This Ain’t Your Mama’s World Music

Hi everybody.  This is Max Pearl, aka DJ Kat Fyte, checking in on behalf of the Together team to pick up a little bit where our other writers left off.  By now you’ve gotten the 4-1-1 on what to expect from many of the artists we’ll be hosting in our humble city, from UK mega-remixer Sinden to Brooklyn’s party-rap pioneers Das Racist. I must, however, express my glee at being able to accommodate some of the most significant proponents of the burgeoning “trans-national bass” scene here at the Together festival.  If you haven’t already heard, it’s like world music, except with attitude.

This year at Together we will be hosting two of “nu-whirled-music’s” biggest headliners, the veteran mixtape-master DJ /Rupture, who usually tends to avoid Boston if he can, and “the new kid,” a prolific remixer with a fancy haircut, the one and only Kingdom, recently signed to the un-fuck-with-able New York record label Fool’s Gold.  While they tend to find themselves side-by-side in the small crop of “nu-whirled-music” publications on the internet, they’ve each got a unique vocabulary of sounds from dancehalls and house parties across the globe.

As of late, Rupture has refined his sound, bringing us the half-step heat with the sounds of guacharaca shakers and accordion stabs from Colombian and Argentinean Cumbias, as well as the faster and more rave-friendly sounds of soca, dancehall, and the poorly-named “tribal” techno that’s been going around the blogosphere recently.  This ex-breakcore DJ has undoubtedly found his artistic niche, contributing eloquent and cutting-edge meditations on the politics of race, culture, and identity in music on his blog, Mudd Up!, keeping us updated on the state of contemporary party music from across the world.  You can expect everything from hype electro-reggaeton to 200 beat per minute mambo violento, and tons of exclusives from friends and contemporaries. He will be spinning on February 8th at the Enormous Room’s Beat Research party, which has been bringing off-kilter party electronica to Cambridge since 2004, and guess what:  THEY JUS’ GOT SUM NEW SUBS AND TWEETERS!!  Big ups to the BR massive!

Peep the links:

Rupture’s Brooklyn-based record label, Dutty Artz, gets a feature in Fader Magazine.

“Possibly the greatest mixtape ever:” 2001’s Gold Teeth Thief, free for download

Mudd up!:  the repository for those aforementioned meditations on race, culture, identity, and music

Kingdom will also be joining us next month at Together, hosted by DJs Rizzla and D’hana at their “trans-national bass” music party;  undoubtedly this headliner will pack tiny little Zuzu to capacity times five, so you might want to get there at 7.  Kingdom is among the few American remixer/producers to find recognition in the UK’s post-dubstep party-music scene, drawing upon the over-dramatic throwback sounds of Eurocandy rave synths, gender-ambiguous pitched up vocals, indulgent build-ups and bass drops, putting them in touch with the syncopated, snare-centric sounds of funky house and grime, creating bashy, femme-friendly hybrids that have been getting play from people like L-VIS 1990 and Bok Bok across the pond.  The dude is on fire, with exclusive mixes for hip party blogs Discobelle and Lower End Spasm and a bunch of killer singles, some of which are secretely floating around the global DJ community, some of which have been released for free to critical acclaim.   PS: homie if you’re reading this I’ll take some of those dubs if you got ‘em.  (mx (dot) pearl @ gmail (dot) com)

Check him out at Zuzu’s Nu Life party on Tuesday, February 9th with support from DJs Rizzla, D’hana, Justincredible, and Leah V- did we mentioned this is Boston’s hippest queer-friendly party ever?!

Kingdom’s mix for Lower End Spasm

The single that’s been playing everywhere, free for download – Marcus Price & Carli “Mat, Bira, Kvinnor, Weed (Kingdom Remix)

Till next time.