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Thoughts on developments in the post-mortem hipster era.

17 Aug

Maturation is inevitable. The time for fun and games just being fun and games is over. This is the time where all of the Jerry Rubins get rich and all of the Abbie Hoffmans don’t care. This is the complicated era in which you shine a spotlight on the soul of your heroes and learn their true motivations. Things are about to get really strange. Mirroring a sentiment we stated on April 23rd of this year, Dov Charney, the fashion forward impresario behind American Apparel, declared “hipsterdom is over.”  Let’s take a second to reflect at some of the curious happenings in the post-mortem, as these will be interesting days ahead.

Mad Decent Records, the leading arbiters of cool, are already stocking their post-hipster war chest, as now, looking like hungry carpetbaggers, their nationwide Mad Decent Block Party tour is bringing out big numbers of hipsters from not just Philly, but LA, Chicago and NYC too, hungry to associate with the pinnacle of “underground” cool. Mad Decent being down with Diesel jeans for the tour is certainly terrific, but is a key note to observe as the label, much like American Apparel declaring “preppy” the new “hipster,” the subtle switch of the label from undergroung kingpin to art house favorite is like watching Blondie go from punk to pop overnight. If the Maluca, Bosco Delrey and Popo releases are a harbinger to anything for the label’s future, they will succeed in the change of tides.

 
MIA, now and then.

Let’s pause to remember one of the most savage and entertaining stories in our cultural shift of 2010 was learning that MIA is married to the child of one of the richest men in the world, lives in a mansion, does photo shoots draped in gold, and yes, eats french fries dipped in truffle oil. All of these trappings of wealth sure make singing songs about revolutionary politics appear to be hollow and insincere. When Lynn Hirschberg exposed MIA’s bleeding heart was bleeding Kool-Aid instead of plasma, she became the first victim of the backlash. There definitely needs to be a certain attention paid by first generation hipster stars looking to make the pop crossover to that tale. In becoming a pop star, in many ways instead of being a pop icon with a tremendous underground fanbase to fall back on, she’s become just another “unique” pop star, at the bottom of the food chain, but with nothing to truly turn back towards for help. In many ways by alienating who and what she needed to fuel her mainstream success, her career and hot buzz has absolutely stalled.

DC’s U Street Music Hall. The new face of downtown underground culture.

Another key indicator of the next generation is DC’s U Street Music Hall. It’s the best “underground” venue in the country by default. Nothing really can compare to a venue that has capacity similar to other cities’ leading underground spots having a premium on sound, cleanliness, big crowds and professionalism. It will be interesting to see what other spots nationwide develop in the post U Hall era. Underground music was never supposed to be heard on systems like this in the middle of downtown in a city in America save cosmopolitan locales like NYC or LA. In America, you have to travel with express purpose to the outskirts of cities, under bridges, in warehouses, abandoned buildings and bizarre rooms stocked with enough speakers to overpower a room and wake the dead to appreciate dance music. U Hall is on a street corner. There’s an obvious and wonderful difference. One of the many reasons in my mind why music at the fringes of electronic dance music had such a stronghold in Europe and was appreciated, but to a far less significant degree in the US, was due to clubs not being able to showcase the music in such a manner that it inspired mainstream people to appreciated the timbre, color and beauty of the sound. On a regular system, electro, drum and bass, dubstep and techno sound like noise and distraction. On a system that can handle these compositions, you can find the rhythms and appreciate them.

The next iteration of underground culture will be a curious time, indeed. As well, watching what happens as hipsters get rich, die trying or stop caring and decide to inform the next underground generation will be intriguing to say the least. Curious times make for curious actions.

MIXTAPE MONDAY: Mad Decent Monday Edition

16 Aug

If record labels were elementary school students, Mad Decent would have the most interesting “what I did on my summer vacation” presentation. Between quadrupling their annual Block Party and releasing mixtapes weekly, Diplo and family are doing big things before they pack it up and move to Los Angeles. Here are two recent mixtapes from up-and-coming talents on the label.


Like MIA and Santigold before her, Maluca‘s Mad Decent mixtape serves as her entree onto the underground scene. While those two found Wes Gully behind the boards, Maluca’s China Food is expertly mixed by Paul “The Other Pauly D” Devro with a “past, present and future” theme in mind.

China Food fills the void left after we heard the fiery merengue of last year’s “Tigeraso” but not much else from the Dominican chanteuse. Between samples of “Fire” and “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” are house-inflected tropical tunes like “Jungle Violento” and “Loca.” Devro curates one helluva tape, letting Maluca flex her Kelis muscles on the moody “Hector” and “Flourescent Beige.” Definitely cop this one, for the low, low price of your email address.


Along with moombahton, this summer has been defined by the resurgence of noise pop, especially the sun-soaked and weed smoke variety. Bands like Wavves, Best Coast, and Surfer Blood have led the way with fuzzed-out pop songs that hint at nostalgia and beach vibes. Po Po (brothers Zeb and Shoaib) mine similar territory for Mad Decent.

This summer mixtape, originally recorded for their tour with Sleigh Bells, showcases the experimental garage rock the duo is known for. While most of the tape is noisier and less complete than first single “Bummer Summer,” it’s still a good placeholder until their fall debut drops.

THE DROP: Luvstep Live at the Mad Decent Block Party

9 Aug


As I walked up 12th Street in Philadelphia on my way to the Mad Decent Block Party, I heard the unmistakable, soothing sounds of luvstep. The set marked the live debut of luvstep, the dubstep subgenre identified by Dirty South Joe and Flufftronix earlier this year on their mix of the same name. It was one of the many can’t-miss sets during the day. Luckily for those who missed it, the proverbial tape was running and the set is now available for download.

An introduction from Ten Things I Hate About You sets the tone: melancholic, bittersweet, and teeming with raw emotion. The 30-minute mix kicks off strong with tracks by Sky Ferreira and Nero, before revisiting essential tracks (Caspa’s remix of the Deadmau5 & Kaskade collab “I Remember”) and dropping new popstep heat (the trio of “Hold On,” “I Need Air,” and “Katy on a Mission”).

“PClart” by Kavsrave has been floating around for a few months; the female vocals and wonky bass are a perfect fit for the mix. The same is true of the “Edge of Seventeen”-sampling “Days Go By” by the Boogaloo Crew (who now are part of Future Grooves featuree Dark Sky). The mix closes with some Don Juan DeMarco:

“There are only four questions of value in life, Don Octavio. What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for, and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same: only love.”

For dubstep, a genre derided for its harsh sounds and bromantic attitude, only luvstep can save it.

Tracklist for Luvstep Live at the Mad Decent Block Party
Introduction: KATARINA
Sky Ferreira – One (Bar9 Remix)
Nero – Innocence
Deadmau5 – I Remember (Caspa Remix)
Rusko – Hold On (feat Amber Coffman)
Magnetic Man – I Need Air
Katy B – Katy On A Mission
Professor Green ft Lily Allen – Just Be Good To Me (Joker Remix – Fluff’s Greenless Dub)
M83 – We Own The Sky (Udachi Remix)
Kavsrave – PClart
Bobby Caldwell – What You Won’t Do For Love (DZ Remix)
Guido – Mad Sax
The Boogaloo Crew – Days Go By
The Living Graham Bond – Winter Hunter ft Fiona Bevan (Bare Noize Remix)
Epilogue: DON JUAN

The Mad Decent Block Party and the frightening nature of being "mad stupid" in a new society…

2 Aug

People influence movements, and movements influence people. It took going to the heart of the matter to see just how bizarre the world really is these days. The hipster movement is a movement started in blue collar cities just like Philadelphia. Smart punk kids informed by hip hop swagger with 9-5 jobs outside of the white collar economy just living and enjoying life. Now, hipsters are teen kids from all over the world influenced by the streets of Philly and Williamsburg, Brooklyn being raised and indoctrinated into a life where they wear bizarre clothing and get unusual tattoos, don’t truly understand how or why, but are expected to fulfill their destinies in white collar, mainstream society. The cultural shift now taking place in mainstream American society was at the crux of the entertainment and sadly the solid, yet uninspiring nature of the event.

The music these kids listen to has been was first appropriated from other underground cultures to create a scene that was not mainstream. Diplo, the Mad Decent mastermind, crafted the Hollertronix parties out of the wreckage and detritus of the fringes of music like crunk hip hop, Bmore club, punk, baile funk and electro Superstars were made of people who were perfectly content to be solid craftsmen, and of the bizarre musical hybrids of musical history, the mainstream being influenced by this movement in particular has created some of the strangest developments since the nadir of disco. I’m not going to say I didn’t have fun at the Mad Decent Block Party. I did. The music, as expected, was great. But what made the #mdbp the legend it became was the ability to look in on an incubated cultural sample of a society on the fringes that was doing something significant. What I walked into on Saturday was a group of teens, post teens and adults who were “cool,” moshing, partying and raving out to bands, DJs and performers at, near or the definition of celebrity. This went from being a hip happenstance to being “just another quirky summer festival” quick, fast and in a hurry. That development signals the end of a movement, and begins the discussion of what the next one will become.

DIY is hip again, and from the DIESEL stickers melding Mad Decent’s logo with their solid yet, slightly controversial “Be Stupid” campaign, advocating the present generation of kids to “Be Mad Stupid,” to the involvement of AMP Energy drinks and Red Bull trucks scouring the outer edges of the area, this is not longer a movement tied to community and development. It’s now all about being like Rick Ross, blowing money fast in an attempt to live like MC Hammer. Telling my generation to “be mad stupid” opened up the blogosphere, tore the record industry apart, and created viable, new and unique streams of technology and communication. Telling the kids who are the generation following mine to “be mad stupid?” Well, staring into the sea of smart kids with phenomenally terrible tattoos and obtuse fashion sense was scary.

These kids are going to be given the keys to the castle, but don’t remember what it was like to think that there were no keys to be had. This poses a key question to the development of the next generation: How does a human react to a life without barriers in a fruitful manner? The sheer ability to hop over barriers and gain access to new modalities and concepts of thought, communication and development allowed for anarchic yet beneficial developments to be the defining nature of the last decade. When not presented with those barriers, where do the developments that bridge gaps and open doors come from? Society always finds an avenue to create, but are we preparing ourselves for the first time in the history of society that society cannot truly evolve, or, is there something greater that will emanate from the underground?

Nadastrom were great. The Brick Bandits were great. Diplo was great. But these questions? Even greater.

THE DROP: Bird Peterson x Mad Decent take Trance to the Trap with "Drankenstein"

21 Apr

Trance meets the crunkest of dirty South hip hop. Sparse, minimal, spaced out melodies meet with hip hop often birthed from the bottom of a cup of codeine and Kool-Aid. Supreme, sublime and relaxed rhythms dominate both genres, which is why Bird Peterson and Mad Decent Records’ Drankenstein is a winner.

Austin, TX’s Bird Peterson is a DJ par excellence, and on my shortlist of favorite DJs to check for out of Texas, musical genres be damned. He’s an amalgamation of the finest of musical styles, and has the innate ability to link together disparate musical movements in order to make music that just makes sense. He puts together styles that people want to hear together, but just have never taken the time to have make sense. On that level, he’s always a generation ahead of where music is, which makes his sets and productions always a most unique journey, starting in the familiar, and traversing to the bizarre, but doing so in a way that shows off Peterson’s superb ear and on point thought processes.

To give you an idea of where we are here, this is something that’s absolutely been done lately, but Peterson’s work, alongside Mad Decent’s Free Gucci mixtape takes to the obvious next extreme. I’ll leave you with one of my favorite club ready tracks so far from this new rising collaborative genre, the Three Six Mafia and Tiesto collaboration “Feel It.” While yes, rather basic and erring more on the side of electro, there really is something to be said about Tiesto getting involved with hip hop. A VERY financially lucrative door has been opened. People are walking through.

MIXTAPE REVIEW: LUVSTEP – The Mix That Saved Dubstep Forever

15 Feb

This mix will make everyone fall in love with dubstep. Really. Even you. Yes you.

Philly Brick Bandts Crew leader Dirty South Joe and unheralded midwest born, now East Coast swinging DJ Flufftronix are the two most unlikely candidates to save a genre of electronic music with deep English and Jamaican roots. But it’s 2010, technology has changed everything, and, well, throw in the fact that the duo have ties to Mad Decent Records, and that’s really all you need to know. Mad Decent isn’t at the vanguard of the international underground by accident. Their ability to synthesize and repackage local and cultural dance music trends with alluring and intentionally bizarre packaging makes the label receive heaps of scorn from the blogosphere and music community in general. But what the label has done for Brazil’s baile funk, Baltimore’s club music, Jamaican dancehall, and soon traditional Latino rhythms and freestyle, the label has now done for dubstep. Dirty South Joe and Flufftronix’s Luvstep mix, in so unapologetically embracing the undulating basslines and massive dubplates endemic to the sound, and utilizing specific tracks that highlight the R & B, minimal and drum and bass tendencies of the sound, succeed in making the genre tolerable, entertaining and *gasp* fun.

American dubstep pioneer Starkey opens the mix with a five minute primer explaining the differences between and basically exploring, exploiting and destroying the notion of the heavier dubstep style describing it as “dark and moody.” That “dark and moody” sound is also constantly linked in the past tense, implying it’s dead, gone, and evolved into the smoother more palatable to the mainstream sound on the mix. Dubstep champions Skream, Joker and Caspa’s remixes are here, alongside originals from Starkey and Rusko. The rest of the mix is exemplary as well, as the XX’s mix of “You’ve Got the Love” is here, the most “barely there” dusbstep track of 2009 and an addition that speaks to mainstreaming of the sound for sure.

If a hater of dubstep, or someone not willing to have an opinion on the sound quite yet, you can do no wrong in listening to this for an hour as it’s emotive, evocative, and soulful, and at no point do you feel like there’s a knob twiddling madman attempting to stomp out your soul or melt your face with noise. It’s a fine addition that will add to the longevity and mainstream potential of the sound, and gives it legs in the American mainstream trending underground.

FINAL ANALYSIS: COP / DON’T COP