On August 17th at Brooklyn’s Glasslands, the Dutty Artz collective will throw a fundraiser party as part of our new CHANGE THE MOOD! series. This event is the first stage of fundraising for a new Beyond Digital project, ‘Beyond The Block.’ Beyond The Block combines the best of block party vibes with an overt commitment to support community-based social justice initiatives in New York City.

Dutty Artz presents CHANGE THE MOOD! a fundraiser party for Beyond The Block.
Fri. August 17th at Glasslands, 289 Kent Ave, Williamsburg, Brooklyn. 11pm. $10

Hosted by Pupa Bajah and Jasmin Cruz
NYC debut of Chants (live from Madison, WI)

DJ Ushka vs. a Rhino
Chief Boima vs. a Robot
DJ Rupture vs. an Elephant
Taliesin vs. a Vampire
Geko Jones vs. a Chicken-Stealing Fox
Atropolis vs. the Euro

visuals by Rainstick | Rupture’s birthday | silent auction fundraiser

RSVP here on Facebook


CHANGE THE MOOD!
will feature performances by Dutty Artz affiliated visual artists, musicians, DJs, and MCs. A portion of proceeds & silent auction will support the Beyond the Block Sunset Park initiative. The party combines Dutty Artz’s ground-up artistic vision with a desire to connect music fans to the struggles faced by local communities of immigrants, artists, workers, and young people that often help inspire contemporary global fashion trends.

CHANGE THE MOOD! performers include Chants from Madison, WI, making his NYC debut on the strength of his ‘Night After’ EP (“Chants makes very beautiful sounds that make you feel like you’re swimming in an underwater world of loveliness” – Dummy Mag), recent WIRE mag coverboy DJ /rupture, Que Bajo’s Geko Jones, Rick Ross protégé Chief Boima, and more.

BEYOND THE BLOCK. Can a hype block party double as an opportunity to spread information about stop & frisk, immigrant rights, police surveillance, and housing? We say yes. As the championing of diversity, a global outlook, and a celebration of the local become increasingly common in today’s dance music scenes, we see an ideal opportunity to use the energy & open-ended vibe of a great party to connect musical ideas to their real-world analogs: to create a space where we can talk about – and dance to – an incredible musical selection while sharing useful information for our communities that are impacted by issues pertaining to undocumented workers’ rights, transnational identity, health care, police violence, housing and more. Happening this fall, the inaugural Sunset Park edition of Beyond The Block is a collaboration between Beyond Digital, Dutty Artz, The Arab American Association of New York, La Unión, and individual artists and Brooklyn-based community members.

SEE YOU AT GLASSLANDS ON AUGUST 17!!!!!!!!

From Wayne’s great writeup:

Allow me to remind that next WEDNESDAY, July 25, Beat Research will play host, in the Good Life’s booming basement, to a full-blown reunion of Boston’s legendary Toneburst Collective. Bubbling up from Boston’s underground during the late 1990s, Toneburst was a loose-knit crew of DJs, electronic musicians, and video and installation artists, who together produced approximately 20 large-scale multimedia events in offbeat locations around New England and New York. More carnival than rave or concert, the crew’s productions mixed experimental beats, video, and performance art in unorthodox spaces. Beyond throwing great parties, Toneburst provided a platform for such influential acts as Kid 606, We™, Keith Fullerton Whitman (aka Hrvatski), and DJ /Rupture (a founding member)

keep reading

TONEBURST REUNION
@ BEAT RESEARCH
THE GOODLIFE BAR
28 KINGSTON ST
BOSTON, MA
9pm-1am
FREE
!!!!!

Diego Gutierrez is a graphic designer and art director. Born in Oaxaca and raised in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, he has over a decade of working experience in Rome, Los Angeles, and New York City, where he now resides. Gutierrez is motivated by a belief that every design piece should fit into a larger, long-term project vision. This holistic process-based approach capitalizes on his communication skills and enables him to develop a compelling visual language that’s unique to each situation. Gutierrez currently does art direction/design for major corporate clients like Simon & Schuster, Colgate-Palmolive and Nestle-Purina; oversees the visual identity for independent music label Dutty Artz and New York’s leading Latin electronic dance music party Que Bajo; and has contributed original designs to projects such as Green Patriot Posters: Images for a New Activism, Hello Bad Mind and Uncropped Magazine.

Check out all of his work at Talacha.net

originally posted at Mudd Up!

F79 NewMusic featured

[Philip Glass photo by Gabriele Stabile for The Fader]

I interviewed Philip Glass for the current issue of Fader magazine. You can read it here. We talked at length about the importance of artistic & economic independence, ideas on digital language underpinning his work, driving a cab to cover health care for his collaborators, and how many hours of sitting-at-the-piano composing constitute a good day for him. What can I say? The man is an inspiration.

Philip is the coverboy for this, the Icon issue, so Glass fans will find a lot more in the magazine — but even if you’re not familiar with his music, the interview shares some powerful insights about autonomy & integrity, especially in wake of May Day #OWS.

excerpts:

Dressed in a long sleeve black T-shirt and blue jeans, Philip Glass eases onto a couch in a corner room of his spacious Dunvagen studio. A few blocks away are the SoHo buildings where, nearly 50 years ago, Glass staged concerts in derelict lofts to air his maddeningly beautiful ideas about sound and rhythm. His venues have grown but still there’s a feisty independence and curiosity about him.

Running a hand through his trademark rebellious curls, Glass says, “We’re stealing this office for the afternoon. But it’s okay. I pay the rent.” The joke rings true: Glass is the boss around here, he just doesn’t act like one. The soft-spoken composer often slips from “I” to “we” while talking, the habit of a lifelong team player. Listening to him feels like hearing a cabbie hold court—naturally social, disarmingly unpretentious, happy to share observations on a pathway that is more important than the destination.

F79 COVER 620x413 Double white

How many hours a day do you work on music?

Well, it depends. A good day for me is eight to ten hours. An excellent day for me is 11 hours. A bad day is three hours. My bad days are most people’s good days. I go much further than them. Like, I was up this morning early, I took my kids to school, I spent two hours working, I’m talking to you, I’m going to go home, I have another meeting, then I’m going to work probably three to six, then I’ll be up to five hours, and then it’s six o’clock, then after dinner I’ll work another two or three hours. So this will be a seven or eight hour day.

As things become more financially difficult for someone of your stature, how applicable is your pathway for a younger generation?

In terms of the physical ways of working, there are a lot of new things that have happened in my lifetime. I’m talking about the digital technology that is available. I’m still writing with pencil and paper, let’s put it that way. A lot of composers are now working directly with computers. There’s a big change, both in music and in other areas too: in photography, projection, performance. We’re living in a digital world. However there are many things I do which are applicable. For one thing, develop an independence of work. I’m not connected to institutions, I’m connected to live performance and to working collectively. This is very much a part of my generation. We were not what you call “the establishment.” This independence made it possible for me ?to do things that were unusual, that people hadn’t done before. The idealism that was part of the way I worked—working really and truly for the development of a new language of performance, of music, without regards to a successful career or a commercial career of any kind—you can still do that!

I had wonderful parents. My mother was a school-teacher and my father had a small music shop—he didn’t make any money. So I didn’t have a family fortune behind me. I had my energy, and I had other people. When young people today ask, “How do we get started?” I say, Look around and find people your own age. Work with your own generation. Make alliances among artists of your own time and these will be the people that you’ll work with. Don’t expect help from the older ones, they’re not interested.

Desert Gold E-Flyer V11

We’re heading to California next weekend! Dutty Artz DJs Rupture, Chief Boima, Lamin Fofana, and Narco Iris (along with a bunch of friends — the list above is pretty impressive) will be making things go bump at the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs. Our takeover hits Friday + Saturday nights, April 20 + 21st. Full schedule. Free for all you boutique hotel people, tix available for everybody else.

It’s Coachella time in that part of The World, so if you want a nice alternative to big festival dust and bathroom lines and beery sunstroke, come kick it with us at the Ace Hotel’s Roadside Attraction… BONUS: this will be Lamin Fofana’s first time in Cali!!

Ushka is a Sri Lankan-born, Thailand-raised, Brooklyn-living migrant. She is an activist and cultural organizer. She deejays as one half of iBomba – one of NYC’s premiere destinations for Global Bass every second Monday of the month at Bembe (81 South 6th St, Brooklyn). Find her on Soundcloud and on Twitter.

nettle-album-release-flyer

Join us for an intimate night of sound & celebration on Saturday, December 3rd @ Vaudeville Park in Brooklyn (L to Graham). Mint tea, dates, and homemade deliciousness will be served.

We are celebrating the release of Nettle’s new album on Sub Rosa, El Resplandor: The Shining in Dubai. (get it at: iTunes Amazon Boomkat eMusic actual record stores, etc)

“Dubai may be a cipher masquerading as a city, but it’s not a complete blank slate unencumbered by theoretical and contextual baggage, and El Resplandor depicts it as you might expect: ancient and dignified ‘Middle Eastern’ airs buffeted by howls of the ghosts in modernity’s machine. This is not to say that the album is merely conventional, however, for El Resplandor contains some of /Rupture’s most vivid and striking music… provocative and as chilling as anything in the real Shining” – Peter Shapiro, The Wire Nov 2011

Sat. December 3rd: Nettle (live), Lamin Fofana (dj). Vaudeville Park, 26 Bushwick Ave. Bklyn. doors at 8:30pm $8. Come early warm bodies shining ghosts.

¿What? – DJ Rupture, Mumdance, Chancha Via Circuito and more are meeting up in Monterrey, Mexico to work with living legend old-school musicians from around Monterrey, and it’s all being curated by el jefe Toy Selectah and Nrmal?!

The project is called Norte Sonoro y esta bien chido.

“Norte Sonoro is a festival and a musical residency. Via musical experimentation, this project seeks to establish a dialog between norteño sounds and international artists. Using the sounds of north Mexico as materia prima, 6 invited artists will create new works that bring together these norteño elements with their own styles, and it’ll all be made available for free. . . To top things off, all the artists will join forces for a free live show in Monterrey, sharing the stage with local musicians and DJs” (local like the chicos of 3ball MTY? Let’s hope so.)

Norte Sonoro is doing a Fondeadora to help make it happen and spread the word (Fondeadora is like Kickstarter for Mexico. Note that prices are in pesos, not dollars. They’re offering some great rewards). Here’s the Spanish-language video:

FONDEADORA – NORTE SONORO.

Norte Sonoro es un festival y un programa de residencias musicales.

A través de la experimentación musical, este proyecto busca establecer un diálogo entre sonidos norteños y artistas internacionales. Utilizando los sonidos del norte como materia prima, seis artistas invitados realizarán piezas musicales completamente nuevas que fusionan estos elementos con sus propios estilos, y que se distribuirán de manera gratuita en esta página.

Los artistas invitados viajarán a la ciudad de Monterrey en noviembre para realizar una mini-residencia de una semana. Estas residencias culminarán con una fiesta en la que se presentará el resultado de su trabajo.

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Let’s take things up a level. Let’s get glossy.

The November issue of WIRE magazine has Rupture on the cover lookin’ all grown and sexy.

Congrats! Go buy that shit! They say: “Peter Shapiro meets prolific producer Jace Clayton to hear about post-colonial Bass music, The Shining remade in Dubai and Sufi Plug-Ins.”

NYLON mag premieres Turn It Up (So We Can Turn It Out), a tune from Kalup Linzy feat. James Franco’s Turn It Up EP, available on Dutty Artz as of today! The song was produced by DJ Rupture (mixed while in Casablanca) & Brent Arnold on cello and guitar. It’s a family ting.

The EP has three original songs plus a fantastic remix by Cardopusher, available in both vocal and instrumental versions. To get it Turn It Up (digitals now, special small-run vinyl pressing soon), you can head to iTunes, Amazon, Boomkat, and your usual online haunts.

james-franco-turn-it-up

Associated Press / February 21, 2011

DUTTY ARTZ spent New York Fashion Week under a self-imposed cone of silence, refusing to talk to the news media. Yet somehow, the crew became a spectacle: their every move was chronicled by a cloud of bloggers, Twitter users, fashion reporters and paparazzi. Here’s how Dutty spent the week, starting on Feb. 10.

Image

[Rainbow Sloth and Vanessa Hudgens Wednesday at Jeremy Scott.]

DAY 1 – Dutty Artz begins Fashion Week at GQ’s Best New Menswear Designer show at the Ace Hotel.

La Montra lays down the media embargo to a party reporter from Women’s Wear Daily. “I can’t really… no questions,” Rita Indiana says, at the sight of a tape recorder. “Yo no te voy a da na.” Security detail enforces edict.

Matt Shadetek lingers at the show, making small talk with fashion executives and mildly excited fans. Afterward, he decamps to the Mercer Hotel where, as The New York Post reported that morning, he is recording an album with Jay-Z.

DAY 2DJ Rupture’s a no-show at the day’s fashion shows, according to the collective wisdom of the fashion media. Instead, shows up at the Roots of Auto-Tune concert at Madison Square Garden, wearing a pair of red-and-black Air Jordans and a gray djellaba. Fashion crowd approves. Also sitting in the front row is Thomas Wesley Pentz, who is largely ignored by the “beer-and-shot” crowd, according to The New York Daily News.

DAY 3Geko Jones skips Grammy Awards for Fashion Week. Attends Tory Burch at Lincoln Center, dressed in stonewashed cut-off jeans, black leather bomber, see-through mesh shirt and a purple pair of sunglasses. While still at Lincoln Center, swings by Diet Pepsi event, unveiling a slimmer can. Later that evening, while Uproot Andy performs at the Grammys, he signs onto Twitter (where he’s been quiet) and posts: “Uproot Andy is crazy fresh!!! #OCSWAG” (the abbreviation for “original Canadian swagger”).

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[Chief Boima’s personal shopper, mid-way through Fashion Week]

DAY 4Chief Boima hits the shows. First stop: Alexander Wang at Pier 94, wearing a red gold and green Clan des Indigenes Accables nylon jacket, leather jeans, sunglasses and big gold-encrusted Business iPhone. Seated next to the model Erin Wasson. As lights dim, yells “Aiiight,” according to Refinery29’s Twitter feed. At night, Taliesin is spotted at the Standard hotel for AARP magazine’s customary Fashion Week party. Hemmed in corner, behind security, for most of the evening. “No press, no stress,” his female bodyguard says.

DAY 5 – Valentine’s Day. WWD Style puts Rainbow Sloth on its cover. “Seacrest Cheadle may be ducking interviews and trying to avoid photos, but he’s certainly been no stranger to animals that can smell time,” it reads.

DAY 6 – A chair marked “Lamin Fofana” sits empty at Rodarte, as Sofia Coppola, Kirsten Dunst and array of fashion editors wait. Mr. Fofana arrives and show starts seconds later. Continues to spurn reporters, but gives Amy Odell, fashion blogger for New York magazine, a hug. “Aw, you look so sad,” he says, after rebuffing the reporter’s questions. Poses with Bryanboy, the outré fashion blogger, outside.

A little before 11 p.m., the Dutty Artz family arrives at intimate party for Gold Coast’s new boutique in SoHo. Yawns while waiting for Lauryn Hill to perform. Ends night at Mondrian hotel, where they are the guest of honor for the tripartite British Petrol, Hooters, and V Man magazine’s party. Cover features Mr. Shadetek with bills stuffed in his mouth, shot by Karla Lagerfeld. Dollar bills, real and fake, rain down on crowd. DJ Rupture seen in corner eating KFC.

DAY 7 – By the seventh day of Fashion Week, it was pretty obvious that Dutty Artz crew hadn’t slept yet. Although the crew had stayed awake and energetic for a hundred hours straight, aberrations of judgment and perception snowballed after the third day, until in extremis the most bizarre hallucinations were taken at face value, and a person could fidget for hours deciding what to have for breakfast. Taliesin looks in the mirror, framed by a blue cloud of sensemilla smoke. Stimtabs litter the countertop. His arms look surprisingly human, except that they are too long and undermuscled. There are too many fingers on his hands. No Anna Sui gloves, then. Shoulderless, neckless. Let’s call Day 7 a Breakfast Day.

Dutty Artz’s trail goes sloth as Fashion Week draws to a close. Come back in September.