Christian Fennesz and Ryuichi Sakamoto’s “Oto.” Their 2007 album Cendre inspired this video by Denis Mujaković.

I have to say this is one of my favorite jams at the moment. Hard Mix is 19 year-old Noah Smith, a producer from Greenville, South Carolina. Look out for his album Weirdly Different, coming out later this year.

A friend of mine and fellow Dubspot instructor DJ Shiftee just did this video for Native Instruments. It’s him chopping the fuck out of Dead Prez’s ‘Bigger Than Hiphop’ and a dubstep tune by Caspa called ‘Dub Warz’ (which by the way sounds like a blatant ripoff of Mondie’s ‘Straight Riddim’ grime tune, to me).

The performance is crazy. He’s using Traktor and Maschine from NI to chop and re-trigger the audio using cue-points. He did this to a tune of mine ‘Manhattan Timeslip’ from my album Flowers in the mix he did for the Dubspot Podcast, below, and it absolutely blew my mind. Listen to the original, and then check it out on his mix, it’s near the beginning.  Listen to what he did re-triggering the tones from the intro.  Mad.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Dubspot Radio Podcast: Ep 3 DJ Shiftee by Dubspot

Finally, he explains it all in this video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

“From radical turntablism (Otomo Yoshihide) to laptop music innovation (Numb), via classical instrument hijacking (Sakamoto Hiromichi), Tokyo’s avant-garde music scene is internationally known for its boldness.

While introducing some of the greatest musicians of this scene, “We Don’t Care About Music Anyway…” offers a kaleidoscopic view of Tokyo, confronting music and noise, sound and image, reality and representation, documentary and fiction. “We don’t care about music anyway”…

In other words, “we make it and that’s all”. Beyond the music and beyond its performance, the future and mode of existence of a city, and society as a whole, are in motion.”

For the lucky BK people this gem shows this coming Friday 16th at 8pm as part of the Rooftop Film Summer Series at the Old American Can Factory 232 3rd Street, Brooklyn, NY (info).

New hotness from New York homies Cubic Zirconia feat. our boy in South Afrika Mr. Ghost Bones himself Spoek Mathambo.  I’ve known lead singer Tiombe Lockhart for a while now ever since me and Zack released a track of hers on Shadetek Records (back when that was still a going concern) and always loved her singing.

Now she’s teamed up with Nick Hook and the rest of the Cubic Zirconia fam to form this band project and they are killing it a lot.  I got to play with them and hang with them at SXSW this year and they put on a killer show.  Sort of house music with a band (for lack of a better term) really fun live and Tiombe is a super charismatic front-woman.

The video is on some ill Orson Welles one-shot auteur film making shit directed by Khalil Joseph and looks like a million bucks although knowing that Cubic are on a similar DIY go-for-self vibe as we are and releasing on their label I’m guessing it didn’t cost that.  Download this minimix from their new Black and Blue EP and vote with your dollars to support good independent music on Tuesday June 15th when it drops.

Their release party is this Tuesday June 15th at Damon Dash Gallery (?!) with an art opening to boot.  Flier:

This, their previous video ‘Josephine’ is crazy too.

Click here to view the embedded video.

We have a pair of tickets to give a way to the performance on Saturday. The first reader to respond to the question by sending an email with the correct answer to family@duttyartz.com (and make sure you include the word contest in the subject line) wins the pair of tickets.

The ticket contest is OVER! The contest question was what does “mapfumo” means in shona? Answer = “spears”

NORA CHIPAUMIRE + THOMAS MAPFUMO & THE BLACKS UNLIMITED
May 21 & 22 at 8pm
Kumble Theater at Long Island University, Brooklyn Campus

Click here to view the embedded video.

More from the 651 ARTS site;

This work takes on an Africa in conversation with itself, asking difficult questions and celebrating its achievements and humanity. lions will roar… is a visual, aural and kinesthetic equivalent of Africa’s great cities: Kinshasa, Johannesburg, Dakar and Lagos — cities full of life, contradictions, grace, defiance and power. Featuring dancers Chipaumire and Souleymane Badolo of Burkina Faso, with original music performed live by Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited.

lions will roar… is funded by New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project (NDP), with generous support by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the MetLife Community Connections Fund of the MetLife Foundation.

Additional funding by Creative Capital, The Rockefeller Foundation Multi-Arts Production Fund, The National Endowment for the Arts, and a Choreographic Fellowship from The Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography (MANCC). Commissioned and presented as part of 651 ARTS’ Black Dance: Tradition and Transformation program, primarily funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

Presented in association with Dance Theater Workshop.

This program is part of “Black Brooklyn Renaissance” presented by Brooklyn Arts Council, in partnership with Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation.

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s mostly a showcase for his jaw-dropping technical prowess (the guy actually makes the tapping technique popularized by Eddie Van Halen sound cool), which goes beyond the virtuoso habit of playing a ton of notes and actually tells a story. There are a ton of subtle structural and sonic details (rhythmic shifts, open spaces, buzzing strings) that keep me coming back to this clip, which now that I think about it, has been pretty time-consuming…Anyway! Kalhor has this to say about him (via):

“I appreciated at once that Erdal is a very good musician, a very serious baglama player – but he is still, normally, working within the demands of Turkish music today,” says Kalhor. “Ihis means songs and maybe a minute of playing in free time, and then another song. In Turkey, if you have a CD the market says you need 14 tracks and you have to have singing. I didn’t ask Erdal to sing. I explained to him, ‘I’m looking for something that departs from nothing and then goes into developing material and then goes into something else really improvised. Maybe we’ll go for a climax in terms of melody and energy and keep it there…And I’m looking at this for a form for maybe an hour of music.’ And he said, ‘I haven’t done that before, but I would like to do this.’ And he showed that he was indeed very much able to do this, and many of the things he played surprised and delighted me. What I’m trying to do in these kind of projects – whether with Shujaat or, now, with Erdal is to learn the music and experience the world through their eyes. And I am not trying to change what they do so much as offer them another vision of it. Musical Turkey, for instance, is very much based on composed songs. Improvisation of the kind that Erdal and I undertake, developing material, is something that has been forgotten…”

And here’s a video of them playing a beautiful piece together live, with Ulas Ozdemir and Ali Akbar Moradi:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Once again Lil B has left me wordless. Has there ever been harder swag than this? #BASED_4EVER

Lamin and Matt kicked it with Lil B the last night of SXSW. I took the night off to make cognac and rootbeer float cocktails over 3 A.M. Nachos Supreme. I think B freestyled over Andy’s MacGyver Guacharaca. I’m starting to feel like I made the wrong decision.

I’m sure B is making some backstage moves as well- but as far as the public eye can see- he’s taken the over-saturation of digital media and marketing to the extreme. The man has no shame – he’s the Tila Tequila of indie rap- but underneath it all is a startling vision and undeniably powerful sentiment -he’s the open source Rammellzee. Eshun wrote, “In HipHop, science breaks it down in order to complexify not to clarify.” B just signed to Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em’s label Stacks on Deck. I rest my case.

Is it wrong that I cant wait to play this out? The 320 hunt begins.

Anyway, Pursuit Grooves is a female producer/singer/rapper from BK who I’ve never heard of but has a new record out on dubstep label Tectonic although it’s not dubstep. I like what I’ve heard. Also, dubstep labels take note: you need more female energy. You are all turning (have turned) your genre into a big macho dick grabbing testosterone fest and it’s turning me off. As rising dancehall artist Professor says in one of my recent favorite songs:

“Nuff Bwaaaaaay / a gwan like dem nuh wan roll wit de gyal dem… Some bwaaaaay would rather roll out wit one bagga man fren… my yout it no look good.”
– Professor, Roll With The Gal Dem

Pursuit Grooves “Fox Trot Mannerisms” Tectonic TECCD008 by Multiverse

Click here to view the embedded video.

And here’s the Professor tune I was quoting. Big tune on Don Corleon’s new Gala Riddim.

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I actually LOLed at this one, posted by Eddie Stats over at Okayplayer’s new(?) Large Up blog. The last and first of his Toppa Top 10 fake reggae songs are the picks for me. Eddie Murphy taking a polished and very funny dig at Bob Marley (seems pretty clearly aimed, I could be wrong) and then some youtube guys hilariously misinterpreted transcription of Busy Signal (with jpegs!).

Kenyan superhero/first viral internet sensation from Kenya – with a massive following on Facebook and Twitter

“After platinum, albums go Makmende”

“They once made a makmende toilet paper, but there was a problem: It wouldn’t take shit from anybody!!!”

“Makmende hangs his clothes on a safaricom line and when they dry he stores them in a flashdisk!”

(via …My heart’s in Accra)

(props to Chief Boima for the heads up)

New heat from 77Klash produced by Drop The Lime.  Klash is going in on some deep anti-nuclear annhilation lyrics over a cool dubstep/wobble house beat by Mr. Venezia.  Look out for the “Shadow of Death EP” coming soon on Trouble & Bass Records, I’m interested to hear what they come up with.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Weird new video from Nguzunguzu feat. Leilah Weinraub for the track “Got U” which is off the brilliant free Nguzunguzu EP –still up for grabs, so get it in your life.

Click here to view the embedded video.