You all already know that Ghislain P is a mean beatsmith and that I’m an unabashed bass booster. But if you haven’t been paying close attention recently, you might have missed out on a key development: Ghis has been fitting his tracks of late to such striking visual accompaniment as lightbulbs being smashed and, the latest, a face being smacked with cartoonish results (+ interactive version!) —

Speaking of stars, sidereal used to be one of my favorite words. So did eschatology. I think I learned them from the same Tom Robbins book. They somehow occupy a shared space in my head. So do Ghislain and another worldly beatwizard that you all already know, Filastine.

What you may not all already know about Filastine is that he has a (b)log! It’s vivid, full of sounds and images and thoughts about travel and music and relating to people and rocking renegade street parties — not to mention “charming” gigs like the one he played this Christmas in Borneo —

The gig was charming. Sorry I can’t find a better word. They somehow got free use of an outside community center and mounted a dangdut sound system that had the custom-made look similar to funk carioca or jamacian sound systems. Graffitti artists tagged the place up, some local hiphop acts played, then everyone gathered around to intently watch me from a distance of about 10 centimeters. Eventually dancing broke out, even a brief mosh pit. After my set was finished there was a request for Autology, i put on the instrumental and the remains of the crowd yelled along.

Autology Live in Balikpapan, Kalimantan (Borneo) from Grey Filastine on Vimeo.

This was the first gig I’ve played that had a program intermission for the evening muslim prayer. Also the first audience with girls that somehow hybridized punk style with hijab. But it wasn’t my first gig with electricity hot-pirated from a utility pole, and certainly it won’t be the last.

Read more here (the title of the blog, btw, inspired the eschatology reference).

Keep em coming, y’all.