I wonder if Danger Mouse (the producer, not the mouse) had any idea what he was unleashing when he ditched The Beatles ‘The White Album’ and Jay-Z’s ‘The Black Album’ into a blender and moulded the results into the legally questionable ‘The Grey Album’, a mash-up record passed around the internet with the sort of reckless abandon that just screamed ‘Fuck You, Paul McCartney’. But suddenly, in spite of the lofty ideals underpinning ‘The Grey Album’, mash-up culture exploded and it appeared as if nothing was safe. Find an indie backing track, find a hip-hop vocal line that runs at a similar speed to said track and kerblammo! (yes, kerblammo) you have a first year university crowd mega-hit. ‘OMG Jason! Is this the Dandy Warhols being mashed-up with the Bomfunk MCs? How amazing! Quick, take me Jason, take me behind the refectory bins!’ (re-enactment)
Good thing I didn’t NEED to party in my first year of university. Because I had the power of books!
So. Anyway. A slight change of pace today here at The Somewhat Ambitious. We haven’t posted about music for a while, so I thought I’d share with you ‘Illinoize’ my current love/worrying obsession. A Montreal based hip-hop producer named Tor has taken the instrumentals/vocals from seven of the almost faultless Sufjan Stevens’ tracks and thrown them together with a variety of hip-hop acapellas from the likes of Aesop Rock, Outkast, Blackalicious and more (meaning MCs I’ve never heard of). The result is beautiful, unexpected and compelling, and pretty much everything I’ve ever wanted hip-hop to sound like. Although it is a little weird at one point hearing the soft horns of Sufjan’s ‘The Tallest Man’ being overlaid by a dude named ‘Grand Puba’ purporting to be the one that makes ‘ladies’ stink-box wet’. Charming. But best of all, it’s free. Which, in these financially parlous times, is surely a welcome pleasure. Just head over to the download page and find it in both tasty 320 and so-full-of-flavour-as-to-be-almost-inedible FLAC. And as a teaser, here’s my favourite track off the album:
Tor/Sufjan Stevens/Aesop Rock – Star of Wonder/None Shall Pass
In the oft-quoted words of Russell Howard ‘LOVE THIS LIKE I LOVE YOU!’
/Luke
P.S. Yes, those are Danger Mouse cupcakes. And no, I don’t have access to them.
6 responses so far ↓
1 RichardB // Apr 3, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Hi, I’m Richard Branson. Where might I obtain those delicious looking cupcakes?
2 luke // Apr 3, 2009 at 5:09 pm
Ah, Richard, you’re back again. Good to see you. As mentioned in the fine print of the blog post, I do not actually know where to obtain said cupcakes. However, if I do find out, rest assured you shall be the first to know. You can serve them on your airlines! What fun.
3 Jon K // Apr 3, 2009 at 9:28 pm
OMG, Dangermouse and Penfold – this takes me back 30 years…………………………
I love that show!
4 Bec // Apr 8, 2009 at 9:57 am
Sorry Luke I didnt ingest any of that. I couldnt get past the Danger Mouse cupcakes…
5 erinys // Apr 12, 2009 at 10:02 pm
here’s a comment actually on Illinoize.
I prefer the instrumental versions, those beats are awesome.
6 Lil // Mar 8, 2010 at 11:41 pm
Oh my god.. What have they done to Sufjan??
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