I spent this afternoon in a coffee house with Dmoe, he was remixing a Jamie Lidell song for his weekly gig in Seattle, and I was chopping apart little pieces of dub music. All the while it was buckets and buckets of rain outside. Usually March makes me feel like going south, but this year I think I’d go north, maybe to someplace like the one pictured above. (Norway in the springtime)
I must admit, I have been listening to quite a bit of Bmore tunes lately, courtesy of Jimbo who gave me his entire collection before leaving town. I have also been listening to Typhoon, the Oregon based band pictured above. I first saw them at Mississippi Pizza when they opened the night up with some pirate themed epic instrumentals. I liked what I heard and sent them an email asking if I could remix one of their songs for this project. I think a little bit of the Baltimore sound got in there along the way.
It has been almost 3 weeks since the last song, but it hasn’t been because I have forgotten about making songs. In fact the lull has been due to getting a new job, one which pays the bills, and allows me to work in a field which I’m proud of (renewable energy), with people I love (my family). However, the past 3 weeks had me marinating on a new song / remix of the Morals. These two guys pictured above (Ben and Casey), have played all over town recently, gracing the Doug Fir, Dunes, and Backspace (most recently). I’d call their music minimal (which is a good thing), and the two Morals share the duties of singing, stomping, guitar strumming, and running around the audience. They have a new CD out entitled “The Warming Light of Dawn” which does a pretty good job of capturing their music, and is available on their myspace page.
A couple more things. I’m playing at Branx for the dance night SNAP, on the 25th. I’ll be DJ’ing with my good buddy Jimbo, who happens to be leaving for Puerto Rico. It’s right underneath Rotture on 2nd street.
And… More songs are coming soon, I promise!
It’s the end of 07, and we are sledding into 08. (At least we would be if we had any snow around here). Just think, in two years we are going to be in the “Tens”! This never ending weekly musical project has been alive for four months now, with 17 songs and over 10,000 downloads. In the spirit of the holidays, I took my favorite songs from last year, put them together, fixed a few things in the mix, and packed them into a nice little holiday EP titled “Oh Seven!”
A song for ringing in the New Year! A remix of Portland artist Starfucker’s song “German Love”. Starfucker’s Myspace page has a few songs to listen too, and so does his Virb page. If you’d rather the old YouTube, well… here is a video of the team playing at PDX Pop Now.
The past four days had me nursing a 103 degree fever, and working out this mix for one of my favorite Portland / Eugene bands, the Fast Computers. Having a fever is supposed to make you a little delirious, which can be a good thing when it comes to music. I’ve known the Fast Computers for years, and Moore’s Law has nothing on this trio. They have a new CD out “Heart Geometry”, which I highly recommend. Here is a snippet of the review of their new album from NPR;
“The syncopated rhythms and interlocking melodies on Fast Computer’s first album Heart Geometry, fit tightly together as though perfectly measured… powerful, haunting and stark, but it also seems organic and natural… one of the years most satisfying releases.”
Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!
The line art above is by Anna Todoro, who curates the Core gallery here in Portland. Besides the visual arts, Anna also plays the violin, guitar, and sings. Her minimalist solo songs can be heard on her Myspace page, and in her new solo album Innard Blues. We recorded a bunch of material to work with about ten days ago, and I set it aside for later. Then unexpectedly, I had the pleasure of performing a DJ set at the Holocene for the Prefuse 73 show. Somehow in the course of the night I got inspired by the cut up sounds of Prefuse 73, and Seven Silver Bells. I came back and mixed these two songs up out of the recordings of Anna playing violin and singing. I’m only including one song in the Podcast, but the Creature mix is available here on the site to download as well…
This weekend Oregon has a hurricane warning in force, with winds expected in excess of 100 mph. Could there be any better sign of the impending global meltdown warming, then the first ever hurricane in the Pacific Northwest? It’s the perfect reason to stay inside all day and tinker around with the old synthesizers. This song starts slow, and then just like a hurricane, little pieces of sound start getting blown all over the place, landing upside down, backwards, and inside out.
Hurricane
This week’s podcast song is a bit darker and damper than the past few. The sounds are almost dripping with icy water from the tips of the subterranean stalactites. I have to say, this song was so slimy that at first I wasn’t sure if I could bring it up out of the cavern. However, after listening a few times today, (on the speakers, not the headphones) I came to like it’s soggy little guitar licks.
See that island way off in the distance? The one with the little plume of smoke rising off the beach. The one where nobody knows what day of the week it is, or what month, because it’s aways 89 degrees. This song is about that island, and the little one next to it where everyone goes fishing and gathers coconuts for dinner.
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Email me at cosmoscorbin (at) gmail (dot) com