D.A.F. – Co Co Pina (JChan Jumbled Remix)

In high school and freshman year at Boston University I was big into industrial music – Ministry, Front 242, Wax Trax, Skinny Puppy and the like. I probably spent haf of my pocket money freshman year buying industrial-edged CDs at Nuggets and Tower Records – where I picked up a compilation of proto-industrial weirdness called Tyranny of the Beat put out by Mute records (founded by Daniel Miller of The Normal – best known for ‘Warm Leatherette’) and featuring tracks by groups like Throbbing Gristle, Can and Wire that were mostly recorded in the 70s and early 80s.

Strummy (JChan Ege Bamyasi Mix)

Can’s “Vitamin C” and Miguel De Deus’s “Black Soul Brothers” for the beat; “Cacha Mechanica” (artist unknown) for the guitar sample and a piano loop from Krysztof Komeda’s soundtrack to Roman Polanski’s “Knife in the Water.”

The tight freak-out grooves on Krautrock pioneers Can’s Ege Bamyasi make it my favorite album in their wide-ranging discography. I really wanted to emulate that free-form sound in my band in grad school – but while the “free” part was do-able for us, the “form” didn’t work out so well due to my not-so-polished drum skills. Thank god for automatic beat-matching.

MF Doom meets Radiohead and Another Strung-Out Beat

Damn – they stole my idea – or rather they beat me to the punch. I love the piece “Proven Lands” on Radiohead guitarist Johnny Greenwood’s soundtrack to There Will be Blood – if there were ever a beat to be flipped from music made for a string ensemble, this is it, and I’ve been struggling to find a way to remix it/mash it up. Now, it seems Radiohead and MF Doom (or DOOM, as he now prefers to be called) have done just that with “Retarded Fren“:

Monkey Mashup: Sun Wukong vs Sun Ra

One more from my Monkey Mashup series – this one’s on the Middle Eastern tip with samples from ‘Jeitili” (artist unknown), Egyptian percussionist and composer Hossam Ramsy‘s ‘Wana Be-ied Annak (When I Am Not Near You),’ which I discovered via the indispensable Mixtape Riot and ‘Oriental Mood’ off of the Sun Ra Arkestra Meets SalahRagab in Egypt LP.

Oizoid

French electronic DJ and producer Mr Oizo’s 1999 release Analog Worms Attack is proof positive that “techno” is not just for glowstick waving douchebags.

Made entirely with analog instruments, the album’s tracks sound deceptively simple, but are anything but. The subsequent mashup of beats from this seminal album with songs from Wu Tang’s Enter the 36 Chambers are guaranteed to have even the most puritanical of hip hop heads bobbing in agreement.

The Tenant Remixes 2 – Murderers and Killers

Critics hated The Tenant when it came out in 1976, saying it bordered on “self parody” and a dissipation of “whatever talent [Roman Polanski] once had” – all the more reason to love it.

Macabre, absurd and indeed supremely self-indulgent, the film’s influence on psychological horror films is undeniable, not least of which for its amazing soundtrack and Roman Polanski’s memorable lines as his character suffers a complete mental breakdown (in drag, no less).

Heaven’s Grate

I quite like this one – made on Reactable with samples from Da Nao Tian Gong ( 大闹天宫，”Havoc in Heaven”) – classic 1965 cartoon that’s the second in the Monkey King trilogy from the Shanghai Animation Studio.

Kronos Quartet – Black Angels (JChan Remix)

I couldn’t possibly describe the contents of this disc (although this site does a decent job), except to say that it changed the way I listen to music and George Crumb is probably Satan – and he looks like my old orthodontist.

I made this remix for my old college buddy Jon, who first played this for me when I was an impressionable, angst-ridden freshman at BU. Good times, good times.

Monkey Mashup: In the Lair of the White Bone Demon

Happy Halloween. This is a very early mash-up I made with samples from Monkey Conquers the Demon and the distorted drumtrack from Tortoise’s ‘Seneca.’ It’s a little all over the place and some of the levels are off, but fitting for today. 

Monkey Mashup 4: Monkey vs Demon

B&W photo "Peking Opera – Quelling The White Bone Demon, Pekin, China, 1997" by Liu Zheng from bwworld.wordpress.com

Made this beat with an introduction sampled from “The Hills Are Alive,” Elvin Jones’s “Summertime,” a beat from Cee Knowledge‘s “The Nutcracker” and my own loop with samples from Monkey King Conquers the Demon.