Pushing Buttons routine

DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist, and DJ Numark performing live on Akai MPC samplers... 'nough said.

Scratch (2001)

A feature-length documentary film about hip-hop DJing, otherwise known as turntablism. From the South Bronx in the 1970s to San Francisco now, the world's best scratchers, beat-diggers, party-rockers, and producers wax poetic on beats, breaks, battles, and the infinite possibilities of vinyl. -imdb

It's simple really, this documentary is as essential as essential can get when it comes to hip-hop. A step by step walk-through of how it all began with dj-ing and evolved into scratching, juggling, turntablism etc. Passing through with insight, anecdotes, tips and tricks or general BS are oa.: Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmaster Flash, DJ Krush, Mix Master Mike, DJ NuMark, DJ Q-Bert, DJ Shadow, X-ecutioners, Steinski, Cut Chemist, ... The feature won the audience price at the Atlanta Film Festival and was nominated for the Grand Jury Price at Sundance, so you know this is a decent documentary and not just a collection of home shot clips, it just looks real good too, just check the first few minutes below..





torrent meta file | Amazon
Doug Pray (director) website

Strotter Inst. - Minenhund

7/10

Ambient, avant-garde, soundscape, post-industrial: four labels that are perfectly applicable to Minenhund. But there is something more to this release than what you'd expect from an album that is bound to be categorized in these niches. A quick glance at Strotter Inst.'s gallery proves that we're not dealing with something that can be classified so easily under such a general musical denominator. Sure, the result of this remarkable Swiss-based sound architecture is an album, but the manner in which the audio is created reminds more of conceptual art. A dark audible mind trip lies ahead for those who do not fear taking a leap into a sonic universe made out of molested vinyl and rebuilt turntables.

My advised setting to take in this hour of charcoal soundbites is absolute darkness and a set of headphones with the volume set just beyond the point that is considered healthy for your hearing. Minenhund translates (freely) as a person who spends his days slaving in the depts of pitch dark mines, so if you have the chance to replicate these conditions in any way, please do so.

The most noticeable thing about Christoph Hess' latest effort as Strotter Inst. is the focus on the use of the turntable as sound creating device rather than as a sound reproducing one. Five Lenco turntables make up the main part of the instrumentation/installation; modified styluses, rubber bands, duct tape and whatnot are used to create the meditative bass and looping rhythms. The consistency of the cascading loops forms the stomping engine that guarantee the blood flowing in the maze of pseudo-industrial rhythm patterns. The novelty of this release is the actual use of a few samples in the form of French gibberish - sometimes awkwardly high-pitched like there was a helium leak in one of the underground chambers of the sonic mine. Some cuts from a marching vinyl (that seem to be slightly out of place in the big picture) serve as a welcome change in the confined sound spectrum that has an overall fatness to it provided by the analog warmth residing in the vintage parts of the installation.

Strotter Inst. managed to combine some noticeable features of fellow sound-explorer Philip Jeck and audible tale creators Xela on this release, and ended up with an epic journey from a dusty surface to mind numbing, almost claustrophobic, depths where one thing is sure - if the listener manages to make it to the end of this challenging ride, she'll be counting down to the next shift of crawling through the rumbling darkness of neo-turntablism.


written for and published by The Silent Ballet
Strotter Inst. website

Dreamsploitation - The Soft Focus Sound of Today

In the past 15 years, this reviewers ears have had the pleasure of being introduced to some of the most ingeniously sample-based albums -milestones if you will- such as DJ Shadow's Endtroducing and Amon Tobin's Bricolage and Permutation. The impact of this novice way to create albums proved to be immense although at the time their effort was mostly recognized only by critics and connoisseurs of the scene they where active in. Today, I have the pleasure to discus Dreamsploitation's sample-driven debut release The Soft Focus Sound of Today. Cunningly forming his moniker with a hint to the exploitation cinema genre, this brainchild of Canadian Chuck Blazevic got the name just right to describe his 'cut & paste' re-interpretation of orchestral melodic sounds of the 60s.

This 23 year old multi-instrumentalist, dj, composer, producer, record collector and guitarist of The Heavy Blinkers hailing from Nova Scotia didn't leave a rock unturned in his quest for the ideal soundbites for this album. Tapping into a wide range of audiosources such as film scores and foley recordings, obscure and forgotten vinyl releases as well as self recorded material and re-arranging, tweaking and most importantly using them in another context proves Dreamsploitation's intuition for the construction of a coherent composition. Build with more then merely a drumloop, a repetitive sample and a vocal line, The Soft Focus Sound of Today is a pleasant headrush of tiny samples constructed so that they form a blanket of Technicolour tints to crawl under and keep you warm. Like child playing with cutely bears under it's blanket, the unpredictability of this album is as surprising as it is coherent, no exuberant scratches but minimal shifts of creative playfulness.

Although scratch terms as scrible, flare and crab are slightly out of place when discussing The Soft Focus Sound of Today, this album contains quite some relish for the dj-skill junk. Samples looping in different measurements, cut up drumloops re-arranged on each passing keep a tempo in this album that will get to your sense of direction every now and then. The contrast of the Technicolour blanket of string and vocal samples and the unleashed drums don't allow much breathing space on the album, once the headspinning intro of the album is accompanied by it's groove, it's a one way ticket towards the end. Although there are several drumless and downtempo pieces, there's always the confronting, psychotic edge of Dreamsploitation's signature sound of. A sound filled with micro-samples, flowing yet always slightly abrupt.

And this is the greatest achievement -and perhaps in a way, flaw- of the album. Dreamsploitation lures you in his own sound universe right from the intro towards the end, and it's a brilliantly designed sound spectrum you'll discover. But in the end you're most likely not to be able to point out what catches your attention the most, what the thrills of the album where... The Soft Focus Sound of Today is much like a dream, an experience of memories viewed upon in a different, somewhat surreal way, something you want to remember in the morning when you wake up but most likely just end up wondering whole day what exactly happened... Dreamsploitation is not the new DJ Shadow or Amon Tobin, it's the third option; the new kid on the block that will amaze you and keep you wondering what will be next to come out of his absinthe fuelled sampler.




Website Dreamsploitation
Listen to The Soft Focus Sound of Today @ Last.fm
Dreamsploitation MySpace
Written for & published by The Silent Ballet webzine