I found it, I found my summer sound and a reason to write again!

BLK JKS‘ sound squirts a breeze through my meandering, melting brain - psycho and psychedelic, this South African band must be heard, watched, etc etc.

Over on their blog you can have a wicked time reading all the dizzy, half-aware half-not-there posts + DWNLD some sounds aka mp3s.

Spread this, but not too fast, you dig?

BLK JKS @ Harriet's Alter Ego

Links: BLK JKS blog

Source - RCRD LBL, whence you can get a remix of the track Summertime

I’m not getting free festival passes for posting this but

Going.com has recently launched in 25 new cities across the country. To celebrate they’re giving away tickets (VIP & GA) and trips to various music festivals and tours all summer long! For more details check out the Summer Of Love group page on Going.com: http://going.com/summeroflove

Here are the current promotions running on Going - there will be many more announced soon.

BONNAROO (http://going.com/bonnaroo) - Win a pair of VIP passes to the festival plus round trip flights, 2 VIP passes to the official opening party and 2 pairs of Onitsuka Tiger sneakers! Featuring: Pearl Jam, Metallica, Jack Johnson, Kanye West, The Raconteurs, M.I.A. and more!

THE PALMS w/ REV THEORY (http://going.com/RevTheoryVegas) - Win a trip to Las Vegas to party with Rev Theory. Includes 2 night stay at The Palms, round trip flights, and VIP access to the Rev Theory album release party.

HOUSE OF OM SAN FRANCISCO (http://going.com/houseofomtour2008) - Win a trip to the final date of the House Of OM tour in San Francisco including round trip air, hotel accommodations, and 2 VIP tix to House Of OM.

ROCK THE BELLS (http://going.com/rockthebells08)- Going is giving away 2 VIP and 2 GA tickets to each and every Rock The Bells show in the US. Featuring: A Tribe Called Quest, NAS, Mos Def, Meth & Red, Raekwon, Ghostface, De La Soul, and more.

PAID DUES (http://going.com/paiddues08) - Going is giving away free passes to the remaining dates on the Paid Dues tour. Featuring: Murs, Rakim, GZA, De La Soul, Sage Francis, and more.

POPPED MUSIC FESTIVAL (http://going.com/popped2008)- Going is giving away 2 VIP passes and 4 pairs of GA passes for the 2008 POPPED Music Fest in Philly. Featuring: Vampire Weekend, Mates Of State, Gogol Bordello, Dan Deacon, and more.

ROTHBURY MUSIC FESTIVAL (http://going.com/rothbury) - Going is giving away 4 pairs of tickets to Rothbury plus 4 Epiphone guitars. Featuring: DMB, Widespread Panic, John Mayer, 311, and more.

ROCK CITY MUSIC FESTIVAL (http://going.com/rockcity) - Going is giving away a pair of all access wristbands to this years Rock City music fest in Detroit. Featuring: Sloan, The Von Bondies, Matt & Kim, The Death Set, and more!

All people have to do to enter is join the specific group for each contest. Winners will be notified via email.

My personal choice in bold type.

In this wide world of colours, races and ice-cream flavours, we have a couple features in common. We like to keep ourselves safe, and in the realm of things we’re used to. Even acting all experimental doesn’t save you from this curse. Even if in your head you’re the shit, you’ll never know. World music is different simply because not enough people listen to it. But if you want to skip being spoonfed “indie” for once, peep these artists from the brand new record label, Mobilarts.

Ghana’s Kusun Ensemble - you can see for yourselves. Afro beat complete with ritual dance.

Kusun Ensemble - Seaboy mp3

Among the label’s artists - Tafwik Ouldammar, Daehan Saram, Franck Colman - guess who’s

a. the Morrocan pianist mixing it up with jazz

b. the multi-instrumentalist hailing from Togo

c. the crazy Korean group with a tinge of hip hop

Hints:

Tafwik Ouldammar - Evasion mp3 (careful, it’s 30 MB)

Daehan Saram - Ah - He mp3

Franck Colman - Go to Zion mp3

この世界は、広いだなぁぁ。

Recently I feel hit by a wave of good sounds. Last year was mostly mediocre for me, but 2008 is laying it down! Right so this should be a review or rather a preview, the Quiet Village album hits stores May 12th.

You better get ready, put your party hats on, feast on this, then re-evaluate the electronic genre. I can’t use too many words, or I’ll drown the goodness.

Quiet Village Gold Rush mp3

Quiet Village Pacific Rhythm mp3

Silent movie - microsite listen to tracks, retail links and stuff

Gav’s excellent blog Just Like Music has settled down in a finer location. Choc full of elitist sound patterns. Check it chumps!

Portishead have linked up with Current TV for an exclusive 40-minute broadcast performance. The show includes eight songs from their new album, Third, and will air multiple times on the television channel (see showtimes below) over the following week. 

• April 14, 2008 at 8pm EST / 5pm PST
• April 15, 2008 at 3am EST / 12am PST
• April 16, 2008 at 6pm EST / 3pm PST
• April 17, 2008 at 12pm EST / 9am PST
• April 18, 2008 at 12am EST / 9pm PST

via Blind I Is For The Kids

— Note: GMT=EST+4. Right? Right?

Don’t argue with me, just go download the new single, Hrs:Mins:Secs for free. Counting them till I see the dude live, make a note peeps in Bucharest. 

image courtesy of music like dirt

București - Rokolectiv, 13 aprilie

The Taste Of Bitter Almonds mp3

Just Briefly mp3

Daedelus [myspace]  

Isn‘t English the omenous language. 

Jesse Futerman - that’s what’s up. 

Whilst obsessively listening to Jesse’s music, it seemed so apparent that this was not in-your-face type of a beat, more like a silent rumble waiting to turn into an earthquake. 

There’s this flow - too fucking cool and collected for a 16-year-old. Jesse’s remixes float somewhere in the outer stretch of the known remix universe, like a bionic rainbow ready to set you on fire. It‘s a different kind of fire. You’ll wanna poke at it. Don‘t be afraid of the fire, cause this 16-year-old ninja beat-tamer is the wild card for hip hop.. not to mention music at large. Just not officially until he’s done with highschool.

His myspace icon depicting a computer-headed boy. The irony, the irony - dude’s music is so human you almost feel it reaching it out for you. 

Interview and mp3s after the break.

I read this book where a pregnant woman would play classical music to her belly and read dictionaries to her unborn kids. It all turned out nasty in said book, but do you remember being impacted by something as an unborn kid?

My parents always played jazz for me. Classical music all day for me as a little fetus.

I guess it worked. 

Is there anything unsample-able that you’d like to sample?

Nothing is unsample-able. There is always a way. It’s all about the perfect chop of audio mixed with the perfect filter. Sure you wont get the perfect result, but it works.

Drop some names here.. What artists would you like to work with, musically, visually, or any other way?

Oh man, I could go on for days. Jose James, that dude is killing me. It’s rare, and it may seem silly to say this, but Jose really captures the core of himself in his music. I mean, he really has the perfect connection of artist and man. It’s hard to explain. I would love to work with him. He digs my stuff and I recently did a remix of his “Velvet“ track which he enjoyed, very much so. It is an honor to have a dude like him digging my beats. Means a lot. 

Other people I’d love to work with would be definitely a lot of live musicians. I’d kill to work with Sanders or someone like Mulatu [i.e Astatke] or Doug Carn. Another vocalist would be Dwight Trible of Build and Ark. One of the most beautiful voices I have ever heard since Leon Thomas. 

I’m not exactly a hip-hop beatmaker… well at least for rappers. But I’d kill to work with Count Bass D and Insight. Insight is brilliant, really.

How’s school going?

It’s good. I’m taking 2 condensed (2 courses in 2 months). Law and Comp Music (I sample) are the courses. In Law I slack a lot which is not so good. I make beats every class. All off records I have recorded to mp3 for the occasion. And then I just do it again in computer music.

University is up next… I guess. 

What do you want us to do with your music?

Listen to it? 

What’s the creative process like? Does inspiration hit you like a flash of brilliant lightning? Or do you just muck about in Ableton until things sound right?

Well, see, I have nothing planned. I know this will sound hokey or just very odd, but my music is based off of my emotions. I make 10 minutes of solid recorded music per day, and it is always different. My music will mirror my feelings on that day. I guess it’s sort of like a looking glass into the core of who I am. 

A couple days back I was very stressed out and sad. I went straight to my music and just created. There is no thought process, no thinking of what and where I should sample. It is all organic and pure. It all comes from what I am feeling at the time. It has nothing to do with a thought process, but instead one of feelings. It is the only time in my life where my feelings control who I am completely, and my mind sits back and the world drifts away. 

Have labels started hitting on you yet? I’m thinking you want to put out your music sooner rather than later, does a young artist like yourself feel the need to have a label cover all those pecuniary aspects, and leave you to focus on the music?

Sort of. Its hard to explain.

I won’t put out my music for about 2 more years. I have big ideas. I feel my music is good now. Good for my age. But I have only been at this for almost 2 years. I think by 2 years I will be ready to press a single, EP or album. I want it to be great and I want it change peoples perception of who and what a sampler is and can be. I want live musicians on it. No theory, no writing. Just from the soul. 

Often my friends don’t quite understand what I do. When I show them my sample sources and I show them my whole set up and how I do everything, there jaw drops. I truly want to push the envelope as far as possible with sampling. I can only hope for the future. I am not at that level now, but maybe one day I can merit half, a quarter of maybe just a bit of the dream that I have.

Do you have a pet name for your synth?

Nope

You start out by doing music for yourself. Do you think that’s ever going to change? I mean, you’ve put yourself out there on myspace- how have peoples’ reactions influenced you?

 I started out as a piano player. I did improv by 6 and everything by ear. I did trumpet and my old high school (I am at a new one) and I had stellar marks but I could not read music and I failed theory. Everything was by ear. I started sampling because I wanted to conduct, but I could not conduct without the knowledge of theory. I am quite the stubborn kid so I was very set on doing it MY way and only MY way. 

My music was really horrible the first year. I thought I was the shit because I got printed in a Canadian newspaper of Exclaim, when I was really a silly kid who looped jazz records and uploaded them to his myspace with some hip-hop vocal samples. I always did it for myself. I always did. I was also very emotional about it, even when I was horrible. 

I have gotten to the point where my music has connected to who I am. I cannot choose what to do. I was supposed to do a beat for Othello (rapper from lightheaded) but when I put my mind to what I was doing and focused instead of letting my feelings guide me, the product was plastic, dirty and all around mediocre garbage. I don’t think I could change even if I wanted to.

The reactions have been a blessing and a curse. I got a lot of severe hate on my music in my first year of sampling and it killed me. But in truth, that was the best thing that could have happened to me at the time.

Are you an elitist?

Yes. Not in the way that I think I am the shit. I am very careful of being cocky. 

But I will be a complete cunt and judge other’s music tastes as inferior. I’m known by my friends to have an amazing and versatile taste in music. I sort of wear that like a badge and I often act like some Fascist music critic towards anything that they play for me that I do not think is awesome. It’s not a good look. But I guess I have more positives then negatives. 

I’m stopping you from sampling a very rare, dope beat unless you reveal your source to the masses. What do you say to that?

I have shown so many people my sample sources. When I show them, they don’t believe me. Fuck, if I had a chance I’d post mp3’s to show what I sample. I don’t dig when beatmakers are afraid of showing their sample sources. It just shows that they didn’t flip anything. I’m guilty of this fact, I used to do it all the time. But I’ve learned to personalize my samples. 

The main sample of my track “blue” is a 2 second sample of a flute which I sampled 4 times, filtered it with around 10 filters or so (most made by me) and then I changed the pitch 4 times. When I talk to people about my music one on one, I will always show my sample sources to show what I did, so they don’t think that when I say [I'm a] sampler they GET the creative force which goes behind what I do. 

What makes you go Daaammn these days?

Dwight Trible and Jose James melt my face. 

I’m really digging people like Flying Lotus, Bullion and 20syl. 20syl is one of the dopest producers out there in my opinion. Many tend to disagree but if you really listen to the dude’s layers, that shit will kill you! Amazing stuff. 

I’m also digging outspoken MC’s like Voice and Insight. Both artists REALLY have a way with words. 

Cinematic Orchestra, Dj Day, A-ko, Build and Ark, Nicola Conte are also killing it. 

Basically people who do there own thing, and do that thing in a very SOLID and concrete manner. 

And the most revealing question of all: chocolate or vanilla ice cream?

So hard I cannot give you an answer.

For My Father [mp3]

Jose James - Velvet (Jesse Futerman remix) [mp3]

Further links

Jesse Futerman [myspace]

José James [myspace] (Check out his album, don’t sleep!)

Generally I wouldn’t post previews, but this is a good one. It’s from Camille’s new album. Sounds as quirky as ever, slightly more mainstream. Who knows, she might pull a Feist with this one.

Camille - Gospel With No Lord mp3