It was a great full weekend of Dutty Artz performances and events. We started out partying hard at Glasslands for Matt Shadetek’s album release party, and ended up Sunday night all winding down over cheap drinks and stretching out our musical legs at Bushwick’s Bossa Nova Civic Club.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iip_RGMLhis[/youtube]
The 1 Brooklyn Shanti just passed us this video and download from his Drop it Steady project longside Baldi.
I’m a big fan of the FX TV show Archer. In this vid, Drop it Steady take an episode and chop suey it into their verses creating new strain variant on the idea of copyright pirate video mash ups. Between stuff like this and Autotune the News, I’m looking forward to an interesting and innovative 2013.
Ever wonder why our records sound good? It’s because of a guy called Shawn Hatfield out in the Bay Area. Â I first met Shawn years ago on the internet when I used to hang out on IRC in a chatroom with a bunch of other producers called #// (slash slash). He used to teach me crazy music science in MAX/MSP over a chat window just because he was a nice guy. Â We kept in touch and when he opened his mastering business we started working together. He’s mastered my albums Flowers and Solar Life Raft as well as most Dutty Artz stuff in the past few years. He does a great job and is just a generally cool guy. Â Recently he sent me an email with a link to an online fundraiser he is doing to help his father Jay Hatfield who is battling cancer. Â If you are like me and most of the people I know and don’t have a square nine to five or work for the government you know how fucked up the health care system in this country is and how expensive it can be. Â It’s not fair that someone should have to go through an incredibly draining battle fighting a disease and then have to go bankrupt afterwards to pay for their treatment.
Shawn has set up an online fundraising page to raise funds for his father’s treatment here. Â He’s also a badass mastering engineer who you can hire to make your music sound awesome here. Â In choosing to be musicians and work in this business we give up a lot of the stability and safety that people take for granted in normal life, things like health insurance. If you can relate maybe chip in a few bucks or hire Shawn to master some of your music.
I started teaching at Dubspot in August, thanks to Matt Shadetek. Before I began teaching I was a teacher assistant for DJ Kiva for about a month, and it was during this period that Kiva gave our class a sneak peek of his project 1000 Sunrises, which he finally put out last week. It always awesome to hear a project during its earlier stages, and then hearing it completed. Definitely worth checking out.
DJ Kiva will be dropping this freshness November 10th at Le Poisson Roug with Africa Hitech, and he will be rocking Webster Hall with Matt Shadetek November 12th.
The following material was pulled from the Dubspot blog, which Lamin wrote:
Brooklyn-based multi-instrumentalist producer and musician DJ KIVA returns with a superb new solo album 1000 Sunrises out October 18 on his  Adios Babylon imprint via Destroy All Concepts.
Navigating beauty and pain with deep, mesmeric, off-centered beats, soulful, dub-wise electronic impressions, twirling synthlines, and reinforced sub-bass, 1000 Sunrises is a perfectly balanced album. The six tracks presented here are meticulously and lovingly put together, and they move with an unhurried, reassuring pace. From the opening “Feel It,†with its extra-bouncy thump and unrelenting, catchy synthline to the meditative “Tayyib,” which maintains a solemn and contemplative mood with eerie voices but holds a propulsive groove, and the staggeringly beautiful, mind-expanding title track “1000 Sunrises,†DJ Kiva remains remarkably self-reliant and uncompromising in aesthetic throughout the entire album. Album closer “City Of The Dawn†is the uplifting, post-future, and soulful electronic music you can only get from an experienced and self-assured electronic music producer, whose style and range go far beyond arbitrary and trendy sub-genres. Electronics, melody, dub, and soul come together – same as it never was.
[youtube width=”525″ height=”355”]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc4K_CdiG40[/youtube]
CIAfrica is a heavy crew. They have their own thing going on in Babi, Cote d’ivoire and run the sort of international basss weight productions that we live for- along with spitfire lyrics that jump between local concerns and international awareness. Basically they are dope as fuck. It is a huge honor and pleasure to finally see their DA debut up at all the usual spots and getting love from some serious heavyweight DJs, producers and friends.
Various tracks are being loaded to blogs of varying readership- but if you want a little somethin’ somethin’ straight from the elephants mouth….
Head over to bandcamp to DL a copy of the perfectly titled “Epikstar Riddim” from Babylon Residence. This is our first shot with bandcamp- and once we have your email address we’ll hit you with more free music and the occasional update.
DA007 DJ /rupture presents CIAfrica by Dutty Artz
COP THE ALBUM HERE, physical CDs in stores soon
There was a meta-data error at itunes- but it should be up ASAP
This post is cross-posted from the brand spanking new blog at mattshadetek.com. In addition to my usual stuff here at Dutty Artz I wanted a place to call my own and talk about some of my less dutty, more clean artz that I am up to. Expect a lot more wordz.
photo by the author in Flatbush, Brooklyn
I assume if you’re reading this blog that you’re someone familiar with my musical output. If not, please get familiar here at my soundcloud page.
Generally speaking I am pretty cagey about my new projects until they’re nearly done. I want to try an experiment this time in going through the process of making an album completely in public. Transparency! Throwing stones in a glass house!
BD1982 has been one of my favorite producers for a minute. I’ve been including his tracks on mixes and dropping them when I play for about two years now. His Spaceboots EP on Seclusiasis was one of the most banging EPs of the last 12 months- and he now has a full length out entitled “Lets Talk Math.” He laced DA with a lengthy interview, an exclusive mix for the podcast- as well as an Erykah Badu vocal version of “Subtract”.
BD1982 – Soldier (Subtract) 320[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/Soldier_%28Subtract%29.mp3]
[display_podcast]
tracklist after the jump
T: So- we’ve been in touch for at least two years now- I first became familiar with your production through your monstrous “Water-Faucet” riddim, which shows up here as the instrumental for the gun man tune “Shotta Pon da Corner.” Lets maybe begin there. How did you come to work with Two Seven? Were you always planning on getting a vocal on that instrumental? What about “Fresh Air Ft. Syntonics” (one of my absolute favorites on the album) and “Chased by The Rain”- where the vocals take on a more instrument like role. How do you conceptualize the role of a vocalist in mainly instrumental genres? When your djing out are you playing primarily instrumental tracks as well?
B: I had been a fan of 77klash since hearing “Brooklyn Anthem” and sent a message through Myspace to see if he’d be interested in voicing a tune and luckily he was up for it! I hadn’t really planned on trying to get an original vocal for “Water Faucet” intially, maybe just because the “Blueberry Afghani” bootleg remix was making some rounds, but I’m still incredibly happy at how dope “Shotta Pon De Corner” ended up .
More Interview Under the Hood (more…)
Me, Berlin, March 2004.
Lately over at Dubspot I’ve taken on an expanded role beyond my normal teaching in the form of producing some materials for them in the form of articles and soon some tutorial videos. The first article is up on their blog and is about a concept I learned from Timeblind which he calls Speed Dating. It’s a method for improving your production workflow and I thought producers who read this blog might find it helpful.
This just landed in my inbox, a big dubstep mix of a new dub tune by foundation artist U-Roy produced by Dub Gabriel. Ming of Ming & FS and Subatomic Sound System teamed up on the remix and it sounds tuff, downloadable below. There’s also a cool little video with Ming and Emch of Subatomic talking about the process of making the remix and breaking down the remixing process, talking some arranging science for dancefloors and more, always cool to see people pulling back the curtain and helping to share the knowledge.
Dub Gabriel feat. U Roy-Luv n’ Liv ( Ming vs. Subatomic Sound System Remix)-FREE DOWNLOAD!!! by DESTROY ALL CONCEPTS
Friend of Dutty Artz Timeblind also turned in a mix which is a little deeper (as you will expect by now if you know the man) and very nice but not downloadable, you’ll have to buy that one.
Dub Gabriel feat. U Roy-Luv n’ Liv ( Timeblind Remix) by DESTROY ALL CONCEPTS
Photo by Clair Lim, at my Logic class at Dubspot.
For those that follow this site you’re probably familiar with some of the things I do, like produce, dj, make records etc. Lately I’ve been doing some new things though, and I figure they’re worth mentioning here because some of you might be into them. The first I’ve mentioned before which is teaching at Dubspot. I love Dubspot, it’s a great place with a great group of people involved. I’ve been there for a bit over a year now and I really enjoy it. I’ve met a lot of great people there, students and instructors and it’s helped me to realize that I really like teaching music. I teach the production in Logic class there where I basically teach people how to operate Logic, the main program I use to make all my stuff, but I also teach the broad strokes of my own low-tek Hi-Fi production ideology. Basically the idea is that it’s not about expensive equipment or perfect anything but more about wading in, getting your hands dirty and having fun making something, which I preach and practice. I teach Logic in small groups of 4-8 people, usually once or twice a week at Dubspot. As a result of the class I’ve developed relationships with some of my students and continued teaching them in private lessons which are basically us working on their tracks together, solving problems, and talking things through.
One of the reasons I really like teaching and helping people produce is that I’ve spent about ten years now developing a pretty specific niche of skills, basically how to produce weird bassy dance-ish music, and it’s great to be able to share that knowledge, guide people away from the pitfalls and cliffs of the learning curve and point them in the right direction. Mainly because people just get so happy when they finally get how to do something that they really wanted to do.
More recently I’ve had a few people approach me to do this but without the teaching component, which has turned into people hiring me to go to their studios and help to finish their tracks, which I’m really enjoying as well, and have decided I’d like to do more of. So, if you’re someone in New York, who’s working on tracks and are looking for production help, be it mixing, arranging, polishing, achieving certain sounds or just help finishing stuff, get in touch. I do have limited time and limited mental stamina for working on stuff I don’t like so please point me at some kind of a musical sample or describe what you’re trying to do in your message and I’ll let you know if it’s something I think I can help with.
My next logic class is starting on Friday, January 29th and will be Wednesdays and Fridays from 10:15-1PM.
Contact me about production through Myspace, Facebook or Twitter.
One of our favorite mad scientists transmitting out of this here NYShitty High Priest of Anti-Pop Consortium, aka HPrizm aka Digital P has started a blog! It’s about music technology and it’s called Bangout Sessions. Priest is a great rapper, and has been for a long time but he’s perhaps less well known (if you haven’t seen him live) for his on-stage mad MPC bashing keyboard mutiliating beat performances. I’ve had the privilege of seeing him do this a few times and always enjoy it. Fearless and crazy. I look forward very much to hear how all this translates into blogging, and there’s a few posts up there already to get you started.
This is crazy. DJ Kiva is a friend who I met through teaching at Dubspot but who’s been active in NYC for a good while. He’s a wicked producer, musician and DJ. Among other things you may know him from his feature on ‘Underwater High Rise‘ from Solar Life Raft where he played guitar and percussion. He and I worked on this Beaterator project together for Dubspot and Rockstar Games where we went around to a bunch of schools in NYC and across the country and taught kids how to make music using Beaterator, which is a piece of music software that runs on the Sony PSP portable game system. It’s actually really cool and you can make surprisingly official beats on it, on the train, in the laundromat etc. On top of that it has a built in mic so you can sing on your track, play instruments into it, surreptitiously sample people on the train etc. Kiva, being the intensely creative dude that he is, has gone and made an albums worth of music on this thing in the couple of months he’s had it. And it sounds heavy. A particular favorite of mine is his cover of The Abyssinians ‘Satta Masa Gana’ with him singing and playing horns into the built in mic. MAD. Check it below, download it, show it to your friends.
BTR8ION…NYC artist/producer DJ Kiva presents the world’s first album written & produced entirely on the Sony PSP Beaterator. Created while traveling streets, subways, and skies from Brooklyn to LA and laid out mixtape style…Beateration for the Nation!
tracklisting:
01 Hollywood Starz
02 Situation feat. Channel Earth
03 Keep the Fire Burning
04 C’mon Y’all
05 Satta Massagana*
06 Bring Da Beat Back
07 Center of the Universe
08 Another Kind of Language
09 Mysyde
10 Era Unknown
11 Altitude
12 Back to My Galaxy
all music written, recorded, & produced by DJ Kiva © Adios Babylon 2010 on Sony PSP Beaterator.
* Satta Massagana written & originally recorded by the Abyssinians
Unrelated Submerged Second Life Picture- but watch for an amazing video coming soon from Sara Taigher
Solar Life Raft- the mix that keeps on giving- has finally made its way to your local record stores. /rupture and Shadetek working together is a serious Voltron force. It’s safe to say that I have listened to SLR over a hundred times since it was recorded- and I’m still finding reasons to go back. Opening with Time-Blind’s abstract tone poetry and closing with a gorgeous re-work from /rupture and Shadetek of Telepathe, it’s easy to miss all the ground the mix has covered.
Tracklists are the weird anathema of the DJ Mix- always reminding us as producers and consumers that for some reason the sounds cant just stand alone. A tracklist can mark a DJ’s access to dub-plates and exclusives or their prodigal digging- but always the tracklist serves as a sort of roadmap for listeners that want to go beyond the mix and gain some traction in it. Often I’ll look to a track list before deciding whether or not to listen to a given mix. Or I will return to the tracklist after hearing something amazing that I want to be up on.
SLR stands alone without the tracklist- and the hype that goes along with it- people read the tracklist and think, “Wow, this sure is eclectic”- but it’s not grab bag by any means- its laser precision etched in bass. It is hard to believe after listening to SLR that you’ve just digested sounds as seemingly diverse as Cardopusher, Paavoharju, and Luc Ferrari. One you get used to these sorts of mixes- where genre-orthodoxy and rigid notions of sonic-geographies are left behind- it gets pretty fucking hard to go back to an hour of any BPM mixed seamlessly at the start of 8, 16 and 32 bar phrases and movements.
/rupture and Shadetek can really cook in the lab. I’ve always rated Matt for his back-from-the-crossroads skills in Logic. I mean- from what I know- he was the first stateside producer to actually be doing production for grime dudes in London. /rupture on the other hand has always been off in a zone that seemed far more experimental- where quantization was frowned upon and standard timing or track development was laughed out the door. Through the last few years they seem to have tempered each others workflows and styles in all the right ways- and SLR should be an announcement that these two can make tracks with the very best of them. The album is almost a third original production and its the home grown tracks that really provided the convincing narrative that holds the mix together.
Effusive praise can ring hallow coming from ones own crew- but I’m not just trying to ramp up sales- Solar Life Raft is remarkable. Do whatever your ethical radar tells you in regard to consuming music and somehow, someway, find yourself a copy. If that happens to be amazon, boomkat, itunes, or beatport….just think of it as investing in more music.
[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/leaky/MattShadetek-Strength_In_Numbers-SOLAR-LIFE-RAFT.mp3]
Matt Shadetek – Strength In Numbers
[audio:http://secretgooglecheatcodes.com/GGD-Bebey-DJ_Rupture+MattShadetek_RMX.mp3]
Gang Gang Dance – Bebey (DJ /rupture and Matt Shadetek Remix)
I got put up on Octa Push by the hospitable folks of Bristol’s finest BassMusic/Karnival crew Ruffnek Diskotek. After a massive fry up we were listening to some tunes and Octa Push stood out as some serious heat… A few internet mediated communications later- and we have a brief and incredibly straight forward interview direct for DA from the Iberian peninsula.
Who is Octa Push?
We’re two brothers, Dizzycutter and Mushug and we both have been making beats for a while but only started making them together in the beginning of 2008. Started a bit like a joke when our friends at Conspira (one of the first crews pushing bass music in Portugal) booked us for a show. We had to find a name and make loads of beats, it went well and then we decided to take it a bit more seriously. Since then things been moving really fast and we’ve been lucky to play in wicked places!
We did official remixes for people like Buraka Som Sistema, Débruit, Mochipet, Monkey Steak and more..
Our sound has it’s main influences UK garage, bashment, techno, afrobeat and loads of diferent things..
As you all probably may know I teach at DubSpot in NYC teaching people to make beats with Logic. For Dubspot’s second anniversary Dan who runs it is doing some parties. This one should be great, Rupture and I will be there DJing. Of special interest, at least to me, is the early sound-check session where dub master Scientist will be giving a talk about mic placement and general production/mixing wizardry before the show. The daytime seminars, including one with Rupture, should be very cool too.
Sunday 6.28:
ABLETON LIVE 8 WORKSHOP SESSIONS DAY 2:
Performing with Live: ‘Taking Ableton on Stage’
11am > Coffee with Marley
12-1:30pm > Jon Margulies: DJ / Live PA – Hybrid Sets with the Akai APC40
1:30-2:30pm > DJ Rupture: Integrating Live Instruments
2:30-3:30pm > Late Lunch w/ MONO: 365 DJ Pack Giveaway
3:30-4:30pm > Peter Kirn: Controllers for Live
4:45-5:45pm > Barry Cole: My Tracks Are Banging… Now What?
6:00-7:00pm > Scientist meets Badawi – Dub Mixing
—————————————————————————————————–
*Hi Fidelity DubSpot Sessions / DubSpot 2 Year Anniversary Party #3*
* 7:30 – 9:00pm ‘Soundcheck with Scientist’ & Dub is a Weapon (Workshop)
——–general admission—————
**9:00 – 10:00pm Badawi Live!
10:00 – 10:45pm Scientist Mixing Dub is a Weapon Live!
10:45 – 11:30 DJ Kiva
11:30 – 12:15am Scientist Mixing Dub is a Weapon Live! Part 2
12:15 – 2 am Gold Dust Presents: DJ Rupture & Matt Shadetek
* $25 7:30pm – 2am ‘Soundcheck with Scientist’
** $15 9:00pm – 2am Hi Fidelity DubSpot Sessions