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Monday 21 July 2008

Twin Hearts

Garmonbozia - Pain and Sorrow

I'm 12 years old and a cultural phemonenon enters my life. The forerunner of today's epics such as Lost, Heroes, Prison Break etc., Twin Peaks remains for me, the greatest TV event of our generation, if not the greatest TV show of all time. The only programmes that ever came within a whisker for me would be The Prisoner and Buck Rogers (yeah, you guessed, I'm a cult TV geek).

I could sit here all night and type out a full length essay on why this programme was so important to the progression of television as a cinemtaic medium, it's hidden symbolism and witty mysticism, the invention of "The water cooler moment", and so on, and so on. In fact, I used to pride myself (before I realised the whole ridiculousness of it) on the fact I once sat at a PC at University on a break for 4 hours and typed out my thesis on the true meaning of Twin Peaks, to send by email to a guy in the US. I wished I'd saved it now...he agreed with every thing I said.

Episodes on video tape, the soundtracks to the series and the film, the diaries of Cooper and Laura Palmer, the movie script (a must read - it will open your eyes more so than watching Fire Walk With Me), the official fanzine....every scrap of TP memorabilia I could, I would collect. And so when I first purchased my PC last year, one of the first albums I got was the Angelo Badalamenti soundtrack.

The guy is a scoring genius. Aside from the other work he's done for other movies and artistes, including the likes of Orbital, this must be one of the most memorable pieces of music to ever hit television. Who can forget the dreamy jazz themes, with the enigmatic dancing dwarf in the Waiting Room to the Black Lodge? Or the menacing synths, sampled by Moby so skillfully. Or the haunting piano refrain, Laura's Theme, accompanied by the image of the Homecoming Queen.

This track takes my favourite piece from the show - the jazzier side of things. Cooper's dream, so integral to the whole meaning of the show, was accompanied by this - the defining iconic moment of the two series was when the Man From Another Place turned to Cooper, 25 years in the future, sat in the Red Room/Waiting Room, and declares..."Lets Rock!". He proceeds to make apparantly random statements (which trust me, all make sense) before saying

"Where we're from, the birds sing a pretty song and there's always music in the air"

Then the most funky, spooky jazz bassline kicks in and the most amazing of dances is demonstrated to a befuddled Coop.

Imagine my surprise on Friday night last week when I was playing around with the files on my PC and Kylie of all people instantly fitted this instrumental.

As happens to me every now and then, I got really really excited by the prospect of the mash, and I had to complete it asap. I love the sound of Kylie, as if she's in some seedy gin joint in downtown '30s Manhatten, sounding beyond sexy as a tiny man in red performs his awkward jerky dance around her.

The addition of series' sleazeball/drug dealer/pimp Jacques Renault delivering another of the show's iconic lines - "Bite the bullet baby", hopefully all contribute to what I think you'll find is a pretty hypnotic mix, fan of the show or not.

And I'm particularly chuffed with the artwork for this one. While not as striking as some of the images I've made over the last few months, I love this one for producing a photo-mash of Kylie performing in the lodge for Coop from what was initially a pretty bad source piccie.

Twin Hearts

Angelo Badalamenti - Dance of the Dream Man (i)
Kylie Minogue - Two Hearts (a)



MP3 Download here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?lnxgdnb92wn

So set the lights to flicker, set your log to the side of you, not far from your Minah Bird, make sure the Dugpas in the hoodies aren't outside loitering with the One Armed Man, grab a slice of warm cherry pie with a cup of damned good coffee, and enjoy this surreal slice of Americana with a dash of Antipodean. Remember, the owls are not what they seem.

Lets rock!

PS. Still working on the hosting thing. I've found a pretty reasonable hosting site now to host my files and hopefully get the direct downloads up and running. Just got to read the instruction manual now, before I sign up! And I think I've found a pretty good preview flash player too. Watch this space.

PPS. The good Kylie is trapped in the lodge and can't get out

PPPS. I didn't ask last time, so was a lovely surprise when a video was made for one of my mashes - I'm actually begging someone to make one for this! Purrrrrrlease?

PPPPS. If any of you do not have a Scooby what I've just ranted about in this post, go check out the iconic dream scene for yourselves




EDIT: Yay! Good old Bobby M gave me the clap.....




.....'em over at

http://bobbymartini.blogspot.com/2008/07/bobby-martini-my-week-in-review-friday.html

and call my mum - I'm famous. I've achieved a career dream by finally receiving Mashup of the Week from the highly influential Attuworld, and the wonderful Simon Iddol. I can now give it all up and retire (as if...) ;D

http://attuworld.com/music/mashup-of-the-week-79.html

Friday 18 July 2008

Hustlin' Love

Well, I had to get one more in before the Leona backlash takes hold. Within the space of one week since posting my Coldplay mash with Leona, I have literally seen a dozen or more Leona mashes floating around on the boards, and it seems that everyone is getting sick of it! Not since the heady days of every other boot being a Destiny's Child mash, or Eminem, or Michael Jackson have I seen such an influx of different takes on one track.

As a result, I've decided to put a halt to the other 4 or 5 versions I was working on for fear of my flat being mobbed by Leona haters (who could be such a person?!), which is a real shame if only as I had two old school techno tracks going with this, that would have been worth the price of admission for the pun/titles alone...both were promising, although quite out of key, and instead of spending the next 3 months fiddling with pitch, I thought I'd sack it off and stick to this one. If you really want to know what I was planning, leave me a comment - you won't believe me when I tell you!

A quick 5 minute mash (he says having had it sat on his PC since last Saturday....sigh....too many nights out, not enough time!) this shows Leona should have been a disco diva instead of Cowell's patsy.

An instant idea in my head, although admittedly I was planning on using Van McCoy for something else - I'm fairly hopefully both are in the key of Fmajor so hopefully this will be more palatable to a few peeps.

It was good while it lasted Leona... I still love ya...

Hustlin' Love

Van McCoy vs. Leona Lewis (w/ Diana Ross)
The Hustle vs. Bleeding Love



MP3 Download Page Here
http://www.mediafire.com/?hlzmbzyr0mz


Still working on that MP3 Preview thingey! Anyone got any ideas...drop me a line.

And next week...a definite change of pace. The next track I'm just finishing is straight out of (Compton?) leftfield...in the words of the great Shaw Taylor - "Keep 'em peeled"

Sunday 6 July 2008

Talking Love

Yay! It's double release weekend! And I make no apologies for overloading you with tunes either.

I can't believe I didn't know about this earlier. Imagine my shock yesterday evening when browsing GYBO, I stumbled across a rather spiffing mash of Leona Lewis and Duffy, utilising an acapella of "Bleeding Love". Imagine my disgust with myself for not realising the STUDIO QUALITY acapella has been on release for a couple of weeks now and I hadn't picked it up! How many Leona mashes are already out there, I don't know, but I had to jump on the bandwagon and search down said acapella.

For you see, I make no secret of the fact that I am in love with Leona. Back on X-Factor a year or two ago now, Saturday nights would not begin for me until I had heard her sing. And I make no secret of the fact that everytime she sang, I cried like a baby. It's rare that a vocalist can have that effect on me (Jeff Buckley springing to mind as someone who could do it to me) but there was just something in her voice that sent the proverbial shiver down my spine, coupled with the fact she just seems so damned nice too!

So I managed to find it, and imagine my joy when I heard the quality of the MP3. In many ways, you don't need to mash it, since her voice is just spot on. I've rarely heard a pella so pure in its quality and beauty. As you can probably tell, I am REALLY excited by this pella (the last time I got like this was after grabbing a hold of Alicia Key's "No-One" - another high quality performance).

In fact, the original plan was to release an EP of Bleeding Love mashes, for I have approx. 5 other tracks I'm in the process of making with this vocal, but this one excites me so much, I couldn't wait, and just had to get it online. Needless to say, the others WILL show up on here shortly, and some of you may be surprised what I've mashed it with (think up-tempo and you're getting there).

But until they are ready, I hope this makes you all as happy as it makes me. If only as I've finally managed to use that pesky Coldplay instrumental I've had on my PC for 9 months!

Real chilled out indie rock with THE vocal of 2007. I'm in love...

Talking Love

Coldplay vs. Leona Lewis
Talk vs. Bleeding Love



MP3 Download Page Here
http://www.mediafire.com/?cmjami9t2tj


Don't worry, I am still working on a couple of other tunes not involving Leona, but if I can pull off the others I am doing, this could well become a Temple to Leona Mashes overnight! Hehe...

Saturday 5 July 2008

Give the Robots Their Liberty

Here's a quick one whilst I scan my musical brain for the next track.

This one originally came about when I first grabbed a hold of the Liberty X acapella a few months back. I was testing a few things out and this made the final list of tracks that could work; eventually this was pushed to the side whilst I worked on and released "Liberty Bell" instead, but when putting together my guest slot for Ramdom Thoughts, I was after an exlcusive track to play and instead of starting from scratch, I thought I'd be lazy and revisit this one.

The actual placing of the Liberty X vocal didn't take too long at all; no, the main amount of time was spent on scouring the internet for suitable robot samples! They're harder to come by than I imagined! I think I did ok in the end though, with some random ones, a touch of R2D2, some Cylon madness, and the dude from Lost in Space. I had to stop myself from adding a dose of my fave robot of all time though, the no-sh*t droid with 'tude, Twiki from Buck Rogers.

Good old Kraftwerk too, a million years ahead of their time.

Give the Robots Their Liberty

Kraftwerk vs. Liberty X
The Robots vs. Just a Little



MP3 Download Page Here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?3memmbtx21z


Right, I'm off out shopping - I'm out of WD-40...

See you all next week no doubt