Post 2006’s Through the Cardial Window, drone master Gregg Kowalsky took to experimenting with tape loops, cassette players and recorders, analog synths, and a wealth of other instruments. His time spent with this arsenal of equipment eventually turned into the highly abstract and wonderfully challenging Tape Chants, which he has provided an excerpt of here.
Tape Chants is out June 8.
Detroit hip-hop veteran Karriem Riggins will, later this month, embark on the Virtuoso Experience tour (with DJ Dummy and Pete Rock), and he was nice enough to whip together an exclusive track for the occasion. “Soul on Top,” a hip-hop, soul, and funk-inspired jam, would make the likes of Marvin Gaye smile, and, according to Riggins, is some of what we can expect to hear at the upcoming shows.
Catch him on the road June 22 in Seattle, June 24 – 25 in Oakland, and June 28 in Minneapolis.
Summer 2009 will see L.A. lifestyle brand Freshjive dive into the world of politics with a set of t-shirts and caps inspired by the Pentagon Black Operation patches.
These patches—featured in I Could Tell You but Then You Would Have to be Destroyed by Me, a book by artist and writer Trevor Paglen—reveal secret imagery and lingo used in conjunction with top-secret Pentagon projects. Actual patches with these designs are worn by military personnel working on the top-secret missions. Paglen compiled and elaborated on them for his book, then Freshjive took the “operation” a step further with the new clothing line. Eerie, to say the least.
Items are available online right now.
When Brooklyn siblings Ivan and Ada (aged 15 and 12 respectively) were born, first-wave punk had been dead for more than a decade and the term was all but creatively bankrupt. Yet these kids, armed with little more than their instruments and GarageBand, have created a perfect punk album for 2009—one blissfully devoid of overproduced Disney pop and mind-numbing mall screamo. Skeletons is the duo’s second record, and its 26 minutes of punchy pop and sonic squall combine the freewheeling spirit of The Ramones with the crunchy electronics and sampling proclivity of Generation YouTube. “Two Dead Soldiers” sounds like a punked-up version of The Go! Team, while the title track is the best song Le Tigre never wrote.
This week we take Inbox on a slightly different path as we check in in real time with Tiga during his recent visit to San Francisco. We got the scoop on his favorite venues, bits of fashion, and where to get a killer club sandwich. And check out tomorrow’s episode of XLR8R TV to see the whole thing happen on the screen… and then some!
XLR8R: What’s the worst live show experience you’ve had in the last few years?
Tiga: There was one outside of Venice maybe four or five years ago. I swear there were maybe 10 people there and an MC in an empty, big room screaming “Tiga! Tiga! Tiga!” in Italian. The Mediterranean clubs in Italy, Spain, and Greece, you have to be really careful of the time of year. If you get an indoor club and the weather’s a little too nice, then no one is there.
What’s your favorite venue to play?
I think for consistency over the years, it’s a club in Barcelona called The Loft. I’ve played there at least twice a year for about eight years. The crowd really knows my stuff. They are really up for it. It’s a rare combination of a place that is actually big—like about two or three thousand people—but it feels like a small club.
What’s the weirdest story you’ve ever heard about yourself?
As a general rule, I really don’t pay attention to stuff. I totally try to avoid Facebook and MySpace. Once you start, you can’t help but be somewhat affected by what you read. When I was really young, living in Montreal, there were stories that I was a billionaire. I remember hearing stories that I was this scion of some mega-rich family.
Where’s the best club sandwich in the world?
Okay, now we’re talking. Finally a question I am interested in answering. I had a really good one in Paris once at the Park Hyatt Hotel. It was so expensive and such a piss-take and they made it so small. A club sandwich should generally have bulk, you know? This one was so delicious but then they made the little sections so small. It was really as if they were trying to say, “Fuck you, we know how good this tastes.” It was bacon, avocado, and sun-dried tomatoes, which I don’t normally like but it gave it a certain zest.
What band did you want to be in when you were 15?
Uh-oh, that can be embarrassing territory. I definitely know when I was 16, it was Depeche Mode. 15… Public Enemy? Are you allowed to go from Public Enemy to Depeche Mode? I wanted to be Ice-T because of his wife.
What’s a Juno award and what was it like winning one?
A Juno award is, in theory and practice, the Canadian equivalent of a Grammy, although it doesn’t quite carry the same weight in the international music community. I won one for my first album and I have no recollection of it. I got an email saying I won a Juno. I think I got invited there. I think it was in Halifax, so there was no chance I was going. They would have had to have thrown in a very serious cash incentive.
Which pop star would you most like to work with?
Does Timbaland count as a pop star? I like his music, and that could be something that’s interesting. Prince is kind of the holy grail, although I don’t know exactly what I would do in the room.
What’s the stupidest thing you’ve done in the last 12 months?
I can tell you the last stupid thing I did before that. I remember about 16 years ago I was in Paris. I was living with all these male models, and there was one male model that was always trying to reach this other male model, but for some reason he wasn’t allowed to know where they were. I picked up the phone—and it had been going on for weeks, everybody was like, “If this guy calls you just say nobody is there.” And he called—his name was Bobek. Because since then I’ve used the term Bobek. “Did you Bobek?” “I Bobek-ed.” And he called and I said, “Oh, yeah, Kareem, he’s here.” That was my big stupid moment that stayed with me since that moment.
Do you practice singing?
No, never. I don’t practice anything. I should practice. The only thing I practice is football. It’s shocking how you get better if you practice. I’ve never done that with anything musical. I’ve always just relied on instinct.
Complete this sentence: In the future…
I swear to God the first thing that came to mind was, “I will be king,” but that will come across wrong to your readers. In the future, sadly, I think there will be no more V-12 automobiles. I think the days of crazy-ass cars are on the way out.
What’s one item of clothing you can’t live without?
I’ve worn baseball caps since I was five years old. I had an army cap that I wore everyday in elementary school. I also wore leather pants in elementary school—which is a good look for a seven-year-old kid. I think they were actually pleather. I can’t live without a watch. A few times I had not had a watch because I knew I was going to buy a new watch in Europe and I didn’t want to bring two watches back across customs. So for that day or two while I’m waiting for my watch, I’m a fucking mess. Like, I can barely function.
If this compilation sounds familiar, there’s a reason: Plenty of these tracks have been flogged on many a dancefloor over the past year. That’s good for the overall quality, but U.K. label Freerange has also tossed in some exclusives to keep things fresh. What results is a solid window into the label’s aesthetic: deep-leaning, sunny-vibed house, with a full, big-room sound. That coherence is both a strength (Shur-I-Kan’s “Letting You Down,” Vincenzo’s techy “Shonen Jump,” Pezzner’s hypnotic “Almost Here Part 2”) and weakness, as the album unspools with relatively few surprises. Lack of spontaneity aside, White 06 should send fans of quality house music home happy.
The folks over at Everything is Terrible have taken the prehistoric expression “video is the wave of the future” and made it an actuality here in the 21st century. The website, which offers daily postings of ridiculous videos and forgotten footage from the past, basically operates as a rummage pile for YouTubers to geek-out on. Are you craving to see homeboy in neon tights as he raps about longing for plus-size girls? Done. How about an ’80s infomercial featuring a magician who can make women’s clothes disappear within the span of a jump cut? They have that too. The EIT gang will be appearing in person at Los Angeles’ Silent Movie Theatre on June 20th for a screening of their new DVD, Everything is Terrible! The Movie, so if you’re in the area definitely stop by. The show starts at 10:30 p.m., and cover is $10.
They may have dubbed their latest release Traffic Jam, but the sounds made by the members of Cobblestone Jazz are anything but messy when it comes to making music. The Canadian trio continues fusing techno tracks with funk and jazz on this release, and this track (which originally appeared on the group’s debut album, 23 Seconds) also sees the inclusion of a Rhodes and some very precise drum programming. Not so much a traffic jam, this one.
Duchess Says has been on XLR8R‘s radar a little while now, having wowed us at last year’s M for Montreal festival with its dance-punk mayhem that included keytars, stage diving, and lots of eye makeup. Apparently, The Juan MacLean was impressed too, as he’s prepped this remix for the track “Black Flag,” off the band’s Begging the 3 Ts EP.
A co-founder of the Wagon Repair label, Berlin-via-Vancouver techno producer Konrad Black’s sound is rooted in the patience of minimal techno, but draws on drum & bass for certain low-end sounds. Watergate 03, the eponymous Berlin club’s third mix, follows Onur Özer’s and Sascha Funke’s initial entries with a slightly moodier selection. The exclusive tracks here—“Siamese Connection,” a collaboration between Black and Martin Buttrich, and the superb “Walking on the Hands That Follow Me,” a preview of Mathew Jonson’s upcoming 12”—pinpoint the mix’s spooky, cusp-of-Sunday undercurrent. The Matthew Dear and Seth Troxler collaboration and Loco Dice selection are par for the (post-)minimal course, though Black’s deft hand leaves a few loose stitches for unexpected details to come sputtering through.
