BINKBEATS The "Beats Unraveled" Series

BINKBEATS, not a name most people know, not even most hardcore Hip Hop Instrumental fans.
This guy seems to have come out of nowhere popping up a few months ago on Facebook, YouTube, and SoundCloud. There is not much information about this Dutch producer, how long he has been making music, if he has any original material, or what he will do in the future. As of right now he has produced and posted one song a month for the past three months, all covers of Hip Hop or Experimental Electronic tracks. The interesting thing about how he plays is not just covering these songs that any underground Hip Hop fan would know, but that he is does it with live instrumentation.

Madlib, the producer that made the track The Healer for Erykah Badu originally, is best known as a "sample based" producer. It is interesting to listen to the two tracks, Madlib who sampled records to get the sound, and then you have BINKBEATS interpret the track back to live instruments; that were likely played in the original records that Madlib had sampled. BINKBEATS also uses looping techniques so he can have all the instruments that he is playing sound like a live band as they slowly build upon one another.

Flying Lotus or FlyLo is an Experimental Electronic Beat musician. For this interpretation BINKBEATS plays Getting There he uses a wide selection of Bells and Percussion as well as Piano's and Slinky's, he also introduces us to his vocals, which will be revisited in later tracks. This time using a mix of live instrumentation as well as on the spot sampling and looping (probably a lot like Flylo did in his recording) he brings this track to its desired place and starts to lay vocals over it until it is sounding a lot like the original. But because of the chosen instruments, a lot more organic sounding then electronic.

For BINKBEATS latest track Without You originally by Lapalux, he focuses on dreamy/dark Synths. The song slowly slowly builds with drums and vocals being played over the ever reaping Synthesizer samples. He also has a pretty memorizing Xylophone solo at around 2:45. Myself not being a fan of Lapalux or this song, was quite surprised as I kept hitting the repeat button to listen to this track again and again.

I would like to see BINKBEATS venture off and start creating original material himself. As you can see from watching his YouTube videos and the equipment he has, he could probably come up with some pretty impressive sounds. However if he never does, I will likely be just as satisfied with him releasing a cover version of a new song every month for our listening pleasure.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's. thoughts on Jazz

"God has brought many things out of oppression. He has endowed his creatures with the capacity to create - and from this capacity has flowed the sweet songs of sorrow and joy that have allowed man to cope with his environment and many different situations. Jazz speaks for life. The Blues tell the story of life's difficulties, and if you think for a moment, you will realize that they take the hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new hope or sense of triumph. This is triumphant music. Modern Jazz has continued in this tradition, singing the songs of a more complicated urban existence. When life itself offers no order and meaning, the musician creates an order and meaning from the sounds of the earth which flow through his instrument.

It is no wonder that so much of the search for identity among American Negroes was championed by Jazz musicians. Long before the modern essayists and scholars wrote of "racial identity" as a problem for a multi-racial world, musicians were returning to their roots to affirm that which was stirring within their souls. Much of the power of our Freedom Movement in the United States has come from this music. It has strengthened us with its sweet rhythms when courage began to fail. It has calmed us with its rich harmonies when spirits were down. And now, Jazz is exported to the world. For in the particular struggle of the Negro in America there is something akin to the universal struggle of modern man. Everybody has the Blues. Everybody longs for meaning. Everybody needs to love and be loved. Everybody needs to clap hands and be happy. Everybody longs for faith. 

In music, especially this broad category called Jazz, there is a stepping stone towards all of these."

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Opening speech at the 1964 Berlin Jazz Festival
Humanity and the Importance of Jazz

I Hate Moving

Running is Music

The new issue of Runner's World Magazine, January 2013 was siting in my mail box yesterday. In the evening when I had a chance to open it, I skipped to the "Ask Miles" section which I do every time. Before I read any other article or am influenced by any of the adds trying to sell me the latest running gear I read Miles' question and answer section. Mostly because it is hilarious and entertaining but also because there is a lot of truth in his witty answers.

A reader wrote in:
Dear Miles,
I've been thinking about listening to music when I run. Should I?

Answer from Miles:
Running is music, if you're patient enough to hear it.

The Sounds of Hunting Birds in Eastern Oregon

Hop out of the truck the lava rock crunches beneath your feet, a calm day, slight sound of wind swirling in your ears; steam vaporizing into the cool air with every anxious breath.

The guns are loaded.

The dogs are let out of the kennels. The melody begins, the tapping feet, bolting through the cattails and sagebrush. Noses down to the ground, sniffling, and panting in between trying to take a solid breath yet never letting up on the goal in mind, find Pheasants.

This song could take hours to compose or merely minutes. Improvisational at times and others perfectly set to the intended rhythm. The dogs run too far ahead, the conductor blows a whistle at what seems to be the beginning of the 4/4  count. The dogs bolt back. Men's boots pounding on the moist soft ground, an after effect of the Orchestra of Rain from days prior. The interlude has turned into a minute and a half marching band solo, no brass, woodwinds, nor snare drum. Only a whistle, rhythmic pounding of feet and the ambient sounds of creatures rushing through the brush.

Rhythm is lost, marching stops, breath gets louder, hearts are beating. Soon a Roster must jump up and send out the climax sounds of cluck cluck. Anticipation grows more as you hear the snout drip from your nose, the chatter of your molars reminding you you did not wear enough layers. That thought is soon lost as you imagine the sound, the concluding notes, of what is going to be greater than Tchaikovsky's Overture of 1812 complete with cannons.

Marching continues for another twenty-three minutes until wait, you do not hear the dogs rushing through the brush, the marching stops, the breathing stops, even your heart stops. The only sound still in existence at this moment is the thoughts of what is to come. "Up" is all that is spoke, dogs leap as they have been coiling the springs in their back legs like a jackrabbit, cluck cluck BOOM cl BOOM-OM cluck cluck BOOM BOOM cluck BOOM BOOM! click.

The loud sound echo's through the valley as the wait for swirling noises of the cattails returns.

There it is.

Moments later the dogs prance up and drop birds at your feet proud of a job well done, the hunter can eat tonight, the sports lovers feel the rush and high-five about perfect shots, the vegetarians cry inside, the lover of sound is captivated by the music he just experienced. The audio was not recorded but can forever be replayed with his memories, not many songs sound greater than this.

 

Classical Electronic

Classical Electronic, no I am not talking about early Electronic music, I am talking about Classical Orchestra and Symphonic genres portrayed with Electronic sounds and instruments!!!!! It is amazing, listen to the almost 20 minute multi-movement piece from Chicago World Brigade here and enter a whole new world of music. There are others who make music in this genre, but this track is the best I have heard. You can explore this type of music more at the what seems to be a dead blog now, Classitronic.

J. Rocc, The Taster's Choice.

J. Rocc, one of my favorite DJ’s, has always been best known for his work with and co-founder of the DJ group the Beat Junkies that started in 1992. However he has been doing so much work as a DJ/musician recently that it is possible he is gaining more fans these days than he ever has before. His run with Stones Throw Records started in the early 2000’s, what is Stones Throw most noted for? Well for starters, being one of the largest and most popular underground (indie if you prefer) Hip-Hop labels. Secondly, they have an extremely dedicated fan base; changes, no matter how small, do not go unnoticed for very long within the label. So when J. Rocc began DJing live shows for the duo Jaylib (Madlib and J Dilla), he tried to stay in the background and do what he does, “rock live crowds”. Only one problem with that, J. Rocc is good at what he does; if he cannot get a crowd dancing by the records he plays he will amaze them and put the crowd into a trance like state as his hands move faster than their eyes can see with his perfected turntable skills. So what happened after the Jaylib tour? You guessed it, J. Rocc seemed to be on the bill for almost every big live event and tour Stones Throw has been a part of since. With many 12” singles and podcast mixes following, and most recently he even released his first solo full length titled Some Cold Rock Stuf “Not a mix tape. Not a DJ album. Not a beats album. It’s the album.”

That was an extremely brief biography for the vast amount of work J. Rocc has accomplished so far, but I am not writing this post to talk about his entire music career, I am writing it to write a brief description about his Taster’s Choice Series. Volume Six was recently released, three long years after Volume Five came out. Volume six is an African/Reggae focusing on rare and obscure songs. Going in reverse succession Volume Five is rooted in Spiritual Jazz. Volume Four is unreleased, well, actually no one really knows if it has ever been created. The rumor is Volume Four was a Reggae mix, but with the release of Volume six being a Reggae mix, it is doubtful that if it even exists that it is also a Reggae mix. Volume Three is influenced by early and mid nineties Hip-Hop with a hint of Funk. Volume Two, a good mix of Funk, Jazz, and Hip-Hop, and Volume One a mix of Latin and Brazilian music. As you can tell, J. Rocc knows, listens too, and can mix a very eclectic range of music.

I am excited for more Taster Choice mixes in the future, not to mention other releases that I am sure he will release in between.  

Is all sound music?

“For me music is a thing that affects the way we live, sound is made up of vibrations in the air and air is something we cannot live without. So music, quite literally, is carried by a source of life. Music in my opinion vibes off of life and is affected by it and affects it all the same.”--- Brandon Gray, 2012

My views, thoughts, and ideas about what music is, why we use it, and what it does for us as a human race is ever changing. So when I recently heard this statement by one of the greatest modern thinkers of our time, I couldn’t help but to continue in the way I think about music, but I also evolved a little further. I have always known and felt that music was a huge part of my life and a big part in other people’s life whether they realize it or not, music affects us in many ways and it also sustains our life in a sense. We are constantly listening to music, it is playing over the speakers at the stores we shop in, the elevators we wait in, and it comes standard in the vehicles we drive. Music is projected to a crowd at sporting events, concert halls, and also sang and played in our churches. We listen to it seamlessly from our phones, digital music players, tablets, compact disc players, and computers. We have a hard time finding a place where there is not music playing. Harder still is finding somewhere to escape to that sound is completely non-existent, if our tympanic membranes are working correctly, silence literally cannot be found.  

John Cage wrote about this after visiting a silent chamber: “It was at Harvard not quite forty years ago that I went into an anechoic [totally silent] chamber not expecting in that silent room to hear two sounds: one high, my nervous system in operation, one low, my blood in circulation. The reason I did not expect to hear those two sounds was that they were set into vibration without any intention on my part. That experience gave my life direction, the exploration of no intention…..”---John Cage, 1990. 

Cage showed, not only is there no such thing as silence, but this non silence is realized in concert halls by coughs, sniffles, movements of the crowd, the entertainers and even the building itself, see 4'33". It can also be noticed in the hum of our computers while listening to music digitally, or the noises around us as we drive through the city with music playing and the windows down. But do these extra sounds hinder or add to our musical listening experience? Would it feel weird if we heard absolutely nothing but the sound we wanted to listen to? If you listen to Indeterminacy, a spoken word piece by John Cage and David Tudor, Cage talks about a women coming up to Tudor and asking him to play his piano piece again with the windows in the room closed so the traffic would not interrupt the music, he responded that he would replay the piece, but having the window closed would have no different effect on the music then when they were open. So it seems that the music we make as humans is wholly inspired by extra or unexpected sound.

We all have our preferences on what we like to hear while listening to music, some like the Pop genre, some Hip-hop, some Jazz, while others Rock n Roll, some still prefer Classical, Country-Western, Noise, or Electronic, some like myself enjoy a great variety of all of these genres, plus many more genres, sub-genres and a variety of other sounds. All music genres feed off one another, and all of them essentially start with random sound, but to make random sound classifiable it has to be collected and manipulated until it reaches tones, timbres, pitches, volume levels, and or rhythms that are pleasing and understandable (this will sound different to different people). So could we say that someone who experiments with found sound is experimenting with the roots of classifiable music? Yes, but that would not then in turn make these experiments not music because they still pose some form of tone, timbre, pitch, volume, and or rhythm. Just because sound cannot be classified does not make it non-music. To say someone embarking on an improvised  (not written down or unable to write down) sound journey is not playing music is absurd, yet many people have this interpretation. If you are beating on a drum, or beating on an old keg you are making music. If you are pulling at the strings of a harp or on professional wrestling gym ropes, the sound is still music. Furthermore if you are chanting quietly or screaming loudly, you are making sound and in turn making music. There is no way to separate sounds and say this is music and this is not. Therefore if one type of sound is music say the blowing of a trumpet, then all sounds must be music, such as the infamous piece of Yoko Ono, flushing a toilet "Toilet Piece".

Music is how we interact with others, it can change our mood, evolve our ideas, and even help us become closer to God; Saint Augustine says “For he who sings praise, does not only praise, but also praises joyfully; he who sings praise, not only sings, but also loves Him whom he is singing about/to/for. There is a praise-filled public proclamation in the praise of someone who is confessing/acknowledging (God), in the song of the lover (there is) love.” Music is our life, it sustains us in everything we do, whether we like it or not. Without music, we in some ways, many ways, are lost. So as the old African proverb goes “If you can talk then you can sing, if you can walk then you can dance.” So sing and stomp your feet, both of which are making music. Whether you are good at playing an instrument or singing, does not pertain to if you are making music or not, so even if your music will not go platinum in record sales, play it. Making sound intentionally or unintentionally is our life, it is how we communicate. It is the after effect of us breathing, our movements, and our ideas put into action, classifiable or otherwise. 

Digital music files a love/hate relationship.

I love listening to music on many different formats: vinyl, cassette, reel to reel, and 8-track tape, even compact disc. The idea of holding a tangible object, putting it on or in the applicable player, and then being able to read the liner notes while also gazing at the artwork fascinates me. 
So predictably I have a love/hate relationship with Mp3's, WAV's, and other digital music formats. Let us list the hates first. 

Hates: Digital music files play with lower quality sound; they also allow you to listen to music virtually anywhere which takes away from the idea of sitting down and actually listening to music. Digital music is extremely easy to steal without getting caught which takes away from music sales, in-turn musicians are less likely to produce quality music in the future. If people do purchase digital music they are limited in what they are able to buy, iTunes, one biggest sellers of digital music files only has about 1% of the worlds recorded music available. Lastly digital music does not come with fancy, beautiful, sometimes collectable jewel cases or cardboard vinyl slip cover protectors, which makes the idea of having a music collection almost pointless, you cannot have collectable digital music files. 

And now the loves.

Loves: Digital music files are portable, you can run/walk, drive, work, and do so many other active things with your entire music collection on a device the size of a half dollar. Digital music has brought the rise of many user friendly file sharing websites where artists both good and bad, signed or unsigned, popular and not can share their music for free, for purchase, or both. There are many people without the money, space, or the mental capacity to have music collections of compact discs, vinyl or cassette tapes and are required to listen to music on digital music players. Etcetera.

Most of these points are self explanatory, however I would like to expound on a few of them.

File hosting and sharing sites such as Soundcloud, Bandcamp, and Drip, just to name a few have opened up brand new ways for people to bring out their musical creativity. Soundcloud a music hosting site where artists signed or unsigned can upload their music on a stream listening format, that artist can then make the track available for download or even set a link so listeners can purchase the song from iTunes or Bandcamp.  Because someone cannot play music well, or does not have the money or resources to release a music project on CD or vinyl, does not mean a barrier should be put up for them to not play or share their music with others. Music is for everyone, it should be played by everyone. Drip.fm is also a very interesting site and new way to share digital music, where record labels are making their catalogs available to fans by a monthly subscription. For example you sign up for Stones Throw Record Label  on Drip for $10.00 a month and you get every single new release (and some old ones) from that record label downloaded straight to your inbox whether you like it or not. Interesting concept.

For people that are unable to have large music collections because they are in nursing homes or have a small amount of living space there are wonderful organizations that exist to help people in those situations bring their favorite music to them in the form of digital music. Many amazing results are seen through this process, some people are healed, “come alive”, and are highly impacted by this music and amazing results are seen. In the past I have donated to Music and Memory ; check out their website to watch videos on how music heals people, even digital music. My favorite is Henry. Like stated above, when digital music files are condensed into smaller files, you lose sound quality, there is a GREAT article about that Here. The rest of the reasons do not need to be expanded on.

All this said I have a digital file music collection, a vinyl collection, a compact disc collection, an 8-track collection, a reel to reel collection and a cassette tape collection, if I had to give up any of them; digital music is defiantly going first. However if I ever have less space or eventually end up in a nursing home, I will always choose music, even if I cannot physically touch it.  

New Skweee Music

Losonophono, one of only three records labels in the United States that distribute Skweee music, recently released a new cassette tape at Anthem Records in Portland Oregon. A limited edition tape of 100 copies called Paper Boat by Markis Sage (two different artists), I got the hand numbed copy #89. The tape also included a download card and info on how to get the vinyl copy for $5.00 if it is ever released. The labels website states that they will only produce a vinyl edition of the release if the cassette catches on, but if I got #89 and there are only 100, I think it is likely that the vinyl will be coming soon!
What is Skweee music? It is a genre of electronic music that started in Sweden. Its main purpose is to use vintage synthesizers and produce the most interesting sound from them. This is not Noise music, it is melodic and dance-able, but it does not stick to the same old boom/tic/boom/tic/boom/tic..... drum lines as techno, trance, and house does. It is creative, well thought out, and innovative music.
This is a great release and anyone interested in new electronic music should check it out. You can listen to the entire album at the bottom of the page here!
Stand out tracks are: Creature of Lagoon, Count Humble vs. Vallatron, Ranking Officer, and Pig Courier Down.
The Cassette tape itself is green.
Oh and the art work is awesome!