tough, Tunisian, and dubby without using much echo. a distinct production approach… with a great keyboard set low in the mix.
[audio:Ramzi_Cocktail_Tounsi.mp3]…a mixture of distilled spirits, sugar, water, and bitters
Month: February 2009
TELEPATHE TONITE
on tonight’s radio show: special guests Brooklyn’s own Telepathe! Their incoming album, Dance Mother, is so great I can’t even talk about it (i just listen again & again)… Since I’m speechless I figured the easiest thing to do was have them talk about it, their influences, soft synths, harmonic convergence, lyrical power, and “Michael” instead. They’ll also be sharing a bunch of new sounds (by non-Telepathes) from hiphop to dubstep and beyond.
As always, show goes out at Wednesdays, 7pm EST, 91.1fm, plus realtime streaming, streamable archives, and a podcast version.
For fans of the Caribbean/UK/’brown Atlantic’ soundfield, be sure to listen back to the previous guest show on WFMU, when Gervase from London’s Heatwave joined us for massive tuneage and equally deep commentary. This one received a lot of nice feedback.
ODD OUT THERE
me: world music marketing is so crazy right now. on the back of a cd i just got sent:
“a group of parapalegic street musicians who live in and around the grounds of the zoo in Kinshasa, Congo
matt: wowwwwwwwwww
me: they make music of astonishing power and beauty.”
matt: man
that’s really crazy
what does that mean?
[King Leopold II caricature, from Vanity Fair 1869]
me: hardcore sick novelty post-Konono
its apparently true
it means in order to sell african music 2 younger market they need sensationalist backstory
matt: yeah that’s a really weird flavor of exploitation
they live in a zoo!
pity sales
me: w/ Konono (also from kinshasa) it was “they make their own amps and it distorts, f#cked up folk-urban”
backstory sales
spectacle sales
matt: yeah
me: the zoo bit is jawdropping
oh yeah, bikes rigged up to be taxis/mobile transport units. on cover of CD
matt: parapalegic zoo resident music
me: made in yet another failed african state undergoing massive crisis, but not so famous as Zimbabwe..
now on sale by Belgian label,.
Sent at 11:21 PM on Tuesday
me: ‘King Leopold Productions” – just kidding. i should post this convo on the blog.
Sent at 11:22 PM on Tuesday
matt: haha yes
it’s very odd out there
Sent at 11:25 PM on Tuesday
+ + +
“Today at the dawn of 2009, people in the Congo are still dying at a rate of an estimated 45,000 per month and already 2,700,000 people have died since 2004.
– wikipedia sourced from this New York Times article.
BIRDS OF A FEATHER
by the way, I twitter.
Busy today but soon I’ll try to explain why I like it.
MONUMENTAL ARCHITECTURES
Anne Boyer sent a handmade book to an address where I haven’t lived in over two years. It arrived to me, eventually.
excerpt from 20 difficult ways to publish poetry:
18. Monumental Architectures
Join terrorist cell. Encourage terrorist cell to blow up dams/create dams on major waterways. Control the flows of creeks, streams, and rivers so that they sculpt the United States into your poem.
supplies: mock ideological fervor, dynamite, concrete, map.
(alternate strategy: forgo terrorists, enlisting beavers to do the same)
ALTERNATING MEADOWS
[View of Fez medina, Vince Miller’s flickr] The land of Jbala is usually fairly green but not necessarily fertile. It is well-watered in winter but most often furrowed. The atmosphere can become very special whenever the marine influence suddenly turns from Atlantic to Mediterranean, creating that peculiar tension of the air which newborns are particularly sensitive to. . . It is within this universe, in turn bucolic and wearisome, that the poetry of the taktoba jabala has set its great universal themes: the softness of spring, almond tree flowers, clear water, milk, honey, olive oil, and the first blush on the cheeks of a beautiful black-eyed cousin who can also hurt or burn up the soul of the bard. . .
[audio:KALBHA SAFI HLIB – His heart is pure as milk _ AJIOU ALAYAL – Come Together.mp3]In this greatly eroded land, almond and olive trees alternate with meager meadows. Many of the inhabitants have emigrated to Fes. The timeless economic, artistic, and religious relationship with the Arab-Andalusian capital illustrates a paradigm quoted first by Plato and later by the Moroccan historian Ibn Khaldoun: the harmony of a true civilization can only come from a deeply rooted relationship between town and country. This, although masked by a certain degree of aggressive industrialization, is powerfully illustrated by the taktoba jabalia of Laarousi Lahcen.
– album liner notes by Marc Loopuyt
TONITE’S PARTY INFO
party might ram up. Just finished debating w/ Geko Jones (check the interview & minimix) about the # of bassbins to bring.
Also: A new Rupture cumbia mix CD will be on sale for cheap: K-K-Kumbia!
……………………..
The Dutty Artz family is back with another installation of its tropicaliente beats and bassline party: New York Tropical. Residents Geko Jones, Matt Shadetek and DJ/ Rupture will be joined by Brooklyn’s hometown heroines Bunny Rabbit. This is your last chance to chance to check B.R. out before they head to Easten Europe and spread the Cult of Miracles gospel. Bed Stuy get ready!
NEW YORK TROPICAL 3: OUT N’ BAD
FEB 20th @ Kodeez
834 Myrtle Ave @ Marcy (G Train to Myrtle-Willoughby)
DJ/Rupture (Soot Records, Dutty Artz)
Geko Jones (Que Bajo?! Dutty Artz)
Matt Shadetek (Dutty Artz)
+ special guests Bunny Rabbit!
$3 PBR, $4 Mixed Drinks, $4 Wine
$2 Hotdogs, $3 Hamburgers, $4 Cheeseburgers (yes, cheeseburgers)
Doors @ 10pm – $10
Reduced $8 dollar before 11pm
DUTTYARTZ.COM
SOUNDCLOUD + SONIDERA
dear producer people, if you want to send me tracks, use this:
I can’t tell if SoundCloud is gonna start charging me or not, but I’ll put it up for now. The first tune I received is great, will play on the radio tonite. Optimism pervades.
and in other news, our Cumbia blog, La Congona New Cumbia, continues. Here’s a quick map of Sunset Park Brooklyn’s taquerias + cumbia stores.
Benoit from Montreal has started writing! He just upped a great mix of new sonidera. We DJed together recently and he was pulling out some impressive jams… Brother is in deep! very glad to have Benoit on board. Listen up y disfrutalo.
WHAT IT IS
RED FERRARI
I’ve always enjoyed the electroacoustic & ambient work of Luc Ferrari.
Musique concrete maintains a whole other level of respect and coolness in France – maybe it’s due to protectionist broadcast policies, or IRCAM, or their fashion sensibility, or something deep in the Gallic character like the predilection for heavy creams and bureaucracy. (usually my record crate contains at least one LP of what sounds like creaking wood or squirrels gnawing at a piano – doesn’t always get played, but it’s good to have something like that around).
Ferrari made seductive work, which continues to pulls the ear in. Even at the most experimental/abstract moments there’s usually a placid spirit inside it.
This is from a recent release, Archives Génétiquement Modifiées / Société II.
Says the label:
[audio:Luc_Ferrari_untitled5.mp3]…Mr.Ferrari revisited aspects of his early concepts and compositional strategies to create wholly new works. The result here is a very bizarre, sensual, and beautifully-paced electroacoustic work of aural memories and (re)collections created by Mr. Ferrari utilizing sounds from his vast archive of musical activities.
Album artwork includes a naked lady from 1923 clutching an oud/lute as she sits atop a Pioneer CD-J 1000 CD player, and Mr Ferrari’s large finger stabbing a button. This is one of the few moments where I like “gear shots”, the uncool cool of the CD player, from Ferrari to funk carioca…
