mudd up!

w&w: “jace offers less a review than an extended essay on the sounds, significations, & marketing of a west african / “islamic” hip-hop comp”:

Beat Happening, an essay of mine published in U.A.E. daily The National.

[Sister Fa, courtesy Piranha Records]
I played two songs from Many Lessons on the Ramadan/Eit radio show, streamable, makes a nice soundtrack for this article. also available in podcast form.

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Timeblind (Mr rastObama) blogs the collapse, with the up-close details of someone who plays (played?) the market a bit. also here:

“It hasn’t bled out into the real economy yet, but this stuff is more significant than 9/11 in what its going to do to the real world economy and to the American psyche. . . So anyway I have many positive things to say about the way that social and economic structures can be rebooted, and I’m really excited to see how the western ingenuity adapts and moves forward. I think this is all a positive development, despite what it just did to your parents’ life savings.”

más y más

[Pablo Lescano / Damas Gratis.]

Slow Burn, my cumbia feature for the July/August issue of The Fader magazine, is now available online (albeit without the lush full-page photo spreads). Several years of listening and research followed by a whirlwind week running around Buenos Aires gave rise to this article, I hope you enjoy.

To accompany the essay, I did a cumbia mix for Eddie Stats’ weekly column, Ghetto Palms.

Click here to find the downloadable mix along with my tracklist & some notes about what’s what. (and if you facebook or whatever, this page has the mix in its embeddable internest-y glory.)

Y si lees castellaño, aquí tenemos un artículo bastante académico sobre cumbia villera. [spanish-language cumbia villera article, thanks W&W]

 

it’s out! The Fader’s summer issue (F55) is in stores now and sports a lengthy article on CUMBIA by yours truly, along with AMAZING IMAGES from photojournalist Gabriele Stabile.

How awesome is Gabriele? Consider the following: Fader sent us to Argentina for a week - during this time he lost his only jacket, almost broke a rib, was unsuccessfully mugged (thank you, taxi driver!), stepped in dog poop like 3 times, was buzzed by armed youth on a motorbike and nearly shot at (twice, technically), was denied return passage to America (he made it out a few days later, only hours before the airport was closed due to brush fire), and still managed to take a thousand or more photographs (on actual film no less!). It was an honor to roll with someone so dedicated.

 

the magazine is available as free PDF download (45MB); our piece begins on page 59, but you should seek out the print version, if only to do justice to luscious, intense, Gursky-eat-yr-cold-and-sterile-heart-out centerfold photos like this one, taken at a Damas Gratis show. Yes, they are moshing. to slow keytar-driven cumbia:

 

Dutty Artz t-shirts are now available in tropical colors!

plus, a piece I wrote on the Black Stars compilation (of new music from Ghana) is in the current issue of Frieze magazine.

click on the thumbnail below to see a scan.

Three continents in less than a week has left me burning the midnite oil, sipping yerba mate, and falling into deep R.E.M. sleep the moment I sit down in NYC’s shuddering metro system. Naturally, the blog suffers.

But you can expect a grip of print pieces from me in the near future: Fader, Frieze, repeat.

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“We’re just trying to find the greatest next 3 minutes of your life” - a great Observer (Guardian) article on mp3 blogs, in which MuddUp! is featured!

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I’ve been wrapping my ears around lady ‘harp’ music from Peru. Especially Anita Santivañes, totally hypnotic even though it all kinda sounds the same, these intermodulating waves of complicated & repetitive string arrangements falling from cracks in the sky down to a world holding less love than it needs.

Here’s Anita Santivañes from Anita Santivañes vs Anita Santivañes. Guess who wins!

Anita Santivañes - Bebi La Miel de Tus Labios

(heartbreak poetry encoded at 56 kbps, a MuddUp! low-fidelity record!)

& because it is late-nite and late-nite allows for little if any organizational logic, here’s a scratchy old banjo-powered recording of Algerian chaabi great Dahmane El Harrachi that i picked up at the Barbes Fassiphone shop a few days ago, where Sonido Martines took great pleasure in watching the Parisian Arab girls in impeccable makeup make fun of my musical selections.

Dahmane El Harrachi - Khabi Serrak

Nettle covers this tune in fact; this is the first time i’ve heard a recording of it by its original composer.

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speaking of Sonido & cuuuumbia, He’s straight outta Bogota via BnsAires and ON TOUR IN EUROPE RIGHT NOW! AY AY AY! & he’s got some killer CD-r mixes with him… be sure to ask…

back to Africa? yes please.

The Fader’s AFRICA issue is on newstands now — it’s big and beautiful. Free PDF version. Lush photography accompanies a wealth of articles, including a Sweat.X piece by yrs truly.

needless to say, i heartily recommend Sweat X’s recent mixes available for free on myspace; the ebonyivorytronic South African duo is on tour now in Europe, sharing their