reminced*

so...new design! welcome to the new mincetapes. hopefully it looks okay on your computer...i haven't done too much quality control for that (let me know if there's a problem or even better a solution, k?) it's best if your browser recognizes cooper black - all the headings are supposed to be in that face (a la in the hot pink letters of the title banner.)

by the way, the images in that banner are scans of my handy-dandy new letterpressed business cards...pretty much the inspiration for the whole redesign. (they were the cue to the font and color choice too.) it remains to be seen whether they lead to increase an increase in dj bookings or blog readership, though i'm guessing chances are decent that one of them led you here (!) question now is whether you'll stay...

well, i'm trying to make it as cushy as i can, and at least explain what's going on a little better and make it seem organized even if the underlying intellectual disarray remains. hence the spiffed-up expandable-collapsible sidebar. with (this-just-in!) bizcard-imitating color coding - pink for business, blue for external resources, yellow for site navigation, green for record-keeping (ahem), ornj for musixes.

speaking of which, mayhaps you not know about muxtapes? don't feel bad - by the time i first heard about them, maybe few weeks after they debuted, there were supposedly people already claiming they'd jumped the shark. whatever. i present my first muxtape, slightly tweaked from its original incarnation, vaguely designed in part (but only vaguely) as an accompaniment to my recent isolated, off-the-mark discussion of 00s-style-dance, and attendant album-remarks:

The Hot For May Sound

brief notes?

Juvelen - Watch Your Step
it's swedish electronic dance-pop, natch. but sung by a boy, for a change. albeit a boy who's trying his hardest to sound like a girl. or maybe just prince. trying too hard for something, anyway... his intensely strained singing style definitely takes a bit of getting used to. which is too bad, because his music is kinda flawless in most other respects. you will definitely be hearing more from this guy in the future, or at least, more from me about him.

Neon Neon - Raquel
Cut Copy - Far Away
probably my favorite cuts on probably my favorite albums of the year so far... (as previously discussed.)

Sally Shapiro - Hold Me So Tight (Cansecos Remix)
at first i thought it was a bit of a relative throwaway mix, but it sounds less clunky than it used to (maybe since i realized that it's uncannily similar to the original version of annie's "heartbeat.") was also recently big-upped by my man tim sendra. woot!

Bertine Zetlitz - Ashamed
from her recent best-of, which i'm working my way up to reviewing (by first reviewing the rest of her catalog, naturally.) but i actually first heard it a while earlier, thanks to this blog post by former fellow styjuke contributor brittle lemon, which dissects the song and its lyrics quite revealingly, making it more or less redundant for me to say anything more here. except that bertine is amazing.

Ashlee Simpson - Outta My Head (Grinehouse Mix)
not sure where this remix came from, but it's pretty good. a good deal more menacing than the original, which is definitely a good thing.

Spiss - My Slang
very goofy noveltyish hip-hop thing that i discovered while researching bloodshy and avant's recent projects. seems like a bit of a mystery/secret at this point exactly what this thing is. probably works better with the video, which is probably better than the song anyway.

TTA - Koka-Kola Veins
maybe my favorite tta track, and the best encapsulation of what they're about. omg that bassline!! i love the lyrics too.

Owusu and Hannibal - What It's About
i heard this on dj dixon's body language 4 mix and was instantly smitten...blown away...sounds like scritti politti (quite a lot in fact) but, like, even more so - more soulful, more funky, more pop. so pop. great bo diddley schoolyard beat to go with the awesome awesome hilarious naughty schoolyard pubescent confusion sex-fantasy lyrics. i have been listening to this a ton for the last few months and it does not get old. so chill too, and yet still so funky. man. i just got the album from which it came, o&h's (they're danish) debut. and...so far i am disappointed to report that the rest of it doesn't seem to be anywhere near this good, or even to sound that much like this. but we'll see, i need to give it some more listens.

Don Armando's Second Avenue Rhumba Band - I'm An Indian Too
from the very cool, if confusingly titled, kid creole comp going places: the august darnell years just out on strut, one of those so-hip european reissue labels whose releases are always way too expensive, and have a nasty habit of going out of print (i still keep kicking myself for passing up a used copy of their disco (not disco) comp once)...but which i happened to find as a used promo. anyway, i'd been meaning to investigate kid creole, so this is handy. man, ze records. also home to was (not was.) more research necessary. the previous version of this mux had but the kick-off track, "sunshower," whose chorus was straight-up lifted for the m.i.a. song. this song is just preposterous. it's from annie get your gun, btw.

Hot Chip - Wrestlers
somewhat surprisingly, this is the song that's been in my head the most from the new album. also, "one pure thought" is apparently the next single, so i thought i'd swap it for something a little more off-track. with some excellent work from my boy joe goddard.

Susumu Yokota - That Person's Hearsay Protects My Free Spirit
from his new album LOVE or DIE, which is practically worth it for the track titles alone.

ok, enjoy. new mux coming soon too.

*would you believe i never thought about that title sounding like "remixed" (even though the mincetapes-mixtapes connection was obviously intentional) until somebody mentioned it the other day? speaking of reminced...i might post there sometime.