After spending nearly ten years in the wilderness away from their original raver-baby project, Itch-E & Scratch-E, legends of the local dance scene Paul Mac and Andy Rantzen have come back in a big way in 2010, dusting off the cobwebs to show that they haven’t missed a beat with the new Itch-E & Scratch-E LP, Hooray For Everything!!!, released this Friday July 23rd.

To welcome the duo back with loving arms,ITM asked the duo of Mac and Rantzen to look back over the past 10 years and compile their top ten list of the albums that have most inspired, influenced and enthralled the duo and what they’d call their favourite records of the decade. The stage is theirs.The stage is theirs.

Itch-E – (AKA Andy Rantzen) Top 5

Fumiya Tanaka – Unknown Possibility 2 (Tresor)

Here’s the kind of record with ‘selective appeal’. Shit brown cover, no liner notes, all the tracks called Drive and numbered one to nine. Each track is a meticulous permutation on a tribal, thudding house groove made dense with layer upon chalky layer of brittle, crunchy congas, hats and claves. In the background, for some reason, there are little little wails, squonks and even rubbery squeaks, like someone’s chewing on a balloon. Fumiya Tanaka sets up these grooves and just lets them run, fading in layers, fattening and then shrinking the sound all the time with a kind of restless, hypnotized calm. What does it mean? Ask the Japanese. I spent a year going to work with this on my headphones, and it makes perfect sense on the train, rushing through tunnels, being sucked up by escalators and spewed out on to the street.

Bob Log III – Log Bomb

My wife put me on to this American guy. He’s a one-man band, and sits down to play. His left and right feet operate a kick and a snare and on top of that he plays hog-wild, skid-yer-truck, riff-happy delta blues guitar. He also wears a bike helmet, which has a shitty little built in telephone handset mic. He left it behind at a Wollongong gig. My wife found it and sent it back to him in the States. If you can hear the lyrics he’s hollering through that tiny, distorted little microphone, it’s all X-rated. We saw him live at the Hopetoun once and he had a woman on each knee, bouncing along to his pig roastin’, moonshining yeehaw schtick. But peel away the novelty factor and this is incredible music, incredible songwriting. You cannot sit down to this music, even if he can. Great southern hoedown party music: mad, inbred, wacky, and truly original. Anyone who wants to know what happens after Tom Waits should listen to this. Does boob scotch taste sweeter than ordinary scotch? I’ve tried it, and the answer is yes.

Motorhead – Hammered

Lemmy, Lemmy, you never let us down. You justify the existence of England. Too many years into the count to bother to count, Motorhead are still making brilliant albums that shake from start to finish. No ballads, no filler, and a direct line to the earliest roots of rock ‘n’ roll fully visible at all times. One thing most rock bands full of guys miss out on – Lemmy always writes to the women. Like all good music, this is dance music. My favourite song from the album is Dr Love. On this butt-shaking rock n roll train, Lemmy is literally shaking in his shoes over a gorgeous woman who terrifies him, witless, but he musters up the courage to talk to her and quickly regains his confidence. This is the song I hear when my wife walks into the room.

Edguy – Hellfire Club

When it comes to albums, there’s not a hell of a lot of electro or techno in my list. I write that kind of music, but it’s good to get your inspiration from outside your own block. Most of my favourite albums from the last decade are hard rock or heavy metal. Edguy – don’t ask me how they got their weird name, it’s some German joke kind of thing – started very young as a school band writing tarot pack power metal not a million miles away from Iron Maiden or Helloween, and gradually morphed into a party rock band, to the irritation of some of their fans. This album catches them on the cusp between the two styles, massed vocals in full effect (the whole band can sing) and whipping, driving rhythms. These guys sure can write a song. The clear highlight of this great record, for me, is Lavatory Love Machine in which Tobias Sammet loses his fear of flying on the way to a tour of Brazil by making love to the stewardess in the toilet. Bad puns abound. Only the Germans, my friend. Only the Germans.

DJ Dex – Depth Charge 5 (Submerge compilation)

It’s probably cheating to include a DJ mix CD on this list, but this is different. Every track on this record is from Detroit, and most from permutations of the Underground Resistance collective. Detroit techno is really great techno. They’re close enough to Chicago to remember that it’s all about spiritual rump shaking, but they also like to experiment and get freaky. These guys got me into techno. This is really electronic funk – spartan and focused, but fully slamming. Not all of my heroes are here – there’s too many of them – so no DJ T-1000, no Robert Hood, and of course no Jeff Mills, the most famous Detriot ex-pat. But there’s Drexciya, DJ Rolando, Anthony Shakir, and the key central figure to the collective, former Parliament bass player – and compadre to Jeff Mills in the original Underground Resistance – Mad Mike, who contributes Transition. This track is total dancefloor therapy.

Scratch-E (AKA Paul Mac) – Top 5

Whitey – The Light at the end of the tunnel is actually a Train

What a genius album title. The first electro with a rock feel or vice versa. Clean, punchy, devious and funky. No follow up that I have heard of but I played it daily for months and months.

M.I.A. – Arular

Any album that invents a new genre is good to me. Musically the beats were original and M.I.A.’s Sri Lanka via London vocals creates a totally original vision. Unfortunately it was all-downhill from there musically. I used to play this all the time before gigs to get in the mood.

Buffalo Daughter – Psychic

Beautiful Japanese experimental band fusing electronics, prog-rock & minimalism without sounding as horrible as that combination projects. Repetitive, soothing, experimental and cheeky. Love it! They were also the first band to begin the “animal” / “relative” band name i.e. wolf / mother etc etc

Dusty Kid – A Ravers Diary

It’s hard for a techno album to make a top ten as, frankly, there aren’t that many good ones. It’s a more single based format, but this debut from Dusty Kid’s is sheer genius. Deep, yet exhilarating, delivers the goods yet still innovative with structure. He has completely eccentric way of arranging where bits evolve and catch you off guard. Not since Georgio Moroder has anything this good come out of Italy. Respect!

Miike Snow – Self Titled

Their self – titled debut album was another ‘play it everyday for months’ album. It was so good I started to ration my listening so I wouldn’t come to hate it. The writers/producers of Britney’s pop genius Toxic went indie/electronic/pop and stole my heart. A friend played me one song, Animal, and I immediately went to iTunes and bought the album. Not even one shit song on here which is super rare in these ‘try before you buy’ days.

Itch-E & Scratch-E’s Hooray For Everything!!! is out through Ministry Of Sound on July 23rd. As an exclusive offer for inthemix and Sound Alliance readers, you can grab the album over at this link and receive $5 off the purchase price. Just enter the unique code HOORAY. Nice, right?