WORD, Like a scientist.

Throughout the past decade, Modeselektor have been one of the most unique voices in electronic music. From the early IDMslashHip-hop In Loving Memory 12″ to their rollercoaster mixtape for Boomkat and the genre hopping debut album Hello Mom!, the duo of Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian Szary have been showing that they are masters of all forms of electronic music these days. One of their early 12″s was released under the name Moderat, being a collaboration with Apparat (Sascha Ring). Combining Modeselektor’s distorted sensibilities with the melodic and hypnotic Apparat sound was a brilliant slice of collab heaven. Seemingly it was not a happy experience, as they abandoned further collaborations with each other until Modeselektor’s second album, Happy Birthday!, brought the astounding team-up with Paul St. Hilaire, “Let Your Love Grow,” credited as a Moderat production. Happily this gave way to the full-length Moderat album, released on BPitch Control. The random cover illustration of a woman punching herself in the face produces loud laughs from anyone I show it to, but doesn’t at all reflect the music inside, showing the ever prevalent humor of this outfit. Like Hello Mom! and Happy Birthday, Moderat also has a Paul St. Hilaire collaboration, but I confess it’s a low point for me on this album, having thought their previous collaborations were transcendent. St. Hilaire uses a guttural and relentless vocal style on this song, and the music backing it lacks the spacious and lively qualities of previous outings. However, I can happily say that the rest of the album reaches gorgeous electronic heights. The single, “A New Error,” starts the album off with a spiraling melody that soon morphs into a stormer of a track. Going further in, the short track “3 Minutes Of” starts with a purely ambient and slow burning landscape. When it changes into a squelchy beat driven interpolation that ambience, you are bewildered, but ready for whatever comes next. Moderat accomplishes one of the rare feats of an electronic album: making the last half of the album more compelling than the beginning. Electronic albums tend to frontload all the exciting stuff. However, “Porc #1″ and “Porc #2″ are epic in their scope, bringing in elements of dubstep and house. “Les Grandes March” stands out as a statement from the collaboration, coalescing the disparate genres into a lovely and haunting dance of digital and analog transmissions. Moderat takes out on a bed of subtle boogie, the Sascha Ring sung “Out of Sight,” a song that shuffles and hums it’s way into the ether so well, you couldn’t ask for a more fitting finale. I’m quite excited to be following these artists as they continue to grow.

“A New Error” (mp3 - from Xlr8r.com)

Moderat - Video Trailer

The thing I keep coming back to about Michael Jackson’s death is his dancing. The primary motivation of Jackson’s music can be found in this wonderful nugget from Quincy Jones about “Billie Jean”: “I said, ‘Michael we’ve got to cut that intro’”, Jones later recalled. “He said, ‘But that’s the jelly!’…’That’s what makes me want to dance’. And when Michael Jackson tells you, ‘That’s what makes me want to dance’, well, the rest of us just have to shut up.” And if there was ever a song made for dancing, it’s “Billie Jean.” There is no performer in the world who can stand up to Jackson in pure uniqueness when it comes to this particular aspect of popular music. Michael Jackson was a dancer, perhaps one of the best there ever was. We all know “Thriller,” of course, and I’ll wager we know it mostly from the epic video and it’s legion’s of zombies getting down. I won’t lie and say I’m a dyed in the wool Michael Jackson fan but Thriller and Bad were a huge part of my childhood and I’ve always put Jackson down in the “Respected” category of music. However, I do remember watching a Jackson special that re-aired the debut of the moonwalk during is performance of “Billie Jean” at the Motown 25th Anniversary Celebration. I do remember falling out of my chair at his routine and giggling like a school girl at the sheer audaciousness and precision of it. And I’ve always had the “Smooth Criminal” video on my list of top videos that resides somewhere in my head. I think moreso than any other routine, it’s “Smooth Criminal” that cements Michael Jackson as a Dancer. RIP.

I was a big fan of Cage’s previous Hell’s Winter album. I hadn’t known his music beforehand but I picked up the album on the strength of some of the producers involved (DJ Shadow, Blockhead, Rjd2). I was completely blown away by the narrative and personal lyrics of the album right along with the gorgeous production. Of course, it also made me take notice for the first time the production of El-P, something which would completely change my world when I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead made it’s way to the unsuspecting world. His follow-up, Depart From Me is coming out soon and his label, Definitive Jux, has been offering some free stuff (2 single tracks and this new EP). It’s all pretty great. Check out the links below for direct downloads and links. You can also get these items at Definitive Jux’s Free Shit Store.

I Never Knew You (link to page with direct mp3 downloads)
“Look At What You Did” (mp3)
“Nothing Left To Say” (mp3)

I’ve lately gone down the dubstep rabbithole, listening to various mixes and tracks and albums. It’s a fascinating genre that I’m jumping into much too late in the game, admittedly. However, the sound has morphed so much through the years since it’s appearance, that it has a lot of ingenuity left in it’s producers. A group that is recently emerging is the drum n bass heroes Kryptic Minds. Metalheadz fans will recognize their name. Something that set them apart from most d n b of that era was their tendency to break out into sheer gorgeousness, producing tracks that focused more on melody than on crushing amen breaks. The dubstep guru Loefah recently found himself checking out what they’ve been up to and it turns out Kryptic Minds are producing some of the deepest, most cavernous, most spacious dubstep around. Harkening back to the early days and working in a halfstep style, they are poised to release some beautiful electronic music this year. Blackdown Soundboy sat down with them for a long and fascinating interview. To go along with it, they gave him an exclusive mix that has been wearing out my speakers this week. With a 12″ out now on Loefah’s new label Swamp 81, and the full length One of Us released imminently, they are poised to take the scene by storm. For now, sample the exclusive mix they put together of their tunes for an hour of elegant and crushing electronics.
Kryptic Minds Blackdown Studio Mix (mp3 - Sendspace)

I’ve gotta finally say something about my favorite album of 2008. I keep going back to it and smiling the entire way through it over and over. In February of 2007, I found out about this new project of Chris de Luca’s with Phon.o. Their mixes I linked to were full of bass, beats, and insane electro. At the time, they were talking but working on an album, and a year later, it arrived, Supercontinental, all original production and vocals from a number of extremely talented MCs I’ve never heard of. The style skews a little towards an electro-bass sound moreso than straight-up hip-hop. The bass is heavy and vocals catchy and relatively free from lewdness or misogyny, something refreshing from an album made for the club like this. It’s a strikingly retro album, with the majority of the MCs acting like old school MCs and hyping the music more than anything. Take two of my favorite tracks, both featuring Rayzaflo, “Putcha Handz Up” and “Flashbakk.” Both of these songs center around the narrator going out to the club to dance and have fun. And the way she has fun is through the music, not drugs or sexual innuendo, to her, the focus is the music she’s dancing to. Rayzaflo comes on the second coming of Roxanne Shante with these tracks, and the music even reflects a slight Marley Marl stripped down, gigantic beat style. My other favorite song features an MC named White Gold Princess who turns in some truly hilarious lines (a comparison to Biz would be appropriate here, completing the Juice Crew analog) in an endless cycle of various fast food restaurants serving to counterplay the sexual shenanigans going on. I can’t recommend this album enough. It’s the type of album that makes me wish I had realized my college-era dream of being a DJ. Dropping some of these tracks on an unsuspecting club would bring it down.
CLP - “Superconfidential (Remix)” (mp3)
CLP - Factory Fresh Mix (mp3)
CLP - Listen@Website (more mp3s)

Give two producers 40 bucks and an afternoon to craft a track for debut the same night. What do you get? When it’s Jel and Odd Nosdam, it’s no surprise it’s great.

Download the finished track here.

First of all, that’s a great title. It’s puts you immediately into the right frame of mind for this post-future set of music by Mark Pritchard, the third album from his “Harmonic” guise. This certainly is not Harmonic 33, though! The old Global Communications maestro has concocted a half-brutal, half-gorgeous aural experience. It’s hard to even put any type of description of the music as it’s equal parts electronic, hip-hop, dubstep, electro, soundtrack. I could see this backing a movie like Blade Runner if it had been made today. In fact, I hope to hear “Cyclotron” on a movie someday. The crushing drums and bass-heavy synths wash everything you thought you knew about my future music away. Halfway in, the repeating bass melody blows in and gives you the feeling that this album is going somewhere deep. Songs like this one and “Word Problems,” along with the Phat Kat guested “Battlestar,” show the heavy side of this album. Along with these crushers, you get the beautiful tableaus of a song like “Köln,” with it’s light melody that dances over the more natural drums. A bass forms the driving melody of this song as well. As you can tell, bass is a big part of this album. It gives you the feeling of large machines moving across the land. In fact, there are times (like “Call to Arms”) when I’m reminded of that wonderful hum that large semi-trucks can create when you are next to them in traffic. Except, I think the machines in Pritchard’s mind are driving themselves, creating this mechanical symphony in harmony. Check out “Falling Away,” a slow burning showcase for the faintly robotic vocals of Steve Spacek to show how machines can be as beautiful as human intelligence. By the album falls down the rabbit hole journey of closer “Quadrant 3,” you are ready to book passage on this vision. The shifting and vibrating synths spiral in upon themselves over and over and you are eventually lost to the silence of a vast universe (or the end of the album). From the ever progressive Warp Records, it’s available everywhere. Check out the Harmonic 313 mini-site to get a taste of this astounding album.

Daptone Records got busted into recently and a ton of their equipment was stolen. Daptone is the label of Sharon Jones + The Dap-Kings and Budos Band, among others, a label keeping the old sound still thriving on analog recording. The Dap-Kings have played with/for Amy Winehouse and Kanye West. This is a real shame and they are asking for people to keep an eye out for their equipment showing up for sale or trade. Hopefully someone catches the bastards that did this.

Check out this amazing look at the Daptone studio from MTV’s visit there to understand the value of what has been taken from them and from the music community as a whole.

“Friends and associates,

As you may have heard through the grapevine by now, Daptone was broken into last night. Unfortunately, there was a lot of equipment (mics, pre-amps, monitors, turntables, guitars, amps, computers, etc.) stolen and damaged. It is going to take us a while to go through everything and take full stock of what was stolen, and we are not supposed to touch anything until the cops come back to collect fingerprints so we can only guess what’s missing from some mic drawers and cabinets.
And, no, we did not have insurance. We had been shopping around with different companies earlier this month but had not signed a check, so nothing was insured. We are working on replacing the gate in front, installing an alarm system, and getting insurance, but it is President’s day so it’s not going as quickly as we would have liked.
Nydia’s computer was stolen (which wasn’t backed up) and the modems/ phone system was ripped out, so we’ll be relatively out of commission for a few days.

I would like to ask for everyone’s help first in keeping an eye out for all of our stuff showing up on ebay/craigslist/local music shops, and secondly (and more realistically) keeping an eye out for good deals on headphones, mics, pre-amps, etc. I could really use a heads up on any kind of studio package for sale or studio equipment to be possibly bought or borrowed as soon as possible. We have a session scheduled for Friday to lay down some music for (I know this sounds
surreal) Rod Stewart, and I’m going to have to get the studio running by then. I know I’m going to need to find headphones, cables, mics, and pre-amps by then. I’m not sure what else yet.

Upon first glance we are definitely missing:
Fender Super Guitar Amp in case
Fender Deluxe Guitar Amp
A whole bunch of headphones and wires
Nydia’s HP laptop computer
One Desktop MacIntosh Computer
One Purple Audio API style lunchbox with
four Purple Audio Biz mic pre-amps
2 Yamaha NS10 monitors
Vintage Harmony Rocket Guitar
One steel string acoustic guitar
Martin Tenor sax in a gig bag
Technics 1200 turntable
Ion USB turntable
Teac Receiver/stereo amp
Sony dual deck CD burner/player
All of our modem/phone system stuff was ripped out and taken.
A whole bunch of condensor and dynamic microphones (I still need to
figure out exactly what’s missing)
The power supply for my Trident console was tossed and the board was
moved (probably not gently) so the status of that is still questionable.
A baldwin organ was tossed and is probably broken.
Lacie External hard drive

Over the next few days, as we sort out the rubble, we are going to
figure out what else we lost.

We are putting in a roll down front gate, alarm system, and finally
getting our insurance happening this week. We are also going to hire
a security guard to watch the house for tonight as the cops and alarm
guy seemed pretty confident that they will be back with a truck now
that they’ve seen what’s in here.

Thanks for keeping eyes open for us. AND PLEASE PASS THIS MESSAGE
ALONG TO ANYONE YOU THINK MIGHT BE ABLE TO HELP US.

Thankfully, we all still have our health, ambition, tape machines, and
sense of humor in tact. You can slow us down, but you can’t stop
us. Sleep well knowing we here at Daptone will continue to…

Keep putting Soul up,

Gabriel Roth

P.S. On a lighter note, it seems like the burglars did drop a few
items in order to lift Alex’s old safe out of here, which was VERY
heavy, VERY unwieldy, and also VERY EMPTY!”

Contact Daptone.

So WORD got hacked a month or so ago. Pretty annoying crap. Took me a few days and some amazing help from my host to sort it out. I haven’t got all the design back in place… mostly because I’ve been deciding what to do now. My posts have been very infrequent as of late. 2008 was a bit weird. There were some good releases, but wasn’t getting the sense often of “must post on this now!” that I previously would get. However, towards the end of the year there were some great things out there. I was getting ready to write those when WORD went down. I’m going to try to get those written up soon and probably work on a new design for the site. Hopefully I’ll be back soon but here are some mixes and whatnot I’ve been listening to lately:

DJ Snatchatec - Indigo (mp3) | Tracklist

V/A - Twisting The Frame (Release Page)

Glitch Mob - The Crush Mode (mp3)

Frank - Ghana Nigeria Connection (mp3)

DJ Mekalek - Mek’s Party Mix (mp3)

–EDIT FOR AWESOME–
2tall - The Space Race (mp3) | Tracklist