The Signal Music Weblog

Click to discover the magic.

Link: http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=4BF5B9535719F584

The Signal EP015: The latest in a series of eclectic mixes that stretch back into pre-history. And by pre-history, I mean previous weblog software. Tracklists daubed on the walls of caves. Composed inbetween long runs, violent hunts, tiring hauls of spear-riddled animals. Remember?

I've hidden the tracklist behind the entry cut because I always do. I think you should listen first. You may not agree with me. You might be wrong.

As always, tracks are available for 7 days or 25 downloads, whichever comes first.

Read more »

Link: http://tigerbeat6.com/troubleandbass/TroubleMix4_dropthelime.mp3

Additional: Tracklist and artwork

Link: http://www.dialbforblog.com/archives/291/

An Amazing Spider-Man "Rockomic!" [sic], complete with soundtrack, for your amusement.

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five.

Did you ever wonder what it would sound like if Joanna Newsom were a reggaeton artist?

Thanks to Certified Bananas, we don't have to wonder anymore. If we were wondering at all.

I don't have a lot of practice writing about music. So I'm going to keep it short so I don't embarrass myself. The band Walter Meego make cool electronic music that reminds me of Hot Chip, Jamie Lidell, and the Dangermouse-produced Gorillaz album. Dance music, synth hand claps, thin funky vocals, clicks and IDM pops. If their keyboards were pets, they would be the well-trained dogs that you can run on tracks at dog shows, easily leaping back and forth between upright plastic poles, winning over the judges with their good grooming.

Downloads:
One Five.

Through a Keyhole.

Link: http://www.mix-tapes.de/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1409&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

Multiple downloads of a mix artist known as The Tape, courtesy of a German website for electronica fans.

WFMU's weblog charts a Finnish acappella polka's ability to warp minds across the internet, getting stuck in the head of whoever listens. Come on then, if you think you're hard enough.

Link: http://www.savefile.com/files/9587332

Our favorite "television" show these days is Yacht Rock, a series of comedy shorts found on Channel 101, a site which bills itself as "the unavoidable future of entertainment." Channel 101 is a community for showcasing amateur short film series, heavy on comedy and satire.

Yacht Rock fictionalizes the "smooth music" scene of the seventies and eighties, depicting a community of musicians who hang out in boathouses jamming, driven to create smooth grooves like "This Is It" and "What a Fool Believes."

Yacht Rock is hilarious and you should watch it. Real-life musical collaborations between artists like The Doobie Brothers, Toto, and even Michael Jackson provide plot points and the mellow songs of yacht rock artists are liberally featured with plenty of ridiculous lip-syncing. The series revolves around singer/songwriter/keyboardist Michael McDonald, a member of Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers as well as a solo artist, and his on-again-off-again musical collaborator Kenny Loggins, whose fall from "smooth music" to the lure of "hard rock" strains their friendship. (In one of Yacht Rock's funniest scenes, McDonald is driven to his knees weeping with disappointment after he hears Kenny sing the hard rockin' Caddyshack theme.)

The dark side of a Yacht Rock addiction, however, is that you can't get the smooth music out of your head. These are the kind of songs that used to fill out AM Gold treasuries. You probably wouldn't remember them til you hear them again, but chances are, they're stored in your brain somewhere, coiled and waiting for another chance to strike.

Well, Signalstation is here to help. We spent our wedding anniversary flipping through the quarter bins at Rasputin's and Amoeba Music to bring you the seductive strains of smooth music in a half-hour Yacht Rock mix.

The Signalstation Yacht Rock Mix Bonus Track.

NEW LINK! Signalstation.com Yacht Rock Mix. This one should stay up longer. Enjoy!

For more about the show and the music, check out the Wikipedia entry on Yacht Rock.

Link: http://www.muzzleofbees.com/2006/03/08/clap-your-hands-say-yeah-black-sessions-13106/

I linked to this amazing live set from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah on the old Signalstation, but since we've redesigned and since the mp3s are still there and since you may have missed it... here it is again.

Who knew the Hulkster had such a lovely singing voice? And was so concerned with the problem of suicide among Hulkamaniacs? [via Schlomo]

(Link available for a limited time only.)

While listening to Mary Anne Hobbs on BBC's Breezeblock tonight, I heard the news that Kool Keith is reviving to his Dr. Octagon character for a new album, The Return of Dr. Octagon, due out in July. No Automator and Qbert this time around, though, so who knows if it'll see the success of the original.

Download: Ants

For a moving, music-making Flash-powered incarnation of the sort of music I like to listen to from BBC's Radio1, check out the official Signalstation MusicCube.

You can make your own by visiting the MusicCube Constructor page.

Link: http://www.ninjatune.net/solidsteel/playlist.php?play=1

At the moment, if you hurry over to Solid Steel-- the electronica-centric radio show founded & run by historically important DJ duo Coldcut-- you can listen to a streaming 2 hour program that includes a new pair of sets from Kid Kameleon. We've met KK and he's a great guy... which would mean nothing if his mixes weren't absolutely blazing.

From friend-of-Signalstation (okay, relative of Signalstation) sovereign comes a heads up about Shtikman's Aural Prostitution. The guy looks to have good taste in music, shares my reluctance to give out tracklists right away, and also highlighted Questlove's recent sample-mix, which friend-of-Signalstation misuba pointed us towards a few days back. That one rocked our socks right on their ass. Anyone with a solid grounding in hip hop is guaranteed to have moments of illuminations listening to that one.

Plasticman - May 2006 live set (42 min.) Download available for 7 days or 25 downloads, whichever comes first, courtesy of YouSendIt.

Head on over to the incomparable DJ /rupture's weblog if you have a minute because he's hosting a new single from Wiley, the Eskimo Boy who splintered off the UK Garage scene with a whole new sub-low sound that continues to resist a pigeonhole name.

The new single, "One Avalanche," is built on a dancing guitar sample and some looped Alpert-style trumpets. What do you call it? It's too clean to call grime. And "UK hip-hop" seems like... I dunno. Reverse musical colonialism. Skip the name game then and just listen. Listen!

Read more »

Awesome Tapes from Africa: a website labor of love as thursday born encodes and uploads their favorite bits of music from cassette tapes of music from Africa.

You can save yourself some airfare.

Today we focus on ugly, compelling sounds.

Soul Junk - "Ungst Func Slag Collision"

A track with a beat based around the needle tearing an ugly scratch across the surface of a record catches your ear like an amateur fly fisherman with a wild flick of the wrist, or like the sound of a car crash outside your bedroom windw. The first time you hear that record scratch, you're just "ungh!" with the ugly, but then as it keeps happening, something changes. You anticipate the screeching halt and it starts to work. Seriously.

Food For Animals - "Elephants" (alternate temporary link: "Elephants")

Elephant's beat is the sound of your CD player puking all over itself and apologizing while you mop its clammy forehead. "Never dive deeper / link hands 'cause I popped 'em / right after I fucked up your speakers! / Better call the hospital!" Food For Animals has a home on the label of Jason Forrest, an electronic artist who's fond of chopping barely recognizable bits out of songs you know just to taunt you with them when he combines them together in new hybrid forms. I have a friend who refuses to listen to him because he loses track of the songs... he's too distracted playing the "What the Hell Is That Sample From? I Know That One!" game. And that's a game that's easy to lose.

Bonus track

Downpour - "Go Back to Sleep"

If my mother were a robot, I would hope that this would be the lullaby she sang to me growing up. Despite the high pitched noises, the bursts of static, and the cycling electronic sounds that run through the entire track, there's a melancholy sweetness at the heart of "Go Back to Sleep" that moves me every time. If you get romantically entangled with a machine, send it this track as part of your Will-You-Go-Out-With-Me mix CD for guaranteed success.