Entertainment For Lively Minds
Some music in the modern style
This is apropos of nothing really - just something stimulating while you try and prise yourself out of post-Xmas torpor. If you are interested in new/innovative/strange/psychedelic/electronic/groovy music, can I introduce you (if you're not already familiar with him) to Steven Ellison:
His grandma wrote and produced 'Love Hangover', and his auntie was Alice Coltrane. That's a pretty decent starting point I reckon. For the last 10 years, Steven, or Flying Lotus as he's now better known, has been making... well he's been making all sorts - I guess the easiest way of putting it is to say he makes what you might imagine trip-hop was like if it was genuinely trippy. There's everything in it from RZA-style looping and cutting up of old soul samples to electronic tweaking that the Aphex Twin would be jealous off - but the vital thing is that it all grooves. It can get pretty wiggy on occasion, and it's sophisticated even when it's silly, but it's all still about the groove - and this is kind of the direction that a huge section of the electronica world has been heading lately, which is nice.
Anyway, to celebrate his decade in music, he got his mate Gaslamp Killer to cut together lots of his unreleased tracks into a 35 minute summation of what he's about... it's here: http://www.brainfeedersite.com/
Further to the interesting insights into the perceived gap between the elctronic/club world and the rest of music that came up in the 'the Technical Music' thread a while back, I would be very interested to know what The Massive make of it, really.
- More from Joe Muggs.
- Login or register to post comments
-
Flying Lotus
I've got one track "Flattery" which was included on the Mary Anne Hobbes compilation "Evangeline", which is a great introduction to the more skittery ambient edges of dubstep. It's a good track, but it wasn't worthy of grabbing my attention to investigate further. I may have to do that now.
I also read "Clash" magazine from time to time, and they LOVE Flying Lotus. They're a lot trendier than the Word. And me for that matter. But they have a good taste in music. So we'll let them off... this time!
Like so many of this kind of artist
he's so prolific and collaborative that it can be overwhelming - but I think this DJ mix gives you the context and ties the variety and oddball impulses together into something coherent...
Mr Muggs you're a gem
The only FL track I'd heard was "Play Dead" - which by the miracle of You Tube I've posted below.
Haven't had a chance to check out the stuff you've linked but if it's of the same quality below then it will be genuinely interesting, innovative and good
I have to say that I am really loving all this technical/ambient/trip/dubstep type stuff and you Mr Muggs are my mentor in it all
I'm reposting your Muggs in the Attic Spotify link which features a lot of this material. It's brill
http://open.spotify.com/user/joemuggs/playlist/6mAu8uhHuIBPdaszmsrRnz
Ah shucks
It's a hugely exciting time for this stuff - for me the most exciting since, ooh, 1994 or so.
What's particularly interesting is how live stuff like Flying Lotus is, in no small part due to the fact that the technology has now advanced far enough to to really complex manipulations of rhythms, sounds and samples on the fly. You can hear it in his beats and synth lines: they're not programmed but *played* which gives them that very human, wonky feel - and which I think will lead to more and more interesting crossovers with live musicians. Flying Lotus is already doing some lovely production work for the jazz singer Jose James.
Wonky!
We had a bit of correspondence with Lotus a while back and he gets very shirty if you call his genre 'Wonky' but the name has kind of stuck, like Krautrock.
Some others worth checking out are Lone (kind of Wonky meets Boards of Canada), Mike Slott, Samiyam and Onra.
And of course the Hyperdub stuff - try the new 5 Years of Hyperdub comp for a start.
And Bullion, who has done a superb Version of Pet Sounds (in the style of J Dilla who looms large over the whole sound of 'Wonky')
Check this out (this isn't an official/commercially available release so I hope Fraser won't mind me posting this link)
http://warnakeysbeachboysblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/pet-sounds-in-key-of-...
"Wonky" thankfully, as a genre name,
is fading quickly. I'm pushing "mutant funk" and a few artists have adopted this. It's such a wide open area that the off-beat-ness of it (the wonkiness) is often a distraction from the more interesting things going on.
My current tips for 2010 are Blue Daisy from London, Illum Sphere from Manchester, 8Bitch from Slovenia via Glasgow, and Om Unit who I think are from Detroit...
Yes I know they are very silly names
but here - check out some Blue Daisy:
YouTube sound quality hardly does it justice, but the moment when the tumbling synth melodies and moog bass come in at 1m40s gets me every time. There's going to be lots more of this stuff with vocalists in the near future I think.
I'd never heard of this guy.
I'd never heard of this guy. Sounds intriguing.
Thanks for the heads up - more of this sort of thing!