When working on the recent Mixpak piece about Venezuelan ghetto house, Changa Tuki, we came across a lot of interesting music that wasn’t what we were looking for. So this post is a bit of a footnote to that one. Over there, we mentioned DJ Yirvin as an artist doing the Tuki thing. We linked to one of his mixes on Youtube, which has no tags with his name and is only identifiable by a voice calling out “YIRVIN EL MAXIMO CREADOR!” near its start. We did, however, find this merengue/reggaeton joint with his name on it, which is also called out in a similar fashion near the end. It starts off in rapid rolling drum fashion in a digitized update, but quickly drops into a halftime swagger, then effortlessly jumps back and forth throughout its entirety. Hyperspeed horns and accordions make their way through the drum intricacies, regardless of which pace the cut is taking. All the while they rap about shaking and rubbing it like a guiro. (Photo of Caracas by Cesar Gutierrez.)

Like a yellow mercury bath on acid, these tracks follow the dead end not taken. They’re experiments in next age sensations with agents detrimental to the health. Whether it be an addicted fate mistaken for love or memories addled by the hazards of modern life, they inhabit a similarly discolored haze. The Weeknd reinterpretations were both featured on BarrelHouseBklyn, a new blog dedicated to hip hop. The first is a screwed take by Mike G of Odd Future that brings out grimier, more emotional facets only discovered in the dredges beneath 57 BPM. It’s part of a mixtape chopping and screwing the entire Weeknd album, although you have to dig a bit to find who’s screwing what. The second is a dark 2 step remix by Vin Sol and Charles McCloud that pitches up the tempo and vocals but remains in the low life. And finally is the Howse cut, which is a derailed 808 wandering and part of a juke-inspired FreEp by the Boston-based producer. This track shines its erie glow most brightly between 1:35 and 5:50. It was found on the Weird Magic blog by way of Friendship Bracelet. All three of these blogs are new additions to our updated NY Music Blogroll. (Image by Pete Zelbey.)