micapam | j.l.b

loft tomorrow

Posted on April 9th, 2008 by Joshua Mostafa.
Categories: uncategorized.

I’m playing the Loft at UTS tomorrow, 6-7 … few reggae tunes … supporting Kobra Kai.

0 comments.

freesound’s bandwidth

Posted on March 12th, 2008 by Joshua Mostafa.
Categories: tech.

The Freesound blog has a discussion on audio codecs and the high bandwidth problems they’re facing.
The most sensible solution seems to be use of flac instead of wav format. FLAC is lossless, unlike MP3; and it’s specially designed for compression of audio files, unlike zip or bz2 or other general-purpose compression formats.

The problem is lack of user-friendly tools. The ones that are available have various drawbacks …

Surely it can’t be that hard to write a thin GUI wrapper for the command line that can convert back and forth?

1 comment.

dub sessions

Posted on March 10th, 2008 by Joshua Mostafa.
Categories: music.

I’ve been listening to the Dub Sessions podcast. It’s great afternoon listening …

0 comments.

south rakkas sydney show

Posted on February 28th, 2008 by Joshua Mostafa.
Categories: music, sydney.

South Rakkas crew are coming to Sydney!

They’ve produced some great, unique riddims (Clappas, Chinkuzi etc) .. I interviewed them back in 05 - there seems to be a problem with the old Inna Riddim site but you can read the interview on their website (linked above - click on “articles”).

The Sydney gig is at the Oxford Arts Factory, Friday 7 March. Get down there. I think Void and Koncrete Jungle are on the same night - club hopping is in order! They’re all within spitting distance of each other on Oxford St so that should make it a bit easier.

Tickets from Moshtix or Jimmy Sing’s.

0 comments.

wolf

Posted on February 22nd, 2008 by Joshua Mostafa.
Categories: mix.

New studio mix for your aural delights. Drum’n'bass (plenty of dubwise, some other bits and bobs, some tracks from local producers) with reggae and a couple of hiphop tracks too. Inna riddim style mashup. Just shy of an hour.

Tracks:

Travellin’ - Blak Twang (LP version)
Transmission (Taxman rmx) - Generation Dub
Rise Your Gun - Slice
I Love My Baby (Benny Page rmx) - Busta Rhymes
Warp Speed - G-Dub vs Taxman
Deeper Rasta - Roughcut
Surround You - YT + Digital
England Story (Benny Page rmx) - YT
Step Iz Tha Move - Gotham
Rastaman - Roughcut
Come On My Selector - Squarepusher
Barbarians - Chase + Status
Brutality for Love - Sizzla
Dark Matter - Future Prophecies
Go Home Soundboy - Cocoa Tea
Eye for an Eye - Chukki Starr
Chaos Theory - Dom + Hive
On the Run (feat. David Boomah) - Shy FX
13 - Delicate Beats
Gash Dem - Chuck Fendah
Dubwize Selection - Roughcut
Ganja Anthem - Beenie Man
Werewolf - The Upbeats
Come Clean - Jehru the Damaja
Everyday (Chase + Status rmx) - Shy FX
Haul and Pull Up - Roughcut
Murderation (jungle rmx) - Ebony Dubsters
Fire Deflector - Temper D + K
Look Out - Freddy Fred
Relentless (Stakka + Skynet rmx) - Cause for Concern
Turn Down the Lights - Benny Page
Plastic Soul - Shy FX
Music a Go Bun Dem Down - Ritual

 

 Wolf Mix - Micapam [56:05m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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tanya stephens interview

Posted on February 15th, 2008 by Joshua Mostafa.
Categories: music, interview.

Tanya Stephens, maverick reggae singjay, is coming to Australia! This is something every reggae fan should be excited about, and in fact any music lover. She is not your typical dancehall diva – her songs don’t just move your feet, they touch your soul – refreshing the parts others cannot reach.

Her debut album Big Tings a Gwaan in 97 established herself as a distinctive figure in dancehall, her often caustic wit and lively sense of the ridiculous offset by the beautiful quality of her voice. She has always been willing to think laterally: after her first three highly successful reggae albums, she left Jamaica for a sojourn in Sweden and dabbled for a while in rock and folk. Her triumphant return to the reggae scene was heralded by the anthem ‘It’s a Pity’, sung over the ‘Doctor’s Darling’ riddim by German reggae outfit Seeed, a revisiting of the Gregory Isaacs classic ‘Night Nurse’.

She is also unconventional in terms of lyrical content; while not shy of the sexually charged topics common in dancehall (‘Boom Wuk’, ‘Freaky Type’), she’s willing to tackle much deeper subjects. ‘You Keep Lookin Up’ on her most recent album, Rebelution, challenges religious orthodoxy (a brave move in highly conservative Jamaica) and even homophobia (again, rampant in Jamaica, where gays are outlawed) on ‘Do You Still Care’. “I know it’s not the most welcome thing to say,” she says, “when you are who I am, and come from where I’m from, but I worship logic. I adore the ability to see beyond a singular human existence to what I interpret to be the divine, which is everything and everyone combined. I understand that we don’t have to agree on everything to co-exist, so I respect the rights of monotheists to believe in what they believe in. It doesn’t work for me though. And since by every measure of every belief system we all agree that we all have the same basic human rights, then I think I have the right to be a non-believer! Logic has taught me this.”

This focus on lyrics with real meaning – the lack of which in the music industry she pointed out on Ghetto Blues’ ‘Way Back’, comparing the unthinking output of many of today’s artists with the substantial content of songs by an older generation of artists like Marvin Gaye – is a characteristic of Rebelution that will be continued with her next LP: “I call it a continuation because I am doing basically the same thing I started doing a few years ago, which is discussing topics which are of extreme interest and importance to me and which I think other people share an interest in also. I believe discussion is the beginning of every solution and I dedicate my life to solutions so I will be taking on more topics which unfortunately too many humans tend to avoid.” It’s near completion, but don’t hold your breath, there’s no deadline: “For me, when I’m done means when I’m satisfied that it’s a good representation of my thought process and not just when is a good time to drop an album.”

Tanya’s Sydney show will be at the Oxford Arts Factory, 23 February 08. We asked her if she’ll be playing mostly the songs we know, or whether she’ll be bringing new tunes: “I won’t be introducing any unknown material if that’s what you mean by ‘new’. As a consumer I am disgusted when I pay to go sing along with my favourites and instead get some unfamiliar new stuff that I can’t possibly be expected to get my mind around in three minutes. I find that most people I know personally agree with me so I don’t subject people to what I don’t like myself. I’ve never been there before so we have a lot of catching up to do!”

We look forward to catching up!

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jackie orszaczky r.i.p.

Posted on February 4th, 2008 by Joshua Mostafa.
Categories: music, sydney.

Jackie Orszacky, one of the most respected musicians in Sydney, and indeed Australia, has passed away. He leaves a wife, Tina Harrod and her glorious soul-singer voice, and two young daughters.

I knew him only slightly (I interviewed him in May 2004 when we both lived in Newtown), but my impression was of a kind, perceptive and entirely unpretentious man. His loss will be keenly felt in the jazz and blues scene, and beyond. According to his website, his final album is currently being mastered and will be out later this year on Vitamin.

3 comments.

vinyl is even deader

Posted on January 18th, 2008 by Joshua Mostafa.
Categories: music.

Interesting article by Dave Stelfox in the Guardian about the demise of the 7″ single and the riddim album. Both are to be welcomed - JA 7″s are often of such bad quality as to be unplayable, and riddim albums usually consist of two decent cuts and about a dozen half-arsed attempts, and often don’t even contain the version (what we would call the instrumental). I’m sure there will be a lot of sad and nostalgic record collectors outside Jamaica though. From the article, quoting David Rodigan, who hosts the reggae show on Kiss 100 FM:

It’s a reflection of the economic realities in Jamaica that the emotional motivations of overseas collectors have for years propped up vinyl manufacture. Particularly in Europe, people still want to own reggae in that form because it helps them connect to the music’s original roots and culture. Now that’s coming to an end, though.

0 comments.

art official + ever living spirit + firehouse @ hermann’s

Posted on January 7th, 2008 by Joshua Mostafa.
Categories: music, sydney.

Art Official of Newtown Sound in Wellington, who I met at the Radioactive FM studios at the end of last year, is coming to Sydney. Alongside Switzerland’s Ever Living Sprit and Sydney reggae stalwarts Firehouse, he will be dropping tunes at Hermann’s on Saturday 12 January for “Global Warming“. Outernational vibrations!

0 comments.

peats rubbish

Posted on December 20th, 2007 by Joshua Mostafa.
Categories: music.

The Peats Ridge Festival has been cancelled. Damn.

0 comments.

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