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Monday 7 May 2007

Six Day War

Well, it's not often that I dabble in politics, it's just something that I take note of but rarely speak out on or offer an opinion. There's no real reason as such other than I don't feel well placed to pass judgement on issues.

However, going through my CDs, and stumbling across DJ Shadow's 'Six Days', I sat and listened to the lyrics closely. It's always been my favourite track on the Private Press, and a few years ago I had a copy of the original track called 'Six Day War' by Colonel Bagshot, which I appeared to have lost. The lyrics refer to the 1967 war between Israel and several Arab states including Egypt, Jordan and Syria.

Anyhow, I was determined to find a copy of the original again, which I duly did this evening and immediately I was struck by it's harsh beauty all over again. I was determined to create something out of it, worthy of it's haunting lyrics, that had a relevance to the world today.

Starting at the source, I thought about something involving DJ Shadow, since he introduced me to the track in the first place. I found a copy of the original demo for Changeling from the 'Endtroducing' album, and the intro loop of the drums took hold of me straight away. Stick 'em in place and add a few filters and an hour later I had a wonderful dance track.

However, thinking of trying to get it more in to today's context, Faithless' 'Mass Destruction' came in to my head, and more specifically, a version I'd heard several times sampling George W. Bush over it, highlighting his (IMHO) hypocrisies and lies. I wanted to do something similar.

Finding a brill Bush sound website with literally upwards of 50Mb of Bush samples (and I took the lot!), I worked from the original mix I had just created, dropping in some appropriate sounds of war too. I make no apologies for some of the horrible sounds you can hear in the background. They are there to wake people up, if not already. I'm not having a dig at soldiers or families of soldiers; just the concept of war itself and how ridiculous it all is.

The end results speak for themselves in my opinion. I'm a rank amateur at this stuff, but for me, if I ever make a track half as good as this again, I'll be happy. I can now sleep a happy Andy....

Six Day War (I've Got Something to Say mix)

Colonel Bagshot vs. DJ Shadow vs. George W. Bush
(Six Day War vs. Changeling (Original Demo excerpt) vs. various politcal speeches)



MP3 here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?axt1gt26ryj

and the original

Six Day War (Beats Bagshot mix)

Colonel Bagshot vs. DJ Shadow
(Six Day War vs. Changeling (Original Demo excerpt)



MP3 Here
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"Tomorrow never comes until it's too late..."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

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