– The trailer for the new Bioshock is astonishing.
– Some madman built a 16-bit ALU…in Minecraft.
– Patrick Stewart & Ian McKellan on Waiting for Godot
– Shigeru Miyamoto & Shigesato Itoi on Mario turning 25, where ideas come from, and the creative process in general.
linkness
the hush top 50
The secret project I’ve been working since January is ready! Meet the Hush Top 50.
Since you asked, it’s a compilation of the fifty tracks that did the most damage to the Hush dancefloor, over the ten years that that club has been open, as selected by a list of residents, guests, and old friends. It’s got stories, audio links, and DJ profiles. If you’re not already there, go check it out! Now!
(I am indebted to David Tillson for his wisdom and aid, Amanda Farrell-Low for her journalistic chops, and Justin Humber for holding my hand as I tweaked the website he built.)
45:33:24:17
My friend Kenzie described this set as “Oh shit, he went there.” I would submit that I go there multiple times, in fact. Mixed for the OH GREAT! 15-minute contest, this shit is ridiculous.
1: Acen – Dirty Raver [TCR]
// Blaze – My Beat (Accapella) [True]
2: Christian J – Nightfighter [Distinctive]
// Blaze – Dance To My Beat (Accapella) [True]
3: Andy Page – Bisted & Twitter [N.I.T.]
4: Quarta330 – Bleeps From Outer Space [Hyperdub]
5: Joker & Ginz – Stash [Hyperdub]
6: X-Cabs – Neuro ’99 (Electro Mix) [Hook]
// Christian J – Nightfighter [Distinctive]
// Blaze – My Beat (Accapella) [True]
two new jams!
Been waiting on these for just ages, but here they are. Both are available for download as full bandwidth .WAV files too.
Harker & Dyer – Ave Maria (Fractal Remix) by Fractal
The Ave Maria remix features the amazing Heather Harker on vox and Andrew Dyer on guitar. The onefourfiveone track is a tease for a four-track EP that I’m working on.
lesson zero
I’m giving two people DJ lessons this week, which got me thinking about ways to teach the craft outside of endless beatmatching practice:
– Mix with a single cut, nothing more.
– Mix with no cut at all, start to finish.
– Mix with no EQ.
– Mix with only EQ.
^^ These ideas are not about fader chops: they’re about track selection.
– Mix records that someone else picked for you.
– Mix records from your collection at random.
^^ These are about creativity.
– Hold a mix for as long as possible.
– Mix with the fader up.
^^ OK, these two are about beatmatching. It is a bit important.
i came to dance: track lengths part 2
In my previous post, I talked about track lengths from 1970 to 1990. Now let’s look at 1995 to the present, in a few different ways.
First off, by DJ: Carl Cox and John Digweed are kind of out of favour right now, but they’re both very good and very evergreen. I took averages of three of their tracks from various years, taken from their Top 10s:
Carl Cox:
1995 // 6:17
- Laurent Garnier – Astral Dreams (Carl Cox Remix): 7:08
- Slam – Step Back: 6:30
- Dave Clarke – Thunder: 5:12
2005 // 7:17
- Cohen vs. Deluxe – Just Kick! (Carl Cox Remix): 6:41
- Hiroki Esashika – Kazane: 5:49
- Nick & Danny Chatelain – Is Killing Me: 9:22
2009 // 8:42
- Sharam – Say Yeah: 9:17
- Nic Fanciulli – 20%: 9:11
- Steve Mac & Paul Harris – Dizzy Heights: 7:39
John Digweed:
1994/96 // 9:42
- Bedrock – For What You Dream Of: 10:44
- Morgan King – I’m Free: 8:00
- Underworld – Dark & Long: 10:28
2000 // 11:54
- Bedrock – Heaven Scent: 10:28
- Science Department – Persuasion: 10:41
- Raff ‘n’ Freddy – Listen: 12:39
2004 // 8:58
- Dousk – Pa-Dida: 10:08
- Spektrum – Kinda New (Tiefschwarz Dub): 8:15
- Way Out West – Apollo: 8:32
2004 // 9:51
- Giorgio Roma – Every Possible Mistake: 11:39
- Bedrock – Aquatonic: 8:19
- Maetrik – Choose Your System (Adam Beyer Remix): 9:37
This is more interesting: you can see Digweed going to town during progressive houses’ glory years, and you can see Cox slowing down from his frenetic 3-deck work as a rave DJ. Cox’s track length increases as well, which belies my previous thesis. On the other hand, John “Not a boring DJ” Digweed is back to his just-shy-of-ten-minutes length. So we have no conclusion here; more data would probably solve it.
But here’s more data!
Jungle Lengths // 6:38
- Lennie D Ice – We Are IE: 7:45 (1991)
- UK Apache / Shy FX – Original Nuttah: 5:10 (1994)
- Renegade feat. Ray Keith – Terrorist: 6:16 (1994)
Dubstep Lengths // 5:29
- Burial – Southern Comfort: 5:02 (2006)
- Skream – Midnght Request Line: 5:04 (2005)
- Digital Mystikz – Anti War Dub: 6:22 (2006)
Dubstep tracks are shorter than jungle tracks. Interesting, but perhaps obvious. Importantly, both averages are within the 5:30 to 6:30 range that the averages from 1970 to 1990 supported. One last point of data:
Daft Punk: Homework (1997) // 4:36 (75:53 overall)
Justice: Cross (2007) // 4:38 (48:13 overall)
TWO SECONDS difference in the average. This, for me, is the kicker. Attention span has never been that long, I just happened to get interested in dance music during the John Digweed 12-minute track period. But people have been freaking out to two and a half minute jams and twelve-minute epics since 1970, and will continue to do so.
i came to dance: track lengths part 1
Really, I did. But I also came to do science, dammit. When I started DJing, tracks were 6 to 10 minutes long or so. Now they’re 3 to 8 minutes long. This is obviously very dependant on genre, but it seems like almost all DJs are moving through music faster. So, I did some research.
The first section references tracks from the amazing charts in Last Night A DJ Saved My Life. Track times are from discogs or wikipedia, using the original single whenever possible. Each club has the average of the five tracks I chose at random, its date and location, and then the five tracks. You’ll be surprised:
The Loft // 6:12 (1971-1980, NEW YORK)
- James Brown – Give It Up & Turn It Loose: 2:45
- Sylvester – Over And Over: 9:27
- Atmosfear – Dancing In Outer Space: 9:24
- Prince – Sexy Dancer: 4:18
- Stevie Wonder – All I Do: 5:06
Paradise Garage // 5:42 (1977-1987, NEW YORK)
- ESG – Moody: 5:01
- Loleatta Holloway – Love Sensation: 6:33
- Marshall Jefferson – Move Your Body: 10:00
- Grace Jones – Slave to The Rhythm: 4:20
- MFSB – Love Is The Message: 2:40
The Warehouse / The Music Box // 6:00 (1977-1987, CHICAGO)
- Indeep – Last Night A DJ Saved My Life: 5:40
- Chaka Khan – I’m Every Woman: 3:42
- Phuture – Acid Tracks: 12:12
- Mr. Fingers – Can You Feel It?: 5:45
- Liquid Liquid – Optimo: 2:41
The Roxy // 5:55 (1982-1983, NEW YORK)
- Afrika Bambaata – Planet Rock: 6:25
- Babe Ruth – The Mexican: 5:45
- Grandmaster Flash – The Message: 7:14
- Donna Summer – I Feel Love: 5:53
- Talking Heads – Once In A Lifetime: 4:19
The Hacienda // 6:25 (1986-1997, MANCHESTER)
- 808 State – Pacific State: 3:52
- Inner City – Big Fun: 7:39
- Mantronix – King Of The Beats: 5:58
- Orbital – Chime: 12:52
- Rhythm Is Rhythim – Strings Of Life: 7:23
Shoom // 5:46 (1987-1990, LONDON)
- A Guy Called Gerald – Voodoo Ray: 4:27
- Fingers Inc – Distant Planet: 6:30
- Ralph Rosario – You Used To Hold Me: 6:28
- Ten City – Devotion: 6:48
- U2 – I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For 4:37
To summarize: No more than sixty seconds difference, on average, in 25 years of dance music. This astonished me. I thought for certain that track lengths would be huge in during disco, shorten during house and hip-hop, and then stretch again during the summer of love. Wrong.
If you want to make a great dance record, it should probably be six minutes long. If you want to be a great DJ, you should probably play tracks of different lengths.
But what about the last 15 years, you ask? Patience. More data will come tomorrow.
You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby
Test, Test, Test.
Berlin –> Tallinn
I leave Berlin on Wednesday, September 1st, to spend five days in Tallinn. Then it’s back to Canada.
I made some things this summer!
http://zeitcloud.appspot.com <-- what's hot at SoundCloud today. http://instantmusicvideo.appspot.com <-- add a SoundCloud track to a Vimeo or Youtube video. I'm also working on Secret Project #1, which has taken far too long, but will be worth it. I also need to fix this WordPress install, as it's well broken...but that can wait until I'm on the right side of the Atlantic again.
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The first album / ep of my live project with Oakley ‘Patience Automate’ Low is out. It’s called Hello World, and you can find it here.
For most of our jams, I ran two Nintendo DS; one running the amazing Korg DS-10, one running Electroplankton, Protein, GlitchDS, and CellsDS. Oakley usually rolled with his laptop and FL Studio, often aided by an Electribe. We have no sync of any sort. This is why you’ll hear one of stop for a bar from time to time – we have to stop one sequencer and then press Start again to get ourselves back on track.
Oak generally runs drums and FX, I generally do leads and bass. We work with a one-bar loop that morphs over time, hence the name. We some times get 10,000 kinds of crunk; we sometimes get super-duper ambient. We hope you dig it.