Free Lab Radio Podcast - Disquiet, Afternoon Music for Day or Night

This week: 'afternoon music' that can be listened to at any time: 21 tracks by 13 artists mixed by guest producer Marc Weidenbaum who founded and moderates the music community Disquiet Junto since 2012.

This seasoned selector and music reviewer put thought into this mix, as he is familiar with the Resonance104.4FM audience and has unfathomable archives, created by himself, at his disposal.

"This is mix of afternoon music that can be listened to at any time of the day — the work played here, 21 tracks in all by 13 artists, is generally ambient and electronic in nature, and yet it’s fairly rhythmic at the same time, some of the tracks more explicitly so than others. There are fractal algorithms from Erika Nesse, and refrigerator drones by Nystada. There’s elegantly layered sameness by Marcus Fischer and fourth-world blues by Yasuo Akai. Several of the recordings heard here are drawn from the music community called the Disquiet Junto, which I’ve moderated since 2012. The hour starts off with some brief dank techno miniatures by Vladimir Conch. Conch’s pieces are so brief, between 23 and 38 seconds each, that I’ve chosen to repeat a few of them, turning the five short original tracks into a suite of nine that begins where it ends."

dɪsˈkwʌɪət/

noun

noun: disquiet; plural noun: disquiets

1. 1.

   a feeling of worry or unease.

   
   

   "public disquiet about animal testing"

   
   

   synonyms:

   unease, uneasiness, worry, anxiety, anxiousness, distress, concern; More unrest, disquietude, inquietude; perturbation, consternation, upset, malaise; alarm, anguish, fear, fright, dread, panic, angst; nervousness, agitation, restlessness, fretfulness, jitteriness; foreboding, trepidation "there has been grave disquiet about the state of the prisons"

   antonyms:

   calm

Broadcasts Times: 

On air on 104.4FM across London, online and on digital.

Saturdays 11-midnight UK time, (2-3am GST Gulf Standard Time)

Repeats Tuesday 4am UK time (7am GST)

On digital across Brighton and online:

The following Friday 19:30-20:30 UK time (10:30-11.30pm GST) on Resonance Extra

Podcasts: 

Visit www.mixcloud.com/Fari

Formidable. Papoutai by Stromae.

One of our favourites tracks from this week's Free Lab Radio mix is a remix which features Belgian singer-songwriter Stromae. 
Papaoutai is a forceful track sung from the perspective of a child whose father was never home. The refrain "Ou ton Papa? Tell me where you father is?" is what people constantly asked the singer at school and as a child in Belgium, as Stromae's father died in the Rwandan Genocide where of course Belgium was the last colonial power.
We've found a translation of the lyrics below. "Everyone's knows how to make babies but they don't all know how to be fathers." The choreography is amazing, especially at 2' when the kid learns to adopt the dance and when the kids lead.

Although there are elements of Eurotrash in Stromae's musical production (well, Belgium), the minimalism and the elements of African influence, which are also echoed in the videos and costumes, more than make up for it. For elements of thism see his latest track Ta Fete (slang for 'your day') and for his satirical play on Belgian identity and attitude to sex, check out Moules Frites.

Are we sure he has a sense of hunour? Of course, look at his entrance to the NRJ Music Awards. His strongest work? Tous les mêmes without a doubt. It's moving into another realm of treatment of subject matter and drawing on traditions in music and performance that will eventually make his work classic. Oh yes, the English translation.

MIA Latest Video - 3d Gun Prints, Drones and 1984

World's Smallest Drone, So Far The Bugbot Nano

And the video was banned, MIA's label wouldn't upload it. But before we get too excited, MIA is just doing what she does best, hunting out what's cool and edgy in subcultures so that she can play off that. Parrots, neon, dogs, monkeys, MIA and the Party Squad make a tropical zoo out of estate life. The video  here - aside from the musical reference below; Shampoo Trouble - an Orwellian Dystopia in which we are monitored from the sky and online, and kids printing guns are either prepping for war or to burn out in schemes of their own doing.

 Much like the Shampoo rebels below thrown
out of the O Bar last century (the bar's still standing by the way) these kids are spirited, the best bit is the girls in burqas with the faces of other women printed on them, many of the kids are twins (a reference to the increased use of fertility drugs or cloning). What's weird is not the retro nature of the video, so many producers are into retro right now (check Casiokids) or the retro beat (TIME magazine mistakenly call it dubstep-inspired, but really it's a mash up of styles and works well that way) it's the way the kids behave, there are no adults present (aside from Mamma-MIA) plus the fact that she uses auto-tune and no one minds. These kids don't rate each other on their guns, the DIY guns look like toys, and they hang out in prison regulation sweatpants under the UFO-like drones. Nevermind that drones now can be as small as a bug.

"This sounds like science fiction, but to some it's not so far fetched..."
This isn't what we expected to hearing about MIA right now. For example, how's she managing that   $16.6 million lawsuit from the NFL for flipping the bird at the Superbowl?

Urban Turban - Cornershop's New Album 2012

The track here, 'Milkin' It' featuring In Light Of Aquarius from Cornershop's new album (released May 2012), is a critique of hip hop today. In itself it's a minimal crash, as adventurous in it's nudity as some tracks by MIA. The bass line says "Cornershop!" but the rest of it, really is an experiment for them. The guys don't seem to enjoy sticking to a genre, which for me is exciting and natural.
Stripping it bare when technology allows you to slap on more, is hot stuff right now. I keep going to parties where people are dancing around to a simple beat and some ambient noise, not much else. We're so overloaded, that we're reaching for the metronome so we can act out all the words and rhythms that  have built up in our heads during urban journeys? That's it! We're unwinding the urban turban a veritable beehive of sirens, advertising slogans, snippets of TV, radios and second hand I-pod noise and punctuated by bus brakes, alarms and drilling.

"Jiggy jiggy jiggy is all I hear; no rhyme, no style, no original beats."