Raspberry Fields

The Breeders (L-R, Carrie Bradley and Kim Deal) performing Last Splash (Bell House 3.29.2013). “Saints” is just a song about going to a county or state fair and losing yourself in the crowd, a young innocent past-time in some not-quite-sub-rural Midwestern realm from which the Deals sprung. But it’s also a back-handed indictment of stasis, and, more importantly, a wonderful offer of inner hope - “summer,” after all, “is ready when you are!” More than just about any other musical document of that weird time (the one before this time), it speaks to a feeling that has never left me and one I hope to never lose…even as I can feel its dimensions shrinking. 

Here are some more formal thoughts about The Breeders and their 20th Anniversary of ‘Last Splash’ show at the Bell House, for Billboard.

(Photo courtesy of Kate Glicksberg a.k.a. @Interstatial) 

Mixtape: Parallel Thought, “FAME”

Parallel Thought, “FAME” (2013 Bandcamp mixtape)

Superior Fourth World concepting from long-time backpacker production team. The plan is: source music only from recordings made at the classic Muscle Shoals studio in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and cut them up in the spirit of the South Bronx, mega-mix-style. What on some level purports to be a very old skool feel, turns out to be aesthetically focused but completely out of time and space. The closest comparisons I can make are that of a much busier (d’uh, DJ set) version of Laswell’s Miles Davis remixes, or some sort of kid-brother companion to Dilla’s Donuts. You could do much worse with 42-minutes of your ears’ time. 

Disclosure (feat. Aluna George), “White Noise (Hudson Mohawke remix)” (Soundcloud 2013)

A few of late 2012/early 2013’s recurring characters forming like Voltron, with HudMo putting the deep fake-string-edged brakes (not breaks) on my personal stand-out from the Lawrence brothers’ still-budding catalog. At a party, the original would still be preferable; at the smoke-filled after-, probably not so much. Last nite, Disclosure played to a Williamsburg music hall full of Brits, bros and women who love them, an EDM-riches-and-bitches-launching evening, a let’s-welcome-our-Interscope-overlords-to-the-party evening, a “blockbuster return to ‘stadium garage’” evening. The ride keeps getting weirder

tumblinerb:

Traxman - Criminal Poetry 2013 Tha Lost Hip Hop Mix (Soundcloud, 2013)

Eclectic selection of rap classics from Chicago juke pioneer Traxman. I am fairly certain that this is the first time anyone has ever blended Mystikal “I’m On Fire” into Pete Rock & CL “Escape.”

Decidedly Older School!

Dense & Pika, “LIVE in the Boiler Room” (Boiler Room x Hotflush 2.21.13)

A relatively new London-based duo, purveyors of classic, acid-heavy techno of the Birmingham and UR variety, which is among the sounds that fuels my days at the moment. Here, tweaking 50 workman-like minutes of swinging, melody-free pounding for the Boiler Room crowd. For further listening of the sort, check “Coil,” off their debut Hotflush EP. 

Robert Hood, “Drive (The Age of Automation)” (Music Man 2012 - video directed by the29nov films 2013)

That there can now be an “official” music video for a Robert Hood track - and a damn good/appropriate one at that - says a lot of our age. Once-complicated ideas cast longer-than-ever shadows, and the process of media creation can be fast, cheap, and creatively refined, all at once. There’s nothing here that is more than a feeling, but it’s a complicated many-layered one: a Koyaanisqatsi travelogue playing with the light of the world and with global (mostly urban) environments. Musically, it isn’t all that far removed from the techno rebellion that Hood called for in UR; yet spiritually, there’s a streak of hope in those high synth lines that begins to dissipate the dread of the sequencer. Now, no one’s talking about cheerfulness here; but as you keep looking out the window of this trans-global express (or into its adjacent wagons), the prevailing thought certainly isn’t that of gloom. And for a man who helped create what we know as modern dystopian music, that’s as good as an ice-cream smile.

D’Angelo & Questlove, “Soulquarians: Brothers in Arms” session (Brooklyn Bowl 3.4.2013) was about 75 minutes of bliss. D’s voice, especially the uncanny ability to jump into a perfectly-timed on-pitch falsetto at will, is an absolute joy; his keyboards’ interplay with Ahmir’s drums just forceful enough to give the smooth textures some grit, helping spotlight what a monster drummer Questo is (taste, drive, force, etc.); and an audience whose attention and joy and love helped make the moment. Wonderful all around. (Expertly-chosen, cover-heavy setlist here.)

(Photo courtesy of Kate Glicksberg a.k.a. @Interstatial) 

Mim Suleiman, “Nyuli (Dub)” (2010 Running Back)

Sunday Music, the Body & Soul edition!!! It’s not like the changing winds of R&B have been a full-force gale only over the past few years; tempo-wise, the genre has little to do with the music I grew up on in the ’70s and ’80s, with something about the schism in American black futurist music (hip-hop v. house), slowing down mainstream R&B and leading to the large-scale abandonment of the swinging 4/4. Or, saving it for the house remix. By this point, I’m not sure how many people would consider this Maurice Fulton dub (of his own production of a Zanzibar-born singer now living in Sheffield) an R&B tune, as opposed to Afro-disco-house or future-funk (or whatever hyphenated section you might wanna file it under), a POV backed by “Nyuli” being released on one of Germany’s best house labels. Though I would absolutely call it one modern reflection of the world we are living in, and perfect for a late-afternoon dance-party.

Louise Despont, “Bowed Vibration” (2012): graphite and colored pencil on antique paper, shows at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery (327 Broome St. NYC), initial hat-tip to Devendra Banhart. 

arpeggia:

Augusto Esquivel created this piano sculpture with carefully hung string and hundreds if not thousands of sewing buttons. To be exact, there is over 45lbs of sewing buttons in this piano sculpture. [juxtapoz]

(via chericoke)