Chased Pavements

Adele - Chasing Pavements (Various Remix) -

After hearing this remix on Gilles Peterson's show, I spent the majority of my last trip to London searching the shops for this song to no avail. Seems a hard look, but happily I have found this link (for the moment). It's such a dope mix. It needs to be out there! Enjoy.

Robots After All

Electroma, Daft Punk's stab at your typical art/silent/road/midnight/stoner movie is streaming until 8 pm tonight at Pitchfork.tv.  It comes on like a mix between the beginning of The Shining and lost footage from a bionic buddy cop series.  And then not a lot happens.  But it's still pretty cool.

Be warned, this might not translate to the pc screen at all.  I saw it in a theater in Shibuya and had to contend with the inane chatter of two girls directly behind me.  Like I said, audio-wise, there's not a lot going on.  Anyway, I liked it.  See if you have the patience, or just click around to see if you can find one of the more bizarre moments.  

Kanyegenic.

The overall vibe of most of the 808s & Heartbreak reviews I've come across is this: It's kind of a mess, but isn't it great that Kanye is experimenting?  We need to support that.  Interesting.  While music journalism often runs pithy to downright vicious, what is it about Kanye that inspires such admiration cum generosity (or is that vice versa)?  The threat of being called out by a loud-mouth who's much cooler than you?  Solidarity amongst those of artistic leanings?  Maybe he's just done a good job selling the whole "heartbreak/art" angle.

I've warmed to the record a bit, though aside from "Paranoid" and "Street Lights," there aren't any tracks that I care to listen to individually, or on rewind.  Rather, I let it play out in the background while I clean the house.  And maybe that's half the idea - the play out, not the cleaning, though a  visit to his blog demonstrates Kanye's interest with music to be played in environments both residential and retail.  I guess 808s & Heartbreak is what happens when industrial design aficionados bring their obsessions into the studio.  Less bangin' and more Bang & Olufsen.

My more immediate impression, as tracks leaked over the last few months: Man, Kanye is really going for that '97 Bjork drum programming sound.  Which caused me to revisit Homegenic the other day.  I don't know if it's any longer relevant to say that an album from ___ still sounds fresh in ___, but Bjork and collaborators were on fire with this one.  A cold, quiet fire, but still.  So, anyway, maybe I'll have a greater appreciation for 808s & Heartbreak around 2019.  Maybe it'll help if I have a much nicer apartment.

In the meantime, I'm favoring this recently dropped and officially sanctioned Kanye (re)mixtape.  A little heavy on rattly B-more vibe, but worth it for the "Get 'Em High" and "Throw Some D's" mixes.  All 909s & Sunshine.

New York Renaissance

Man, Jay-Z can tell his life stories “a milli” times and it still sounds interesting! He deserves his crown. It’s lovely to see some internet love in this video. I came across Evan Roth’s animated illustration technique some time ago, but it works really well in this Low Budget video. (props to GBH.tv)

“My billionaire mayor has declared himself king.”

The quickest way to my heart is to put Kermit in anything! And the vocalist in this song comes the closest to Jim Henson’s voice than anyone who has tried it since. A beautiful song. And it’s somehow fitting that The Frog (a new york transplant himself) give eulogy to New York’s slow demise.

Taking It There

Really, CNN?  

(And performer sounds like a euphemism for stripper.)

AMEN.

MN=Coleman over Franken (and by such a slim margin)?
CA=Yes to Prop 8?

Two minor setbacks/heartbreaks.

Otherwise, a beautiful day.