happy news year.

Junior Varisty km: You're Fabulous (minty cut remix) (off of the You're Fabulous EP, 1999, Darla Records)

Cornelius: Count Five or Six & Star Fruits Surf Rider (from Fantasma, 1998, Matador)

Takako Minekawa: Milk Rock (Cornelius Remix)and Black Forest (Junior Varsity km remix) ( from Ximer, 1999, Emperor Norton)

I used to think anything japanese was cool. This was in 7th grade. It wasnt dangerous anime otaku type stuff. no silky shirts with some girls on it, or whatever. (Who has seen Yellow Apparel?..classic!). I couldn't listen to suburban base or the suicide machines or (shudder) bonkers (purchased at virgin megastore at forum shops in las vegas. frightful times)...tangent...yes, i could not listen to those things all the time (and my attempts to trick mix with all of 4 or so records i owned at the time, including ha, hard knock life, can i get a..., and the cracklabcalifornia remix of passin me by (oscar da grouch too) was a bit tiresome to my aurals). so i turned in 9th grade to the sweet sounds of Junior Varsity km (who i just assumed to be japanese..why? cause he toured with takako minekawa). kenric mcdowell is not japanese, but a music major at SF State and was in urb's top 100 for 1999, which didn't much matter to me. All i cared about in Urb were features on A-trak, craze, kid koala, and any pictures of raves that R.A.W. Dj'ed at. (later, i was all about squarepusher and autechre interviews..then there were too many pictures of moby and i did not understand. oh, urb did give a good review to zion i's first single, which i bought and used in my 1999 LA Regional ITF routine. thank you urb.)
so...i initially liked junior varsity cause i thought he was japanese. now i like this track cause the beginning of it sounds towa tei-ish, and that is always good for me (hence photos). reviews of JVKM are always droning on about atmospherics and textures. sure. whatever. this mix sounds like deee-lite so sign me up. plus, the penguins on the cover are cute, which was refreshing after things like this found their way into my collection.

i was positive that cornelius was japanese. ten auto-points. but then i heard the album and this was before i knew i was supposed to worship pet sounds and so i realized that pet sounds is good because cornelius liked the beach boys and i liked cornelius. thank you cornelius. star fruits surfrider comes after magoo opening, a crazy song with all the planet of the apes nonsense and gnome jig beats or midget pirate b-boy breaks. that song is loud (midget pirates have blasted out ears from being at earlevel with cannons).
you can hear the last bang of it in starfruits.
the dynamic shift between the two songs and how starfruits actually gets loud but still doesnt feel overwhelming is why it appeals to me. it is like a reverse funk flex bomb. a quiet grenade. a golden torpedo. billy corgan would talk about making soft music loudly (?) or what is it soft loud music? whatever it is, cornelius gets to hang out with himself and play with all his guitars and keyboards and voices and make this stuff and play with levels. yeah...you don't talk too much about dynamics when you are skratching or banging on your mpc (well you do...but that is neither here nor there).
later, i thought cornelius kinda was like wacky beat-y stereolab, which also worked nicely for me. count five or six is rock that annoys me cause it is hard to mix: but it has glory guitar chords and harmonizing and drum machine ticks that tick with the best of em.

then takako minekawa got deximer by both these guys on Ximer and i like their songs the best so here. i really wanna have a family and our family movies will be accompanied by milk rock, i am sure of it...it'll be like those perfume commercials, except with more melanin and different eyes and noses and haircolor (unless my wife is white? whothinkit?). kids will be wearing baby visvims purchased at Alife jr. with lil opening ceremony hoodies. that is focus.

for real, kings of disco and malcolm catto next time...then highlights from cultural copia, yeah?