Kandinsky's dubb teachings - deep thought on 3D

Concepts like 'space' and 'time' are REALLY BIG. Each time a scientist or an artist invents a new way of looking at them, there's a lot of interest. Right now James Cameron's Avatar is changing the look of 3D in cinema. In the same way, Kandinsky's writings and paintings helped change ideas about 3D in painting 100 years ago.

Police investigate musicians who don't play jazzy enough

After a visitor of the Jazz Sigüenza festival called the police and claimed it was medically inadvisable for him to hear the free jazz group Larry Ochs Sax and Drumming Core perform, some pistol-carrying Civil Guards showed up at the concert to investigate the allegations that Mr. Ochs was not playing jazzy enough.

The end of the loudness wars

"The key is mastering for a volume-normalized world. When you, as a mastering engineer, realize what that limiter is going to do to your track when the playback software analyzes it and turns it down 11 dB, it will change the way you master. Forever."

Kandinsky's dubb teachings - contrasting sounds

Like many of Kandinsky's paintings, this one titled Accent in Pink is an ecosystem of colors, shapes and special fx. Or it might be the result of an alchemical process. This episode of Kandinsky's dubb teachings is about color, but before we talk about Kandinsky's colors let's see what is going on Accent in Pink in terms of 3D effects.

Scientific dancehall: heavyweight dancehall riddims in dub

SCIENTIFIC DANCEHALL ~ heavyweight dancehall riddims in dub

This is a little dub something i started over at Soundcloud. Feel free to contribute if you are a dub producer working with original classic dancehall riddims.

Viva Barefoot!

Stereotyp (Crunchtime, G-Stone) is a veteran producer from Vienna who has created his own dance music genre called Barefoot. Definition: funky bass music meets ragga ohne Hemmungen. Generation Bass has the full story here.

Kandinsky's dubb teachings - abstract jungle

Before we get into Kandinsky's painting styles and the relation with dub music, here's a Susan Sontag quote, taken from Against interpretation (1966).

The Tao of Wu

Most of you probably thought that the RZA is a hip hop producer. I'd say he's a dub scientist. And he's a writer too, check out the reviews of his new book 'The Tao of Wu'.



Here's a nice interview from True/Slant. Best quote: "I'd rather raise nerds than raise gangstas."

Interview and more on True/Slant
Book review @ AllHipHop.com
Interview from Colbert Nation

GPS beatmap: the most laborious remix method ever

GPS Beatmap was created by mad scientist/electronic music artist Jesse Stiles. The voice over is really the fun part of this clip: "obscure landmarks begin to gain new significance by their association with unique musical juxtapositions" :-)

Synced spasms in dub

I was never into that Ryoji Ikeda stuff until i saw this. Now it makes sense. I think the man responsible for the sonic interaction gear, Daito Manabe, also did the music. More on Youtube.

Nice Scientist video

I've been trying for a long time now to update my stuff at Scientist's dubmusic.com website but i can't get in... What i did find there was a video of Scientist enjoying a smoke and mixing it up.

Kandinsky's dubb teachings - intro

100 years ago, Wassily Kandinsky was one of the first painters to develop a 100% abstract style at a time when many artists were working in 'half abstract' styles like cubism and so on. Almost immediately Kandinsky's abstract work got a lot of attention and after a few years (around the time of World War I) other painters also got into pure abstraction. Today Malevich, Rothko, Mondrian, De Kooning and Jackson Pollock are all famous for their abstract works.

RSD - Rob Smith leads the way

About 75% of the music labelled as dubstep sounds like melodic death metal done on a laptop. Only a handful of producers aim for a dub sound, in other words fat riddims made with nothing but drums, bass and echoplates.

Album review: Mad Professor - Audio illusions of dub

The Mad Professor will mix any kind of style you'd care to throw at him. That's why i expected Audio illusions of dub to be a dubstep album (or at least have a few dubsteppy tracks) because the dubstep 'label' is being used to promote this new album. But it turns out that's just a bit of illusion (or marketing).

Wycliffe 'Steely' Johnson R.I.P.

It's the end of an era. Steely & Clevie was one of the greatest production teams ever. Here's a link to the Jamaica Star: Steely will be missed. And more news and a tribute from the Gleaner.

Does humor belong in music?

Fresh!

DIY coconut headphone

I like i-and-iPods but the earbuds suck and most big headphones that sound good don't look good. The solution: a diy coconut headphone.

Dub Conference feat. I-lodica and Rich from Dub Revolution

After they had conquered the Future Reggae festival at Ruigoord (NL) I-lodica and Rich from Dub Revolution visited the anoxic and overheated Dubshot Dub Shelter for a bit of jammin. We did three tunes, they're in the player and on Myspace. The first track is called don't mess with bill. The second tune called dub party is based on the party time riddim and it also features Marcus Hillman on guitar. The third tune is called new world disorder.

The Big Gundown: Boss RE-20 Twin Pedal vs Roland RE-201 Space Echo

The Boss RE-20 Twin Pedal is the digital cousin of the classic analog tape based Roland RE-201 Space Echo. The Boss pedal was released in 2007. Here's a small demonstration at NAMM 2007.

Science and the loony bin

Everybody knows that you can’t sit on the word chair, that you can’t eat the word bread and that there's no such thing as a 33 or a 2009. Words and numbers are abstractions. If you try to drive around town in the word car you are making an abstraction error. If you persist you are on your way to the RUBBER ROOM.

Miracles are nothing special says E. J. Littlewood

If you have never experienced a miracle yet that simply means that you're not normal and you should probably see a doctor. The famous British mathematician E.J. Littlewood has proven mathematically that miracles are to be expected at a rate of about one in every 35 days. If you don't believe this check the details over here and do the math yourself.

Schoenmaekers and Mondriaan - positively mystifying

Mathieu Schoenmaekers (1875–1944) is remembered as the philosopher behind the Dutch art movement De Stijl, made world famous by Piet Mondriaan. Here's a short account of how this happened: in 1910 the philosophically inclined Schoenmaekers (a former Catholic priest) came up with a new religious view. He called it Plastic mathematics or Positive mysticism, the word ‘positive’ meaning scientific.

RE-201 Roland Space Echo impulse responses 25-200 BPM

A hardware secondhand Roland RE-201 Space Echo is very expensive nowadays. These IRs don't offer the same flexibility as a real Space Echo but the sound is as warm and as analog as it gets. Please note that the noise was removed so if you need more realism you have to add a bit of noise. You can even try using only the left or right part of these stereo IRs, or set the wet signal to mono.

Visual dubbs

Mr. Wassily Kandinsky from Moscow was one of the greatest abstract painters of the 20th century. Or maybe i should say THE greatest. When he painted he heard sounds at the same time (synesthesia). That's why i think it's fair to say he was not only a painter but also a dub scientist. This year there's a really big Kandinsky exposition in Centre Pompidou until the 10th of august.

Steely Dan - Babylon Sisters (and some tech talk from the heavy rollers)

Luciano & Kenny B - Africa

The Not Easy at All Productions crew from Amsterdam are not wasting any time. Wang Sang e Dangra Deng was their first collaboration with Surinam reggae artist Kenny B and it went straight to number 1 in the Surinam charts. The follow up featuring Luciano may even be bigger. Don't take my word for it, just listen to the tune in the Not Easy Myspace player. Anyway i think the riddim (called the One Blood) fits daddy Luci's voice like a glove. As a matter of fact this is one of the best rootical dancehall productions to come out of the Low Lands ever.

Fyah Kee Riddim promo mix - Not Easy At All Productions

In the Netherlands only a few producers know their business when it comes to dancehall. To my ears the Not Easy At All crew is the #1 Dutch production team in rootical dancehall. They are a group of seasoned musicians and producers who use Myspace to reach out to reggae artists worldwide. Last year their collaboration with Kenny B did well in the charts and Luciano and Bushman even visited their studio in Amsterdam but most of all they produced a whole heap of fresh tunes. Here's a riddim called the Fyah Kee mixed by L.Slinga

Dub from the nineties?

I just realized that soon the nineteen nineties will be officially retro because the first decade of the 21st century is nearly done. So was there any good dub in the nineties? The Mad Professor kept the fire burning in the UK, especially the collaborations with L$P and Jah Shaka and the Black Liberation series, but to be honest i didn't buy a lot of dub albums back in the nineties. It was the times of lounge, triphop and six zillion boring remixes. Here are some albums that i liked, not all of them are dub but they sounded good to me anyway.