[Video] Paul Robertson - Kings of Power 4 Billion %

Are you male and were born in the late 70s / early 80s and a proud owner of a Nintendo, Amiga, Sega or Atari machine? Then you will have a lot of fun watching this video by Paul Robertson (check his blog here). It's a 12-minute-long short movie, exaggerating what we loved so much about jump-and-run games.

If you're a female, born as well in the late 70s / early 80s and you're living with a male partner in the same age you might consider watching this movie to understand one of the many aspects that formed the behaviour of your man. Besides that, it features awesome colors.



Kings of Power 4 Billion % from James Cusano on Vimeo.


Info from the Vimeo Page:

An animated short in the style of a side-scrolling combat game on acid that falls somewhere between creative genius and artistic insanity. Released in March of 2008, this is the second of such films from Australian artist Paul Robertson.

He made his debut in March of 2006 with a piece sponsored by the City of Melbourne titled "Pirate Baby's Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006." It was first shown at the Trigger Happy art exhibition, and quickly gained online popularity after being featured on the Select Parks artistic game-development community.

Alternative Download Locations: probertson.livejournal.com/23973.html

--------CREDITS--------

Created by Paul Robertson
[probertson.livejournal.com]
[visublog.mechafetus.com]

Music by Cornel Wilczek
[quamusic.com]

Various Contributions From:
Jonathan Kim
[persona.mechafetus.com]

Kinuko
[fever.mechafetus.com]

[MUSIC] Nimbus West Records - Label Mix

Stepped over this nice gem today. It's called Cumulative Nimbus and gives you an idea of the sound of Nimbus West Records. Nimbus West started releasing some fine ass jazz records with a somewhat darkish and mystical/spiritual sound in 1979. Links to their Discogs and HP below the video..

Cumulative Nimbus: a portrait of a record label by Tonytales on Mixcloud

Nimbus West Homepage
Nimbus Discogs

[Event] Klangwerkstatt 2012 - Festival für neue Musik

This looks very promising:

More Info on their Homepage!

[Music] The Code - Sickest Ep (BlueCode Rec. 012)

Last week, BlueCode Rec. has published release number twelve: 

The Code - Sickest. 

Alongside the original mix you'll find remixes by BlueCode's own Flipmatic (psssht that's me) and the Ungarian producing machine AsWeSaid. Get the full release for free at BlueCode's Bandcamp. And don't get fooled by the "Buy" button. You can name the prize and by entering 0 you will get it for free. No strings attached! 






BlueCode Records 012 - The Code - Sickest EP from BlueCode Records on Vimeo.

[Music] The Electro Compendium pt.2

Full Interview with Dave Paton and Jean-Paul Bondy 
20. September 2012 , Interviewer: Philipp Rupp


Please, shortly introduce yourself and your connection to electro.

Dave: My name is Dave Paton and I have been releasing electro music under the name 'the wee djs' since around 1997.

Jean-Paul: I'm Jean-Paul Bondy, I've been an electro DJ since 1992, and have been producing and releasing records since 1999.

Was there a certain, initial moment or happening, which forced you to react and do something to remind people of the origin meaning of “electro”? Why and how was this project born?

Dave: We have been reacting against the misuse of the word electro for some time. Mainly just at each other on forums and various other networks. Myself and JP were both removed from an electro group for having a discussion which was not welcome. My reaction was to simply set up my own electro group, mostly on a whim. Almost overnight all the producers I know and many more had joined up along with many other electro followers.

The actual project was something that came to mind after many people had joined the group and were having good, friendly conversations on the subject of electro. I felt like we should make use of all these people in one place. The main intention being to promote the genre and bring all the small fan bases of many different artists together. Time will tell if this has had any lasting effect.

Jean-Paul: I'll side with Dave here. Electro has been an established genre for well over 20 years. In fact, some consider it the first form of underground electronic dance music. We were both sick of seeing the term being used for different styles that are clearly not electro, and decided to do something about it.

What was the reaction of the artists, when you explained your mission and the project to them? Were there some artists which didn’t accept the project and refused to take part?

Dave: Initially the takeup was a bit slow and I had second thoughts about it all very quickly. There were questions about the motives and how we could define electro. After a couple of weeks the interest was growing very quickly and the confidence grew. Gradually as we posted the list of people taking part more and more people started to get involved and contribute.

There were artists who didn't want to be involved, some for money reasons, others because they said they just didn't have any material. Others who didn't believe in the basic idea of the project. In the end I believe it has worked out very well. It seems to me that a lot of the artists felt they should really give their best for this and it shows in the music. Apart from my track obviously, which is just some guff I dragged off my hard drive.

Jean-Paul: As Dave said, people were a bit skeptical at first. But once a few larger name artists started submitting tracks, that opened up the floodgates, and showed other producers that we weren't fucking around, and that this project was not only legitimate, but was going to serve a very good purpose.

The Electro Compendium consists of 116 tracks from 116 artists. How did you manage to get in contact with all of them? And by which criteria did you do the selection?

Dave Paton 

Dave: A lot of them were people we both know personally through playing gigs, releasing records etc. Most of the communication was done via facebook or email. The criteria was that the track must be electro and the artist should be proud of it. I think we only rejected one or two tracks overall and that was because they had a straight beat and may have opened the door to the project getting closer to an electrohouse project rather than the sound of electro that we were going for.

Jean-Paul: Almost all of the artists, either Dave or I know personally. Electro is a fairly small community, and when you've been playing as long as Dave and I have, chances are you've played with and partied with almost every artist out there. But the surprise was how many people who are either relative newcomers, or people who'd never released a record before, started popping up with really killer material. As for the selection of the songs, that part was easy. As opposed to us curating the release, and picking out which tracks we liked, we decided to remove our personal preferences from the process and developed three criteria: 1) song is electro, 2) it's unreleased, 3) you're proud of it.

As finishing a simple EP can be very hard - thinking of deadlines and reliance of the artists – how exhausting was the work on such a huge compilation?

Dave: At times it was quite frustrating. I joked a few times that it seemed strange that we had many people who could create this very technological music but weren't very good at emailing a jpg. I had to chase people constantly and keeping the files organized was quite a task.

Jean-Paul: As you can imagine, it was a daunting process of monumental proportions. But it wasn't just David and I. Jon Drukman (aka Bass Kittens) is the programmer/engineer of the iOS app that goes with this release. We built the entire app from the ground up. Something that only Ghostly International has done, that I know of. So not only did we need to put the actual release together, but then build the app, with all of everyone's bios and photos and links, without typos, and making it work, work fast, and also work with iOS 6 which was released two days after we submitted to Apple. This is something that I'd never done before when releasing music, and as far as I know of, no one else has either. It was definitely ambitious, but as I've said countless times, the quality of the music that was given us, needs just as high of a quality in the method and mediums it's released in.

Did the artists deliver finished, mastered tracks or did you also have to work on the sound?

Dave: I suggested to people that they should try to submit the track how they wanted it to sound as mastering was going to be too time consuming and might possibly create more problems. Having to let every artist hear and approve their master would have been a nightmare. In the end the only changes I made were removing clicks and excessive silences at the beginnings and ends. I also sorted out the overall volumes.

Jean-Paul Bondy

Jean-Paul: The concept of mastering 116 tracks is mind-boggling. If this were to be a physical release, just the mastering alone would cost us around $10,000.00. This just wasn't feasible. Dave did some basic adjustments, but that's it. Thankfully, with modern technology, a lot of people can deliver a very high quality file and we don't really have to worry too much about mastering.

You offer the compilation for free. Just to reach a bigger crowd or is there perhaps another statement, relating to the current problems in music business ?

Dave: I just didn't want to involve money as it tends to dilute things. I don't believe in music as a business and I've never made music to make money.

Jean-Paul: Money is the root of all evil. When money is involved, evil can happen. We both felt that delivering this monster to the world would be best served pro boon. Besides, the idea of trying to split money 116 different ways is just ridiculous. Especially for two guys who are more at home behind a sequencer than behind a calculator.

While techno and other genres of electronic music got more and more famous in the past decade, electro is still kind of a special interest. For what reason?

Dave: I really don't know. I think maybe it doesn't have the initial impact of a proper acid tune or a good techno stomper but electro on a dancefloor can rock it as much as the techno classics. Electro is dead. Long live electro!

Jean-Paul: Good question. Electro has been through ebbs and flows in the couple of decades it's been around. Once in a while a pop musician will release some big tune with a killer 808. People like Skrillex and Deadmaus have obviously been influenced by electro, as you can hear with their (ab)use of formant filters, and bass wobbles, and glitched out arcade noises, not to mention those two being the biggest offenders in co-opting and bastardizing the word Electro. The real question is: Is Kraftwerk a special interest? My answer is, not by a long shot. Bleep out. 


Get the Electro Compendium here:
http://anti-social-network.bandcamp.com

[Music] The Electro Compendium pt.1

A friend of mine (let's call him Knut) recently wrote an article about a very interesting musical project called "The Electro Compendium". I asked him if I could publish it on JAZZFUCKED and he did not only say "yes" but he was even going to translate it, as the article was originally in German. Thx man! Good stuff. 


The Electro Compendium - A musical statement
Berlin, September 29th, by Philipp Rupp

They simply had to do it. Dave Paton from Scotland (39) and Jean-Paul Bondy (41) from Texas share a common, musical passion for many years now: Electro. This should be a simple, clear statement. But there’s a certain problem with the term.

Cover artwork for the Electro Compendium. © Geso 

Although Electro has got the same roots as other kinds of electronic music, like house or techno for example, it is a separate genre on its own. The music is characterized by a broken beat, which features a snare on the backbeat and basically a kick on the 1 and 3. Beyond the distinctive rhythm, the music comes with a very futuristic, highly technical and often dark minded attitude. Electro does strictly not want to sound earthly or natural, but artificial and mechanically. The conflict between man and machine is a constant, central topic. Computers, machines, robots and androids are omnipresent in the names of artists, tracks, covers, artworks, lyrics and in the music itself. It is this special, distinctive character, which gives electro its very own esthetic and deepness.

By steady misuse in the last years, the term “electro” got more and more washed-out and unclear. In the meantime electro is even used as a collective term for all kinds of electronic music. This doesn’t only cause communication problems, but leads to the serious danger, that the original style electro gets buried in oblivion. The Electro Compendium wants to act against this process. „We were both sick of seeing the term being used for different styles, that are clearly not electro, and decided to do something about it.”, explains Jean-Paul Bondy. A lot of people are aware of this problem. 116 artists accounted a track for the compendium.

While techno and other genres of electronic music got more and more famous in the past decade, electro apparently stayed in the underground. Asked for the reasons, Dave Paton answers: „I think, maybe it doesn't have the initial impact of a proper acid tune or a good techno stomper, but electro on a dancefloor can rock it as much as the techno classics.” And he’s right: although electro is more abstract in its structure than straight techno or house, it comes with strong rhythms and is absolutely danceable.

As the involved artists live spread all over the globe, the project had to be realized across geographical distances. Facebook and Email made it possible. The whole idea actually was born in virtual networks, as Paton reports: „We have been reacting against the misuse of the word electro for some time. Mainly just at each other on forums and various other networks. Myself and JP were both removed from an electro group for having a discussion which was not welcome. My reaction was to simply set up my own electro group, mostly on a whim. Almost overnight all the producers I know and many more had joined up along with many other electro followers. The actual project (Anm: The Electro Compendium) was something that came to mind after many people had joined the group and were having good, friendly conversations on the subject of electro. I felt like we should make use of all

these people in one place. The main intention being to promote the genre and bring all the small fan bases of many different artists together. Time will tell if this has had any lasting effect.”

The honesty of the compendium also appears in the fact, that there was absolutely no money involved. All artists gave their music without any payment. Also the artwork and the administrative work of Bondy and Paton were free of charge. „I just didn't want to involve money as it tends to dilute things. I don't believe in music as a business and I've never made music to make money.“, says Dave. Jean-Paul gets even more explicit: „Money ist the root of all evil.“ Consequentially the compilation is released as a free download in the web.

“The Electro Compendium” is a great, high-quality compilation with the best and only real ambition music can have: passion. A corporate group of artists rises with an extensive piece of art against disregard and oblivion of its musical genre: Electro. The 116 tracks reach from experimental listening experience to raw, functional dancefloor-killers. For freshmen this compilation is an educational lesson – a friendly invitation to get in touch with the cosmos of origin electro music. For lovers it’s a generous gift of unreleased material.

“The Electro Compendium” is available as a free download under http://anti-social-network.bandcamp.com. Besides downloading it for yourself, your task is to support the mission by sharing and spreading this musical statement.

But still not enough of the good work: in addition to the music package, Jon Drukman (aka Bass Kittens) developed a really nice iOS-Mobile-App for The Electro Compendium. And guess what – its available for free in your app-store. To end with Dave Paton’s words: „Electro is dead. Long live electro.” 


Note: Part 2 will feature an interview with the two main characters behind this project. It will be released tomorrow, right here. Stay detuned.

[Books] Cory Doctorow - Makers

Damn, this post took me forever. Not the mere writing / creating of the post, but the phase from deciding to post about it to actually posting it. To be honest, I am a bit lazy when it comes to writing for the blog. Also, as I said before, there will be better reviews than mine, no matter how much time I'd invest. So I decided to search for interesting parts which I can scan, which are interesting for my readers. As this blog is mostly about music I came to think of music-related parts as especially interesting. Funnily, I come across descriptions of all kinds of musical phenomena, in more books than I'd have expected. 

Anyways, this one is a great example by Cory Doctorow. The book is available as free download on Mr.Doctorow's blog Craphound.

(The yellow part is supposed to be crossed out)

[Speech] David Foster Wallace - This is water (2005)

David Foster Wallace was an American author. The postmodern novel "Infinite jest" (that I am calling my own for over three years now and still haven't read) was probably his most famous work. He hung himself in 2008 after 20 years of depression. Below, find a speech by DFW, held at Kenyon College in 2005.





Thanks to Brainpickings for providing this article about DFW and his speech on their Soundcloud page. Thx also to Paula for posting this article and for being one of the few people on Facebook that are not posting mere bullshit.

[Music] Minimal Tech Netlabel Mix by Affaire Zweifuss

Pretty cool mix by Affaire Zweifuss. None of the artists and tracks featured is registered at GEMA. All of the music is available for free. Just visit the homepages of the labels involved and you will find plenty of good music. Tracklisting and more info (including the party at ZMF (Berlin) for which this mix was made) on the Soundcloud Page.

[Music] BADBADNOTGOOD

BADBADNOTGOOD is a (jazz / hiphop / fusion / electronic) band consisting of five young musicians from Toronto, Canada. They released their second album BBNG2 some month ago. It's available via their homepage for free.

Let me tell you one thing: This album / band is fucking amazing. It's so hard to categorize this music but fuck categories anyways. The guys themselves tag their music with "hiphop jazz postbop", whereas hiphop goes too far since there is no vocalist or rapper. In the album they present their own tracks as well as covers from contemporary electronic music like James Blake's Limit to your Love (see video below) or CMYK. And it's this perfect symbiosis of styles that makes this album such a masterpiece for me. Things are just flowing, it never feels as if they're trying. Everything is working out just perfect.

More Infos:
Facebook
Bandcamp

[Event] CTM - ICAS Suite

Ever heard of the CTM Festival in Berlin? I found out about the ICAS Suite happening in Berlin next week. Don't know much about it though. Just  a quick post for those who might wanna dig deeper.

CTM ICAS Suite

[Music] XXYYXX - XXYYXX

Sooo, everybody who's somehow involved with electronic music nowadays stumpled upon the band with the weird, yet wonderful name XXYYXX, right?  (Don't feel bad if you didn't!)

But have you ever heard their music? Honestly it took me like forever to check them out. And then I found out most of their stuff is for free. You can download it at their bandcamp page, either for free or for a donation. Raw synth & groovebox based instrumentals with a lot of bass and highly effected vocals. As always, I dont wanna get lost into describing music, so check it out for yourself if interested. 

The mad scientist of music: Mark Applebaum

Interesting and entertaining talk about different aspects of music.

[Art] The Cephaloid Eye

Very special project by my friend Franco. Better known for the music he releases under the name of Pachyderme on Labels like BlueCode, 31337 and many more, Franco tries a new approach with his  project / blog / label THE CEPHALOID EYE.

Jazzfucked says: SUPPORT THIS GUY. GREAT DUDE. GREAT STUFF. Give him your brain!

[Music] Benedikt Frey - Sun On My Balcony 2010 (Free DL)

Benedikt Frey aka Suedmilch aka Venedikt Reyf ain't no stranger in Germany's Electronic Music Scene. Being around for several years now, he started releasing dark, yet very funky minimal tracks on well-known labels like Autist and E-Minor. By now, his style settled somewhere between house, dub and acid. Always very musical and with the right amount of old-school flavour.
The featured track is a free giveaway. Free high-quality sound, just what we love at jazzfucked.




benedikt frey - sun on my balcony 2010 (free dl)

[Music] Dubious Methods - Trippin (Free Album)

Dubious Methods is one crazy motherfucker. His first release, an album called Trippin', released recently on BlueCode Records, definitely isn't your typical album. It was created in one bloody session while heavily trippin. The 15 tracks / fragments / tools range somewhere between experimental minimal and straight techno and are obviously influenced by Dubious' love for dark moods and UK breakbeatz. Also, the whole album is not only GEMA-free but free at all. Download below! Enjoy.

                            DOWNLOAD

[Musik] Haze - 76 bars (and free mixtape link)

"Locker bisschen Billiard, bisschen Motocross - Aprilia."

Found this lately. Usually I'm not that much into German HipHop these days. Especially when it's this flavored with the typical more-or-less-wanna-be street attitude. But this one is different:


To start with: This is one hell of a beat, damn.. rolling, in your face boom bap material. Feels almost familiar. Sick. And it fits Haze's rap perfectly. 76 in-your-face bars. Haze never looses that easiness and coolness that makes a good flow great. Always three notches ahead of the average street MC. Definitely worth listenig to, if you like(d) rap. And if you're originally from Karlsruhe, like I am, you will love how the local slang shines through his lines occasionally. As if done on purpose in just the exact right amount.

Need more? Here's the link to get the free Haze Mixtape/Album.




"Verstehsch!?"

[Music] Drown in Frustration - Mid-90s Hardcore Punk from South Germany

I found this tape last week. The band is called Drown In Frustration and a dear friend of mine was part of it. I guess it was released around '96, but I can't tell for sure. The first track "Shine" definitely is my favorite. If I recall correctly, it was featured in a compilation back then, and was kind of an underground hit, but that might just be my perspective. Tune though. Big tune.

FYI: This tape was recorded and uploaded to my YT-channel in full compliance with the band. No innocent copyrights harmed.

[Music] New MF Doom coming up: JJ Doom

New MF Doom Record will hit the stores in August (Digital) respective September (Vinyl).
Whaaaaat? How u mean, you dunno MetalFace Doom? Get tha fuck outta here!

If you really don't know Doom by now, here's two videos to get you hooked:







Get all the infos you need to buy that shit here at the STONES THROW PRODUCT PAGE. By the way, this is not being released on Stones Throw but on Lex Records. Check their homepage here. Definitely a future post.

[EVENT] This is for Losers

To enscribe to artistic study courses at universities, candidates usually have to turn in some of their work in advance. I am not sure if showreel is the correct word here, we call it Mappe in Germany. Based on the works in this Mappe, the responsible officials choose the people that will be allowed to study in the respective course. Obviously this is kind of bullshit, since the circumstances under which those works where created are unknown, also they don't cover all aspects that should be taken in consideration, like: former artistic education, talent, experience, open-mindedness, crazyness, drug-addictions and so forth...


For all those, who have been turned down but still believe in their stuff, here's a chance to get your work out to the public: 


THIS IS FOR LOSERS

[Records] Weather Report - Sweetnighter (1973)

Loooong time since I reviewed the last Jazz record here. Way to long! I will make sure to post Jazz record reviews on a more regular basis. Promise!

So, today it's gonna be Sweetnighter, the 1973 album by Weather Report, the legendary Jazz band around band leader and genius Joe Zawinul. Lucky me, since I was introduced to this record waaaay back in the days when I was a kid. That is, besides the fact that it's an awesome record, the reason why it is mentioned here before other records that some people might judge more important to post. Sadly, I couldn't find any YouTube Clips for that record so I chose a live clip which at leadst shows how fucking cool those guys were and still are:

Review I found on Amazon.com that I found good:

The first reason to get this disk is aesthetic. "Sweetnighter" is a unique recording: it includes the least structured, open-ended music that Weather Report recorded, and it was the last one they made before technological progress armed Joe Zawinul with more synthesizers than was perhaps healthy.

Some jazz fan acquaintances used to point to this recording and complain that Zawinul had kidnapped Wayne Shorter and was holding incommunicado in some safe house in Newark. To them there were no solos. They missed the point. Rather than soloing over an accompanying rhythm section, Shorter plays a kind of running commentary, coming in an out of a mix in which the bass(es) and percussion are given equal billing to Shorter's sax and Zawinul's keyboards. Sometimes everyone solos at once and it takes very, very accomplished musicians to pull this off without it degenerating into cacophony.

Yet it would be misleading to pigeonhole this record as Weather Report surrenders to the groove. Perhaps the most remarkable composition on the disk is Miroslav Vitous' ethereal "Will" which is percussion-less. Indeed, one of the remarkable things about this record are how varied the six pieces are: two open-ended jams - "Boogie Woogie Waltz" and "125th Street Congress;" a fairly conventional Shorter composition "Manolette;" two Zawinul tone poems a la "In A Silent Way" or "His Last Journey," "Adios" and "Non-Stop Home;" and Vitous' transcendent "Will."

The other reason to get this disk is the way it sounds. The mass conversion of analogue tapes to digital formats has yielded some real disasters - e.g. Shorter's "Native Dancer" where entire instruments disappeared from the mix. This recording, in contrast, is a case in which the move to CD is a clear improvement over the original vinyl. Now the two basses on "Boogie Woogie Waltz" and "125th Street Congress" are clearly distinguishable, and similarly the multitudinous percussion instruments are more clearly defined. As another reviewer noted, never have Moroccan clay drums sounded so good. Roller toys and Israeli jar drums, either.

DISCOGS: 
http://www.discogs.com/Weather-Report-Sweetnighter/release/481001

[Art] Eine Ameise der Kunst - Jonathan Meese

A documentation about Jonathan Meese, an anti-ideologic german artist. Some say, one of the most important artists of our time. And he sure got very interesting views and ideas about the role (the dictatorship) of art. 

A movie by Julia Bender.

More info about Meese, in English language:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Meese

[Books] Christian Kracht - Faserland

Having been in many feuilletons of German newspapers lately, Christian Kracht fetched my interest some month ago. He is a Swiss author and journalist, who has been working for the well known magazine "Der Spiegel". Today I will not write about his new novel, Imperium, but about his first: Faserland.

I can't remember what exactly I liked so much about it. Maybe the fact that after a long book it was easy to finish in two days. It doesn't really have a thrilling story: It's about a well-situated man in his thirties or forties, who is travelling from the very north of Germany to Switzerland via south germany. He meets old friends and more or less intensely interfears with their lives in a not so positive way.