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Hidden Orchestra’s Flight Mixtape is a must get
It’s been six days since I stumbled across this gem of a mix at Paris DJs… and the phrase “gem of a mix” falls woefully short of expressing how impressed I am not only with the finished product, but the complexity of the process Joe Acheson employed to make it. Clocking in at just around an hour and a half, Acheson weaves together 68 different pieces of sound to get where he’s going.
That phrase “weaves together pieces of sound” more accurately describes this mix than perhaps any other mix I might have applied that phrase to in the past. The tracks are often nothing more than a whisp of a sound, spoken voices with truly ear-catching tonal qualities, an acapella woven across several beats and beds of sound. It’s the type of project that comes off as simultaneously daunting and inspiring. I shudder to think about how long it would take to make something like this, but I can’t help start thinking about what my version of this type of mix would end up sounding like.
Anyway, if that description seems too genre-less for you to give the Hidden Orchestra’s Flight Mixtape a listen, then let me just say it’s a mix where chill/modern downtempo meets soul, hauntingly familiar obscure samples, hip hop, jazz and the noise of the world. But really, it’s as much a sound collage as it is a mix, and I’m mesmerized by it and dying to really dissect it because in our Twitterfied/hyper world, this may be the future of mix creation.
Trust me. Get this mix. It’s incredible.
Coming next week, Remnants, my three part mix project
If you want early access to my newest project, now would be a good time to follow me on Soundcloud if you’re not already. Next week, I am releasing not one, not two, but THREE new mixes. There are 80 tracks in total, including an hour-long footwork/juke mix. Each part will debut on a different day (Monday, Wednesday and Friday), but all of my Soundcloud followers will have access to all three mixes at once starting this weekend.
The three mixes can be taken as separate parts, but they also work together as one triptych.
I’ll be writing more about each individual mix as I post it. What all three mixes have in common is that they’re sort of the Misfit Toys of my 2011 DJ sets. Anything that came out in 2011, I bought for gigs that never really got going enough during my set to play my more hype tracks. I seemed to play a ton of opening sets this past Autumn as opposed to more peak hour slots that would be appropriate for these tunes.
Nearly everything that came out before 2011 was unearthed from my record collection as I was working on preparing my IPaintMyMind mix. And while the process of going through every record I owned to create my IPaintMyMind mix took months and months, it obviously spawned a lot of useful additional ideas. It also was a great way to see which of my older tracks really could be brought back into my most current sounding sets, even if some of the older tracks were over a decade old going back to my first days on the radio in Bloomington.
On the whole, these songs have never gotten the proper attention they deserve from me. A few of them got played live, a few more were part of my WPGU set in September. But really, I never really had a chance to use most of these songs in the ways I intended to use them, and they felt neglected. They are neglected no longer.
I’ve had these mixes tracked out for a month or two now, but they’ve gone through a lot of revisions and edits to get to their final setlists.
Each mix has a specific theme or idea. There are also a ton of purposeful and accidental parallels between Movements 1 and 2. I will get into those details when I post each mix. For now, just take a look at the tracklistings. And keep your eyes open on Soundcloud if you don’t feel like waiting for next week to hear these mixes!
Movement 1: Ode to 57
Jeff Bennett ft MC Leroy – Unfinished Dreams (Stupendous Music) (2005)
Unknown – Sicko Cell (Swamp 81) (2011)
Meat Beat Manifesto meets The Herbaliser – Prime Audio Soup (OM Records) (2000)
DJ Rum – Emerald (The Antidote) (Smokin Sessions Records) (2010)
Throwing Snow – Shadower (Sneaker Social Club) (2011)
Massive Attack – Unfinished Sympathy (Kamouflage Loves Fred Remix) (White) (2009)
Cube 40 – 10, 9, 8, 7 Launched (Matador) (1999)
DJ Assault – My Caddy (MoWax) (2000)
TV Feet – Nothing In Its Wrong Place (Remix Pt. 2) (White) (2002)
Lil Louis – French Kiss (The Original Underground Mix) (CBS) (1989)
Skream – Trapped In A Dark Bubble (Tectonic) (2009)
Cluekid – Hawkeye (Bullfrog) (2011)
Graphics – OK Rainbow (Well Rounded Individuals) (2011)
Horsepower Productions – Let’s Dance (Club Mix) (Tempa) (2000)
FaltyDL – Because You (Planet Mu) (2010)
Jacques Palminger – Leiser Machen (Nobistor) (2009)
DJ Rum – Mountains Pt. 2 & 3 (2nd Drop Records) (2011)
Krampfhaft – Makin’ Magic (Rwina Records) (2011)
Movement 2: Hepped Up On Goofballs
Abe Duque – Salute The Dawn (Abe Duque Records)
John Tejada – Antithesis (Steve Rachmad Remix) (Sino)
Blawan – What You Do With What You Have (R&S)
Look Like – Buggin (Sinjin Hawke Remix) (Get Flavor)
Jay Weed – On The Nile (Grizzly)
Lil Silva – Pulse vs. Flex (Soul Jazz)
Sabbo – Broken Marimba (Scattermusic)
B Yrslf & Delta Delta – Eardrums (B.YRSLF Division)
Worthy and Eats Everything – Tric Trac (dirtybird records)
Boddika – Warehouse (Hotflush Recordings)
Dimitri Dimas – Sportex (Ikonika Remix) (Pushing Red)
Bushwacka! – Monster (Plank Records)
Banger and Cash – Shake That (Acapella) (Downtown)
Photek – UFO (Addison Groove’s Almost Headhunter Remix) (White)
The Orb – Little Fluffy Clouds (Danny Tenaglia’s Detour Mix) (Island)
Ratville – Screaming Butterfly (Goth-Trad Remix) (Public Riddim)
XXXY – Body Moving (Infrasonics)
Zed Bias ft. Mark Pritchard – Trouble In The Streets (TruThoughts)
Deko! – How Do You Like Your Cookies? (Probe Recods)
Dirty Gringos – Cowbell (White)
Idjut Boys – Five (Droid)
Radiohead – Good Evening Mrs Magpie (Modeselektor Remix) (XL)
Photek – Totem (Photek Productions)
Addison Groove – Make Um Bounce (Tectonic)
Gotty Boi Chris – Do You Know (Nick Catchdubs & Proper Villains Remix)
Spank Rock ft. Big Freedia – Nasty (Bad Blood Records)
Gotty Boi Chris – Lift It Up
Big Freedia – I Got The Power (540 Records)
South Rakkas Crew – Mad Again (EMYND’s NOLA Bounce Remix)
Gyspyphonic Disko ft. Katey Red & Neil Diamond – Drummer Boy Phonic
Ghost Mutt – Sasquatch (Coco Bryce’s Donky Pitch Tee Rewerk) (Lowriders)
Megadebt – It’s Too Controversial To Have An Opinion (Rice and Beans)
Movie of the Week Interlude
Munchi ft. Mr. Lexx – Shottas (Nguzunguzu Remix) (T&A)
Buraka Som Sistema – Hangover (BaBaBa) (Caspa Remix) (Enchufada)
Mister Tweeks – Elevator (Lucid Remix) (Pelican Fly)
Kingdom – Let You Know (Night Slugs)
Lucid – Kalso (Pelican Fly)
Hud Mo – Freek (The Pleasure Principle)
Movement 3: The Parking Lot
James Blake – Not Long Now
Prime Slime – The Future
Kuhn – Slime Beach (Range Remix)
DJ Roc – I Can’t Control The Feeling
B Yrslf – Celdi Riddim
Roni Size & DJ Die – It’s A Jazz Thing (Phillip D Kick’s Footwork Jungle Edit)
DJ Tre – Some Jazzy Tunes
Philthkids – Mo Fiyah
DJ Rashad – Drop Juke Out
Leatherface – The Stars
Chrissy Murderbot – Break U Off
DJ Roc – Back Up Shawty
DJ Roc – Lost Without U
Wheez-ie – Leave Her Alone
Cedaa – Juke Clap
Ital Tek – Gonga
DJ T Why – Buddah Lovaz
DJ Manny – All I Do Is (Smoke Trees)
Danny Breaks – Droppin Science Vol. 1 (Phillip D Kick’s Footwork Jungle Edit)
Elefo – Can I
DJ Roc – Break It Down
Traxman – The Comeback
DJ Nate – Poetry
LTJ Bukem – Horizons (Phillip D Kick’s Footwork Jungle Edit)
Reed Richards meets Mr. Freeze – Great Winter Mix
In an effort to keep some content flowing on this site, I’m going to start blogging on a wider variety of DJ related things. I’m also going to share more mixes that really impress me, starting with an expertly constructed new winter mix from Reed Richards.
If this is your first time hearing about him, Reed is the younger brother of DJ Bozak, and apparently an impeccable ear for tunes runs in the family. Reed’s new mix, Reed Richards meets…Mr. Freeze?, almost immediately conjured up in my mind a vibe similar to what Sonar Kollektiv was creating in the early to mid 2000s.
No stadium-size club will be bumping this mix, and the drop-obssessed new generation of American ravers might find it dull, but an audience with an appreciation for the deep and the contemplative dance music won’t be able to listen for long without imagining that there has to be some cool, off the beaten path, club/sound lounge somewhere that plays this type of stuff to a dancefloor big enough for only 100 people on a perfectly constructed sound system.
The mix is made up of more than just one sound, but Reed uses more than the basic similar BPMs or the right keys to link these tunes together. Reed makes it sound easy to move between the multiple genres that he covers in the course of this hour mix, but he has pulled off some blends that sound particularly tricky and I’m quite impressed how subtly the mix moves along from track to track. And no matter whether it is slow house, moombah or even some hints of dubstep, the vibe never waivers.
Most of all, I’m impressed/glad that it is really clear that Reed is trying to take his mix to different points over the course of that hour. And even after my first listen, I felt like I had not only gone from point A to point B, but probably to points C and D too.
Some DJs simply slap together tunes without any regard for their flow, and certainly not trying to say something larger than “Hey! Listen to all of these tunes!” But Reed, with the structure of his mix, and the tunes he has found to fit that structure, shows that it is possible to say something with DJ mixes, even if it’s just giving a little hope that the winter will soon thaw to sunny days.
Give this mix a listen and start following Reed Richards on Soundcloud!
Pecha Kucha Volume 8
Tonight I’m presenting at volume 8 of the always entertaining Champaign PechaKucha series. If you have never heard of PK, it’s a series of presentations about really any subject someone wants to present about.
The only catch is everyone must use 20 slides, and each slide is only on the screen for 20 seconds. And trust, me, after practicing my presentation, that timeframe gets you really focused on what information is crucial, and what information should be cut.
Anyhow, if you couldn’t already guess, I’m presenting about my vinyl collection. And if you’re on this web page right now because you just listened to my presentation, then welcome to my web site! I hope I did alright tonight.
If you’re here for some other reason, I’ll try to get a copy of my presentation posted up so you can see what the PK attendees saw.
And if you’ve somehow stumbled onto my web site in the small window of time between this blog posting and my presentation, don’t spoil anything for people attending!
These are just some of the records that I’m talking about tonight. I figured while talking about records and looking them is all fine and good, eventually we need to hear the things! So here are YouTube links to just a few of the highlights including The Dick Cheney record, the first house record ever made, and the Barack Obama record. Enjoy!
Here is DJ Shadow’s remix of Radiohead’s “The Gloaming” aka the Dick Cheney Record
Here is Mach’s “On and On” remix. It is widely considered to the be the first house record.
Now it’s all good and fine to just listen to that record by itself, but if you want to see what that Mach record can do in the hand of a master house DJ, check out this party including when the power goes out. The Mach remix comes in at about 1:01:
And here is the Barack Obama reggae song by Cocoa Tea.
Feel free to leave a comment if there’s a record you saw in the presentation that you’d like to hear. I’m more than willing to post some more!
The Therapy That Comes From Painting My Mind
I was approached about doing a mix for IPaintMyMind.org probably over a year ago. I first found IPMM through the first two DJ episodes that were created by DJs with strong ties to the Champaign DJ scene (Belly and Limbs). But around the time I was asked, my life as a DJ, which had been going up and up for a year, started to get turned upside down.
I won’t get into the details here, but what happened in the last three months of 2010 was like being kicked down a mountain I had spent eight years climbing up. Everything I had in terms of residencies, draw, future bookings, etc all seemed to disappear in truly awful and spirit-crushing ways between October and December. As the first days of 2011 passed, I realized, by choice or not, I had a completely blank slate to work with if I was going to continue DJing (and it wasn’t always a sure thing that I was going to continue).
That much freedom usually ends up paralyzing me by presenting too many options in my mind. And to help focus myself, I started going through all 4,000+ pieces of wax that I own, hoping that not only would I find a sound for this mix, but I’d find some sanity in my own head when it came to what I want to do as a DJ. The process of going through those records only ended a few weeks ago. Even though it took me most of a year to finish, digging through my own collection has retaught me what I love about being a DJ.
So this mix for IPMM served as a form of therapy over the past year I’ve taken to make it. It has mutated considerably over the last year. At times the mix helped me get past feeling dejected and rejected. At other times it was going to take the form of a diss mix, almost openly encouraging beef with other DJs I can’t stand. Sometimes, it was just a source of pure happiness. Other times, I wanted it to be a calling card for my style and technique. I’ve tracked out parts that were highly political (especially recently in light of the Occupy movement), highly emotive, or designed to challenge the listener to think.
No one idea survived by itself as the theme for the mix. Some things I thought for sure would make it (like this sound collage I created) were cut. Instead, this mix ended up taking a little bit from all of the aforementioned themes. What I hope it does is make the listener both think and feel something, anything. In my opinion, too much of DJ culture today is centered on Party, Party, Party and not enough on being a form of expression for the DJ. Music should make you think and feel deeper thoughts than slamming shots and getting a good picture from the show to put on Facebook.
If you want to slap a genre on this mix, it’s got a good amount of disco and edits to it. It’s got my chug-style that I love to mix. But at the same time, it feels different than any other mix I’ve made. I’m incredibly proud of it. In fact, from my point of view, there is no other mix that I’ve made that I’d put on the same level as this one.
I’d like to thank Evan and IPMM for giving me the opportunity (and the time) to create it. I hope people enjoy it once it’s posted up!
Goodbye Gil
Gil Scott-Heron passed away yesterday at the age of 62. It is regrettable that it takes a sad event to get me back into writing for my web site. But as I sit here Saturday morning listening to Winter In America, there are thoughts in my head that are itching to get out.
That’s not surprising considering what Gil Scott-Heron meant to my musical maturation. He definitely was a musician whose lyrics filled my heads with thoughts.
Throughout my life I rarely paid close attention to lyrics. And the more I got into house music, the easier it got to dismiss lyrics as the garnish to a good beat. Even when listening to non-dance music, lyrics were not important to me, only the melody of the vocal.
Gil Scott-Heron’s music changed that.
The first time I heard Gil’s “B-Movie” was in 2003. It was that awful part of the Bush era where it still was “frowned upon” to publicly criticize the war on terror. And so here I am in my car, listening to a new Underworld mix CD I just bought and track one started with Gil’s voice flatly stating…
Well the first thing I want to say is, “Mandate my ass!”
And then for the next 12 minutes (yes, the full 12 minute version opened that mix CD), I listened to every lyrical skewering that Gil dished out against Ronald Reagan and the America that had seemingly lost its mind putting those crooks in power. It took 5 replays of “B-Movie” before I remembered there were other songs on the CD.
From that point on, lyrics mattered, especially Gil’s lyrics. “B-Movie” said so many things that stood the test of time. Even if Gil wasn’t singing specifically about Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld’s antics, it felt like he was still talking about what was going on now.
Over the years, I’ve realized that is because “B-Movie” honestly and directly addressed the events that were influencing Gil at that particular moment. There was no filter or censor of Gil’s thoughts. It was so truly honest that even if people don’t know all of the names and events he mentions, the message bursts forward to listeners decades later.
This might have been the first time I heard a protest song and actually heard the protest speak to me loudly and clearly.
I bought several Gil records to listen to over and over again. But because my early DJing career was strictly house music, I never thought of playing any Gil records once I started playing in the clubs.
That changed at my first downtempo residency. I definitely did not own enough true downtempo records to cover four hours every week, so I thought I’d bring my copy of Reflections to fill up some time playing “B-Movie” every week. Then for the heck of it, I brought The Revolution Will Not Be Televised hoping to maybe throw “Whitey On the Moon” over the top of some other beat. It was not a well thought out plan.
A few things happened from playing those records. First, my “Whitey On The Moon” experiment taught me that some of the best music shouldn’t be blended by DJs. Whether it’s because the drums are “too loose” or because it packs a better punch just playing it by itself, certain songs truly work best in a DJ set played start to finish untouched. “Whitey On The Moon” is one of those songs, in my opinion.
Second, I learned that if you play a Gil record in public, you better be ready for people to listen to what he’s saying. There was a kind of hilariously awkward moment the first time I noticed that other people in the bar were actually listening to the lyrics of “Whitey.” There was something in Gil’s voice that commanded and rewarded attention. Therefore, for a DJ playing a night of mostly background music, “Whitey On The Moon” was noticeably different.
And to be honest, while I do not agree with the lyrics in every song Gil has written, I do agree with the idea behind “Whitey on The Moon.” I was actually happy and proud to be playing it.
That experience immediately made me realize that lyrically strong songs need to be used carefully in DJ sets, but they need to be used. I felt like I had done a tiny bit of good to get people thinking about what the song said every time I played it.
Perhaps that will be the upside of Gil’s passing. More people will hear and start thinking about his still very relevant words.
DJs tend to overindulge when a DJ favorite artist passes. Club DJs load up their setlists with that artist’s music. Blogs release mixes made up entirely of that artist’s works. Obscure b-sides, demos and live recordings emerge. Remixes, remakes and compilations flow. People will hear Gil’s words for the first time, hopefully forcing them to embrace the sad fact that few of the problems Gil sang about in the 70s and 80s have gotten any better generations later.
Now how much of the above noted excitement will materialize because of Gil’s passing is unknown. Obviously, it won’t be the month-long orgy that every club DJ had playing every single Michael Jackson song they owned after his death. And there may not be as much blog attention as after James Brown’s death, but I think it could come close. Especially because Gil came back in 2010 with a new album with Jamie XX.
Which brings me to my final thought — I regret that I never got to see Gil live, especially since he just toured. Going to shows is just one of those things you get lazy about as you grow older, but the music lover in me is kicking the responsible side of me right now.
Maybe I’ll go out and get that new album today which somehow I haven’t even heard yet. But first, one more listen to H20 Gate Blues. Rest in Peace, Gil.
Hercules and Love Affair Post Their Entire New Album for Free Stream
A few weeks back I was saying to my girlfriend that I was in the mood for a new Hercules & Love Affair album. I don’t always reach for H&LA for my personal listening, and it’s been a while since I’ve included their songs in one of my sets. But they’re just one of those groups that you get in the mood to hear. If you don’t know Hercules, they’re an out of the ordinary, but still widely accessible disco group formed by DJ/producer Andy Butler.
From a broader point of view, the last Hercules album really seemed to give the entire new disco scene a big surge of momentum, kind of like what Daft Punk used to do to the house world when they’d drop an album.
Now I had no idea where the second Hercules album was in the production process when I lamented not hearing them. Turns out, not only have they been working on a new album, but it’s done. And the album dropped today on vinyl. But if you’d like to hear it before you buy it, Hercules and Love Affair teamed up with The Guardian to post not only a podcast interview with Butler, but their label (Moshi Moshi) posted THE ENTIRE ALBUM ON SOUNDCLOUD!!
Don’t know how long this stream will last, but enjoy it while you can… and when you no longer can, buy this album!
Moon by Andrew Weatherall – Brilliant downtempo mix
Allow me to add my voice to the chorus of praise that has been ringing out across many blogs for the mix that Andrew Weatherall created for Oki-Ni. It is a trip through Weatherall’s most spaced out ambient and downtempo records, carefully mixed in a way that could be used to help you fall asleep. But Weatherall also keeps things interesting enough that at times it’s more about getting lost in the hypnotic drone than dozing off. And when that amazing Arthur Russell cover hits, the whole project seems to come together as an extremely well-thought out piece from start to finish. I would not be at all surprised to see this mix in my top 10 list for 2011.
This mix also made me realize just how lucky the internet generation is when it comes to music. When I worked at a college radio station, just at the very early days of Napster, most online music communities had not organized. Sure you could find any tune on Napster that you knew of, but it wasn’t so easy to discover new things, even by artists you were familiar with. There certainly weren’t blogs breaking new artists, drawing together fans with collective tastes, and serving as a viable host of material that in the past never would have seen the light of day. I’m not saying that the material wouldn’t have made it because of a quality problem. Far from it.
I remember those days at the radio station getting sent albums and mix CDs from a variety of electronic music labels. Sometimes, I’d have stuff sent to the station that had little or no hope of being put in any American music stores even though it was truly amazing music. Downtempo releases were always the rarest, and almost always they were from tiny labels and the albums really only had a few choice cuts and a lot of filler. I honestly can’t remember receiving many downtempo mixes, and certainly none that were as experimental as this mix. It would have been too great a risk for any label to release in physical format a mix like Weatherall’s, because it’s quite possible it’d never sell enough to recover pressing costs, let alone distribution costs.
In the music blog world of 2011, Weatherall may never see any money for this mix. However, talk to most record collecting DJs, and they’ll tell you that just getting a larger audience to share certain pieces of wax is all the reward they need. That attitude feels tangibly present throughout this entire mix.
So while you’re enjoying Weatherall’s mix, also give the Internet a little pat on the back. It may not be perfect, but it has been really good to us music nerds that really like to push the boundaries of what we listen to on a daily basis. This mix is a perfect example.
SL4 Announced. I Nearly Faint.
If you’ve gotten me talking DJing and particularly DJing gear in the past year, you’ve probably heard me fondly describing Rane’s absolutely gorgeous SIXTY EIGHT mixer. And while the on-board effects and trigger cues are all nice to have there, what really excited me was being able to control more than two inputs in Serato (you could in fact control four turntables with a SIXTY EIGHT). Also throw in a second USB port that would allow either easy switching between DJs or a two laptop tag set, and basically I became fixated on getting this mixer.
Alas, the cost of the SIXTY EIGHT reflects the awesomeness of the product. Dropping over $2,000 on a mixer when I have a perfectly awesome Empath never worked out in my mind. But I still wanted that functionality.
Well according to Turntable Lab’s blog, Rane has announced that the SL4 box will be shipping in April and not only will it have 2 USB ports, 4 phono/digital inputs but it’ll have a fifth input for using with the Bridge or recording. And the best part is… $899 suggested price, which I could see stores dropping down to $600 or $700. Well within striking distance.
A small caveat. I’m assuming this announcement is coming out of The 2011 NAMM Show which is taking place right now. However, as of this time Rane has nothing posted about the SL4 on its site. I’m assuming Turntable Lab knows they’d be pissing off a lot of people by making this up for the sake of a joke, so I’m trusting that they just got the early jump. I truly want to believe in this.
If the SL4 is real, this is going to change a lot for me. Watch out 2011.
Get this blog started
I’m making a conscious decision with this new site to keep opinions and ramblings separate from the content posts. But that said, I’m also going to make an effort to post more of my opinions in this blog. I’m also going to try and review some of my favorite releases throughout the year
Anyway, to get this blog started, I’m just going point out that the front page of my new site is terribly addictive to scroll over the images and light them up. And it also instantly conjures up images of this:
