Friday

This epitomizes riding to this shit. Need to pack two gold 1200s on the pannier rack and just pop the most vicious wheelies through the PJs all day long fuck yeaaaah!

Cam'ron feat. Lil Wayne - Oh boy!

For a sec I thought that was the radio edit, but... it's not. You're safe.

Now back to rock week reality:

Tuxedomoon - No Tears

Wire - Ex Lion Tamer

The latter is from a dope Rough Trade comp. If you, like me, don't know anything really about rock music and are trying to, god knows why, reconcile with the genre, comps such as those by Optimo and Rough Trade Shops are key.

Emergency Post

Mira from Ladytron is officially the second best thing to ever come out of Bulgaria (the first being the computer).

I bought the Light & Magic 2xLP today, even though it's like... old (but rare). Holy, full of hits: Seventeen, Evil... just nutso. Here's a non-hit that I love above all.

Ladytron - Turn It On

Commendable use of vocoder, clap, and cowbell. Also, no one listens to Commodore Rock since the hit-filled albums came out. Get at that shit. The lyrics are distracting (classical Bulgarian poetry remixed, sort of... probably the biggest detractor from the success of Ladytron, ironically, but Mira looks good [I tell people we're related]).

The week-long rock playlist will continue as planned tomorrow, much to the horror of some (this was to cheer you up).

Thursday

Spending 17 hours at school is sometimes fun. Some highlights:

• Teaching classmates to dance to drum n' bass
• Secretly adding "SUCK IT!" PowerPoint slides to other groups' presentations
• Smoking a multi-paper joint at 2am while biking home (don't do it)

Tracks for today:

The Creepers - Baby's On Fire
(off an Optimo mix CD, so good)

The Jesus & Mary Chain - I Hate Rock N' Roll
(featuring some priceless lyrics, as well as truly capturing the self-hate theme of this week)

The above photo reminded me of something that made my day when I was 15:

Wednesday

HAHAHA you little sucker!

The following two songs need no explanation as they are both incredible in their own ways:

The Vaselines - You Think You're a Man
Soft Cell - Chips On My Shoulder

So I do this thing called Last.fm which basically logs what you listen to and thus establishes a network of 'musical neighbours' (orders of magnitude less haggard than MySpace, I would say). So some girl adds me as a friend, we never talk or anything, and after about two months, I notice that her highly stylized photo/illustration is of a girl with no arms. So I wonder, why are the arms missing? Looks normal otherwise. So not willing to assume the worst, I message her: "Oh MFG u have no armz!" NEXT thing you know, the message is deleted and I am deleted off her friends list. So... she has no arms? I feel very uneasy at the moment.

Tuesday

No, black jeans are not back, cause they make you look like the bottom half of Julian


I'm kind of thinking of a Triler Park Boys or FUBAR theme for my party. Any thoughts? I know I could never pull off either.

Songs for today:

The Aislers Set - Walked in Line (Joy Division)
This is off a live Peel session in '01, but it might as well be '79

Buzzcocks - Orgasm Addict
This came out in '77 and is incredible.

Monday

Nothing like eating shrooms at a Crystal Castles show then watching your demi-retarded friend try to steal a huge ass lamp from the bar and get busted, then waking up at 7 for a 150km/hr drive to class, then taking very detailed notes for an hour and a half in the wrong class, then spilling cereal on/in your superdrive.

Let's get this rock shit over with (I have a problem with this week's rock playlist because nothing will be really rock/overly classifiable. Whatever).

Electronicat - Till I die

Sunday

Can't even write straight you're so fucked up. To ease the transition to 'rock music' on this blog, I'll start off with synth rock.

Adult - Skinlike (Equation Mix)

I really didn't like Adult until recently. The lyrics of this song are too priceless to ignore, however.

BEAT ALCHEMY

Having an epic-as-fuck dance party in two weeks. If you know me, you should come. Beats will be supplied by:

DJ SG, hockeyanddeer's disco ballsack, perfectagon, askmob, and some other kids.

An example of what to expect music-wise:

Miss Kittin & The Hacker - Frank Sinatra

Over the coming weeks I'll put up one rock song (what?) every day, eventually forming a CD worth of tracks. If you were ever homeless in Montreal and were put through one of Tiga's dancing classes for homeless people, you should have ample technique to dance to something that isn't two-step.

OBEAST - Da Weight is Over

It's finally here: the non-dance mix is finished a day ahead of schedule and underbudget.

The mix itself is lazy, and the tracks aren't super underground or super new, but they are all good. They reflect a certain unclassifiable aesthetic in electronic music. Like a tolerable beat for when you're thinking about other things, like equations or sex.

My favourite part is when Vast Aire raps about being fat. Also, apologies to Guillamino for mangling his track (sometimes, when things really don't mix, you have to giv'er and forget about it).

Tracklist:

1. Boards of Canada – Chromakey Dreamcoat
The Campfire Headphase [Warp ‘05]

2. To Rococo Rot – Cosimo
Hotel Morgen [Domino ‘04]

3. Four Tet – She Moves She
Rounds [Domino ‘03]

4. Manitoba – Dundas, Ontario
Start Breaking My Heart [Leaf ‘01]

5. Guillamino – Senzala
Dia [Bank Robber/Dock ‘03]

6. Koushik – Pretty Soon
Be With 12” [Stones Throw ‘05]

7. Funkstorung – Red Shirt, White Shoes (feat. Carin)
VA – Documenta [Agenda ‘02]

8. Populous – Sundae Pitch
Queue for Love [Morr ‘05]

9. Susumu Yokota & Rothko – Clear Space
Distant Sounds of Summer [Lo ‘05]

10. Arovane – Eleventh!
Tides [CCO ‘00]

11. Mylo – Sunworshipper
Destroy Rock & Roll [Breastfed ‘05]

12. Yoshinori Sunahara – In & Out
Love Beat [Bungalow ‘02]

13. John Cage – 4’33” (18 second excerpt)
i.e. I had a DJ Charless moment and fucked up the mix

14. Ladytron – Whitelightgenerator
Witching Hour [Rykodisk ‘05]

15. Misty Dixon – Misty Disco
Misty Disco one-sided ultra-limited white label 12”, you’ll never hear this again

16. Pluramon – Self (Pluramon remix)
Bit Sand Raiders [Mille Plateaux ‘00]

17. Aoki Takamasa & Tujiko Noriko – Alien
28 [FatCat ‘05]

18. Static – Promesse De Bonheur
Turn On Switch Off [CCO ‘02]

19. Vast Aire – Cholesterol
Scissor Tongue [Def Jux probably, no idea]

20. Adolf Noise – 40 Kaninchen
Wunden S. Beine Offen [Plattenmeister ‘98]

21. Manual & Syntaks – Gacela
Golden Sun [Darla ‘04]

22. Prefuse 73 – Last Night (feat. Sam Prekop)
Vocal Studies & Uprock Narratives [Warp ‘01]

23. Rich Medina – Mindgames (Sneaky Pete Edit)
Steppin’ Again/Mindgames 7” [Ropeadope ‘04]

24. Quasimoto – Jazz Cats
The Unseen Instrumentals [Stone’s Throw ‘01]

25. Chris Morris – Porn
VA – Routine [Warp ‘01]

Oh yeah, this all fits on a CD nah mean?

How do you even put up with me?

Okay, non-dance mix is still not done, but nearly. It's a poor mix in that nothing is overly mixed together, but there are more abrupt breaks and changes, which is okay, since it's strictly non-dance and no one will be like "excuse me, I'm trying to dance". Ummmm... it will be cool, you'll see. I will set a deadline here so that people can like boycott me if it's late: Wednesay.

For now: The Pastels - Thru' Your Heart

Funny what surfaces when you set it to random. I wish records had a random option. It's possible to have a few different play patterns with careful cutting (by the same principle as overlapping multi-track recordings... mm, hard to explain).

Oh yeah, saw Vitalic on Friday. Holy moly. Good set, though short. It sucks when you're really famous and then you go somewhere and no one knows who you are, so your sets are limited to an hour.

wednesday non-dance mix

Swizz Beats

Okay, no, I'll post a real song.

Life Without Buildings - Juno

I really like this. The singing is very childish, but I'm kind of into that now. Also shares a name with a very cool synthesizer.

I first heard LWB on a Rough Trade Post Punk comp 2xCD (which is by the way excellent). These things never come out fully on vinyl. Once, I came across a Rough Trade 12" Electronic comp with like a million tracks listed on the back, and my retarded, probably high at the time self thought that all of the listed tracks would somehow be included on this magical 12", and it was only like 4 pounds, so I bought it. Three tracks later...

I hate Snowball

There I said it.

I found some stuff that is so utterly undanceable that it won't even make the non-dance mix (which is currently laying latent among homework).

Pipas - A Cat Escaped

I don't know why I always post sad music on Friday nights, as if I'm not about to buy like four red bulls, roll a fat nug, and draw testicles on my jeans prior to going dancing.

Anyway. The Pipas are very cute and have a lot of good songs. Remind me a lot of Camera Obscura and related. You don't hear it on this song, but there is mix of electronics and such that is just neato. Pandatone does a very good remix of 'South', look it up (what a fantastic website, Pandatone!) I haven't forgotten about the non-dance mix.

Love Beat

In my quest for the perfect non-dance mix, I have been scouring crates and harddrives recently, and coming up with interesting stuff. Example:

Yoshinori Sunahara - Balance

This is off the Love Beat album and is absolutely nuts. Definitely music to sex your woman to (better put it on 45, it's like 7 minutes). I really feel the bass line, the non-progression of it. I wonder if Japanese musicians stay true to Yamaha and Kawai synths the way some acclaimed Germans rock PPG Waves (To Rococo Rot, notably).

In case you're wondering, the above photo comes from a Japanese Love Hotel exhibit held at Columbia University in 2002.

Non-dance mix coming really soon, I swear. Kid 506 can't touch that shit.

This is one hungry bird!

Really obsessed with owls right now. They are beautiful and for some reason embody winter. I obviously like Snowy owls the best. If you're looking to do some learning, here is a very educational 'virtual owl pellet dissection' website. Holy moly!

Some owl music:
Niobe - Good Old Owl

Niobe is weird. Kind of Cocteau Twins-esque in that she doesn't sing in any particular language - it's all jibberish - but still really good. Also weird that someone called Niobe would have 13 tracks on her album and not 14. At least stay true to the mythology (dark as that surrounding Niobe is).

Architecture in Helsinki - The Owls Go

I guess this band is sufficiently well-known now, which makes sense because the music is good. Like Niobe, very childish, but in a different way. I guess liking owls is childish. Also be sure to check the Max Tundra remix of this song as it is quite good.

PS: this is old news, but Three-6 Mafia won a fucking Oscar! I'll drink cough syrup to that.
PPS: Non-dance mix coming soon. This one will have fewer mp3s because I actually have non-dance records.

Guillamino

Heard a set of Brazillian music compiled by Diplo recently. I'm not worldly enough to distinguish Spanish from Portuguese yet, so at first listen I thought Guillamino was something similar. But... it's actually way better:

Guillamino - Senzala

It's Monday morning in Barcelona now and people are going to the beach. Why aren't you there?

ULTIMATE LOW-BITRATE MP3 SOFTWARE DANCE MIX BATTLE 2006

Correct! It's finally out. This is an official battle with Jeff of 506, whose non-dancin non-mixin ninja tune ass I am about to whomp. This is the shit you've been waiting to ride to all along.

How this was made:

1. Take mp3s
2. Drag them into Ableton Live
3. I guess drag them to the right place so that they kind of make sense
4. Because you're too lazy to assign a fader, draw a fade envelope between tracks
5. Record the whole thing and smoke a blunt

The only actual work/beat-matching I did was record a weird Ladytron remix off a record because it was hard to download.

Here's a tracklist:

1. The Knife – You take my breath away (mylo mix)
You Take My Breath Away [Rabid ‘05]

2. Metro Area – Pina (SWAG’s Mas Jugo Dub)
Pina 12”[Classic ‘01]

3. Loose joints – Is it all over my face? (Larry Levan mix)
The World of Arthur Russell [Soul Jazz ‘04]

4. ESG – Moody
A South Bronx Story [Universal Sound ‘00]

5. The Juan Maclean – Crush the Liberation
Less Than Human [DFA ‘05]

6. Chicken lips – You’re Not Ready Yet
Echoman [Kingsize ‘00]

7. Isolee – Enrico
We Are Monster [Playhouse ‘05]

8. Boy Robot – Super Scorer
Rotten Cocktails [CCO 2005]

9. Chloe – I hate dancing
French Girls [Wagram ‘02]

10. Console – Dirt on a Wire
Reset the Preset [Virgin ‘02]

11. Swayzak – My Way
Loops From the Bergerie [Studio !K7 ‘04]

12. Apparat – Contradiction [L’usine Mix]
Duplex Remixes 12” [Shitkatapult ‘04]

13. Autechre – Rotar
Tri Repetae [Warp ‘95]

14. Lippok & Morgenstern – Please Wake Me For Meals
Tesri [Monika ‘05]

15. Ladytron – Sugar (Trevor Jackson vocal mix)
Sugar promo 12” [Universal Island ‘05]

16. Claro Intelecto – Contact
Neurofibro CD [Ai ‘04]

17. Kraftwerk – The Robots
Rough Trade Shops Electronic 01 [Mute ‘02]

18. Bangkok Impact – Aus Birgittes Tagebuch
Holland Ferox [Crème ‘03]

19. Midi Rain – Always (J. Saul Kane Vocal Club Mix)
Ellen Allien - My Parade [BPC ‘04]

Some of them are kind of mashed up and I play through all of Rotar because I love that shit.

Because this is a dead-serious battle, Jeff and I came up with a grading scheme, out of 100%:

1. Danceable/25
2. Not famous (15 for ‘perceived underground’+ 10x(unknown)/(total), need to know BEDMAS for this)
3. Creativity (different artists/labels/eras)/25
4. Overall (How much do you like listening to it?)/25

Vote on either blog, they will be pooled. Don't vote twice (I don't imagine anyone cares that much).

SO:

Proceed to ULTIMATE LOW BITRATE MP3 SOFTWARE DANCE MIX 2006.MP3 (mine)

and to PERFECTAGONISM.mp3 (Jeff's; fresh links on his blog if that fails)

Wrath of the Math

Inspired by Jeru the Damaja's upcoming show, I made something interesting yesterday. Was thinking about waves and how they're made by different devices. Square waves are my favourite and I was trying to picture what happens to one as a filter is applied to it. So I used a Fourier series to square out the corners of a sine wave. Goes like this:





So add up every odd harmonic of a sine wave with frequency n and amplitude 1/n. A filter excludes certain frequencies, so if you have a low-pass, for instance, you make the corners fuzzy. This makes it sound softer. This animation from Wikipedia should help:

I did this via brute force in Excel. At the side is a conditionally formatted spreadsheet with the first Pi radians (half a cycle). Note the trippy diffraction patterns.

Here's a song that makes extensive use of square waves:

Boards of Canada - Circle