So, Who Are You?

I suppose it is more like "where" are you lurkers from. I compiled a list from Google analytics showing top ten countries (out of 34) that have visited this year.

I offer greetings to all you returning mongers. For all newcomers, thank you, come again, bring a friend, feed yourself, say hello. I will start a barrage of music reviews and features with guest writers and music samples within the next couple weeks.

Drop a comment and let me know what you want to read about here, since after all ‘tis thy blog!

USA – 40%
UK – 9%
Belgium – 6%
India – 4%
Greece – 3%
Germany – 3%
Canada – 3%
Finland – 2%
Mexico – 2%
Brazil – 2%

The Weekly Chart ending October 21st

As you can see, this week I was very impressed with the new Younger Brother release on Twisted Records titled, The Last Days of Gravity, which I reviewed recently. LDG showed a progression towards making beautiful melodic music rather than depending on dominating the soundscape with beats to pound the dancefloor. Picking a favorite track will demand much more scrutiny, but I will stay away burning myself out with over-listening.

I will be spinning at an anti-war rally this weekend and have been digging up some old Dead Prez albums in search of something lyrically meaningful with a punch of aggression to stir up the event. I am outside my comfort zone since I don't really spin Hip-Hop, but I get though it and have a good time to boot. I have a couple other tracks up my sleeve from times long ago when I used to be a huge underground Hip-Hop fan (way back in high school). The pseudo-rebellious mood also led to a couple spoken word musings by philosopher/biologist/super atheist Richard Dawkins, whose ideas often invade conversations with my more reading inclined friends. I am a big fan on his work on memes, concepts that I happily use in heated arguments.

I took a trip to Africa (a mental and musical one) with two old favorites of mine, Fela Kuti and Ali Farka Touré, the Afrobeat king and Malian Bluesy singer respectively. There is so much passion in their music, a perpetual inspiration to keep my chin up. I often wonder how powerful the impressions these two men would have left on me if I was old enough to have seen them live.

I also had my share of chilled lazy beats as I longed for a feeling of relaxation (long week). Wagon Christ, Nightmares on Wax, Tripswitch, and Portishead, and Younger Brother of course were the main ingredients I chose to chill with as I wrote articles for my other job. I don't really remember which albums specifically, but some good ol' shuffle did the trick.

My top ten list culminates with Super Flu, a relatively new (to me of course) Minimal Techno act I have become quite fond of with driving basslines and almost always a spacey melodic second half, in a style that makes minimal still bearable to listen to, stripped down beats but with a sense of depth and melody. Next week, I have no idea what I will get off on.

The Weekly Chart ending June 3th

I got a little experimental this week, chasing tangents across the electronic realm. I discovered some new artists including Jneiro Jarel an American cross between Indie / Hip-Hop and Downbeat, very relaxed slick lyrics with a smoothie of airy beats. I was also exposed by a friend to her "guilty pleasure," Frou Frou: a taste of British female vocal pop sprinkled with electronic beats reminiscent of Björk. The Cinematic Orchestra was my third new discovery, with a taste of airy jazz and chilled electronic beats, aproved by independent music giants Ninja Tune.

Then came the old favorite, µ-Ziq. It truly is as hard to describe this music as it is to find the "µ" symbol on the keyboard. It is commonly termed IDM, Intelligent Dance Music. I however think the term is a misnomer since it isn't very danceable (compared to Merengue!) and the self-attribution of 'intelligent' can be interpreted as a pretentious holier-than-thou declaration, but it shouldn't. Maybe the "I" in IDM refers to the need to truly appreciate non-mainstream music qualities since it strays away from key popular music elements such as a predictable arrangement (sectional form) and a hook. Boards of Canada, another highly acclaimed Ambient / IDM act that has done much work with Warp Records, the essential label for IDM, also graced the chart with a back-to-back listen.

In the Psy Trance side of things I spent some time re-discovering the mostly Finnish Suomisaundi sub-sub-genre, if I am tracking it right. On another tangent, people love to complain about genres and how they just limit music and are marketing tools, but go ahead and try getting directions in a foreign city without getting the names of streets. At least with genres and similar artists you can triangulate enough to understand where the sound is coming from. I digress. Flying Scorpions (in my opinion, one of the coolest names ever for an artist) was an old favorite of mine with wacky otherworldly samples and a funny story about some Tshernobyl mutant flying scorpions that entrance you with the sound of their batting wings. Luomuhappo carries a powerful, funky, groovy, yet psychedelic and somehow organic sounding psy trance.

The only major Progressive Trance music I listened to this week comes from Gui Boratto, a Brazilian genius that mixes progressive melodies with Microhouse elements in a fantastic way, and he happens to be an architect as well. I predict he will be one of the biggest explosions this year with his overflow of euphoria without the usual accompanying fromage that most artists rely on (not all of us are 12 year old girls, people! Have a spine and leave the cheese out of it, nothing against the young ladies by the way, just at artists who expect us 20+ year-olds to appreciate music on that level and pretend we are that simpleminded). That last rant comes from the barrage of annoying requests (Green Day, Britney Spears , and you get the picture) by tweens at events, like the local school-held film festival I DJed for.

Finally, I dug out Digital Mystery Tour and the dig was worth every penny. This is classical Psybient touching many genres with musical psychedelics gluing them together. It makes for a great nap and I felt quite refreshed after that. The last top 10 listened artist of the week, done in no particular order, is Wombatmusic released on Chill Tribe. Although the name seems new, the project is done by Kristian Thinning, a veteran of the chillout genre for many years participating as parts or wholes of Elysium, Kaaya and Kailash.

It was a varied, exotic, relatively relaxed week and I am looking forward to get back into the floor thumping beats of the overwatted dancefloor.

The Weekly Chart ending May 6th

This week's chart was relatively incomplete since I was out on a post-finals mini-vacation cheking out a piano concerto my Uncle was playing in Tupelo, Mississippi. During my stay I was tuned on to some classical music and performers, especially my new favorite Cecile Licad, truly a piano genius.

It was a great experience zooming out of the music I work with and getting into something quite different. Music transcends boundaries and an open mind has all the passport and visa requirements needed to travel wherever the music takes you.

Back to the playlist, I find prose more fitting than writing up a simple list with links today. It was my finals week and I had no time for exploring new sounds. I went back to basics with some albums that had collected some dust over the past year.

"I was in the mood for some smooth

psychedelic chilled out music,

so I dropped a couple albums in the blender

and made myself

a yummy smoothie."

Some of the ingredients included Digital Mystery Tour, Bonobo, Tripswitch, Mac Mavis, Kumba Mela, and Eat Static. Spicy and from many different countries, this mix gave me some delicious dreams of escaping finals into a cotton candy cloud of naïve happiness.

Between chilled dreams I had periods of rebellion and angst, as seen with Fela Kuti and Peaches tracks, not related at all, yet carrying a strong sense of discomfort from conformity.

And finally, Infected Mushroom gained some ground only to piss me off that they, in my humble opinion, have sold out to greener pesture$. Why couldn't they preserve their Infected sound and use their new image with a new name? More power to them I say with a tear.

And that's this week's chart rant.