One of my favorite videos on YouTube is this three-part series featuring Jerry Garcia diving in Hawaii with Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzman, who during his off time from the Dead, spent most of his time in the Ocean. While this video offers unprecedented insight into JerBear’s daily life, the best part is that it is scored by a live performance of Seastones, the experimental mod synth piece that was a collaboration between composed Ned Lagin and many members of the Grateful Dead, as well as David Crosby and a bunch of other crazy dudes. This is the sound of coral reefs.

Listening to Harold Budd for the last year has literally shifted my perspective on quote-un-quote popular music. When I heard this collaboration with the Cocteau Twins, well, I replayed it over and over and over until I could grasp the depth of its reach, which I’m not sure I have, so I’ll have to watch it a dozen more times. Such a beautiful tune, and the nature shots chosen to accompany it really make me feel.

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many of our dj and chitown brethren have long been buzzing about this curious bastard-genre moombahton, accidentally invented when dave nada played dj chuckie’s “moombah” at 108 bpm, recalling reggaeton. nada’s recent p4k-approved comp “blow your head vol. 2″ highlights some of the genre’s brightest moments so far. (preview it in this minimix)

the brightest of these comes from prolific big-haired netherlandic producer munchi. “hope” transcends genre tags entirely, bordering on emotional/spiritual more than anything else. a masterpiece!

mp3:
munchi – hope

our buds starfoxxx were so blown away by munchi’s sound that they flew him out to chicago — “Munchi took off with footwork and juke, and left us with Moombahton and Bubbling” — and have since taken to constructing their own. their new moombahton mix features a moombah’d-out “percolator”, alongside some new ones:

Moombahtonmix by starfoxxxchicago

zomes, lichens, soft circle, eachothers @ the soft house (copycat) in baltimore, md, 6.23.11
all photos by erez avissar.

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e & e is elijah crampton, with help from angelica olsen on vocals and ashland mines/totalfreedom. “reina” melds tribal hand percussion with gleaming 80s synths with haunted house laughter, to wonderfully hypnotic, transportative effect. all their tracks come highly rec’d.

mp3:
e & e – reina (tape cut)

track discovered via daytime television (aka teams collaborator jónó mí ló)’s great salem/silk flowers show dj set. (tracklist/download)

3.16.11.SALEM by jonomilo

It’s been over thirty years since house and techno music exploded out of South Side Chicago and inner-city Detroit, and most Americans still don’t know their dance music history. In 1977 a DJ named Frankie Knuckles moved to Chicago to spin and remix disco records at an underground club called The Warehouse. Out of a fringe subculture that formed there – gay and African-American – house music would emerge to become one the biggest club music genres in the world. Meanwhile, young black futurists of Detroit channeled their city’s post-industrial decay into a utopian machine music known as techno. In this Hip Deep episode, Afropop travels to Chicago and Detroit to explore the past and future of electronic music. Through dozens of interviews with seminal house and techno producers – including Paul Johnson, Vince Lawrence, Juan Atkins, and Carl Craig – as well as scholars, radio DJs and party promoters, we’ll find out how two chilly mid-western cities taught the world to dance.

afropop worldwide sent our pal wills glasspiegel and his partner marlon bishop to the midwest to document the history of chicago house and detroit techno for their afropop worldwide show, also touching on south african house and chicago juke/footwork along the way. a massive work, essential listening to those not fully up on their history.

Midwest Electric: The Story of Chicago House and Detroit Techno by Afropop Worldwide

more on afropop.org, also have a listen to wills’ eclectic radio mix for weird magic here.

[img: juan atkins by wills glasspiegel]