This article about genres is long overdue. First off, we’re tired of all the blanket genre labels that keep popping up. Take the genre “electro,” for example. Wikipedia lists so-called “electro” artists such as DMX Krew, Kraftwerk, Afrika Bambaataa, Cylob and even Cat Stevens as artists related to the genre. Electro isn’t listed under any of Cat Stevens’ main Wikipedia page genres, and rightfully so. Apparently he dropped some album called “Was Dog a Doughnut,” that was allegedly a precursor to the “electro music genre of the 1980′s.”

At the end of the day, what is electro? Just some bullshit (for lack of a better adjective) commercial term that was developed by record labels to try and put various artists in a box. When artists are nicely packaged in a box, it’s easier to say what kind of music you like, and therefore figure out what kind of music you’d purchase. However, does that mean it’s accurate to do so?

Ever ask someone, “Hey, what kind of music do you like?” Only to get a response like, “Oh, I listen to everything,” or “Oh, I listen to everything but country,” or everything “but rap,” etc. Everything but country. Why’s that, because country is “uncool,” in some circles? It could also be that country is extremely popular in the US, and was the number one genre of music before hip hop or “rap” took its throne. Calling hip hop “rap,” really is kind of inaccurate as well, because “rap” refers to “rapping,” which is a trend in hip hop music. Calling hip hop “rap,” is kind of a thing of the 90′s though, back when music stores were still brick-and-mortar and not overtaken by digital storefronts.

I actually designed the font for the “rap” genre header on the Universal Music Group page back in 2008, just with a handwritten then digitally edited font, because theirs was struggling. Don’t believe me? Here’s a screenshot of my font on their genre header:

Here’s what their previous genre headers were…

Yes, I took time away from studying for law school finals to work on a genre font for UMG. Why not?

Also, just because I’m a digital packrat and nerdy enough to save screenshots of my desktop, here’s the full shot of my desktop at the time as well as the rough font sketch.

Of course, UMG has since revamped their site–after all it has been four years–but graphic design bragging-rights tangent aside, the mainstream labels package music in genres for sales purposes, even if what genre a musician’s songs fit is debatable. It goes beyond that though, mainstream genres are not even correct or accurate anymore.

The genre “electro” is garbage, and referring to hip hop as “rap” is also lamely imprecise, but let’s take a look at the “chillwave” genre. Aside from being a terribly cheesy name for a genre, since any reference to music with the word “chill” in it has always made us cringe, even the musicians at the forefront of the alleged “chillwave” genre do not even classify their music as such. Back to Wikipedia,

The Wall Street Journal quoted Alan Palomo of Neon Indian on genre, “Whereas musical movements were once determined by a city or venue where the bands congregated, ‘now it’s just a blogger or some journalist that can find three or four random bands around the country and tie together a few commonalities between them and call it a genre,’.”[5] Despite the stylistic similarities listed above, Palomo and other artists have questioned whether chillwave actually constitutes a discrete genre.

So there you have it, now we have random people on the Internet trying to put music in boxes as well, and those genres can become “real,” in that people actually use them? Come on! It’s bad enough that genres are imprecise as it is, but now anyone with a web site that gets traffic can create them?

Human nature makes us want to put everything in a box, from music to gender, even though life can’t just all be lumped together. Trying to simplify the world this way is a terribly unintelligent idea. If someone sees a baby boy on a train dressed in pink clothes that are arguably “girly” it can frustrate them because they can’t tell if the kid is a boy or a girl. That’s straight from the professor of a graduate level anthropology class. The tendency to want to see things in black and white is because it’s just easier that way, aside from that fact that human nature is completely irrational.

People who don’t care about music very much don’t listen enough to actually be able to discern differences between different genres and I also cringe at the number of times I’ve heard people say “it all sounds the same,” about a genre when if you actually follow that type of music, you will notice differences that are substantial enough to split into all kinds of sub-genres. Even then though, with experimental music, and even new music that is more conventional, it is best to classify music with multiple genres and sub genres.

The only reason to use sweeping genres that lump together a bunch of pre-existing genres that truly are different is to dumb things down for people who don’t really listen to music, but just skim through it. That’s right. I’ve heard people refer to all electronic music as “house” or “trance.” Again, come on! Really? It’s those same lazy people with typically dull taste in music that use commercially created terms like “electro” and “chillwave.”

So IDM is a stylistic origin of chill wave? Really? As someone who has been listening to IDM since the 90′s, that sounds absurd to me. This Autechre track, “Gantz Graf,” is IDM. So then, shouldn’t we be able to hear some influence from it in Neon Indian’s music? I can’t.

Just because Autechre used a lot of editing in the sequencer and digital sound processing to make that track doesn’t really make it anything at all like Neon Indian’s music. Think back to that person who goes around telling people “Uh, yeah, I listen to a little bit of everything, except country.” For reals? So, we might find them in their car rocking out to the Autechre track above? Doubt it. They probably don’t listen to anything that’s experimental at all. Oh the things we say that are driven by our insecurities.

So in conclusion, the question we pose is this: are you a dumbed-down herd follower of a person when it comes to music? Do you actually have enough passion for music that you spend a reasonable amount of time seeking it out, listening to it without talking over it, and enjoying it? If so, maybe then you will hear enough differences from one musician to the next that it will feel completely wrong to throw a musician in a smorgasbord sack of shit genre. <3.

Cool video. Notice Katy Perry is in it?

MACHINEDRUM – SXLND by LuckyMe Music Art Parties

LuckyMe is proud to present SXLND, the new 5 track EP from Machinedrum.

It’s been a great 18 months for Travis Stewart. Since we released his Many Faces EP in 2010 we’ve seen a succession of new hip hop, juke & 2step projects on labels Hot Flush, Planet Mu and of course LuckyMe. In Summer 2011 we released his underground smash Alarmaa which featured as part of Jackmaster’s FABRICLIVE 57 CD and tore apart Sonar Festival, clubs and Boiler Rooms alike. But now Stewart is back with Lucky Us for a project 2 years in the making – a sparkling take on Deep Chicago and Modern UK House entitled SXLND.

12” EP comes with Digital Download Card with exclusive Scuba Remix and cut-out Geisha inner sleeve.

Head over to thisisluckyme.com to Pre-order the vinyl copy now!

Happy 2012! As we all embark on this exciting (and perhaps historic) new year, we would like to take a moment to share our intentions for the Do LaB community and Lightning in a Bottle festival. Whether prophesied, or simply the true state of affairs, our community, our nation, and our planet face great change at this particular moment in time. We invite you all to embrace this change and continue celebrating life and our incredible human spirit during these tumultuous times. Though our problems seem many, and solutions difficult, we must remember to approach them with grace, love and celebration for in this attitude lies our best way forward.

LIB has always been about discovering and enacting a different way of living. A way that is more in touch with the earth, with each other, and with ourselves. As the pace of change continues to accelerate all around us, and old ways of thinking begin to reach their logical and useful ends, LIB continues to expand its spiritual and educational aspects so that we, as a community, may boldly embrace and lead the way into this new world. The Temple of Consciousness will be bigger than ever this year and will include inspiring new structures for the yoga and meditation area, as well as the beautiful area for speakers and workshops in the heart of the Temple. At the same time, we have a music and performance lineup brewing (scheduled to be released in March) that could be our best yet and is sure to awaken the celebration of dance that we hold so dear.

We are so happy and proud of the way LIB has been able to continue to grow and mature, while continuing to preserve that indescribable vibe we have all come to love so much. We thank everyone that participates in this event, from the volunteers and the musicians, to the painters, builders, artists and crew, and especially to you for contributing to that feeling that makes everyone feel so welcome and happy to join us in capturing lightning in a bottle, year after year.

It is to all of you that understand and reinforce the intention of the festival that we offer our early bird discount tickets for 24 hours starting on Monday, January 16th at 7am. We can’t be absolutely sure, but all indications point to the festival becoming sold out earlier than ever before this year. We don’t want you, our valuable core of festival goers, to miss out on tickets this year. We want to see you smiling again, bringing your incredible energy and understanding to help us make Lightning in a Bottle 2012 our greatest year ever.

Video created by Manifest Media.

Thanks for reading and be sure to Rush n Get em!

LIB 2012 info page: Click Here

Rush n Get em pre-sale event: Share and RSVP Here

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Fall-Ladybugs-You (Fade Out) by praveensharma

ALL I WANT IS MOOG PORN FOR CHRISTMAS (FREE DOWNLOAD) by Mochipet

This is arguably what good rock music has become.

Queensway – Biotic [CLIP] by QUEENSWAY

Solid track. Big up to Godfather Sage for the find.

We. Love. Phantogram.

When we see the artwork above, we immediately think Super Metroid, but maybe that’s just us. It’s still cool though.

So it has always been a Ninja Tune shtick to have old school samples peppered throughout their jams, but this new release from DJ Food has a distinctive sound we’re used to. For instance, one of our favorite DJ Food tracks of all time is DJ Food fear. Ken Nordine – “The Ageing Young Rebel:” That came out over 11 years ago, and this release from DJ Food also incorporates new styles from the guys, of course, and they’re heading in a direction that we like. To be clear, the last DJ Food album, Kaleidoscope, and it’s also 11 years old. This is a pretty exciting release for any DJ Food fans. The Search Engine is set for release on February 7, 2012.

Press:

Eleven years after the last DJ Food album release (“Kaleidoscope”), Strictly Kev and various friends, associates and like-minded collaborators return with a new full-length. The Search Engine distills the bests parts from three EPs worth of material into a continuous 56 minute album of unbridled creativity.

Collaborations abound in the form of vocal appearances from Natural Self (aka Nathaniel Pearn), JG Thirlwell (Foetus, Streoid Maximus etc.) and The The’s Matt Johnson. The latter reprises his vocal on a cover of his own track “GIANT,” nearly thirty years after its first release. Musical hook-ups include 2econd Class Citizen, who trades sample-attacks with Strictly for the suite of nine tracks that make up the 11 minute “Magpie Music.” Dr. Rubberfunk lends his drumming skills to the opening track and old DJ food partner Solid Steel’s DJ add their own ingredients to the mix.

While there isn’t a single concept behind the record, certain themes twine their way through the music. In particular, the twin retro-future icons, astronauts and robots, float and bleep their way across the surface of the album, from the Henry Flint cover art onwards. Perhaps best known for his groundbreaking work on the 2000AD comic, Flint gave Kev access to a caché of his personal drawings to colour as well as a creating a new work specifically for the project.

Perhaps the biggest surprise to all those who associate the DJ Food name with the early 90′s “Jazz Brakes” records is just how heavy The Search Engine is. Styled as a kind of psychedelic rock album made with samplers, Strictly Kev has not been afraid to frug the fuck out, with thundering drum work and fuzz bass perhaps the central musical signature of his work.

Reflecting Strictly’s work as a designer as well as a musician (he had to take the whole of 2010 off from recording the record while he did all the design for Ninja’s 20th “XX” anniversary) the album comes in a number of formats: regulard CD digipak, download, comic book with CD and a 7″ flexi-disc of a bonus track with an exclusive remix 12″, comic and flexi-disc.

As for the title, Kev explains that, “the way we live every day is helped by search engines of many shapes and sizes. Some people think they control and influence how we work and play. In this case though, the Search Engine could be something waiting to be found out in the vastness of space…” Thrusters on full…

There’s a pretty cool DJ Food website. Check it out.

FreQ Nasty — 1000 Buddhas Of The Pureland Of Bass by URB.com

Tracklisting
1 – Warm Dark Place (Original Mix)
2 – 1000 Buddhas of the Pureland of Bass
3 – The Heart of Definitive Meaning

Receiving a perfect score of 10 and named the “money shot release” in the new issue of Mixmag, “The Low FreQuency Pureland EP” marks DJ/Producer FreQ Nasty’s re-entry – with a vengeance – into the world of boundary-pushing music.

“I specifically avoided making dubstep on this EP as my modus operandi has always been –“look which way the crowd is moving and run in the opposite direction,” FreQ Nasty says. “Having said that, the crunkstep vibe of “1000 Buddha’s…” was made with that 100 BPM-808-Hyphy Hip-Hop sound in mind, but then other influences snuck in there too. And in the end my tunes never turn out quite how I imagine them to. So I don’t know what genre you would put these tracks in specifically. Not dubstep? Post dubstep? It doesn’t really matter at the end of the day as new genre’s often start in one physical location but very soon spread to anywhere you can get a half way solid link to the internet. This EP dropped out of AT&T’s broadband network somewhere between London and California. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed getting back in the studio.”

Digging into the tracks, “Warm Dark Place” is a glitch-hop and drumstep hybrid of equal parts West Coast glitch hop and UK tear-out. The influence of FreQ Nasty’s time in the US Bass heaven of California is obvious with a haunting melodic refrain offsetting the hefty bass pressure. “1000 Buddhas of the Pureland of Bass” is a crunkstep roller that takes the uptempo Hip-Hop beats of the Northern Californian Hyphy movement and welds them to seismic 808 bassline. FreQ Nasty played this across the summer of 2011 and the 808 bass solo in the middle gets them screaming every time. “The Heart of Definitive Meaning” is a journey into the more reflective side of bass music. Swathes of guitar over a backdrop of distant chimes and revolving chords all served on a bed of deep sub bass. It evolves slowly with an almost subliminal drop into angular stabs of low frequency voltage.

Born in Fiji, raised in New Zealand and formed musically in the dance music revolution of London in the late 90’s, FreQ Nasty started his career on the seminal UK label Botchit & Scarper, moving to SKINT Records in 2003. He went on to release a slew of cutting-edge records, collaborating with and remixing a diverse range of artists including Fatboy Slim, Kelis, KRS One, Roots Manuva, Rodney P, and Reggae legend Junior Delgado. 2008 saw the release of ‘Creator’, his crossover hit collaboration with MIA producer Switch and NYC hipster Santogold, and the ground breaking FABRICLIVE 42 mix CD, which was picked as DJ Magazine’s compilation of the month. He is one of Burning Man festival’s most loved DJs, where he brings his signature mix of drumstep, glitch-hop, dubstep and all things Bass heavy every year. 2011 saw the release of “Dread at the Controls” on California’s Muti Music, which launched the 17-city Monsters of Bass tour with Marty Party and Opiuo. With the cutting-edge re-design of his website, launch of his new label, FreQ Nasty Recordings, and worldwide release of his new EP, supported by online, blog, and international press coverage, FreQ is making a powerful entry into 2012.

Figures – Velo from Christopher Tirrell on Vimeo.

You can purchase Velo as part of the brand new EP from Figures, which is available for just £5 here:

vibedeck.com/figures

Figures are currently unsigned and all proceeds go directly to the artist, please support independent music.

Figures are Jamie Blanco and James Delay.

facebook.com/weareFigures
twitter.com/_Figures
soundcloud.com/figures

Boot lickin, piss drinkin, fingerfriggin, tit tweakin,

love bitin, arse lickin, shit stabbin, mother fuckin,

spunk lovin, ball bustin, cock suckin, fist fuckin,

lipsmackin, thirst quenchin, cool livin, ever givin

USELESS MAN.

Via Blowing or Blowing Up.

Bangarangarang by Corduroi

Adam Johnson – “Captain Wood:”