The newest release from the Delta Mirror pops on that strange level between calm and dance groove. I imagine a crowd of awkward teenagers not knowing whether to dance or just stand and listen, so they all just kind of flare their arms to the rhythm every so often. I’m not crazy about the vocal melodies, but they work well enough. In fact, the vocals remind me a lot of Why? in their sort of (stylistically) lazy delivery. Everything else is wonderful, though. The softly crunching rhythm textures and echoing transients work very well together. With their songs hoovering in a sort of purgatory between major and minor mood, their sound can be received in a number of ways, which is an important quality in suiting my taste. Parts of their drawn out instrumental interludes remind me of Mum, with electronic sounds similar to the accordin. Take a listen…the first song is my favorite:

The Delta Mirror - It Was Dark and I Welcome the Calm

Photos by Justin Andert

On Saturday night we saw First Avenue turn into a venue for a Haiti benefit show that featured some of MPLS’ most talented performers. The night was a huge success as Jen Boyles of City Pages announced at the end of the night (700+ tickets sold).  We had monstrous performances from both Solid Gold and Mark Mallman seperately, as well as one song together when Mallman guested on Solid Gold‘s cover of Kenny Loggins’ Highway to the Danger Zone.

Solid Gold put on a high energy show, which First Avenue crowds have grown accustomed to in the past year. But no performer matched the energy of MPLS’ favorite showman Mark Mallman

Leading into Mallman’s energetic performance was one of my favorite MPLS music acts Peter Wolf Crier. This duo’s songs will take you to new heights of emotion in all directions, but ultimately leave you with a smile on your face.

The night’s opening band was Zoo Animal who has somehow taken a played out sound and turned it into something completely their own. It is very exciting to see these newer MPLS acts pushing the envelope.

To see more photos from the night’s festivities jump Below the Fold →

J Dilla was a musical genius whose posthumous success can only be compared to classical composers like Bach and Mozart who were never fully appreciated until after their deaths. As someone who grew up in MI, if there is one face that represents the true meaning of Detroit’s Hip Hop scene you are doing the city a great injustice by not picturing Dilla. Take a couple minutes today and refresh your mind about what made J Dilla the legend he has become. Happy Birthday Dilla, we miss you.

Purchase a dope Dilla Love Donuts shirt HERE

J Dilla - Stepson of the Clapper

Any and all bickering between people on the right and left is irrelevant until we kick corporations the fuck out of our legislative process. The country has been pushed so far in each direction that we’re meeting somewhere completely off the political spectrum (an alternate universe, perhaps, where the People actually matter). Have you noticed the growing numbers of and similarities between Dennis Kucinich type supporters and Ron Paul type supporters? Tea Partiers on the right  and grass roots activists on the left essentially have the same complaints, and the big one, the most important one, shit…the only one that matters right now is this one.

Scream all you want about health care, the wars, whatever. The voice for democracy, real democracy, is silent until we take action on this issue. The best legislative solution I’ve seen so far is the Fair Elections Now Act, which would allegedly limit campaign contributions to individuals–and even those would cap at $100. You can track each version of the bill in the House and Senate to keep up on any developments.

The problem with this bill is that it’s a bill. It’s going to sit in the small committees phase  and never be talked about again unless we demand action on it. You could send an e-letter to your representative, but the impact of that is Below the Fold →

Brenmar is Bill Salas who is the drummer for These Are Powers. But he is also a producer who turns everything he touches into ear candy. His Javelin remix has made its way to the top played songs on my iTunes catalog. Here’s what Leonardo Featherweight had to say about Brenmar in the liner notes of his new single Heavy Pockets:

“In the storied annals of American music, we are too often struck by a dichotomy of function. The artificial divide between ‘high-brow’ and ‘low-brow’, ‘art music’ and ‘pop music’, independent and corporate values, and other seemingly mutually exclusive interests, serves the needs of the executives behind the record companies at the expense of the enjoyment of listeners. Even the term ‘listener’ separates music to be imbibed while in a reclined position from that which is more kinetic, more vibrant, more visceral. Music can still be danced to.

The releationship between movement and sound need not be a simple one. Cage’s work with Cunningham, and Stravinsky’s earlier collaborations with Balanchine, brilliantly demonstrated that abstraction can be achieved in both sound and movement simultaneously. Unfortunately, music that invites us to dance has become stigmatized by elitist taste-makers who value esoteric theoretical models over the communicative power of inter-disciplinary expression.

Brenmar, like Cage and Stravinsky, presents music that melds abstraction with kinesis. Driving rhythms enveloped in swirling clouds of polymerized sound engage both mind and spirit, yin and yang, body and soul. To dance is to participate and to participate is to communicate.

Check out Brenmar’s single Heavy Pockets below:

Brenmar - Heavy Pockets

The sexual tension that we’ve seen randomly flare between the study group on Community came to a point of rupture last night. The episode begins with Jeff and Britta noticing that Annie is earning the affection of one “micro-nippled” hippie named Vaughn. From then on the ‘friends’ set out to put a halt to the blooming romance by getting Annie’s lifelong love-interest Troy involved. They are able to get Troy to look at Annie as a sexual-being for the first, but when he attempts to work his game on her, things go awry when a tiff starts between him and Vaughn. After Troy lets the cat out of the bag that Britta and Jeff are behind the mess both of the young group members lash out at them.

Things get extra spicy at the group’s next meeting when they address the sexual tension between group members.  There’s a hilarious glancing session letting us in on who has a chance with who. (Including Shirley giving the nod to Troy! and Abed giving the eyebrows to Jeff)   We find out Britta is actually a ‘girly girl’ who was jealous of Annie and Vaughn due to her previous relationship with the shirtless wonder. But in the end, we see a sincere gesture from Vaughn as he apologizes to Annie and writes her a sweet, honest song. She gets the go-ahead from Britta and we have a new couple on Community.  Should be interesting to see where it heads from here.

Vulture interviewed the show’s creator Dan Harmon who gives us insight on the show’s direction

It’s always nice to wake up to an e-mail with some remix goodness to start your Friday. Today I was pleased to see and hear a new remix of Massive Attack’s Paradise Circus from Gui Boratto. Take a listen and start your day right:

Massive Attack - Paradise Circus Feat. Hope Sandoval (Gui Boratto Rmx)

I’ve been realizing some parallels lately between the music theory of Steve Reich and the political theory of Noam Chomsky. Reich is of the most beloved and experimental modern American composers, a writer of systems music–sound continuums which evolve gradually, often over very long periods of time.

One of his approaches to writing systems music has been phase shifting, which Roger Sutherland, author of New Perspectives in Music, describes as something “recorded on two channels, first in unison, and then with channel two beginning to move ahead. As the phrase begins to shift a gradually increasing reverberation is heard which slowly passes into a sort of canon or round.”

The result is a type of rhythmic dissonance that invites listeners to become a part of the creative process. Reich has said that this essentially removes him, the composer, from the equation of the composition (in reference to using tape loops and recorded voices).

Here’s an example of such composition in Reich’s “Come Out”:

*Headphones recommended*

Below the Fold →

Treme is the new HBO series by David Simon, the creator of the world’s best television show The Wire. The new show takes us to New Orleans post-Katrina for no doubt a gritty look at the re-birth of the city through the eyes of local musicians. The teaser is above as well as a picture of The Bunk playing my instrument, the trombone. I am beyond excited for this show to premiere in April.

Gimme Noise dropped this promo video for Saturday’s Gimme Shelter: A Benefit for Haiti at First Avenue. Shouts to Anthem Heart for making the dope video. They also announced Set Times for the show Saturday: