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GirlSonic

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Published Content

NYC: Dennis Ferrer and Martinez Bros at Pacha

17 March, 2008 | 5.30PM

To tell the truth, I didn’t have as great a time as I thought I would last Friday night at PachaNYC. Maybe my stars were out of alignment.

The music was phat, the club was boss, and the crowd was hott. But somehow my spirits were, well, dispirited. Kinda like a weak but pricey well drink.

Mr. Ferrer was just setting up his laptop when I found an observation post on the mezzanine. He runs Vista (gasp!). 

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‘From Hip Hop to Crunk Cumbihop’ - DJ Guero Mix

3 March, 2008 | 10.25PM

Everybody’s talking about Cumbia, the traditional South American music transformed by the miracle of digital audio into a massively popular dance genre.  Here’s DJ Guero Mix showing how it’s done.

NYC:  Kenneth Thomas and D:FUSE at Sullivan Room

2 March, 2008 | 10.20PM

DJKT200x200.jpg align=right My auditory stamina is limited when it comes to Trance. It’s not that I don’t appreciate a blissed out spiritual speaking-in-tongues kind of vibe. I do.

The problem is the ducking bass line. After three or four tracks I start to feel as though there is water in my ears. I get the urge to slap the heel of my hand against the side of my head, to dislodge the hydraulic fluid sloshing around in there.

So I figured on an abbreviated stay at the Sullivan Room last night, where self-described trance DJ Kenneth Thomas would be representing Detroit’s finest. 

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James Zabiela and Deadmau5 at PachaNYC

24 February, 2008 | 7.00PM

I like it when DJs get airborne. 

They’ve got something building, but we’re not sure where it’s going.  So they’ll start to hop and bob, to clue us in on the beat to come, to tell us “wait, wait, this is gonna be good”.

And then the countdown becomes ignition becomes blastoff, launching those hip-DJ-sneakered feet off the deck.  The headphones might even go a little caterwonky.

At PachaNYC last night, DJs James Zabiela and Deadmau5 caught some air, and I was more than impressed with their vertical lift.

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The Sarcastic Guide to Electronic Music

14 February, 2008 | 8.22PM

I can’t tell you how long I have been searching for an audio-encyclopedia of electronica genres. 

Imagine Wikipedia with terms linked not just to related pages but also to audiofiles.  That would be bitchin’!

Maybe the result would work something like this interactive guide at Techno.org, created by Ishkur.

Ishkur (Kenneth John Taylor according to ... Wikipedia!) has assembled an impressive library of audio-definitions to go with his detailed commentary on each subgenre/sub-subgenre/micro-nanogenre, and so on.  I imagine that some of his smart-ass opinions have raised eyebrows, but damn, he’s funny. 

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Scratch Professor

9 February, 2008 | 4.07PM

What better way to spend a weekend than reading a book about DJ musicianship, particularly if you aren’t and have no plans to be a DJ? 

My excuse for staying at home while the playground of Manhattan at midnight beckons: one hell of a nasty cold.  Ok, ok, my information addiction might have something to do with it as well.

So I’ve curled up with my blankie, a cup of tea, and a copy of Stephen Webber’s ‘DJ Skills - The Essentials of Mixing & Scratching’. 

Mr. Webber is Professor of Music Production and Engineering at the Berklee School of Music in Boston, and his curriculum vitae is quite impressive. 

That’s him at the turntables with his Stylus Symphony at the Berklee Performance Center. 

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Future Funk Squad:  long live breaks….

30 January, 2008 | 10.32PM

Breakbeat is my favorite electronic genre.  So it is a bit dismaying to read here and there that breakbeat is getting stale, that it has not evolved.  Or that it has evolved so thoroughly into other styles that it has effectively brought about its own extinction.

While I defer to the wisdom of the experts (they are many and I’m not one of them), I am at the same time compelled to defend my auditory preference, gourmand that I am.

Exhibit 1:  Future Funk Squad’s recent remix of ‘Are You Listening feat. Liz Melody’.  This is good stuff.

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NYC:  DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist - The Hard Sell

28 January, 2008 | 7.00PM

While waiting to check our coats in the lobby of the Fillmore NY at Irving Plaza, a club staffer announced that it was advisable to leave the concert a little early to retrieve our belongings.  He warned that the line for the coat check would extend out the building and for several blocks down the street, and that we would all freeze our asses off.

Then he noticed my compadre and I, and remarked, “You two won’t have that problem”.

We’re still puzzling over whether he was referring to our bounteous natural insulation, or to the probability that we would leave early anyway, presumably because we are old and need our rest.  Whatever.

No fault of the opening act, which I will come back to momentarily, but it seemed to take forever for Josh ”DJ Shadow” Davis and Lucas ”Cut Chemist” McFadden to take the stage.

And who would have thought that two scratch DJs would take up so much of the stage. 

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NYC: Eric Kupper @ Naima

14 January, 2008 | 9.17AM

Some sound waves are so beautiful they hurt. Escalating, spiraling in frequency to the limits of our perception, they make us whisper, “hurt me, baby”. 

Or maybe that’s just me.

I was feeling it, during one of Eric Kupper’s many brilliant transitions last night at Naima. 

While the dance professionals on the floor awaited the dramatic return of the sternum-rattling 4/4 beat, I lost myself in the LFOs and the pitch-bends and the comb filters.

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DigitalFrontier: DJ Shadow Meets Jethro Tull

7 January, 2008 | 6.18AM

I’m listening right now to some live recordings of a New York electronica group called DigitalFrontier. 

It’s all coming back to me now; the hindi hip hop playing on the speakers of the midnight cab to the Mercury Lounge, the tripped-out dreadlocked crowd, and the stage lights that regularly targeted burning bright beams directly onto our retinas. Like wow, man.

I think of the Mercury Lounge as a strictly analog club, the kind of venue that hosts six different bands on any given night and where success is measured in inches of beer on the floor. 

I saw a woman there wearing open-toed heels, and patted myself on the back for having the presence of mind to wear motorcycle boots instead. But I digress.

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