The prolific song-smith and all around good guy Mad EP recently released ‘Twenty-four Breakbeats’ on Acroplane Recordings. Other than the influence by Bach’s ‘Well-Tempered Klavier’ and Shostakovich’s ’24 preludes and fugues’, the title pretty much explains it all (though if it was up to me I’d call it ‘Twenty-four Raw Buttery Breaks to Split Ya’ Face‘). Free download of the entire 24 track journey can be skwoomped here.

More from Mad EP:
http://mad-ep.com/
http://www.myspace.com/madep

—
posted by Lokua

Here is an ethnotronic jungle jam entitled Dreaming Tiger. Both audio and video were recorded live at a weekly series Living Sundays @ Rodan, in the summer of 2009, in Chicago.

Dreaming Tiger from slava b on Vimeo.

music by Slava
visuals by Rani Stack and Galina Shevchenko

Read the rest of this entry »

Things have been moving a bit slow over here in the past few months. Many different projects underway – records, the big apples, thoughts of a/v installations – that don’t leave time for the interwebs… but we will try to get better about keeping everyone up to date about the latest goings on. For now, check out the amazing band that is Chandeliers . They have recently released their second album, Dirty Moves that you can check out on their site, however, for now we’re going to focus on their first album that we still haven’t gotten enough of: THE THRUSH. It is an eclectic collection of synthed-out krautrock jams: a very refreshing and contemporary take on the classic vintage sounds. Beautifully produced, the album has a very raw live sound, at times mysterious, at times playful. This could totally be a soundtrack to a far-out 70′s low-budged sci-fi film about the earth being invaded by benevolent dancing alien robots that shoot their neon lazers all over the place.

Chandeliers Myspace, Chandeliers Blog, Obey Your Brain

Every Wednesday Lokua of Moment Sound hosts the event Heartbeats @ Morsland, a night featuring a wide array of DJs and live performers from all walks of Chicago’s electronic music spectrum. Here we have two recordings from one of those nights. First is a live p/a from K-rAd, who immediately brought the dance-floor to life with an excellent cross of his own live material and DJ trickery. After that we have a completely improvised, synth-heavy set from the creator of Shiku Garu Projects, Dreamlogicc. Special shout out to M50 and Slowchildren for closing the night out, and to Gravity-Max who provided the live visuals, good times. Painting / Photo by J. Beckman

)

Today it is really hard for an MC to impress let alone entertain me. Maybe I’m just turning into a bah-humbug, or possibly after submerging my head in the flows of the greatest MCs who ever lived for nearly 30 years, today it takes a lot to peak my interest. Simply put, it takes someone really…IL.

Chicago native IL. Subliminal‘s attack has a bit of everything that makes an MC listenable; style, delivery, voice, content, and above all, passion. As pop culture and corporate control continues to dumb-down the masses, intellectual hip hop looses more and more footing not only because of the culprits but frankly, majority of conscious rappers don’t sound “cool” enough. IL. Subliminal is a breath of fresh, cool air; a combination of underground conscious burnerism and no-frills rawness that is suitable for the aficionado as well as those who need catchy enough motives to be enticed beyond their A.D.D.

Designed to be listened to from beginning to end, this is a true mixtape featuring a plethora of producers and guest MCs superbly mixed by DJ SeaNile. For more information including production credits visit IL.’s blog. (photo by Kinga).

Easy,
-Lokua

Jamal Moss aka Hieroglyphic Being is one of the most forward thinking Chicago musicians. Rooted in old-school Chicago house, he pushes the envelope by creating noisy and pulsating compositions that, underneath a rough, distorted exterior reveal a sublime musical complexity and tenderness. Jamal’s sound is probably one of the most organic ones that can be produced with electronic machinery. His music throbs with life and, to me, sounds more like high-caliber free jazz then simply ‘techno’ or ‘house’. He also runs Mathematics Recordings, an internationally acclaimed label releasing raw analog Chicago-influence music.

Below is a mix from the Sample/Pattern/Freeform series in which Jamal is using outdated equipment to recapture and explore the ways in which old-school DJ such as Ron Hardy constructed edits and mixes. More info here. The mix is as heavy as it is beautiful. Out of this world!

image by Maxime Ballesteros

here are some sensual deep groves selected and arranged by our friend Gary LaCosta aka Eric aka Igor
enjoy:

The following cast is a combination of two live sets by Lokua performed at Morseland on Chicago’s North Side for the Weekly series Heartbeats. The first half of the cast (00:00-22:24) took place on March 25 and phases from grass-roots-hip hop to electro jazz-funk to space-krunk. The second half (22:25-49:34) actually took place on an earlier date (March 18) and is highly improvisational, stylistically ranging from ambient-experimental to a minimal tech-house sort of sound.

These sets have also been featured on Solipsistic Nation along with an interview and two extra studio tracks.

Download the release: Hi Rez ZIP or a smaller VBR ZIP

The dark wet streets sparkle with reflections of neon signs, break lights and mercury lamps. A pulsating aura emanates from cavernous bars, who’s dim atmosphere provides a solace from the harsh reality of daytime life. The drizzle doesn’t impede large crowds from lining the sidewalks, and if anything, adds to the overall brilliance by covering everything in a glistening mist. Almost everyone is in costume – bright clothing, futuristic hairstyles, metal chains, spikes, necklaces, ear-nose-lip-brow ring-studs, over-sized fake-diamond-encrusted glasses. Maybe this is the future we read about in sci-fi novels (minus all the post-apocalyptic drama). Or another planet, somewhere far away from mother earth… Or maybe a dream – an outgrowth of our innermost desires imprinted onto the real world, a fantasy. The neon lights must have generated some sort of portal into this strange world where the unpleasant details, so acutely accentuated by the relentless daylight, are blurred and distorted into agreeable forms, where we can forget about our petty ambitions and abandon the search for meaningless metaphysical entities such as purpose, meaning, reason, love, happiness and maybe for once, actually experience them as they are meant to be experienced – deep down inside – through our primitive animal unindividualized self.

all music by Slava
cover art by Jay Throne

you can also see/download the release on archive.org
or here

Slava on myspace

For your ambient listening pleasure, Moment Sound’s own Lokua has made another contribution to the net-audio community w/ his second release “Water Rock” available for free download at Soft Phase net-label.

Hi, everybody! Next up is another of my favorites! The mighty Protman!

.
.
.
He is a programmer, an artisan, a craftsman and a musician. All my favorites in this series have this in common: they love what they do, they do it very well, and what they do is electronic music. I’ve witnessed Protman (aka Joe Hahn) create many clever set-ups using video game controllers. On one occasion, during his set at our Electro Buffet series, he danced along with patrons on the dancefloor – all while playing an Xbox360 controller and a Dance Dance Revolution Pad. But my favorite thing about Protman are his rich electronic textures. I also like Protman because when it comes to electronic music, and programing your own interface, he is one of the best in Chicago!
.
.
.

Protman myspace link

Zip file of recent performance at the Empty Bottle

protman.com

Moment Sound is happy to be part of the annual Motion Graphics Festival!

In its 6th year, MGFest stands as the premier US event showcasing creative motion picture design. The festival presents a year-long, regionally focused program of events focusing on motion design, sound design, and interactivity by hosting: art showcases, workshops, classes, panel discussions, studio tours, theater screenings and industry mixers.

Moment Sound artists will perform at the festival opening after party at the Burlington as well as the Installation Art Showcase (see the events section on the right)

$7 gets you entry to all MGFest events (RSVP on MGFest.com required for each event)

Download the whole release: Hi Rez ZIP or a smaller VBR ZIP

Yet another Chicago artists with a very unique style of his own, Blackdaylight cooks up a deep dish of trip-hop grooves. Sonically heavy, Black’s infusion of gritty vocals and acoustic samples over a sort of 808 purism is cosmic-tribal. The live recordings have sometimes have a rough, raw sound, resulting in very warm and personal feel. It is “deep in the sheets” music – sensual, throbbing and grimy. And while there is certainly a fair amount of “daylight”, the larger portion of this album is dark and serious. Imagine yourself standing on a rooftop watching the city burn as tracks like Quicksand bang relentlessly. This is mood music – intoxicating.

visit Blackdaylight on Myspace

you can download individual songs here: release on archive.org

if for some reason that doesn’t work, then here

…a downtempo set (for the most part) from april 2007 performed with an electribe es1

Read the rest of this entry »

later we’ll fire up the percolator