From the city of jet noise, beaches, cover bands, sprawl, and suburban adventures (fast food tapas, what?!):
Kind Of Like A Big Deal (by way of P4k + thatott.com)
P.S. on my way to NYC for a few days. When I return, there'll be some tunes here for yr enjoyment.
After yet another long dormant period, the Audiozine Listening Series shudders back to life. Two aural delights this time:
1) Dirty Projectors – Stillness Is The Move
Yes, this track has been out for a while. In fact, the full album leak’s been out for a while. That doesn’t change the fact that this song is a hugely auspicious sign that Bitte Orca, the latest offering from the Dirty Projectors, will be among the year’s better collections. Two notable points about “Stillness…”: a) it features a killer vocal that, for once, utilizes melisma, vibrato, and other elements that seem directly pulled from modern R&B; b) the track’s combination of huge drums, synthesized bass, spidery and spare guitar licks, and pop-friendly vocal strike me as being a delightfully warped take on the spare nursery rhyme-like quality of the last few years of hip-hop and R&B. A grayer shade of white, maybe?
2) Wintry Mix 2008-2009
Since last fall I’ve been playing around in my spare time with some really barebones free DJ software, mostly blending hip-hop and other danceable genres. Last winter, I decided to blend some songs outside of the dance music world in an attempt to catch the feeling of the season. From a mixing standpoint, there’s really nothing notable going on. But when I dug the mix up earlier this week, it seemed like something people might enjoy. Runtime is approx 30 minutes.
Tracklist:
D. Lissvik -- Track 6
Arthur Russell -- You and Me Both
Autechre -- Altibizz
Flying Lotus (orig. Kanye West) -- Love Lockdown Remix
Erykah Badu -- My People
Jaylib -- Starz
Slum Village -- Fall In Love
Jape -- Floating
No Age -- Keechie
Portishead -- Hunter
For starters, an apology: in 2007 there were no new posts to the Audiozine Listening Series. Two reasons: A) I was super busy with school and B) I am a huge procrastinator and it made more sense to procrastinate on this blog than on my schoolwork.
That said, here's a short and sweet set of posts to music I meant to post throughout 2007. May they make yr summer 2008 merry:
1) Spoon -- The Underdog (Demo)
Spoon's Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga came out in summer '07 and became my number one jam of the sunny season. Ga... is their most accomplished album, managing to sound terse and tense, but replacing the minimalism of earlier LP's with a new lushness. This demo version of lead single "The Underdog" comes from a limited 7" that came with the album if you bought it at an independent record store. Which I did.
2) Spoon -- It Took A Rumor To Make Me Wonder, Now I'm Convinced I'm Going Under
The B-side to aforementioned 7". This is a quirky little electro-disco-dub workout.
3) Radiohead -- The Gloaming (DJ Shadow Remix)
Remember the Bush era? When nobody could so much as question anything without being labeled Al-Q-whatever? Well, back then Radiohead set the standard for political rock -- namely, they (and TV On The Radio, who had some politically charged moments on "Return to Cookie Mountain") expressed our sense of frustration and powerlessness. Too bad they couldn't transcend it with their music and offer reasons to take action, get informed, or at least stay hopeful. Well, whatever, here's a track from Hail to the Thief, remixed by DJ Shadow and released as a limited vinyl single. Couldn't find a cleaner version than this rip from the radio, but the graininess kind of lends some grit. P.S. these electronic squiggles, blips, and clangs really jarred listeners who expected downtempo instrumental hip-hop from DJ Shadow.
4) Jaylib -- The Message
Ok, I lied. The other soundtrack to my Endless Summer '07 was the reissue of Jaylib's Champion Sound. Jaylib = J Dilla + Madlib, two of my fav producers. The album is comprised of nasty lo-fi hip-hop, with lots of vinyl noise, static, and rhythmic disjunctions. "The Message" is not one of the album's tracks, instead coming from a white label released by Stones Throw. It refers obliquely to an early Grandmaster Flash + The Furious Five single.
5) Child Rebel Soldiers aka Kanye West + Pharrell Williams + Lupe Fiasco -- US Placers
Oh geez. There have been super-vague rumors of an album-length collaboration between these three giants under the name Child Rebel Soldiers. This track comes from one of Kanye's mixtapes and contains a beat that rips from Thom Yorke's solo album The Eraser. So in the year that brought us In Rainbows, we also got our first Radiohead-hip-hop-crossover.
RIGHT CLICK + SAVE AS + ENJOY!
