My apologies for the lack of updates. We’ve had a lot going on outside of Plaid these days but I hope we can get back into the swing of things around here. For now: here’s another thick, juicy liquid drum and bass mix set for you to chow down on.

Plaidcreature.com-March2010-DnbMix by Novachord

I’m pretty pleased with this mix. Let me know what you think by posting a comment. Tracklisting after the jump.

01 – Mendelayev – Breath
02 – Nero – Do You Wanna?
03 – Sub Focus – Rock It
04 – Danny Byrd feat. Liquid – Sweet Harmony
05 – Netsky – Smile
06 – Temper Trap – Science of Fear (Mistabishi Remix)
07 – Syncopix – Nightlistener
08 – Filthy Dukes – Messages (Brookes Brothers Remix)
09 – Cyantific feat. Matrix – Cover Story
10 – Beni G – No More Eatin’ (Brookes Brothers Remix)
11 – Logistics – Daylight Creeps In
12 – Nu:Tone – Kitsch N’ Sync
13 – Sonic – Piano Anthem
14 – London Elektricity – Fast Soul Music (Nu:Tone Remix)

Download the mix here.

ACROSS the desert and into the jungle we go.
Sun on your back so hot your skin bubbles up.
Sand like broken glass under your feet.
Hands like claws gripping your FN FAL.
Finger on the trigger.
Get in the game.
Steal a boat.
It’s kill kill kill.
Alpha rule.

The Journey of a Drug Smuggler in 17 glorious tracks mixed for you by Salvatron.

Alt download links:
ZShare
RapidShare

Track Listing:
DJ Zinc – Take me with you (feat. Katy B)
Lynx and Maple – Shaku
2DB – Starsign
Serum – Ammo Drop
Q Project – Credit Crunch
Alix Perez – Crooklyn
Heist – Ambush
Jangala – Eastern Grove
Kjell – Climate Change
Naibu – Nami Island
Out of Order – Ghost
Taxman – Unreal
Zero Tolerance & Mosus – Run Time
Vendetta & Barber & Bad Kid – More Gun
Aphrodite – Pure Columbian
Chris SU & TC1 & Stress Le – Final Cut
Camo & Krooked – The Fear

Halloween Castle

You’ll find this new mix to be a bit more on the evil side, featuring some classic scary and creepy tunes for you to feel spooked by. If you listen to the mix, let me know what you think in the comments.

http://vodpulse.com/misc/halloween-09-mix.mp3

Enjoy. Happy Halloween! Post your costume photos in the comments as well.

A new track for Jubilee, recorded live with Christopher Grant Ward in San Francisco.  I think the final track will be arranged pretty differently, but this shows the general structure.

Mission

Plaid friends. There is a new mystery that I need your help in solving.

The story:

I got a random friend invite on the 30LBS Skunk YouTube channel the other day from a user I’ve never viewed, called Lights Over Paris.

At first glance it just looked like some bullshit spam from some ridiculously rich OC band that hasn’t released anything. The Lights Over Paris band website is just a temporary one linking to their various social media accounts.  I dismissed it immediately as spam.

But something about it struck me as being slightly off.

Upon second glance it looked like a band that could be serious contender for the biggest bunch of douchebags in the history of the music industry. I didn’t understand why these idiots wanted to be my friend. How did they even find me?

The next day I still had a remaining friend invite. Oh yeah, those bozos again.

At third glace it looked like a devilishly brilliant and unprecedentedly smooth execution of a biting satire on the creative process (rather, the lack thereof) behind manufactured pop music. I looked at all the comments on their channel and noticed a lot of people didn’t get it. Their satire is very subtle, but if you watch more than 2-3 of the videos it will start to come through. Even the Lights Over Paris Twitter feed reeks of sarcasm.

Is it really satire? Are they really this clever?

The riddle:

I want to believe. Have a look at the videos after the jump, and tell me if I’m crazy to think that a parody exists in this stuff. Or, is this some kind of viral marketing? If so, what are they pushing? Is it the studio? Are these guys actors trying to gain exposure? What’s your theory?

The first video I saw was the bio on the band’s “DJ”. Douchebag material for sure.

Click here to view the embedded video.

There was one brief moment in the clip that made me raise an eyebrow. Tell me if you recognize it.

The following video is much less subtle, and is the one that made me start to think that this is actually a satire:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Then, these next three videos will make you question how so much production value could be injected into something so asinine.

The mic stand:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The custom tour bus:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The studio tour:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’ll leave you with that. I’ve you’ve made it this far, let’s crack the code. Leave your thoughts in the comments. Is this the evolution of viral marketing? Some actors with a knack for satire? Or is this a real band in the OC wonderland of riches?

Golden

I got a fresh mix for you guys, inspired by my recent trip to California where I got to see the good Dr.’s Echo Bloom & Conspicuous. 30 more minutes of some of the latest liquid funk for your ear holes. Please listen:

http://vodpulse.com/misc/dnb-mix-plaid-oct10th.mp3

Tracklisting after the jump. Comments would be wonderful. If you missed any of the previous sets, you can listen to them here.

California Mix Oct 10th, 2009

1. Zarif & Danny Byrd – Califonia – Buy It
2. Danny Breaks – Volume 1 (Logistics Remix) – Buy It
3. Enter Shikari – Juggernauts (Nero Remix) – Buy It
4. Craggz and Parallel Forces – All My Love – Buy It
5. Sub Focus – Follow the Light – Buy It
6. The Brookes Brothers – Rainman – Free Tune
7. Logistics – Transporter – Buy It
8. Mosus and Spy – Saudade – Buy It
9. Deadmau5 and Kaskade – I Remember (J Majik and Wickaman Remix) – Buy It
10. Lenzman – Sugar Hill – Buy It
11. Subwave – Dreamcatcher – Buy It
12. Sam KDC – Selfless – Buy It

Enjoy.

http://vodpulse.com/misc/dnb-mix-plaid-aug27th.mp3

Tracklisting after the jump. Please give it a listen and let me know what you think in the comments.

1. Norihiko Hibino – Metal Gear Solid Main Theme (Document Remix)
2. London Elektricity – Just One Second (Apex Remix)
3. Spectrasoul – Alibi (Break Remix)
4. Logistics – Girl From Mars
5. Apex – Emo Funk
6. Blu Mar Ten – Headhunter
7. Danny Byrd feat. The Brookes Brothers – Goldrush
8. Nu-Tone – Beatnik
9. Adele – Hometown Glory (High Contrast Vocal Mix)
10. Utah Jazz – Feeling Inside
11. Brookes Brothers – Promise
12. Bop and Dephecta – The Space Between Us

My brothers -

I have been woodshedding these past few weeks during my redneck riviera sojourn and have made serious headway on Jubilee. My macro approach has been more subtractive than additive, and over the past few weeks I’ve done my best to hack the haggard outlines of an album I previously introduced into something more cohesive. I think I’m moving in the right direction. Evidence:

Musical Structure

When we last visited this, I had a tangled mess of 15-some-odd fragments that were possibilities. I have whittled that down into 7 songs that (currently) will form the core the final album – representations of the elements of these pieces are above. I’m currently debating whether or not to include instrumentals (I have three) to serve as musical bridges from set of songs to set of songs. I feel pretty comfortable not making a standard LP (as standard as a 7-song LP is now – it was actually pretty common in the 60′s) but the instrumentals could break up the flow and enhance the over-arcing musical themes.

Lyrical Structure

Similar to the way I’ve been massaging the music, I’ve been slowly hacking apart lyrical fragments I’ve previously written and constituting them into new sets of pieces for each song. I’ve also been reading a lot of beat poetry looking for stylistic cues. Two old favorites that jumped out are William Carlos Williams and Allen Ginsberg. I love the way Williams piles his images on top of each other, as in this excerpt from Spring Strains:

the blinding and red-edged sun-blur—
creeping energy, concentrated
counterforce—welds sky, buds, trees,
rivets them in one puckering hold!

Ginsberg writes frequently in an ecstatic (and in reality, Benzedrine-fueled) voice, as in this excerpt from his poem Song:

The warm bodies
shine together
in the darkness,
the hand moves
to the center
of the flesh,
the skin trembles
in happiness
and the soul comes
joyful to the eye–

yes, yes,
that’s what
I wanted,
I always wanted,
I always wanted,
to return
to the body
where I was born.

I’ve got the lyrical outlines for three songs done. When I have the set of seven fully outlined I’ll complete all of them at once. Hoo-ha!

QUESTIONS

– Instrumentals or no instrumentals?
- Ecstatic poets I should be looking towards?
- Feedback on any of the song sketches in the widget?

This week (and, who’s kidding, in general) I’ve been thinking a lot about structure. We innately wired find certain things appealing, either from our origin or from the collective experience we all draw from. I’m always interested in parsing out this wiring to figure out how it can be exploited to make better art. One gigantic thing for linear art like music is structure, including repetition. Common structure has gone through iterations over time, but it all hews close to the narrative structure in general. And the cool thing is that this structure applies to songs as a whole, stanzas, even to individual lines. Let me introduce you to my friend Freytag…

This barrel of laughs is Gustav Freytag, and in 1863 he published Die Technik des Dramas in which he stated that all narrative had functionally the same five parts:

exposition

rising action

climax (or turning point)

action

resolution

He even made a triangle – check it.

This structure is surprisingly consistent through multiple genres. Don’t believe me?

The Ronettes – Be My Baby (1965)

Intro (4 bars)
Verse (8 bars)
Pre-Chorus (8 bars)
Chorus (8 bars)
Verse (8 bars)
Pre-Chorus (8 bars)
Chorus (8 bars)
Instrumental Break (8 Bars)
Chorus (8 bars)
Break (2 Bars)
Chorus Coda to outro

Fucked Up – Magic Word (2008)

Intro (24 bars)
Verse (8 bars)
Pre-chorus (8 bars)
Chorus (8 bars)
Instrumental Interlude (12 bars)
Verse (8 bars)
Pre-Chorus (8 bars)
Chorus (16 bars)
Instrumental Break (24 bars)
Chorus (16 bars)

Look oddly familiar? They pretty much are. 90% of songs are structured this way – if they’re in 4/4, verses have four lines, the first two are the same, the third is slightly different, and the fourth resolves the third and introduces the next verse. The verse is a meta-construct of the song as a whole!

So – what does this mean. I’ve been working on a few songs, and while I’m trying to conceive this next project in a pretty holistic way, I’ve been thinking a lot about the structure of single pieces. One of the pieces I introduced a few weeks ago, and have been giving more thought to. Here’s the initial sketches of the piece. It’s got two main sections with some sonic glue (I’m thinking a large choral section) between. It’s brilliant! It’s perfect! It’s shit.

BUT.

We can make it better. Some structure, some arrangement, some sensical lyrics, and it’ll be spic and span. Looking forward to showing you the results next week from my Florida hideaway.

Over and out.

Follow up to last week’s DnB mix, I bring you part 2:

http://thirtypounder.com/misc/dnb-mix-plaid-aug11th.mp3

Tracklisting (Artist – Song Title):

1. The Flashbulb – Prelude

2. Apex – By The Way

3. Hard Fi – Hard To Beat (London Elektricity Remix)

4. High Contrast – Metamorphosis

5. Friction and K-Tee – Fired Up

6. Danny Byrd – Labrynth

7. Rudenko – Everybody (Danny Byrd Remix)

8. Sigma – Paint It Black

9. Q-Project – Living with Beaker

10. B Complex – Beautiful Lies

11. Brookes Brothers – F-Zero

12. High Contrast – Music Is Everything

13. Nu-Tone – Crosstalk

14. Mistabishi – The Light’s Really Bad

The tracklising for last week’s mix is posted in the flip.

Tracklisting for the first part of the mix:

http://thirtypounder.com/misc/dnb-mix-plaid-aug4th.mp3

1. Bop – Lost In This World

2. Electrosoul System – Grad (Future Engineers Remix)

3. Imogen Heap – Headlock (High Contrast Remix)

4. Shinichi Osawa – Star Guitar (Brookes Brothers Remix)

5. Q-Project – Behind Closed Doors

6. DJ Fresh – All Strung Out (Thunder VIP Mix)

7. Culture Shock – Rework (featuring The Brookes Brothers)

8. Nu-Tone – Mind On the Run

9. Brookes Brothers & Futurebound – Dawn Treader

10. Q-Project – Electric Lust Orchestra

11. MRSA – Different

12. Agent Alvin – Drift Away

13. Brookes Brothers – Tear You Down