Articles by "East to West, Author at PORTALS"
Friendships – ‘my guts mixtape’
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Melbourne’s Friendships dropped this special mix this week as a little prelude to their joining with the Silo Records family in Brisbane. More details on that at a later date.
From Friendships:
This collection of songs are my gutz. An intestinal reflection of shit I have always and recently loved. Friends’ music. Musical heroes. Videogame culture. Internet. Real people; friends + family n shit.
Boom-bap feeds breaks, spews ghetto. Dumb house a capellas introducing local witch rhythms, swooning switchy skitz beat and croon singing shit. Dangerous booty, big groove and bass. Electronic Australiana and raw guitar slingerz. Delicate and hot shit, ya feel??
Hope you pricks like it. <3 U 4 ∞
Tracklist:
Crescent — “Burner”; IRL
Pcoat — “Division”; Show Me The Future
Zora Jones — “Money Cat”; Feathers
Koloah — “Model”; Russian Ghetto Compilation Vol.1
Squarepusher — “My Red Hot Car”, Go Plastic
Electric Sea Spider — “Honey Spoon”; Supercash
Remarc — “RIP”; Desert Storm Presents Ragga Jungle Vol.1
Sango — “Passinho Kuduro (Jon Bap Remix)”; Da Rocinha (Outtakes + Remixes)
OutKast — “Aquemini”; Aquemini
Obey City — ”Down & Up (Original Mix)”; Down & Up
LUCIANBLOMKAMP – “Leshan”; LUCIANBLOMKAMP
Henry Crawford — ”Quien Es?”; Quien Es? Quien Es?
The Underachievers — ”6th Sense”; Indigoism
Bodhi — “Deliquesce (Ifan Dafydd Remix)”; Culture / Deliquesce
B Kind 2 Me & friendships — ”2 Reel”; (unreleased)
Kohwi – “She saw two objects tied together by a finite length of thread”
Her sight wandered along the limp thread, its two ends not visible. One end wound its way out the window, over the ledge of the 22nd floor of her building. It was cold, she could not leave her window ajar much longer. The other end trailed behind her, out the door, down the stairs, ’round the bend with its rusty coloured edge and burying itself deep into the foundations of her little flat. The cement was no longer cold, but it could not breathe. The thread had no end that she could see.
Kohwi is one of my best mates, and I have been obsessing over this song all week. I don’t know what exactly it is that gets under my skin, invites me to come along, to fall, even. Kohwi‘s latest gem is this: “She saw two objects tied together by a finite length of thread”—this song could be infinite, forever rolling over and over again, a perfect circle from beginning to end. Its steady, unassuming hi-hat heartbeat breathes life into the cinematic legacy. In 11:36 we are reminded what is important—to slow down, to open ourselves to what is to come, to take it all in.
Lindsay Tuc – “Hanspeter”
I’ve been thinking lots about the future recently. Lots about my future, our future, the future of music, the future of the evolution of art. Will mankind ever get to a point where every art that can be made will have been made? Every sound heard, every track crafted, every genre birthed. Is it possible for us to create infinitely? For us to constantly evolve in our abilities, in the ability to craft something new. How close are we to this final frontier? Or, perhaps less ominously, does this frontier even exist? Will there always be art made that has not yet been seen?
It’s scary, you know, if you really think about it. I want to live in an age where boundaries are constantly being pushed, where we are all Techno Rebels that are going to make history and not fade into obscurity. When I’m old and sitting around my living room with the younger generations, I want to be able to show them our mark on artistic meaning. Furthermore, I want them to be able to do the same thing years and years and years into the future, in another living room, another time.
There is a really humbling feeling that the future, and these kind of unanswerable questions, imparts. You have to lay yourself down to the mercy of what is to come, be vulnerable almost, to what lingers out there just ahead. Lindsay Tuc‘s latest tune, “Hanspeter”, encapsulates that essence. Its warbled noise samples and temporal fluctuations are futuristic—they dance with fate and its fancy. At the same time though, it’s grounded, not letting this essence dominate, consciously courting the future but not being privy to its internal workings.
We live in an interesting time, when sometimes the future wears you down with the weight of the world. Its important to think deeply about these notions when necessary, but don’t get so tired you can’t do anything in the present. Keep creating, keep letting beauty wash over you and keep finding boundaries and then step over them.
Zaika – “The Colour Blue”
While deep in a straight-up-and-down house groove, Zaika still leans on his future garage past for his latest tune “The Colour Blue”. It’s that lustful female vocal and a shuffling bass-line inherent in this more high-hatted track that pay homage to Zaika‘s past. All the while, his new house leanings exemplify the boundaries that he keeps on pushing.
I’ve been spending my lazy Friday afternoons recently with friends in Sydney, drinking sherry, eating cheese and taking turns at the mixer spinning house and techno tunes in the loungeroom/kitchen to anybody/nobody that is listening. This one will definitely be added to rotation for this coming week.
This track is taken from a short 3-track EP available on the young German’s SoundCloud.
True North – “Bismuth”
I love watching the evolution of a musician. For Sydney legend True North, he has taken the final jump (although you could see him hinting at it in earlier works) and has plunged into some deep garage for his latest single, “Bismuth”. The single has the perfect marriage between light vocal smatterings and dark bass, which winds and spirals downwards, then back again completely seamlessly.
You can grab this one as a free download thanks to independent label Forward Thinking Sounds.
