Boston yr my bounce: MicL PTVN, DJ C, Wayne & Waxbashment* (n) (1) Reggae/dancehall music. (2) A West Indian party where reggae music is played excessively. (3) A definition of something wicked. (4) Getting some sex or having sex. (5) Loving someone. (6) UK term for hash.
* paraphrased from UrbanDictionary.com1. LISTEN: MicL,
Soundystem 440 November Mix (mp3, see def. 3, 4, 5)
Cassette's Michael Potvin quit Cassette, but took Wendy with him and is readying a new duo called
Eject. (First show opening for Certainly, Sir at T.T.'s on December 3). More on that soon. Bigger news at the moment is that he's put together an hour-long mixtape that picks up where Mark E. Moon's
Crunkin' Donuts mix left off: like that one, this one features stars of the Compound 440r agit/dancepunk/synthpop/partyrap underground --
Squids,
Crystal Understanding,
Cassette,
Plunge Into Death, and
Big Digits, plus 440r affiliates like
Cyanide Valentine and
Westward Trail -- but puts them in the context of, y'know, all that other great stuff that's not from Boston: NIN/DFA, Annie, Missy Elliot, Outhud, Gang of Four, and the baile-metal meme "Popozuda Rock N Roll." (Also: someone over there in
440 land oughta follow up on MicL's juxtapose and do a full-on mash up of "UV Protection Theme" and "Toxic.") This is a really stellar mix, and hopefully the beginning of a monthly, Lemon Red/Certified Bananas-type series.
2. LISTEN: DJ C, "
Boston Bouncement" (mp3, see def. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
On "
Boston Bounce,"
DJ C gave a coming-out party for the mix's eponymous beat -- developed and adopted by local beat researchers and riddim methodists, it felt like a universal adapter, adept at plugging grime into ragga into crunk into dubstep. On this follow-up, he begins with a new Boston bounce mix -- plugging Lady Sovereign's "Ch-Ching" into the instrumental from his remix of MIA's "URAQT," then hits rewind and breaks down the polyphonic B-bounce into its
component parts: 55 minutes of future-shocking buzzgrind that peels back layers of dubstep, hip-hop, grime, and dancehall. The first section is all female vox from the likes of Sov, MIA, Ms. Thing, and Shystie. (C swears the all-girl section was a coincidence. "They seem to like riding on top of those sexy kinda beats," he told us the other day). In a middle section he pitches the mens' voices up (intentionally fucking with gender, we hope?) and in the end they come crashing down hard again, including a deep, severe Boston Bounce reprise by
Quality Diamond, a Jamaican vocalist living in Bristol whom DJ C fans will remember from the "
Let It Billie" single on
Scandalbag. The rockist in us isn't very good yet at describing how DJs do that thing where the music gets all revelatory and makes you feel awesome and stuff, but trust us: this is really, really good.
Also, DJ C and DJ Flack hold their weekly "
Beat Research" residency tonight at Enormous Room with Ryleseven, who we don't know. The Researchers vouch for him, though: "last Beat Research set, which mixed hip-hop, experimental disco, electro-clash, and straight up electro, got everyone off their plush cushions and on the dance floor, where people were bumping and grinding until the the lights came on."
3. LISTEN: Wayne & Wax, "
Dubble Dub" (mp3, see def. 1, 3, 5, 6)
Wayne & Wax has finally found a way to improve on the great works of dub reggae. The answer: MORE DUB. For this 35-minute mix, as he explained over at the
Riddim Method, he's taking a bunch of classics and "treating them as a dub producer treats individual tracks in a mix, applying plenty of echo/delay and reverb and working with layers of sound as layers of sound. I also apply some digital-age tricknology, cutting and looping fragments of tunes and often time-stretching tracks to maintain a steady tempo for much of the mix. Because the tunes are already dub tunes, many of them brimming with effects and edits, i’m essentially doubling-up on the dub," thus, of course, the title. Which is clever enough, but the real bump is that he's building to a finale of -- spoiler alert! -- a likkle "Drive"-by from the Cars?! Genius.