07 novembre, 2009

Viva Barefoot!


Stereotyp (Crunchtime, G-Stone) is a veteran producer from Vienna who has created his own dance music genre and called it Barefoot. Definition: funky bass music meets ragga ohne Hemmungen. Generation Bass has the full story here.

So did we really need a new label/genre? Yes! Here's a quote from Stereotyp:

"I thought by creating a genre that doesn’t have these tempo restrictions, it will give peeps that like jumping tempo’s a right to exist."

and how about this one:

"I myself made tunes in the past that were not released because even if a label really liked it, they saw a problem for sales because it didn’t fit any of the tempo rules that other dance music had at that time. Free the sound :)"


This also sums up the issues i have with the 'dubstep' label. Because dubstep is not really a musical style or a rhythm or anything like that, it's a bpm rule designed to make life easier for the almighty DJ. Never mind the 'heavy subs' myth.. ever been to a proper reggae dance? Come on.. you gotta be joking..

If i were still in the selector business today i'd play strictly Barefoot. Hand inna the air seh yuh nuh inna dem conveyor belt ting :-)

stereotyp barefoot update 09 by CRUNCHTIME

Talen - Kingston Book Session hosted by Junior Indian by talen

Another slammin Barefoot mix.. this one coming from the Talen crew out of Switzerland. Talen have just released their debut: two fine style 12 inch tales titled Kingston Book and New York Book out on Mouthwatering Records. Warm & easy vibes coming from Junior Indian mixing up the new releases and some Talen exclusives.


And finally here are some more transalpine mixes from Swiss producer Wildlife



01 novembre, 2009

Kandinsky's dub teachings

First some wise words coming from Susan Sontag, taken from her book Against interpretation (1966).

"Today is such a time, when the project of interpretation is largely reactionary, stifling. Like the fumes of the automobile and of heavy industry which befoul the urban atmosphere, the effusion of interpretations of art today poisons our sensibilities. In a culture whose already classical dilemma is the hypertrophy of the intellect at the expense of energy and sensual capability, interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art.


Even more. It is the revenge of the intellect upon the world. To interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world - in order to set up a shadow world of "meanings." It is to turn the world into this world. ("This world!" As if there were any other.)

The world, our world, is depleted, impoverished enough. Away with all duplicates of it, until we again experience more immediately what we have."


Ok, as you may have guessed i'm not into art interpretation. When i write about 'Kandinsky's dub teachings' it's about an imaginary clash between abstract painting and dub music looking mostly at Kandinsky's theories and techniques, not the deeper meaning of certain paintings and so on.

It's impossible to exactly define what 'abstract painting' is so let's just say that a purely abstract painting does not have a landscape or a portrait on it. It's about something a bit more.. abstract. In itself abstraction is not a goal (because it's just a vague and slippery concept). It's more interesting to look at varying degrees of abstraction. Take for example this spot in the Brazilian jungle.


Obviously this photo is not the real thing. It's 'just' a photo and in many ways it's an abstraction. For one thing the exact spot where this picture was taken is now completely different. In that sense the photo isn't very realistic but it's not abstract enough to qualify as abstract art.

Here are some more abstract jungle scenes...

Rousseau - Equatorial Jungle



Kandinsky - Composition No. 7


It's the same thing in music and especially in dub. Before the invention of speakers and amplifiers all music was about singing and playing instruments (some people would call that 'real' music). Then electric amplification of sound was introduced and people started to listen to the vibrating diaphragm of a speaker. And with studio techniques progressing (cut & paste, artificial reverb etc.) the music itself also became more abstract.


Right now many young producers have never played a 'real' instrument yet. A laptop containing digital synths, drumloops, fx etc. is all it takes. That's very abstract in the sense that it's totally unlike playing an old out of tune acoustic guitar.

I think producers who work with mouse clicks and buttons only and never play 'real' instruments are missing something but i wouldn't say that abstract sounds coming from a laptop are 'better' or 'worse' because with new techniques it's all about how you use them.


Reading about Kandinsky and his theories of art you inevitably notice a few themes that keep coming back in different phrasing. Of course Kandinsky was going for abstraction, but he didn't want mere 'decoration'. He wanted to create/construct lively pieces that surface from deep within. Something he called 'inner necessity' or intuition.

His whole life Kandinsky was especially interested in Chinese art and culture. This made me think that his main themes are all more or less reflected in the Taoist yin/yang contrast between the spontaneous (nature) and the artificial (the world of man). In a broad sense Kandinsky's core theories are efforts to understand how the tensions caused by this polarity can be used in art. Laptop producers might want to check it out some time ;-)





Among the painters of the 20th century Kandinsky is seen as an 'important' philosopher (whatever that may mean). He was always doing research in a scientific way, reading, writing and teaching about practical stuff like the chemistry of paint, cognitive psychology (color perception etc.) but also about philosophy, history, religion, new physics theories and so on. This really reminds me of dub scientists like the Mad Professor and Lee Perry and it also reminds me of 'geeky & spiritual' producers like RZA from Wu-Tang Clan.

One thing Kandinsky really disliked was a purely rational (positivist) view of science. He would always stress the importance of chance and intuition, both in science and in art. But how does this work in practice? How does a painter work by intuition? I don't know, it's probably very different for each individual artist but although it's impossible to capture the essence of intuition in a few words, it's still very interesting to explore the hidden capacities of the human mind.

Dream telepathy is a fascinating example. I like this article by Montague Ullman. He did some very interesting research on transmission of images via dreams and he even used paintings as target material :-) If you like this kind of stuff you might also be interested in a book by Robert Aziz called The Syndetic Paradigm (don't let the unattractive title fool you).

"The world is full of resonances. It constitutes a cosmos of things exerting a spiritual action. The dead matter is a living spirit."
Wassily Kandinsky

30 octobre, 2009

Shabba is coming to Amsterdam

29 octobre, 2009

CD quality downloads for 16 bit chauvinists

Occasionally i'll upload some tunes in CD-format (a.k.a. wav) to this page. Mostly tracks that really benefit from the increased 3d sound quality. The average 'size' of the tracks is about 45 Mb.

DJs watch out! Some of these tunes sound a bit dancefloorish but actually the mixes are all optimized for max 3d and max bass, not for max dance floor impact so expect some tweakin.

tony dubshot - double barrel by tony dubshot

tony dubshot - booff by tony dubshot

drome & i-lodica - dubba (dubshot mansion mix) by tony dubshot

tony dubshot - light creator by tony dubshot

tony dubshot - upsetting dub (wooferkiller) by tony dubshot

28 octobre, 2009

Armin van Buuren best DJ out of Leiden?

Millions of fans voted for Armin van Buuren again so he's still the best DJ in this part of the galaxy, at least according to DJ Mag. Call me contrary but i don't agree. I don't even think Van Buuren is the best dj out of Leiden (the wonderful town in the Netherlands where both Armin and yours truly live).

To prove my point i'd like to present 3 dj's from Leiden who are not as famous as they should be.

DJ TLR - the electro don of Crème Organization fame who brings you the Westcoast Sound of Holland. Download this: TLR - Struck by Boogie Lightning

DJ Miss World - spreading a wicked gospel of funky bass beats, kuduro, hot latin vibes etc. Here's a mix she did for a dutch radio station

DJ Wrok - Nr. 1 chief rocka inna dancehall style. In fact his mixes sound a LOT like what i used to do back in the nineties for Runcome sound system, a local dancehall ting we had in Leiden in those days. Here's a tight rootical mix, warm and easy vibes