This is an album cover I illustrated for Javis Faux’s new album KAIZO, a collection of beats partly inspired by a notoriously difficult Mario ROM hack by the same name. For inspiration Javis shared some Dragon Ball Z and Taiyo Matsumoto images. With those as reference, I had very little trouble channeling my inner Akira Toriyama. You can see my sketches and hear one of the tracks below.
I was planning on creating a juke/footwork mix already, but with the passing of DJ Rashad it felt even more necessary. I still feel like I’ve only scratched the surface of footwork as a genre but it is clearly responsible for some of my favorite music in the past 4 years. The way DJ Rashad and other producers’ sound has wormed its way into other forms of electronic music and pushed artists to explorer higher BPMs is pretty fascinating. So I made this mix to reflect on some favorites and share a few new tracks artists have dedicated to Rashad. I also placed some download links for this and previous EXT SOURCE podcasts below. Enjoy!
Download Previous Mixes
XT SOURCE : 3 : Dedicated to DJ Rashad
EXT SOURCE : 2 : Potholes Podcast
EXT SOURCE : 1
Tracklist
It’s been almost a year since I made my last podcast. Recently I’ve decided to try my hand at them again, starting with EXT SOURCE : 1, inspired by my rarely-updated music Tumblr and focusing on drum and bass, jungle, juke, dubstep and bass music in general. You can stream it below.
Yesterday Potholes In My Blog posted my second EXT SOURCE mix, focusing mainly on beats. We’re in talks of making these podcasts a monthly thing, so look forward to more! Hopefully I can keep it up.
One of my goals since college has been to see Flying Lotus perform live. Last night I accomplished that mission, along with seeing performances by his friends Thundercat and Teebs at the 9:30 Club. All three were fantastic and my ears still haven’t recovered yet. Seriously, I think I need to invest in earplugs next time. You can see more photos on my Flickr account.
This is an album cover I illustrated for Potholes In My Blog’s Robot Soup, a compilation featuring instrumental tracks from the likes of James Pants, Suzi Analog, Kidkanevil and others. Those who donate $5 (which goes to charity in support of music education) will receive the 11×17 poster below.
This is an album cover I illustrated for Potholes In My Blog’s Robot Soup, a compilation featuring instrumental tracks from the likes of James Pants, Suzi Analog, Kidkanevil and others. Those who donate $5 (which goes to charity in support of music education) will receive the 11×17 poster below.
I’m happy to announce that I recently completed work on When The Beat Was Born, a children’s book written by Laban Hill which tells the story of DJ Kool Herc and his part in birthing hip-hop culture. I’ve been working on this book for quite a while and it feels great to see a finished product. I’ll discuss it more when Roaring Brook Press publishes it around Spring of next year.
Here is an album cover I designed for Choongum’s first EP, Fantasy, on the recently-launched Potholes Music. Most of the inspiration for this piece came from the strange, alien landscapes that appear in René Laloux’s Fantastic Planet, one of my favorite animated films.
You can read more about Choongum and Fantasy at Potholes In My Blog. And if you have about an hour to waste, why not watch Fantastic Planet in full on YouTube?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwjPB-8BcaY
Here is the ridiculous Rayforce/Sega Saturn-inspired artwork that I created for Potholes’ latest beat compilation. Rayforce (aka Gunlock aka Layer Section aka Galactic Attack) has been one of my favorite schmups for years so I felt this was the appropriate time to show my appreciation. You can download the compilation here.
The podcast I made for Potholes In My Blog is up! It’s basically an overall view of where my head is musically at the moment. You can check out the post here or listen below.
[audio:http://www.theodore3.com/files/Potholes_Podcast_Tedikuma.mp3]Tracklist
This week’s top weekly artist is Danny Brown, a rapper out of Detroit. He recently released a free mixtape that’s being touted as one of the best hip-hop releases this year.
For this piece I practiced some new techniques, specifically adding values with watercolors. I’m not sure how successful it was, but I like it overall.
Next up for my weekly top artist series is Samiyam, a beat maker associated with the Brainfeeder crew who recently released an album called The Sam Baker Album. A number of his beats include video game samples, so I imagined what a Samiyam NES game would look like. The giant fireball was inspired by an older interview with him. Thanks to Mykola for helping me identify Sam’s hat and shoes…
This is the first piece in a series of portraits I plan to do, inspired by artists that reach the #1 spot in my weekly Last.FM charts. I’ve been keeping track for a few weeks. The first artist is Dego, one-half of the famous broken-beat duo 4Hero, part of Silhouette Brown, along with several other collaborations and aliases. This particular piece was inspired by his new album A Wha’ Him Deh Pon’? which I’ve really been enjoying for the past week or so. The pattern was inspired by the album cover designed by Nancy Jimenez. See sketches and a sample of Dego’s music below.
Download: ♪ CoverCast #8: Light The Way
[audio: http://www.theodore3.com/files/covercast8.mp3]After a small hiatus, I’ve finally found time to put together a new mix. There’s no real underlying theme here other than putting together some recent favorite tracks. I did unintentionally include a few songs that reference light in some way. Maybe it was a subconscious decision… This is also the first mix I’ve made in Logic Express as opposed to Garageband. I have to say it’s a huge improvement. Anyway, enjoy the mix and check the tracklist below.
Potholes In My Blog released their first podcast today. I put together some quick cover art using a wintery public domain image and some of my own touches. I have to give credit to BTS Radio as an inspiration. Charles Munka has done some amazing work for BTS over the past few years. I’m hoping I can do something similar with Potholes’ podcasts. You can stream the mix below and download it at Potholes.
[audio: http://potholesinmyblog.com/audio/Potholes%20Podcast%20January%202011.mp3]“After receiving endless amounts of requests, the official Potholes Podcast has finally arrived! We threw ideas back and forth, and we figured the best way to do it is to keeps things simple and to the point. With that said, the Potholes Podcast will arrive at the end of every month, showcasing the best mp3s we featured from the past four weeks. You can also expect to see some exclusives and unreleased tracks mixed in as well, so keep your ears opened and your eyes peeled!”
Here’s another site I designed over the Christmas/New Years break. Datahowler is an electronic musician and graphic designer that I got to know primarily through Potholes. I tried to base the design somewhat on the cover he created for his debut album. That album’s releasing soon (January 25th), so be on the look-out!
Download: ♪ CoverCast #7: Kaiden
[audio: http://www.theodore3.com/files/covercast7.mp3]For my seventh CoverCast I wanted to do something for Halloween. 怪談 (Kaidan) essentially means “ghost story”, so I pulled together a few of the darkest music I had along with clips from horror films and tv shows. Play it at your Halloween party or something! There’s a few minutes that are actually danceable. People will love it, maybe. Warning, there is some strong language.
Download: ♪ Sega Saturn Megamix
[audio: http://www.theodore3.com/files/sega_saturn_megamix.mp3]I think I’ve wanted to put together a mix like this since middle school. During that time, 90% of the music I listened to came from a Sega Saturn game. I was pretty excited to discover that most Saturn games could play audio tracks in a regular CD player. It was like getting a free soundtrack with every game! I loved it. At one point I started recording tracks onto cassettes, probably before my family’s computer could burn CDs.
I still remember the day I got my Saturn. My father had gotten a raise and said I could go to Toys ‘R’ Us and buy whatever I wanted. I glanced over the Playstation and Nintendo 64 and decided on a Saturn. Even then I was a Sega fan. It came with Nights Into Dreams, Virtua Fighter II, Virtua Cop and Daytona USA, some of the best games I’ve played. I also bought Space Jam, which was pretty terrible but I loved it anyway. After playing Sega Genesis for years, playing Cyber Speedway on the sampler disc (remember those?) with CD-quality sound was pretty amazing.
Saturn games actually introduced me to a lot of music that I still listen to today. Wipeout’s soundtrack by Cold Storage stands out as one of my first introductions to electronic music. After hearing it I headed out to the local FYE, browsed the “Dance” section and bought Roni Size & Reprazent’s album Newforms based solely on the cover art. It was the first album I’d ever bought with my own money. I’ve been hooked on drum breaks of all forms ever since, all thanks to a game about racing flying vehicles that shoot each other with rockets.
That is why I decided to make an ode to my Sega Saturn in the form of this mix. I’m still nostalgic for the days when Sega was a strong first party company, the days when Babbages sold Japanese import games, the days before the local arcade was converted into a hair salon and, well, the days when game discs had music on them. I’m not sure if others will connect with this mix as much as I do, since nobody I know ever owned a Saturn. But hopefully some of these will still be familiar. I may even make a part two since I had to cut some tracks to keep the mix around an hour. I also want another chance to draw Sonic The Hedgehog… You can check out my sketches of angry Sonic below.
Tracklist
1. Intro (Virtua Cop)
2. Warning (Burning Rangers)
3. Richard Jacques – Start of Race (Sonic R)
4. Bygone Dogs – I Will Not Take It (Cyber Speedway)
5. Zuntata – Penetration 〜Mind Bomb〜 (Layer Section)
6. Takenobu Mitsuyoshi – Black Cat Moon (Virtua Fighter II)
7. Hyakutaro Tsukumo – Legendary Wings (Thunder Force IV)
8. Richard Jacques – Gene Gadget, Act Two (Sonic 3D Blast)
9. Takenobu Mitsuyoshi – Sky High (Daytona USA)
10. Justin Scharvona – Fight Night With Flibby (Croc)
11. Channel X – The Fantom Voltage (Steep Slope Sliders)
12. Channel X – So High (Sega Touring Car Championship)
13. Hiroaki Yoshida – High Scores (Winter Heat)
14. David Leytze – Beginning (Fighting Vipers)
15. Shusaku Uchiyama – Liliane Theme (Mega Man 8)
16. Takenobu Mitsuyoshi – Jeffrey’s Stage (Virtua Fighter Kids)
17. Shun Nishigaki – Sakura’s Theme (Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo)
18. Richard Jacques – Living In The City (Sonic R)
19. CoLD SToRAGE – Brickbat (WipeOut)
20. Naofumi Hataya – We Are Burning Rangers (Featuring Dennis St. James) (Burning Rangers)
21. Marlon Saunders, Gabriel Morris & Issa Clemon – Dreams, Dreams (Christmas NiGHTS)
22. Richard Jacques – Level Complete (Sonic 3D Blast)
23. ??? (ManX TT Superbike)
This is an album cover I created for Potholes In My Blog and Prefix Magazine’s new mixtape “Summer Sampler”. It’s pretty self explanatory, I think. Summer is hot and things melt in the heat. I was planning to use linework on the boombox (which you can see below), but I decided to do something different and render it in Illustrator. I learned a few tricks along the way that I may use later. Anyway, you can download the entire mixtape here and here.
Download: ♪ Potholes x PrefixMag Summer Sampler
The Emay, Karen & The Kids EP is a set of beats created by producer Emay, made from samples from the Where The Wild Things Are movie soundtrack. Of course, I jumped on the chance to do the cover art. Beats, Karen O, Maurice Sendak… You can’t go wrong. Link to the download and a sample track below.
Download: ♪ Emay – Emay, Karen O & The Kids
The Emay, Karen & The Kids EP is a set of beats created by producer Emay, made from samples from the Where The Wild Things Are movie soundtrack. Of course, I jumped on the chance to do the cover art. Beats, Karen O, Maurice Sendak… You can’t go wrong. Link to the download and a sample track below.
Download: ♪ Emay – Emay, Karen O & The Kids
This is artwork I created for Cold Legistics’ beat album Northern Star. I struggled a bit finishing this, not being happy with the results until I made a lot of adjustments. In the end I’m pretty happy with it. You can download a track from the album over at Potholes In My Blog.
Download: ♪ CoverCast #5: WAVE
[audio: covercast5.mp3]It’s been a while since my last CoverCast, but I finally put something together this week. Partly inspired by the new Shafiq Husayn album, this is a selection of future soul/funk tracks. I hope you enjoy! Click the cover or link to download.
1. Sonar Kollektiv Orchester – Ain’t No Dream
2. Electric Wire Hustle – Perception
3. Ta’Raach – Catch My Breath (World) (Featuring J Mitchell)
4. Shafiq Husayn – Dust & Kisses (Featuring Noni Limar)
5. Eric Lau – I Don’t Do It To (Featuring Tawiah)
6. Dwele – Workin’ On It
7. Platinum Pied Pipers – Pigeon Hole
8. The Sa-Ra Creative Partners – Can I Get You Hi
9. Dam-Funk – (My Funk Goes) On & On
10. Muhsinah – NetKnot
11. The Foreign Exchange – Take Off The Blues (Featuring Darien Brockington)
12. Robert Glasper – Butterfly
For some reason I decided to redesign my music-focused website. I’m glad I did because it’s a vast improvement over the original, I think. I better-organized the music pages, improved the video page and reorganized the blog. I’ve also been trying to record more stuff lately, so hopefully I’ll have some new beats up at some point.
Also, another video I hadn’t posted yet…
Download: ♪ CoverCast #4: 9/6
[audio: covercast4.mp3]As I mentioned on The Cover Up, my job’s been a little stressful recently. So this week I put together a mix of tracks that are good for keeping me sane during my daily 9 to 6. The impressive Astrud Gilberto edit by Shigeto comes from a free EP download available at the ISO50 blog. I’ve also used a track from Nicolay’s fantastic new album, Shibuya: City Lights Vol. 2, released this week. Now get back to work.
1. Herb Pihofer – Hail Ceasar
2. Jeff Parker – Beanstalk
3. Koushik – Coolin’ (Instrumental)
4. Jackson Conti – São Paulo Nights
5. Astrud Gilberto – Berimbau (Shigeto Edit)
6. Triorganico – Correndo
7. Nicolay – Omotesando
8. 9dw – Thinking Makes A Mistake
9. Savath & Savalas – Pavo Real
10. Quantic & His Combo Barbaro – Undelivered Letter
11. Quarteto Novo – Síntese
12. Cut Chemist – Spoon
13. Samon Kawamura – Out-Take 0810-012
14. Bibio – All The Flowers
15. Tortoise – Charteroak Foundation
16. Toumani Diabaté – Elyne Road
Download: ♪ CoverCast #3: Three
[audio: covercast3.mp3]Unfortunately, I didn’t make many Cover Up posts this week. But I did put together a new CoverCast. This week I wanted to share some great electronic music and a touch of instrumental hip-hop. Some old, some new, some sort of new. Thanks to Ed for sharing the Joy Orbison track. It’s crazy. Everyone loves dubstep these days, right?
1. Phaseone – Marty & Sonietta
2. MONO/POLY – The George Machine
3. The Clonious – Emora
4. Daedelus – Get Off Your HiHats
5. Joy Orbison – Hyph Mngo
6. Clark – Mercy Sines
7. Zomby – One Foot Ahead Of The Other
8. Dr. Who Dat? – Laws of Clover
9. Squarepusher – Greenways Trajectory
10. Yellow Magic Orchestra – Technopolis
11. Bumps – Tryplmeade Gorsmatch
12. Teebs – Untitled
13. Thavius Beck – Under Pressure
14. Ceephax – Hull Pressure
15. Plug – Brave Lick
16. Hudson Mohawke – Rising 5
17. Gonja Sufi – Ancestors
18. Ras G – Incoming
19. Stevo – Milky Way Driver
20. 00Genesis – Geomancer
Download: ♪ CoverCast #2: Jazz Epic
[audio: covercast2.mp3]Very soon after I put together the first CoverCast, I decided to pull out some of my favorite records and stay up until 5 AM to create an epic 45 minute mix of loud, soul-churning jazz-fusion. This is the end product. The plan was to make a non-stop blend of heavy jazz-rock, like tracks two through five. But I decided to spread it out a bit, eventually splitting the mix into movements (ala the epic fusion suites of yore) with appropriately epic titles (I’ve never heard the word “PEREGRINATION” before). Fusion was a staple of my music diet in high school and on, so I hope you enjoy it. I know I did… Click the link or covers to downloat the zip file, which includes the tracklist.
Intro
1. Laurence Welk & Orchestra – Moon River / Soundcraftsman – Instructional Test Record
Movement I : The Vivication
2. Tony Williams – Some Hip Drum Sh!t
3. The Mahavishnu Orchestra – Vital Transformation
4. Jean-Luc Ponty – Enigmatic Ocean, Pt. 2
5. Al Di Meola – Morning Fire
Movement II : The Peregrination
6. Weather Report – Scarlet Woman / Trazana Beverley – No Assistance
7. Airto Moreira – Wake Up Song
8. Larry Corryell & The Eleventh House – Yin
9. The Mahavishnu Orchestra – Inner Worlds / Arthur Ashe – Learn Tennis
10. Tony Williams – This Night This Song
Movement III : The Ascension
11. McCoy Tyner – Fly With The Wind
12. Flora Purim – Open Your Eyes (You Can Fly)
13. Ashok Ingle – Raga Darbari / Devadip Carlos Santana & Turiya Alice Coltrane – Guru Sri Chinmoy Aphorism
Movement IV : The Resurrection
14. Stanley Clarke – Life Is Just A Game
Download: ♪ CoverCast #1: G4G4
[audio: covercast1.mp3]Today I’m posting G4G4, the first ever mixtape (I don’t want to call it a podcast) for my Cover Up blog. I’ve wanted to create a mix for a while, so I pulled together some of my favorite tracks and artists from this year to see what I could come up with. It’s mostly a selection of hip-hop and electronic music. The track list is below and you can click the covers to download. I plan on doing some more mixes later. For the front and back cover I used photos I took at the Freer & Sackler Galleries in D.C. (I put a slideshow below for fun). I hope you guys listen and enjoy.
1. Triorganico – Balloons
2. Blu – Amnesia
3. Prefuse 73 – Regalo
4. Mabanua – Liquid
5. Misel Quitno – Pull It Down Somewhen
6. ZKPRZ – Phantasmagoria
7. Flying Lotus – Parisian Goldfish (Take Remix)
8. Harmonic 313 – Dirtbox
9. Willie Isz – Shine
10. Samon Kawamura – cp2sk (Featuring Christian Prommer)
11. J Dilla – Spacecowboy vs. Bobble Head
12. CO$$ – Be Like You (Featuring Terem)
13. Exile – Stay Tuned (Here)
14. Dak – fortheSUN
15. The Gaslamp Killer – Baiafro
16. Luke Vibert – Computer Complex
17. Squarepusher – Seb-1.02
18. 9DW – Begin To Sing For Appetite
Today Potholes in My Blog released a mixtape of exclusive and unreleased hip-hop tracks mixed by DJ Traumatix. I was asked to do the cover art, which I think turned out pretty well. The first cover I did is at the bottom, but we decided to go with something simpler and more readable, which is the cover at the top. You can download the mix here or below.
I’ve made a second website for myself, meant more specifically for my music. It’s accompanied by another blog that will include posts about music, art, culture and whatever else inspires me.
The site looks a little off in Internet Explorer, but it should look fine in other browsers. Not much new music up yet, but hopefully I can sit down and concentrate on making some new stuff soon… Check it out! Tell me what you think! And don’t forget The Cover Up and Cheesewich.
Yes, I made another blog. It’s an extension of The Cover Up called The Cover Down, essentially for when I don’t feel like writing. Just a constant stream of good album cover art that I happen to come across. Since I finally got my scanner to work with my new computer, I’ll also be scanning in some album covers from my collection.
Bone Burnisher – B U D A
Bone Burnisher – Rap Music
Bone Burnisher – Wood
Hannah, Stefanie and I have work being shown at TeaCO, thanks to the Student Hip-Hop Organization. The opening last night well cool. It included a beat battle that I entered. I was beat out by a guy with a krunk-ish beat which I was no impressed by (!) by that’s fine. The experience was good. People nodded their head to “Ghost” and the DJ told me it was a good track. The only downside to the show is that I didn’t spray mount my work well enough so I had to fix a few with Elmer’s glue. Hopefully they stay put. They probably won’t.
Also, I’m posting three new beats I made before the show opening.
So I made a page on Virb.com for Mr. Bone Burnisher, thanks to a DevArt friend’s advice. It’s cleaner than MySpace and allows you to store more songs. If you’re wondering what the hell those “songs” are, it’s music I made in GarageBand using samples from songs in my iTunes library. It may not sound like much, but this type of thing is something I’ve been interested in for a long time. GarageBand isn’t the most sophisticated program, so it’s hard to get exactly what I want. But it’s fun to poke around and play with sounds. Maybe one day I’ll have the software and hardware to make better stuff. For right now, it’s all in fun. Where does the name “Bone Burnisher”? Inside joke.