Good music.
Good music and a damned excellent DJ make my day every time.
I finally got a copy of Fabriclive 01 - the OG Fabric Live, and it's the one with James Lavelle.
Besides the whole Unkle thing, James Lavelle is also a badass DJ. This mix CD pretty much nails it in my book - he's all over the map, and he has the most awesome way of doing transitions. His song selection is also right up my alley all the way. Check it:
1. Intro: A Message to Our Sponsors
2. Get Ready - Rare Earth
3. Circles - The Psychonauts
4. Organ Donor - DJ Shadow
5. Divine Intervention - DJ Shadow, Divine Styler
6. Broken Head II - South
7. Piku - The Chemical Brothers
8. Hey Jack [Unkle Metamorphosis Mix] - Howie B,
9. Funny Break (One Is Enough) [Plump Dj's Mix] - Orbital
10. Feel It - Bushwacka!
11. Kick a Hole (Tigerstyle) - Forme
12. Night Stalker [Meat Katie Remix] - Altitude
13. Physical 2000 - Peter Dildo
14. La La Land [Extended Mix] - Green Velvet
15. Grab the Rope [FC Kahuna Mix] - Animated
16. Mind Set to Cycle - FC Kahuna
17. True (The Faggot Is You) [FC Kahuna's Headstart Mix] - Morel
18. Thru 2 You [Bushwacka! Remix] - Echomen
19. Fairytale - Landmine Spring
20. Sacred Cycles [Medway Remix] - Peter Lazonby
The transition from the Psychonauts' "Circles" to DJ Shadow's "Organ Donor" as both a beatmixed transition (the actual organ line before the funk song sample and the bassline add-in) and as a bridge piece to a different BPM range is amazing. He could have just sampled the organ line and dropped it over the top of "Circles" once or twice for continuity, but he actually does the whole piece, weaving in that organ line and then allowing the previous song to play up to the funk sample which then provides the changeup in tempo where the organ line out of the sample is played at a much higher speed (over "Circles" it's really slowed down).
Another really interesting transition is the one to "La La Land" (that insanely catchy Green Velvet song).
Listening to this song has lead me to something I haven't realized until now - I'm the only person in the world who was setting this song with the triplet as the first beat in the measure. Thinking of it that way, I've made my life more difficult as a DJ, and it had me really inspecting a transition that's pretty basic except for me. Shall I explain? Yeah, it's behind a cut, deal. It gave me some consideration to write this and jump-started my DJ brain today.
So, the song itself has this off-kilter downbeat - a triplet from the previous measure lead-in and then bump-bump bump (think eighth-eighth rest quarter) triplet for the actual measure. I've always done it as the triplet being the downbeat. Lavelle plays it by putting the downbeat in the transition on the conventional downbeat, making the triplet the end of the measure.
For the non-DJ geek (that would be everyone but
ambienceman and
scottwoods on my friends list? Oh yes, and a glitchy-sort of DJ and one in training!), this is mud, and my explanation sucks. But the gist of it is that I've been playing with something you figure out as a dance DJ pretty early on and it relates to music structure itself and the 4/4 framework. When you're listening to dance music, there's the boomp-boomp that tells all but the most tone-deaf people where to stomp their feet or shuffle in the musical landscape. It cycles - a four-count, a measure, whatever you call it. You learn that beatmixing isn't just about not having tennis shoes in a dryer, but there's also the measures to match up - the four count. Where you put the downbeat is usually pretty straightforward, but songs like "La La Land" mess with that assumption.
That single (original mix?) starts with the bump-bump, so you would take it to mean that's the downbeat. Most DJ records start with the phrase so you can mix from the beginning - drop the record, cue it and you've got the downbeat to fly with. Drop it in on the beginning of the measure and phrase (now phrase gets into the whole issue of fours, eights, sixteens and more, this is a really huge thing in a lot of breaks, especially because there aren't always the strong vocal/melodic elements you see in house so the changes are over the phrase) and go with it. Back in the old days when DJs only played vinyl and dug through huge crates and walked uphill to the club in the snow both ways carrying their huge record crates on their back, this was a big deal. So Green Velvet puts the beginning at the eighth notes, and the triplet is the last beat and a sort of lead-in to the downbeat (think of it - eighth/eighth, rest, quarter and triplet - what a mess, which is probably why it's so catchy like an evil nail in your tire messing with the roll). On the transition, Lavelle plays it this way. When I was listening to just to the two songs out of the context of the whole, it's easy to get confused (at least it is for me). The effect of this is much stronger when I was listening through the whole - I was surfing along with the downbeat and I got into the "La La Land" standing on its own, and I was feeling off-balance. This is because I'm subconsciously counting 1-2-3-4 with that downbeat *not* on the triplet. Since I've been using the triplet as the downbeat all this time (which was a hassle, and I've always thought of it that way - the Propellerhead's remix of Soul Coughing's "Super Bon Bon" does the same kind of playing around with this concept for me) I'm feeling the mix with the 1 count already established by the previous song. In my DJ-mind, I've got the downbeat of this song indexed on what is now the four, not the one like I'm used to. So when the Green Velvet song stands on its own, I feel myself adjusting the one count to where I always have it. This gives me the sense of having to pick myself up out of the comfortable four count that always goes on in dance music and readjust.
So, I just spent about an hour thinking on this, going through the two songs in the mix again, and now I'm going to have to go back through again to listen to the whole mix CD again. I started out thinking Lavelle had done something really tricky, but realized I've done something weird on my own stuff and will now consider this whole concept of breaking the flow of the measure - or shifting it to where you have to catch up a step at some point. I'm curious for the one person who will probably read this - do you get this feeling, ever? I know someone else has to. Some of it goes back to my days in marching band all those years ago - you put the left foot down on the odds (1 and 3) and the right on the odds (2 and 4). If you got off that somehow by one beat, you had to shuffle (changestep) from the wrong foot to the right one or you'd be marching all fucked up and out of step. I've been playing with this for a while, and obviously even contorting my own natural tendencies to do this with things like "La La Land" because I have that mental asterisk beside counting those songs. When I consider it, it's precisely because I was going against the easy, obvious indicator where the downbeat was (the first note is the one count) and having to wait for the second beat to drop it, which goes against my instinct. Interesting, maybe only to me, but it's gotten me thinking.
The question here is whether I like the idea of playing with the measure structure at the beginning of a transition and the end. If this were to work for the "rest" of the world, I'd have to do my weird count of some downbeat and set up the four count that way. Then, at the next transition, I'd have to count the current song on a different downbeat than I started. This would put the lead-out on the "right" or common downbeat, and then the next song would make the person have to changestep mentally to make it fit. It leaves me with a cognitive dissonance when I do it, and that creates attention more than what a person might be giving to the mix. I think I'm down with it.
Interesting, too - there aren't many songs where you can get from a downbeat on an even to an odd. You can be off two beats and it's not really noticeable, but that switch from 1 to 4 is an even/odd thing that causes the changestep. Not many songs in dance music can do that easily. It's sort of like trying to mix a straight 4/4 (or derivative) song with a 3/4 or 6/8 song (anything off of Lamb's "Fear of Fours" will do this, and I totally love that album) and that's hard as fuck. Ask me, I've done it more than once - Radiohead has a lot of this, it's part of what makes their music so interesting. Coincidentally (or not), Lavelle's mix of "Everything in Its Right Place" closes off the CD, and if you listen to the beats he's added in and then the actual song on top of it, you hear how he's got the thump/beats and that stuff at the end of a measure like it's a hi-hat filler because it's actually got ten beats in the melodic phrase, which they write out in the sheet music as a series of alternating 6/4 and 4/4 measures. Very nice. Yes, I actually bought the book for "Kid A" which means I dragged out the book and looked to be sure. Note to geeks - if you take a music theory class and have to analyze a song structure, you can have a lot of fun with some Radiohead tunes. I actually used Paranoid Android in my class, and damn, but I had a good time doing that one. I actually got an A on that paper, then I went and bought the sheet music book for "OK Computer" afterward. :)
Wow, that was fun. Yes, I need to put some of this stuff up on my website somewhere and start making links to the audio files like
ambienceman does. See, I've been reading all that stuff, James! *hug*
Damn. Yes, I am back in the studio today. It's been too damned long since I did some of this stuff. Inspirational, it is. Yes, I am Yoda.
I finally got a copy of Fabriclive 01 - the OG Fabric Live, and it's the one with James Lavelle.
Besides the whole Unkle thing, James Lavelle is also a badass DJ. This mix CD pretty much nails it in my book - he's all over the map, and he has the most awesome way of doing transitions. His song selection is also right up my alley all the way. Check it:
1. Intro: A Message to Our Sponsors
2. Get Ready - Rare Earth
3. Circles - The Psychonauts
4. Organ Donor - DJ Shadow
5. Divine Intervention - DJ Shadow, Divine Styler
6. Broken Head II - South
7. Piku - The Chemical Brothers
8. Hey Jack [Unkle Metamorphosis Mix] - Howie B,
9. Funny Break (One Is Enough) [Plump Dj's Mix] - Orbital
10. Feel It - Bushwacka!
11. Kick a Hole (Tigerstyle) - Forme
12. Night Stalker [Meat Katie Remix] - Altitude
13. Physical 2000 - Peter Dildo
14. La La Land [Extended Mix] - Green Velvet
15. Grab the Rope [FC Kahuna Mix] - Animated
16. Mind Set to Cycle - FC Kahuna
17. True (The Faggot Is You) [FC Kahuna's Headstart Mix] - Morel
18. Thru 2 You [Bushwacka! Remix] - Echomen
19. Fairytale - Landmine Spring
20. Sacred Cycles [Medway Remix] - Peter Lazonby
The transition from the Psychonauts' "Circles" to DJ Shadow's "Organ Donor" as both a beatmixed transition (the actual organ line before the funk song sample and the bassline add-in) and as a bridge piece to a different BPM range is amazing. He could have just sampled the organ line and dropped it over the top of "Circles" once or twice for continuity, but he actually does the whole piece, weaving in that organ line and then allowing the previous song to play up to the funk sample which then provides the changeup in tempo where the organ line out of the sample is played at a much higher speed (over "Circles" it's really slowed down).
Another really interesting transition is the one to "La La Land" (that insanely catchy Green Velvet song).
Listening to this song has lead me to something I haven't realized until now - I'm the only person in the world who was setting this song with the triplet as the first beat in the measure. Thinking of it that way, I've made my life more difficult as a DJ, and it had me really inspecting a transition that's pretty basic except for me. Shall I explain? Yeah, it's behind a cut, deal. It gave me some consideration to write this and jump-started my DJ brain today.
So, the song itself has this off-kilter downbeat - a triplet from the previous measure lead-in and then bump-bump bump (think eighth-eighth rest quarter) triplet for the actual measure. I've always done it as the triplet being the downbeat. Lavelle plays it by putting the downbeat in the transition on the conventional downbeat, making the triplet the end of the measure.
For the non-DJ geek (that would be everyone but
ambienceman and
scottwoods on my friends list? Oh yes, and a glitchy-sort of DJ and one in training!), this is mud, and my explanation sucks. But the gist of it is that I've been playing with something you figure out as a dance DJ pretty early on and it relates to music structure itself and the 4/4 framework. When you're listening to dance music, there's the boomp-boomp that tells all but the most tone-deaf people where to stomp their feet or shuffle in the musical landscape. It cycles - a four-count, a measure, whatever you call it. You learn that beatmixing isn't just about not having tennis shoes in a dryer, but there's also the measures to match up - the four count. Where you put the downbeat is usually pretty straightforward, but songs like "La La Land" mess with that assumption.
That single (original mix?) starts with the bump-bump, so you would take it to mean that's the downbeat. Most DJ records start with the phrase so you can mix from the beginning - drop the record, cue it and you've got the downbeat to fly with. Drop it in on the beginning of the measure and phrase (now phrase gets into the whole issue of fours, eights, sixteens and more, this is a really huge thing in a lot of breaks, especially because there aren't always the strong vocal/melodic elements you see in house so the changes are over the phrase) and go with it. Back in the old days when DJs only played vinyl and dug through huge crates and walked uphill to the club in the snow both ways carrying their huge record crates on their back, this was a big deal. So Green Velvet puts the beginning at the eighth notes, and the triplet is the last beat and a sort of lead-in to the downbeat (think of it - eighth/eighth, rest, quarter and triplet - what a mess, which is probably why it's so catchy like an evil nail in your tire messing with the roll). On the transition, Lavelle plays it this way. When I was listening to just to the two songs out of the context of the whole, it's easy to get confused (at least it is for me). The effect of this is much stronger when I was listening through the whole - I was surfing along with the downbeat and I got into the "La La Land" standing on its own, and I was feeling off-balance. This is because I'm subconsciously counting 1-2-3-4 with that downbeat *not* on the triplet. Since I've been using the triplet as the downbeat all this time (which was a hassle, and I've always thought of it that way - the Propellerhead's remix of Soul Coughing's "Super Bon Bon" does the same kind of playing around with this concept for me) I'm feeling the mix with the 1 count already established by the previous song. In my DJ-mind, I've got the downbeat of this song indexed on what is now the four, not the one like I'm used to. So when the Green Velvet song stands on its own, I feel myself adjusting the one count to where I always have it. This gives me the sense of having to pick myself up out of the comfortable four count that always goes on in dance music and readjust.
So, I just spent about an hour thinking on this, going through the two songs in the mix again, and now I'm going to have to go back through again to listen to the whole mix CD again. I started out thinking Lavelle had done something really tricky, but realized I've done something weird on my own stuff and will now consider this whole concept of breaking the flow of the measure - or shifting it to where you have to catch up a step at some point. I'm curious for the one person who will probably read this - do you get this feeling, ever? I know someone else has to. Some of it goes back to my days in marching band all those years ago - you put the left foot down on the odds (1 and 3) and the right on the odds (2 and 4). If you got off that somehow by one beat, you had to shuffle (changestep) from the wrong foot to the right one or you'd be marching all fucked up and out of step. I've been playing with this for a while, and obviously even contorting my own natural tendencies to do this with things like "La La Land" because I have that mental asterisk beside counting those songs. When I consider it, it's precisely because I was going against the easy, obvious indicator where the downbeat was (the first note is the one count) and having to wait for the second beat to drop it, which goes against my instinct. Interesting, maybe only to me, but it's gotten me thinking.
The question here is whether I like the idea of playing with the measure structure at the beginning of a transition and the end. If this were to work for the "rest" of the world, I'd have to do my weird count of some downbeat and set up the four count that way. Then, at the next transition, I'd have to count the current song on a different downbeat than I started. This would put the lead-out on the "right" or common downbeat, and then the next song would make the person have to changestep mentally to make it fit. It leaves me with a cognitive dissonance when I do it, and that creates attention more than what a person might be giving to the mix. I think I'm down with it.
Interesting, too - there aren't many songs where you can get from a downbeat on an even to an odd. You can be off two beats and it's not really noticeable, but that switch from 1 to 4 is an even/odd thing that causes the changestep. Not many songs in dance music can do that easily. It's sort of like trying to mix a straight 4/4 (or derivative) song with a 3/4 or 6/8 song (anything off of Lamb's "Fear of Fours" will do this, and I totally love that album) and that's hard as fuck. Ask me, I've done it more than once - Radiohead has a lot of this, it's part of what makes their music so interesting. Coincidentally (or not), Lavelle's mix of "Everything in Its Right Place" closes off the CD, and if you listen to the beats he's added in and then the actual song on top of it, you hear how he's got the thump/beats and that stuff at the end of a measure like it's a hi-hat filler because it's actually got ten beats in the melodic phrase, which they write out in the sheet music as a series of alternating 6/4 and 4/4 measures. Very nice. Yes, I actually bought the book for "Kid A" which means I dragged out the book and looked to be sure. Note to geeks - if you take a music theory class and have to analyze a song structure, you can have a lot of fun with some Radiohead tunes. I actually used Paranoid Android in my class, and damn, but I had a good time doing that one. I actually got an A on that paper, then I went and bought the sheet music book for "OK Computer" afterward. :)
Wow, that was fun. Yes, I need to put some of this stuff up on my website somewhere and start making links to the audio files like
ambienceman does. See, I've been reading all that stuff, James! *hug*
Damn. Yes, I am back in the studio today. It's been too damned long since I did some of this stuff. Inspirational, it is. Yes, I am Yoda.