Friday, July 28, 2006

the other kind of boom bap

mazenKerbaj
It's not often you hear the wonderful resonance FM
mentioned in the media, let alone on Radio 4. But nevertheless this morning whilst I was answering back to the radio in my grumpy morning style, I can't believe Tony Blair and the rest of his government are doing nothing. nothing. For someone who is supposedly some kind of born again opus dei christian, he seems to have a blank memory spot when it comes to a couple of commandments: thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not lie.
anyway, before I get well carried away, or rather whilst I was getting carried away, they played this piece - a lebanese trumpeter duetting with the sound of the Israeli air force bombing nearby Beirut, recorded live to minidisc on his balcony.
Bombs possibly sold to them by Americans, delivered on planes that have quite possibly stopped to refuel en route at UK military airports.
  • Mazen Kerbaj - starry night (excerpt)

  • His website has 3 more mp3's. I enjoyed songs for evan. How much you like it may well depend on how much you think you might like the sound of a deranged goose trying simultaneously to seduce you and attack you.
    There's also his blog with his artwork.

    Also note I wish no offence to any of my friends with links to Israel - my anger is solely directed at those with the power and the weapons and the people making money from the suffering (hello there massively-subsidised UK arms industry) and as ever it is the innocent people of Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Israel who suffer.
    and I just thought it was a poignant piece of music, with no overt political content.

    Thursday, July 27, 2006

    mastering & oh the joy

    car park

    Went and mastered the first single on tuesday, with the lovely Pete at Heathmans - certainly the most professional looking mastering studio I've been too. Pete was brilliant - he seemd a little puzzled at first but got what I was trying to do and managed to cut both sides at 45rpm. With a lot of bass.

    lathe

    geeky equipment boy that I am, I took a load of pictures of the lathe (hope I didn't embarass you too much Rich). Despite it being tragic that they're no longer built anywhere, and the number of people who can repair and maintain them is dwindling, I love the fact that they've all got their own little story, this one was from 1970's czechoslovakia, cutting classical records, and being named after one of the engineer's children...

    ostava

    There's this moment, after the EQing and the compressing and all the parametric fun, when he did a little test cut of half a minute or so of clapton deep, took it from the lathe and onto a record player, and then oh, you hear it, for the first time, coming back from the vinyl, with all of that alchemy and wonder - the way the sounds are warmed and spread and fluxed and rotated.
    all the nerves and anxiousness melted away.
    big smile on my face.

    cutting 'clapton deep'

    can't wait for the test pressing...

    Friday, July 14, 2006

    orchid you not

    orchid2
    Well no updates for a little while - I'm off on holiday.
    Here's a little santo & johnny at the bottom of the ocean, slide guitar redemption, glide me away now, farewell sorrow, type of niceness...
  • kaki king 'can the gwot save us?'

  • kaki for sale
    see you later!

    gggrrrowwwlll


    went to the astoria last night to finally catch animal collective.
    wonderful how the songs stretched out and wandered and weaved and all. Love the singing and live effects on the singing. Wonky drumming also much loved and danced-too. all I'd hoped for and more...
  • animal collective and Vashti bunyan 'it's you'

  • animal collective at Normans

    Wednesday, July 12, 2006

    Liberace fingers & champagne corpses

    another ice cold song for a hot hot day-
    snowdrifted synth sweeps over the tundra, cramped snare crack ticks away your time, polar bear tambourines, and not much else. brrrrrr....
  • Clipse 'me too'

  • clipse on Juno

    and here's one I got originally from STG - I post in the hope of any more information about this at all - I just love the insistent/relentless crazy preset noise that runs all over this - weaving in with the rimshots and the hats - and oh her voice....
  • TAS 'round da corner'

  • TAS on said the gramaphone

    tapes1
    on the home front: still wrestling with the tracks and the tracklists.nearly there now....

    Tuesday, July 11, 2006

    summer blazedown

    dmz queue
    cheffatron
    dmz lineuppoax

    Another cracking DMZ, sound was the best it's been since leaving 3rd bass, I reckon. Atmosphere amazing as always...
    Chef kicked off with a greatest hits style set (wierd to hear 'midnight request line' three times before midnight in one form or another!) and some amazing blends - he's an inspiration. And then Benga stepped up with a massive half hour of new stuff - quite straight down the line, a little skreamesque (obviously, I guess, or is skream a little benga-esque? oh a bit of both...). N-type and yunx brought yet more and more excellent mixes and blends. Mala and Loe great as always. 'Learn' was a big favourite for me, if not anyone else in the crowd...
    The rewinds weren't too crazy, not enough new tunes I reckon, but you know, that night's not just structured for my benefit! Wish I could have stuck it out to catch the mighty Vex'd, but it was not to be. Couldn't muster up my normal levels of bass-fuelled energy and enthusiam this time - my feet and my neck were aching by midnight - I need a holiday...
    Check Chef in the mix - big up whoever caught this little moment on camera>>>

    Friday, July 07, 2006

    deeee-emmm-zeee

    It's like dubstep christmas eve...
    (Pokes dressed as santa?)
    DMZ! DMZ! DMZ! DMZ!
  • My Bloody Valentine 'we have all the time in the world'
  • Wednesday, July 05, 2006

    soon the thunder will come

    Rebecca Bulgaria Part One 080

    potential storms-to-be filling the air round here, making it thick and heavy and slow, greying the light...
  • carl orff 'carmina burana'

  • buy me

    DMZ summer blazedown only three days away, can't wait!

    Here's one that won't make the album, a little orff-esque. I was having a go at some grimey/orchestral business, imagining myself on A.R.M.Y. records or something, but as usual it got derailed by some hyperactive drum programming....
  • bass clef 'joy/evil'


  • If you've got a minute, this is a thing of beauty-
  • music= maths = music
  • Tuesday, July 04, 2006

    -a-u-t-o-b-a-h-n-

    kwerk
    Anybody want to buy me Kraftwerk's vocoder?

    I wish I was a cold as this & wrapped up in snowdrifts
    disco inferno - 'footprints in snow'

    can't find the wonderful "D.I. go pop" but there's at least something still available...
    mixing it e.p.
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