Friday, January 20, 2017

Hippies vs. Punks: DJ/rupture


There is a cornucopia of free downloads of DJ/rupture's mixes available on his Mudd Up! blog. Dating from Gold Teeth Thief (2001) and running up to Sunset Park Rent Strike (2012), the mixes provide a sonic history of our contemporary age.

There were a few moments of sunny relaxation during the low-wage full employment of Slick Willie's second term. Rents, while rising, were still manageable as long as work was readily available.

But then you had the dotcom boom and bust coinciding with 9/11, and things have never been the same. It's the "things have never been the same" that rupture's mixes capture.

Like sliding a analog radio dial on a global digital receiver, rupture's sonic world is a world of the marginalized black and brown of the periphery. The master narrative no longer rules. There is chaos.

That is why I thought it was appropriate to feature rupture's music today, the day of Trump's inauguration as the 45th POTUS. The Trump presidency cannot be sustained. The system is failing.

The system would have failed if Hillary had triumphed, but it could, from an elite perspective, have been a more managed failure. With Trump the system is hurtling toward abject, near-term failure.

My favorite rupture mixes are Uproot (2008) and, with Matt Shadetek, Solar Life Raft (2009).

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