-Hear is not the right word. I became a telephone. Edith was the electrical conversation that went through me.
-Well, what was it, what was it?
-Machinery.
-Machinery?
-Ordinary eternal machinery.
-And?
-Ordinary eternal machinery.
-Is that all you are going to say?
-Ordinary eternal machinery like the grinding of the stars.
-That’s better.
-That was a distortion of the truth which, I see, suits you very well. I distorted the truth to make it easier for you. The truth is: ordinary eternal machinery.
-Leonard Cohen. Beautiful Losers, 1966

1. James Pants – Thin Moon (StonesThrow Records, 2009)
2. Ocuban – H. Ratnani (Unsigned?, 2009)
3. Washed Out – Feel it all Around (Transparent, 2009
4. Keaver And Brause – Awake (Dealmaker, 2009)
5. Nite Jewel – What did he Say (Italians do it better, 2008)
6. Florence and the Machine - You Got The Love (Jamie XX Rework feat. the XX) (not on label, 2009)
7. Unknown Artist – Its No Good (Bullion remix) (not on label, 2009)

This is quite a contemporary list for me, an assortment of the songs that are stuck in my head. Lots of late night listening to the James Pants album, regretting (and secretly enjoying) the guilt coming from spending money I’m meant to be saving for overseas. All these tracks seem to have a kind of lovely DIY aesthetic – they all seem marked by particular hands, machines, times, scissors, and places. Brazilian beatmaker Ocuban’s brilliant debut album (which appears to have been self released) fits alongside the strange tape hiss of Nite Jewel. XX’s rework of Florence and the Machine (an immensely fun track to play to a crowd) works well with Bullion’s semi-soaring remix.

P.S. there is a little Outfoxed event going down this Wednesday night @ Killing time, Melbourne, Australia. Ill be playing records from 9-1.
Pic: Author’s

“Matter thus offers an infinitely porous, spongy, or cavernous texture without emptiness, caverns endlessly contained contained in other caverns: no matter how small, each body contains a world of pierced with irregular passages, surrounded and penetrated by an increasingly vaporous fluid, the totality of the universe resembling a pond of matter in which there exist different flows and waves.” Gilles Deleuze, The Fold, (English translation) 1993

1. Make me Stronger – Bei Bei & Shawn Lee feat. Georgia Anne Muldrow (Floating points remix) (Ubiquity, 2009)

2. Fallin’ Down – Julian Dyne feat. Parks (‘Pins & Digits’ LP 2009)

3. Lover’s Carvings- Bibio (Leatherette remix) (‘Apple & the Tooth’, 2009)

4. Nereci – Djavan (‘Djavan’, 1978)

5. Say what? – Aphrodesia (2009)

6. Poye – Issa Bagayogo (2009)

Things are picking up down here in Melbourne. Holidays for students like me, summer, nights walking barefoot in the middle of the road, and similar future nostalgia fodder. Whilst I do like the warmer weather, I’m equally exited to be going to the red bull music academy this coming feb in cold London. The list is a handful of excellent records that I’ve been playing lately – afrobeat, beats, ‘exotic’ percussion, etc.

Pic: If you are thinking that the puppy is cute, keep in mind that it stole one of my thongs and gnawed it to pieces whilst I was in a temple in India.

…. She dives into the lake and comes up with her head covered in muck and great kelpy strands of green pond slime – and beaming in a way that practically radiates out over the face of the lake and the desert. She has surfaced euphoric -
‘Ooooooh! It sparkles!’
-Pulling her long strands of slime-slithering hair outward with her hands and grokking and freaking over it -
‘Ooooooh! It sparkles!’
-The beads of water on her slime strands are like diamonds to her, and everybody feels her feeling at once, even Sandy -
‘Ooooooh! It sparkles!’
Tom Wolfe, ‘The Electric Kool-aid Acid test’, pg. 72

1. Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson – We Almost Lost Detroit
‘Bridges’ LP, 1977
2. Theo Parrish – Summertime is Here
‘Parallel Dimensions’, Sound Signature records, 2001
3. yU – Fine
‘Before Taxes’, 2008
4. Moodymann – Don’t you want my love
‘Forevernevermore’, Peacefrog, 2000
5. Andres (feat. Tracy Vox & KDJ) - Sing About it
‘Andres II’ Mahoghani Music, 2009
6. Andras Fox – Gettin’ into You
unreleased
7. Trus’me – War
‘Working Nights’, Prime Numbers, 2008

This list reflects what consistently sits in my record crate. A warm up set of sorts, the list contains slow grooves, loops and samples. Gil Scott said that he could always count on Lady Day and John Coltrane to wash his troubles away. As for me, I can always count on Moody and Theo.

pic: authors – thanks to Gabby Santos, a most excellent musician & poser, and Morgan, whose shoot I piggybacked on.

“Defenestration is the act of throwing someone or something out of a window. The term was coined around the time of an incident in a Prague Castle in the year of 1618. The word comes from the Latin de (from; out of) and fenestra (window or opening). Although defenestrations can be fatal due to the height of the window through which a person is thrown, or lacerations from broken glass, the act of defenestration need not carry the intent or result of death.” – wiki

1. Mulatu Astatke & His Ethiopian Quintet – I Faram Gami I Faram (‘Afro Latin Soul’, Worthy Records, 1966)
2. Tangoterje – New Morning Reworked (g.a.m.m. records, 2006)
3. The Col Nolan Syndicate – Buckingham Palace (7″ Votary Records)
4. Os Tremendos – Nome Do Jogo (Adventures in Paradise, 2007 [re-issue])
5. Rabbit Rumba – Caramelos (‘Achilifunk: Gypsy Soul 1969-1979′, Lovemonk records)
6. Banda Los Hijos De La Nina Luz – Dejala Corre (7″ Soundway records, 2008)
7. Soil & Pimp Sessions – A.I.E. (Tugg edit) (Brownswood recordings, 2007)

This playlist is a sort of non-fatal defenestration of ‘genre’ – blending jazz, latin, afrobeat and a little weirdness thrown in for good measure. All of the tracks throw degrees of conventionality out the window. Tangoterje’s track is a tongue in cheek cover of Kitty Winter Gypsy Nova -  a German fusion group. ‘Buckingham Palace’ is a track from my home town, Melbourne – white men grooving out. These blends of sounds, continents and genres verge on mania… Why not leap out the window every now and then? Movement is key. To quote Douglas Adams, “It’s not the fall that kills you…It’s the sudden stop…”

pic: Yves Klein Leap into the Void, 1961

p.s. to any motel readers living in Melbourne, I run a monthly night called Outfoxed at georgeLane… come down on Friday 28th August and say hello – i’ll be the guy playing records…

“I wish you wouldn’t keep appearing and vanishing so suddenly: you make one quite giddy.”
“All right,” said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowy, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.
“Well! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin,” thought Alice; “but a grin without a cat! It’s the most curious thing I ever saw in all my life!” (Lewis Carroll, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”, 58)

1. Bobbi Humphrey - Please set me at ease
(‘Fancy Dancer’, Blue Note, 1975)
2. Sly & the Family Stone – Can’t strain my brain
(‘Small Talk’, Epic, 1974)
3. Christine Perfect – Close to me
(‘Christine Perfect, Blue Horizon, 1970)
4. Bernard Wystraete – Daydream
(‘Hits Variety’, Afa records)
5. Dj Lengua – Mi Camino
(Unicorno records, 2009)
6. Ras G & The African Space program – Brasillain dimes
(‘I of the Cosmos’, 2008)
7. Golden Music Orchestra – African Honeymoon
8. Damu the Fudgemunk - Colorful Storms (ruff instro)
(‘Spare Time’, Redefinition, 2008)
9. Mayer Hawthorne & The County - Just ain’t gonna work out
(Stonesthrow, 2008)

This is a list of feel good soul, funk, boogie and hip hop. Bouncy organs, lazy looping, and ‘ethnic’ percussion!

Also – for anyone that calls Melbourne, Australia, home, next Friday (24th july) is the third installment of my monthly bar night called ‘outfoxed’. It’s run at GeorgeLane, St. Kilda – i’ll be playing motel de moka style records from 9-1 am. Please come, and introduce yourselves!

Pic: authors. keep on bouncing, Anna!