like the moon
“Downstairs Bhangra” doesn’t quite have the same ring as “Basement Bhangra,” the legendary monthly at SOB’s that DJ Rekha has been holding down since 1997, but I couldn’t be happier to warm up the crowd for her this Friday at one of Cambridge’s biggest local venues, downstairs at the Middle East. I’m looking forward to […]
Read More →here’s looking at me Apropos of noticing, this marks the 700th post since I moved this blog to my own server, way back in October 2006 — almost exactly 4 years ago, and well before Google/Blogspot starting alienating users en-masse. That’s a lotta posts, and I want to thank all of you who read here […]
Read More →dude is dead serious We’re happy to welcome Kingdom back to Beat Research this coming Monday, Sept. 13. Readers of this blog need no intro to one of the dopest producers/DJs working the decks in the global bass scene these days. But if you haven’t checked his latest EP, That Mystic (Night Slugs), you need […]
Read More →Two birds, one stone: in the ongoing effort to re-host some adventures in riddim meth0dology, this post also continues the recent trend of recommending mixes well-suited to summering. (But plz note — I really do think of this mix as suitable for all seasons.) I’m very happy to (re)present: our Lemon-Red Mix! >>> The Riddim […]
Read More →Tonight’s Beat Research appearance by Canyon Cody and his Gnawledgable cohorts gives me a nice opportunity to lavish some overdue praise. I first met Canyon not via internets but thru my brother, a classmate and friend of Canyon’s at Boston College. My bro suspected we’d have a lot to talk about, and he was right. […]
Read More →I’ve been trying to get Dave Tompkins to come do a reading in town this spring from his much anticipated and well-worth-waiting-for book, How to Wreck a Nice Beach: The Vocoder from World War II to Hip-Hop (Stop Smiling 2010). An afternoon at MIT followed by a night of vocoder-animated Beat Research seemed pretty apropos, […]
Read More →Dr. Lakra in his studio — photo by Daniel Hernandez I’ll be playing some music tonight at the Good Life, from 9-11, as part of the afterparty of the opening of a new exhibition at the Boston ICA, the first US solo show of the work of Dr. Lakra. A tattoo artist who goes well […]
Read More →Tonight at the Enormous Room, we’re celebrating six years of “experimental party music” at Beat Research. It’s a little hard to believe that it’s already been so long. I can remember when Flack and Jake started the night back in the spring of 2004, and there’ve been countless good times in the years since. For […]
Read More →As I suspect many readers are aware, next week here in Boston is the first annual Together Festival, this city’s own attempt at an electronic dance music gathering that seeks to highlight local talent as well as bring in some heavy hitters from beyond New England. The schedule and lineup are pretty damn impressive, I […]
Read More →Not only do Flack and I share a penchant for experimental party music, we also share the experience of being dads to two young kids — in his case, twins! Of course, I’ve given lots of thought to seeking sounds for babies, and I’ve been meaning to make a mix of my own reflecting some […]
Read More →Tonight at Beat Research we’re happy to play host to Brent Arnold, who I had the pleasure to get to know last spring during Nettle’s residency at Brandeis. We like to keep things well mixed at BR, and bringing in a little solo cello + voice + processing is definitely par for the course, if […]
Read More →Tonight at Beat Research we’ve got a special session in store: our main man, Pacey Foster, will be teaming up with heavyweight hip-hop scribe Brian Coleman to celebrate Boston hip-hop. Yeah, you read that right. And what? We rep da bean, knamean ;) The occasion is the publication of an essay by Pace on the […]
Read More →I’m happy to report that our modest Monday throwdown, Beat Research, has been nominated for best Monday Night club thing in the Weekly Dig‘s 2009 Dig This Awards. We’re honored & flattered to be considered for this, as we do our best to hold it down for “experimental party music” here in the Bean each […]
Read More →I’ve really been enjoying all the feedback I got on my “treble culture” post. One idea that’s been especially interesting is the seemingly common notion — repeated & affirmed by many commenters — that we tend to imagine/assume bass even when we don’t hear it. I suspect that this phenomenon may be at work more […]
Read More →This spring, after Nettle’s Boston visit, an ol’ fan of /Rupture and the Toneburst Collective told me that she still had a copy of a vintage /Rupture mixtape. On cassette! You know, from back when “mixtapes” were actually tapes. I borrowed it and digitized it and emailed it to Jace. I also asked if I […]
Read More →A couple weeks ago, a bunch of Boston’s “baile funk” enthusiasts were assembled by the um-and-only Gregzinho — who, incidentally, is our guest tonight at Beat Research! — to watch a couple DVDs showing different sides of the carioca scene: DJ Cabide’s self-produced “national” and “international” DVDs (which were both great & grainy), and the […]
Read More →Kevin Driscoll, whose work I mentioned at the end of the songs-as-shared post, is having me on his Todo Mundo radio show tonight on MIT’s WMBR from 12-2am EST (88.1FM or streaming here). Among other things “new, weird, and local” (sez Kev), I’ll be playing some newer versions of old but current things (Akon’s “Wanna […]
Read More →Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all the soundscape recordings people have made and are making — from soundwalks, to radio captures, to ambiences — were available as GPS-pegged audiostreams that could be accessed, say, on one’s phone, a la the “locative art” in Gibson’s Spook Country? A step further (if away from the curatorial), the […]
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