First off, a reminder we are helping to throw one of the most outrageous parties of the year this Saturday at big Boston club Axis on Lansdowne Street. To get $5 off the cover admission, you must RSVP your name and the names of your guests here. That’ll open an email so you can drop a line telling us what’s what at basstownprod@gmail.com.
Our next party is next week (Thursday!!!):
Featuring a freaky/funky DJ set from Parisian DJ and producer Joakim. Joakim (or Mssr. Bouaziz to the French) is the man behind the magnificent Tigersushi label and local Best DJ winner Baldur (DJ Mix here!), new hotshot DJ Die Young (DJ mix here!) and Damien Culvelier of the RobotLoveSongs crew.
Basstown is a new collaborative — a production company which plans on bringing a series of amazing bills through Boston in the coming months. Despite some setbacks, there are signs Boston is starting to come out to play.
The first party Basstown is bringing comes next Saturday. Local phenoms Hearthrob come to visit with DFA DJ Tim Sweeney (you’ll find his latest cutting-edge dance mix here) at superclub Axis Boston. Giveaways from XLR8R magazine and DFA Records. The cover is $10 unless you submit your name(s) by clicking here or drop a line to basstownprod@gmail.com.
This will put you on an RSVP list where the cost is a mere $5.00. Inside, the huge Axis soundsystem will come under the weight of DFA Records and Hearthrob. Wear something special, cause we’re gonna burn through our Nicky Digital camera. Flyer design by Nick The Duke. RSVP your name(s) now so we can make arrangements to melt your face for 5 bucks.
Lots more happening in Basstown, too. Things like Thunderdome (which you can see in the opening of our latest teaser trailer), where sQuare DJ Daviday reps Boston in Boston vs. Providence:
And Friday night the king of Techno — Motor City’s favorite son, the king of all remixes, the Don Juan of Detroit — the lover of futuresound plays Boston for the very first time.
Mr. Craig is an uncompromising genius (check him out shopping for records here, Van Halen! Black Sabbath! Art Ensemble!) who never pulls a punch.
As in this, one of the defining singles of 2006. It’s his amazing, stuttering, harrowing remix of Bobbo Shanti’s “Poor People Must Work,” which had already been touched by the mastering wizards of Rhythm & Sound.
PS - Thunderdome is pre-Carl Craig. What a crazy day. If you can’t rage at Thunderdome, check out the pre-Carl Craig party at Bend on the fashionable Tremont St. strip (info here). The latest set from DJ Maya is available here.
As the scene around Boston changes, bigger and bigger clubs are asking friends and friends of friends to help bring the music to the masses. While we all mull the possibilites, one thing is certainly true: Boston nightlife is looking for fresh blood.
So much so that two DJs we’ve mentioned a lot on this blog have been nominated for “Best DJ” in Boston by the Boston Phoenix (vote here!). Both Baltimoroder and Red Foxxworth from the Hearthrob party were given the nod by our local alternative weekly. (Vote here! Seriously!). They also appeared in this weekend’s Boston Globe article on “New Rave.”
The two represent a kind of validation for a lot of people in this town (blogs, promoters, enthusiasts, CEOs and many others) that we, as a scene, are doing something right. The main question is, what now?
To go further requires some serious concentration, sacrifice and cooperation. Watch what happens via the email list to the right.
Party people Hearthrob also have an email list. Here’s their latest vidvite, featuring the photos of Daviday / Nicky Digital:
Our email will also fill you in on developments with sQuare productions film, Speaking In Code, which covers some of the same scene that’s starting to strike here in Boston.
One act looking at coming through town is Parisian super DJ and a leading aesthete of the European club-scene, Joakim. Mssr. Bouaziz has been a favorite of our for some time, and from producing Poni Hoax to running the uber-chic Tigersushi label to releasing his own amazing tracks, there are few personalities larger in Europe clubland (dude even has his own ringtones).
Here’s a track Baltimoroder has been known to drop with a frequency at the Make It New clubnight. One you’ll probably hear when yours truly DJs with the Klaxons tomorrow night.
Another talent making the scene is The Field, who’s album on Kompakt recently was triumphed as “Best New Music” by influencial site Pitchfork Media. We’re rather proud to say we wrote about Axel and the Field 16 months ago and couldn’t be happier his sound is blowing up. It is truly remarkable music (buy it here).
Even more remarkable is the music which inspired the Field, the music of Kompakt label-head Wolfgang Voigt. Speaking in Code was allowed a rare interview with the man and his presence was pretty freaking awesome.
Voigt’s Love Inc. project is the most reminiscent of the Field because it takes a favorite song and recontextualizes it to the max. Some of Love Inc.’s song titles include “Young Americans,” (!) “How Deep Is Your Love” (!?) and “Viva Hate.” (!!!)
Here’s one of our favorites, Voigt’s rework of “True To Life” from Roxy Music’s classic album (and Foxxworth favorite) Avalon.
So, to sum up: you should vote, people should sign up for the mailing list, watch for some high-profile acts to come through town, go out in Boston and dance, and, Herr Voigt, reissue all Gas/Love Inc. projects as soon as humanely possible. Some are available via Kompakt-MP3 — search artist: Gas — and Voigt has even released music on Matador Records (!), but we need all of it SVP.
This weekend and next, sQuare productions is providing the ambient music for Art House Boston, a project which brings together 14 artists under one roof (or, in this case, three roofs). Baltimoroder and Daviday are putting in their system, along with CD players and Turntables and two wireless systems, into the three-house project at 73 Spring Park Avenue in Boston’s Jamaica Plain area.
The developers did a wonderful job on the houses and with 14 artists you’re sure to find something you like. Amble around to the ambient sound of sQuare, drink some wine and have some cheese. You know, for art.
For more details, click on the pic above or here. It’s gonna be really kewl.
We’re gonna be installing the system tonight before heading over to Make It New for Akiko Kiyama:
Akiko is part of a network we’ve set up through the people at Bunker NYC. Bunker’s Bryan Kasenic is featured in our movie Speaking in Code (talking about throwing parties in “places that are a little more… dangerous” here). Bunker’s final night of techno in the basement of Tonic is next Friday with original Polar Bear Club founder Timeblind. Pour one out for them.
Both MiN and the Bunker share a love of minimal techno. Minimal does not mean boring, subdued perhaps but never boring.
A recent star of the minimal set is a character named Ripperton, especially on the dynamite Liebe Detail label. It’s all good, the whole label is good, and there are some uber-classics on there as well. Buy the vinyl here, buy the digital files here.
As a sample, here’s a track from Ripperton (aka Raphaël Ripperton). The B-side to his contribution to Liebe Detail called “10a”:
Ripperton is of course named after Minnie Riperton, the former vocalist for psych-soul legends Rotary Connection and the 5-octave goddess of song, famous for “Lovin’ You.” If you don’t know Minnie cop on sight.
We’ve always known that sQuare associate and resident DJ Baltimoroder (aka Erik Pearson) is a talented dude. But now, the world is starting to get it too. Recently, his remixes are starting to show up in some high profile web spaces.
We first met Erik when he was a ambient producer and a DJ at our night called Diversion at River Gods. He soon made the jump with Daviday to Pan Am Fridays (old mix here) at the Enormous Room. After years of that gig, we started up Make It New, DJed all around, at house parties (old mix from Erik here) and in the Fort Point Channel.
Now, as the fabulously named Baltimoroder (Baltimore + Giorgio Moroder innit?) Pearson is a part of the phenomenal Hearthrob party, and through Hearthrob’s Red Foxx and friends like Starkness, is getting even larger.
Stark posted Erik’s latest remix at the influencial Palms Out blog, (link here). Our friend Red Foxxworth handed some traxx to the hugely hip NYC DJ Stretch Arm Strong a few weeks back and today came this email from Erik:
SUBJ: DUDE!!!!!!
Body: D’l the mix… 41 minutes in
And there, after a kewl Kelis track, comes Baltimoroder’s “Wile Out” Remix. At the top of the mix even, and almost in its entire length:
Foxxworth calls such tracks thugrave (we’ve seen it unfortunately called rave-rapelsewhere). Thugrave essentially takes hard rap a capellas (generally dirty south a capellas) and puts them over a new technoid sound, usualy remixed and/or reedited. Foxxworth has had success with the formula already, and the Hearthrob party turns the sound out every other Tuesday.
But Baltimoroder’s latest remix really demos the brilliance of the concept. Here’s the original, which is in itself the product of two world-class DJ/producers: Ewan Pearson and Al Usher from the UK. Together they are Partial Arts. The remix of this track comes from veteran DJ/producer duo Alter Ego.
OK. Real, real nice. Total epic. That Viking-march breakdown is a trip in itself. Three immense talents on one track already. Buy more Partial Arts here.
Add two more — Baltimoroder cybernetically goes to Houston, TX and the Swishahouse clique to find Lil Keke , one of the clearest rhymespitters in the game. He drops out the viking march, keeps the intensity, doubles it up, reeedits some lyrics and:
Similar to what our movie friends Modeselektor do with TTC, albiet in French. Here’s a lo-fi rip from their forthcoming Boogy Bytes mix, with its exclusive TTC track, which definately gets Thugrave right:
