I’ve been on a streak of making mixtapes on different holidays. It started with valentines, jumped to leap day, then april fools. Now it’s tax day and I’m hitting you with some of the freshest. IT’s a pop heavy mix, and admittedly tough around the edges, but at the end of the day I can stand behind it and say that there’s something here for everyone.
Tracklist:
A$AP Rocky - Goldie (prod. Hit Boy) GRIMES - Genesis (Farrar remix) Jj - Beautiful Life Lana del Ray - Born to Die (G. Vump remix) Usher - Climax (Flosstradamus and Diplo remix) Star Slinger - Dumbin’ feat. Reggie B (Diplo remix) Toro y Moi - Drive South Machinedrum - What U Wanted 2 Feel Lil’B - Pussy on my Face Kanye West - Mercy feat. Big Sean, Pusha T, 2 Chainz Carly Rae Jepsen x Madeon - Call Me Maybe (DJ BMILK For You Bootleg) The Cataracs feat. Waka Flocka & Kaskade – All You (CRNKN Remix) Tycho - Dive (Memeryhouse remix)
Ok everybody I’ve just got to clear out some of these tabs that I’ve been accumulating in my browser by posting them here.
First, check out this video from this girl who made a song in Atlanta, my brother’s girlfriend is in the video, and she did a release party for it at The Graveyard, a popular joint in the East Atlanta Village. I think that’s kind of goofy though seeing as the video itself was shot at the Eastside Lounge which is around the corner from there. You know what really grinds my gears, all these folks who make one track and then go into full-on publicity mode, Exhibit A:
Personally I think it’s crap with almost no redeeming qualities whatsoever, save the b-boys. The bearded white dude at the beginning is Heroes + Villains aka DJ Megan Foxxx aka Daniel. He got picked up by Diplo’s Mad Decent label on the strength of some dubstep remixes of Brick Squad (Gucci, Waka) songs he did that became emblematic of the “trapstep” mini-genre. I hope he didn’t have anything to do with the music found here.
While this is bad, it’s not the worst song ever, really. Check the link for a 20 minute long pastiche of the most hated elements of music based on survey results. Think polka, kids voices, holiday themes and corporate shout outs, probably sounds even better on acid, which is to say that it’s actually pretty cool. I feel a bit richer for having heard it and I have my friend Bridget, of Bridget and the Puppycats fame, to thank for it. Listen to tracks from her EP on her bandcamp if you’re into acoustic indie-folk sounds..
Finally, this song is kind of old by now, but I just stumbled across it today. It looks like Rick Ross is trying to go mogul with his Maybach Music Group. Maybe DJ Khaled has something behind this too, it wouldn’t surprise me at all. This track stars Meek Mill, which is a pretty awful name. I guess a lot of guys have gotten away with being Lil’ this or that, but meek just reeks.
So I wasn’t planning on making it back to NYC until late Sunday night, but a gear malnfunction about half-way through the route left us with little choice but to use bungee cords and make it back to Albany any way we could to catch a train back to NYC, aborting our mission half way through. It’s all good though, the rain had made it less than fun and we ended up saving money by cutting our losses and just heading home. Nevertheless, it was great while it lasted, we clocked in 200 miles of beautiful scenic riding through upstate New York over 3 days and really enjoyed the natural beauty of this Empire State.
More than anything though, this vacation has left me struggling to catch up with all of my social media connections. I seriously feel like I’m caught in a techno-loop. What do I do first: Check and reply to emails? Catch up on Facebook messages and friend requests? Write yelp reviews of all the places that I stopped at along the journey? Catch up on news? Spend hours on hype machine exploring the newest tunes? Or last, but certainly not least, update my trusty tumblr.
Even a large mainstream music blog like Pitchfork, Stereogum, Earmilk, etc. has a hard time keeping up with the daily goings on in the world of music, so really my one man part-time operation cannot hope for anything like complete coverage of the sounds that abound, even just the ones that are found around town. However, when I hear about a new genre or movement in music, some generative new germ of sound that seems to be spreading throughout the music-verse, I do my best to share it with everyone. Which brings me to Moombathon.
Though Moombathon started in DC at a highschool homecoming by a DJ named Nada, it seems that everyone’s favorite cultural carpetbagger, Diplo, has taken it upon himself to popularize it just as he did with - Baile Funk, Dancehall, Sissy Bounce Rap, Dubstep, et al. No complaints though, he still has incredible ears for rare grooves and new beats, which really affords him his place as the one-stop-shop for the best in non-navel gazingly geeky dance music. Behold the Diplo Moombathon 2K11 mix:
And this jaw-droppingly-similar-to-the-MIA-aesthetic video he worked out with Dillon Francis and Maluca:
I spent some time on the Mad Decent website after hearing of this news, and while I won’t bore you with every detail of the record label’s sprawling online presence, since this is a tumblr after all I’d be remiss to not direct you towards Diplo’s Top 50 Hot Girl Tumblrs.
Oh and if you read all that stuff I wrote about art and philosophy yesterday, here’s a possible counter-argument. This article by fellow New School’r Patricia de Vries discusses the dialectical photography of fictional archive making and the space between fiction and non-fiction in photography. After reading it against my comments from yesterday I still wonder if we can call the work itself philosophicalwithout a discussion of it, or if it is the discussion of photography that is the philosophy.
Well for those that like where I’m going with this - that is living up to the name of the blog - I’d offer some more food for thought, this time in audio format. On October 22, 2009, Jurgen Habermas, Judith Butler, Charles Taylor, and Cornel West met at SUNY-Stony Brook to discuss secularism and the power of religion in the public sphere. Their lectures were all recorded and the audio is available here. Habermas is a little difficult to make out, but if you want to read his remarks you’ll have to buy the book that resulted from the conference. Charles Taylor’s discussion in particular is quite relevant to my interest in piecing together a workable balance between religion and politics in the West and beyond.
OK and just to end things on a musical note, thanks to Pitchfork for sharing this James Blake x Drake mixtape James Drake.
