“New York City” (Used 8 times)

Roulette, the major New York City venue for experimental contemporary music and intermedia art, is a key resource for established and emerging artists alike. Over three decades, Roulette has built an international reputation that is enhanced by projects like Roulette TV (mirrored on Vimeo and UBUWeb) and the amazing Roulette Concert Archive with streaming audio recordings dating back to 1981. While a Free Music Archive collaboration is in the works, Roulette's non-profit staff has their hands full as the venue prepares to leave Manhattan in favor of an incredible Art Deco theater in downtown Brooklyn (check out New Roulette) that will serve as Roulette's new permanent home. Coupled with ISSUE Project Room's pending move to nearby 110 Livingston, Downtown Brooklyn is about to become the place for experimental live performance.

Roulette eases into Free Music Archive curation with a fantastic set of recordings from EASY NOT EASY, a three night festival held in October to help raise funding and awareness for Roulette's new space. Curators Matt Mehlan (Skeletons) & Doron Sadja (MIRRORGATE, West Nile) asked a wide array of NYC's most exciting young artists to compose a series of "simple" new scores, as well as to perform scores by more established artists like John Zorn and Robert Ashley.

The EASY NOT EASY FMA Collection includes composers like Dan Deacon, Pauline Oliveros, Justin Frye (PC Worship), and Matana Roberts. Each night featured a different performing lineup, which included some staples of the New York experimental music scene who are already familiar to the Free Music Archive, like Richard Garet, Ben Greenberg (Hubble), Katherine Young, C. Spencer Yeh, Sam Hillmer (Zs), and many more:

Listen and join us in looking forward to what the future holds for Roulette!

MetalSucks recently released the fantastic second half to their soopersized variety-bucket sampler of metal in New York. NYC Sucks Vols. 1 & 2 cover quite a bit of ground; across this collection's 27 tracks, the wide breadth of bands and styles are really only unified in their sonic intensity. To their credit, MetalSucks' definition of "Metal" in this compilation is markedly inclusive, even catholic. It's unlikely that you would ever see some of these bands sharing a live bill with each other, and perhaps that's what makes this such an enthralling listen. In Volume 1, you've got the ethereal melodies of Made Out Of Babies' Julie Christmas in one instance doing the cha-cha right up against Tiger Flowers' serrated assault on the following track. On Volume 2, Defeatist rub out a nasty grind in under two minutes with "Dawn of No Light", and then further on down the road, Krallice's majestic, nine-minute "Autochthon" gallops all the way down into the black. Awesome. Other cool and unexpected turns include the Travis Beans and drum machines of The Austerity Program whose textures and clinical prescision evoke Big Black, firing back at the bombastic saga of Brooklyn's Hull. Those clever genre-shifting juxtapositions happen throughout both volumes.  

NYC Sucks' stylistic expanse afforded the editors a luxury of being truly able to cherrypick the healthiest heavies of what's bubbling up around NYC (though a respectful nod is given to Abacinate's Jason Sica and Atakke). That makes it near impossible to single out any one band, but of course that's the idea. If you like to argue apples vs. oranges, Mods vs. Rockers with your friends, this is a pretty solid soundtrack for that kind of pointlessness. I'll start! Here's a few tracks that I enjoyed (come at me, bro):

The Golden Festival is New York City's massive annual Balkan and East European music and dance bacchanal. For its 26th year, the Golden Festival moves from Inwood to Brooklyn's Grand Prospect Hall (263 Prospect Ave), for a two-night event this Friday and Saturday. On the schedule are 60+ groups from the Balkans and beyond, plus a dance workshop starting things off tonight, and several stations' worth of craft beer, wine, spirits (slivovica, raki and ouzo), and complimentary "meze" (snacks). All proceeds go to charitable causes. The Golden Festival is truly unlike any other event this side of the Dragačevo Trumpet Festival and not to be missed!

WFMU's Transpacific Sound Paradise will be on-site again this year to broadcast a portion of the festivities from the GPH Ballroom Stage (Saturday Jan 15th, 6-9pm). Previous broadcasts can be heard streaming at WFMU [2009 | 2010] and with mp3 collections available on the Free Music Archive [2009 | 2010]. Host Rob Weisberg previewed the Golden Festival during last Saturday's program with a live in-studio performance by Zlatne Uste Balkan Brass Band. North America's first and finest Balkan band are also the founders and ringleaders of the Golden Festival. The live session was followed by selections from Slavic Soul Party, Black Sea Hotel, and Raya Brass Band -- just a few of the many local and not-so-local artists who'll be performing this Friday and Saturday at Grand Prospect Hall. Here's the playlist from last week's Zlate Uste preview session, with mp3's below, plus a mix of highlights from last year's Golden Festival. Irene Trudel -- whose engineering virtuosity helps make the Golden Festival broadcasts possible each year -- also previewed the 2011 lineup during her show on Monday, with selections by Zlatne Uste, Veveritse Brass Band, Black Sea Hotel, Zikrayat and the What Cheer Brigade (playlist).

Heads-up, minimal synth fans! A few tracks have recently been added to the FMA from NYC's premier robot dance party band, Mazing Vids. The duo of Ryan and Ryan have been making music together since the early '00s, with cold teutonic beats, scratchy synths, and distorto vox. If you're in the NYC area, catch Mazing Vids live at Glasslands Gallery in Brooklyn on Aug 29th.

"Drastic Mirth" is the band's most recent LP, released in late 2009, and features the great song "Could You Die" (below). I'm also a big fan of the song "Erector Set," which places Mazing Vids in the same zip code as Espelndor Geometrico, Grauzone, Der Plan, and Crash Course in Science.

Speaking of the oldies... if you dig vintage robot music, there are a number of recent comps and reissues that are totally worth checking out.

Compilations: Cold Waves + Minimal Electronics (Angular), The Minimal Waves Tapes Vol. 1 (Stones Throw), Milky Disco - 1, 2, or 3 (Lo), Neon Beats (Klang Galerie).

Reissues: Deux (Minimal Wave), Esplendor Geometrico LP box (Vinyl on Demand), Kebab (Soft Spot), 39 Clocks (Bureau B), Crash Course in Science LP box (Vinyl on Demand).

CM aka Creative “I Got You”

The final maxi-single promoting CM’s “The Classic Material Completion Package XE” (which you should def check out if you haven’t already done so), we’ve got a couple more exclusive previously unreleased tracks for you to enjoy. Grab CM’s “I Got You” here!

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Just Plain Ant “This Is Madness (Just Plain Black)”

On July 27th blocSonic & Just Plain Sounds are dropping the next Just Plain Ant album, “Rumble, Young Man, Rumble”. With RYMR, the the world of netlabels collides with that of classic hip-hop. Among the album’s many talented collaborators is one notable guest that’s sure to grab a bit of attention. That special guest is none other than The Rhyme Animal aka The Hard Rhymer aka Mistachuck… that’s right… Public Enemy’s Chuck D!

Though, you’ll have to wait until the 27th to hear that distinct voice rhyming on Just Plain Ant production. For right now we’ve got the first maxi-single for you containing two fantastic album tracks featuring Black Liquid out of Richmond, Virginia and NOTE out of Cleveland, Ohio.

Grab Just Plain Ant’s “This Is Madness (Just Plain Black)” here!

In both releases we’ve included instrumentals and acapellas for your remixing pleasure. We encourage you to submit your remixes (in wav format) to our SoundCloud DropBox (We do ask that you use the lossless FLAC format for the best possible quality remixes). In the case of the Just Plain Ant single, your remix has a chance of being included on the next RYMR single!

As always… thanks for downloading and listening! Keep the music moving… share it… blog it… podcast it… broadcast it!

Peace
Mike Gregoire
Founder/Curator blocSonic.com