good- too good maybe. I really hope the coach air con is working.

Here's some music from our first destination, the Netherlands. Speedy J is a Dutch producer from Rotterdam whose Ginger and G- Spot albums, both on Warp in the mid-- 90s, were superb spacey, trancey Dutch techno. Pepper was on Ginger.

Pepper

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a review of the new Jezebell album, Jezebalearic Beats Volume 2, a twenty track journey through Darren and Jesse's worlds starting with the slow mo, wigged out Serge Gainsbourg languor of Movimento Lento and then taking in various Jezebell remixes- Andys y Xavi, Pandit Pam Pam, Perry Granville, Pete Bones, Warriors Of The Dystotheque with Joe Duggan and Ian Vale.

As well as those tracks there are some previously released Jezebell hits- The Knack, Concurrence, Trading Places 6am, (Dancing) Not Fighting- and several brand new ones that build to the finale, an epic slice of dancefloor optimism with Yoko Ono in the mix. This is a reminder that you're going to want this album and that you'll end up playing it a lot. Get it here.