Hello new friends, Max Pearl (aka, DJ Kat Fyte) here checking in as the newest contributor to Trash Menagerie.  For my first post, I’d like to take all of my new readers on a guided journey of those winding corridors and dark hiding-places that I like to troll as I make my way through the blogosphere.  That means recommendations, people!

I’d like to keep it multi-media, as much as possible, so here are a few treasures that deserve some exposure, from audio-visual art music to critical commentary on the state of the contemporary moment.

First up, here’s an astoundingly well-edited promo video for the current reigning champion of the drum machine, AraabMUZIK.  I’m pretty sure that everything you’re hearing in this masterpiece is generated by this dude triggering samples off of the MPC console he’s working with, even the gnarly chug-a-chugs!

In this day and age where DJs are exchanging their turntables for laptops and MIDI controllers, yet trying to find ways to keep digital DJing as impressive for the eyes as it is for the ears, an MPC prodigy is pretty much exactly what we’ve been looking for to satiate our tiny attention spans.  SOMEBODY BOOK THIS DUDE AND I WILL GLADLY ATTEND YOUR PARTY AND BUY EVERYONE BEER.  By the way, ‘dude does much of the production for the one-and-only Cam’ron and the Dipset crew. Makes sense.

araabMUZIK Live MPC set Part 2 from Death by Electric Shock on Vimeo.
[This is part 2 of 3 parts, by the way. I encourage you to troll Google until you find the other two. But this is by far the most technically awesome.]

WARNING: THIS NEXT BIT GETS A LIL’ GEEKY
But seriously, if you like bass music, you like critical rants and conspiracy theories about technologies of control, and you’re as floored as I am by the Afrofuturist philosophies espoused by everyone from Lee Scratch Perry to Sun-Ra to British theorist Kodwo Eshun, I would highly recommend you pick up a copy of Kode9′s new book, Sonic Warfare.

In the simplest terms, he addresses the use of sound as a structuring technology- a sonic architecture, if you will- from night-time sound bombs used to create an environment of paranoia and fear among the colonized, to high-pitched frequencies used in malls to prevent teens from gathering, all the way through to the careful crafting of good or bad vibes by soundsystems operators in the context of the global dancehall session.  Kode9, by the way, is the curator behind the virtually infallible Hyperdub record label, a leftfield electronica institution that’s centered around wonky hip-hop and dubstep, with releases from acts like Ikonika, Burial, Zomby, and Joker.  Act like you know.

Lastly, let me round out yet one more border to which my artistic and cultural interests extend, and make the jump from super METAL gangster beats and Sonic Warfare over to the contemporary state of Latin American and Caribbean party music!  I don’t mean to blow up anybody’s spot if you’ve been hoarding music from this bizarre little outlet in the global digital, but these guys deserve some props!  Check out the wonderful, regularly-updated music blog, Flow Cartagena, “EL BLOG OFICIAL DEL DANCEHALL Y REGGAETON,” for seriously cutting edge reggae/hip-hop everything.  Much of the music available at this site is from amateur producers and remixers, and a lot of it is unreleased, bootlegged, or really poorly mixed and mastered.  Still, you can find some gems if you’re willing to hit up google translator and spend an hour navigating the sketchy mess that is this website’s interface.

One of my favorites is this track here, an upbeat, layed-back hip-hop joint from Jiggy D and Mosta Man.  Just so you trust me that this site is in fact quite bangin’.

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Street Music – Jiggy D Ft. Mosta Man

(192kbps but somehow it still sounds good on a big system)

Anyways, till next time ya’ll, glad to be a part of this fabulous publication.

Mwah!

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