Reasons to Smile

What a week! 808s and Heartbreak is finally out! Unfortunately, I can’t say that I’ve yet had a listen, as I’m being a good boy and I’m waiting for my copy to arrive in the post. I haven’t done that since Hell Hath No Fury!

It’s no secret that I’m a bit of a fan of Kanye’s one-time tour DJ, former DMC champion A-Trak. He’s a great DJ, producer, and he’s pretty funny when he gets to typing stuff up and putting it on the internet. So, after contributing at length to blogs on Myspace, The Fader and Colette, he’s only gone and established his very own sole-purpose blog. Go have a look for some hilarious reads.

As well as the afore-mentioned 808s, I think everyone should check out this Fear and Loathing in Hunts Vegas mixtape. Diplo and Benzi have thrown together a bunch of half-speed tracks from the Alabama-based Paper Route Recordz collective – some originals, some remixes, but all completely bonkers. I’m talking reworkings of Born Slippy, Careless Whisper and A Change Is Gonna Come, to name but three. Bizarre. Essential. You can grab it for free or for under $5 at 192kbps, and anything over $5 gets you 320kbps and a few bonus tracks. It’s all worth it.

And on the freebie side of things, check out Simian Mobile Disco‘s twisted Re-Edit of Deerhunter‘s Octet over on Pitchfork. It’s better than a kick in the face.

Diplo

Photo by Tim Soter

One of the highlights for many at this year’s Electric Picnic was the appearance of Philadelphia-based DJ Diplo. To explain the diversity of his DJing style, I need only note his opening tracks: kicking off with XR2, a horn-laden, bmore bass-thumping track he produced for MIA, he thundered into DJ Jean’s The Launch, a forgotten trance hit from the late 90s. Heard outside its original context, this track becomes a guilty pleasure, finding new meaning as it straddles new styles, its muffled countdown acting as the perfect opening for such a barn-storming set.

Consistently busy, Diplo’s most recent work is that with hipster queen Santogold. Having produced three tracks for her self-titled debut album, he went on to create Top Ranking, a mind-bending fusion of Santogold’s tracks and a selection of dub sounds from the likes of Benga and Skream, as well as choice oddities by artists as varied as B52s, Devo and even Aretha Franklin. That said, Santi herself was such a perfectionist that she insisted on the man re-recording it on several occasions, his own personal favourite would have been two or three versions before that which saw the light of day.

Another mix of his that caught a lot of attention was I Like Turtles, a mix for Pitchfork in August 2007 which was subsequently released through his Mad Decent label. Similarly eclectic, it’s a breathtaking run through some of the biggest songs of last year from the likes of Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Soulja Boy and Justice, some classics such as Orbital’s Halcyon, and, of all things, even a bootleg of The Bartman. His motivation behind this mix was to make it so good that no-one would be able to follow with a better one, and, to date, there has been no subsequent Pitchfork mix. If that isn’t an indication of its success, I don’t know what is.

As far as running a label is concerned, his major enjoyment comes from his ability to oversee the work of others while taking a break from his own, and the artists that he feels garner special a mention are London’s Boy 8-Bit and Baltimore’s DJ Blaqstarr. On the other hand, his major frustration comes when certain acts don’t provide him with new material. Already well-documented, Bonde do Rolê have had a turbulent year, with the departure of one member, the addition two more, and a heavy amount of touring. While he understands the financial necessity of such a schedule, Diplo hopes that the group will soon knuckle down and get back to the studio. He’s certainly not the only one.

As for the man himself, he claims that his next work should come at some point in 2009. An unlikely source of inspiration for him is Mississippi-born modernist writer William Faulkner, whose Go Down, Moses was an inspiration for Diplo’s 2004 album Florida. A fellow Southerner (the album takes its title from Diplo’s birthplace), Faulkner was the first major figure from the South he found to create work that was truly challenging and interesting. While the atmospheric Florida has more in common with the work of DJ Shadow and RJD2, his DJ sets, like that at Electric Picnic, are unlike those of any other. His Stradbally set raced through everything one would imagine from listening to his mixtapes and then some, was technically impeccable and, more importantly, a whole lot of fun. Having played just four shows on this island since 2005, one can only hope that he will come back soon, and often.