One of those weeks when nothing happens, but everything is about to happen:
– McGill’s miniature Music Hack Day is next weekend! You should come.
– FaltyDL’s album, Hardcourage, is really, really good.
– Oh my god, have you seen Four Tet’s chaos for Just Jam?
– Also hot mixes from Four Tet for Rinse, Jacques Greene for the Fader, and so on.
week 36
the second consistency mix
1: Friendly Fires – Hurting (C2 Runway Edit) [Planet E]
2: Jozif – Twilight feat. Terri Walker (Dub) [This Is Music]
3: Essay – Morning Mountain [Glyph]
4: Blue Daisy & Annkea – Raindrops (John Talabot Remix) [Black Acre]
5: Todd Terje – Snooze 4 Love [Running Back]
6: Lindstrom – Rà -à kõ-st [Smalltown Supersound]
7: Lindstrom – Eg-ged-osis [Smalltown Supersound]
week 35
Welcome back to Tra La La:
– Heather Harker, who is a genius of a soprano, sang my piece Tornado Songs as part of her Master’s graduating recital at UVic, last month She sang ’em amazingly, and is amazing, and I can’t thank her enough.
– Phillip Stearns finished his colossal Year Of The Glitch project.
– Finally, the best song of 2013 is from a movie from 1959: Louis Armstrong and Danny Kaye doing “When The Saints Go Marching In”.
– Australia had record high temperatures, Beijing broke its pollution index, and it was 12 degrees in Toronto. We have a problem.
the consistency mixes
So it turns out that I’m a failed DJ. Not only do I basically never gig any more, I’ve not recorded a set for almost six months.
One of those things is going to change, and it’s going to change right now. Meet The Consistency Mixes:
I’m going to record a set a week for the next sixteen weeks. These may not be perfect, and sometimes they may be pretty darn weird…but they’re going to go up anyways.
2012: songs of the year
I know, I don’t often talk about ‘songs’. Another sign that I’m getting old. With that said, these three tunes helped keep me sane, all year ’round.
Julia Easterlin – Eyes On The Prize
Song of the year, mantra of the year, everything of the year. Julia Easterlin is the good magic.
Hannah Read – Gramercy West
Hannah knows. Her partner in crime on this one, Charlie Van Kirk, also knows.
Wilsen – Anahita
Tamsin Wilson / Wilsen’s debut album is as close to perfect as one can get. Anahita, the token post-rock behemoth on the album, is perfect.
2012: concerts of the year
All the time I spent not DJing, I spent going to concerts. I can’t stress enough how fantastic many of my “honorable mentions” were.
György Ligeti – Poeme Symphonique
Yes, the OSM did “100 Metronomes”. Yes, it was great, even with the hecklers as the last metronome kept failing to stop. Yes, you should go see it (or put it on!) whenever you get the chance.
Patrick Saint-Denis – Air
Mr. Saint-Denis is a Ph.D student at U de M. His piece, Air, is for three soloists with electronics, then a combination of them…and also for a grid of 192 pieces of paper, each controlled by a fan. This was by far the coolest thing I saw all year: a rippling, low-res screen that felt like a living thing, shouting at the performers from backstage. The music was pretty rad too.
Kim Shepherd, Jillian Hanks, Kevin Thomson – Graduating Recitals
My people, who I could not be more proud of. Kim sounds like Webern and late Steve Reich got drunk with George Gershwin; Jill sounds like Debussy channeling Nobuo Uematsu. Kevin sounds like Messiaen, but hipper – wearing a hat and dress shoes and holding a glass of rye. They each, it must be said, sound like themselves.
Various – The Workshop
Remember that time that people wrote, rehearsed, and performed pieces in less than 12 hours? Me too. It was amazing.
Non-trivial honorable mentions to: Cassandra Miller’s hypnogogic Bel Canto; Dan Brandes’ A Place to Listen series; Quartetski’s postmodern Tobias Hume covers; the grad recitals of Heather Harker, Karl Hirzer, Jeremy Potts, Alex Loewen, Justin Boechler, and Liova Bueno; the Trimpin concert, especially Darren Miller and Chris Reiche; MISQUA, esepcially Ligeti I, the MSO doing Shostakovich 13, and the Mario Bertoncini aeolian harp / bowed piano party.
2012: singles of the year
And this year I barely DJ’d at all; so it goes. With that said, there were some tunes kicking around that stood right out.
Locussolus – Berghain (Darkroom Mix)
I didn’t take this track seriously until I heard it live, on a big system…at which point it almost made me fall over. It does almost nothing, for 10 minutes, and is totally vital just the same.
TF – Dark Hearts with Sasha’s Song Told
No idea. I was referenced to this via a SoundCloud account that I can’t find any more…so you’ll just have to trust me that it combines everything good about dance music into one four-minute monster.
(20220 edit: This is NYC’s own Total Freedom, of course)
Py – Lungs
That’s Mr. FitzGerald, to you. Deep, rolling, and lush lush lush lush lush.
Honorable mentions to Caribou’s remix of Junior Boy – You’ll Improve Me, Carl Craig remixing Friendly Fires – Hurting, Shake remixing Don Froth – Reflex, the insaaane Say My Name remix by Cyril Hahn, and, of course, Ima Read by Zebra Katz
2012: shows of the year
Roman Fluegel @ Le Bleury
I literally stumbled over Le Bleury while exploring Montreal. Shows like this make me unlikely to go anywhere else: Deep house/tech, great flow, and just enough “what the hell was that” tracks.
Move D @ Le Bleury
See above. This was their Halloween party, which was so packed as to literally prevent me from moving at times; deeper, housier, more disco than Roman, but just as good.
HRDVSION + Prison Garde @ Sub|Division, Lucky Bar
In addition to all the amazing things I’ve said about the SubDiv crew and parties, you have to give them all the credit in the world for slowly convincing Victoria, BC, to listen to an hour and change of snappy, bleeding edge techno from one of our favorite sons.
Honorable mentions to Exeter’s live set at the RBMA / Sub|Div show, Hawtin at SAT, playing scary techno for a bunch of EDM kids, Rennie Foster at Hush, and the impossible Cenote parties put on by Fossil, Arktic, and OKPK.
2012: sets of the year
Tough, tough running this year….including mixes that I slept on from last year.
DJ Food, Cheeba, & Moneyball – Caught In The Middle of A 3-Way Mix – a tribute to The Beastie Boys‘ ‘Paul’s Boutique’ album
It is impossibly rare for a mix to be a work of art, a document of deep history, and a dance party all at the same time. This monumental re-work of Paul’s Boutique does all those and more.
Vakula – Resident Advisor Podcast # 311
I knew nothing about this Ukranian deep/house DJs work…but this mix is about as close to ultra-smooth perfection as I heard all year.
Rustie – Essential Mix, April 2012
I had a typo in the above, saying “April 20212”. If news came out that Rustie is in fact from the future, I would not be the slightest bit surprised.
Most honorable mentions to: J.E.T.S. FACT mix, Ryan Hemsworth’s amazing 16-bit FACT podcast, Z-Trip’s Beastie Boys Megamix, James Blake’s Essential Mix from September 2011, Four Tet’s Conference of the Birds from April, Art Department’s perfectly sleazy Resident Advisor podcast, and King Britt’s FACT mix as Fhloston Paradigm. All those sets are amazing, and you should check them all out.
2012: albums of the year
Four Tet – Pink
This isn’t really an album so much as it is a collection of singles…but when the singles are this earth-flying-through-outer-space good, it doesn’t really matter.
Daphni – Jiaolong
Cut from the same cloth as the Four Tet – an “album” of post-cosmic dancefloor heat of the highest order.
Burial – Kindred
And this isn’t an album either, it’s an EP. What gives? Kindred is only three tracks, but sounds like six, and is just resplendent. Burial, amazingly, keeps on getting better.
Honorable mentions to: Wilsen – Sirens, Hannah Read – Wrapped in Lace, Various Artists – Bleep’s Guide To Electronic Music, and Flying Lotus – Until The Quiet Comes.