on heavy rotation this week on the proverbial boombox:

Stumbled across this the other day at CD Esoterik while checking out all the hubbub surrounding the new Crackhaus EP, which while not bad didn't get a rise outta me, but that's another post.

I'd tried several times on Amazon to procure this puppy, only to be defeated by the blasted out of stock email after placing my order. As I've probably rambled on before, track #4, “The Love you bring” is one of the most emotively compelling pieces I've ever heard. The cut up treatment of the female vocal, such that her words are always teetering between the abstract and literal, coupled with the profound yearning of her voice, its like that unrequited love that almost was. If only you'd said the right words and the right time.

After my gig with Gys last month in Miami, decided to revisit Todd's debut album and this time really get into it. Lots of deliciously organically shifting, bubbly textures that emerge, and then re-submerge themselves dub-stylie. Todd's production here has a great sense of space and placement. It'd be fun and interesting to do a collaboration with him, I know I'd pick up a lot of great ideas on new ways to work. Notable tracks: Gymnasium, Mor and Tried.

Thanks to KaZaA I've been able to preview a handful of DJ Shadow tracks from his debut album Endtroducing. So with a couple of individual favourites like “Organ Donor” and “Stem/Long Stem”, I had high expectations for album as a cohesive piece of work. While very good in places, I didn't really feel the album worked for me, its myriad little hip-hop-esque interludes felt fragmentary and were distracting. To its credit though, it had the feel of work with the potential to grow on you. All in good time.

coolpix from miami have been posted.

Avg. Hours of Sleep: 4

Number of Hotels: 2

Nights on a Boat: 1

Sets played: 2

Solid contacts to followup with: 3

$13 Vodka Red Bulls: 1

Fave Venue: Bash, 655 Washington Ave.

Fave Vibe: Osunlade/Jojoflores/Wunmi

Fave Grub: Rabo Estafado from El Viajante vs. Tortas de Carnitas from Roberto's

Nubilicious Latina count: 394 at last glance around the street

Number of “It's Lenny Kravitz!!!” moments: 3

Soirees: Friday March 5 - Tuesday March 9

Friday: Gotsoul, Yoruba & Aquabooty party @ Goddess
Osunlade, jojoflores, Erro (Live!), Nadirah Shakoor (Live!), Wunmi (Live!), Siji (Live!), Osunlade (Live!), Gabriele Poso (Percussion).

This was my stylish debut to getting jiggy in Miami Beach. It was quite a treat after a solid Jojoflores set to see a cowrie-adorned Wumni sway on stage to a packed house singing “Oya! Oya! Oya!” before busting into serious pidgin and Yoruba.

Afterwards, Osunlade came on with a live band and gave rather average performance, definitely not up to snuff. He played the keys, while some others I didn't know held down the riddim and vocal sections. Fortunately afterwards though, he got behind the decks and made us all ask if “you Rader Du or you Rader I Du ”. hehehe. Overall, a very chilled vibe, met some interesting characters from NYC and Chicago, among others.

Saturday: Fox and Hounds, Fort Lauderdale

About a month ago, when plans for this night were coming together, I reported that the gig was supposed to go down at the Indian Creek Art Deco Hotel. Well those plans changed in the week before the conference and the masterlist reported that we were scheduled for a club called Johnny V's in Fort Lauderdale.

Fast forwarding to the night of the gig, Eddie (Zero G label head) gets a call saying that the club had cancelled our night. In a mad scurry, some folks manage to nail down a venue, and Gys and I end up playing at the ... *drum roll* ... Fox & Hounds British-American Pub in Fort Lauderdale.

After some minor cables-are-plugged-in-but-we-have-no-sound scary moments, I was sorted out, went on about 1 am, played for an hour and which point, Gys came on and closed out the night.

All in all, not bad, quite happy to be playing out. Nice and funny how playing out shows you what works well and what doesn't, and sheds a whole new perspective on live arrangements. Needless to say, I'm ready to kick things up a coupla gears.

Sunday Afternoon: private poolside cookout @ ZeroG HQ, Fort Lauderdale.

I played a chilled set. Traffic was prohibitive to mad guestage, but we had fun. Afterwards, we all took a nice boat cruise through the ultra-wealthy Fort Lauderdale residential canals, stopping over for a pint at this canal-bar with a dock for your boat!!!

Sunday: Jeff Mills @ B.E.D.

After getting past the pretentious bouncer trying to “fake the funk” with us, we got into B.E.D. hehehe. Beds with bamboo posts and white bedsheets throughout the venue could be rented by VIPs to drink champagne, dance and be “exclusive” on. An hour into taking it all in Mr. Mills came on and rocked the house.

I wasn't especially familiar with his music, but knowing techno DJ sets, it can be tough to show your mad metacarpal dexterity like you can in hip-hop. Mr. Jeff made effective use of the kill switch, riddmic silence and just plainly tight arranging to weave one of the best straight-up techno sets I've heard live. Why isn't this guy bigger in North America ??

Afterwards, headed over to the Opium garden, but was blocked by a retarded French bouncer distracted by all the “chaire fraîche” caressing his corneas. The scene looked beat and mean, so we split to grab some breakfast @ the Big Pink before heading over to the by-then-closing Nikki Beach Club.

Monday: With time and music running out, hopped around several venues:

@ Bash: DJ Sneak, DJ Heather, East Coast Boogiemen and others. Amazingly chilled vibe here, great venue and wikkid patio out back. Lots of chilled 'heads getting down. Packed to the hilt.

@ Mirage: Onionz, Doc Martin, Fred Everything, DJ Peoples and others. Music was okay, nothing that really inspired rump shaking, also quite sparsely attended. Met some “interesting” people.

@ Privilege: Matthew Dear, Christian Smith, Justin Robertson and supposedly Luomo. Got no love though, 'cos after hopping back and forth between Bash and Mirage, I hoped to catch a late Luomo set, no such set happened. verrrrrry grrrrrrrrrrr. The vibe there wasn't my style anyway, waaaay too aggressively tripped out.

Tuesday: XLR8R Party @ Goddess
Luomo, Mr. Scruff, Michael Mayer, Superpitcher, Stacy Pullen and Telefon Tel Aviv.

After randomly meeting up with Eddie, Kiran and Cat at the door and getting in [pretense] free (woohoo!!), I was pleasantly surprised to see Luomo doing his thang in the booth so early in the night. This of course, meant that the floor was congestion and riff-raff free, enabling mad bad baby-powder-inspired swervage.

A lot of Luomo's set was from his latest album The Present Lover, that I happen to have on vinyl. Some ridiculous basslines later, Mr. Pullen graced the stage. I was digging the vibe, but got *ahem* ... distracted ... After checking out the always deft Telefon Tel Aviv boys, sitting upstairs schmooozing, I noticed the basslines downstairs had changed drastically. They were no longer defined notes but more like pulsating bass slides with some rough melodic contour ....

That could only mean one thing. The man from Kompakt had taken over the decks and was shredding them. As in November when he tore up the SAT, I was again dazzled by the simplicity yet effectiveness of this guy's music.

The closing song was a very simple bass progression, quite banal actually, the tone was earth rumbling and the envelope never quite released before it was off to the next tone. Juxtaposed with a thumping kick, it was quite a powerful combination and a good reminder to keep things simple.

Now on my way back to my hotel, still buzzing from the whole everything, I asked this dude walking behind me about the set of red puma adorned promo records he's carrying. We get to talking and soon enough I feel like I already know him somehow.

As he talks more about Mutek in Chile and Mexico, it dawns on me that he's none other than Philip Sherburne, one of my favourite writers/music critics, who you know, if you read this blog, has been linked over to the right under my READ section since its inception. Anyway, was pretty damn fresh to run into Philip and a nice way to wrap up the conference.

Bon, je me tais ... coolpix to be uploaded soon!

Will have a full report in a week and a half, with pics and juicy stories, when I get back from Miami.