MADDEN live @ PENDU DISCO – Glasslands Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (05/18/10) // Photo by Tyler Flatt

MADDEN
U-Dead?_BiSH I MightB (mixtape)

bon iver- woods (dracked)
oran juice jones- the rain (drug remix)
david bowie- crystal japan
MADDEN- Owlcadan82′
modern witch- unknown
scary murphy- bears freestyle
cindy lauper- time after slowed down time
$4L3M- skullcrush (melt mix)
baaddd boiz- jukecumber1990
NigaMortis x Dirty Projectors- mama orca (dracked)

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-posted by Todd Pendu Brooks

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Do we know any more now? Is this the big reveal? Nope… Still can’t get enough. More vids are sure to follow.

-posted by Todd Pendu Brooks

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Salem from Malcolm Elijah

Here is some snippets of Salem gettin’ blurred and slurred in the ATX during the chaos of SXSW. I managed to slip in the door and grab some footage of the Salem crew casting a shadow. First off, I was really pleased to see that one of Austin’s transvestite jewels Rebecca Havemeyer introduce them. You see her at the beginning of the video getting the crowd hyped up to “burn their biscuits” and “put your dixx together”.

The show was moody. You could feel the long awaited anticipation of the people there to see Salem and how their songs would translate to the stage. The environment and context was closer to how I would want to experience their dark screwgazed out dirty south style tracks. It was 3am in a random dark club, not 3pm at the fucking Levi’s FADER Fort like they played later on that week. For a band that finds such unique atmosphere in their music, they would require the venue, promoters, and sound techs to help them pull off their sound. I’m glad I caught some of it and could share it.

-by Eli Welbourne

PENDU brought S4LEM to Glasslands in NYC on January 5 of this year along with Chicago’s GATEKEEPER to kick off our weekly “Horror Scores for the Dancefloor” party devoted to dark-as-fuck dance music from past to present. Our friends, Russ and Kristin from “Sold Out” were at SXSW this year and interviewed S4LEM about their upcoming projects and more.

Interview with SALEM by Russ and Kristin from SOLD OUT Magazine.

-posted by Todd Pendu Brooks

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Florida didn’t innovate the techniques that Houston, Texas’ DJ Screw brought to the style that we know as Chopped and Screwed, but Florida was the first to slow the records down, making the bass drop even lower for the speakers and giving an eerie feel to the music. I’m not really interested in saying who’s first in the sense of who’s better or whatever, I just find it interesting how something that first had an affect on me over 20 years ago still resonates and has found a place once again in my life with newer music. It’s interesting to me personally to see how these ideas are being appropriated in a new music style that is only a few years old and seems to be international already. Bands such as Mater Suspiria Vision, S4LEM, Fostercare, White Ring, oOoOO, Madden, and others are all using elements of dragged, screwed, and slowed styles in their music for effect.

You may know all about that Chopped N Screwed style of rap made famous in Houston, Texas by DJ Screw, but you may not know about the original slowed style from Miami that DJs such as Jam Pony Express, Disco Dave, and DJ Fury popularized in the late 80’s and early 90’s. I’m originally from Ft. Myers, Florida which is on the gulf, just south of Tampa. Lately, I’ve been reflecting on those Miami Bass mixtapes and radio shows I used to listen to in the late 80’s and it jogged my first remembrances of slowed-down rap. I had a friend in 9th grade (which for me was in 1988) who used to go to the flea markets and pick up mixtapes by Jam Pony Express. He’d dub me the copies of ones he thought were the best. I remember walking around in headphones listening to these tapes feeling like there was something mysterious and strange in their sound. These guys were yelling into the mic all kinds of crazy things, making up lyrics, whatever else the fuck they wanted; they were all over the mic and the mixer. It was messy and crazy, but I loved it. That was also around the time that a new station playing Miami Bass and Booty Bass in Naples, Florida called 91.5 “The Spark” started. I was addicted to that stuff. MC ADE, Gucci Crew, MC Shy D, DJ Magic Mike, 2 Live Crew. As early as 1990, I remember some of the guys driving to school were playing bass music out of their speakers that was reversed, slowed-down, or just fucked up in some way. I didn’t really think about it then as anything other than just something we did as kids growing up in Florida. I didn’t realize then that it wasn’t going on all over the states; I didn’t even realize that it was the start of what could be called a movement in music. Around 1994, a friend of mine got an apartment on the strip of Ybor City in Tampa. On the weekends we would sit on his terrace listening to the cars driving up and down the strip that were playing super-slowed down bass music tapes… tapes dragged to a crawl. It was strange sounding, kinda spooky and interesting. It wasn’t until the late 2000’s that I learned about DJ Screw even though he had been around since the early 90’s. My ideas of slowed/dragged tracks came strictly from Florida influences. It got me thinking recently that I should do some research and really get a sense of how and when all of this began in Florida and it lead to some interesting discoveries.

Jam Pony Express are pioneering DJs from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida who have been pushing their unique style of regulating mixes since 1981. They were slowing-down mixes and making them available to the public in the late 80’s.

DJ Fury coined the term “Drag/Dragged” back in the late 80’s for his own tracks that he slowed-down for effect. The first international release of a song that was slowed this way was in 1991 from a track entitled “Twenty 15’s” on Kings of Bass from DJ Fury’s group Bass Patrol. The term is recently being used by DJs as a substitute of the word “screwed” (as in “Dragged n Chopped”).

Finally, here are some interviews I came across from TampaHipHop.com after googling for a history of slowed-down Florida Bass. They are illuminating and still need to be fact-checked, but this could lead to an interesting chapter on the history of slowed rap music.

“Rock-It-Rod: A True Tampa Legend” from TampaHipHop.com
ROD: Yeah… You’re quite correct. That slowed down stuff started right here in the south. There used to be a guy, Money B., who used to put out slowed down tapes in Tampa. He was putting them out before me, and we started in ‘89 or ‘90. And for a while there, Money B. was the only person you could get those slow tapes from. But then, when we started makin’ them, that’s when it really took off. See, now, when you come to Tampa, you see a CD stand here and you see a CD stand there. But when I was doin’ it, there was none of that. There was only one place to come and get it, ya know? Everything was regulated, and the thing that put us above the rest was that we put out quality. We used to put all good songs on the tapes. Some guys would put two good songs, and then a bullshit track. And then, our quality was better than everybody else’s. Our quality of recordings was beyond what everybody else was puttin’ out. But yeah, it didn’t start in Texas. It started here and in Miami.

“The Truth about Doc D.” from TampaHipHop.com
Doc D: That was when I was away for college at C.G. Happ’s on Orange Ave. in Daytona. I got a strong-ass following because the Kappas on B.C.C. had me doin’ all their parties. The Masons had me DJing all their parties. Anytime they had a party off the yard, they made sure I was the one DJing. I mean, they had DJs that were doin’ their thing on the yard, but people looked at me as the person that would get the party going and keep the party going. It was an egotistical thing though. There used to be DJs up there that would try and shun me. When I came back from college, DJs in Tampa started shunning me. Some of the other members of Bass Style was shunning me away and didn’t really want me to mix tapes with them. Rated “R” and them didn’t really want me to make tapes with them. It was like my style was more complex than theirs was. They was more or less used to regulating on the mic like Jam Pony tapes. Opposed to me, I was a mixologist. Anything that could be mixed, I did it. I didn’t care what it was. Even if it was mixing slow jams with some Miami Bass. You know what I’m sayin’? I was doin it. That was my style… And if it was slowed down!!! That was another thing. Before Rock-it-Rod really came into having his little business going, I used to open up my tape decks, go into them, and slow ‘em down.

KRAM: Yeah, I’m glad you brought that up. When we talked to Rod a few weeks ago, we talked about slowed down tapes. He brought up a name Sandman and I had never heard before. He said that Money B. was the originator of the slowed down mixtapes.

Doc D: Not really. Money B. started doing slowed tapes in about ’89. The first person to have those was Disco Mike in ‘86. Everyone else started making them after Disco Mike… Bass Style, Rock-it-Rod, Money B., etc. I really don’t know the history on it, but I think Disco Dave down in Miami did those tapes first, but they wasn’t feelin’ that shit down there. But as far as being from Tampa and getting them known, it was Disco Mike. And there was actually a time for about a 2 year stretch that people was calling me “The King of Slowed Down Tapes.” I just just put out so many tapes back-to-back. And then, I jumped on the CDs before anyone else in Tampa. I was recording my shit on CDs before anyone else was even thinking about it.

Part 2 coming soon!

-posted by Todd Pendu Brooks

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Here it is, the video we thought we were all waiting for…. lights are on, the video is bright, no mud covering the face, instead she’s wrapped in clear plastic :::: so the reveal must be coded here, right? No. Again and again, there has been seemingly no solution to the puzzle. Is it a puzzle even?, or is it meant to be seen as a video-art piece with disparate parts that are cohesive in concept-only but are not trying to carve out a straight-forward narrative. For a moment we all thought we knew where this campaign was going, but we’ve been thrown another curve.

The video is titled “b”, just b, there are no numbers in the title as in the previous ones. It’s not tagged with keywords, specifically the repeating keywords “wood” and “disciple”. The link in the description field does not point to a video of an animal; it’s pointed towards child pageant star whose name is Brooklyn Funk (possibly “b”?) There are discernible lyrics in this one; it’s definitely a song, a full song and it’s beautiful, haunting, spooky, and mesmerizing.

But who is she? Really no one knows. People are talking about this Swedish singer named Jonna Lee and she does look unbelievably similar to the girl in the video. In fact, there are several really substantial coincidences that make it appear that the mystery has been solved, but then again…. it’s just not that simple. We shall see in the near future. SXSW is coming soon and she’s playing. There is more than a good chance that people will be flocking to see her just because she might be the girl in this series of videos. Somebody is bound to ask, she’s going to have to answer. Do we keep chasing or is this the end of the riddle? I don’t know.

-posted by Todd Pendu Brooks

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DJ Harrison is the resident DJ and co-conspirator behind PENDU DISCO, the Pendu-curated weekly dance party @ Glasslands in Brooklyn also known as “Horror Scores for the Dancefloor”… Get a hold of some exclusive mixes here and if you live in NYC, come out every Tuesday to see some of newest, sickest, darkest bands from all over… We’ve hosted S4LEM, Gatekeeper, Light Asylum, Led Er Est, Gavin Russom, Blondes… with so many more to come including WHITE CAR (Chicago) + Desert of Colors, this Tuesday March 9. Check out our Calendar of Events here.

TRACKLIST:
’scavenger’ – fostercare
‘mumbai’ – oOoOO
‘fear no fear’ – the detachments
’silver sash’ – follower
‘the choke’ – skinny puppy
‘a path’ – white car
‘reise nach deutschland’ – human puppets
‘hearts and minds’ – nitzer ebb
’suffocation’ – white ring
‘lovely day’ – front 242
‘video boys’ – circuit 7
‘the angel’ – ministry
‘the devil in us’ – black devil disco club
‘dark blue’ – crossover
‘frost’ – salem

LISTEN NOW!! http://www.pendu.org/events/category/dj-mixes

TRACKLIST:
’suicide commando’ – no more
‘the calling’ – death in june
‘paradiessiets’ – cyberaktif
‘u-men’ – front 242
‘to the night’ – detachments
‘wait for you’ – led er est
‘we believe’ – ministry
‘driving blind’ – chris & cosey
‘the order of death’ – public image ltd.
‘no devotion’ – revolting cocks

LISTEN NOW!! http://www.pendu.org/events/category/dj-mixes

White Ring are the duo of Kendra Malia and Bryan Kurkimilis. They are quickly circulating around the internet with some heavy buzz over the last few months. They create dark electronic music in the vein of S4LEM and Mater Suspiria Vision influenced by Southern Hip-Hop, Trance, Gothic Shoegaze, and Industrial music. Deep groaning and buzzing basslines swell in a black pool of heavily layered oppressive atmospheres and depressive melodic synth lines. Visions and Occult images float within the pineal eye in a surrealist haze of black magick. This is danceable doom; haunting and visceral (and one of our favorite bands right now).

WHITE RING

Filmed live at Cake Shop 02/20/10 by Todd Pendu

Support their music, check out their myspace page… http://www.myspace.com/whytering

-Todd Pendu Brooks

I’ve been following this viral video collection since the first one surfaced in late December. My friend sent a link in a Facebook email asking if I thought it was S4LEM?? No, it’s not, but now 2 months later, I’m still wondering who it is. They seem to be perfectly content leaving this a mystery with no hurry toward the big reveal if one ever comes. I have hunches as to who it is just like everyone else, although I can say quite confidently that it isn’t any of the suspects previously named such as Gaga, Christina Ag, Goldfrapp, The Knife, or any of those. It’s someone else entirely. But who? Not sure that I’m as obsessed anymore with the question of “who is it” anymore, it’s been too long, but I am enjoying the work they are producing.

A new video surfaced today, only a few hours ago, so I’ve decided to throw them all up here. The first three were originally uploaded with found footage from other youtube clips, but they were told to remove the found material. The videos were taken down and re-upped with simple clip art to refer to the found footage. The titles to each video use numbers sequence 1-26 as A-Z… sometimes there are several numbers together that must be added together and reduced to their alphabetical equivalent. The titles are decoded below. Whether we find out who is doing this or not, it’s an enjoyable guessing game with some great music and visuals; how can you go wrong with that?

15.6.6.9.3.9.14.1.18.21.13.56155
o.f.f.i.c.i.n.a.r.u.m.v (Officinarum V — Species Name for the Mandrake plant)

13.1.14.4.18.1.7.15.18.1.1110
m.a.n.d.r.a.g.o.r.a.c (Mandragora C — Genus Name for the Mandrake plant)

9.20.19.13.5.723378
i.t.s.m.e.c (It’s Me, C)

9.1.13.669321018
i.a.m.i. (I Am I)

Prelude 699130082.451322-5.4.21.3.1.20.9.15.14.1.12
kq-educational (Educational — A new title referring to the use of educational clips in the first 3 videos // Original title was “Prelude 699130082.451322″)

-by Todd Pendu Brooks

Pendu is bringing S4LEM (http://www.myspace.com/s4lem) to NYC! Yes, it’s true…. Right now, there is no doubt that Salem is creating a unique presence in electronic music. Epic dark murky depressed; Perfect for the HOPE-less world we live in. People that haven’t heard them always ask what they sound like and it’s great hearing the varied responses. Their sound is elusive for a description that falls into a particular genre, but they’re not forcing this. This is not contrived strangeness. In my mind, their sound couldn’t exist in any other time period other than now and in the future. Nothing retro here. It’s black…Bleak even. A kind of Bleak Majik. A soundtrack for the disaffected and disowned. Deep tones laden with a backbone of syrupy Tylenol-3 skrewed beats in a sinister hazy swirling of poolwater-drowning darkness: Salem create a tense kind of skrewed-shoegaze (“skrewgaze”). Nihilism for Urban Youth. In some ways, even though the music is aesthetically removed from from metal, it still has me imagining what buzzsaw black metal would sound like if it were fucked with by the late DJ Screw or by Three 6 Mafia but with ethereal vocals rising from the haze. They’re amazing, plain and simple. No hyperbole needed to sell the greatness of their work. There are bound to be imitators coming along behind them, but we know who the originators are.

- Todd ‘Pendu’ Brooks

Salem + Gatekeeper at Glasslands on January 5, 2010 -- Cya @ Thee Show! Buy Tix at http://www.pendu.org/store

SALEM -- DIRT from ACEPHALE on Vimeo.

Gucci Mane -- Round One (SALEM remix)

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