indiemusik

Making a 10-minute megamix look like a cakewalk is something that talented DJs pull off well. Jimini Cricket blazed through her 10 minutes with a salvo of happy hardcore, setting the bar very high for the other competitors of the evening. Rob Noble started off with some Baltimore beats before moving into some booming tech house. Miss Shelrawka cut up the floor with dark, minimal tech tracks, but the judges took note of her records falling out of sync- she handled it like a veteran, cutting out the offending deck and taking a different turn in the mix. Props go to Jimini Cricket and Miss Shelrawka for taking the (analog) vinyl approach, I very much appreciate the extra lengths taken to assemble a vinyl megamix. WD4D brought an impressive set with one turntable on Serato Scratch(and no headphones!), edging his way into the finals. The other finalist, Kadeejah Streets, stitched together rock music, Duran Duran, hip hop and the Cure, broadcasting a mastery of depth and technical skills. Both of those DJs fulfilled the criteria of ‘megamix’ to a ‘t’. Or tee. The night left me so inspired as to work on my scratching technique(it’s getting there!) so maybe I’ll make it out for Battle of the Megamixes 2011…

Chatted with a good friend about the development of Animal Collective’s career, calling them the most successful and most dishonest and fake indie rock band. I wouldn’t disagree with Animal Collective’s decision to move towards more textural and ambience- I think that they, along with Black Dice and Ariel Pink are moving indie into more sonically exciting territory- there’s something to be said about their earlier records. When the band traded in their yelping and howling and chaotic sound attacks, they lost a little bit of that immediacy, that raw, emotive angst that was so attractive and alluring to me, as a fan of noise music. Hearing Merriweather Post Pavillion, it seems like the denial of those rebellious tendencies is dishonest- maybe the band has grown up and my development was arrested, or I’m nostalgic for my own childhood, one that chillwave does not fulfill.

Black Dice though, are completely uncompromising in their assault. They continue to excite me with their creative output.

Black Dice – La Cucaracha, from “Repo”

Black Dice – Scavenger, from “Load Blown”

Black Dice – Street Dude, from “Broken Ear Record”

Download Black Dice – La Cucaracha
Download Black Dice – Scavenger
Download Black Dice – Street Dude

If not for the Internet, techno music might never have been affirmed by a large ”mainstream” audience in the United States- not that techno music is about gaining widespread acceptance so much as maintaining a fiercely underground and independent spirit. Alexander Omar Smith, aka Omar-S, is rumored to sign his FXHE records with the same marker he uses from his GM factory job, for example. The Internet has allowed me to play catch up a lot faster and more thoroughly with the underground than I ever thought possible. I’m just trying to spread the love on behalf of the producers, the DJs, the promoters. Because if you’re going to set out to make robot rock, then at some point the rest of us are going to have to step forward into that discotheque of the future…

Omar S – Lift Him Up (ft. Don Q) – Buy

Jinder – Youth Blood (Bok Bok Remix) – Buy

Fool – Real Thing (Various Production Remix) – Buy

Younger generations may not be able to appreciate the novelty of moving the radio dial left and right, catching a second or two of audio and moving on to the next station. As a high school student, I definitely wasn’t listening to dance music, but still, I never could find what I wanted, it seemed like nobody was playing the music I liked to hear. Akufen (a play on the word acouphène) aka Mark LeClair put together a project based primarily on tiny samples of music he had recorded off the radio. The complex layering of samples here are a clever play on the medium where, at least in America, the radio had largely dismissed electronic dance music. In 2009 with the destratification of radio, TV and media, it may not seem like a clarion call so much as an abstract sound collage, but putting it in a larger context it has a certain gravity to it, not unlike Kutiman’s ThruYOU project and his samples of home-made videos.

I posted a list of records that I enjoyed from 2009–mostly electronic dance music– for Redefine Magazine. I think I’ll take up a post in the future to examine some more records from this year, but for now, I hope you’ll skip over to Redefine Magazine and review some of the standouts in techno/house. After reviewing the other lists, I can’t believe I was in the dark about Nurses for so long. Thankfully, the other editors have bulletproof taste.

The end of autumn is nearly here- I wanted to put out this mix before I started assembling my end of 2009 year lists! I nicked the title from Untold’s “Gonna Work Out Fine“- one of the most disparate producers from the UK with releases out this year. I’ve collected some more indie, deep house, dubstep and techno tracks in a playlist that you can stream from the player.

I recommend listening to “Vacuum Boogie” by Floating Points, at the very least. It’s a shuffling deep house track with a rolling bass line that doesn’t quit.

This project between Calvin Johnson(Beat Happening) and Doug Martsch(Built to Spill) pops up every once in a while- I can’t help but revel in the energy here, Calvin’s deep baritone juxtaposed against Doug’s reedy voice. This video captures the Halo Bender’s Calvin Johnson busting out. Today is also Calvin Johnson’s 47th birthday(born November 1, 1962!) It’s been a long time since Beat Happening played out a show but K Records is still going strong.