J Dilla Tribute Mix MP3

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

Arguably no single organization is doing more to keep alive the flame of the late hip-hop producer J Dilla than the label Stones Throw, whose latest act of commemoration is the fourth in a series of tribute mixes. This one, by J Rocc (of Beat Junkies fame), runs through a broad slate of Dilla’s beat-heavy, nostalgia-tinged, old-school hip-hop. There are snatches of rapping in there, but this mix is, true to Dilla’s legacy, mostly about rhythm and appropriation, groove and humor (MP3). You can play guess the sample, or you can just kick back and appreciate Dilla’s soulful way with beats and cues.

[audio:http://www.stonesthrow.com/podcast/stonesthrow_43_act_4.mp3|titles=”Thank You Jay Dee Act 4″|artists=J Rocc Mixes J Dilla]

The mix is 45 minutes long. More info at stonesthrow.com, which promises a track listing in the future — “if/when we can sort it out.”

Trevor Paglen’s Badge of Silence

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

One of the insignias from Trevor Paglen‘s book I Could Tell You but Then You Would Have to Be Destroyed by Me: Emblems from the Pentagon’s Black World. The work is on display at the Altman Siegel gallery in San Francisco, where this photo was shot today:

In his description of the patch in I Could Tell You, Paglen writes, “The words ‘A Lifetime of Silence’ no doubt refer to the fact that members of this unit or project cannot speak about what the do.” The above patch was displayed as part of a set of five. The exhibit runs through April 11, 2009.

Previous Disquiet.com coverage of Paglen includes his performance at the 2004 Activating the Medium Festival (“Let’s Active”) and his presence in the Dark Matters exhibit at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in 2007 (“Dark Matters at the Yerba Buena”). More on Paglen at paglen.com. Visit the Altman Siegel gallery at altmansiegel.com.

Jason Kahn + Takefumi Naoshima MP3

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

For a recent collaboration, musicians Jason Kahn and Takefumi Naoshima invited a third participant into the room. That participant is the room itself. The result is In a Room, a recent full-length release, for which they’ve made available an excerpt, just over two minutes in length. The piece (MP3) is a detached experience, in which the room tone — a background whir, and an enveloping white noise — blankets all else, from footsteps, to murmurs, to other sounds, like distant waves and low hums, that are, presumably, the microsonic music being produced by Kahn and Naoshima.

[audio:http://www.windsmeasurerecordings.net/catalog/wm14/inaroom-ex.mp3|titles=’In a Room’ (excerpt)|artists=Jason Kahn + Takefumi Naoshima]

Given the title, the echoes, so to speak, of Alvin Lucier are unmistakable. As Kahn writes in a brief liner note, “Due to the fact that we played very softly and sparsely the sounds of the room and even those from outside take on equal importance with the sounds we are making with our instruments.”

More information at the website of the releasing label, Wind Measure Recordings: windsmeasurerecordings.net. More on Kahn at jasonkahn.net, and on Naoshima at geocities.com/tanzaque.

Eno/Byrne Re-Mix: Our Lives in the Bush of Disquiet

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

About Disquiet.com’s “Listen?”:

Welcome to Disquiet.com’s streaming-audio service. The interface immediately below will stream in sequence the 12-track compilation album Our Lives in the Bush of Disquiet, a project I curated in September 2006 of remixes of tracks off the Brian Eno and David Byrne album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, which was then celebrating its 25th anniversary. To promote the rerelease, Eno and Byrne had embraced open-source music-making, and uploaded to a website, bush-of-ghosts.com/remix, the constituent parts of two tracks off My Life in the Bush of Ghosts: “Help Me Somebody,”a pulsating bit of ersatz African juju, and “A Secret Life,”a more languorous stretch of elegiac atmospherics, and made them available for remixing. I asked a dozen musicians to participate, and this compilation was the result of that request. Since Byrne is currently touring in tribute to his revived association with Brian Eno, which also included the album Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, this seemed like a good time to make this set available for streaming.

There’s additional information at disquiet.com/bushofghosts, and the project is housed at archive.org. You can flip back and forth through the playlist using the small arrows.

[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/OurLivesInTheBushOfDisquiet/OLitBoD-01-AllThatFall.mp3,http://www.archive.org/download/OurLivesInTheBushOfDisquiet/OLitBoD-02-RoddySchrock.mp3,http://www.archive.org/download/OurLivesInTheBushOfDisquiet/OLitBoD-03-Pocka.mp3,http://www.archive.org/download/OurLivesInTheBushOfDisquiet/OLitBoD-04-StephaneLeonard.mp3,http://www.archive.org/download/OurLivesInTheBushOfDisquiet/OLitBoD-05-djmorsanek.mp3,http://www.archive.org/download/OurLivesInTheBushOfDisquiet/OLitBoD-06-MrBiggs.mp3,http://www.archive.org/download/OurLivesInTheBushOfDisquiet/OLitBoD-07-johnkannenberg.mp3,http://www.archive.org/download/OurLivesInTheBushOfDisquiet/OLitBoD-08-MyFun.mp3,http://www.archive.org/download/OurLivesInTheBushOfDisquiet/OLitBoD-09-MarkRushton.mp3,http://www.archive.org/download/OurLivesInTheBushOfDisquiet/OLitBoD-10-Prehab.mp3,http://www.archive.org/download/OurLivesInTheBushOfDisquiet/OLitBoD-11-EgoResponseTechnician.mp3,http://www.archive.org/download/OurLivesInTheBushOfDisquiet/OLitBoD-12-doogie.mp3|titles=”Help Me Help Me”,”If You Make Your Bed in Heaven”,”Leftover Secrets to Tell”,”Secret Life Remix”,”The Black Isle (Byrne/Eno Remix)”,”Hit Me Somebody (Help Me Somebody Remix)”,”Being and Nothingness (A Secret Life Remixed)”,”Somebody Help Us”,”Hey”,”My Bush in the Secret Life of Ghosts”,”Not Enough Africa”,”Helping (Help Me Somebody Remix)”|artists=AllThatFall,Roddy Schrock,Pocka,Stephane Leonard,(dj) morsanek,MrBiggs,john kannenberg,My Fun,Mark Rushton,Prehab,Ego Response Technician,doogie]

The duration of this album of remixes is 56:23.

 

Playlist Guide:

Please note that most of the links below in this post will result in pop-ups, so as not to interrupt the streaming audio.



Track  1. (Duration: 02:59.) "Help Me Help Me" by AllThatFall [Musician: allthatfall.com.]

Track  2. (Duration: 03:48.) "If You Make Your Bed in Heaven" by Roddy Schrock [Musician: fundamentallysound.org.]

Track  3. (Duration: 05:04.) "Leftover Secrets to Tell" by Pocka

Track  4. (Duration: 08:30.) "Secret Life Remix" by Stephane Leonard [Musician: stephaneleonard.net.]

Track  5. (Duration: 05:25.) "The Black Isle (Byrne/Eno Remix)" by (dj) morsanek [Musician: morsanek.blogspot.com.]

Track  6. (Duration: 06:01.) "Hit Me Somebody (Help Me Somebody Remix)" by MrBiggs [Musician: mrbiggs.com, dancerobotdance.com.]

Track  7. (Duration: 03:52.) "Being and Nothingness (A Secret Life Remixed)" by john kannenberg [Musician: johnkannenberg.com.]

Track  8. (Duration: 04:08.) "Somebody Help Us" by My Fun [Musician: thelandof.org.]

Track  9. (Duration: 02:37.) "Hey" by Mark Rushton [Musician: markrushton.com.]

Track 10. (Duration: 07:37.) "My Bush in the Secret Life of Ghosts" by Prehab [Musician: myspace.com/prehab.]

Track 11. (Duration: 04:28.) "Not Enough Africa" by Ego Response Technician [Musician: xtrasauce.com.]

Track 12. (Duration: 01:54.) "Helping (Help Me Somebody Remix)" by doogie [Musician: fluxed.net.]


I plan to do these mixes every month or so. Special thanks to boon/Brian Scott (boondesign.com), who provided the album's "cover."

Two Japanese Drones from Saito Koji (MP3s)

/ By Marc Weidenbaum

The two drones that comprise the equal halves of Saito Koji‘s Time / Line have this low-level buzz, this saw-tooth subtext, that keeps them from being ever fully capable of rendering themselves invisible. That isn’t to diminish the drone-ness of the pieces, and of the album as a whole. These are drones, thick, rich drones, with the heft of a milkshake and the gravitas of a sermon. They’re complementary more than similar, “Time” (MP3) starting off all ethereal-cloud-scape, before wandering into regressive loops of slightly off-kilter waveforms, and “Line” (MP3) just treble-y enough to veer toward a kind of subtle pain threshold.

The links above will go directly to the downloads for the individual MP3s, but because the two tracks, each at just over half an hour in length, make for a solid hour of listening, for this post’s streaming feature, I’m putting them together into one stream. (Note, though, that the little arrows allow you to move back and forth between the tracks.)

[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/rb053/01-Time.mp3,http://www.archive.org/download/rb053/02-Line.mp3|titles=”Time”,”Line”|artists=Saito Koji,Saito Koji]

Additional information at the releasing netlabel, restingbell.net.