Does humor belong in music?

Fresh!

DIY coconut headphone

I like i-and-iPods but the earbuds suck and most big headphones that sound good don't look good. The solution: a diy coconut headphone.

Dub Conference feat. I-lodica and Rich from Dub Revolution

After they had conquered the Future Reggae festival at Ruigoord (NL) I-lodica and Rich from Dub Revolution visited the anoxic and overheated Dubshot Dub Shelter for a bit of jammin. We did three tunes, they're in the player and on Myspace. The first track is called don't mess with bill. The second tune called dub party is based on the party time riddim and it also features Marcus Hillman on guitar. The third tune is called new world disorder.

The Big Gundown: Boss RE-20 Twin Pedal vs Roland RE-201 Space Echo

The Boss RE-20 Twin Pedal is the digital cousin of the classic analog tape based Roland RE-201 Space Echo. The Boss pedal was released in 2007. Here's a small demonstration at NAMM 2007.

Science and the loony bin

Everybody knows that you can’t sit on the word chair, that you can’t eat the word bread and that there's no such thing as a 33 or a 2009. Words and numbers are abstractions. If you try to drive around town in the word car you are making an abstraction error. If you persist you are on your way to the RUBBER ROOM.

Miracles are nothing special says E. J. Littlewood

If you have never experienced a miracle yet that simply means that you're not normal and you should probably see a doctor. The famous British mathematician E.J. Littlewood has proven mathematically that miracles are to be expected at a rate of about one in every 35 days. If you don't believe this check the details over here and do the math yourself.

Schoenmaekers and Mondriaan - positively mystifying

Mathieu Schoenmaekers (1875–1944) is remembered as the philosopher behind the Dutch art movement De Stijl, made world famous by Piet Mondriaan. Here's a short account of how this happened: in 1910 the philosophically inclined Schoenmaekers (a former Catholic priest) came up with a new religious view. He called it Plastic mathematics or Positive mysticism, the word ‘positive’ meaning scientific.

RE-201 Roland Space Echo impulse responses 25-200 BPM

A hardware secondhand Roland RE-201 Space Echo is very expensive nowadays. These IRs don't offer the same flexibility as a real Space Echo but the sound is as warm and as analog as it gets. Please note that the noise was removed so if you need more realism you have to add a bit of noise. You can even try using only the left or right part of these stereo IRs, or set the wet signal to mono.

Visual dubbs

Mr. Wassily Kandinsky from Moscow was one of the greatest abstract painters of the 20th century. Or maybe i should say THE greatest. When he painted he heard sounds at the same time (synesthesia). That's why i think it's fair to say he was not only a painter but also a dub scientist. This year there's a really big Kandinsky exposition in Centre Pompidou until the 10th of august.

Steely Dan - Babylon Sisters (and some tech talk from the heavy rollers)

Luciano & Kenny B - Africa

The Not Easy at All Productions crew from Amsterdam are not wasting any time. Wang Sang e Dangra Deng was their first collaboration with Surinam reggae artist Kenny B and it went straight to number 1 in the Surinam charts. The follow up featuring Luciano may even be bigger. Don't take my word for it, just listen to the tune in the Not Easy Myspace player. Anyway i think the riddim (called the One Blood) fits daddy Luci's voice like a glove. As a matter of fact this is one of the best rootical dancehall productions to come out of the Low Lands ever.

Fyah Kee Riddim promo mix - Not Easy At All Productions

In the Netherlands only a few producers know their business when it comes to dancehall. To my ears the Not Easy At All crew is the #1 Dutch production team in rootical dancehall. They are a group of seasoned musicians and producers who use Myspace to reach out to reggae artists worldwide. Last year their collaboration with Kenny B did well in the charts and Luciano and Bushman even visited their studio in Amsterdam but most of all they produced a whole heap of fresh tunes. Here's a riddim called the Fyah Kee mixed by L.Slinga

Dub from the nineties?

I just realized that soon the nineteen nineties will be officially retro because the first decade of the 21st century is nearly done. So was there any good dub in the nineties? The Mad Professor kept the fire burning in the UK, especially the collaborations with L$P and Jah Shaka and the Black Liberation series, but to be honest i didn't buy a lot of dub albums back in the nineties. It was the times of lounge, triphop and six zillion boring remixes. Here are some albums that i liked, not all of them are dub but they sounded good to me anyway.