You gotta hand it to Adult Swim. First they brought us the Mouse & The Mask, an album by MF Doom and Dangermouse that was heavily influenced by Aqua Teen Hunger Force and other adult swim shows. And now they’ve dropped ATL RMX on us, a free album featuring southern hip-hop tracks remixed by electro artists. Young Jeezy? Check. Young Dro? Check. Two (count ‘em) Li’l Jon tracks on the mix? Check.
I’m about 500 pages into the first book, The Reality Dysfunction, of Peter F. Hamilton’s “The Night’s Dawn Trilogy” and so far I’m loving it.
Part of the reason I like it is because some of the main characters, the “Edenists” are similar to the post-human Culture of Iain Banks’ books. One of the key differences is that instead of having their main technologies be based on computers, the Edenists grow their sentient starships and habitats out of a substance called “bitek” (that I can only assume is short for “bio-technology”). This gives both their habitats and ships personality and sentience, with the Edenists connected to them via a telepathic affinity bond.
Like a lot of the sci-fi I’ve been reading lately, its full of huge ideas and takes place on an epic scale. Reading it, I feel the same way that I do when I look at that picture of the astronaut floating above the earth.
I added the tracks from the XX below because they definitely have a spacey-feel. If you listen closely to the lyrics of “Shelter,” it almost sounds like they were written about the Edenists and their living technology. The original version of this track is pretty good, but I really like the the rework that Death to the Throne gives it.
One of the reasons I like writing Nineteen Ninety Never is because I get a ton of wicked music emailed to me everyday. I wish I had time to do a write up on all of it, but I’m just too busy.
Here are some good ones that I’ve received recently:
Vampires are definitely hot right now, I’ve always thought they were cool and I can’t believe it took me this long to write a vampire-themed post.
The first time I heard TiMO MAAS’ track ‘Help Me,’ I totally loved the haunting vocals. Little did I know that they were from Kellis, who also went on to do backing vocals on my favorite Andrew 3000 track, ‘Dracula’s Wedding.’
As cool as it being a vampire would be, the sleepless nights would just kill me. I mean, sure you’d be out sneaking around and sucking blood but after a while of just being up in the middle of the night you’d be bored.
Sean Yee writes an awesome little blog called Key Of Grey, and its all about audio production.
Anyways, Sean was good enough to hook me up with a track he produced called Grandfather Clock featuring a couple of friends of his. Part of the track is in Japanese, and he’s done a cool write-up of how he actually put it together.
I’d say that half of the music I like is pure, decadent electro that doesn’t really require much thought. The other half is music that tells a story, and that’s why I like this track from Oddioblender. Give it a listen and let the story play out.
Oddioblender - Psychics Don’t Need Hooks
After listening to it, I totally started remember Psycho Mantis from Metal Gear Solid. Remember how he read your memory card, and the only way to beat him was to unplug your controller, and plug it into the other port? Truly a memorable moment, and definitely some fourth-wall breaking shiznit right there.
You know who else doesn’t need a hook? Jay-z, that’s who.
Man, nothing says “hustler” like spending the entire day hanging out at the train station wearing a white suit and talking to hot chicks.
And that’s all these guys in the photo above ever did. I used to see them all the time at my local train station in Japan, and the funny thing is that they weren’t the only ones like that. Pretty much everywhere you went, there were guys like them. Apparently, they are called “Nampa men,” with nampa being the Japanese word for hustler.
I don’t know if they drove a van like in that other picture, but it would be awesome if they did.
Did you watch that video of “Neon” Dion Agius? The whole thing is super slick, but when he lands that big 360 at around 3:18 that’s when you know he’s serious.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Heads Will Roll (Digiraatii Dance Til You’re Dead Remix)
Dion Agius isn’t a musician but he’s on MySpace (and hey, it says he’s from Currumbin! I learned to surf at the alley).
So are the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Digiraatii. (Yeah, I checked: they actually spell it with two As and four Is).
I’ve had a few Tigersapien tracks kicking around in my iTunes, but I didn’t really give them much thought until I heard ‘Luxury’ on the EatThisCity blog a few weeks ago. If their tour is anywhere near as luxurious as their promo image, they’re living a lifestyle I’m envious of. Their track ‘God Knows’ also deserves posting as well for some truly insightful lyrics (and a decent remix by Kolt13).
I know that I normally include a photo with each one of my posts here, but in this case I’m making an exception. The reason I’m making an exception is because (as Claudio who first showed me this video pointed out), every frame looks like a photo.
Watch the whole thing - right through to the credits.
