In another related posthumous big-up, this week on of my co-workers brought in a hip-hop producer picturebook book called “Behind the Beat”. Now this isn't just any old run-of-the-mill hip-hop picture book. Flipping through it, you get a great feel for the essences of the studios as subjects and the producers who work in them without that cheesy, gear-whore exhibitionist vibe.

At the end of the book, one of the last producers featured is J Dilla who sadly passed away several months ago after a long battle with lupus disease. Hauntingly, like the music video by Johnny Cash, shot just months before his death, these images of him in his studio were published in Behind the Beat (according to Amazon.com) last November, just months before his passing in early February 2006.

Last week, as I was checking out the new Director Series featuring the music videos of Stéphane Sednaoui, Mark Romanek, Jonathan Glazer & Anton Corbijn, I came across a brilliantly stirring video of Johnny Cash's cover of Trent Reznor's Hurt, directed by Romanek. In spite of not knowing much about Johnny Cash's music, I found this video poignant and heart-rending. So much more when watching the “making of”, I found out that the video was shot just months before Cash and his wife, June Carter Cash, passed on.

Now, I understand better now the din earlier this year surrounding the film Walk The Line. Check the video on YouTube.

Check out this engaging interview with the South London artist currently known as Burial. I like how the discourse and simple back-n-forths between Martin (blackdown) & Burial feel tangible and real.

I found his comments on his production aethetics with respect to the use of vocals, notably female, to be particularly insightful. It is funny how concious he was about being wary of injecting too much or just the right amount of sexy into his music by restraint in sampling R&B female vocals. In the music I make and listen to, I prefer the textural use of a vocal timbre to impart meaning over direct lyrical maneuvering (even though the two together can pack a nice wallop!) Two of my favourite examples of female vocal textural deployments are on Steve Reich's Music for Eighteen Musicians and Miranda Marlui in Tchori Tchori.

Another notable point is that Burial doesn't use a sequencer, mostly to personalize his music's feel and get away from the tyranny of quantisation. At the same time, since he isn't a musician, his cutting and pasting in Sound Forge is either relying on borrowed feel (of the samples that he uses) or a severe amount of trial-n-error getting samples to sit and “feel” right. It is totally possible to use a sequencer to get notes in and around the right spot and then adjust them off a tightly quantized grid, via a groove template or nudging notes forward/backward incrementally. Alas different strokes for different folks, but I do understand the idea of doing something irreversible, without layers of undo and vibing off of that for what comes next! Given all that, it is even more hilarious how he disparages Sound Forge as being a “shitty little program”. Soundforge before Sonic Foundry was bought out by Sony, was anything but shitty or little! It still isn't! haha!

It was also interesting to read about how exactly he came about the use of crackle. That and how he fought against sounding “like electronica”, even though he took a different path but ultimately ended up inna similar space to Rhthym & Sound (who also “coincidentally” have a Burial mix series) and folks like Pole and Deadbeat, who for years, have been making deep brooding tracks, dubbing-out crackle and other kinds of gritty industrial particulates.

Preview some short audio morsels from the recently dropped album at the bottom of the article!

Over the last coupla weekends, after getting a jumbo order from distributors Watts Music, Word & Sound, I've been working on my rooftop individually stenciling record jackets to DCP003, in fine record stores May 27.

Coolpix are up on the photo page. Check the tally below:

• 18+ hours of painting
• 11 boxes of records
• 20 340g cans of spray paint
• 10 different colors (each record needed between 2-5 colors)
• 2 pairs of gloves
• 2 cone masks
• 5 large energy drinks
• 2 stencils
• 1 pair of aviators