Women: Public Strain

Like they knew this would dominate my winter

Public Strain is brilliant.  Really really brilliant.  Don't believe me?

Buy it.  But a turntable and buy it again.  Tell everyone you know about it.  Send nasty hate mail to Pitchfork for not BNM'ing that shit to 10.

Hot New Trax from Steve Reich

Not too long a ago I got really into Steve Reich.  I listened to all ten discs of the NPU library's copy of Works while working in the basement in the media department.  I have the Deutsche Gramophone 3LP set of Drumming, I briefly had a portrait of the man as my profile pic, etc.  He was, for a short time in my life, the grand master of all things sonic, a position previously held by The Velvet Underground, Sonic Youth, Brian Eno, and more recently, J Dilla.

Reich's got a new piece out "Double Sextet/2x5" and it's streaming right here.  

Check out the 2x5 tracks, especially the first one.  It's absolutely amazing, which is no particular surprise considering the man is a bona fide genius.  Nor is the "rock instrumentation" surprising, Reich has done this before.  The biggest surprise was the sound of mix, especially the drums.  Those dry, tight drums that cut left and right, the decay of each note seeming to die down unnaturally, almost like they're sampled and triggered.  This doesn't sound like rock instrumentation, it sounds like experimental hip hop.  What's incredible about this is that the Steve Reich is one of the pioneers of sample based music, his innovations are part of the DNA of so much of the music we listen to.  Madlib even gave him a nod.  2x5 sounds like Reich remixed, like Reich chopped and screwed, like a much younger artist.  Good to hear.