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SXSW and thereafter

kiterae — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:28:01 +0000

What a surprisingly delightful place Austin turned out to be. Not exactly sure why I have this latent distrust of Texas; after all you’d have thought I’d have lived through enough racism not to fall into the trap of tarring all with the same brush. But yes, for some strange reason I expected all Texans to live on ranches and spend their spare time regaled in cowboy boots and sturdy hats.

Austin was different. We stumbled into a gay cowboy bar but that was about the extent of that metaphor. The kids were all goth, punk or hip hop. That reflected the live music just about everywhere you turn. And thrown in the mix were a smattering of dance acts, many of whom I’ve featured here…

AA 24/7 (Diplo Remix) – Dance Area
You’ll hear more from Diplo later but this was just a little snippet of what happens to banal acapellas in the hands of a bootie maestro.

Positif (Pink is Punk Remix) – Mr Oizo
He warbles and he’s messy. Welcome to the tripsodasical mind of Mr Oizo. Oh, and watch him turn the tune in a direction you just couldn’t have dreamed when the French woman screams ‘arrêt‘.

Bounce Up – Kyle Watson
Funk + fidget = some quite serious ‘bounce’.

She Got It (Cheap As Chimps vs HeavyFeet Remix) – HeavyFeet
Touring as a three-man DJ/MC combo, these guys cite influences as diverse as Jesse Rose, Timbaland and Old School Rave – all of which are papable, even after Cheap As Chimps have been involved in a thorough scrubbing.

High Roller (iamxl remix) – Ice T
If you do tune into these mixes, you’ll probably know that I’m a sucker for a remix. This time Ice T gets a royal dust-off.

They Live! (Felix Cartal remix) – Evil Nine
The break beat stomper from Evil Nine gets some high throttle disco slapped on top.

Missing You (Howard Who Remix) – Everything But The Girl
See, I told you I was a sucker for the remix. There’s more to come, so just get used to it.

Muscimol (Joachim Spieth Remix) – Bjîrn Scheurmann
Just a little patch of going in deep.

Bot (Original Mix) – Deadmau5
And here the the techno/trance maestro shows how seemingly different genres can come together.

Congoloid (Minimow Remix) – Solo
African rhythms are everywhere these days. From Township Funk through to Diplo you cannot escape. The same here.

Tanya Stephens – “It’s a Pity” (Lulu Rouge Bootleg)
Spellbinding accordian-led dancehall 2-step. Tanya Stephens is new to me, but Lulu R has set me on a track to find out more.

LIL WAYNE – A MILLIE (NADASTROM REMIX) – Lil Wayne
Nadastrom lay down chunky maximal beats on top of Lil Wayne going off on one.

Syrupsniph – Flunk
Dubby, twangy, electro.

WTF (DJ Wool remix) – Tittsworth
I know you shouldn’t have regrets but do wish I’d caught one of T’s SXSW shows.

Must Be A Devil (CSY remix) – Diplo
Here he is again – just couldn’t resist it. This time CSY is pulling the levers.

My Teenager Gang – Minilogue
I actually didn’t realize this slab of techy funk was Minilogue til’ the mix was done.

Darkness.2 (Edit) – James Zabiela
Driving harder, interspersed with as great little ‘pop’.

Black Music (One Kitten vs Chris T-T Remix) – Chris T-T
Anti-folk like you’ve never heard it before.

More info

the pics that made it through Picasa
thug wife’s favorites from SXSW

Matthew Dear’s (minimally) awesome Body Language mix

kiterae — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 06:35:34 +0000

The wonderful Square Productions (no, I have no idea what that means) really do go in-depth when they cover something. Recently they highlighted some of their choice picks and plumped right in the middle was that man Matthew Dear. I missed him when he recently passed through San Francisco, so matching the expectancy of his 12 minute epics as Audion, I guess I continue to wait, baited breath and all (is that really how you spell ‘baited breath’?)

Still if you enjoy the funkier side of minimal (or if you didn’t think that was possible), check this out. And for those of you in the dark,

“Dear is best known as Audion, the remix king who makes any track his own with a stuttering techno funk and wicked clean style. “

Read the original post

Return to the old skool: Popularmusicfront

kiterae — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 01:53:10 +0000

Popularmusicfront has started dishing out digitized versions of his old school house and hip hop collection. Look out for the odd vinyl pop among the gems that will appear on this blog over the coming months.

Early tasters include Hardfloor’s driving acid classic remake of Yeke Yeke and the samba-inspired Give It Up by The Goodmen.

Worth watching. Check out more from Popular Music Front.

The Cure and Herman Dune reviews

harry covert — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 17:26:04 +0000

A few year’s ago in Berlin we came across the excellent Exberliner mag with crystalline music reviews. This month D. Strauss points his ascerbic wit in the direction of The Cure and Herman Dune, among others:

http://www.exberliner.net/records.php?action=inthisissue

Luscious dancehall courtesy of The Heatwave

harry covert — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 22:26:16 +0000

As always happens, one search on the web dragged me further than I initially anticipated. In this case, it all turned out OK in the end: I wondered across some wonderful tracks that the UK’s Heatwave posse have shrewdly made available.

A veritable cornucopia of official remixes and “cheeky party-starting bashment/hip hop refixes or mashups”. Pulling from all corners of the urban scene, this collection includes Beanie Man, Coki and Benga, Warrior Queen and New Young Pony Club, amongst others.

Some of my faves:

If these whet your appetite, check out more Dancehall from The Heatwave.

Plastician on Rinse FM

dubstep news — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 18:19:20 +0000

On the noodle soup that is the web, there are little pockets of raw dubstep mayhem flowing thick and strong. Don’t believe me? Just check out Rinse FM, an old stalwart that has been peddling the sub bass since year dot.

Beware if you sign up to the Podcast, the sheer volume of music spit out on a daily basis will quickly infect your iPod with the dirtiest dubstep. Plastician did the honors earlier in March. How he got from A Flock of Seagulls to Babylon System is beyond me. Who would have known such a rich fabric lay nestled in the Croyden high rises. Pure bliss. Just see the tracklist.

Caspa & Rusko, Hi-Tek and Ghislain Poirier

kiterae — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 15:04:28 +0000

One of the early discoveries on coming to the US has been the wonderful muso-nerd mag Remix. The next discovery was that practically the whole magazine is online. This doesn’t help much for morning reading on the bog, but it does mean I can link to the bits I want to follow up on. Such as the CD reviews for the likes of Caspa & Rusko, Hi-Tek and Ghislain Poirier.

a blog without text

harry covert — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 08:08:33 +0000

what exactly would that be?

perhaps something truly beautiful like the music refinery.

another discovery from the wonderful hype machine. oh, how long will it last?

exberliner – the cream of music journalism

kiterae — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:48:40 +0000

i’m reading less and less on a regular basis, and today some phantom coffee has kicked in and left me running around doing nothing getting increasingly stressed. maybe the two things are related. maybe it’s the latent caffeine floating around in the french ether.

either way, i’ve just found my cure. thank you d. strauss. tying music reviews to the ennui of later capitalism is the kind of feat i only see you pull off. this month jazz is the key and you’ve really gone to town on the subject. i can’t help but offer a couple of gems thrown up this month:

“We let London die, then Paris. And now New York has croaked, if not from active neglect. In fact, neglect is what allowed it to once thrive, maggots spilling off of fertile meat. But as for London/Paris/NY: Every journalist knows that three examples compose a trend, and a trend often constitutes a pathology. New York City will soon be entirely meat with no maggots to nurture. Perhaps our own tragedies are so intense that we missed the edifice collapsing around us.”

it’s not a crime thriller, so permit me to steal the ending:

“And, for the jazz musician, the city dweller, the prideful outsider: Inner life is just about all we have left. At least we can remember and, perhaps, be inspired by memory. And then have those inspirations ignored.”

enough of the eulogies. if you ever want a place to store your words mr strauss, then popround would be more than happy to accommodate you.

illegal art

harry covert — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 13:59:10 +0000

need to make a note of this while i remember. this guy came up in xlr8r recently and emoware’s anti-copyright stance stirred something in the dusky reaches of my consciousness.

illegal art is a movement headed by Philo T. Farnsworth fighting one aspect of copyright – “when it impedes an artist’s ability to interact with pre-existing recordings.” the illegal art label releases are generally sample-heavy and play with artistic recontextualization and manipulation.

let art beget art.