Month: March 2008

THURSDAY CANTABRIDGIAN

i’m sick. this post is pure cut&paste. i’ll be participating in lively talk @ Harvard this Thursday followed by a special edition Beat Research, relaxed tagteam session w/ Boston bredren DJ Flack & Wayne&Wax. BOTH EVENTS ARE FREE. ////

APRIL 3
“Dubai: The Post-Critical Landscape?” with NEGAR AZIMI,
JACE CLAYTON, and JOSEPH GRIMA
Sert Gallery, 3rd floor, Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard U., 24 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA. 617.495.3251 for info.

7:30 pm
drinks and dinner

In recent years, Dubai has been posited as a spectacularized, almost virtual landscape whose rapid expansion has made it impossible to grasp, much less critique. Rhetoric about Dubai has rendered it “post-critical” and “post-ideological;” beyond critical theory’s capacity to adequately engage. Negar Azimi, Jace Clayton, and Joseph Grima will offer strategies for dismantling this disabling rhetoric, using their work in and about Dubai to consider the currency of the “post-critical” and “post-ideological” in Dubai and within the contemporary critical landscape more broadly.

Azimi, senior editor of the Middle Eastern arts and culture magazine Bidoun, will discuss Bidoun’s reconceptualization of the glossy magazine as a site for criticality. Clayton, a sound artist, DJ, and critic who often writes about and works with North African and Middle Eastern music, will consider sampling and remixing as artistic strategies within and outside of DJ culture. Grima, the director of Storefront for Art and Architecture, will contrast Storefront’s interventions in consumerist SoHo with the myriad difficulties Storefront has faced trying to establish an outpost in Dubai.

(after this chat, we relocate & turn up the music. Never trust a critic who can’t dance!!!)

April 3rd
Special THURSDAY
BEAT RESEARCH
with DJ /Rupture
–
Our old friend DJ /Rupture will be in town and was looking for a low- key space to play some of his favorite musical treats including some of the choice Cumbia tracks that he has been collecting lately.

He, Wayne and Flack will chillin while tag teaming on the decks (and Laptop) throughout the night.

@ The Enormous Room, 567 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA
9pm to 1am, 21 plus, Free

RADIO & LOW-SLUNG MIXES

today’s show will be from 6-8pm! i’m sick but 7 Second Delay is sicker, so i’ll be filling in for their slot. next week: special guest MAGA BO. click for his North American tour dates.

here’s the first of 3 DIY on-location videos Maga Bo did for his upcoming album (myspace for preview), this one in Dakar with Xuman of Pee Froiss fame:

[youtube: Maga Bo – Fire ft. Xuman]

& 2 low-end mixes, fresh from my inboxxx:

Squinchy Jones – Nintendub (a dubstep / rap / 8bit mix from Houston )

Ruff E Nuff – untitled 6th birthday mix (dancehall / raggajungle/ dubstep / rap crew mix, shout to Geroyche)

GRIMEY GUEMBRI

Trim has a new mixtape – buyable

“look I am a thief I am a thief”

Trimski – Thief in the Night (prod. by Radioclit)

looped gnawa guembri bass presented as grime – nice! although the chorus samples shift to the wrong type of Maghreb music, and gnawas probably wouldn’t like the lyrics. the other Radioclit beat on Trim’s mixtape is hot too, crazy minimal, also with arabesque samples.

elsewhere, south south south of London, young boys who dance together dangle a rapper in, just for moment – a nod to the prevailing mashup logic but just a nod, he gets dipped in and out of the regadda music, cut to a toddler by the sea, cut to a car parked in cloud-covered foothills.

MAMBO VIOLENTO

art with books 007

(good reading over at That Veiled Gazelle, from which this photo was taken.)

So. Omega y Su Mambo Violento.

Over in the Dominican Republic, there’s a young man by the name of Omega, last letter in the Greek alphabet. It’s already a bit apocalyptic. And his band? Mambo Violento. And their deal!? Deft, catchy street merengue (‘meregue de la calle’ aka mambo)that surges over 200bpm+, coolly guided by his slo-mo baritone.

Does the song below have Amen breaks? I think so. “Tu No Ta Pa Mi”: this contains the best doubletime riddim shift I’ve heard in a long time, starts off smooth and just launches. Shout to dutty bredren Geko Jones for the digging assistance. Note that I found it on Domincantube.com — i like the ‘eastafricantubeization‘ of streaming media sites.

africa

anyhow, here’s Omega Mambo Violento. Don’t let the mismatched video fool you — it’s for “Alante Alante”. The audio belongs to “Tu No Ta Pa Mi,” and he’s singing about finding himself alone with the TV on, crying over impossible love, etc. It’s downright Morrisey :

NYC TROPICAL

maroc

…got my first DJ booking in North Africa — May 1st at a lakeside spot in Marrakesh! (yes that is a photo of the place.)

+

Ghislain Poirier on WFMU, S/FJ on Ghis, .

+

dancehall / cumbia / hood electro / grime / dubstep / tropical aka

your friday night plans: DUTTY ARTZ TROPICAL DANCE, Glasslands, williamburglandia.

Its just me, Geko Jones, and Matt Shadetek dropping tunes all nite long (I’ll be playing early and late sets).

$2 before 11pm, only six bucks after… cheap drinks & all the dutty wine and tropical shakers you could ask for. We have deep quality crates and a lot of new heat to share. hosted by Ladidadi, crazed color-art by Artz Atak, plus low-end reggae soundsystem reinforcements for that extra bump.

keywords: FUN MISTAKES

HERE TODAY

tim

“Anything I say here will sound tired, lame and cliched: I’m a loving, caring, empathic person trying to survive in a culture dominated by free market, neo-liberal values, white supremacy, patriarchy and the loathsome cult of individualism. My ‘academic’ work is *never* unconnected to my passions, desires, and ambitions for radical social justice. Black Studies is a calling to me, as strong as some folks’ religious fervour, and without music, my life would be a mistake.” – Tim Haslett

We crossed paths infrequently, but everytime i bumped into Tim he would gently tip new ideas (or new music) into my head.

Somebody play this tune for him for me next Monday. We were emailing each other in amazement when it got released, gun clack and heartbeat, the reality of pain as awareness of fragility, history samples and silence at the end when the voice drops out.

Marxmen (M.O.P.) – Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

TROPICAL MONDAY

2 waves of latin tropical hit NYC tonite: El Guincho (from the Canary Islands via Barca) & Zizek crew (from Buenos Aires)

El Guincho also plays free show at Union Pool, BKLYN, tomorrow.

here’s a tune from ZZK Sound vol. 1: Cumbia Digital (buyable), this one sports that synthy villera lean.

Fantasma – Cumbia Que Pega

Fantasma offer all their myspace tunes for download too.

& here’s a great spanish-language interview w/ El Guincho. Note: he’s the only Spanish musician i’ve ever heard who namechecks the (seminal West African) Syliphone label!

on last week’s streamable 2-hour radio show, i dip into both Syliphone 70s territory and B.A. cumbia mutations. Also: Sr. Guincho & Mr. Oceana’s blog (en espanol) is in full-on tour diary mode (“it’s 100 degrees in Austin. Oh yeah, yesterday I crossed paths with Ice Cube.”)

surf’s up! El Guincho’s video

¿En qué medida la música étnica, las música de otros lugares del mundo que se miran en las maneras anglosajonas sin renunciar a sus respectivas tradiciones, crees que puede tener algo que decir en el rock o pop alternativo?

EL GUINCHO: No lo sé. No entiendo bien la clasificación porque generalmente engloba estilos casi antagónicos. Tampoco, viniendo de las Islas Canarias, puedo tener esa visión tan occidental de world music o como lo quieran llamar. La música africana o latinoramericana estaba más a mi alcance que el “pop-rock alternativo”. La ponían en casa, la veía el en WOMAD, la escuchaba por la calle. Estudié en un colegio francés así que conocí antes por compañeros de clase a NTM y MC Solaar que a Pavement, The Feelies o Sun City Girls. Si quería un disco de pop, rock o punk en inglés tenía que investigar mucho y comprarlo. Si quería escuchar los Seis del Solar iba al salón y cogía una cinta.


¿Qué es lo que más os atrae de ella?

Igual que con cualquier otra música, la búsqueda, el peligro y la sensación de ser transportado a un lugar nuevo a través de un disco. Poner una canción y que inmediatamente te haga sentir bien para el resto el día.

¿Cómo se traduce en tu sonido dicha influencia?

Supongo que en mi caso se traduce de forma evidente en los sampleados. Si recorto algo que la gente entiende como “world music” acabará rompiendo una lanza en la canción hacia allí. No sé qué más decir al respecto. Lo siento de veras si no ayudo mucho pero nunca me había sentado a pensar las músicas del mundo como una influencia.

¿Dinos algún artista de world music que os interese y que pueda tener algo que aportar a la música que haces?

No sé si es world, afro-pop o simplemente música africana pero creo que una buena forma de empezar es recuperar los discos de Prince Nico Mbarga con Rocafil Jazz International. Cualquier cosa del sello Syliphone, especialmente Balla et Ses Balladins o el afro-beat ghanés de The 3rd Generation, Marijata o Ebo Taylor.

RADIO-DOM

tonite’s radio show will be from 6-8pm EST! After the 2 week marathon madness, rest assured i’ve got ’nuff new tunes to run through… Next week: special guest Ghislain Poirier.

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had a chance to check the new Kingdom mixtape and it’s zuper — streamable (and buyable) here. What’s it sound like? “ANIMATED GIFS, SECRET RURAL HOMOTHUG PARTIES, TIE-DYE, SUBWOOFERS PASSING IN THE NIGHT, MEMORIES FOREVER.”

(Memories forever? Funes the memorious understands that that sounds like a curse… )

here’s a locative Harlem b-more Cam’Ron / Kingdom refix from it to speed along your day.

DJ Chris J – Party Time (Kingdom Remix ft. Cam’ron)