Sunday, May 31, 2009

Sanguine Sunday - Electric Soul


We experimented with the conceptual orientation of "Electric Soul" for yesterday's edition of Sanguine Sunday Radio. Our sets are inspired by the music of the minimal synthesized grooves of Swedish outfit, Little Dragon, who are about to release their follow up to last year's brilliant eponymous debut. And lucky for us, we got a chance to catch up with lead singer, Yukimi, for a Q&A in the middle of the show. This episode is sure to sooth the somnolent and the perpetual anxious. Spasmodic therapy straight to the ribs, god. Enjoy!

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Sanguine Sunday - The Sample Edition


In store for you this episode on Sanguine Radio we dropped a full fledged show dedicated to the sample. What many don't realize outside the fairly insular Hiphop community is that the layering of samples cut from previously recorded tracks is a highly refined aesthetic formula. Taking bits and pieces from old grooves, the Hiphop beatsmith arranges and manipulates a montage of sounds to cast an entirely fresh composition. The art of sampling is no simple theft.

The emcee flows over these beats, letting their ink spill over the multi-tiered archeology. In a sense, the lyricist spits over history, rejuvenating the past with a new horizon of meaning, and informing the present with the soul sonic flavor of the ancestors. In fact, we could call this craftwork musical montage in line with Eisenstein's montage theories on film. I like to think that this sample episode is a continuation of the Sound Lesson series, just a lot of back and forth dialogue between the originals and the new songs which reference them.

For the past couple decades legal battles have entangled the sample aesthetic intrinsic to this unique craft of beat production. And in recent years, the laws become stricter and more intensified, casting a hazy gloom over the future of this musical style. We turn to our legal expert, Danielle Furman from Art Venture Law, to drop into the studio and shed some light on the copyright issues relevant to the recording industry. What she tells us is certainly alarming yet at the same time hopeful for the future of sample production. Tune in and tell us what you think about the current state of sampling laws--whether they restrict the proliferation of new forms of art or protect the recording industry and the artists it represents!

Monday, May 18, 2009

Live Cuts: Soulive Get Down

Soulive pt. 1 - Live Independent SF 05-15-09


Soulive pt. 2 - Live Independent SF 05-15-09


Recording my live cuts series at San Francisco's Independent couldn't get better. No searches, no accusatory glares at my hand held recording device which might just look explosive, and an amazing sound system. You know, I really need to research the legality behind what I'm doing.

Anyway, Soulive brought the heat! Three hours of the heat. They jumped off on the pure funk tip fresh from their new album, Up Here, piecing together a revitalized arrangement of Michael Viner's breakdance anthem, Apache. Peep the Soulive pt. 1 live cut right above. Listen to the brass section, the Shady Horns, just carry that groove to the funkified oblivion of the mothership! Singer songwriter Nigel Hall impressed everyone with the diversity of his flow, covering the works of James Brown and Curtis Mayfield with a soulful crooning completely idionsyncratic to his own style. Yet, Soulive went far beyond rejuvenating the classic grooves; they funkified their way into new space rock territory and funky soul outer reaches and uplifting call and response jams.

They arranged the nearly three hour set into a coherent meditation on the funk. The band streamlined their meandering styles with an expert subtlety, giving credence to their efforts as a tightly nit band. Yet, each personality had its time to shine. Each composition opened up endless solo improvisation on the drums, the horns, the keyboards and the organs, the guitars. . . the unstoppable grooves. At one point in the show, guitarist Eric Krasno and keyboardist Neal Evans calmly left the stage to imbibe in some drink while drummer Alan Evans blew up the spot on the solo percussion until they returned to continue the jam minutes later. The funk just keeps going on and on and on.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Singing a Song for My Mother


Hamilton Bohannon - Singing a Song for my Mother


This Mother's Day inspired me to sort through my knowledge of songs dedicated to the joyful force of motherhood. Nothing, and I really mean nothing comes close, to Hamilton Bohannon's wonderful tribute, "Singing a Song for My Mother." The jam is cushioned by other extraordinary grooves off Bohannon's first album, Stop & Go, a monster funky soul soundscape released on Brunswick Records in 1973.

Bohannon's composition for Singing a Song rides a delicate tension between melancholic estrangement and effusive love. He makes this feeling of distance from the comfortable security of one's mother a mood of intimate warmth rather than of hopeless alienation. And the song sways with an endless joy, just charged with a vulnerable yet affirmative solidity. It truly encapsulates the sensual resonance of a grown child's relation to his mother in sonic form. So what do you think, does anyone have Hamilton Bohannon beat on the ode to the mother tip?

Monday, May 11, 2009

Sanguine Sunday - Food

Enjoy the beat buffet we cooked up for your listening pleasure on Sanguine Sunday Radio. These tantalizing audible treats are sure wet your appetite, or your libido, perhaps both. I want to know from my six loyal readers, what's your favorite food jam? What did we miss?

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Sound Lesson: Soupy Jenifa



De La Soul - Jenifa Taught Me (Derwin's Revenge)


Maggie Thrett - Soupy


Wow, it's been nearly a year since my last sound lesson. I need some crate digger out there in the internet waves to help me out with this feat. Let's kick it off again.

The idea behind these sound lessons is to dig out the dusty history sampled by classic Hiphop tracks. It is always fascinating to hear an old drum break or vocal cut completely reworked into a new sonic landscape. The montage made out of old pieces not only rejuvenates the energy of those aged works, but it also constructs a fresh and new perspective on the musical resonance.

Although accomplishing such innovation with production skills is not an easy task. And many beat conductas have failed along the way to actually construct something blazing new out of the old. But then you got the geniuses like Prince Paul of De La Soul acclaim, an innovator and true taste maker of stylized sound and theatrical Hiphop (the originator of the album skit). Their highly original and brilliant 1989 album, 3 Feet High and Rising, bumps 24 fresh joints patch worked together by literally hundreds of songs from America's pastime. You can even get a taste of the breadth of the samples at sample lesson grandmaster, Kevin Nottingham's, archive.

There are a couple glaring oversights, but for me the most important one gives the life to "Jenifa Taught Me". What happened to stunner Maggie Thrett's anthem, Soupy, released in 1965 off DynoVoice Records? Soupy is a brilliant jam, just that raw uncut funky soul for yo ear. Not to mention that Thrett was also an actress, crooning that futuristic spirit on the mothership.

It makes me understand all the more clearly why De La got their minds all worked up for this girl named Jenifa, oh Jenny. But who the hell is Derwin? Just a virgin? There's got to be more.

Also, Maggie Thrett was an actress who elegantly displayed her futuristic beauty on Star Trek among other cult hits. That's her on the left up her. A sparkly mothership crooner.

Monday, May 4, 2009

Interview: Exile and his Universal Sound


Exile Interview (original)


Exile Interview (with beat)


I had the chance to chop it up with Exile after his performance with Blu at Berkeley's annual Hiphop in the Park festival. We sat on a gnarled park bench straight out of Middle Earth, and Exile traced the journey from his humble beginnings making music to where life is taking him now. I already thought Exile demonstrated some mad ingenuity in his creative process, but now I am ever more convinced that the man has just got a serious gift, and deep sympathy, for stylizing sound.

If you're not familiar with Exile's unique brand of earth power production, then you've got an expansive catalogue of music to experience. Spanning the gamut from soul spliced grooves tapping into the richness of the human spirit to gritty beats urgently calling forth action, this Los Angeles beatsmith is capable of a universe of sounds.

Exile gained notoriety for his masterful production for Blu on their seminal 2007 release, Below the Heavens, an album quickly garnering recognition as a Hiphop classic. However, Exile got his start much earlier in the game, collaborating with LA rapper and crooner, Aloe Blacc, in the noname backwards group Emanon. In 2004 they released a groundbreaking soundscape harmoniously politicizing music (or to coin a phrase, musicifying politics), The Waiting Room, and recently reissued their smoked out underground tape, Imaginary Friends, originally put out on the grind in '96. And before all that, dude made his way around beatboxing and flipping loops on the tape deck, or spitting helium induced raps about scandalous moms light years before Quas. And amidst all that science, he made a name for himself bombing the walls with sweet and sticky aerosol paint.


The honey drenched drums and textured harmonies don't stop there. Exile dropped Dirty Science in 2006, showcasing his talent collaborating with monster lyricists like Oh No, Ta'Raach, and Ghostface. And most recently, Exile concocted his first instrumental album purely out of samples from the radio. This concept album, simply titled Radio, stretches the creative process of Hiphop to its limits. Exile crafts music out of disparate elements broadcast on the air, bits and pieces of sound which he affirms himself, you're not supposed to make music out of. The end product is a compelling montage of human voices and mechanical noises layered upon each other, a rhythmic sound sphere depicting the way we see the world.

In tune with "Radio", we broadcast the interview with Exile on Sanguine Sunday Radio for our dedication to Hiphop in the Park episode. I decided to post up the interview separately in two forms. The first is tiered with Exile's beat mix for Mary Anne Hobb's Radio 1 show, and the second is the sparse interview in its original taping, full with the lush sounds of Berkeley's very liberated and never duplicated, People's Park. You can also cop the Radio 1 mix and peep the playlist of unreleased beats at her BBC home.

Dancing in the Rain: Hiphop in the Park '09


Bayonics - Live HHiP 2009


J-Boogie's Dubtronic Science - live HHiP 2009


Blu - Dancing in the Rain - live HHiP 2009


Yo god, I been bloggin' for a minute! The 13th annual Hiphop in the Park comes around, and I realize that this is the first time I'm scribin' double on an event. But more amazing than my own silly ass jazz, let's meditate a moment on UC Berkeley's Students For Hiphop group holding it down for the thirteenth year straight!

Think of it, each four years the torch has to be passed on to next generation of Hiphop heads in student form. In that case this is the fourth generation of beat driven park slangin' youngins who follow through with tradition and still push it forward on the next level for the new kids comin' up on the block. Thanks to yall for providing the livest jam for the whole community!

For those unfamiliar with the ritual, Hiphop in the Park is an annual celebration of the ultramagnetic spirit of Hiphop for the people by the people, and harmoniously enough, in Berkeley's very own People's Park. Breakers boast commandos on the linoleum, DJ's cut it up on the decks, graffiti writers bomb the boards, spit flows from MC's like hot blooded revolution, poetry expands the mental to the most high, and on the absolutely fundamental tip, the people from all walks of life celebrate the joy of living.

I admit I was worried this year. The rain clouds cast a dark spell on my expectations for the course of the Saturday afternoon. But even when I arrived at one, the park was already bubbling with over 100 heads, posted up with hoodies and umbrellas unwilling to let nature's gloom take away from their high spirits. By the time the ten piece funkified Hiphop outfit Bayonics hit it off, the rain had already subsided to occasional drizzles. And once Bambu ripped the mic with Phatrick cuttin' it up on the clocks, you could feel the shadowed rays of a sun just slightly reverberating in the clouds.


I definitely have to credit the highlights of the afternoon to J-Boogie's Dubtronic Science and the ever talented headliners, Blu & Exile. J-Boogie along with his brass band and a hoarde of mad decent lyristics delivered an amazing set in the lines of his recently dropped "Soul Vibrations" album sprinkled with more than a couple tracks of new material. And while Blu might have inhaled a little too much of that North Cali herb for his own good (memory loss!), he still together with beat conducta' extraodinair Exile, showed us why the duo is making some ridiculously potent music for the two thousands. Who knew dancing in the rain could sound, and feel, so fresh?

If you missed it, I got the live cuts, if the live cuts ain't good enough, rituals come consistently. See you next year!

Friday, May 1, 2009

Where Worlds Cross

The other day I dropped by Moe's in Berkeley to peruse their lovely book collection. I usually start out in art book section and then move my way up to the language department, ending with the sweet dessert of philosophy topped with some social theory cherries. That's the shit right there.

This time though I halted in the art books for a little longer than usual. I found a Prestel Publishing book in their street art series called "Paris Street Art" put together by Romuald Stivine and Vito Del Forte. Dragging my fingers through the brightly colored pages, I recognized many of the pieces gracing the Parisian street walls. I also recognized the neighborhood; the curving walls at the bottom of Parc de Belleville or the swooping landscape of Pere Lachaise, even the alley ways off Rue des Cascades or by Cafe aux Folies.


I would see many of these paintings in the magnificent Menilmontant neighborhood, right over the hill from Belleville, the two districts where graffiti artists lay down the law of beauty in the streets of Paris. Well, I would more than see them, you could say that I was a regular collaborator. Especially during the Winter months of 2005 and 2006 where civil unrest uprupted in the streets all over France in response to the oppressive use of police authority in the ghettoized suburbs and then later, the government's attempt to liberalize worker's laws.

Those were the glory months of graffiti during my stay in Paris; classes canceled for months, the feeling of uprising in the air, creative energy spewing rainbows from spray cans onto peeling gray walls. It was an empassioned and naively brilliant time reminiscent of the the acclaimed phrase of May '68 tattood to the walls of the old vanguard; "Sous les pavés, la plage."



Anyway, while flipping through the pages I had a thought, "Wouldn't it be crazy if one of my paintings just happened to be in this little flip book?" And sure enough, on a page parallel to the geometrically balanced works of l'Atlas, one of my schizophrenic little monsters gaping a toothsome mouth at the moon in torment.

What a strange experience. An experience where so two idiosyncratic and divided worlds cross spheres. I surreptisiously slid through the the streets at night and put up these strange scribbled marks on the stone walls and corroborated heavens of Paris. Days later, and it must have been only a few days because that painting was buffed quick, a street photographer by legal name Vito stumbled upon this horrific mural, and it touched him. He took a picture, expanding my transient moment into a pixelated image with thickness.

After assembling many other photos in the streets of that Winter and Spring of protest and violence, Vito finally published a book that was distributed worldwide. He searched out as many source names as he could, but in the world of graffiti the signatures (where they are actually authored) do not so easily trace back to an identifiable, legal origin. So there I was, holding this book in my hands, my mind traveling distances to recount the swiveling paths that finally closed their abysmal, cipher loops into that moment.

I wonder now, do I find out who Vito the photographer is and tell him of my experiences? Do I pursue this path of hardening the loops of anonymity into a reciprocal moment of direct acknowledgment? Or do I enjoy the pure incognito relations we developed, basking in the beauty of two contingent lives dialoguing from a resonant distance, and letting go? Or is this blog post, shot out in the depths of the internet waves, already taking the next step towards such mutual recognition?

My scribbled Demon which Vito published is mysteriously missing from this following collection of photos.




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