8-Trck Engineer Ep.01

I haven't posted in almost a week... I've been thinking about how I want to post music and was gathering my thoughts. I've also been busy job hunting and party-planning for my girlfriends 25th birthday party.

The way I was posting music before was somewhat akin to a pirate ship. There's a lot of music blogs out there that are posting albums everyday. I'm not going to lie, I do get some music that way. But after doing it myself I started feeling the moral weight getting heavier and heavier. Granted, only like 3 people even downloaded the albums I posted (why is that?), I'm still changing it up.

Instead of uploading full albums from current artists I'm listening to, I'm going to become....wait for it.....

The 8-Trck Engineer!

twice a week I will be hosting an 8 track mix. So for the 3 or 4 of you out there that come across this blog, maybe you'll look forward to some new music, maybe some old music and maybe some different music. I'm going to get back on this blog-of-a-horse and cover some new and interesting things going on in my world. Leave me some comments yo!

8-Trck Engineer, May 21st 2008

The Mutual Electricity mix

FileFactory.com

1. Apparat - Arcadia (boys noize remix)- Boys Noize have been really busy the past year. They've been on top of the best remixs from Justice to Feist. The original song from the album Walls was in my top 5 songs of 2007. HIGHLY recommend Apparat.

2. Feist - My Moon My Man (boys noize remix)- Thought these two tracks needed to be friends. Feist's vocals always kill. I really liked this remix. I'd like to hear more good electronic Feist songs.

3. Hercules & Love Affair - This is the single from the new album put out by New York DJ Andy Butler under DFA Records. Antony Hegarty (of the awesome Antony & the Johnsons) guests on this track.

4. Caribou - She's The One (Hot Chip Remix)- Caribou's Andorra was one of my top albums of 2007. Throw in a remix from Hot Chip? Can't beat it. This track has been playing since I got it last month.

5. Gablé - Puree Hiphop (7 Guitars with a Cloud of Milk)- Honestly...I don't know who Gable is. I just got this track from Bleep's latest comp and I LOVE IT... I LOVE THIS TRACK. I'm going to research these guys or guy or girl right now. bye.

6. Four Tet - Ribbons - Off his new 2008 4 track "Ringer" album. This is not the Four Tet everyone's used to and you can only love him more for it.

7. Flying Lotus - Parisian Goldfish - Flying Lotus has been coming up the last year. This is off 2008's Los Angeles - a perfect album for when your in the mood for head-bobbing to non-intrusive beats.

8. Junior Boys - No Kinda Man - This is an exclusive track for Body Language Six, a mix cd for Get Physical's series. Anything JB puts out I jump on... JB makes me feel good.

all artists links are to myspace.

Blu u blow my MIND

My theory is this: Vision, as one of our senses, is pretty much predominant in everyday life. We use all our senses, but our vision uses the most brain power in our every day activities (driving our cars, walking through streets, reading our books and newspapers). When you think about how much we rely on our vision for everything, I think we sell ourselves short when it comes to new visual experiences. I'm not talking about some blockbuster movie or drama though- those are people doing people things maybe just with different settings or ideas. I'm talking about experiences that are truly new to our senses. They might be minute and mundane enough for us not to even notice, or huge and significant enough to make us stop and involuntarily drop our jaws. 

I can tell you the last time a visual experience made me tear (don't laugh jerk)... I was with my girlfriend Junia (her blog Tonteria) watching the movie Sunshine on opening night (check out the video down below after READING THE REST!). The visuals and sound in some of the scenes that focus on the Sun are amazing on a huge screen. One scene made me seriously tear-up, I was so in awe. I honestly had a fuckin tear go DOWN MY CHEECK! I didn't cry, I just...I don't know, emotionally leaked. I'd never experienced that. The heaviness of the movies' concept just crashed down on me when I saw that awesomely CG rendered Sun, almost as if I was in that movie. Back to my point. My theory. My theory is simple- we often forget the power of new visual experience simply because we live visually. It's over-stimuli. Too many people's problem is that they are so used to not fully appreciating something because of the amount of crap there is in this world. I know people that just have this serious mental block from appreciating something new so much so that it never even reaches the point of whether they can judge if they like it or not. If they've never seen it, it's not for them. "Eh..I don't know what that is, what's over there" 

We need to stop sometimes and let that new experience at least have a chance at affecting us. SO! When I come across new audio/visual pieces that really let me experience something fresh I can't help but share it.

That being said, I wanted to share this insane video from Blu, titled MUTO. This was made in Buenos Aires but Blu has some amazing wall pieces all over the damn planet. Check out his nice website. This piece is going to set a bar...I don't know what bar, but it is. Bombers, taggers, designers, video makers, and illustrators ALL OVER THE WORLD....... WATCH

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

here's the trailer to Danny Boyle's Sunshine......jerk.

dude you heard the man...

...whatcho mama say?

Deadly Avenger - Blood & Blossoms

Imagine this. Ambient sounds slowly pulsing, add piano and strings over it till it reaches the height of a classical crescendo, the climax keeps going all the while the strings get a little more potent, stabbing out of the background, then the piano and strings go it alone until it's just the strings stabbing, then the retro synth beat starts. It almost scares you how it jumps in out of no where, almost as if you were at a classical recital and then some break-dancing kid jumps on stage with his ghetto-blaster jamming some eighties freestyle beat while he starts shuffling around the orchestra. That's the title track, Blood & Blossoms, off Deadly Avenger's last album. There's a lot of twists like that in this album, and if you like beats and instrumental music, seriously give this a try. My only advice is not to skip any of it, cause like I said, there are tons of nice and very fresh twists that might not happen till half way through a song- and most of those twists are enough to make you grin and think "damn, you sly Mr. Avenger..." If you like it buy it. click on sendspace for the album DL

myspace

sendspace

What all good music needs to do.

I listen to a lot of music, but I can't say all of it really inspires me. Being inspired by music is probably the purest form of inspiration you can experience. There's nothing but your brain and sound. The fact that this simple relationship can be so complex and so meaningful says something about the power of sound and music. The sad thing is that this relationship isn't true for everyone; but for those who this is, music can be extremely powerful. Powerful enough to immediately change our moods or make us cry from just the sheer emotional force that music carries within in it- rather, I should say the sheer emotional force that our brains interpret from the sounds. Music has no emotionality, it's just vibrating air waves. Our brain is what assembles the music, and since every brain reacts differently to each of the different senses we have, we can kind of say that we all interpret music different from one another. This is why some people listen to tons and tons of music, don't listen to music at all, or just listen to crap. Just kidding. But really, my brain processes Celine Dion and Jack Johnson in a similar way it makes me cringe like when I accidentally take a drink from some old lumpy milk. On the other hand, when I hear the right music, I swear I can feel all the positive neurological firings going off in my skull. My brain fuckin lights up! Among my top inspirational music (in no part. order) are Radiohead, Epic45, (early)New Order, Apparat, The Album Leaf, M83, Explosions In The Sky, and Four Tet. There a more of course, but these are a few off the top of my head.

On to current events...

As most of you know Radiohead is having a remix contest for Nude (www.radioheadremix.com), which for the most part has been very successful. However, did you know that Radiohead is in the middle of a video contest too? Aniboom is hosting a music video contest for songs off of In Rainbows. I believe you can still submit. I got a few days to myself this week, so let's see if I can come up with something. Radiohead has always gave my creative mind a little jumpstart when it needed one. Check out flight404's amazing video for Weird Fishes: Apreggi. Shit, I know it'll be hard competing against videos like this, but that's not the point. This video is inspiring me to create my own regardless of a contest. so lookout.

Weird Fishes: Arpeggi from flight404 on Vimeo.

THE FUTURE

How awesome would it be if all your friends carried this around? come on it's only 100 bucks! We could run into each other walking down Haight and exchange some playlists. This is the miShare. It let's you transfer music, video, photos, anything you've got on your ipod, to another ipod. It only takes about 10 seconds a song which ain't bad at all.