Somewhere around 2000, shortly after I broke the lease on the worst apartment ever at 148 Degraw Street in Brooklyn I moved in with my best childhood friend Jamie and his roommate Dan on 7th Ave.  A railroad apartment, that was far too small for two people, let alone three, was my home for a couple months before I finally moved out into the amazing but nearly deadly ‘4th & Garfield’.

During that time I was working on a number of projects, drinking more beer than was healthy, and had set up shop in the dining room of their apartment.  Jamie and his friend Steve were both DJing down-tempo music at the time and thought a collaboration on a mix blending exceptional vinyl selections with the advancements in software based synthesis and tracking was overdue.  Tracks were selected, reselected, mixed, remixed and stitched into a seamless blend of great down-tempo of the time.

RLM was formed, and the Wildlife Mix was forged.  Roberts, Langolf, and Marchese: an original formula for a name without doubt.  This was a brief collaboration that resulted in the release of one full length mix on CD for circulation to whoever would have it.  After all this time I still have a number of CDs in my studio that are collecting dust.  Want one?  Email me and it’s yours.  Or, you can download the .mp3 below.  I recently uncovered the track listing…. These are surely out of order but credit is necessary for the original artists.

• At Jazz
• Certain Peace
• Drifting
• Eclipse
• Eric Kupper
• Ginger & Fred – Voom Voom
• Lagente Urbana
• London Elektricity
• Pepper Digs
• Chattanooga Nugget
• Yoruba
• Que Domingo
• Restless Soul
• Root Down
• Slow Supreme
• T-Kolai – exodus, andulu vocal mix on ibadan
• When I Fall Weekender mix – A:Xus on Guidance.
• Welcome Home
• Two t’seven

 
You can find another copy on Steve’s critically reviewed music blog Scissorkick here.  It’s important to add that through this project I was able to get to know Steve much better; a man with astounding knowledge of all walks of music and immense passion for his friends, family, wife, and son.  All would be a better person by knowing him.

 
This is a square wave tone generator based around three 555 timers wired up as oscillators. I took some inspiration from the dub siren and figured if two were good then three would be better. This was mostly true. Several unlabeled pots control the oscillators impact on each other and then two signals are mixed at the final stage. Just as a note I get these pots by buying damaged internal boards of Mackie mixers. With a little time you can remove these great center detent pots for pennies. A schematic isn’t available right now but I will get something together and post soon.

There were a couple problems that I didn’t really notice until after the circuit was wired up. I used a pot to control the balance of the two signals going into and additive mixer at the output. This causes large swings in output volume depending on how far from center the pot is. When jamming it all in the box with a battery something happened  and one pot has no impact on the sound. These problems aside, the tone generator makes some great chirps, bleeps, bloops, and squeals.

I’ve recorded a string of the sounds you can generate with this tone generator, chopped it up into a couple dozen samples and included them for your use. If you end up using them in something I’d love to hear what you do.

You can see the complete set of photos here on Flickr

and samples:

This is a follow up to previous works of a similar grain by members of Master Mosquito, this track brings forward similar sounds of past tracks. Smooth and melodic synths backed with down tempo rhythms and crisp layered guitars which create an ethereal soundscape suitable for any listener. This is one of my favorites which compliments the similar track named ‘Tallboy’ nicely.  Much thanks to Aaron Schultz (DJ DRM) founder of Bastard Jazz, and Jamie Roberts for making this complete.

This work-in-progress is an unreleased (well, except for here)  follow up of past works of a similar grain by members of Master Mosquito. Emotive guitar styling with warm and sunny synth melodies carry you through this eclectic, spacious, and resonant track. Much like a Tallboy it’s good anytime in any situation. Much thanks to Aaron and Jamie for their hard work on this one.

You will find that the stripes included in this zip are not one-to-one matches with the final mix. As edits, adjustments, and rearrangements made I opted not to export the stripes a second time. Nonetheless, all the elements are there and ready to go!

Here’s what I wrote on the old site:

“Green” started several years ago and the initial melody was used in a song I co-wrote with a band that’s been long broke-up.  Out of respect for music in general I will never post the track’s roots; but eventually it was reworked into its current form. Pretty and melodic. Not bound by deadlines this will likely always be a work in progress as I’m constantly attempting to “fix” the drums. My perpetual dissatisfaction notwithstanding, please enjoy!

This still holds true.  The sounds in the beginning of this song are some of my favorites.

In October of 2007 Superset created the first “Stash Mix” for Stashmedia. The mix covers 85 tracks from 77 artists in a heavily edited, mixed, remixed and composed mash-up of indie, hip-hop, electronic, techno, rock, dub and downtempo. With music from labels such as Def Jux, Nature Sounds, Bastard Jazz, Sub Pop, Universal, and more, this mix covers a galaxy of sound and attempts to blend styles like peanut butter and apples.

Much Thanks to Mulheres Barbadas for the insanely sick cover art which, reflects the mix’s eclectic tone entirely. Hit their site for a large Hi-Res download.

Further thanks to this project’s Exec Producer, Steve Marchese at Stash for bringing this project together and more thanks to Steven Price, Stash’s editor for making it happen. See Steve Marchese’s exceptional site highlighting some of the best new (and old) records/artists out there: Scissorkick.

Just as a last note, obviously because this is a mix of others work there’s no stripes. (though we did receive permission from the artists included on the mix to release this one).

“Orange” sounds a bit like Trans Am meets Ratatat and uses some interesting point and counterpoint melodies that blend together across a tight unaggressive rhythm.   It’s not danceable but it’s definitely listenable.  The melody sounds continuous but it’s actually two different parts that introduce themselves in the beginning then overlay on top of each other making a nice moving progression.  In retrospect, changing the tambre of the two parts or panning them in the mix might make that more apparent.  Lessons learned for next time.

This is a track from Master Mosquitto (Aaron Schultz, Jed Elijah Mowshowitz, and David Langolf, with guitars by Jamie Roberts) put out on Bastard Jazz records back in 2004.  From Bastard Jazz: a melancholy beat driven downtempo joint – heavily layered with droning synths, delayed percussion, and distorted guitar mumblings intersecting with emotive and pastoral post-rock loops.

This one is a few years old but it still puts a smile on my face. 

The MP3 is Available through iTunes. For more information check out Bastard Jazz

We still have the stripes for remixing though: