Word The Cat

just quickly… harmonically hyper-complex mugham from Azerbaijan. Alim Qasimov and his daughter Ferghana dip winged voices over the Caspian.

Alim Qasimov - Shushtar Magamunda Bastachar Mahnelare (gäl gäl) 160k 8.4mb

Ferghana Qasimov - Mugham Qatâr 160k 10.7mb

Notting Hill Carnival this weekend. In preparation…

a hasty chutney mix including adesh samaroo’s ode to cat meat.

wordthecat - chutney mix (aug07) 192k 29mb

tracklist:

rikki jai - river lime remix
lil man - deeray deeray
chris garcia - chutney bacchanal
adesh samaroo - rum like dat
kerry ramgobin - square key
adesh samaroo - dog bone
rikki jai - boleh murugwah
adesh samaroo - take dat

Chutney music comes out of Trinidad, Guyana and Surinam where indentured servants (followed by waves of immigration) were transported from India in the 19th century. In ‘Boleh Murugwah’ Guyana’s rikki jai borrows the melody from this old bollywood tune in which the singer’s shoes are japani, his pants are english-stani, his red hat is russi but his heart is hindustani.

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& another blend for carnival… Skream’s ‘Pass the Red Stripe’ vs Mr Vegas his voice re-patriated in the back of Burro Banton’s throat.

Skream vs Mr Vegas - Red Stripe Genie Wine 320k 11.7mb

bassline. flavour of the micromonth. niche house - occuping a wedge in the London scene between grime, dubstep and funky. popular all over the north of England. write-up in london paper. Dissensus here.

Joe Ruckus told me a couple of things about the history of the scene in Sheffield. The club ‘niche’ was a thin building round the corner from Gatecrasher that was known for being rough as arseholes - the sort of place bouncers went out to take all the drugs they’d confiscated during the week, then fight people. The club folded and re-opened not too far away in a slightly less narrow building that opens out onto an NCP carpark.

It’s interesting to see a style that is popular all over the north of england making inroads into the capital (Londoners like to think) the currents usually move in the opposite direction. Here’s a bassline mix done on a budget -

WordTheCat - Bassline House Mix (aug07) 192k 33.7mb

mavado - what them a do (dexplicit rmx)
dj q - shottas
dj q - gangstas
dexplicit - juicy fruit
dexplicit - good for me
t2 - oh boy
dexplicit ft jasmine - lollipop bass
dj q - what 2 do
dj q - dutty wine
t2 f/ jodie aysha - heatbroken rmx
t2 - flith
t2 - salsa

dj q is from huddersfield and dexplicit’s from london, i really rate leeds’ t2 for squeaky breaks and vocals. another great 4×4 mix doing the rounds at the moment is this one from faggatronix. like jump up drum and bass with no pulls ups.

Is it sunny where you are? Here it rains charmingly. Carnival approaches.

Jah Cure’s been out of prison for a couple of weeks now. Here’s his vocal on the Jamdown riddim:

Jah Cure - Sticky (Jamdown) 320k 4.3mb

Gyptian wraps his mouth around ballistic extra syallables in this vocal on the Weed Seed riddim.

Gyptian - Guns and Guns (Weed Seed) 160k 4.4mb

Elsewhere, Alaine soars over the Guardian Angel riddim.

Alaine - Rise in Love (Guardian Angel) 256k 5.2mb

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Up the road from Heathrow airport the Camp for Climate Action has just convened. Workshops and discussion are planned for the week culminating in a day of action on Sunday. Yesterday the Evening Standard newsboards around London lead with the headline - ‘Militants plot to disrupt Heathrow’. The police have been using anti-terrorist legislation to stop, search and detain protesters without charge - words like ‘militants’ and ‘plot’ allow police tactics based around a discourse of terrorism to be acceptable. In the protest leading up to the invasion of Iraq police claimed similar powers to halt 2 coach-loads of people travelling to a legal protest outside RAF Fairford, a move later ruled unlawful. These tactics are, of course, unsuprising - as one of London’s main arteries for transnational capital, one can see the fear when Heathrow takes a knock.

How the day of action proceeds remains to be seen - specific plans will be drawn up in discussion over the course of the week - it would be possible to ground planes in a number of ways. Any sort of distruption has been pre-emptively deemed ‘un-acceptable‘ by the government. Beyond the creeping suspicion that ‘lawful protest’ is an oxymoron, one should also be aware that budget air travel is expanding and that air travel, while not the biggest contributor to climate change, effects people’s lives in ways more drastic than holiday distruption.

Comic book intellectual and new media theorist Douglas Rushkoff calls for an electronic renaissance (as opposed to a revolution) based on participatory culture. by this he means a new dimensionality on a par with the european renaissance’s re-figuring of the earth as round and the changes to authorship that the invention of the printing press brought on:

“Perhaps the most valuable idea to plant now, into the post-renaissance society of tomorrow, is the very notion of renaissance itself. Interactivity, both as an allegory for a healthier relationship to cultural programming, and as an allegory for a healthier relationship to cultural programming, and as an actual implementation of a widely accessible authoring technology, reduces our dependence on fixed narratives while giving us the tools and courage to develop narratives together. The birth of interactive technology has allowed for a sudden change of state. We have witnessed altogether the wizard behind the curtain. We can all see, for this moment anyway, how so very much of what we have perceived of as reality is, in fact, merely social construction. More importantly, we have gained the ability to enact such wizardry ourselves.” (2003: 39)

Stephen Duncombe (in a 2 / part interview) discusses the idea of a participatory ‘ethical’ spectacle (narrative) in which everyone is aware of the illusiory nature of the political information they receive by virtue of their role in creating it.

“Ethical spectacle fools no one. It is at its best when it is obvious what it is: just a spectacle. Like the architecture of Las Vegas or the campy performance of pro wrestling, one can also stage spectacles that don’t pretend to be reality but wear their constructed nature on their sleeve. They are spectacles which present themselves as spectacles. As such, these dreams performed become, in their own way, real. Illusion may be a necessary part of politics but delusion need not be.”

…historically…

“The brilliance of FDR is that he and his New Deal administration, like King and his fellow organizers, recognized the necessity of spectacle in politics. Because of this they worked hard to re-imagine spectacle in a way that could fit progressive, democratic ends. The 1920s were an era much like our own in its worship of celebrity: a mediated world of movie stars on the silver screen and sports heroes in the new photo-tabloids. But instead of merely condemning this state of affairs, New Deal artists and administrators re-imagined it, using photographs sponsored by the Farm Securities Agency and murals painted by artists of the Works Progress Administration to recognize and display a different sort of American: the dust bowl farmer, the southern share cropper, the factory worker, the rootless migrant. By creating these counter-spectacles they tried to turn the public gaze from stars to everyday (albeit romanticized) people, essentially redefining “The People” in the popular imagination. Make no mistake, this was a deeply political move, as valorizing everyday people was essential for garnering political support for New Deal political and economic programs.”

Some spectacles live longer than others - the rootlessness poverty creates became the aesthetic of choice for post-war US counter culture - now Bruce Springsteen can afford a blue platinum collar singing about old tom joad.

Rooseveltica from Willie Eason, recorded in the late 90s in a Florida church:

Wilie Eason - Franklin D. Roosevelt, A Poor Man’s Friend 256k 11mb

what i find most telling about this whole topic is how much people are obsessed with narrative (participatory, ethical, non-european/eurocentric, simultaneously occuring). forwards to evolutionary leaps, mckenna renaissance and the graph of novelty? watch me crank dat anti-linear counter-discourse.

PLP - Watch Me Crank That Roosevelt 160k 6.6mb