like the moon
Tonight at Beat Research, we’re happy to host Boston techno mainstays Soul Clap! The Soul Clappers are a vibrant part of this city’s music/dance scene, playing nearly non-stop, blogging and prolifically podcasting, keeping the flame aloft for (weekly) techno in Boston/Cambridge (including some great parties on the Charles when the weather’s right), supporting a broad […]
Read More →Amazing how an Amazon link makes our book finally feel real. (Pre-orders in teh house!) And though they don’t have any imgs yet, I’m happy to report that I do, and — having lobbied HARD for this particular photo by Miguel Luciano to grace our cover — I’m thrilled to share it with y’all: On […]
Read More →I couldn’t be more thrilled to announce this — At a time when the arts community at Brandeis is feeling rightly beleaguered, it brings me no little satisfaction to know that we will be putting on a rather art-ful residency later this month, sponsoring the US premiere of such an exciting, provocative, and relevant group […]
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I’ve already discussed and DJ-demo’d the degree to which the Dem Bow riddim underpins the lion’s share of reggaeton tracks. But one remarkable part of the story I haven’t given much focus here is how “Dem Bow” the song — in particular, the chorus melody, but also the basic theme of the lyrics — has […]
Read More →Imagine suddenly discovering that there were fifty-year-old recordings of your newlywed grandparents belting karaoke ballads in the family parlor and joshing (on mic!) about their already rocky relationship. For an ethnomusicolobloggerDJ like myself, it would be an unbelievable find — not just a revelation of family history but a truly wonderful slice of theretofore unknown […]
Read More →The haunting echoes of r&b and garage ephemera are hallmarks of Burial’s music. Myriad, minute vocal snippets, tossed-off castaways in a sea of murky radio remembrances, reanimated as deeply expressive fragments, pitched around, recontextualized rhythmically and harmonically and vibewise. This is a poignant poetics, sometimes jaw-droppingly so, as the producer projects an alarmingly “human” voice […]
Read More →We’re visiting Becca’s sister, her husband, and their 6-month-old twins in North Carolina this week. Initially drawn to Durham/Duke, Leila&Sebastian und Sasha&Max now live in a small-ish town called Burlington, in an old mill house they rebuilt themselves (with a little help from their friends). Yesterday, we escaped some rainy morning blues by heading to […]
Read More →Longtime readers know I’m quite the devotee of those dear local philosophs / civic superheroes / transcendentalist romantics, Emerson and Thoreau. I’ve quoted them at length and composed songs inspired by their fiery oratory. So I was excited to stumble upon (hat tip forgotten) a blog dedicated to posting Thoreau’s journal entries, pegged to the […]
Read More →For those who liked my modyfier mix but really want to know what track is playing when, now u kno — Vid Wit It from wayne marshall on Vimeo. Not necessarily the most gripping video or anything, but I do like the demystification of the process it presents. Just to clarify, what you’re seeing here […]
Read More →I made a mix for modyfier! Go on get it, gig wit it, etc. If you’re not familiar with the modyfier series, here’s a primer, written back at the 50th episode milestone (mine’s #124). Rayna has commissioned tons of great mixes, with ruminations on process, from such lovelies & luminaries as Luomo, Philip Sherburne, Ripley, […]
Read More →As things ramp up for carnival, the strains of soca seem increasingly in the air (& my inbox). Believe it or not, there actually is a likkle soca in the air here in Boston. One key source projecting the strains of carnival into the city’s soundscape is BIG CITY FM, my fave “pirate” reggae/soca channel […]
Read More →You may have heard, somewhere in the background perhaps, that Muzak filed for bankruptcy. Here’s an MOR-perspective podcast about it, bordering on inanity — A better use of your time & in the pdf-blog spirit, here’s a musicological analysis, written 20 yrs ago (!) by me ol’ advisor — >> Radano, Ronald M. 1989. “Interpreting […]
Read More →ok, second post in a row jacking a video from those canny video jackers @ immanentdiscursivity — i love this. don’t you? not only is kid downright adorable, he’s using a youtube vid of a solo piano rendition of the akon song (now a duet!) to accompany himself. that’s some srsly born digital creativity right […]
Read More →thx to bill@immanentdiscursivity for sharing this hilariously awesome lookinassnigga-style google-img setting for el chombo’s pre-chacarron reggae/ton panameño classic, “el gato volador” — i wonder how this might shed light on ethanz’s cute-cat theory?
Read More →photo by Brent Hagerman In the first comment on my Zunguzung Meme post, Droid asked the perfectly reasonable question, Is it possible that Zunguzung itself is an adaptation of someone else’s work? It’s something I’d been wondering myself, of course — for about as long as I’d been noting the melody’s long legs, really. In […]
Read More →Listening to the Federation‘s recent mixx of reggae hottage for Mad Decent, a few things struck me per recent conversations here: [audio:http://media.libsyn.com/media/maddecent/mad_decent_radio_44_federation.mp3] 1) the use of the “hey” sample in the intro (0:30-0:40), like an airhorn or any other selector sound effect (speaking of which, check the first sound on that page — you can’t […]
Read More →this is how we roll DJ Ripley re:ups (for only 7 days?) a mix she made recently for friends who have kids. I count myself in that company. It’s not what most people would finger for kids music, which I appreciate. I can only hear “Froggy Went A-Courtin” so many times. Then again, if it […]
Read More →look at her go! (watch both at once!) nico’s been adding words to her lexicon at an exponential rate. sometimes she means what they usually mean, but sometimes she’ll use them more broadly. so, for instance, she says “uh oh” if something falls to the ground, but she’ll also say it as she’s deliberately tossing […]
Read More →I promised to post about “raveyton” a long time ago, and twice. A recent ghettobassquake post serves as a fine reminder. Noting that reggaeton synths have been “sliding into more Trancedelic wave forms,” Sñr Vamanos acknowledges that “[d]ramatic synths have been there for a while.” Sin duda! Working in an utterly omnivorous genre, reggaeton producers […]
Read More →What is it, copywrong week in Jamaica? Tip o’ the proverbial hat to Ripley for pointing me to an article in the Jamaica Star which reports that EMI have served Vybz Kartel with a SERIOUS cease&desist on behalf of none other than (now former) w&w faves, Ne-Yo and Stargate (aka, Shaffer Smith, Tor Erik Hermansen […]
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