Be forewarned, however, ‘cuz this ish is not for the faint of heart. It’s a caffeine-pill-washed-down-with-Redbull, insert-illicit-drug-here fueled journey. Dude hits Speed Racer tempos for most of the entire hour.

He hits enough of the appropriate notes (selection-wise, if not compositionally) to satisfy the majority of heavy bass fans. No specific genre could claim this mix. But it’s confined to UK style wobbly, electronic bass. While other forms of bass infused sounds exist, this mix is havin’ none of that.

For a British bass dweller, Kanji has got a healthy interest in the scene here in the States. Nearly a third of the names in this remix saturated, 23 cut mixtape hail from the East Coast. Mostly, this role is filled by Trouble & Bass, the bassline kings of New York, and dubstep overlord Starkey, who also reps T&B, but calls Philly home. Since NLLR is based in Brooklyn, this may come as no big surprise.

On a related note, Franki Chan, founder of IHeartComix, dropped a mix for NLLR as well. It’s also worth your expensive time.

That about sums up how I’ve felt about this British style for a while now. It caused me spasms; teasing me with   its possibilities, but forcing a landfill of trash through my headphones. Maybe it was just ‘cuz I’m in here in New York, not London.

The latest DubWar poster. By Miss Ashes 57. Cop a limited edition print here.

Well, now the DubWar heads are pounding the concrete streets of NYC, and I finally got a real taste of the style with the party they threw last night.

I didn’t really know what I was getting into, but from some of the mixes I heard on their website, I suspected it might be what’s up.

See, I’ve heard dubstep mixes where I had to suffer through twenty minutes of monotony before I heard a decent dub. Whole sets where I didn’t hear one minute of melody or complexity. I couldn’t even tell whether or not I was listening to different songs because they were all so similar as to be identical. It’s almost as if a lot of the heads in the scene are more concerned with identifying with a genre then they are with making good music - like so many of the purists in the prolific variety of electronic sub-genres.

But it’s a style that appeals to me with its forward looking attitude, as my man Blackdown is fond of saying, who was present last night. Dubstep caught my interest since I first heard some random snippets of its bomb-raid-like bass and rusty metal electronicness. I’ve been eagerly  waiting to find examples of the style that pushed beyond the excessive loopyness and simplicity to attain the title of "music," and DubWar brought that shit.

I’m not sure who I heard - whether it was the Bomb Squad, (the production team behind Public Enemy who performed live last night), Loefah, Dusk & Blackdown, or any number of the resident DJ crew. But I do know that I most definitely came away feelin’ like the music I heard was worth the scraps of cash left in my hole strewn pockets.

DubWar definitely filled the emptiness my fiendin’ for good dubstep caused, but it took more than that to get my sleep deprived ass outta bed and into last night’s  freezing wind. It was also the chance to hear this ish on a good system. I wanted the bass to rumble everything around me like the subway. And dudes did their best to provide.

Unfortunately, the police showed up and made them turn it down.

Killed the whole night.

In fact, the whole club - called Love, of all things - was hurtin’. The place was underground, and after you entered, you descended a flight of stairs that looked like a five year old’s idea of hell, what with its black light toy graffiti, grimy corners and all. They had this lounge that was pretty fly, with two open stories of loft spaces that held beds inside little caves. But the whole area was damp from this waterfall that took up a big part of the room. I couldn’t help but think about how bad the mold looked once you turned the lights on. Besides the water, you couldn’t really hear the music in there either. The only speakers were on the dance floor, and there were none in any of the other rooms.

Six dollars for a Red Bull with no alcohol? Riiiiight.

If this night is going to blow up, they’ll have to find a new spot. But keep your eyes on the DubWar cypher, ‘cuz they just might bring the fifteenth British Invasion.

Since Culture System did an earlier post on the Chicago electro-rockers Walter Meego a few months back, I figured it would be appropriate to let you know that they are coming to Brooklyn on August 30th at Studio B.

My Open Bar, everybody’s favorite cheap drunks, are putting together this electro night, which will be headlined by VHS or Beta and include a Deejay set by Finger on the Pulse. Team Robespierre will also perform.

If you RSVP through Going.com, you can avoid the steep cover charge that Studio B has been known to level people with.

Skroop!

UPDATE: The Meego afterparty will be at Home Sweet Home.

Its owner may be the first black man to own a store on the area’s major thoroughfare, 125th.

Dude opened his store "before R & B music got its name".

Sounds like the type of thing the Landmarks Preservation Commission should be paying attention to.

<via the NYTimes>

Read, watch, listen. That’s the theme of the day.

Preferences and Professional Ish

Blockhead’s music is a staple for many downbeat and underground hip hop heads, but he isn’t messing with any of that.

Granted, his instrumental joints are a natural addition to that "Ninja Tunes sound" that thrills downbeat fans. And he also produces the beats for some of the idols of underground hip hop cyphers like Aesop Rock and Cage. Nonetheless, he just isn’t feeling that kind of music.

"I don’t need to listen to a thousand white rappers tell me about their feelings. I just don’t care," he told me in a recent interview. "Underground hip hop can be really pretentious and kind of selfish."

"I know that Aesop is a very influential dude to a lot of underground rappers," he went on, trying to advise kids coming up on the circuit. "But at the same time, I think that even he’d admit that he’d rather they listen to old Rakim than him to get their influence."

True to his statement about his preference for commercial hip hop - if he had to listen to something new - a tinny Clipse ring from his celly interrupts us a few times during our discussion.

Okay, so if not underground hip hop, then what about downbeat, you might ask?

Nope.

"I don’t listen to downtempo music, I just make that kind of music sometimes," Tony Simon says.

In fact, if it wasn’t for one of his earlier labels asking him to make an instrumental album, he never would have done so. "At that point," before Music By Cavelight, his  first full length instrumental album, "I’d listened to the Shadow album maybe twice."

Regardless of who’s idea it was to explore instrumental work, Blockhead is keepin’ it movin’, On Wednesday, he kicks off a two month tour in Philly to promote his new solo joint called Uncle Tony’s Coloring Book, which drops next Tuesday.

A departure from his other solo work, his new instrumental album is more uptempo than the others. His reasoning behind this move was to "broaden the spectrum of what people might expect" from him.

"I got kind of pigeon holed after my first album as like downtempo and depressed guy," the former, self professed "wack rapper" says. "I’m just not that dude." While a little faster, the album does continue much of that melancholy vibe which put him on the map.

Unfortunately, the album will only see limited release. Between only 5,000 and 10,000 copies are slated to be pressed, it won’t be released in Europe, and iTunes will not be carrying it either. That’s the problem with making an album composed entirely of samples. His label doesn’t want to deal with the heat. "They’re just scared," he admits.

Adding to the troubles, his work for Aesop ran into sample problems too. "We had to totally rework four of the seven beats I did," he tells me.

But Uncle Tony will be farther under the radar than the Aesop album, and that’s actually the way he likes it. The smaller distribution lets him choose the samples he wants to, without having to deal with the legal troubles he might otherwise encounter. "When I made this album, I didn’t really intend it to be a big release. So, it’s kind of working out exactly how I thought it would."

To see all the video clips of the interview, click here.

Thanks to JayCut for providing gear.

.

In an indie-dance phenomena, Daft Punk and The Rapture have begun ravaging the country together with their infectious electro goodness. I have to say, the pairing of these two was a great decision. If you can’t get up and dance to this, I probably shouldn’t make fun of you because you’re likely to be in a wheelchair or on crutches.

But while the concerts have garnered fever inducing attention, the after parties might just steal the show. For those of you who prefer the club scene than the live concert (or simply missed your chance to get tickets for the shows before they sold out), this is for you. And the best part is, you can get in free…

If you’re in NYC, just RSVP through Going.com here,  then show up at Studio B on August 9th and you’re straight… Assuming you can afford anything once inside. I’d guess you’d need to show up much earlier than the 10PM start time to get in.

For rest of y’all not in NYC, visit MasBlog for details on your city of choice  - and thank them for throwing these parties.

"People don’t dance no more/They just stand there like this/They cross their arms and stare you down and drink and moan and dissss"

Below are MP3’s of the various sirens used by the NYPD.

The Yelp

The Wail

The Hi-Lo (or, The European)

The Air Horn

The Fast

The Manual

The Rumbler

(I actually did this post a while ago, but when I updated my blog software, the post got messed up. Sorry it it’s not fresh.)

Damn, M.I.A. is taking this 90’s thing full throttle. Not only is every body in her new video (filmed in Jamaica) dipped in 90’s throwback, her video and web stuff is all full of bad 90’s web design.

The video is a promo for her new single, "Boyz", which drops tomorrow, and the song is definitely a club banger. This joint is thumpin’, but after a while, I’m ready for it to be over. It really doesn’t do much. But, as I was reading the lyrics - which say things like "How many no money boys are Rowdy/ How many boys are Raw? How many no money boys are crazy? How many start a war?" - I was struck by her delivery, even if it is lacking in subject matter.

Maya is scheduled to perform in Brooklyn on two dates: on July 21 at the Village Voice’s Siren Festival, and July 25, at Studio B. These would be good places to listen to "Boyz", rather than here on your laptop.

She’s had a history of difficulties getting into the States and missing shows, though. Will this be any different?

The girl has quite the story, which might have something to do with her troubles. As a little girl in Sri Lanka, her father was part of an organization the US labels as a terrorist. And her song "Sunshowers" probably didn’t help, what with lyrics like: " You wanna go?/You wanna win a war?/Like P.L.O. I don’t surrendo," and " Its a bomb yo/So run yo/Put away your stupid gun yo/’Cos we see through like a protocol call/Thats why we blow it up ‘fore we go."

But she argues that she was only trying to show people around the world what things are like in Sri Lanka.

"When I did it, I felt, ‘Am I seriously imposing some weird, strange way of seeing things on people?’ " she told the Washington Post. "Now it feels I was right all along. It’s totally relevant, and it’s what’s going on, and if that was the most shocking, outrageous thing, then look what’s happening every day. . . . It’s not that I’m shocking and injecting into society some strange concept. I’m just reflecting, piecing it together in one piece of work so you can acquire it and hear it. All that information floats around where we are — the images, the opinions, the discussions, the feelings — they all exist, and I felt someone had to do something about it because I can’t live in this world where we pretend nothing really matters.

"I have to show people what’s going on in Sri Lanka. It’s much better than me banging on about myself and where I get my hair done. It seemed more of a useful thing to do with my music."

Lots of stuff, but not much I’d go out on a limb and see. This here is a little list of some of the more interesting jump offs.

Update: Hopefully none of you took any of this info too seriously or anything, because apparently, neither did the organizers of "Make Music NY". I only know about the shows I worte about here, but two of those four had the wrong listings. The Morningside event was nowhere to be found, and the Cave show didn’t start until sundown (that was a mission of a bike ride for nothing!)

In other corrections today - this one my own fault - the Cave Art Space is named after a natural cave, you know, like a hole in a wall? Nothing to do with virtual environments.

This DJ Day remix of Nas’ “It Ain’t Hard To Tell” is ridiculous!

Granted its not as good as the original, but what is?

I’m surprised it never picked up more.

The prolific DJ Ayres and Cosmo Baker flip some of that for us with this 12″. It’s got two remixes on it, a Blackalicious cut and a Missy Eliott song, with lyrics that are sped up a bit and laced over some classic house thumpiness. Both known to have quality deliveries, the DJ’s made a good choice in picking them. After all, house is a genre meant to be danced to.

The Blackalicious is expectedly smooth, so using the word butter is the only proper way to praise it. And the Missy track is also what you would expect for her: dark and crunchy.

For what it is, these dudes do it nicely with these two remixes (but I can’t vouch for the rest of their hip house CD, which is like 25 songs long)

Sorry, no MP3, but the link has got Real Audio files to listen to.

Also, if you’re diggin it, these two dudes and their boy (together, the trio is called the Rub) will help you shake your booty, if you’re so inclined, right here in Brooklyn at the venerable SouthPaw not too far in the distant future.

Sat, May 5th
10 pm - 21 and over
125 Fifth Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11217
718 230 0236