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M.I.A.’s Boston bounce
Plus: Non-Event’s Fe-Mail attraction, and the Paradise Lounge gets mashed
BY DAVID DAY
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M.I.A. will soon be embracing a sound that several local DJs have termed "Boston bounce." A remix of the Tamil Terror’s text-flirt anthem "URAQT" by Boston’s Jake Trussell, a/k/a DJ C, has been licensed by XL Recordings, which will release it on a future single. That remix, Trussell says, relies "heavily on the Boston bounce formula," an approach that he’s developed alongside a loose confederation of DJs including DJ Flack, Wayne and Wax, and Local Fields. All of them (but not, of course, M.I.A, who comes to the Paradise September 23) will play an RSVP-only event this Wednesday, September 7, in Jamaica Plain to introduce the style. For details on the Boston-bounce party, visit www.beatresearch.com. Trussell created the remix using an a cappella track posted by M.I.A. on her Web site, then slipped it to her DJ/producer, Diplo (see Chris Nelson’s interview here), who liked it so much he passed it on to the label. So what does it sound like? "My version of Boston bounce is sort of a combination of Baltimore club, German shuffle techno, and one drop reggae," Trussell writes via e-mail. "It’s around 135 bpm, has a kick-drum pattern that’s half four-on-the-floor and half broken, has a shuffle or swing hi-hat feel (we also call it Boston swing sometimes), usually has some breakbeats in there, and has a snare or rim shot on the three." Some of his compatriots have their own variation on the sound. "DJ Flack’s stuff is around the same tempo but has a different feel. His rule is to throw in a waltz feel somewhere." You can hear a brief bit of Trussell’s track "Boston You’re My Bounce" on Wayne and Wax’s "Boston Mashacre" mix. And Trussell & Flack’s Beat Research label plans to release a 12-inch of Boston Bounce tracks in the near future. The ill-conceived notion that electronic music is boring to hear and not worth paying to see is slowly eroding in Boston, thanks in part to organizations like NON-EVENT, a four-person team who’ve produced more than 45 shows since 2001, including gigs by Jim O’Rourke, Japan’s Otomo Yoshihide, Germany’s Markus Schmickler, France’s DAT politics, and Sweden’s Tape, as well as such local acts as the BSC, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Geoff Mullen, DJ Hekla, and the Fun Years. "There is a great experimental-music scene in Boston," explains Non-Event’s Susanna Bolle. (All four Non-Event members are well connected: Dan Hirsch books musical acts at the MFA, Rob Forman runs Sedimental Records, Bhob Rhainey is a world-class solo performer with nmperign, and Bolle is a DJ at WZBC, the Boston College station that practically invented the local experimental-music scene.) "But since we are a music series without a home, finding suitable spaces is a constant challenge." They’ve staged shows in such non-traditional spaces as art galleries, lofts, and teahouses. This Wednesday, though, they’ve got an actual club, P.A.’s Lounge in Union Square, for the Norwegian duo FE-MAIL. Vocalist Maja Ratkje and multi-instrumentalist Hild Sofie Tajford come equipped with a phalanx of strange instruments (French horn, pan pipes, harmonicas), one overwhelmingly powerful voice (Ratkje’s), and an arsenal of electronics manipulators. Endorsed by Thurston Moore, they play as if they were on fire and had five arms. The "five-woman sonic assault" 16 Bitch Pile-Up open, along with Boston’s David Gross and the duo of Kate Village and Donna Parker; visit www.nonevent.org. This Tuesday, the Paradise Lounge debuts "MASH UP," a weekly night dedicated to the title blend craze. DJ G-Squared, of the Boston hip-hop clan Kreators, previously helmed the ’Dise’s old-school hip-hop night; now, under the name Hackman and Bronson, he’s blending classic AC/DC, Joan Jett, and Billy Squire with Missy Elliott and Jay-Z . . . Sassy synth-rock diva HELOISE AND THE SAVOIR-FAIRE DANCERS are at the Midway Café on Saturday with Boston hump-noise engineers Young Sexy Assassins, electropop chanteur Alan Astor, and the glam assault force Cornmo . . . Long-time Circuits fave MOBIUS BAND, who’ve gone from Shutesbury consignment sales to Ghostly Records buzz, celebrate the release of their debut album, The Loving Sounds of Static, Tuesday at T.T.’s. Carly Carioli contributed to this report. You can find David Day behind the decks Thursdays at Middlesex Lounge and Fridays at Enormous Room | circuits@squar3.com.
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