Disquiet

In the November issue of Wired magazine last year, a CD was tucked under the cover. At first glance, one might have mistaken its reflective surface for a graphic designer’s attempt to add some metallic bling to the cover subjects: hip-hop outfit the Beastie Boys, whose early albums helped cement sampling in the imagination of the mainstream, back in the day when lifting a Led Zeppelin drum beat wasn’t heavily regulated. But it was a full-length CD, with tracks licensed under the Creative Commons, by the Beastie Boys, as well as Dangermouse, Matmos, David Byrne and others. The project didn’t end there. The website ccmixter.org provided a community space for folks to sample the collection and upload the results of their fiddling. That contest has ended, the winners have been announced, and they’ll appear on a followup CD, The Wired CD — Ripped. Mixed. Sampled. Mashed. Of course, they’re already available for download, for free. The music ranges through genres, from noodly funk fusion to homebrew hip-hop to generic electro-pop, and there’s some abstract goodness in there, too. Highlights include SSLID‘s “dislocation” (at five and a half minutes, the longest track in the set), a pulsing metronomic delight, and Pat Chilla the Beat Gorilla‘s dubby “Wadidyusay (Beatgorilla’s 28 grams REMIX).” Coming soon from ccmixter: an ODB remix contest.

By Marc Weidenbaum