Saturday, June 5, 2010

Its Been a Long tImE...withOut a stRong rhyme...


Its been ages since i posted. its been two weeks in human time and six years in internet time. since then LCD dropped a new album, i have gained 200 pounds, my best friend was mauled by a greyhound, Sweden merged with Switzerland to form a new country, and the gulf of mexico oil leak has turned out to be a great thing for the tanking economy and recent college grads who are ahead of the game by entering the real world without work.
but i digress... here now, is the moment you've been waiting for - NEW "dance" MIX -
i been diggin in "first half of the 2000s crate" to put the majority of this one together. there's some Scissor Sisters in there, some Ellen Allien, one of my favorite remixes of all time by my homeboys Electrik Cocaine (previously dropped on another mixtape), then i go back a little further and hit up one or two house music classix, and i end it off with some freak out "dance" music and my own edit/blend of "keep bouncing" by too short and infectious buzzing noise that daft punk is so good at producing. I dont do dance very often, and in the end you may decide that this is more clean the house/bop your head/take a shower before going out to listen to some real dance music, mixtape than it is a straight up dance mix. but if it were just a straight up dance mix would that be mosart212?
i will end this post by refering to myself in the third person


Broken Speakers Pump The Air by mosart212

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Pushin'!


Picking up where Mo left off on his last post (which I assume not many people read, but definitely should), Mo and I both come from the same place when it comes to WHY we do what we do: because we love it. Not because we want to be famous, not because we think it looks cool, not because we're show-offs or because we think we're the best djs in the world. We both love music of all kinds, and at different places and times in our lives, we each were bitten by that post-modern sonic bug that says, "wow, if this song sounds this dope on its own, how much better could it sound mixed with this OTHER song, or sound, or rhythm, or peom, or whatever." We like the sound of two different things being mixed together to create a THIRD thing. And we like to play those things loud, preferably with other people who like to dance to those things. Because dancing to dope beats is fun.



With all the millions of songs out there, there are a thousand billion permutations of combinations, and that alone keeps us pushing to find that next dope mix, that next perfect rhythm or sequence, which, like a surfer's perfect wave, only comes along a few times, or maybe just once, in your life. But once you've caught it, once you've stood in front of that speaker stack and it's all clicked and you've captured that perfect rhythm, you will spend the rest of your life looking for it again, or trying to create it, or top it. Sometimes we get close, sometimes we totally lose the plot, but it's something you never stop shooting for...


I don't want to speak for Mo, but I don't spend most of my waking minutes obsessing about obscure micro-genres of music and trolling the dusty corners of the internet for sounds because I think it will make me famous, or get me laid, or be the "best" at scratching or juggling or reverse crab flaring. I don't do it to try to inflate my friends on Facebook or followers on Twitter. And I definitely don't do it to make money (though a little here and there doesn't hurt). I do it because I like hearing dope shit. Period. And making something dope into something REALLY dope, even if just a little bit more, is never a bad thing. Plus, what the fuck else am I going to do, play videogames?


I bought myself a gangload of subsonic weaponry recently, and spent about 90 minutes mixing it together and throwing down effects on the Kaoss pad. I recorded it, check it out below. I hope you like it, but I fucking love it, and really, that's all that matters...


Still lookin' for the perfect beat...






1. Slyde - Block Party
2. Slyde - SlydevsMGMT booty
3. Skool of Thought - Villa Funk
4. Hot Mouth - I Don't Care (Krafty Kuts and Hot Mouth Re-Reub)
5. Stanton Warriors & Bassbin Twins - Rhythm Rocks the Blue (Elite Force Mix)
6. Slyde - Discofukka
7. 30 hz & Vlad - Get Low
8. Lee Morimter & Laidback Luke - Blau (Fog's Blunderbuss Mix)
9. Micky Slim & Mark Brown - You Know What's Up (Krafty Kuts re-rub)
10. Hatiras, Vandal, JELO & Stanton Warriors - M.A.D. (Elite Force Remix)
11. Twocker - Stitch (Bass Kleph Mix - Krafty Kuts Re-Rub)
12. NAPT ft. Louise Marshall - Make my Day (This is NOT a Jack Beats Remix)
13. Deekline & Wizard - Angels (NAPT remix)
14. Deekline & Wizard - Back up (Krafty Kuts remix)
15. Bar 9 - Shaolin style (Elite Force Mix)
16. Splitloop - Ghetto UK
17. Elite Force - The Law of Life
18. Deekline & Wizard - Fire (Adsorb Remix)
19. Stupid Fresh - Get the Fuck Up ft. Stellar MC (Krafty Kuts re-rub)
20. Si Begg - Are You the Big Boy DJ (Milo Firewater Remix)
21. Deekline & Wizard - Bounce and Rebound (Beat Assassins Remix)
22. Deekline & Wizard - Keep It Pushing ft. Freq Nasty & DJ Assault (Specimen A Remix)



Direct Link to MP3

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

I Wanna Know... How To...Roll With It Baby!


greetings friends! long time no see. work has been kicking my ass. and so my jumbled brain invites you inside. set up, get comfy, and follow me on this stream of consciousness.....

my fellow Butter Brother, Todd the Rocket, sent me this awesome link today to a Eugene McDaniels article written by Cosmo Baker of The RUB from BK. Todd has been working with Eugene (or Gene as he is now privy to call him) for a couple of months now and their relationship is blossoming into something mega. Cosmo is an ill dj. After i read the link the Rocket sent me i perused the rest of Cosmo's blog which i havent done in a while. i do so love me some RUBs, they guys are an inspiration. At one point i came across a comment : "Cosmo is a dj's dj" and it got me thinking... i say shit like "your favorite dj's djs" and the like, all the time. here, on faceboob, and in my real analog avatar-less life. i started wondering (read: worrying) do motherfuckers get insulted when i say that? i love dj'ing and one of the biggest disappointments in my life is that lately i dont have enough time to devote to it, the blog, editing, remixing, and go to shows. i envied Cosmo, but at he same time i am happy as hell for him. he got his. he earned his. and he IS MAD FUCKING GOOD. but i am also happy with my position too. i was explaining to a friend that although i dont get to do any of this stuffs full time, i do get to enjoy it and the pleasures it brings. i gig, i meet interesting folks, i have a likkle recognition. and i get props. there arent too many things we humans engage in outside of shit that involves an inflated ball, where we get props. i get props. sometimes i want more, and sometimes a homeboy (big ups to REV1 for always being my jimminy cricket) has to slap me back down to earth. i do well and i do what i do out of a sense of love and urgency.

how do we get to where we are going? how do we earn the titles bestowed upon us? why must we "stay in our lane" and "play our position"?

theres been a lot of flack about who is legit, who is for real, who is down, who is fake, who is a poser, who is a groupie, who is full of shit... but its all flack. its easy to get caught up in all that and lose sight of what you originally started out to do. i never started out to become a world class, world famous dj. i am not sure if Cosmo did, but he is now, and he is really good at it. Me, i get props from other underground cats around the globe who stumble upon my humbly made mixes (can i proclaim to be your favorite dj's favorite dj and still be humble?) and i go to bed happy. i hope you enjoy what Mantisounds and I do. we eek it out, we sneak it in, we sacrifice where we cant afford to, and we keep bringing it on the real.
check out Cosmo's blog here and my boy Soulstatic's excellent internet radio station, BrooklynRadio.net, where THE RUB is hosted, here

......
and without further ado, here is my latest offering to the masses:


Sunday, May 2, 2010

Up Down Up Down Left Right Left Right B B A...


here is what happened: I went from 65 beats per minute, to 165 beats per minute, back down to 65 beats per minute. tried some double time over some traditional time signatures, tried some contrapuntal melody arrangements, tried to wrangle some blends into some sort of symmetry. this was done several times over in what is known as “practice” then the results were induced onto a recording device, which doesn’t really record but actually transcribe a series of 1’s and 0’s onto some sort of “memory” the final product was re-branded a “mix” received the La MoDa blessing (think kosher v. non-kosher) posted onto a web diary, along with a snarky “pic” and then sent out into the world alone and vulnerable for others to make judgments about the creator’s insignificant life filled with trifling minutiae… enjoy!

Friday, April 23, 2010

blessup, wile out!


Stoked about this mix. I've always loved DJ Zinc, his Bingo Beats imprint was killing the dark 2step/breaks hybrid sound back at the turn of the century (I love writing that), and his drum n'bass output was always rugged ("Tru Playaz Vol. 1" is still one of my favorite jump up compilations). I recently copped his Crack House EP as well as the "Wile Out" package (with Ms. Dynamite's long-overdue return to good music), and have been feeling his warehousey, bassed-up toasty dancehall-tech sound, so I decided to put together a mix along those lines (sidebar: there very well could be an actual genre that encompasses the sound on this mix. Being an old fart, I stopped trying to figure out what every new micro-genre was a long time ago. So if you're saying "duh, this is totally formulaic Jackin Ethno-Fidget Wobble, get with it!" you're a young whippersnapper who should respect his elders...

When putting together this set, I imagined wandering into a seriously grimy rave full of rudeboy antics and toasting mcs, dancing my ass off, and then hitting the afterparty of that rave on a beach with the sun coming up and the scent of purple kush and Nag Champa incense filling the air....(In case you needed a visual). Starts all shuffling and shady, peaks with some annihilating rhythms, rave sirens and generally over-the-top bassbin madness, and finishes with some serious skankin and toasting. I used the Kaoss pad for this mix, and will admit that I got a little carried away at the end with the dub reverb/feedback effects, but hey, put something in the air and let this mix freak you out....It works...

As usual, please sign up for La MoDa Mixtapes podcasts using the instructions at the top right of the page. And if you like the mix, tell a friend!...



Mantisounds - blessup, wile out by Mantisounds

1. layo & bushwacka - love story (SOLO bootleg)
2. dj zinc - music makers
3. sub focus - could this be real
4. roisin murphy - momma's place (heavyfeet remix)
5. trevor loveys - organ grinder (greenmoney's lighter remix)
6. rox - my baby left me (arms remix)
7. dj zinc ft. ms. dynamite - wile out
8. dub pistols - i'm in love ft lindy layton & rodney p (d-funk's summer of love remix)
9. flore - we rewind ft. rodney p (am I angry? flore remix)
10. sub focus - move higher
11. dj zinc - nu sound
12. rusko - woo bost (subskrpt)
13. benga - 26 basslines (elite force refix)
14. benga ft. ms dynamite - my dj
15. freestylers - cracks
16. dee patten - who's the badman
17. aquasky & tayo ft. earl 16 - looking for a session
18. evil 9 ft. toastie taylor - restless
19. dreadzone - king dub rock

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Dating Sure Is Hard

direct link to mix


So this past summer (while I was living at my wife’s mother’s house, and I set up a mini studio in the attic space, where it was so hot I was sweating like a slave cleaning out a chicken coop, and I recorded a ton of mixes and played around with a ton of samples, remixes, and edits, as well as traveling back and forth between portland and boston to gig, drink hang out, and get teary eyed at the prospect of leaving the east coast) my homegirl broke up with her boyfriend. She was heartbroken and I did the only thing I knew to do to make someone feel better – I made her a custom made mixtape. This scorcher utilizes samples from several dating manuals from that bass ackwards era that brought us those despicable “baby boomers” (the only group more entitled, selfish, and assholish than Williamsburg and other “cool” neighborhood hipsters). I laid out tons of great samples of this one, as well as dropping a couple of mosart212 original edits of sufjan stevens, jel, herb alpert, deltron, andre 3000, and bangin reinterpretations of the beatles, the white stripes, regina spektor, and many more!

Lets face it dating is not fun unless you is having sex and eating out all the time. Eventually it becomes monotonous and obnoxious and you reach that point where you have no idea what you are doing anymore – why am I even with this person? why are we even sleeping together? I was trying to capture that uncertainty along with the absolute absurdity of the whole practice. at the end of the day, dating isn’t just hard, it is flat out retarded (yeah I said it, go ahead get mad, miss the fucking point…)

Enjoy this mix and be on the lookout for the rest of the leaked attic tapes (last summer some asshole named moises nunez, who goes by "mo" stole a bunch of the mixes, the mixes were never intended for public consumption, but now that we here at La MoDa know they are out there we figured it was only fair to legitimately share them with our faithful brethren).


Oh… and by the way… my homegirl and this dude got back together again and they are living “happily ever after” true story, or as the kids say nowadays, “real talk yo!” (stupid kids!)




Friday, April 2, 2010

Hit Record pt 3. - I'm in Cleveland suckas!




Yo yo yo... wasss happenin....?! Its another installment of "Project Hit Record" where Mantisounds and i have the pleasure of recording a one-off mix (str8t off the dome, no edits, no re-do's, etc, etc) just for you (you know, "YOU" : person of the year). There is something about sitting down to a mix and knowing you aint gonna do it again. as david lee roth says - this is it...

the perfection we strive for today, in dj sets, in studio music, in art in general is degrading the human heart, mind and spirit....