What is SOUL?

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What is soul? How do you define it? for that matter, what is "neo soul" here's the wikipedia definition of it. for me i would define it as "soul music after the 80's". with that in mind i put together a collection of my favorite neo soul artists and some of their best songs -erykah badu/ raphael saadiq/ joss stone/ andre 3000/ and a handful of others i am hoping you'll be able to identify. sure, i left out sade (was never really into her music), and r. kelly ( i dont support that bum ass bum) and others who would most certainly fall under the neo soul banner, and of course folks is gonna grumble about who i did include in this mix, but like i said - its my definition and i am sharing its audible interpretation with you. i hope yall enjoy it! peace and mad love!

mosart212 presents: neosoul

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

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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

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!)

Uptown Hustle w/ La MoDa @ the Enormous Room

Just a reminder to everyone in the Boston area that La MoDa will be at the Enormous Room tonight for our monthly Uptown Hustle night. It's located in beautiful Central Square in Cambridge, there's no cover, and the sofas were voted most comfortable in all of Boston by me and Mo (in a stunning unanimous decision). Thanks in advance to everyone who's already planning on coming through...

1978 (Henry Hill Where Are You?)

(pic: frank c.)

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’78/ one year later/ peace to La MoDa/ take me out wit the fader…

...a year after our birth. 1978 is… like “the old man and the sea”. lots of struggle. introspection. many false starts. the mixes on this one are some of the Mantis’ best - the man went out of his way for this one. We wrestled with these tracks; tried to tame them. the result is a new sound, one that is on the verge of coming apart – is it a trainwreck, is it meant to sound like that? no, and yes. no more sitting around and listening to those comfy blends that we’ve mastered. yes we went out to sea. we cast our nets, we dragged up the tracks we thought represented the year of “the copyright act” ; the hillside strangler, the “one love peace concert” ; louise brown ; harvey milk ; and of course the masterpiece known as the Lufthansa heist. We thought the year sounded like drugs. ironic but earnest. 1978 does not acknowledge its limitations. 1977 brought many riches, in the form of new fans, old friends coming back into the fold (does that sound cultish?) (are we a cult?), new opportunities (big big ups to brooklynradio.net especially dj soulstatic!), and more love all around. boston’s waking up. the tide is coming in. we have plenty o’ fish. We might even teach you a thing or two about fishing…

1978 - La MoDa Mix Tapes

1978 track list

The Manual (La MoDa 1978 D.A.R.E. mix) - Lazyboy
Drop (Cornelius remix) - Kings Of Convenience
You Make Lovin' Fun (Trailmix Remix) - Fleetwood Mac
Listen Up (MSTRKRFT relick) - The Gossip
Most Of All - Morgan Geist
Solid Gold - Golden Filter
Wholemeal - Groove Armada
Super Sound - J-Rocc
Sabali - Amadou & Miriam
Blowing Up The Barrio - Fort Knox Five
Top Brass - All Good Funk Alliance
People Make The World Go Round - Angela Bofill
Rippin Kittin - Golden Boy ft. Miss Kittin
Give It Up (U-Tern Remix) - Marvin Gaye
Day One - Deadly Avenger
Igla (La MoDa Insert Funny Name edit)- Monokle
100% (La MoDa Funky Girl Intro Edit) - Chromeo/Treasure Fingers
And I Was A Boy From School - Hot Chip
Africa/Mayibuye I (Dixon's Alt Version) - Meitz
Soul Shakedown Party (Afrodisiac Sound System Remix) - Bob Marley
Beat Goes On - Original Mix - DJ Kid Stretch
Zulu Nation Party (La MoDa That's Messed Up Edit)- Malcolm McLaren

track list said and done....

1977....Back to the Future

1977 is the year of our birth. Its when it all began. SO we thought it would be fitting to start our blog, and our first mix with the date. 1978, 1979, and the rest will follow.

For this mix we pulled out some of our faves, some came from the vault, others just popped last year. One of our specialties, is the faux-capella edit. We use the AEM 100i (big up to elliot!) to strip away beats from vocals, we can get pretty close sometimes, and then drop them onto a beat in real time. Everything is real time. All the time.

Check out 1977 and let us know what you think. 1978 coming up in a few….

La MoDa - 1977

Multipitch - Jel
Rolf Royce - Fila Brazila
Something For Windy (La Moda Dirty Hair edit) - Bonobo
Freeze Explode - Cassettes Won't Listen
Go Left (ft. Lateef the Truth Speaker & Gift of Gab) - E da Boss
Good Times - Strange Fruit Project
DJ Food Style (La Moda Makin Dollas edit) - DJ Food
Kalimba (Flute Mix) - Freakniks
Chicken in a Box - Krafty Kuts
Notion - Flevans
Nothin Goin' On But the Rent - Gwen Guthrie
Athena - Hercules & Love Affair
Venom (ft. Joe Dukie) - Dutch Rhythm Combo
PPP (PEACE & Rashaan Ahmad) - J Boogies Dubtronic Soundsystem
All I Do (U-Turn Remix) - Stevie Wonder