We’re sure many of you—most certainly ourselves—remember the day, a few years ago, when 77 drummers from around the world amassed in Brooklyn’s Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park at the behest of Japanese noise experimentalists Boredoms. July 7, 2007 at 7:07 p.m., the hive of percussionists let loose with a piece of rhythm-centric music written by the veteran Japanese group, and thankfully, Jun Kawaguchi and his various talented crew memebers were there to capture the experience. The 89-minute documentary, which comes out on DVD September 7 via Thrill Jockey, contains heaping amounts of footage from the performance, along with extensive interviews, bits from rehearsals, and a series of photo postcards only available in the US release.
This new taste from Mount Kimbie‘s forthcoming debut album, Crooks & Lovers (released July 19 via Hotflush), is a particularly interesting piece of electronic music—mostly so because it’s at least half based around a couple of frantically strummed guitars. The production duo of Dominic Maker and Kai Campos have long been touted as artists constantly pushing the boundaries of dubstep, but on “Field” they’ve broken completely through to another side. Pattering electronic sounds and finger snaps barely tap out a percussive rhythm amidst the distorted acoustic sounds, and put the track into a whole other realm completely outside of anything remotely related to Kimbie’s post-dubstep peers.
It’s been years since we’ve heard much from Rephlex‘s purveyor of cerebral dance tunes, gabber techno, and happy hardcore, Bogdan Raczynski. His last album, 2007’s Alright!, played like a DJ set for hyperactive neon nymphs with permanently dilated pupils losing their minds at an underground rave on Mars, but this new mix from the Polish-born producer is a bit more varied in style and energy. Mix #2 comes to us straight from Raczynski himself, and contains a large number of wonderful tunes from the likes of Benga, Harmonic 313, Skream, Floating Points, Cylob, Motor City Drum Ensemble, Thom Yorke, and many more. Each tune is mixed quickly and deftly within the mix’s 48 minutes, and shows the DJ/producer’s affinity for all sorts of dance music outside of the rave scene. We’ve embedded Mix #2 and included the tracklist below. You can download it here.
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Dimitri – The Stud Harmonic 313 – Flaash DS-10 Dominator – Kink In the Cable DJ Nehpets – Mario (16 Bit) DJ Milton – House Clap The Royal City Saxophone Quarter – Ragtime For Rent Fake Tuss – RIP Acid Benga – Baltimore Clap DJ Milton – 1999 Skream – Clap Your Hands Starski and Clutch – Bounce Yotam Avni – Coke Bouquet Hirokazu Tanaka – Metroid Kraid James Blake – Postpone The Other People Place – Let Me Be Me Floating Points remix of Sing by Four Tet Ruckspin – Jibber Girl Unit – IRL Skream – Clap Your Hands Redlight feat Roses Gabor – Stupid (instrumental) Skream – Clap Your Hands Benga – Baltimore Clap Skream – Clap Your Hands Benga – Baltimore Clap Jamie Principle – Baby Wants To Ride (BR Chapu Chapu edit) Floating Points – Shark Chase LOL Boys remix of Cannibalistic by Expendable Youth Armando – Don’t Take It (Thomos edit) The Other People Place – Let Me Be Me FCL – Let’s Go Motor City Drum Ensemble – There’s A Truth (feat Stee Downess) Cylob – Morning Nick Holder – Feelin’ Sad Nick Holder – Da Sambafrique Thom Yorke – Cymbal Rush Floating Points – Shark Chase Marie Pierre – Choose Me Dimitri – The Stud Marie Pierre – Choose Me Floating Points – Shark Chase Dimitri – The Stud Automatic Tasty – This Site Is No Longer In Operation. Thank You. Mr. Incognito – Die Andere Welt
Leave it to electronic music auteur Markus Popp (a.k.a. Oval) to make watching the grass grow a beautiful, immersive experience. The video for “Kastell,” which is taken from his recently released Oh EP (a precursor to the massive, double-disc O album), is a minute and a half of tall, green stalks of grass swaying slightly in the wind while a still camera slowly moves over the various depths of field (pun intended!). But these aren’t the forgotten bits of overgrown greenery from your grandmother’s backyard. Sometimes, some of Popp’s field lights up and distorts for brief moments so short that you’re not sure if your eyes were playing tricks on you. As Oval’s plinking melody intensifies, so do the short bursts of optical illusion, and you can finally rest assured that the subtleties within these images are as real and elegantly orchestrated as the music itself. Watch the piece, directed by Amberley Productions, below.
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Going on its 12th year at New York’s MoMA P.S.1 space, the Warm Up music series continues to curate a long list of interesting and exciting artists from numerous regions and genres of the musical world—however it’s notably bereft of its standard techno and house fare. This summer’s installment of the outdoor mini-festival kicks off July 3, and continues on for 10 Saturdays until September 4. The lengthy event was curated by a list of notable tastemakers, including Dean Bein of True Panther Sounds, Kris Chen from XL, head of 20 Jazz Funk Greats and the Tri Angle label Robin Carolan, and Jonathan Galkin of DFA, to name a few. For the line-up, many eclectic acts were culled from the depths of disparate indie and electronic scenes, and include the likes of Ratatat, Kingdom, The Crystal Ark, Blondes, Holy Ghost! (pictured above), Glasser, Delorean, Arp, Big Freedia, DJ /rupture, ?uestlove, Tim Sweeney, House of House, and many more announced and surprise performers. Each Saturday concert is from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. and costs $15. You can check out the full announced line-up below, and find more info on the Warm Up music series here.
2010 Warm Up Schedule
July 3rd Delorean / True Panther Sounds, Barcelona, Spain (live) Janka Nabay and the Bubu Gang / Sierra Leone/Brooklyn (live) Glasser / True Panther Sounds, Los Angeles/New York (live) John Talabot / Permanent Vacation/Hivern, Barcelona, Spain (DJ set) Korallreven / Acéphale Records, Sweden (DJ set)
July 10th agnès b. presents: Klement / Contre Coeur, France (live) Acid Washed / Record Makers, France (live) Veronica Vasika / Minimal Wave, New York (DJ set)
July 17th Air France / Something In Construction/Sincerely Yours, Gothenburg, Sweden (DJ set) Ratatat / XL Recordings, New York (DJ set) ARP / Smalltown Supersound/RVNG Intl, USA (live)
July 24th MoMA PS1 Greater New York presents: JD Samson / New York (DJ set) MEN / Brooklyn (live) Kalup Linzy / Brooklyn (R&B, Soul, Disco DJ set) Kalup Linzy and the Sweet, Sampled, and LeftOva / Brooklyn (live performance set) DJ /rupture / Dutty Artz, Brooklyn (DJ set) With surprise guests!
July 31st Animal Collective / Domino (DJ set) Blondes / Merok/RVNG Intl (live) Oneohtrix Point Never / No Fun/Editions Mego, Brooklyn (live) CFCF / Acéphale Records, Montreal (DJ set) Babe Rainbow / Warp Records, Vancouver (live DJ set) Prince Rama / Paw Tracks, Brooklyn (live)
August 7th Gavin Russom / DFA Records, New York (DJ set) Alden Tyrell / Clone Records, NL (live) The Crystal Ark / DFA Records, New York (live) Special Disco Version feat. James Murphy & Pat Mahoney / DFA Records, New York (DJ set)
August 14th ?uestlove (DJ set) These Are Powers / RVNG Intl/ Dead Oceans, New York (live) Kingdom / Fools Gold/Night Slugs, Brooklyn, New York (DJ set) Treasure Fingers / Fools Gold, Brooklyn (DJ set)
August 21st Peter Zummo Ensemble / New York (live) Glissandro 70 / Constellation, Toronto, Canada (DJ set) Peter Gordon & Love of Life Orchestra / DFA Records, New York (live) Tim Sweeney / Beats In Space, New York (DJ set)
August 28th Big Freedia / New Orleans Sissy Bounce, New Orleans (live) DJ Rusty Lazer / New Orleans (DJ set) DJ Rashad / Juke Trax/Movel Trax/Ghettophiles, Chicago (DJ set) GHE20 GOTHIK DJs Venus X and Brenmar / Brooklyn, New York (DJ set)
September 4th Holy Ghost! / DFA Records, New York (live) House of House / Whatever We Want, New York (DJ set) DJ Mehdi / Ed Banger Records (DJ set) Plus Special Guests TBA
Offering an alternative to roadie hernias, this update puts realistically modeled guitar/bass set-ups in your laptop—complete with 25 selectable cabinets plus 15 pairable heads, 48 true stereo rack effects, and even vintage mics. But nothing replaces the satisfying physicality of a pedal’s spring-loaded cha-chunk! That’s why the industrial-strength Rig Kontrol floorboard offers eight triggers and an expression pedal mappable to any MIDI-controlled program. Assign the 192/24 USB interface with its native software for customization down to an amp’s power supply, voltage, tube aging, and more. Sporting a glossier GUI, Guitar Rig (MSRP: $449) features enhanced preset tagging/saving/sorting, adding to a premiere reamping tool. Key new additions include the Control Room module, where fader-based assigning/aligning of speaker/mic/preamp chains crafts sweet analog saturation as signature patches. Splitting signal paths by crossover point generates creative frequency mayhem. And Master FX adds overreaching, mood-tweaking coloration. Far from being limited to guitarists, this architecture is good for anyone using tone as an instrument.
OK, maybe Baths‘ face (and music) has been plastered all over the interwebs during the past few months, but how can you not love this chubby-cheeked kid from the Valley? The guy takes all his youthful emo urges and runs them through a bedroom hip-hop filter. People are tripping over themselves to crown him the new prince of chillwave-hop (or some other similarly invented genre), but we just think it’s some smile-inducing electronic pop. And somehow, when Baths (a.k.a. Will Wiesenfeld) hands the reigns of “Hall” over to fellow Southern Californian The One Am Radio (a.k.a. Hrishikesh Hirway), the song becomes even more delightful, as Hirway makes the whole thing a little more organic—think real drums—and swaps out Wiesenfeld’s falsetto for the dulcet tones of the Los Feliz Ladies Choir. Baths’ debut album, Cerulean, will be released on July 6. (via Streogum)
There must be something in the water down in Texas, because it seems to be the only place on Earth with a steady supply of cumbia crunk. Yes, cumbia crunk. It’s exactly what it sounds like—low-slung, hard-hitting hip-hop beats with all kind of chopped-up accordion riffs, classic cumbia-isms, and rap acapellas layered over the top. And for whatever reason, all the best stuff comes from Texas. The latest participant to pop up is Corpus Christi’s DJ Dus. He’s part of the Peligrosa crew along with DJ Orion and has already digitally released one album this year, entitled Soy Yo!. “Noche de Estrellas” comes off his freshly released Enemigo Publico EP, and it’s a zoned-out version of the vintage cumbia anthem that slowly thumps over some screwed hip-hop beats. More new music from Dus is expected later this summer on Ernest Gonzales‘ Exponential label.
Rapper/producer Oh No is Michael Jackson. Literally. He was born Michael Jackson, which isn’t an easy burden to haul around when you’re an aspiring musician and your older brother Madlib is being celebrated as a living legend. Yet he pressed on, carved out a small niche in the hip-hop underground for himself, and a few years back, tackled the whole MJ issue head on by remixing the Off the Wall album. Oh No called it Michael Jackson vs. Michael Jackson, and although obvious legal/sample issues prevented the record from ever seeing a proper release, today this small piece of project emerged on YouTube. And while most Michael Jackson remixes can be easily filed into the ‘cringe-worthy’ category, Oh No’s take on “Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough” is a heady slice of funky boom-bap that quickly got our heads nodding.
Here’s a quick piece from Arp‘s forthcoming second album, The Soft Wave. The two-and-a-half-minute “White Light” is an experience of fuzzy static and other variously manipulated noises, all wrapped around a constant loop of soft guitar strums. Occasionally, a semblance of melody outside of the hypnotic guitar work bubbles to the surface, but those flute puffs and electronic hums are short blips in the timeline. “White Light” is a small, temporary place, most likely created by Arp as a doorway to a larger room. (via Pitchfork)
