TRANSES is a great, poetic introduction to the deliriously deep world of Maghrebi sound — and the social shifts it both anticipates and provokes.

All the best documentaries document – give us a glimpse through a weltanschauung window – rather than explain (there are no voice-overs here, for example), and excellent translations mean that we get to experience the band’s lyrical power as well. So c’mon down! We’ll talk, listen, watch.

I’ll be on the jury of Temporary Publics Sketch 120 charrette competition in Brooklyn tomorrow, hosted by SUPERFRONT and The Architecture League of NY’s Design in 5. Should be fascinating – several community organizations from Bed-Stuy have submitted indoor/outdoor summertime public project proposals, and tomorrow around 30 designers and architects will be submitting designs in which to realize them — the winning sketch will be built in Superfront’s massive backyard and active throughout the summer!

Innovative public spaces are so hard to create and maintain – especially in dense, expensive cities like Nueva York – so it’s great to help coax one into being. I’ve been reviewing the communty groups’ proposals and it’s already exciting. You are welcome to come join us as the various design teams develop rapid-fire proposals…

Sketch 120: Sketch Cypher – Temporary Publics

Design in 5 Charrette
A program within SUPERFRONT’s spring series, “Cypher on Urban Affairs”
Jury: DJ/rupture, nARCHITECTS, and Slade Architecture
Saturday, May 15
2:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
SUPERFRONT
1432 Atlantic Avenue
Brooklyn

“Participants will be randomly assigned a detailed program brief, submitted by community organizations through a SUPERFRONT open-call, with parameters for a semi-outdoor space to be managed for public activity in Brooklyn. The selected team will have the opportunity to construct their design in a 1,000 square foot outdoor space behind the SUPERFRONT gallery in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, in collaboration with SUPERFRONT. Construction will be supported through donated materials from Materials For The Arts, other partners, and novice construction volunteers. Winners will be given a budget of $500 for additional supplies. The temporary outdoor installation will open on June 26th and will run until August 15th.”

more details.

This Saturday, Mitch McEwen and I will co-host a panel/teach-in on Do-It-Yourself Public Space Making at SUPERFRONT’s Brooklyn storefront gallery. The event is second in a series that leads up to the construction of a public space in the backyard of the gallery. raw data:

Mixtape on DIY (Do It Yourself) Public Space-Making. Sat April 10, 4-6pm. @ Superfront, 1432 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn.

Discussion panel with Cristina Goberna (Fake Industries | Architectural Agonism), Justin Moore, (New York City Planning, Brooklyn), Ena McPherson (Parks, Arts & Culture, Community Board 3), Jordan Seiler (New York Street Advertising Takeover), hosted by DJ /rupture and Mitch McEwen (SUPERFRONT).

Choose to participate in 1 of 3 teach-ins after the panel: 1) community zoning basics 2) spring gardening tactics 3) property disobedience and public dialogue.

$5 suggested donation for the 4pm panel and workshops, but no one turned away.

I’ve been collaborating with Mitch McEwen of Superfront on a series of projects combining architecture, audio, and public space. Things kick off today with a FREE presentation by Mitch, myself, and other Superfront folk at the Studio X space in Manhattan.

Mitch is a next-level thinker, directing the interdisciplinary Superfront in both its L.A. and Brooklyn locations – she’ll be talking out recent curatorial projects and what we’re cooking up for summer.

I’ll be discussing the DUTTY ARTZ team CD which we put together for occassion (new exclusive mixes by Matt Shadetek, Mosholu Park, Taliesen, and myself), as well as going over how we’re intergrating DJ methodology into the overall project, and detailing my new sound installation for the Studio Museum in Harlem (FM radio processing: Hot97 as a wall of ambience tuned to Berber pentatonic scales, that sort of thing)

….and how everything ties in to 2 panels/workshops which Mitch + I will co-host at Superfront along with some stellar guests in the coming weeks: Mixtape on DIY Public Space (April 10), Mixtape Architecture as Activism (May 1).

Did I mention the whole thing will culminate in the creation of a community structure for summertime use in Superfront’s 1000 sq. ft. Bed-Stuy backyard?

Big tings a gwan, and it’s easiest to explain in person…

INFO:

SUPERFRONT at Studio-X
Thursday, 4/1, 6:30pm

SUPERFRONT’s “Architecture Mixtape” series launches at Studio X, co-hosted by JACE CLAYTON aka DJ /rupture of mudd up! radio. MITCH McEWEN, Founder and Director of SUPERFRONT, presents recent exhibits curated in both SUPERFRONT’s Los Angeles and Brooklyn galleries. The audience will be invited to participate in a public program that integrates music and community organizing into the production of architectural discourse. Catalog publications and the DJ /rupture-produced soundtrack will be on display.

Free and open to the public
RSVP: gdb210[at]columbia[dot]edu

Studio-X
180 Varick Street, Suite 1610
1 train to Houston Street

[Studio-X is a downtown extension of the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation of Columbia University.]

yes! my new mix album, Solar Life Raft, made with Matt Shadetek, is out this week as digitals, in stores next as little boxes of plastic (with cool short story liner notes & artwork).

currently available at places like iTunes (US), Amazon, Boomkat, eMusic…

+ + +

plus a world-klass record release party – next week, join myself, Matt Shadetek & Jahdan Blakkamoore, Maluca, and Sonido Martines at the planetarium of The American Museum of Natural History in NYC!!

ONE STEP BEYOND.

The FADER Presents

ONE STEP BEYOND at the American Museum of Natural History

Friday, November 13, 2009

DJ /Rupture
Matt Shadetek Feat. Jahdan Blakkamoore
Maluca
Sonido Martines

9pm – 1am
$25- Price includes admission to the Space Show and a free return visit to the Museum.

Buy tickets in advance here.

I just broke a spiral energy-efficient lightbulb (turns out that the bulb is also shatter-efficient, tiny shards cover my studio floor) which is making it more difficult than I like to get the speakers running so I can blast this lastest jam from dutty fam 77Klash and Matt Shadetek.

[77Klash]

Download audio file (77Klash_ft_MattShadetek_Pressure.mp3)

77Klash ft. Matt Shadetek – Pressure

The riddim, built by Matt, is called “Car Bomb”. Klash does his thing (no surprise his album will be titled “No Fear”); they’ve got an unreleased heap of this skullcrushery BK bashment wildness.

…One click leads to the next, and before you know it we’re looking at the Fader’s SXSW street fashion shots, the highlight of which is Mannie Fresh rocking a 5-A amaaaazing t-shirt — rich with existential overtones!

[Fader photo]

Kakande – Dununya (from Dununya)

nowadays, cello to balafon, Brooklyn.

and then, guitar as balafon, 1970s Guinea.

Download audio file (13_Balla et ses Balladins_Sakhodougou.mp3)

Balla et ses Balladins – Sakhodougou (from The Syliphone Years, buyable here or here)

You can think about a song – a good song – as a miraculous moment when all the dissonances that frame a person’s life drop out of sight long enough to see how it looks without them. So when a band you like hits that groove, sometimes all you can do is listen, because that moment will be leaving.