Mix Tape Wars, Vol. 1

I was eating at this Peruvian restaurant yesterday with some friends (by the way, please try Lomo Saltado. it's delicious). We were talking and the topic of conversation turned to my friend Nicole and her mix CD, and how great it was. I then brushed it off by saying that it probably wasn't THAT good and I sort of said that I could probably do one better than hers.
So the idea came up to do a battle of mix tapes.

MIX TAPE WARS: Me v. Nicole.

Rules:
There are no rules. It has to fill up an entire blank CDR, which is about 80 minutes. No themes or anything. Just make a good mix tape. One that can be listened to in the car, I guess... well that's what I'm going for with my mixtape.
I'm pretty excited.
The winner will get their mixtape played on the air. I'll devote one hour of my noise rock show to playing it.

I'll also post it up on the blog in a zip. file so you can download it... maybe via rapidshare or whatever it's called.

I'll keep you posted.
-Ryan

cold souls

just saw the trailer to Cold Souls starring Paul Giamatti as a fictionalized version of himself.
warning. at first this movie looks exactly like some kind of faux-Charlie Kaufman rip-off type shit... and you're kind of right. the story is very heady and kaufman-esque.
paul giamatti as himself decides to like see some scientific corporation that deals in removing the souls out of people. that's like being john malkovich meets eternal sunshine of the spotless mind... just with a different actor to study and a different scientific procedure.
but then he wants his soul back? uhm... were they even trying to be discrete with the plot of this?

but watch the rest of the trailer and it looks like it might be pretty funny.




paul giamatti sort of plays himself in every movie so i don't see what the point of using him as some sort metaphysical observation of himself is? im already confused by this flick.
eh but then he goes to Russia and it looks like hilarity might ensue there. i don't know: just give me a movie with Paul Giamatti in a ushanka and i'll pay top dollar to watch it. in 3D. on IMAX.

manifest destiny, thursday the 18th

a friend requested a text of my playlist from Thursday's show.

hey: listen to my show every thursday from 4-7pm. Experimental and Noise Rock!


boredoms - acid police
oneida - the adversary
japandroids - wet hair
ponytail - die allman bruder
death set - had a bird
parts & labor - satellites
deerhunter - rainwater cassette exchange
abe vigoda - wild heart
grouper - disengaged
grouper - heavy water/i'd rather be sleeping
the microphones - i want wind to blow
pocahaunted - divine flesh
fuck buttons - colours move
boredoms - god from anal
gang gang dance - glory in itself/ egyptian
sonic youth - massage the history
dirty projectors - temecula sunrise
magik markers - state numbers
cymbals eat guitars - like blood does
pink mountaintops - vampire
spacemen 3 - mary anne
bibio - haikuesque (when she laughs)
st. vincent - the strangers
double dagger - no allies
lightning bolt - into the valley
boris - track 01 off of Pink
the ruby suns - morning sun

frontier psychiatrist!

whoops!
yesterday i forgot to post anything. i was kind of busy with school and my radio show. then i got home and sort of went to sleep? woke up just now.



well my friend, rafael, has been telling me to listen to the avalanches' Since I Left You for a while. I finally heard it about a couple of months ago and found it to be good... but I did think it was a bit flawed. for one: the record is just a bit too long. two: because there's so many samples being used it was hard for me to pin-point my favorite songs.
So i kind of brushed it off.
But then I was shuffling through my iPod while driving and boom: Frontier Psychiatrist comes up.
It totally reminded me how many gems are peppered in that CD.

The Avalanches have not done a CD since that first one in 2001.

The Avalanches - Since I Left You mp3

cheers
-ryan

boredoms

june 17

sugarette

bibio's new record is coming out real soon. it's called Ambivalence Avenue... and I've got an advanced copy of it on my bed.





i've listened to some of his previous efforts here and there because i used to host an ambient/electronic show on Radiate FM and I played him a couple of times.. i would like to say it's sort of an electro-acoustic version of The Avalanches. maybe i'll even go as far as saying he's similar to Boards of Canada.
his new one is pretty great!


lots of samples and loops (hence the Avalanches comparison) and lots of ambient intertwined between the beats.
I have to say that I'm pretty in love with this record and that it's a completely hidden gem. it might become a sleeper and fall under the radar but i think it deserves some praise.

the only thing that might stop it from getting the praise it deserves is that the record suffers from being a bit "all over the place". you'll get a couple of funk sampled-oriented tracks and then some really light folky Zombies-like summer songs... and then in between those will be a really rad electronic ambient track. the record seems to be too various. but i still find it to be enjoyable-- and what's great is that its flaws work with the whole of the record.

one track in particular stands out. it's called Sugarette. it's track 06 and it starts with this ambient soundscape which is then interrupted by a chopped beat and synth samples. and there's this electro flash of beeping buttons at the end that gives the song some complexity and fun. I really like it.

i can't find a proper link to an mp3 of it.
but i just saw that Pitchfork Media hosted the song on its featured Forkcast section not too long ago.
here it is.

Bibio - Sugarette

you gotta click on the Lala player to hear it.
hope it calms

cheers
-ryan

why are you so weird?

i just got into the Knife. i'm 2 years late. i'm sorry that it took me this long. i really am.
i really like their mix of ominous melodies and minimal electro-pop/house arrangements.
this made me a new fan.
then after a bit of light research i find out that they're pretty secretive and usually wear masks like so:



but you never know... maybe they have like some really rare interview footage on youtube.
i find some swedish interviews in their native language but there are no subtitles... so i don't understand it.
then i see this video interview by some guy who looks like andy samberg and michael showalter from the lonely island and stella, respectively. i think it's from a TV portion of a blog or something.



and i said: "there you were, interviewing a really mysterious, talented group of musicians and you chose to ask them the worst, most rude, blatant questions. and then you pretty much implied that they were "gimmicky"?

absolutely terrible and a waste of an interview. get out my face.


by the way, my friend is still in the process of giving me a tracklist for that mixtape she gave me. it'll go up soon!

june 14

rainwater cassette exchange

downloaded the new deerhunter EP, rainwater cassette exchange.
it's okay. it's a bit too driven by motown pop songs... which is cool. but i guess i'm more into ambient deerhunter than i am with poppy deerhunter. still, the title track is pretty well-written.



so i think i'm going to upload a mix CD my friend made for me for my birthday. i just want to get a concrete tracklist to post up and have on sendspace.
but for now, lemme leave you with the title track off of rainwater cassette exchange.





Deerhunter - Rainwater Cassette Exchange

cheers
-ryan

the freestyle (roc boys)

so today i've had all the tracks from Wale's The Mixtape about Nothing in my mind.
a pretty brilliant record about nihilism in hip-hop all embodied through Wale's sick delivery, clever wordplay, and montage of Seinfeld clips.



this record seriously makes me want to watch Seinfeld again. it's been so long and i'm almost positive i've seen em' all... but i'll give it all to do it again.
one specific track from the mixtape is one called The Freestyle which has Wale rapping over a P Diddy(?) beat (the one used in Roc Boys by Jay-Z on American Gangster). This has to be the best thing P Diddy has ever come out with... it's a shame for him, though, that he didn't have to open his mouth to do it. Just kidding-- I LOVE P DIDDY. i mean now i do.



"hey bruh, check out this dope-ass beat."

The Freestyle (Roc Boys) - Wale

cheers
-ryan

it's bigger than religion

so at the animal collective show, in between both bands, there was a DJ playing pretty fucking good music. usually the owner of the club dj's from this little balcony above the stage, which looks creepy, and he plays really bad 60's and 70's hard rock music.
but this time around we were hearing some other DJ and there was a song playing that my friend krista seemed to know the words to. i also happened to really like what i was hearing at the time and then my friend krista told me it was from erykah badu's last record. i was blown away. i've never heard any erykah badu song sound so fucking raw. mainly it was the beat i was attracted to.



looked up her last album, new amerykah, pt 1 (4th world war)--easily the most confusing album title ever-- and i listened to it.
I REALLY LOVE IT.
definitely a new spin on neo-soul.
anyway i've been obsessing over that one song since yesterday night.



Erykah Badu - The Healer

cheers!

black dice/animal collective (june 09, 2009)

so. last night animal collective and black dice graced south florida's presence by playing a pretty epic set at culture room near downtown ft. lauderdale.
and the verdict?
LOUD AS FUCK.
now. i'm kind of assuming that black dice and animal collective were the ones that were loud and not that the house monitors were too loud... because i've seen noise acts at culture room and they were never this loud.
first off, let's just state that tix were sold out a bit too early and that culture room might possibly not have been the best venue to house such a grandiose group whose shows are known for their light show. revolution in downtown ft lauderdale or even the underrated club cinema would have been better choices. everyone would've been satisfied and would have been able to see the show.
also, culture room's size could have been why the show was so goddamn loud.

so i expected a ton of new animal collective fans to come out of the woodwork to come and listen to the dancier, more melodic tracks from animal collective... so it was to my satisfaction to see their faces when black dice started their set with the loudest fucking noise that would put Loveless fans to an ear explosion. i loved it. they were great and i kind of knew what i was getting into when watching black dice since ive listened to a couple of their records.
they were great and they were loud but they definitely overstayed their welcome. their set was a bit too long and i really couldn't take much more of it by the 40th minute out of an hour.
footnote: people started moshing (?) really surprised and really annoyed.
and also a note to the skinny black guy with dreads who started the moshing and commenced a confrontation with my friend and i during animal collective's set: eat a dick.



black dice finished.

animal collective set up. it took about 10 guys including the group to set up their equipment.
5 years ago these guys were playing acoustic guitars and a bass drum. now they're up on some daft punk shit.
well they started and what can i say. they were fucking great. i didnt expect any less.
also: they were clubby. there was a lot of bass. so that made everybody wanna dance. and im the kind of guy that likes to just stand in the crowd, arms crossed, and just watch/listen to the show. but man, i was getting pushed by people, being jumped on and shit. it was boredline annoying and it almost fucked my experience.
the set was pretty much mostly new material from the new album with some really obscure Campire Songs peppered in as segues.



then they played Brothersport... i never had so many goosebumps with a song live. it got soo dancy at the end of the song i couldn't really help but jump around and dance. it was pretty glorious.
they came out for an encore and it was good.
all in all. a pretty amazing show.

p.s. i wish panda bear had played at least one solo track. from what i saw from past set lists he usually plays comfy in nautica, but this time around zilch.
:(

p.s.s. pande bear = man crush

like the sunshine

i really like the field. he's a swedish ambient techno artist who recently released his second album, yesterday and today.
i definitely advise copping his first one, from here we go sublime, because it's just so goddamn elegant sounding. i think i read an article saying you can listen to it while at the airport and it blends perfectly.
i didn't really love Yesterday and Today that much at first because it sounded a little too complex in terms of instrumentation since his first album was simple and very minimal... but it's kind of a grower and i'm starting to really like it.




one song that's been in my head all day is his cover of Korgis' wonder "everybody's got to learn sometime" and it comes out as a twist on the classic. enjoyable.


The Field - Everybody's Got To Learn Sometime (Cover of Korgis song)

so i'll be posting a review for that animal collective show at culture room soon. possibly by the end of tonight if i have nothing else to do.

cheers

a lot of animals

animal collective have been on tour for a bit. but they haven't come to miami in a while, for the exception of Panda Bear who did a set at Karu & Y (?) during art basel december 08'. which, by the way, i was not able to enter because I wasn't 21 and +. side note: fuck you karu & y!
anyway. they're performing tonight at the culture room in ft. lauderdale. my friends and i are excited at the fact that we're even going since tickets sold out 3 months ago. whoo-- that was close.

let's see. i'm rummaging around the dome to see what i've been into so far today. let's see. i'm currently ripping the new sunset rubdown into my macbook.
i guess i can just upload something from animal collective.

we who stayed behind

martin van thurah.
here's what I can tell you about him.
he's a filmmaker. it seems like he's also a cinematographer as well... filmmaker IS kind of vague so I guess I'll just leave it at filmmaker.
he directed fever ray's "when I grow up" video which is pretty rad and is couple of blog posts under this one.
and from what I can tell, he's probably from sweden. one reason being that fever ray is swedish and this short film is in swedish.
here's a trailer:



he kind of has this neo-realist aesthetic in his camera-work.
i'm not well-versed in filmmaking vernacular so excuse my ignorance.

anyway, I just wanted to comment on how typically cliched this short film looks complete with ambiguity, electro-acoustic noise, and people with facepaint. still, though, it looks cool.

octet

if you know me or have even looked at my last fm (last.fm/user/plat3g), you might already recognize that i'm a pretty big fan of Deerhunter. i mean there's really not much to say, only that i love them with all my heart and that they should keep doing music forever. though, it seems that bradford cox (lead singer and guitarist) is a bit self-destructive... it would be a shame for him to lose his life to something like alcohol or drugs. anywho, their song Octet has been kind of playing in my head all day during work. a brash instrumental song that combines ambient, progessive, minimalism and shoegaze... if godspeed you! black emperor were to make a super group with Sonic Youth, this song might be a deep cut on the album. but since that won't ever happen, it'll just resort to being a deepcut on their first major debut Cryptograms.




well here's the song for your hearing pleasure. it's a crafty little gem that spans 7 minutes... but it's a growing process and is the best representation of how they come with such good fucking music-- a physical sonic manifestation.

Octet - Deerhunter

when i grow up

once in a while, my friend and I would sit down by a computer and exchange music video knowledge with each other and then watch them for some kind of makeshift music video marathon.

well, my friend showed me the video for fever ray's either second or first single from her self titled album.  the album is really ominous and dark... yet surprisingly listenable.  it's actually kind of a breath of fresh air.  anyway, this video is pretty rad for it has two of my favorite things in the world:  dirty pools and wild-ass mysticism shit.

komodo dragons

my current youtube video obsession has been anything that deals with komodo dragons.
footage of them eating an animal or just an exposition of the komodo dragon.

here's a pretty good one:



apparently i'm the only one that didn't know komodo dragons have fucking 8 billion strains of bacteria in their mouth which can cause blood poisoning if it comes in contact with any wound or blood in general. hence why they're called komodo dragons.

do to-do loo loo:

cheers
-ryan

june 5th