Luis’ Faves – 2008

CLICK HERE FOR TRACKS MENTIONED IN THIS POST

(this is part II of 2008 – more tracks here)

hey, y’all! i don’t have much to say about this year. didn’t really think it through. dubstep’s gone almost entirely to shit (although that wobbly stuff can be fun in small doses), i fell in love with grime all over again (and HARD!), i listened almost entirely to singles, few of which i can thoroughly remember, and… hmmm… there were many pleasant surprises, to be sure. lots of “oh, SHIT!” moments. they came in odd measures, but when they came, they were marvelous.

i hope you enjoy the list!!!

FAVORITE…

SINGLES/DUDES/DUDETTES
zomby – this guy… holy shit. spliff dub (original, not the 2008 mix), THE LIE, gloop, liquid dancehall, STRANGE FRUIT… DAMN. he’s got the dark bounce, the effortless dread vibes, the deeeep low-end, the lazer synths… that ALBUM… easily the most scarily promising producer to follow in 2009. PLEASE, zomby- don’t slip up!!!

bun b – you’re everything – this one wins the Bassline of the Year award. kept me company on many nocturnal bike rides durin spring.

lil’ wayne – comfortable, a milli – liked, didn’t love the album. anyway, standout track “comfortable” gives us lil’ wayne at his most amusingly crazed, and there’s no explanation necessary for “a milli,” although it deserves runner-up for Bassline of the Year (what a thumper!), and maybe an award for Way Too Many Freestyles on a Beat, None of Which Matter.

t.i. – swagger like us – SUPERhype m.i.a. vocal, tough beat, and solid verses from everyone involved, especially t.i. it just hits really hard.

young jeezy – straight out the rarri -this time, it’s grime influencing american rap. huge, huge beat. it almost sounds like a chopped-up joker production???

izza kizza – hello – VERY odd beat, and it KNOCKS.

beyonce – single ladies – guaranteed dancefloor stormer, yeah? dope chorus.

the dream – his productions – i guess i kinda slept on him. rihanna’s “umbrella” is and was a mammoth track, but it wasn’t until i heard more of his own album from last year that i noticed his penchant for combining discordant melodies and sweet harmonics, usually in minor chords, and if there’s one thing i’m a sucker for, amongst others, it’s melodic dissonance (kano – what have you done?, t power – runnin’, threat misses – juke ya girl). electrik red’s “drank in my cup” and the chorus in beyonce’s “single ladies” are prime examples- tense, uneasy, strained… exciting…

da govment – puffin on the purp – kinda like crisp, vintage 90s boom-bap laced with a thick, syrupy southern bounce, despite the fact the dudes are from philly .

VIDEOS

flying lotus – parisian goldfish – soooooo, so hot. SO hot. glad to see smut done so artfully and with some much fun and humor. best tune on the album, too.

beyonce – single ladies – another hot video. kinda thrilling, really.

LINES
“if we play it, we mean it. irony is for pussies, and we are bold.” – bok bok & manara

“it’s hard getting rich, it ain’t shit to go to hell/it’s hard selling dope, it ain’t shit to go to jail” – rich boy, “drop”

ALBUMS
flying lotus – los angeles – sounds warm from beginning to end without EVER being “laid-back,” “chiiiill,” “jazzy, man!” three sure-fire descriptors of a boring  piece of shit. it’s calm and wild in equal doses, but most importantly, it maintains that warm, slightly woozy texture throughout.

eminem – the marshall mathers lp – from the year 2000! after not having heard this album in eight years, based on the good memories of that first listen, i went back to see what it’d sound like. a week and about fifty continuous playthroughs later, i wholeheartedly declare this album one of my top ten of the decade (two more years, y’all!) above all else, it’s shocking, even in the face of plenty of offensive material out there, primarily due to one supreme strength: it’s not for show. it’s all real hate (a wealth of hate) and fear and energy and excitement you’re hearing. it’s stunning.

MIXES
jackmaster – mix for sinden on kiss fm/ mix for fact magazine – a welcome discovery this year. like other favorites of mine like flosstradamus, drop the lime, and diplo, he just plain does it right: the momentum, the sick tracks, and the tight mixing are all there. excellent.

joker – mix for skream on stella sessions – the only good dubstep mix this year. the wobbly mid-range garbage all over the place now is dubstep’s death knell, and that BORING “techno-infused” stuff on the outskirts of dubstep is shit, no matter what anybody says. bring back 2005!

rustie – mix for mary anne hobbs experimental – damn… i wanted to name this one the mix of the year!!! it got inched out by something just a liiiiittle tiiiny bit more, er, bangin’, but still, this mix is BIG! insane and heavy and huge and BIG. all about that doomed-to-be-unreleased keyshia cole remix (the second track in)… BIG!!!!!!

bok-bok & manara – club vortex mix/ mix for no love lost records/ push soundsystem mix (2007)/ what’s a niche? mix for mad decent radio/ 69 allstars mix (2007) – unbelievable. really, really high-quality output from these two. they’re unique and distinctive. their sets flow beautifully. their grime instrumentals compendium “69 allstars” is a masterpiece.

ghislain poirier – his mixes! – you know, i just realized that i’ve never praised his mixes ever since we started making our lists. in my mind, he’s way up there: his selections, his refixes, his sequencing, his overall cohesiveness… most definitely one of the greats. i hope i can check him out live someday!

boys noise – live at sonar 2007 – house the way it should be- JACKIN’!!!

AND THE WINNERS…

#1 SINGLE: THREE-WAY TIE!
joker – snake eater – i heard that this was the number one song in the world in an alternate reality? seriously… i would throw myself out of a window to hear this one beating down the block on 18-inch subs just ONCE.

prgz – bama gettin’ money (diplo remix) – anthem, anthem, anthem. pure menace, pure hype, pure punch-your-fucking-wall music. anthem.

silkie – sky’s the limit – the drop in this song = the happiest moment of your life.

#1 MIX
lazer sword – mix for mary anne hobbs experimental – the first third of this mix alone nearly gave me a heart attack. the rest is consistently crazy, but really, if it kept the intensity of the first portion, the mix would burn you alive. high hopes for these two next year!!!

#1 ALBUM
zomby – where were u in 92? – druuuuuuuggy, reeeeeally druggy. an almost disturbingly dreamlike aural approximation and condensation of every rave you’ve ever been to. you know those memories you have of walking around a rave, walking around the different rooms, having all those sounds reverberating in your head? this album IS those memories.

LOOSIES
june – cakey – minimal/ maximal
jim jones – pop champagne (hot beat; shame it went to jim jones. why the HELL is he still rapping? *shudder*)
little jinder – polyhedron – (supra1 remix) – raaaaaaave
no age – teen creeps – makes me feel like a teenager
t-pain ft. ludacris – chooped & screwed – genius
deadmau5 – faxing berlin – not from 2008? not sure. lush
scuba – twitch (vex’d remix) – diamond-sharp crispness… vex’d productions put 99% of other producers to shame
his majesty andre – nrg555 – nrg, indeed

that’s it! here’s to a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2009!

be good, be safe, and stay up, dudes!!!

well, i’ll be damned

www.mtvmusic.com

mtv’s putting up every video ever on here!!!

i know there’s youtube and shit out there, but this… this could be grand.

watch all your favorites again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!

Mad Muggy Mix circa May 2007

i made this mix a month before leaving new york, a conscious tribute and send-off to the city (although in no way is it regionally a new york mix, despite featuring new york artists). my homie jay swears i’m crazy, but i work with mixes synesthetically; i see colors through melodies, and with this mix, made in the sultry, oppressively muggy month of may in brooklyn, i tried to coalesce the spectrum of colors humidity brings: orange, gray, red, green… yellow… black (hot asphalt)… in essence, i tried to capture the feeling of walking down myrtle avenue and hearing those big basslines blasting out of cars, blinding sun in my eyes, sweating, bass amplified greatly by the warm kinetic energy in the air…

i miss new york. i had a great time there. the mad muggy mix is my thank you and good-bye to that final summer in brooklyn…

:)

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chopCHOPped screwEWeeed

hoooly, shit… this one’s crazy. here’s what is, if i’m not mistaken, the first readymade chopped n screwed track for mass consumption. just listen to that chorus!!! i can’t wait for this to hit the radio and have the kids going, “whaaa?”

t-pain and ludacris – chopped n screwed

now we need a gabber pop song and that’s it, pop is complete…

Halfa 2008

alright… short n sweet, this’ll be…

songs on constant replay, january-june 2008:

busta rhymes – don’t touch me – it’s good to hear busta having what sounds like FUN after who knows how long (a decade?) the lame thug persona he’s been cultivating for years now doesn’t fit the character we all fell in love with throughout the 90s- that rambunctious, goofy, lovable MC going nuts over some some appropriately nutty beats (gimme some more, dangerous, put your hands where my eyes could see, woo-hah… the list goes on). dunno what his new album’ll sound like, but this track gives me great hope…

prgz – bama gettin’ money (diplo remix) – this is SUCH a reply to three 6 mafia’s “stay fly”! love it! extra points for flipping bad 80s cheese (wham!) into something so menacing.

good dubstep tracks:
silkie – sky’s the limit
headhunter – horny teen
skream – tek-a-pill

most dubstep still sucks, and whatever promise it held three years ago has been rendered obsolete by a conveyor belt stream of wobbly, faux-ragga, cheap-thrill bullshit. but these three! silkie has the EEEEEEPIC synths, headhunter the sleaze, and skream the zombie vibe.

duke dumont – almost all he’s done – he’s one of a small handful of producers making *QUALITY* XXXXXX house (don’t know what it’s called anymore, don’t care) that everyone loves so much nowadays. the trick is, his glitches and edits and whatever other elements he uses actually PROPEL his songs, not just attempt vainly at giving the beat a “hard, distorted” feel. his take on debbie deb’s “when i hear music” is the definitive one, “lean and bounce” achieves the gritty texture everyone’s failed at, and the remix of missy’s “we run this” sounds riotous. awesome!

kanye west – flashing lights (video; first version) – why was there a second version made? was there not enough appreciation for the cinematically mesmerizing accompaniment to one of last year’s best songs? did we need some corny, forced, tremendously clichéd new york sob story instead? blah.

bun b – you’re everything – it has a crazy jodeci sample and that buzzsaw bass (trae – cadillac!!!) that i canNOT resist.

special mention:

sometime before summer last year, i came upon a bangladesh-produced track called “amilly” starring then-unknown (and now completely vanished?) rapper charlie mackenroe. the minimal, massive boom-clack beat was one of the year’s very best, though i forgot to mention it in december. this year, the beat was given to lil’ wayne (it’s “a milli” now), but you know what? the charlie mackenroe version was better! lil’ wayne’s stream-of-consciousness flow is all diminishing returns on this monster of a thumper, and even though this mackenroe guy was a no-mark, at least he gave his version a chorus, shitty as it was. anyway, helluva beat. oh, and there’re an endless pile of freestyles over this beat by a bunch of people now… they all stink!

from the top of mt. fuji, even though that lake makes it look like i’m at surface level…

sets on constant replay, january-june 2008

dj clever – offshore records mix – may – bless offshore records! makes you wish it was 1997, when dnb was the truth.

diplo – mad decent worldwide radio #27 – diplo’s often most on point in off-the-cuff sets like these, truly the sign of a great dj.
PRGz – Bama Gettin Money (Diplo Remix)

ghislain poirier – bring the fire – a ghislain poirier set is always gold before even listening.

dj wonder – april 1xtra dubstep mix – GOOD dubstep, no wobbly inanity, great selection, great sequencing… what a relief!

joker – skream stella sessions mix, may 2008 – the only other good dubstep mix so far this year.

and the very best of the last six months…

two entries!

1) JOKER – SNAKE EATER!!!

godDAMN, what a tune. i was gonna lump it with the other dubstep tracks i mentioned above, but… godDAMN, what a tune! this has it all. in a perfect world, this would be the worldwide summer anthem.

2) RUSTIE!!!

his showcase mix on mary anne hobbs’ radio1 show last april was a revelation in the way few things are nowadays, primarily because rustie has accomplished what is perhaps the most virtuous musical feat of all: culling your influences and morphing them into something unique, distinct, and wholly original. we can talk about how rustie employs a bit of dubstep here, hip-hop there, rnb here and such, but NOBODY sounds like HIM. he’s in a league of his own, he’s amazing, and he’s destined for greatness.

rustie on mary anne hobbs’ 1xtra show – april 23^rd, 2008

rustie & hudson mohawk – 4AM drunken mix

rustie – gutterish mix

everything on this list is easily googleable!

see you in december!

PS- you know what song SUCKS?! Estelle – American Boy. WHAT THE FFFFFF!?! TRASH!!!! more »