the z = the u = the k = the o = the f = the s = the k = the y

I got to thinking about the music I posted that includes speech. it shares a lot with rap music: repetition, electronic sounds, & an ear tuned to the musical possibilities inherent to the ways we talk. increasingly I think people working in both traditions are acknowledging that overlap in trajectory, as when Madlib samples SR's come out on america's most blunted, or when Arnold Dreyblatt writes beats that seem to be in part a hearing-thru of interesting producers like Timbaland & El-P. I thought it might be fun to propose four companion songs to the ones in my earlier post.

El-P is always interesting. his stuff is unrelentingly maximal, a tropics of storming hot sounds. sometimes it makes me wish I were watching seinfeld. sometimes it's just jabberjaw & could use a dose of the neptunes. but I think he sometimes, as here, on tuned mass damper, really gets it right: stupendous stuff happens here. I don't mean at all to say the connection to idle chatter seems strong. but both have a thick, busy sound. & El-P's accustomed logopudding style of lyric seems a good corollary to the indistinguishability of the words in the Lansky piece. (listen closely: "microscopic Sally Struthers with a lobster bib / munching on white platelets" -- sweaty zaum! superhuh! El-P puts it this way: "motherfucker did I sound abstract? / I hope it sounded more confusing than that / cause my clarity was found / under the arm of an economy-sized mousetrap". I would like to say motherfucker more often.) anyhow, like a lot of El-P's beats, I think this works grandly as an instrumental, too.

I also don't mean to suggest any very strong connection between sooner or later & this song, saliva by Viktor Vaughn, with a gorgeous first-snow beat by rjd2 (who has broken my heart just like everybody's by putting out that record where he sings). I guess what I see them sharing (VV & Bob Ostertag, I mean) is an agility, an ability to continue producing amazing & surprising sounds from fresh directions. sooner or later reminds me of Lorca & a little of Clayton Eshleman in its pursuit of the boy's body. saliva is by contrast really humorous, in that word's oldest sense -- the angles of disconnect between lyrics, a sort of thrill of shifting attentions, are at the heart of what's interesting.

one thing flagging has in common with that's life by Killer Mike is a good rough sense of humor. hear, here. they're both a little antic. Killer Mike (I feel like a nerd when I talk about him because his name is Killer Mike, which is something I would never otherwise say) is a really clever guy, & I don't blame him he's angry. I guess I thought too that Steve Reich's political stake was somehow vaguely summoned by the phase-loop stuff in the stock, hausen & walkman song. maybe that's optimistic. a headline you will not see: KILLER MIKE RIGHT ON BUSH! fucking country. I can see honduras from yr mom, Sarah Palin.

& I'd like to match so many little dyings with a combination of two songs. (picture an ellipse.) the first one is we celebrate by Ghostface Killah -- listen to it here. I love the laser-beam sound in the background! it's obviously really different in tone from Kyle Gann's piece, but they both feel sort of candid (what whiteness can add to them?) & sort of tender. also dill pickle = big laughs, over here. but I also wanted to post a turkish rap song called katil, by a guy whose name I might be misspelling as Sert Musselmaner. (sorry, Sert.) follow this link & listen. all I know is katil means killer. the song has a great swirly-alley sound. I feel patient with that, like I feel patient with the simulated-beach sounds in KG's piece, because I think it's true that both sounds contribute to an overall cohesiveness in the recordings -- they're well-produced is all, really. & I think it can maybe begin matching so many little dyings in weirdness, which hooray. hooray!

alright alright. hope there is somebody out there reading this blog. I mean, what do you think? write me comments! join the blogvolution!