News, Quick Links, Good Reads: (1) An illustrator has taken the concept behind Alvin Lucier’s “I Am Sitting in a Room” and applied it to his daily self-portraits (snooks.livejournal.com). … (2) The Wild Beast is the name of the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) new music pavilion. It was designed by the Los Angeles-based [...]
The song “Tryplmeade Gorsmatch” comes close to the end of the self-titled album by Bumps, released a few months back earlier on Stones Throw. That’s a record label properly known best for hip-hop, especially of the producer-heavy, soul-inflected, headphone-pleasing vibe that usually gets filed under the phrase “old school.”
Well, the scholars who comprise Bumps are [...]
Quote of the Week: “They do not need to be correct because they are symbols; they stand for the essence of music, not specific notes. Their unconventionality also reminds me of the graphic scores of experimental music; they are their kitschy cousins.” That’s Christian Marclay, as quoted on the back of his new box-as-book collection, [...]
Esteemed and prolific hip-hop producer Madlib’s string of releases continues with the full-length collection Beat Konducta in India, a percussion-heavy mash of Bollywood score snippets. Think of it as rap exotica. To promote the album, its label, Stones Throw, has posted for free download a piece titled “Masala” — at eight seconds over a minute, [...]
Quote of the Week: Osamu Tezuka is the subject of a retrospective exhibit, Marvel of Manga, at the Asia Art Museum (asianart.org) in San Francisco. (Full disclosure: I am employed by one of the exhibit’s corporate sponsors.) Of a Beethoven manga by Tezuka, titled Ludwig B, the exhibit notes state, “Possibly because of [...]
There’s nothing inherently funny about instrumental hip-hop, but that didn’t stop the Stones Throw label from hooking up with Adult Swim, the Cartoon Network block, to post a free compilation, Chrome Children 2. Amid the blaxsploitation soul and word-drunk rap are several studio concoctions, including three from Madlib, two credited to his Beat Konducta moniker, [...]
The Ropeadope record label has long been a home for plugged-in roots music, from Kid Koala’s scraggly rock outfit Bullfrog, to the avant-groove of Medeski Martin & Wood, to the funky turntablism of DJ Logic, just to name a few. It’s now launched a download-only sublabel, ropeadope.com/digital, and among the initial seven releases is San, [...]
In the 10 years I’ve published Disquiet.com, I’ve been asked twice to DJ, both in the past month or so. The first was for an event featuring Annie Sprinkle, and I explained that my reluctance had nothing to do with prudishness, and everything to do with not feeling up to the task of playing music [...]
Call it post-rap, call it i-hop (or instrumental hip-hop). At just 45 seconds, “A Stroll Down Sutter Ave” (MP3) is less a track than a teaser, but this collaboration between DJs Wally and Willie Ross, off their recent Mrs Millers House album, is tasty as can be, a groovy collage trinket of turntablist beats, found [...]
Another spoken-word entry, to complement yesterday’s. Hank Shocklee, one of the core producers of the Bomb Squad, the hip-hop studio crew that threaded noise into backing tracks for the likes of Public Enemy, Doug. E. Fresh, Son of Bazerk and other old-school rappers, spoke at length to an audience courtesy of Red Bull Music Academy [...]