Everybody likes Italian dates, right? Well I got some:
First: on Wednesday May 16, I’m giving an artist talk in conversation with Simone Bertuzzi at the Triennale Museum in Milan. Right after that, Soundways Records boss Miles Cleret will spin some records, and I’ll close the night with a DJ set. This event is free, and the DJing portion of the evening takes place in the design museum’s backyard garden. It’s nice.
And on Thursday May 17, I’m heading to Venice, where I’ll be performing at the Teatro Fondamente Nuevo. Details. This will be my first time in Venezia, so come say hello!
Now this –
I just returned from Macao here in Milan — it’s a 32-story skyscraper which was squatted 10 days ago by a crew intending to transform the building (which had been shuttered for 15 years) into a ground-up contemporary art & culture center. This morning they got evicted by local police, which simply meant that everyone left the building but the crowd outside the Macao kept on growing… Fascinating moments over here. This Vogue Italia blog post provides background coverage and photos.
We’ve been sitting on this amazing EP from Chants since late last year and it’s finally time to bring the Night After EP out to the world. The EP will drop on May 29th on gorgeous full color vinyl (peep Shadetek with a copy above) and digital. It’s just in time for Winter in the S. Hemisphere and the increasingly insane weather patterns the world over. Intense headphone blizzards with enough low-end to climb the walls of a Funktion1. Dummy premiered my favorite track off the release earlier this week–stream ”Ice Harvesting” below.
You can pre-order the vinyl here. All vinyl purchases will come with a DL code for the full digital package including incredible remixes from the homies Lōtic , Old Money Massive, and adoptahighway. Layout from our steady design boss Talacha.Net featuring the gorgeous photo work of Chris Wainwright. GET FAMILIAR
“Green Bus Tour is a growing community project out to inspire a culture of conscious living through creative collaboration and by promoting a healthy, sustainable lifestyle. We are an ever-expanding community of artists, musicians, healers, visionary thinkers and sacred activists that co-create participatory transformational events, featuring interactive art and live performances” (Green Bus Tour)
This Saturday, May 19th 2012, Thornato, 2melo, and myself, Atropolis, aka Cumba Mela Collective, will be joining the Green Bus tour to celebrate NYC annual Dance Parade. This eventful celebration will turn NYC into one large dancehall, displaying music and dance forms from all over the world. We will be rocking it on top of the Green Bus, so if your looking to enjoy the day and get down to some heavy global beats come on down to Manhattan and join the fun.
This is going down from 12pm-3pm, we will be starting at Broadway and working our way down to Tompkins sq.
Last month, iBomba at Bembe was on fire with a remarkable performance by Titica, Angola’s kuduro queen and first transgender performer to get international acclaim. Thanks to the collaboration with Chief Boima and Many Tribes One Blood, Titica’s performance at iBomba added to our motivation to challenge crowds and open up a space for innovative performers and DJs to collaborate and shape the dancefloor. It was also what got me in the official mix with Dutty Artz.
[Photos Above]: Titica performing at iBomba @ Bembe
I’m really proud of the intentionally chosen lineup of guest DJs we’ve had since iBomba took on Mondays at Bembe by storm this year, including DJs Chela, Itch-13 (Sonic Diaspora, Chicago), Rekha (Basement Bhangra) and Ripley (Surya Dub, SF) – who have all added a different sound and vibe to what is becoming a regularly well-attended 2nd Monday of the month.
By hosting iBomba, I’ve been able in a sense to curate the nights, purposefully highlighting dope female DJs when we can, and with Titica’s performance last month, hopefully adding to a conversation around queerness in music and performance coming out of the Global South.
There’s a lot we have brewing for the summer and beyond, so keep to date with what iBomba is up to. This Monday, May 14th, come hit the floor with us as Cluster Mag mastermind, Max Pearl, guest deejays alongside residents Beto and Mios Dio. Facebook event here. Peep the listing in Remezcla.
Cumbia meets Dancehall meets that good Global Bass.
Next Wednesday, May 16th, award-winning translator Humphrey Davies (The Yacoubian Building, Naguib Mahfouz, Elias Khoury) will be the special guest on my weekly radio show. Davies is going to share some of his favorite sounds from Cairo and the Middle East — everything from spellbinding Quranic recitation to a surprisingly convincing defense of Nancy Arjam. We’ll also discuss his process of literary translations from Arabic to English. We recorded this episode at Humphrey’s apartment in downtown Cairo last month, and I have to say, you are in for a treat! Eloquent insight from a man who has made Cairo his home for more than 35 years.
As always, you can subscribe to the Mudd Up! podcast for downloadable versions, issued about a week after FM broadcast: . Also useful: WFMU’s free iPhone app. We also have a version for Android (search for “WFMU” in the marketplace).
Fresh off playing out in Milan along with Venus X and many months flitting about the world Dutty Artz own Chief Boima rejoins us to make you sweat. This episode of the party we’re doing as a fundraiser to pay for a much overdue re-vamp of the Dutty Artz website. All you need to do is come and get drunker than you usually do and you’ll be contributing to a good cause. Myself Matt Shadetek, Atropolis, Taliesin and Lamin Fofana will soundtrack that for you.
DJs:
Chief Boima
Matt Shadetek
Lamin Fofana
Atropolis
Taliesin
The Cove, 108 N. 6th St. Brooklyn NY (Take L Train to Bedford)
Tomorrow I’m DJing an *all-ages* party at 285 Kent in Brooklyn with Prince Rama, Eva Aridjis, Weird Magic, and more. FB invite. dance dance explode dance.
I spent today working on a mix, which meant that by the time the radio show rolled around, I was all beat-ed out, so it starts off on a classical/float/peat-bog tip. Now streaming:
Podcast subscribers: We’ve been a bit behind on getting the last month or so out, but things should be back on track shortly. Maybe already? The podcast version gets trimmed a bit, so tune in live or catch the stream for maxximum mudd.
Two months ago, I sat down with Mandip Kalsi to talk about New York’s party scene, building community through music, and the move of his Philly-based Dutty Chutney party to New York. Mandip, one of the resident deejays of Dutty Chutney expressed the intention of the party as a place to blend a variety of genres from the Caribbean to South Asia, electronic to bhangra, soca to reggae, and dancehall to hard-hitting bass. Already known in Philadelphia, we discussed how the move was the opportunity for DC to push the envelope with new guest DJs and add new flavor to New York’s nightlife.
I’d never been to DC while it was in Philly, so I got the chance to check it out last month when the homie, Geko Jones, guest deejayed the first DC in Brooklyn. Currently hosted at The Cove, I saw the music attract a diverse crowd, one that in my experience is sometimes difficult to bring out to that part of Williamsburg.
And so we’ve been talking about how to keep creating a space that attracts and challenges new crowds, and how to keep growing Dutty Chutney as it finds its niche in New York.
This Friday, guest DJ, Beto (iBomba) tears it up with residents Mandip and M-Ski. As the host of the iBomba, I’ll definitely say you don’t want to miss this Dutty Chutney vs. iBomba clash – future dancehall, future bass, future everything.
[Philip Glass photo by Gabriele Stabile for The Fader]
I interviewed Philip Glass for the current issue of Fader magazine. You can read it here. We talked at length about the importance of artistic & economic independence, ideas on digital language underpinning his work, driving a cab to cover health care for his collaborators, and how many hours of sitting-at-the-piano composing constitute a good day for him. What can I say? The man is an inspiration.
Philip is the coverboy for this, the Icon issue, so Glass fans will find a lot more in the magazine — but even if you’re not familiar with his music, the interview shares some powerful insights about autonomy & integrity, especially in wake of May Day #OWS.
excerpts:
Dressed in a long sleeve black T-shirt and blue jeans, Philip Glass eases onto a couch in a corner room of his spacious Dunvagen studio. A few blocks away are the SoHo buildings where, nearly 50 years ago, Glass staged concerts in derelict lofts to air his maddeningly beautiful ideas about sound and rhythm. His venues have grown but still there’s a feisty independence and curiosity about him.
Running a hand through his trademark rebellious curls, Glass says, “We’re stealing this office for the afternoon. But it’s okay. I pay the rent.” The joke rings true: Glass is the boss around here, he just doesn’t act like one. The soft-spoken composer often slips from “I” to “we” while talking, the habit of a lifelong team player. Listening to him feels like hearing a cabbie hold court—naturally social, disarmingly unpretentious, happy to share observations on a pathway that is more important than the destination.
How many hours a day do you work on music?
Well, it depends. A good day for me is eight to ten hours. An excellent day for me is 11 hours. A bad day is three hours. My bad days are most people’s good days. I go much further than them. Like, I was up this morning early, I took my kids to school, I spent two hours working, I’m talking to you, I’m going to go home, I have another meeting, then I’m going to work probably three to six, then I’ll be up to five hours, and then it’s six o’clock, then after dinner I’ll work another two or three hours. So this will be a seven or eight hour day.
As things become more financially difficult for someone of your stature, how applicable is your pathway for a younger generation?
In terms of the physical ways of working, there are a lot of new things that have happened in my lifetime. I’m talking about the digital technology that is available. I’m still writing with pencil and paper, let’s put it that way. A lot of composers are now working directly with computers. There’s a big change, both in music and in other areas too: in photography, projection, performance. We’re living in a digital world. However there are many things I do which are applicable. For one thing, develop an independence of work. I’m not connected to institutions, I’m connected to live performance and to working collectively. This is very much a part of my generation. We were not what you call “the establishment.” This independence made it possible for me ?to do things that were unusual, that people hadn’t done before. The idealism that was part of the way I worked—working really and truly for the development of a new language of performance, of music, without regards to a successful career or a commercial career of any kind—you can still do that!
I had wonderful parents. My mother was a school-teacher and my father had a small music shop—he didn’t make any money. So I didn’t have a family fortune behind me. I had my energy, and I had other people. When young people today ask, “How do we get started?” I say, Look around and find people your own age. Work with your own generation. Make alliances among artists of your own time and these will be the people that you’ll work with. Don’t expect help from the older ones, they’re not interested.
The Listening Archive is a non-profit art organization that “promotes the cultural importance of music through its mission to map the diversity and generational shift of ideas in musical listening”. One of their goals is to open a conversation amongst producers, artists, scholars, musicologists, sound engineers, and musical enthusiasts, to explore their artistic decision, influences, and processes.
In order to document these conversations, they are hosting a fund-raiser this Saturday, May 5th from 7:30-11:30 at the ISSUE Project Room, to help with production costs.
The participants behind this project include Dave Portner (Animal Collective), Eric Copeland (Black Dice, etc.), Lenny Kaye, Stephin Merritt, Pete Seeger, Leon Fleisher, Jon Hendricks, Judd Greenstein, etc. They are also working with the New York Public Library as well as the Library of Congress.
The line-up lives up to the mission statement of this organization, hosting Gregory Spears, a contemporary composer who blends romanticism, minimalism, and early music; T de Long, founder of PS1′s Warm- Up Series; and then the sounds of myself, Atropolis.
I am looking forward to sharing this space with these performers, it is going to be a really great event filled with a unique selection of musical performance, food, drinks, and a silent auction.
Something fresh happening this Saturday night in Brooklyn. Our friends Weird Magic and Cool Places are putting together what sounds like a recipe for disaster or just something very thrilling and amazing! Either way, it’s going to be an exciting and special night, and you will be sad if you miss it.
announcing weird magic sessions, a different kind of party where a revolving cast of djs and sound technicians go head to head, collaborating and exploring new sonic terrain, weaving an eclectic sonic tapestry while you dance. we’ve teamed up with cool places soundsystem to bring you this supremely talented cast of djs and noiseniks. expect the unexpected!
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cool places soundystem and weird magic presente
weird magic sessions:
world bank
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all nite collaboration • improvisation • sound clash
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simultaneous djs:
massacooramaan
howse
co la
ripley
intl tapes (coco zoabi)
lamin fofana
weird magic djs (rezzie + colby)
taliesin
rainstick
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live drums:
chili mane (janka nabay / skeletons)
butchy fuego
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live vizualz:
vid wwworld
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@ yay stadium (20 meadow st, bk)
sat 4.28.12 – 11pm-late – all ages – 7 bux
I haven’t played in NYC for awhile, so there are many things to be expressed. On the dancefloor. With Mykki Blanco (who’s in that rich moment where variousmagazines can’t decide which gendered pronoun to use), Prince Rama, & more. Coolest of all– it’s an 18+ show!
^CARLOS V + OSCAR_1992 + STRYKER^ Present: DIM 5.0: Fri., May 4. 285 Kent Ave. 10pm. $10.00. Ages 18+
LIVE EXORCISE DANCE PERFORMANCE BY *PRINCE RAMA*
BEATS: DJ RUPTURE <> PRINCE RAMA <> EVA ARIDJIS
<>STRYKER <> MESS KID <> WEIRD MAGIC <>
I’ve been remiss in posting up my radio shows, but to get back on track — last night’s show – Throw Me Anywhere, Lord -, started with the powerful acapella spirituals of the Georgia Sea Island singers spread from there. (Anyboy read the new Alan Lomax biography? He recorded the Sea Island singers back in the day).
Now streaming:
And if you are going to Coachella this weekend, friends and I will be DJing an Ace Hotel takeover tomorrow, Friday night. Details.
