Music: the good, the bad, and the ugly
Finally closing out the last set of music tabs so I can open new ones for next week.
http://www.kleptones.com/blog/
Let's start with the good and ugly. The Kleptones' latest, "Shits and Giggles" is out and it's amazing. Densely packed with all kinds of throwback goodness and modern fun. They've mixed it as a CD-length track with some obvious transition points between tracks so you can lift items and put them into mixes without having to chop things up too horribly.
And then there's the image they picked for the cover. Ugh. I just... sorry, that's fail. Awful doesn't begin to describe it.
http://belgabootlegs.be/audio.php
I confess I'm still working my way through this HUGE collection of mixes. There's so much here it's nearly impossible to pick out individual winners and losers. And I'll say up front that Ben Double M both has too much ego (OK, stop putting your name into every mix, we got it already) and an oddly quirky talent. He produces "enh" mixes from some great source and then he goes wandering off into Britney Spears of all things and produces really good mashes. I'm also liking his Bob Marley mixes, but when you start with source material that good you'd expect something good on the other side. But Britney? Impressive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDxTriWlYiY
Speaking of Britney, one of my guilty pleasures is Eminem. I realize that he's problematic in all sorts of ways, from mere annoying egotism to grossly misogynist and offensive lyrics. But man can he sling a line and he's worked with some of the best producers in the business. Here we have DJs from Mars putting Eminem up against not one but two Britney tunes. And gods help me, it moves. So excuse me while I shut off the critic-brain and just dance.
http://rcrdlbl.com/artists/Matthew_Dear/track/Soil_To_Seed_
http://ghostly.com/releases/pom-pom
Usually when RCRD LBL is pimping an artist they give you links and downloads for each individual track in the stream. Sadly that's not the case here. Matthew Dear (http://www.matthewdear.com/) has a large body of work over a wide range of styles. I was just listening along, being entertained but not hugely impressed, when the stream hit "Pom Pom (The Juan Maclean Mix)." It's a very smooth disco-house mix that lifts one small vocal sample and builds around it. The result is haunting and not at all what I expected. A little Web searching led me to the Pom-Pom release page and samples from five mixes Juan Maclean... excuse me The Juan Maclean (http://www.myspace.com/thejuanmaclean) has done. These mixes are bloody brilliant, and well worth the time to hunt down. The fact that he's stealing riffs from P Funk did not influence me at all :)
http://audioporncentral.com/2010/08/bynar-broken-by-angels.html
Rob Dougan burst into my consciousness with his "Clubbed to Death" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt-NvcuDVBc) track that featured so prominently in the climactic scenes of The Matrix. About 3 years later he released his "Furious Angels" CD and then promptly vanished. While Clubbed has been remixed dozens of times there are far fewer remixes of Angels. Now Bynar (http://www.djbynar.com/) gives us this luscious mix that includes two versions of Angels, two Leftfield (another under-appreciated band in my opinion), and some other samples. You can read the details on Bynar's page. Or you can just close your eyes and let this gorgeous, lush, and very slightly creepy mix wash over you.