A few months ago I went to the Folk Yeah! Festival in Heaven-On-Earth (Big Sur, California) for a low-key, stony weekend of camping with a bunch of hipsters in idyllic woods and watching a variety of folky-rock bands play this small roadside tavern. For the most part the music was pretty okay and mellow but I was totally unprepared & blown away by one of the last acts on Sunday night, a San Francisco band called BRONZE. They consist of vocals, drummer, and live electronics and have a very psyched-out dense sound that brings to mind Silver Apples if they had access to less primitive electronics. Accompanying their live show was some amazing lasers and projected visuals, but the absolute best part was the drummer: wearing an über-stylish neon green speedo, his nards kept falling out to the beat of the kick drum, but dude was so into the hypnotic grooves he did not care! Anyway these guys are killer, and are sure to blow us away with whatever they decide to record (hurry fellas!) but for now you can check out a live song and video on their-space. For those of us in 'Sucka Free, Bronze are playing this Saturday at a benefit for the El Rio along with other local luminaries & groove-hustlers Tussle, Paradise Island, Lemonade, & more.

Bronze - Scene Saw (Live) (link to MySpace)

Monday Movie [Parte 1]

The apparent death-knell of the whole first-wave of "let us entertain middle America with urban culture" movies has to be Body Rock. Tellingly, this was released in 1984 along with such heavyweights as Breakin' and Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo. Starring an all-singing, all-dancing Lorenzo Lamas as Chilly D, enthusiastic street dude extraordinaire of the Body Rock crew, and his trials and tribulations of being tempted by the fame and money of a swanky Manhattanite club, prompting a re-evaluation of his musical passion, friends, and ambition. In this devastating scene, he encounters his old crew on the street wearing his new duds, and must tell his mother (Grace Zabriskie, the sour-faced grandmother from Big Love) that he is moving out so he can be surrounded by other artistes. The eventual epic, saw-it-coming reunion scene occurs in front of a giant friggin' boombox at the Rapstravaganza. Soundtrack ranges from new-wave soft rock to terrible electro and freestyle and includes Maria Vidal, Ashford & Simpson, and Laura Branigan.

Blank-Eyed, Nose Bleed

This weekend in the Yay we are blessed with another delicious event from the Gun Club party people -- the dark disco genrefuck of Padded Cell from D.C. Recordings. It's not an underground location this time, but the newly rejuvenated Fat City will do just fine. As for Padded Cell expect scuzzy basslines, loads of crisp conga percussion fills, dark bouncy synths, a touch of Feedelity-style comsic swerviness, and plenty smeared eyeliner debauchery. If me trying to pull out all the stops on that description wasn't enough, here is a sampling of their 2007 efforts:

flipside from their D.C. 12" Moon Menace
Padded Cell - Faces Of The Forest

and remix of
a long dormant,
former ambient d'n'b,
UK-based Planet Dog artist (!?!),
that appeared on a recent DJ Harvey bootleg mix
Future Loop Foundation - The Sea And The Sky (Padded Cell Remix)

Todd Terje - Eurodans (Audiowhores Edit)

Traveling In My Mind

Claude VonStroke - Who's Afraid of Detroit? (Audion Remix)

Turzi - Amadeus

Roy Ayers - Chicago (Edit de Prince Language)

An Indian Too Digs On (& Mislabels) Non-Electronica

Just in time for the tenth anniversary of Jeff Buckley's death, and all the attendant posthumous releasing mania, I remembered this incredible gem. In my obsessive Radiohead collecting days some years ago, I stumbled across this "unknown piano song" which had been mislabeled as Thom Yorke solo work. I believed it too, for a while -- both their voices possess that same haunting vibrato, which is in full effect here. It starts with a minimal Ligeti-esque piano refrain and Buckley extending out these spooky phrases, slowing building with insane spiraling feedback and then crashing into a full band death-metal-funeral-dirge. I have no idea what it's call or what release it's from, and I don't have the patience to wade through a bunch of his work to figure it out, but I am hoping some Buckley maniac out there will stumble on here and alert us to where we can find more. Until then....

ADDENDUM from Friday June 22nd:

Turns out I was completely offbase and the song is from angsty Brit-stadium-rockers Muse! Thanks to some intrepid readers out there for their skepticism. It is a b-side from 1999 single "Muscle Museum" and it is completely unlike anything else I've heard from this group. (Admittedly, I do indulge in an occasional listen to the let-me-upgrade-Queen-with-arpeggiators-and-kickdrums-bombast of "Take A Bow" while not endorsing the band on the whole.) Here is a reposted version of the song that both enchanted & tricked me (sorry Jeff Buckley, I still love you more).

Muse - Con-Science

Quick note about some oat-standing looking secretive shows this week that haven't been too publicized around these parts. I am excited especially about seeing Mr. Stefan Betke, his new Pole album is stellar and also, as a bonus for your friends who are fed up with experimental dub, more... accessible... than his 1, 2, 3 series.

Well, it's been awhile to be sure.

Been neglecting this space for other projects: slacking off school, playing video games (dude seriously, i got a wii), watching the films of amazing Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethkul, not to mention coping with big depressing life issues and such. But now you have my undivided attention....

Here is something I've been working on recently in my Advanced Radio Production class and I hope you listen because it is about a fantastic minimalist rock band by the name of The Monks & their 1966 album Black Monk Time.

And as treat if you listened the whole way through (honor system now), this track from Silver Monk Time, the recent Monks tribute album:

Mouse On Mars - Momks No Time

Also I've been listening to a lot of other fabulous stuff lately... Dixon's Body Language Mix , two new releases from Skull Disco (the two-part Villalobos "Apocalypso Now Mix" 0f Shackleton's "Blood On My Hands" was worth the wait), new Mock & Toof re-edits on RVNG, Larry Heard's "Sun Can't Compare" about a billion times, the What Are We Doing Here? album from They Came From the Star, I Saw Them from 2003 I somehow managed to hear about just recently. Not as much digging techno lately, the Âme joint "Fiori" that's got everybody in a fuss not doing in for me. Still feeling the Kalabrese disc "Rumpelzirkus" and I managed to track down a super dubby & deep remix of his from last year that I will be so gracious to share.

Idjut Boys feat. Rune Lindbæk- Laisn (Kalabrese Remix)

Despite my woes, this weekend is looking partcularly inspiring. Tonight I Am Spoonbender is playing their first show in three years and Steven Stapleton of Nurse With Wound (!!!) is evidently doing something there as well. The atonishingly awful/good Ariel Pink will also be opening up. All this and then someone gave me free tickets to Morgan Geist spinning tomorrow at Rx Gallery.

Highly recommended essay on the dearth of humor in indie music and the "Serious Question" by Sam Ubl over at Stylus.

Check it.

Get My Bleep On

Bay Area purveyors of quaalude disco, berlin bangers, & wacky crunk rejoice! One of my current favorite artists (and most frequently blarged about) is playing this Saturday at 222 Club in San Francisco -- Matt Edwards aka Radio Slave aka Rekid aka 1/2 of Quiet Village Project. As you might have guessed his DJ sets are as varied as his production work, as evinced by the link below (courtesy of Fact Magazine). There will be local support from Monty Luke & TK Disko. 222 Club is at 222 Hyde St @ Turk.

Stream Rekid's mix for Fact Magazine here

PAP INDOLGENCE

Timbaland's forthcoming artist album, Shock Value, has been mainly disappointing in my cursory listen today. Particularly the entire last 2/3 of it stinks (cringe-worthy duets with Fall Out Boy & She Wants Revenge especially). But there are a few moments early on worth hearing. Among them are lead single, "Give It To Me" with Justin Timberlake & Nelly Furtado -- the only real radio-play receiving banger I've been feelin' in the past few months -- and another only-in-the- Timbaland-production-book number, "Way I Are".

Think of it as "My Love" redux. The same gigantic trance-rays of death make an appearance, combined with cold exotic synths and an eminently mixable house beat. Kinda like the type of dark club music The Knife would make if they grew up in Miami instead of the icy Nordic. Here, if we could only replace the sorely predictable phrasing of R&B nobody Keri Hilson and "baybee-gurl" -isms of D.O.E. with Karin Dreijer and um... somebody hotter?!? then we'd all be in pop heaven. If I can find a instrumental, I will post it stat - you just get your producer friends ready to do some major surgery and resurrect this potential banger with an acapella worth the beat. In the mean time we can all eagerly await to hear what he does with Bjork...

Timbaland feat. Keri Hilson & D.O.E. - Way I Are


Also worth posting is another of Timbaland's recent productions from Young Jeezy's Thug Motivation 102, brilliantly showcasing both his continuing a) fascination with mouth percussion, and b) irreverence for using regular hi-hat sounds as predictable placards of time.

Young Jeezy feat. Timbaland - 3 A.M.

My Friday Crack

Helium-soul dubstep!!!

This track is a huge leap forward (or sidestep, depending on your take) for the restless versatile music of dubstep. No more sulking about in dank urban dens or catching the last tube to Elephant & Castle, this tune is aiming for the top of the pops comparatively from what the rest of the scene is producing. Love to hear where the vocal bit is sampled from. Bet if I was more familiar with British pop I'd already know. It sounds like it could be late 90's garage/two-step, or earlier from that same decade American r&b? Regardless, it challenges the whole eerie, off-kilter vibe that is becoming de rigeur in dubstep, and although it will probably be a one-off track leaving the general path unchanged, it is fucking beautiful for right now.

D1 - Mind & Soul


Another potential melding point/ breakthrough track is Burial's in-progress remix of "Wayfaring Stranger" by Jamie Woon.

Available on Burial's myspace

I was tipped off to this ditty (and indeed a good deal many others) by Kiran Sande's Fact Magazine column, The Contemporary Fix. Otherwise known as Mr. Soft, he runs an excellent blog by the name of TAPE, where if you have never been, I'd recommend staying away from there, it will make your tunes feel irrelevant.

Waited forever to hear this track, and finally it's here. It seems like you would need to start your own weekly newsletter to cover all of Carl Craig's activites as of late, but how can we complain? The C2 renanaissance has given us some uniformly superb remix work (except for maybe the choice of keeping the vocal bits for his take on X-Press 2's "Kill 100"?) and unlike some other top producers, never seems to depend on rehashing the same formula again and again. In the last few months he's put out stellar versions of tracks by Faze Action, Amp Fiddler, Japanese Synchro System, Lazy Fat People, and let's not forget to mention an unparalleded 2006. This one is no exception... oh, and the source material is no slouch either.

Junior Boys - Like A Child (Carl Craig Remix)

I've been out of the loop for a while, but after finally getting my hands on a Nintendo Wii such can be expected. Since school work is at a standstill, this week will hopefully be a return to shifting through the staggering amount of new music being released in these early months of what is looking to be a promising year. Until I get a grip on that, we will be digging back a few years for this next track, to a time just before Mr. Schwarz started getting his much deserved mad props and bloggers were jumping all over every single thing he touched.

Alex Smoke - Don't See The Point (Henrik Schwarz Vocal Mix) (2005)

And then going even further back, a leftfield disco oddity from pop reggae superstar Eddy Grant. My vinyl version comes on the b-Side to his biggest hit "Electric Avenue". When you hear this one I am sure you will agree it is near unbelievable that these two tracks are packaged together. This is the same guy who wrote "Walking On Sunshine"? It has an incredible cosmic feel to it without indulging in any of the familiar contrivances we are getting accustomed to from the buttload of disco neuvo and re-edits as of late. Listening to it now, the memorable vocal snippet surely influenced Metro Area's "Miura".

The Coach House Rhythm Section - Time Warp (1982)

Motiivi Unknown

A lot of folks have been waiting for another outing from these three Finns since back in 2005 when their soul-destroying punisher of a track "1939" made us stock our shelters in delightful anticipation of whatever other firebombs they decided to drop. And it struck a chord elsewhere too, getting licensed to mixes from artists as disparate as Annie & James Holden. Two years down the road we find them now in Kompakt's Speicher series sounding unfortunately more shiny - rough edges polished back by software perhaps? The A-side "I Don't Feel Good (When You're Not Around)" is a bit of a let-down, brandishing these ugly ravey stabs that scream dancefloor filler. The flip, however, is a bizarre treat. While never as noisy as their former release, it pursues a more familiar moody-yet-hard vibe for a few, then drops the beat to let metallic synths trumpet around an abstract plain for the last five minutes. Like Eno doing Metal Machine Music. I'm not sure where they fit in much with other techno contemporaries but path they've carved with "1939", "Floor Defender" and now, "Mankind Failed", is to be applauded.



Motiivi:Tuntematon - Mankind Failed [Kompakt Extra]