Artifacting

Putting I Between Art And Facts

music

In The Aeroskank Over The Checkered Pattern

by Leave a Comment

In the mood to ruin one of your favorite albums? “In The Aeroskank Over The Checkered Pattern” is an intentionally shitty all-ska cover version of Neutral Milk Hotel’s 1998 album “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea”. And it is truly shitty, but for me was worth the listen for the amusement alone. It was also interesting hearing this formidable album transformed into a tongue-in-cheek ska genre. This is “good” in a different way than Hamburger Helper’s “Food On The Streets” album is “good”. That is to say, it’s “shitty good”.

It is not the ska-based cover of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea we asked for, it’s the ska-based cover of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea we deserve. See also: Blooptral Milk Hotel.

Since They Left Us

by 1 Comment

My wife introduced me to The Avalanches when we first started dating – that was over 12 years ago. At that time, the groups first and only ablum, “Since I Left You“, was already 4 years old. And what a brilliant album it was. It was made entirely through a unique blending of an estimated 3,500 samples (Rumor has it that he song “Frontier Psychiatry” has something like 600 samples on it).

Well, 16 years since their original release, the Avalanches have announced they were finally going to be releasing (scheduled for July 8th) a full-length sophomore effort called “Wildflower”. The first single “Frankie Sinatra” features Danny Brown and MF Doom on it.


If the above single isn’t enough to tide you over here is a link huge list of downloadable Avalanches related mixtapes, live sets, and DJ sets

The Evolving Complexity In The Construction Of Rap Lyrics

by Leave a Comment


Right on the heals of this large hip hop mixtape dump comes an enlightening Vox video that explores the advancing complexity of rap lyrics and rhyme construction. Employing the research of Martin Connor and some helpful visual aids, the video explores how the best artists manipulate words, rhymes, beats, and motifs in continually sophisticated ways.

Here is a playlist highlighting songs used in the video and others that are choice examples of how outstanding rhyming in rap can be.

A Collection Of Thousands Of Hip Hop Mixtapes

by 1 Comment

Chance The Rapper

Jason Scott has uploaded thousands and thousands of hip-hop mixtapes to the Internet Archive (almost 6,000 to date). He says he has access to over 17,000 tapes and somewhere close to that number might end up on the Archive over the next few months. There is obviously a ton of hip-hop culture to dig through here. Jason notes:

There’s a lot coded into the covers of these mixtapes (not to even mention the stuff coded into the lyrics themselves) – there’s stressing of riches, drug use, sexual drive, and oppression. I’m personally fascinated at the amount of reference to codeine and the purple color of “Purple Drank”, which, if you’ve missed that subject matter up to now… good for you.

If you’re new to the world of hip-hop mixtapes (as I am) the links below should get your discovery started

This is a great time to point out that the Internet Archive is an invaluable resource. In these times of link rot and the haphazard closing of essential web services (we miss you Google Reader) the Internet Archive is, well, archiving the web. The Wayback Machine now indexes over 435 billion webpages going back nearly 20 years.

The end goal here, like all the things I do in this realm, is simple: Providing free access to huge amounts of culture, so people can reference, contextualize, enjoy and delight over material in an easy-to-reach, linkable, usable manner. Apparently it’s already taken off, but here you go too.

The Legacy Of Prince And Saturday Night Live

by 5 Comments

I didn’t have the privilege of seeing Prince perform live before his untimely death yesterday. But I have seen him perform a handful of times on television. You’re going to hear a lot about his blistering performance during the half-time show during Super Bowl XLI (2007). And rightfully so, this standout performance took place in a rainstorm and included “We Will Rock You”, “Let’s Go Crazy”, “Baby I’m a Star”, “Proud Mary”, “All Along the Watchtower”, “Best of You”, and “Purple Rain”.

However, my favorite televised performances were from his appearances on Saturday Night Live. On November 1, 2014, Prince bucked Saturday Night Live tradition by playing a single, eight minute, four-song medley (instead of the standard of multiple songs sprinkled throughout the show). The unbroken set consisted of pieces of “Clouds,” “Plectrum Electrum,” “Marz,” and “Another Love”. One of my favorite parts is when Prince attempted up turn up his guitar’s volume only to smile as he realized it was unplugged.


My very favorite Prince performance was his commanding execution of “Fury” for the February 4, 2006 Saturday Night Live. It had been over 24 years since Prince had last played on SNL and “Fury” had not been heard live or as studio recording up until this point. Prince’s guitar work for this performance was amazing. He effortlessly shredded the song up and down. My favorite part is the end, when he throws his mic stand on the floor while exiting the stage. He does this with a sly grin, letting his audience know he is fully aware that he was on fire.