The Signal: EP118 – Exactly 45 minutes of of synchronized brain-bopping for your listening pleasure. Don’t worry. Brains are more resilient than we tend to give them credit for.
This time out, we’ve got bass-heavy grime and indie rock from the UK, some beats from California, a track that combines Ethiopian jazz with reggae production, cumbia from Colombia, and lots of other good stuff. The file is only available for a limited time, so grab it while you can. The track-list can be found in the id3 tags of the mp3 and I’ve added a few notes below.
This episode features a few spots grabbed from an old K-Mart in-store cassette, so if you like, you can pretend that you’re in the only K-Mart in the world that plays interesting music from around the globe.
01. One of my favorite grime MCs matched with some perfect production.
02. Would you believe a video game trailer lead me to this song? It’s years old, so I’m late to the party, but better late than never. Also: never look up the lyrics.
03. Beats from not too far north of here.
04. A reggae producer from Jamaica, while in France, reworks some Ethiopian jazz. Perfect.
05. French “jazzbeat”. Funky stuff!
06. A find from Daytrotter. Was just enjoying my favorite fuzzed out blues bass sounds when out of nowhere, the dude busts out the Tuvan-style throat-singing! WHAT?! Such a great serendipitous find.
07. Cumbia from Colombia. “Better if God kills me.” Those are some serious blues.
08. A cotton candy vendor from Indonesia playing a little tune on the metal containers he carries his wares in. Apparently when the cotton candy trade was bigger, all the vendors had a memorized songbook of tunes they could play on the metal containers at their waists.
09. A hip hop remix that adds a layer of vinyl hiss to some classic vocals.
10. Afro-beat from Benin!
11. Bonus points to whomever recognizes the sampled source of this vaporwave track that closes us out. Redeem all bonus points at your nearest half-abandoned malls for a coupon for 50% off a happy little tree.