After an initial track of deep foreboding, and deeper silences that seem to confirm ill fate, Rafael Flores and Mystified‘s collaboration, Intrigue, on the Webbed Hand netlabel, ventures in several directions. The second track adds a voice to fill the gaps, as well as the analog flutters of 1950s science fiction films. And then things really get interesting. There’s what appears, by the titles (“Mineral I,” “Mineral II”) and the rush of water, to be a transformation of a field recording into a tumble of shudders and a low riding hum that makes that opening track sound like a spring breeze. There are also wild, synthetic storms to be heard (“Manantial Que No Cesa”), bleepy exotica (“Hello Stations”), white noise (“Buzzbase”) and much more. The album’s two keepers suggest its breadth between them; there’s the dreamy passing of old trains on “Convey,” which runs in place like a recurring nightmare, and the filmic arc of “Vera + Cruz,” which opens with a surprisingly dramatic chamber string section and then proceeds to descend below a pipe organ’s lowest stop. What holds it all together is an emphasis on desperately slow rhythms, ill-gained found sound, and a refreshing lack of concern for fidelity. Get the album at webbedhandrecords.com. More info on Rafael Flores at soundsense.blogspot.com. More info on Mystified (aka Thomas Park) at mystifiedmusic.com.
Weekly iTunes MP3
Sometimes you do get what you pay for. Take the weekly free downloads in the iTunes Music Store. Most (heck, almost all) are missable, dismissible, entirely mistakable for some other half dozen generic singer-songwriter (or earnest rap, or desultory r’n’b) songs whose names you cannot recollect either. But on a rare occasion, iTunes delivers a winner, such as today, when its email newsletter announced that the single of the week comes from rapper M.I.A., born in Sri Lanka, based in London, hailed in music circles that hunger for the next Dizzee Rascal, the next British hip-hop “it” export. Her first single, the roiling “Galang,” in a three-minute-plus radio edit, would be entirely computerized robot funk, were she not rapping through it like a sweaty ghost in the machinery, and since she’s so intent on hearing her staccato syllables enmeshed with the gearshift rhythms, shouting out “purple haze” as an entreaty to classic rock fans looking for a new thrill, since her verses are even less comprehensible than most of Rascal’s… anyhow, she’s at one with her production like few rappers, who generally seem like guest stars on their own albums. If you’ve got iTunes, this link will take you there.
15 Digital Dub MP3s
If digital dub is your thing, you likely already possess tracks by a handful of the musicians featured on Grow, a 15-song compilation of material drawn from the Agriculture Records catalog, featured currently on the home page of smart-music.net, which, like the Disquiet Downstream, focuses on “free & legal” downloadable music. If digital dub isn’t your bag, then Grow, which overflows with mechanistic echoes of otherwise slack drums, stringed instruments and keyboards, may just change your mind. The Brooklyn-based Agriculture label is a hotbed of contemporary dub, as represented here by such musicians as DJs Olive, Wally and Rupture, as well as Sub Dub (which features the great Raz Mesinai), David Last, Lloop, Mehmet Irdel, Nettle, Sporangia, Ladyman and Once 11. This isn’t the blunted dancehall party music that oftens passes for dub. Inevitably, the outlying tracks are the most interesting, like Irdel’s “Gut,” built from handclaps and percussion, and “Desplazados,” by the aptly named DJ Rupture, which flips the intent of the common dub reverb and uses it as a signal for sudden, disorienting splices. Olive, on “Rooster Rooster,” is more than happy to set a loop on repeat, and let it trace a mystic circle of its own. David Last’s richly sublimated melodies of “Push Pull” have been mentioned in this space previously. Sub Dub’s “Dawa Zangpo,” another favorite, is a particularly tangy treat, with muted vocal snippets that suggest a teamup of Muslimgauze and Public Enemy. The following link is an 80-plus-megabyte archive of the complete set, including cover art (link). More info on the Agriculture label at theagriculture.com.
Tangents (wordcount, science, remixes)
Quick Links: The website wordcount.org tracks the popularity of English word usage. As of today, “ambient” ranks at 22,001, “disquiet” comes in at 21053, and “electronica” doesn’t make the top 86,800, the number of words in wordcount’s database. There’s also a list of query entries, but they’re too obscene to detail here. … Schematic Records musician Richard Devine set his equipment on fire during a showcase at the recent Winter NAMM show in Anaheim, Calif. (link). (Thanks to the Warp Records email newsletter.) … Check out the Noise Shirt, “which has a microphone that measures the surrounding environments noise level and displays it as a vertical 5 step equalizer bar with the LEDs.” (Thanks to Engadget.) … Christian Doppler lost out to Charles Darwin when Los Angeles-based songwriter Timothy Sellers was selecting notable figures in science for his album 26 Scientists: Volume 1, Anning to Malthus, according to an article last Tuesday in the New York Times (“When You Wish Upon an Atom: The Songs of Science“). Sellers’ backing band, collectively known as Artichoke, includes a theremin player, the band’s only science professional (he’s an engineer). … Following on the remix projects of the Atlantic and Verve record labels, Motown has announced Motown Remixed, which features DJ Z-Trip, Jazzy Jeff, Mocean Worker and others remixing boomer classics. Several streams are available: two full tracks, Z-Trip doing the Jackson 5‘s “I Want You Back” (WMA, Real) and Marvin Gaye‘s “Let’s Get It On” revisited by Paul Simpson and Miles Dalto (WMA, Real), plus a video documentary featuring some of the contributors (WMA, Quicktime, Real). More details at motownremixed.com, including additional streams and interviews. … New Releases: Among the CDs released this coming week are Meat Beat Manifesto‘s At the Center (Thirsty Ear), featuring Jack Dangers, Dave King (drums), Peter Gordon (flute) and Craig Taborn (various keyboards, including grand piano and Hammond B3), and Four Tet‘s Everything Ecstatic (Domino). More new releases at brainwashed.com/releases. … Quote of the Week: “[W]hat we’ve done has always somewhat depended on whatever technology was around at the time.” That’s Brian Eno speaking to the St. Petersburg Times (the one in Russia) about his work with Robert Fripp (“Another Day with Eno“). The article focuses on his collaboration with Algerian-born, Paris-based singer Rachid Taha, and mentions that Eno’s been working with Paul Simon.
Ian Fleming Remix MP3
Perhaps taking a cue from ccmixter.org‘s recent Wired magazine sampling competition, the folks managing the remix contest based on the contents of Penguin audiobooks (see the May 11 Disquiet Downstream entry for more info) have been listing their own favorites as the entries have streamed in. Among them is “Agent Oh” by Richard Baker, who works backward from a splatter of nonsense verbiage to a clearly spoken description that discloses the source material: a reading from Ian Fleming‘s first James Bond novel, Casino Royale. It’s shaken, stirred and splintered, with echoes of Prefuse 73, and it develops its own syllabic funk before being layered atop a lounge-friendly dance track (MP3 here). More info at penguinremixed.co.uk.