reframe

Gnarls Barkley cover Reckoner

// January 22nd, 2010 // No Comments » // Art, Music & Poetry

Gagging Order- Radiohead

// May 26th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Art, Music & Poetry

I found a track that I’d never heard before, from my favorite band. It’s that little bit extra when you thought you’d taken everything long ago. “Gagging Order” by Radiohead.

Minty Fresh produced an unexpectedly brilliant mash-up of this track with Jay-Z.

Kutiman pwns Youtube

// March 11th, 2009 // No Comments » // Art, Music & Poetry

Kutiman, an Isaeli funk musician and producer, puts together incredible funk, dub, jazz tracks mixed entirely from Youtube samples. Whatever you are thinking right now, you are wrong. It is so much better than that… Even now, your assumptions are drastically underreckoning. This is the best thing on the internet right now. Be blown away.

This is Jazz

// March 4th, 2009 // No Comments » // Art, Music & Poetry

Days Like This

// January 30th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Art, Music & Poetry

Tilly and I made the most of “Days Like This” festival, which coincided nicely with my trip back to Oz this January. Kicking off from a supremely sunny Sydney Sunday, ranging into a long, relaxed afternoon and well into one of those summer nights in which the warm breeze seems to hold you almost above the ground. The line up was unbelievable, so I’ve posted some great tracks below. Enjoy.

Atmosphere, from Minnesota, play Lovelife.

Brother Ali,from Minnesota, rhymes a cappella.

Fat Freddy’s Drop, from New Zealand, perform “Dark Days”

Mr Scruff, from England, plays “Get a Move On”

Flying Lotus, from California, playing “Fly Lo’s Like Wo“

DJ Vadim, from Russia, plays Milwaukee

Pathétique and Peanuts

// November 27th, 2008 // No Comments » // Art, Music & Poetry

Sufjan Stevens

// September 24th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Art, Music & Poetry

I just discovered Sufjan Stevens- an American folk artist whose deeply enchanting voice tempts the ear, but whose work cuts deeply through the empty gloss of the balladic singer-songwriter. He sings folk about Jesus, about serial killers, about UFOs and cancer and Chicago, about US representatives to the United Nations and allusions of some Rock River Valley. I think I’m about three years behind the indie kids on this one, but it’s way too beautiful to be too cool. Below are a couple of tracks that are at once gorgeously light and seriously heavy.

Reckoner by Radiohead

// June 27th, 2008 // No Comments » // Art, Music & Poetry

Reckoner

You can’t take it with you
Dancing for your pleasure

You are not to blame for
Bittersweet distractor
Dare not speak its name
Dedicated to all you
all human beings

Because we separate like
ripples on a blank shore
(in rainbows)
Because we separate like
ripples on a blank shore
(in rainbows)

Reckoner

Take me with you
Dedicated to all you
all human beings

- Reckoner, by Radiohead, written by Thom Yorke.

This coming Tuesday- Radiohead, Gara and Brodie. It’s like going home.

Booka Shade and the Birth of Electro

// May 29th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Art, Music & Poetry

Tonight, I will be seeing/dancing/being in the proximity of one of my favourite electro/house groups- Booka Shade from Frankfurt. Here is something to listen to and nothing to watch, Mandarine Girl by Booka Shade.

In high school I held strong opinions denying the status of “music” to anything with an electronic beat. Punk had taken its toll- largely in the shape of sore neck muscles, large blue/purple hair and a notion that “society” was something to be yelled about. A fortuitous meeting with a jazz guitar teacher ignited a revolution in taste and within months I was listening to jazz divas and big bands. Still, electronic music seemed rather too much like the soundtrack to car racing games to be of any interest. Hip hop DJs built the bridge for me, but it wasn’t until I came to Europe, the global heart of electronic music, that I started to differentiate between genres, styles and quality, to discern what I liked and what to avoid. Now I’m fairly able to unpack the amorphous and rather hilarious genre descriptions of the electro world such as “happy hardcore”, “goa trance” and “intelligent drum-and-bass”. But there is one style that forms my nemesis, a style that has risen to immense popularity during my time in Amsterdam such that it is almost unavoidable on any given evening, a style known by its adherents and dark practitioners as “minimal techno”.

To understand the travesty that is minimal techno, I have to take you back to the very beginnings of techno. And here’s the catch, like veritably all modern western music genres, techno was invented by African-Americans! I hear minds being blown world-wide. Techno, seemingly pretty much the whitest music there is, looks largely designed for people who cant handle too many complications in their rhythm section. But travel back with me to Detroit in the pivotal year of 1980. Detroit had largely avoided the disco fad of the 70’s but kept strong connections to Funk and Soul. Of course the big news in Detroit and everywhere else in 1980 was the coming computer revolution. And damn, a funk band leader don’t need no degree from MIT to talk about “funk technology”. A common view emerged that in the near future we would be typing on computers (possibly in space), wearing computers (possible in flouro colours) and listening to “computer music” (possibly in devices made by a computer company). Mix this funk-futurism with the emergent sounds of European synth-pop (Kraftwerk etc) and “computer music” of the future was only steps away. As Derrick May described, the sound of techno was “…like Detroit… a complete mistake, it’s like George Clinton and Kraftwerk are stuck in an elevator with only a sequencer to keep them company.”

Now, minimal techno has nothing at all to do with George Clinton, despite being his estranged progeny. It is a repetitive melee of tiny bits and beats with no tempo progression, melody or build whatsoever. It is fau “arty” background music for imperceptibly nodding one’s head to in elevators. There is no funk, no feeling in minimal techno, a music so stripped down that it tires the ears and bores the soul. Were George alive today (and he is) he would surely declare that minimal is all foreplay and no sex… A Maladaptive Melody… The Defunctive Funk.

Drifting Ocean

// April 22nd, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Art, Music & Poetry

Drifting - composed and played by Andy McKee
Myspace, Label: Candyrat

(link via bloggingheadstv)

For the those who think their “oh my god, utter guitar genius” level cannot go any higher, prepare to realize your former belief system was ruinously corrupted. Welcoming Mr. John Butler.

Ocean - composed and played by John Butler
Tour Dates

(thanks Westy!)