Category Archives: album

Federico Aubele La Esquina/Corazon 12-Inch

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Another ESL 12-inch hits our mailbox, but this one is probably the most unremarkable of the lot to date. Federico Aubele’s songwriting and presentation are top notch, but it’s a little bit too much in the background music department for my taste. Plusses: It’s very latin, and on both sides the acoustic guitar playing is tops, and those vocals are gorgeous…but best reserved for a post-club chillout mix or a pre-show warmup. Minuses: the remixes try very hard to spice this 12-inch up, but even Ursula 1000’s spirited dancehall take on Corazon can’t pull this out of the middle of the road.

Customizable Vinyl Graphics

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Color me…amused. The Vinyl Record Generator lets you plug in your own custom text and get one of these babies auto-generated for you. The image is free because they are hawking these as custom print designs for keychains, coffee cups, three-inch stickers, and much more. Pretty sweet if you have a gimmick and need some customized album-related merch. The only thing they DON’T offer is an actual vinyl album, but the three inch sticker would fit nicely over that crappy old REO Speedwagon record in your garage. I am sorely tempted to get the above printed as a T-Shirt (this service is also available at the Vinyl Record Generator) but chances are I’ll run up a Turntabling.net coffee cup instead…this site is a great idea.

Ragel Against The Machine

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I was so pleased with myself when I came up with that headline that I had to use it here. Jon Ragel, AKA BoyEatsDrumMachine has been doing pure mad mashups with Talking Heads Vs. Michael Jackson and The Cure…except these mashups are LIVE and feature Gang of Four’s Dave Allen on bass (ver’ nice) and Benjy Rickard on guitar and synth. The mashups have Ragel on vox and vinyl…tasty.

I tend to latch on to little things in the mix, and Dave Allen’s bass punctuations in the Psycho Killer riffs are sharp. It’s stuff like that that keeps the mix interesting. Also nice–Benji Rickard’s great minimalist one-note guitar lines. Jon Ragel keeps it real by not trying to hit those Psycho Killer high “aiieee aiiieee aiieeee aieeee” notes–wise move, my man. Not even DB hisself could hit ’em consistently.

The first one of these live mashups was fun–I listened and thought, “hell yeah!” but the new one, Billie Jean/Psycho Killer is nothing short of brilliant. The Billie Jean bass riff is massive in the right hands, and it is definitely in the right hands here. This is sweet stuff and it is FREE. And how about that image? The Billie Jean Byrne graphic is just sick, wrong and I wish it were poster size.

Pampelmoose blogged it here and Jon Ragel also has it as a freebie at his BEDM official site. Don’t forget to check out the other sonic treats at BEDM as there’s much to feast on. The P-Moose site also has a healthy stack of mp3 goodies.