Reckoner by Radiohead

Reckoner

You can't take it with you
Dancing for your pleasure

You are not to blame for
Bittersweet distractor
Dare not speak its name
Dedicated to all you
all human beings

Because we separate like
ripples on a blank shore
(in rainbows)
Because we separate like
ripples on a blank shore
(in rainbows)

Reckoner

Take me with you
Dedicated to all you
all human beings

- Reckoner, by Radiohead, written by Thom Yorke.

This coming Tuesday- Radiohead, Gara and Brodie. It's like going home.

Booka Shade and the Birth of Electro

Tonight, I will be seeing/dancing/being in the proximity of one of my favourite electro/house groups- Booka Shade from Frankfurt. Here is something to listen to and nothing to watch, Mandarine Girl by Booka Shade.

In high school I held strong opinions denying the status of "music" to anything with an electronic beat. Punk had taken its toll- largely in the shape of sore neck muscles, large blue/purple hair and a notion that "society" was something to be yelled about. A fortuitous meeting with a jazz guitar teacher ignited a revolution in taste and within months I was listening to jazz divas and big bands. Still, electronic music seemed rather too much like the soundtrack to car racing games to be of any interest. Hip hop DJs built the bridge for me, but it wasn't until I came to Europe, the global heart of electronic music, that I started to differentiate between genres, styles and quality, to discern what I liked and what to avoid. Now I'm fairly able to unpack the amorphous and rather hilarious genre descriptions of the electro world such as "happy hardcore", "goa trance" and "intelligent drum-and-bass". But there is one style that forms my nemesis, a style that has risen to immense popularity during my time in Amsterdam such that it is almost unavoidable on any given evening, a style known by its adherents and dark practitioners as "minimal techno".

To understand the travesty that is minimal techno, I have to take you back to the very beginnings of techno. And here's the catch, like veritably all modern western music genres, techno was invented by African-Americans! I hear minds being blown world-wide. Techno, seemingly pretty much the whitest music there is, looks largely designed for people who cant handle too many complications in their rhythm section. But travel back with me to Detroit in the pivotal year of 1980. Detroit had largely avoided the disco fad of the 70's but kept strong connections to Funk and Soul. Of course the big news in Detroit and everywhere else in 1980 was the coming computer revolution. And damn, a funk band leader don't need no degree from MIT to talk about "funk technology". A common view emerged that in the near future we would be typing on computers (possibly in space), wearing computers (possible in flouro colours) and listening to "computer music" (possibly in devices made by a computer company). Mix this funk-futurism with the emergent sounds of European synth-pop (Kraftwerk etc) and "computer music" of the future was only steps away. As Derrick May described, the sound of techno was "...like Detroit... a complete mistake, it's like George Clinton and Kraftwerk are stuck in an elevator with only a sequencer to keep them company."

Now, minimal techno has nothing at all to do with George Clinton, despite being his estranged progeny. It is a repetitive melee of tiny bits and beats with no tempo progression, melody or build whatsoever. It is fau "arty" background music for imperceptibly nodding one's head to in elevators. There is no funk, no feeling in minimal techno, a music so stripped down that it tires the ears and bores the soul. Were George alive today (and he is) he would surely declare that minimal is all foreplay and no sex... A Maladaptive Melody... The Defunctive Funk.

Drifting Ocean

Drifting - composed and played by Andy McKee
Myspace, Label: Candyrat

(link via bloggingheadstv)

For the those who think their "oh my god, utter guitar genius" level cannot go any higher, prepare to realize your former belief system was ruinously corrupted. Welcoming Mr. John Butler.

Ocean - composed and played by John Butler
Tour Dates

(thanks Westy!)

Big City Life

"The Linguist across
the seas and the oceans
A permanent Itinerant
is what I`ve chosen
I find myself in Big City prison
arisen from the vision
of mankind"

-Big City Life, Mattafix

High and Dry

Somehow goes with the above. High and Dry, by Radiohead.

In Rainbows

Radiohead are pretty much my Beatles. I saw them on an island in Budapest last summer and experienced something I haven't been able to define or recount and am almost fearful recollecting in case I somehow damage the fragile memory of that one perfect hour.

Radiohead - Paranoid Android

Through six incredibly different albums they've carried a generation of fans to a genre-transcending appreciation of music. And now, through their low-key blog Dead Air Space, they release their seventh.

Wed, 04 July

things are quiet here right now. we are unable to explain.
nothing can be revealed.
we have not disappeared.
merely become invisible.
for a short time. we may be hiding in the woods.

Thom

Mon, 01 October

Hello everyone.
Well, the new album is finished, and it's coming out in 10 days;
We've called it In Rainbows.
Love from us all.

Jonny

The album will be available for download from October 10 or in a double vinyl/double CD set shipping December 3 and includes the digital downloads and a book. Through the website the customer is able to choose their own price for the album in download form.

Amy Winehouse - In My Bed

(Click to launch video clip and fall madly in love with Amy Winehouse)

J-Five Rocked the Party

Yesterday, I was nodding my head in sweet anticipation of checking Jurassic Five- a few hours later I was in the packed Paradiso main hall with hundreds of other fans, bouncing up and down, as J-Five absolutely rocked the party. Jurassic Five are a good to great crew to listen to- but where they come into their own is the live communal experience- the very place where hip hop came from.

If you have not seen live hip hop, then it's hard to understand the way a great hip-hop crew can engage a crowd; talking up the crowd, building energy with classic material, busting in new selections, freestyle and scratching to mix it up and all brief reprieve only to return to loftier peaks, all in all getting everyone in the room nodding and rocking in time. J5 did all this with the tight professional edge of a band that's been tieing together their harmonies for 13 years , yet kept it fresh with genuine energy and humility to simply rock the party.



I'm skeptical when asked to raise my fist in the air- too many overtones of populist struggle and crowd mentality, but last night I had both in the air for "Freedom".

"What mean the world to me is bein' free
Live and let live and just let it be
Love peace and harmony, one universal family
One God*, one aim and one destiny

Hold on to this feelin', Freedom, Freedom!"

*I'm down with interpreting "One God" anyway you like- Allah, God, the Tao, Brahma, strings and space time, whatever the name- it's the oneness that underlies all things.

Big, Bad and Bold B-Boys of Old

Tonight I kick off a huge month of premium Hip-Hop with Jurassic Five from Los Angeles. Featuring MC's Chali 2na, Akil, Soup, Mark 7even, and DJ Nu-Mark they form one of the world's best crews- and one from the conscious side of Hip Hop. I'm already nodding my head in sweet anticipation.

"I transmit, transcripts, transcontinental lyrics

Deeply rooted in your spirit"

- Akil

"Interviewer: Has September 11th made you feel like you have to explain what being a Muslim is about?... Do you feel that as an artist you have to help break those stereotypes?

Chali 2NA: I feel like the stereotypes have always been here in America. You have president up on top of presidents who are really trying to befoul the whole Middle Eastern situation. Not because of religion but more so because of political gain and oil and things of that nature.

I’m a Muslim, first and foremost, I love God and respect God and respect the fact that there is nothing without him. Finding myself having to explain that? I have never been one to try to push what I believe on somebody on that level; you know what I’m saying. My love is for God and God Only. For instance my wife and me got married and I didn’t even invite my momma or nobody to the wedding. It was about her, God and me...

There is a word in Arabic its called da`wah, which is the spread of information, it’s the spread of information by example more so than by preaching or trying to shove it down a persons throat, you know what I’m saying. I just try to live by example man, if a person feels that their comfortable with how I am or if they’re attracted to a certain part of me, the explanations come forth."

Interview by Nick Huff on Davey B's Hip Hop Corner.

Coming up later in the AJ's Month of Hip Hop; The Roots and the Dilated Peoples. Also check out the Hip Hop show on the world's best radio and webradio station- Australia's Triple J.

Pete Philly & Perquisite

Pete Philly & Perquisite are an award winning hip hop/jazz duo who easily take the prize for the best local music I've heard here in the Netherlands. Their combination of tight flow (in english), smooth beats and jazzy instrumentals have earned respect across their European tour and from the illustriously ill Talib Kweli.


Their website has five tracks you can check out; or if you're in town, scope them live Saturday night at the Melkweg.

A Jailbird to Your Music

Caught deep in a world of work, when something very different echoes eerily over my headphones and calls me out. It's the "psych-folk duet" CocoRosie- and their intensely beautiful "Tekno Love Song".



"I fell in love with a bad, bad man
Ever since I met him I been sad, sad, sad
June faded into blooms of September's moon waned and grooved
Your perfume haunted me long after I saw the swing of heaven's gate open in toward me
Luxurious in your arms, your smile is the cool sun in the dark
Misery rejoices when you're near and fever
No sign of sickness keeps me burnin' down in my heart
Winter melts, she shys away quite like the silence a dying star makes

I'm a jail bird to your music, a criminal in your prayers
I watch you in your sleep even when you're not there

Picture this: your lips on my lips
The mirror has to do for now 'cause you vanished like a cloud
Rainbows wept colour all over the streets
When you went away maybe one day we'll meet
"Oh woman," you're callin' meI haven't slept a wink since 1916
I wasn't born then but sure feels time's been tickin'
Shadows parade outside my door
I wish we were dancin' across this old floor
Car horns honkin' down that dirty street
I wish you were yellin' tellin' to wash my feet
Lipstick I'd wear for one million years
Just to stop your eyes from fallin' them tears..."

Transcribed by sliceacadeua, emphasis mine.
Photo by Sean McCalbe for thezapgun.com

Music of the Spheres

A beautiful think link from the Arlington Institute.


Astronomers say that one millisecond before a giant star dies in a spectacular explosion, it hums a note around middle C. More. In some combination of cosmic space the bassline to Come As You Are is being busted out. Ah, nevermind.

Riders of Evolution

Riders of Evolution is the second of the “Yonderboi Finds Philosophy” mixes I'm currently putting together. This one brings together the Riders on the Storm remix from Hungarian DJ Yonderboi, with Eamonn Healey’s monologue in Waking Life on the telescoping nature of evolution and the development of the neohuman.

If cornered at an "event" by artsy types asking what kind of music you listen to- try this one - "I'm into amateur Alexandrian Philosophical-Hungarian DJ Mashups".

My tape quality sucks, my records are warped and my CD skips
- Sage Francis.

Lickpenny Loafer

I just heard from a Canadian uber musician I used to chill with in Johannesburg. He was a genius engineering grad, doing developmental work in africa when he realised that it was all about The Music. Ron writes-

"To be a musician is not necessarily a choice. Like many other things, it begins and continues on with a slow, rising compulsion. We start with an ideal in mind,only to have it shattered and recreated a thousand more times. Fruition is here today, gone tomorrow. But, there is much solace in the appreciation of the process. For one who is unknown, it can bring tremendous gratification and much needed lift. And so I share my process- not just to energize a waning ego, but to offer another voice for any who wish to hear."

His band is called Lickpenny Loafer, and you can check their awesome mp3s online, or if your Canada side go drop by a gig. As a general ninja his insights into music are worth a read.

Mad props to Ron for following the call.

"But lets stick with strictly sadness for a moment... it was Theodore Dreiser who said, "Art is the stored honey of the human soul, arriving on wings of misery and travail"...I think somewhere in the process of our evolution, the breadth of sensitivity and expression that defines our emotional basis basically exploded. "

Beats from the Wild Blue Yonder

A few months ago I was chilling in "Albert and Arthurs Pad of Change" trying to do a little personal reflection. I had listened through some tracks I usually use for that kind of thing, but it just wasn't getting me there mentally so I started trying out some new things. At one point I had my favourite film, Waking Life by Richard Linklater, playing in the background so that the dialogue was rolling gently over the funky beats of Hungary's Yonderboi which I had playing in the fore.It sounded awesome.

Waking Life is... (deep breath).. a collection of 15 philosophical monologues, strung together as a dream sequence, all filmed out of Austin, Texas, on digital film that has been animated over by various artists. It is a film that defeats other films in countless ways. First, its unrivalled content. Second, the artistry in which each individual screen is composed- you can literally stop this film at any given second and it looks beautiful. Third, the soundtrack is powerful and original. And finally, the connectivity of the concept is amazing- it discusses dreams in a dream story, with a technique that renders the film itself with a dream-like quality. Even if you don't buy movies, buy the Waking Life DVD, you will watch it countless times and be better for it.

László Fogarasi Jr, aka Yonderboi, is a Hungarian DJ/Composer who kicks ass. The Oracle says his music is "somewhere between Future Jazz, Downtempo and Trip Hop"- but I have no idea about such classifications. He has two very sweet albums; "Shallow and Profound" and "Rough and Rare". If you buy music, buy "Shallow and Profound" its a worthy addition.

Anyway, coming back to the "Pad of Change" and the moment of awesomeness. I realised then that I had a new project for my time in Egypt. I needed to mix up an album, bringing together Waking Life with Yonderboi- a salute to the incredible work of Linklater and Fogarasi, a tribute to unlikely synergies in the universe.

Now, I am a complete novice at mixing and Im using some cheap software. But such is the mastery of these artists, that it actually seems to work. Here is a sample of the Linklater/Fogarisi Mix: "Yonderboi Finds Philosophy", Track 6: No Answer From Boatcar Guy.

(Vocal samples: Waking Life, Beats: Yonderboi)

WonderClubbing?

Oh yes Indeed. Tonight I�m going to a party/club event at... The Pyramids. I don�t care how awesome your local club is, how underground the scene, or excellent the vibe- show me your Wonders of the World.

Scarily little is know about the Ancient Egyptians use of Photoshop.

Space is the Place

Imagine a circus tent. Now imagine it is made of metal but totally
hollow. Imagine it is incredibly massively huge. Imagine you are in this
tent, surrounded by thousands of people, some of the finest beats Europe
has to offer and a vibe chilled to the point of freezing. It is somewhere
between 12 and 5 AM, you are in Amsterdam, and you are me.

I journeyed to "Space is the Place :Super Natural Funky Musique".
Self described as a gig so funky "the forms of relaxation will ask a lot of
your mind to cope with". It was a huge stage featuring Etienne de Crecy,
Roy Ayers and others committed to pumping out house, acid jazz and
heating up to forms to funky dance. There was Brazilian juice bars, high
tea and even a area filled only with bean bags.

It was a big culture shock for me as it was the first time I heard Dutch
DJs who actually finished playing the tracks they we spinning, the music
genre stayed for more than two songs and people wore colors other than
bright green, orange and red. Oh the delights of Amsterdam. Or was it
finally leaving the surreal bubble of "AI-Netherlands"; which is located
in Rotterdam in name alone.

Nonetheless, it was a huge night, and when I wasn't staring up at the
massive ceiling of this venue that used to be a giant container for
natural gas , I was chilling with Monika and my bro Eddie who came
through from London on a sabbatical away from the soul eating city of
London. It was huge reminder that I need to get out, need to experience
the incredible scene that this place has to offer, get underground and find
out where art is being expressed and tap into the the pulse that beats in
the youth culture across this continent.

My apology to Jeff Buckley.

Look Jeff*, let me start directly, Im sorry. I was wrong. Years ago when friends told me about you, I scoffed. I mocked. I described your tender ballads as "injustice music". Little did I know you had created the Best Song in the World. Yes for those of you who haven't heard "Hallelujah" by Jeff Buckley, acquire it now, listen to it repeatedly, and make your life better. Some say Jeff drowned in the Mississippi after downing a bottle of jack daniels, but I believe he was last seen walking into an empty studio where he recorded Hallelujah and disappeared, leaving the track behind for us. If he didn't go to heaven at least he gave us a small peace of it to echo sweetly for eternity.

* Jeffrey Scott Buckley (November 17, 1966 - May 29, 1997) was an American singer and guitarist whose unique voice, spanning four octaves, launched him to semi-celebrity.