If you are a record collector or a vinyl newbie, you have no doubt seen this photo posted and Tweeted countless times on Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks. While it is very cool, it is not a new thing to see “the inner walls” of a vinyl record groove. Similar photographs have been posted for years, especially when comparisons were made between vinyl and compact disc.
Fellow vinyl junkie DJ Shadow knows about the “inner juices” that lie within his record collection. Back in 2002 on tour in support of his Private Press album, he introduced a number of great visuals as he played his songs, one of which involved what I call “the exploration of a groove”. It’s a computer generated film which begins in outer space, slowly making its way to Earth before reaching a yard where a few people are having a barbeque and listening to records on a pair of Technics turntables while a record crate sits close buy. It gets closer, and as soon as you think it can’t get any closer, it moves closer to the record stylus and cartridge. It is then that the film takes it one step closer: by going into the groove (watch it from the beginning, but the magic moment begins around the 2:00 mark):
When I saw DJ Shadow on this tour in Seattle on June 9th, 2002, this film was shown as “Fixed Income” was played. I myself got chicken skin because I actually had a similar idea for a film in the 8th grade, which means I must’ve seen similar photos of a magnified record sometime in the 80’s. I wanted to be an artist that showed films behind me because I was a huge Pink Floyd fan, and they were a band who used incredible visuals through backdrop films on a number of tours. When I saw Shadow do it, I thought “shit, he did it”, and I said that with approval. Shadow wanted to be the early bird that got the worm as depicted on graphics used for the promotion of The Private Press. As for me, there was a comic strip in Mad Magazine which stated “the early bird catches the worm, but who catches the early bird?” I wanted to be the one to do it before the early bird. I did not have a chance, but to realize someone else had the same idea was satisfaction enough. The Private Press tour was documented on the DVD In Tune And On Time: Live!, where you’ll be able to see the above video in HQ form.
Sage Francis is about to drop a new album in May with the pecular title of Li(fe). Does the album have a split personality, or is he suggesting that within life there is always a lie or two? Do we get through life by lying, or is it deeper? No doubt, Sage Francis will be telling it like it is, or li(k)e it is as the case may be.
Pre-orders for the album as a a double LP and single CD are being taken now at Strange Famous Records, with a few unique deals and prices that will be void when May 11th rolls around, so take advance of these pre-order offers.
When it’s 3am, it’s eternal. Talib Kweli and Hi-Tek know what time it us, and thus they are Reflection Eternal and the duo are about to drop another collaboration in the form of an album they call Revolutions Per Minute (it always goes back to vinyl), due out on March 23rd. With a title like Revolutions Per Minute, one would expect for it to be released on vinyl but as of now it will be out on CD and digitally via the usual places.
Traveling Man (Mello Music Group) is a new 24 track album by D.C.-based producer Oddisee, who created songs inspired by and named after various cities/locales. The 2LP set is available to pre-order from Fat Beats.
Oddisee always seems to be keeping himself busy with new project after new project, you can follow his trail by checking his regularly updated blog.
From the forthcoming Harmony EP on Shemspeed, this is DeScribe’s video of the title track. You can hear more of his music by heading to his MySpace page.
Madlib’s Medicine Show continues with the third installment in 2010, with what he calls Beat Konducta in Africa. Two vinyl pressings have been made: a 3LP version and a 2LP version. The 2LP version features all 37 tracks that are on the CD, while the 3LP version features bonus tracks on the extra piece of wax.
The 3LP version will have a silk-screened cover designed by Hit+Run, in five different color variations. The standard 2LP edition will have a printed cover, but the cover is meant to replicate not only ring wear of an old album, but moldy ring wear.
(Significance of moldy album covers, especially pertaining to records from Africa, can be found here.)
To pre-order your copy, head to the Stones Throw store. The album is scheduled for release on March 23rd.
Sometimes you have to wait awhile to find quality hip-hop, and here’s why the phrase “patience comes to those who wait” is appropriate. Here’s a new track by Bambu where he teams up with Blue Scholars‘ Prometheus Brown. Aisus, indeed!
If you did not make it last month to the Delicious Vinyl All-Star DJ Workshop in Los Angeles, or didn’t catch the live stream, here is a video excerpt of that performance. (Link provided courtesy of Solesides.com.)
Together, they are The Residents, and when they released the album Open House in Japan last year, fans of both of them were wondering when it was going to come out stateside. Through Domination Recordings, they are making the album available as a free download. Open House features Rob Swift, Understanding, Edo G., Cadence and Ohmega Watts among others.
There is a slight tie-in, since the cover art for Open House seems to be based on the homes from the intro to the 1980’s ABC sitcom, Full House, which was based in San Francisco:
Five years ago, someone out there created a version of the N.W.A song “Straight Outta Compton” and basically removed everything but the expletives. What was a four minute song was shortened to a 19 second track of “fuck”, “fucka”, “fuck”, “shit”, “pussy ass” and a lot more.
The man behind the project is fi5e, known to his closest friends as Evan Roth, and now he has decided to do the entire Straight Outta Compton and edit it down to its essence. Of course not every song on the album was dirty, there are four tracks that were profanity free. You can now download the entire “Explicit Content Only Version” of Straight Outta Compton for free, all three minutes and some seconds of it.
To make it interesting, you can now buy this on vinyl as a 12″ single. All three minutes of this fills up Side 1, so quality will be quite good for something that consists of dirt word snippets. Aah, but you’ll want this for the B-side as it is a “Explicit Content Only Version” of Eazy-Z’s classic solo album, Eazy Duz It. The 12″ single is pricey, but if you’re a completist it will be worth it. Click here to download the “Explicit Content Only Version” of Straight Outta Compton for free, or order the 12″.
