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

Mongrel

I don't do this for money. I don't do this for fame. I don't dj to pay my bills. I have a job and a family, and I am blessed to be able to go out once in a while and listen to the music I like played on loud hi-fi soundsystems. I am even more blessed to be able to go out once in a while and dj with my friends, to drink beer and mix records that I love in a club on a loud hi-fi soundsystem. It's fun. FUN. It's rarely lucrative. Sometimes it's not even that cool (you ever gone up against two or three competing nights and lost? played to 10 people in a 150 capacity club?). But I try to make sure it's always fun. Should I take it more seriously? Maybe. Could we get more heads in the club if we treated it more like a job? Probably. Should I be spending more time promoting and hustling and grinding and getting my name out there? Definitely. But that doesn't sound fun to me. That sounds like work, and I already got a job.

So rather than go on a long winded rant (I've had one brewing for a minute now), I'm going to cut to the chase and post some music. This shit is fun to me. I hope it is fun for you. If you don't like the mix I posted below, whatever. Not your bag. No big deal. It's OK. 75% of you stopped reading as soon as you figured out this wasn't Mo. That's cool. This mix has been melting my face for a few weeks now, and I thought I'd share. I hope it melts yours too....

Mantisounds - mongrel by Mantisounds on Mixcloud

1. Band of Horses - the Funeral (Butch Clancy Remix)

2. DJ Shadow - Mongrel Meets his Maker (Sonotech Mix)

3. George Lenton - Makura

4. Muse - Knights of Cydonia (Parker Remix)

5. Gella - Vapour Trail

6. Ashes & Dialect - Burning

7. Desmond Dekker - Israelites (Freear Remix)

8. Bassbin Twins - Blow Em Up

9. Peo De Pitte - Burning Up (Bassbin Twins Remix)

10. Far Too Loud - Bass Association (Torqux Remix)

11. Ways & Means - Kick a Hole (Hellfire Machina Remix)

12. Flux Pavilion - I Can't Stop

13. M.I.A. - Internet Connection (Flux Pavilion Remix)

14. Mark Instinct vs Greenlaw - Go In Peace (Dubstep Vocal Mix)

15. RacknRuin - Dazed & Confused ft. Janai & Illaman (SKiSM's Baroque Out Remix)

16. RacknRuin - Pull up That

17. Gella - Wrong Turn

18. Rennie Pilgrem - Erica's Fix (Breakspoll Mix)

19. Squarepusher - Red Hot Car (Girl)

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here come the judge!

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aight so with every mix them LMDA boyz put out they try to try something different, and this is no different. on this mix, mosart212 (are you friends on facebook? if not, let me be the first to say, "welcome back, glad you were able to get from under that fucking rock you've been living at for all them years..." click this link) leaves behind the bleeps and bloops and computer sounds (ok, not completely) and hangs out at the dance partay for a bit, he also tries out some different blending techniques. so like, usually, he will let two (sometimes three, sometimes four) beats just blend and blend and slowly come to a bubble then subtly and slyly - BOOM - new song. but in this mix the blends and mixes happen quickly. not exactly "on the one" but close enough to that concept to create nice transitions. the mix features a couple more edits from mosart, most awesomely, a "voices inside my head" edit by the Police (oh Sting... remember when you were just a creepy, pedophile, weirdo with a cool little trio?) oh and i almost forgot! the mix starts off with a little intro beat called "jeesus break" which features a sample from Ben Folds (oh Ben Folds, remember when you were just a whiney, twee, weirdo with a cool little trio?) and Lefties Soul Connection... oh and bobby brown is featured in this mix too. oh and whitney houston is back in rehab.

on a side note - one of the things i want to work on this summer (moved back to portland yall) is being able to write more expressively (that some shitty writin right durr) about my mixing - i find my self, struggling to explain what it is that i am trying to do differently and what it is that is happening in any given mix, that you should be paying attention to. you know what i mean?

ok without any further ado, here comes the judge yall.........

A.D.I.D.A.S. (all day I dream about samples)

Been rocking this mix in my headphones for a month or so, and I've decided that tonight, on the eve of Boston's Together Festival (which, like last year, started up JUST after our monthly residency went down), I would drop this promo on the old bloggy blog. This mix gets back to my roots: pure, unadulterated party breaks. Lots of updated takes on classic samples/riffs/tracks on this mix, some cheeky, some sublime, all worthy of a Frosty Freeze with a side of Boogaloo Shrimp scampi. I'll be hitting up Breaker's Paradise this week to do some flyering/stickering/promo, pretty stoked about an all-breaks party. This should get y'all in the mood for some kick-snare-kick-kick-snare, hope to see you there.....

Mantisounds - A.D.I.D.A.S. (All Day I Dream About Samples) by Mantisounds on Mixcloud

mantisounds - A.D.I.D.A.S. (all day I dream about samples)

1. Makesome Breaksome - Bong

2. Jurassik - Guns n' Ravers

3. DJ Hero & Matt B - Baddest DJ

4. Kid Kenobi - Breakers Revenge 2010 (Drumattic Twins Remix)

5. Ruby Goe - Beat Breaking Boy (Stanton Warriors Remix)

6. La Roux - Bulletproof (Foamo vs DNF edit)

7. Adele - Hometown Glory (Adsorb Breaks Mix)

8. Stanton Warriors - Seeker (What What What Remix)

9. Odissi - Empty Vodka Bottles (Pyramid Remix)

10. Dustin Hulton - FCK Your Bassline (Curtis B Remix)

11. Lee Coombs & Uberzone - Right Now (Scott Remedy ReRub)

12. Skrillex - Scary Monsters & Nice Sprites (Zedd vs Original)(REL-1 ReDub)

13. Jinx - At Last (Breaks Mix)

14. Stanton Warriors - Still Here ft. Eska (Club Mix)

15. Noisia - Alpha Centauri (Elite Force ReVamp)

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(cross-posted at Mantisounds)

the revolution is here?

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as we continue to see dissent, revolutions, executions, white collar robberies, governments crumble, bloggers blogging, fox new yapping, jon stewart speaking truth to knowledge, etc, etc, we ask ourselves here at La MoDa, whataboutus? what are we doing? what are we (and by "we" we mean "us" and by "us" we mean "you") doing about this whole crazy ass crazy train? We, meaning the Mantis and me, we dont know what else to do other than make mixtapes... so with that in mind - here is the latest in a long line of revolution tinged cmopositions. This time i take a couple of interviews about dissent and revolution, from the last couple of years and splice them this way and that, throw em into a mix that is clunky, chunky, wobbly at points, but never falls down. the views on this mixtape are the thoughts of the two men behind the workstation called LaMoDa, if you dont like it, less us know, lets start a dialogue, lets do something... and if you dont like well dont just sit there talking shit about "us"... do something about it....

Revolution

It has been a bad few months for the powerful on this planet. From Tunisia to Egypt to Libya to Madison, Wisconsin, the underserved and underrepresented have been making their voices heard. These are not your parents' revolutions: information-driven, secular, and televised. It's been amazing to see entire societies cast off the yokes of fear and oppression armed with not much more than smart phones and social networks. History is writing itself as we speak, and it sure reads like a new chapter for millions of people on this planet.

It is against this backdrop that I put together my newest mix. I've been vibing HARD on the new "140bpm jungle" sound that's gripping the underground, harnessing the raw energy of amen madness with the wobble of dubstep and the surgical stutter of top-shelf breaks. This mix starts off with a call to revolution from Ghetto Priest (remixed by man-of-the-moment RackNRuin), which is quite fitting for all my brethren in the Middle East. Skull-cracking dubstep/140bpm flavors get it rinsed right up through Ed Solo's MONSTROUS version of "Egyptian Horns," which I included as a little nod to all my January 25th Massive, and because it's arguably one of the greatest "rave" anthems of all time (I first heard the original on a DJ Overload mixtape from 1995 and the rest is history). Then it's all 140bpm jungle/breaks tomfoolery up through to the last track, Hybrid's epic remix of FSOL's classic "Papua New Guinea."

A wise man once said "If you make nonviolent revolution impossible, you make violent revolution inevitable." Get up. Stand up. Word up.

Mantisounds - Revolution by Mantisounds on Mixcloud

1. Ghetto Priest - Evolution (RackNRuin Dubstep Remix)

2. Skream - Lightning VIP

3. Magic Mash - M.A.G.I.C.

4. Karton - All You Need (Mars Remix)

5. Schema - Savage Henry

6. Ed Solo - Egyptian Horns

7. RackNRuin - Soundclash

8. Altered Beats - Bad Man Soul

9. HeavyFeet ft. MC Mad Rush - Vs Up (RackNRuin Remix)

10. Schema - Rat Bastard

11. La Roux - In for the Kill (Skream Remix)(Future Funk Squad Rerub)

12. Mobius - Champion Hounds

13. Ben & Lex - Soundboy Step-Up

14. Schema - Turn Off the Lights

15. Future Funk Squad - Shakedown

16. Future Sounds of London - Papua New Guinea (Hybrid Remix)

DIRECT LINK TO MP3

this is a man's dub

I was going to do another post on the further escalations in the dubstep wars (commercial/brostep vs. deep/underground/"intelligent" dubstep), but I decided against it, because it seems like too much energy to spend focusing on things people don't like, on division, on negative energy. So the theme for this evening is: the glass is half full. Because, really, does the world need more cynicism? Negativity? Nah. Put some positive vibrations out there. Ponder what you LIKE...the glass is half full...

What do I like? I like bass music. All sorts. I like my bass music like I like my hallucinations: kaleidoscopic, dipped in chrome and neon, aurally expansive, and infectiously groovy. I like combining bass musics of different types to create interesting spectrums and combinations of bass music. Do you like bass music?

You know what else I like? Motown and soul music. I also like face-melting drops, and jump-up-and-grab-you builds. They're a blast (come on, admit it, they make you want to smile)....the glass is half full...

This mix combines elements of a bunch of things I like (bass music, soul music, melted faces, Foreigner, reggae, raves, and funky robots) into one chrome-dipped sonic hallucination. Can you dig it? If this mix makes you want to tap your feet, or nod your head, I am honored to have contributed to and/or assisted you in your sonic-kinetic vibrations. And fair enough if you don't like it, it's not for everyone (hallucinations rarely are). But either way, don't expend too much energy trying to categorize it or put it in a tiny little box: dubstep, brostep, chillout, wavestep, lovestep, future garage, post-dubstep, 2step, drugstep, soulstep, drumstep, sinestep, broken beat, broken heartstep, it's all sort of irrelevant.

A lion doesn't know the word "lion" but he still knows he's a lion...

The glass is half full.

Drink up....

mantisounds - this is a man's dub

1. James Brown - It's a Man's World (Regrooved by Parker)

2. Curtis Mayfield - Pusherman (Cutloose Remix)

3. Brenda Lee - I'm Sorry (Woodhead & Blenda Remix)

4. Gramaphonedzie - Why Don't You (High Rankin & Evolve or Die Remix)

5. Ashes - Dubvine

6. Bassnectar - Magical World ft. Nelly Furtado

7. Jean Jacques Smoothie - Two People (Jay Robinson's 1 Hour Bootleg)

8. Don Diablo ft. Dragonette - Animale (Datsik Dubstep Remix)

9. Bassbin Twins - Eat Em Up

10. SKisM - Power

11. Foreigner - Cold as Ice (Specimen A Remix)

12. Linton Brown - Horndog (Kinzy's Frisky Dog Remix)

13. Jinx in Dub ft. Rider Shafique - Meditate & Relate

14. Althea & Dona - Uptown Top Rankin (Hostage Remix)

15. Chop Shop 45 - Hyphy Gotta Learn Sometime

16. George Lenton vs. Mr. Little Jeans - On Repeat

17. Hostage - Sweet Sweet Riddim (instrumental)

18. Jurassik - Baby (Jurassiksravingmonsterloonymix)

Mantisounds - This Is A Man's Dub by Mantisounds on Mixcloud

(cross-posted at mantisounds)