The sum of our influences — by some accounts, that is what we are, perhaps all we are. In the realm of DJing and remixing, this philosophical conceit is all the more a received if still contentious notion. This week, the Disquiet.com “MP3 Discussion Group” is focusing its collective antennae on the recent album Tummaa by Vladislav Delay, the accomplished Finnish musician known for his minimal techno, and increasingly for other things, often percussive and improvisatory, rough-hewn and beat-minded — an expanded variety that makes the longtime listener wonder just what it is Delay listens to. Late last month, perhaps in the hopes of answering just such a question, Delay contributed a mixtape to Fact magazine, and while the download is still available, by all accounts it won’t be for long (MP3).
And long it is, almost 150 MB of everything from Tricky‘s trip-hop, to the rap of Wu-Tang Clan and Snoop Dogg, and much much more, including a closing piece by Delay himself, under his Luomo moniker.
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The full track list — any spelling errors direct from the MP3′s source — is as follows: Ceebrolistics‘s “Aintie,” Serkkupojat‘s “Kolahtaa Krl,” Wu-Tang Clan feat. Sunny Valentine‘s “Gun Will Go,” Ghostface Killah‘s “Black Cream,” Erikah Badu‘s “That Hump,” Snoop Dogg’s “Sexual Seduction (Chimpo Remix),” the Cool Kids‘s “Bassment Party,” Artful Dodger‘s “Woman Trouble,” El-B‘s “Digital,” Teriyaki Boyz feat. Pharrell & Chris Brown‘s “Work That,” Tricky‘s “Slow,” Ceebrolistics‘s “Tanhi,” Feadz feat. MC Wesley‘s “Subiu, Desceu,” the Juan MacLean‘s “One Day,” and Luomo feat. Apparat‘s “Love You All.”
And this being a proper mixtape, and not just a celebrity playlist, the hour-plus worth of tracks are seamlessly mixed into one. For serious Delay fans, the most flavorsome moments will occur at the transitions between tracks. We may, indeed, be the sum of our influences, but that’s just the point — it’s at the juncture between tracks, the moment when they touch or overlap or are separated by a brief but momentous void, that a DJ creates a new thing, a sum that is more than merely the total of its constituent parts.
More details at factmagazine.co.uk. More on Delay at vladislavdelay.com.
For the next few days, several fellow ardent listeners will join me here in discussing the recent album by Vladislav Delay, Tummaa, released last month on the Leaf Records label. Delay is the adopted moniker of Sasu Ripatti, of Finland, who has made not one but several names for himself, also as Luomo and as Uusitalo, and in several ensembles, including the Moritz von Oswald Trio. The Tummaa album mixes abstract elements and found sounds into a dramatic whole. That abstraction can come to distract from its lulling sensibility, and from its rhythmic impulses. But more about that tension in the ensuing discussion.
The tones are soothing, but there’s something about the rhythm, something about the way the different elements arrive, how the gentle motion and exotica-ready tune go in and out like a rocker that’s slightly off kilter. This is “Lupita,” a great new song credited to Jumping Beans and .tape. — .tape. (yes, lower case, with bookending periods) being a musician who’s handy with using external triggers to launch sound samples, and the jumping beans being exactly that: three so-called Mexican jumping beans, whose unpredictable action is used by .tape. to initiate the samples (