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.

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.

 

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. 

Impractical Cockpit

Continuing my list of music I picked up last month on Record Store Day is an album by a New Orleans group Impractical Cockpit called, To Be Treated. This one I got from my third stop at Everyday music (Downtown Portland location). Because I had been living in California for 14 months I have not had the chance to go record shopping since back in Portland, Everyday Music had changed their whole store around. The checkout area had moved, the genres moved, pretty much the only thing that seemed to be in the same place was the classical music section and the listening station. I did my rounds, looking through the electronic music section first, select artists in the Hip-Hop section, and then ventured my way to the Experimental vinyl section after browsing through the Record Sore Day releases. Here in the Experimental section I found Impractical Cockpit. I had never heard of this band though supposedly they have released five albums before To Be Treated, the one I stumbled upon. The listening station had a line, and I did not feel like waiting, so for $6.00 I decided to give it a try based on it's cover and it saying on the vinyl it self that it featured a track with a trumpet, I love trumpet! I am split on this album, most of it is grungy, crappy singing, and simple drum beats. On the other hand, there is wonderful noise, beautiful soundscapes, and some fun randomness. The most abstract yet my favorite of the album is called North 41° 53' 0" - Longitude: West 70° 45" 46' some noise and other weird sounds, while a small group of people yell out what seems to be random numbers, you can listen to that song and some of their other, here. There is defiantly way better noise and experimental music out there. I would not recommend this record to anyone at least not as a great release. But for six dollars it was worth the risk and from the enjoyment I get from North 41° 53' 0" - Longitude: West 70° 45" 46', I am happy.

Also at Everyday Music that day I picked up the Quakers album I blogged about weeks ago "They're here to shake the foundations". I was super excited for the instrumental versions and they did not disappoint. But I must say I was pleasantly impressed by the originals as well. Great album, plus I found the double CD for $8.50 used!

Badbadnotgood

Badbadnotgood, all one word, is a group that specializes in playing Jazz covers of Hip-Hop songs. It's interesting that Hip-Hop is heavily influenced by Jazz music. Now there is a wave of modern Jazz bands covering Hip-Hop tracks. Badbadnotgood is one of those bands, and despite their name, one of the best. One of the great things about the band is, you can tell they enjoy playing music, they are not in it to make money. All of their music can be found for free on their website, click on the download tab. They also have many tracks available for listen on YouTube.
Badbadnotgood, unfortunately, is best known for their covers and work with Tyler The Creator. In my opinion, Tyler is literally bad bad not good! His lyrics are more vulgar than artists such as Eminem, and he can't rhyme as as well. His music is not worth my time, one of my biggest pet peeves in music is when an artist uses explicit language just to use explicit language, his tracks are full of obscene language to get people to react, not to develop the story or idea he is rapping about. On the flip side, Badbadnotgood's instrumental covers of Tyler are beautiful, they also cover MF DOOM, the late J Dilla, and many more. It is groups like this that remind us that music is still being made or remade for the enjoyment of playing music.