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

Direct link to mp3

Dating Sure Is Hard

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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!)

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

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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....

square pegs in a world full of lame ass clones

direct link to mix

Big ups to daddy Mantis for sneaking off a banging mixtape last week!

A note about facebook: facebook seems to be getting cooler. hear me out on this one. its slowly losing the lame kids and the obnoxious oversharers and its becoming a great marketplace for ideas. i dont know about you but i love loggin on to see that my homeboys and homegirls around the planet is getting they things done. shows, exhibits, openings, publishings, getting they fame on. i love it. it inspires me, and lately i need inspiration...

i have been struggling with the blog, you know, like, existential crisis stlye - specifically, the words you are reading right now and those like them. who reads this anyways? arent most folks (if there are indeed more than 20 of you out there) getting they mixes sent right to they ipoddies? i have fun writing shit out for you, and doing my stream of consciousness thing, and of course the occasional shout out to a random artist is always fun (holleratchaboing dj shadow, i am tryna follow in YOUr fucking footsteps dude, call me up, stop fronting!), but sometimes i feel like dubbayuteeef, you know?

and as an artist i have been feeling very stunted lately, like i am looking for a new thing, trying to find a new sound, and although i love this mix (seriously i wouldnt have put it up if i dint) i feel like i am not there yet. i dont know what or where this "there" is, but i will know when i get there. for now enjoy the smoove stylings of my warped mind as i take you on an ambien-pill ride through an auditory landsape full of noises, cliks, bass, and treble... if yurr out there let us know what you think of the mixes, your feedback means everything to us, we aint to big too care yo...enjoy!

Jailbreak!

Quick, before the kids start crying! I made a new mix!

Life has been non-stop neon-green poopy diapers and spitup-covered shoulders for the last few weeks, and my prior life as a rave kid getting by on little to no sleep has definitely come in handy, but the one thing I really miss is music. Loud, wake-the-neighbors, head-nodding hands-in-the-air music. I have to be on point 24 hours a day, so even rocking headphones isn't really in the cards right now, as I still need to hear them breathing and catch them fussing before they wake their mother up. These kids got us on Shawshank lockdown right now, and after two weeks, even a sip of pruno or extra socks from commissary is a treat.

So when the in-laws came by a few days ago, my little baby jail wardens allowed me some time in the yard, and I arranged for a conjugal visit with my mixer and some new breaks tracks. No practicing, no thoughtful track selection, hell, I didn't even get to listen to a few of these tracks first, just turned the mixer and the Kaoss pad on, hit "record," and jacked up the volume. 60 minutes of bass at high volumes (preferably in a res-i-dent-ial area). All in all it came out pretty well, I'd love a do-over on a couple mixes, but for a blind run it was aiight.

As usual, for the most up to the minute mixes from the La MoDa brethren, follow the instructions at the top right of this page and sign up for our podcasts. The jailbreak siren is sounding, I better get back before roll call or it's extra hours of latrine duty for me.

mantisounds - jailbreak

1. Wiley ft. Emeli Sande - Never Be Your Woman (Solo "Loves Garage" Remix)

2. Chase & Status - Eastern Jam (Kyle Watson Re-rub)

3. Josh Money & MC Flipside - Wave Over Me

4. Felguk vs Tim Healey - Rio (Slyde Remix)

5. Tim Healey & Tai - Pocket Rocket

6. Deekline - I Don't Smoke (Deekline & Tim Healey Mix - Krafty Kuts Edit)

7. Sidney Samson - Riverside (Peo De Pitte Dub)

8. Beat Assassins - Put Em Up

9. Diverted - Big Baby Fear (Nick Thayer Remix)

10. Slyde - Jetset

11. Bassnectar - Art of Revolution (Prepmode Remix)

12. Hostage - Skin Out

13. Nick Thayer - Pressure Point (Thayer's Drop the Bass Mix)

14. Lee Mortimer & Foamo - Superman (Streetlife DJs Remix)

15. Hostage - Lost in Bass

16. Deekline & Wizard - Back Up (For the Music)(Krafty Kuts Summer Mix 12" Edit)

17. Groove Diggerz - Just Be Good to Me

Direct link to mp3

Twin Wind Down Time

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Time to slow things down a bit. Mantisounds has been going hard on the dance floor/head bopping tip and it makes sense – he’s hyped! he just introduced two new souls into the world and so he wanted to make some noise… I would like to switch things up a bit and introduce a bit of introspection, retrospection, and inspection to the mix. The next couple of mixes I post will come from a chiller gentler space. Space which is designed to get you slowed down a bit. Get you to think. Get you to recognize where you are at and where you are heading. I ask in all seriousness - What are you going to do for Mantis’ babies? What is the world are you creating? What world are you leaving them? This mix was created and crafted early one Sunday in January, clear headed and yet full of questions. First thing out of bed. Washed my face, brushed my teeth, and stepped into the zone. Nothing hard, nothing banging. I have been in a contemplative mood as of late. i have been trying to figure out where I fit in and just what the hell is it that I am doing? Sometime we have to take time out to be cheesy and be cliché. We have this tendency to think that cliché means passé. Passé the peas like they used to say…

Sunday in January by mosart212

Meet the Twins

So up until 6:43am on Feb. 24, 2010, my favorite twins in the world were the Bassbin Twins, followed by the Drumattic Twins. Hell, my wife and I rearranged our honeymoon to catch the Bassbin Twins in Las Vegas at Club Ice (sidebar: thanks for representing for my honeymoon, Bassbin Twins)!...All that changed when my wife gave birth to OUR twins, Paloma and Bodhi. Words cannot describe how amazing an experience it is, and how proud I am to be a father (or how amazingly sleep deprived I am after a day and a half of doublemint duty!).

DJ Recon, the mad genius behind Monkeys for Helping, suggested a few weeks ago that, in honor of the birth of my twins, I should do a twins themed mix (Recon is an "ideas man," as they say in the "biz," a mad scientist with the ideas and the lazers and the test tubes with the bubbles and the electricity and the bunsen burners and the 1.21 jigowatts). What better reason to collect all of my favorite Bassbin/Drumattic Twins songs in one place and melt faces in honor of the twins that melt hearts (that might sound corny, but when you meet these kids, I DARE you not to turn into a cooing teary-eyed mess. They are fucking adorable!). I even snuck a Capoeira Twins track in there too to round out the theme.

You can peep the divshare player below, download directly using the link below, OR, impress your friends and neighbors and sign up for the podcast service directly to your iPod or Zune by following the instructions posted on the upper left of this page.

Don't be a singleton, meet the twins....

mantisounds - meet the twins

1. bassbin twins - the dogs
2. bassbin twins - gun down
3. capoeira twins - to the dawn of the day (slyde remix)
4. drumattic twins - under the lights
5. drumattic twins - sound of the drum
6. evil nine - crooked (bassbin twins remix)
7. aquasky & the drumattic twins - bring it on down
8. mr. no hands vs bassbin twins - adrenaline
9. drumattic twins - twister
10. drumattic twins - the flunk
11. drumattic twins - big buddha
12. drumattic twins - feelin' kinda strange (bass kleph & nick thayer remix)
13. bassbin twins - UFB2
14. bassbin twins - the ruffest
15. deejay punk-roc - my beatbox (bassbin twins busted my beatbox remix)
16. bassbin twins - woppa
17. bassbin twins - whistle choon

DIRECT LINK TO MP3