Sounding Depth

The first day of December is nearly here, and with it a special edition of Sounding Depth. Worldwide microphone diplomat DJ Collage will be making an appearance in the RainyDawg studios. Having worked the mic previously with a huge roster of producers, including Meat Beat Manifesto, Stereotyp and Ghislain Poirier, Collage is now producing his own experimental/ragga/hiphop beats. Exclusively to Sounding Depth, Collage will be debuting two new tracks; one solo effort and one in collaboration with 8-bit prowrassling rockers Truckasaurus. There'll also be chatting (as in an interview) and chatting (as in some live toasting action). Big Ups!

Two weeks ago, Burdur Is Green Feathers was in the studio for an all-hardware performance of mentaltastic psychadelia. Here is the recording.

Justin Byrnes has posted his live set from last week's show. If you didn't hear it live, hear it now!

Andre Benjamin, how could you? Millions of people are going to hear you crooning the chorus to "Hollywood Divorce" and remark to themselves, "Now there's a man who is constantly re-inventing himself, a real original". Sadly only very few are going to recognize that, in fact, you have totally bitten the vocal style of Baby Dayliner, who is the real original. Tsk tsk.

Exciting times. Tomorrow sees Justin Byrnes join me for a live laptop performance. He'll be warming up for his performance later on at Polyphonic with Mr Leisure at the Lower Level. We'll have some tickets to the show to give away. 5-7PST

Burdfur is a crazy experimentalist and he will be a guest in the studios on November the 17th. After thanksgiving I'm very excited to be having DJ Collage on the show.

Gig-wise, Mouse on Mars, Kid606 and Lithops should be great on Sunday. Then Hot Chip (who've been getting play on Sounding Depth for a wee while now) is in town Nov 14th. Finally, mark your calendars for the 28th when I'll be playing some records at Oscillate at the Baltic Room. Nice.

Another academic year, another new season, another Sounding Depth adventure. The show now airs live 5pm Fridays (PST).

It was an eventful, intense summer with experiences ranging from the stunning death of a dear dear friend and three-time Sounding Depth guest Terso, to the brilliant 2006 edition of the Decibel Festival, to some energetic debate about electronic music, local support and accountability in public radio, to even a mention in the local rag.

So, it's the fall and I'll be providing the tunes on Friday's for your electronic happy hour. If you're away from the computer actually out in the, you know, real world, you can always stream or grab the archives each week at your convenince from here and here.

This week's playlist was typically varied, taking in the sounds of dub remixed various ways, hyphy, idm, pop, and making an extended stay in the realm of the heavy, wobbly bass. I finished the show with tracks from Baby Dayliner and The Mobius Band who played on Friday at Neumo's. I was really excited to see Baby Dayliner, having really fallen in love with his music over the last month or two. Sadly the show didn't really click for him or much of the paltry audience. I hope to one day see him when he's 'on', because he is obviously a unique talent.

What a nice surprise to come across this live set by Simon Flower, hosted by the good folks at psurkit/obscure. Simon's productions as 'peak:shift' and his record label Nurture were pretty influential on my taste in music about five years ago. It was a warm, organic and lush, yet minimal sound, epitomized by son.sine's 'Upekha' which featured on Swayzak's Groovetechnology mix CD. The bass, click and gravel-crush of that track are so distinctive and timeless. The Nurture label has been on hiatus since 2002's peak:shift 12", 'bury/disinter', but by the sounds of things Mr Flower is keeping busy working on his live productions. Judging by this set, recorded at Auckland monthly 'Minim', if the label were to re-start, there'd be ample material for a slew of quality new peak:shift material.

I just wanted to recommend all fans of quality electronic music to check out a couple of other shows on the dawg: some velvet evening (tue 5-7pm PDT), and soundscapes (thur 5-7pm PDT). My colleagues who host these shows have impeccible taste, and work their playlists well.

Over at the Stranger's Line Out, Dave Segal links to a stunning video (embedded quicktime) for a Kode9/Spaceape track. Dubstep visualized.

Passing up on the Sasquatch opportunity this year. It's been fatally diluted by making it three days. The good acts would have filled one day nicely. Jamie Lidell is playing Sunday for an hour at noon. Instead, I'm hoping to have the energy and drive to head up to Bellingham the night before to catch him in a much more intimate venue. After the recent awe-inspiring show at the Chop, I'd crawl on broken glass to see him perform again. Brilliant.

There's just a couple more weeks of this academic year, and for the first time Rainydawg is broadcasting over the summer. Scheduling is still up in the air, but I hope to continue Sounding Depth, whilst maybe also picking up a variety show - there's just too much good music to be confined. Update to follow...

Seattle resident/global emcee DJ Collage is working on the finishing touches of a full length to be released on Massmvmnt, "The Parlor". From what I've heard so far maybe the label should change its name to Assmvmnt - this is music you can't help but move to. Collage is assuredly in control over the beats and the lyrics (and your ass too). Dropping in June, I beleive.

So, it's been a while, but the show has been going on. I've just been too busy playing music to blog about it. So... a rundown of what's been happening on Sounding Depth: Nordic Soul of Decibel fame dropped into the studio to drop the the fresh tech bombs. Splinters played a live set of laptop techno which was top notch. And all the while I've been making some tasty selections. Highlights of new music at the station include the new Ghostly comp and Fourthcity's latest full length release, Bit Rocker by Vincent Parker. The latter is a very diverse, accomplished album from a young musician who will go far. The music wavers from hard punchy electroid mayhem to slow spacey introspection, and is very pleasurable listening.

I wanted to mention a 12" I picked up recently, "Qawwali" by Pinch on Planet Mu. This is an incredible tune, embodying all the best qualities of dubstep; the spacious percussion, the sparing use of melody, the emotion. Just thinking about it gives me the chills. For me, this track is a reminder that music really can connect with us on a very deep level.

Lets Go Outside played the show yesterday, and it was sweet. He did a cool hybrid DJ/live thing. He started out with a digitally mixed DJ set of some mysterious tracks from a collaboration he's working on, and slowly added live ambient elements. Eventually he dropped out the pre-made tracks all together and was performing live ambient music. Very cool. Check hour 2 of the show for the goods. Before his set I played an hour of quiet/jazzy/ambient stuff, including a good quota of locals (Foscil, Former Selv, ndCv and Sientific American).