Steve Marchese

Lucky for you, the first Scissorkast in too long is an all-music/no-talking affair. (I need an XLR adapter for my microphone). 100%  new music, much of it unreleased, hitting the usual mix of instrumental electronic, emotive headphone post-rock, experimental dancefloor stuff and the like. Joyously looping, meticulously crafted sounds. Stuff from the US, UK, and Japan this time with a heavy emphasis on melody. No reason to go on at length, but please leave comments if you enjoyed the mix and make sure to send it to friends who you think will enjoy it. Most importantly, support the artists below by buying their music. I stress that if you like a song on this mix, there is a very high likelihood that you will like either the LP or single from whence it came. 1. Pan :: Byoko(0:00) 2. Lali Puna :: Move On (Baths Remix) (1:22) 3. Bon Iver :: Woods (Japanese Wallpaper Remix) (5:27) 4. Shigeto :: Huron River Drive  (8:25) 5. Hidden Orchestra :: Vorka (11:11) 6. Kelpe :: Midsommar (16:01) 7. Samuel Jackson 5 :: Never-ending Now (18:28) 8. Toe :: Mukou Gishi Ga Miru Yume(21:41) 9. Lymbyc Systym:: Prairie School (26:05) 10. Vcheka :: Akzidenz Grotesk (30:22) 11. Beak> :: Yatton (35:03) 12. Grasscut :: Pieces (39:50) 13. The Cast of Cheers :: Animals(44:05) 14. Seams :: The Glow (47:08) 15. The Invisible :: The Stain (50:06) 16. Four Tet :: Jupiters (55:05)

…And just in time for the upcoming NYC heat wave, it’s a new installment of the ScissorMix series designed to make you get up and move! I wanted to get this out in time for The 4th of July but there’s a new tiny person in my life and, as a result, some of my priorities have been shifted. And it turns out that messing around with a mixtape is not considered an essential fatherly duty. But better late than never, right? This mix is pretty much all hip hop, reggae, soul edits, afrofunk and other goodness that sounds great coming out of a boombox. Lots of familiar tracks in new packaging. It’s the soundtrack to the BBQ I haven’t had a chance to attend. So get out there, cook some meats, drink some beers, and pump these tunes for me. 1. Guts :: Didn’t I Cover (0:00) 2. Marvin Gaye :: Sunny (Mercury Edit II) (2:37) 3. Luke Vibert :: Combination Reggae Dancing (7:44) 4. Oscar Sulley :: Olufeme (Natural Self Remix) (10:17) 5. De La Soul :: Itsoweezee (Fela Soul Remix) (14:58) 6. The Expert :: What’s Going On Today (18:10) 7. Marvin Gaye :: Ain’t That Peculiar (Oddisee Remix) (20:51) 8. Suff Daddy :: Dilemma (24:03) 9. Mos Def :: In My Math (Mos Dub Remix) (26:01) 10. E.D.G.E :: Mathematics (29:38) 11. Raw Stiles :: Kush (Revolution Interlude) (32:05) 12. Young Montana? :: Sacre Cool (33:16) 13. Breakbot :: Baby I’m Yours (feat. IRFANE) (36:06) 14. Usje Sukatma :: Waiting for Your Love (39:28) 15. Ogyatanaa Showband :: Disco Africa (43:45) 16. Ghostface Killa :: Funky Criminology (GhostFunk Remix) 47:42) 17. Ikebe Shakedown :: No Answer (50:17) 18. Hollie Cook :: Milk & Honey Dub (54:17)

Here’s a new installment of the Scissormix series out just in time for the holidays. This mix lives solidly in the realm of downtempo. So it’s perfect to throw on after a long day of shopping/family/work and whatever other stresses come your way this holiday season. A pretty decent mix of new and old on this one. I’ve spent a lot of time on turntable.fm and discovered a boatload of new music. It’s also inspired me to dig through the archives and pull out old gems from the past. And I noticed that there’s some a couple tracks that I unconsciously jacked from the fantastic O N E S U N mix. But they’re definitely good enough to hear again. I won’t go through all of these as I’ve listed the tracklist below. But remember to keep supporting independent artists and labels when you’re picking up your gifts this holiday season. And I also want to drop a quick “thanks” to all the people who check out the site and mixes. Have a bangin’ holiday, New Year and all that! 1. The Frantics :: Werewolf (0:00) 2. Onra :: Ms. Ho  (1:55) 3. Printempo :: Sono di Monte Carlo (3:40) 4. Tall Black Guy :: Water No Enemy (6:06) 5. Kashmere Stage Band :: Ain’t No Sunshine (J Rocc Remix) (8:09) 6. FUR :: Friends (Letherette Remix) (12:21) 7. Martyn / Mike Slott :: Pointing Fingers (15:38) 8. Michna :: Real Hero (18:18) 9. Mux Mool :: Palace Chalice (20:58) 10. Sina :: From Love to Lust (Kelpe Remix) (24:29) 11. Mr. Beatnick feat. Ahu :: I Know All the Bitches (Bullion Remix) (28:09) 12. O-D :: Be Still  (32:11) 13. Plastiq Phantom :: 492 Cups to China (Nautilis Remix) (34:20) 14. Damu the Fudgemunk :: All Green (37:51) 15. Pools :: The Oak (42:05) 16. Dam Mantle :: Rebong (45:15) 17. Kenny Dope :: Get on Down (48:54) 18. Sound Defects :: Take Out (51:38) 19. Freddie Joachim :: Whispers (56:15)

“I enjoy a good space jam while sorting through the Disney VHS collection,” reads the myspace bio. Levek—also known as David Levesque—enjoys a strange existence indeed. But the key word there is ”enjoy.” By day, David drives a bus of elementary schoolers. By night, he crafts deeply poetic, folky tunes with tribal rhythmic schemes. I hesitate to use the word “tune,” for fear that it detracts from the legitimacy of his work, but the whimsy and touch of fiction that live within his music make it the only appropriate term. I first heard about Mr. Levesque on iguessimfloating.net, where I found the track posted here, “Second Second,” which is really really lovely and it’s sad that I haven’t seen it anywhere else. I admit I haven’t been appropriately keeping up with his releases. In 2009 he released a nine-song free demo which I only  just downloaded, and a good amount of other material is floating around in a pretty disorganized manner. also, watch this. RIYL: Grizzly Bear, Paul Simon, Beach Boys, old Disney movies Read: myspace.com/levek Download: levek.bandcamp.com

“Skwee” is one of those little bitty “genres” that keep popping up nowadays. I hate to say genre, because a lot of them are more like trends than anything else, and I don’t exclude skweee from that group. Maybe it’s just a personal thing—I don’t like my music all cut up into a million little subgenres. But just because I see it as more of a trend than a genre does not mean that skweee isn’t music—just ask Boss Kite. There ain’t a whole lot of info about Boss Kite aside from that he’s a producer from Brighton, UK, and that he makes DOPE skweee. Boss’s joints are pretty representative of the trend. Skweee is kind of like what you would get if you took dubstep and yanked it inside out. It keeps the same kind of rhythmic feel and wobbly electronic instrumentation, but strips it down to the bare bones. Because the style of production is so minimal, it’s really easy to sort of ‘fake’ skweee; pretty much anybody can open up GarageBand and poop out a stripped down beat with claps on 2 and 4 and a couple of drops. You will find none of that in Boss’s work. This guy is all about melody and creating an engaging groove, and he seriously knows how to get it done. Musical awareness on this level is hard to find wherever you look. At least I feel like I can stop looking for a couple days, after this find. READ: facebook, twitter LISTEN: bandcamp, soundcloud RIYL: dødpop, eero johannes, dubstep, coco bryce, mesak, niño

Music critics tend to carry big bags of creative insults, and one of the more bizarre is the allegation of “wallpaper music.” To some jaded critics, certain music is so inconsequential, so “background,” that it fades into unnoticeability like so much flowery wallpaper, or the corn-cob curtains in Marge Simpson’s kitchen. But home decoration need not imply boredom. Jatoma’s self-titled album has been out on Kompakt for several months with bafflingly little buzz. Their music is not wallpaper music: it is Persian rug music. It is something you can sit on, roll around on, get lost in. The patterns are there, complex in their simplicity, wrapping around each other and weaving themselves into new combinations. And it tells a tale, creates a journey. If I were driving around in my car right now instead of looking at a rug, I would swear this album was the soundtrack to the voyages of some sort of astro-Jacques Cousteau. And like the fractal visions locked into a Persian rug, every strand is better than every other strand: choosing just one song to post was nearly impossible. Highly recommended album. RIYL: Bonobo, Thievery Corporation, Jean-Michel Jarre, Matthew Herbert Read: http://www.kompakt.fm/artists/jatoma Buy: http://boomkat.com/cds/344008-jatoma-jatoma

Even though the weather in NYC is shitty, it’s always a great day when I can post something new created by a close friend. Sam Willis, one half of Kompakt recording artists Walls and the fantastic DJ/blog duo Allez-Allez is a busy man these days up in Hackney, but somehow found the time to launch another pseudonym side-project as Snoretex. It’s mind blowing when I think that it’s been nearly 15 years since Sam and I were skating the South Bank and leafing through bins at Rough Trade (in the basement of Slam City Skates) and in that time I’ve been privileged to watch one of the most enthusiastic and humble music lovers and DJs I know evolve into an equally as passionate and talented creator of sounds. Snoretex indulges a more mellow, ambient side of the oeuvre with elongated melodic stretches and slowly developing phrasing that suits the moniker well. This is somnambulist music, sleepwalking gently over a rich history of ambient influences both obvious and more esoteric. It’s a stark difference to the first Scissorkick post that I put up from Sam — a superb dancefloor mix as Deven Miles way back in 2005 — but shows the same attention to detail and breadth of knowledge that got me excited about electronic music way back when. And still does today. RIYL: Emeralds, Tim Hecker, Brian Eno, Arp, Oneohtrix Point Never LISTEN/DOWNLOAD: http://soundcloud.com/snoretex/sets

Somewhere along the line, various strains of electronic music separated into unspoken (or overspoken) factions, such that some tunes sound distant, ethereal and ghostly, drowned in reverb and static, and others sound compressed, crunchy and in-your-face to the point of bludgeoning. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, and plenty of acts avoid these extremes. Somehow the Lithuanian producer Eleven Tigers has managed not just to avoid such extremes but to synthesize them. His tracks are bathed in reverb and static, with ghostly echoes as you would expect from the darkest dubs, but they manage to be immediate and earthy at the same time, with real presence (and not just in the sub-bass register). They also flow like wine, although in practice they go down more like a rich mead. It doesn’t hurt that Eleven Tigers’ debut album, Clouds Are Mountains, is structured like a DJ mix, or, if you prefer, like an album, where the end of one track and the beginning of the next are impossible to distinguish. It is one big aural Jacuzzi, and one of the best albums of 2010. Read: http://eleventigers.net/ Buy: http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/eleven-tigers/id328949299 RIYL: Burial, Magda, Mad Professor

It’s a real shortcoming of Hallmark as a company, that they don’t offer a “Post-Rock brings families together” greeting card. New York’s Phone Home is the second duo of brothers (the awesome Lymbyc Systym is the other) to channel  potential angsty rivalry into beautiful musical alchemy. On their first 4-song self-released EP, Michael and John Vallarelli  layer looping, ambient rock rich with melody over a steadily building series of instrumental narratives. Their influences clearly range from originators like Eno to contemporaries like The Album Leaf, but there’s still plenty of room left around the post-rock campfire for earnest, emotive soundtrack-ready missives. Plus, today’s post “Panda” got me through the end of a 2-mile run, giving me just enough of a propulsive blast to get it done. Not only does it sound good, but Phone Home will keep your ass alive. As my Greek father-in-law would say, “This is the real health.” RIYL: The Lymbyc Systym, The Album Leaf, Benevento/Russo Duo, Small Sails FOLLOW: twitter.com/phonehomeband READ: www.myspace.com/phonehomenewyork BUY: http://phonehome.bandcamp.com/

More than one promising dance music producer has met their end by succumbing to popular musical trends. While the “new disco” sound has grown in popularity over the years, the genre has been inundated with imitators who have nothing to offer but one lackluster production after another. Producer extraordinaire Ilya Santana is one man who will not meet this fate. The Spaniard has never tried to model his productions to a template, and has succeeded in creating music with a unique style and sophistication. Santana first came to my attention with the fantastic Discotized/Holding You EP in 2007. “Holding You,” a plodding, emotional, melodic number contains elements of the Balearic beats that define “new disco,” as well as a healthy dose of the House vibe championed by New York legends Metro Area. What sets this music apart is Ilya’s ability to mesh those qualities with melodic atmospherics that recall the likes of downtempo greats Tosca. “Holding You” has a story, and tells it, in a clear and purposeful manner, while still remaining utterly dance inducing. This fullness of purpose is most important to understanding Ilya Santana’s music. His most recent release, Erin EP (named for his new daughter), features the eight minute “Iron Horse” which works flawlessly on the dance floor. Yet still, Santana has managed to craft the song into a memorable piece of music that works as a “song” as well. And the bass, well, speaks for itself. Regardless of whether or not “new disco” will hold its place as a lively force in dance music culture, Ilya Santana has created music that transcends the genre. It is this dedication that will keep his productions successful for years to come. RIYL: Prins Thomas, Aeroplane, Metro Area READ: http://www.myspace.com/ilyasantana BUY: http://amzn.to/dgqYU6