Archives for October 2006
Three Times is a Pattern
Posted by Oscar at 08:21 pm.Forgive me if my posts seem more in the vein of “the last six months” than “the last six hours.” I’m not trying to kick off the end-of-the-year-wrap-up movement.
However, three talented and prolific musicians have each recently (relatively) released very likeable and very personal mixes. Jens Lekman’s “The Death of this Summer” is the shortest of the three, available for download on his site and including a few of his songs. James Murphy’s “45:33″ is available exclusively on iTunes and entirely self-composed (making it something quite different - a unique musical masterpiece, though still a mix). Kieran Hebden’s DJ Kicks album is a more conventional DJ mix, though it does includes one Four Tet track and few Hebden edits.
Each of these is, for me, a totally encouraging reminder of why we mix: Lekman reflects, Murphy expounds, and Hebden has fun connecting lost dots and testing the rhythmic resistance of, for example, Animal Collective to Madvillainy. I sometimes feel as though name DJs take the fun out of their game by overvaluing their role as tastemaker, grind provocateur, or He Who Knows All the Music You’ve Never Heard. It’s telling that three musicians who have established their identities primarily outside of the mixing/DJ scene manage to do something far more interesting than the self-proclaimed professionals: more personal, more movement specific, riskier. Maybe it’s simply the luxury of the mix being a side-project to your bigger work and not having to play it in for the bootypoppin’ club crew. In any regard, these three reminded me of how much I like them as musicians, and how much I like making mixes.