Chris DeLine

Mark Vidler is widely considered one of, if not thee best producer to ever concern himself with mashups; then he retired for a while; then he un-retired… Now Vidler, under the guise of his Go-Home Productions moniker, has taken an advanced step towards pushing the understanding of a bootleg forward into mainstream production by shifting its popular perception; that being that mashups are simply dance music. Not to say that a heavy metal band combined with a pop singer is meant to be dance music, but those sorts of things are more novelty than an I am turning this on as I would any other album during the course of the day-type recordings. (411: his music has been previously featured in such non-dance-friendly outlets such as Classic Rock Magazine, so he’s got to have something going for him in that regard, right?) Now Vidler’s done something entirely different with his The Future, The Past & The Present Tension album.

“14 tracks all written, played, recorded and produced by yours truly… Musically it’s a melting pot of primary influences that have invaded and taken settlement in my brain since childhood, combined with whatever I was ‘feeling’ during the 4 months of studio time. In layman’s terms you may well find flavours of XTC, Dukes Of Stratosphear, Beatles, Small Faces, Syd Floyd, Beefheart, Ivor Cutler, Brian Wilson, My Bloody Valentine, Julian Cope, Tom Waits etc. It’s not an album to soundtrack your club-going habits. It’s more of a ‘head’ album than a ‘feet’ album I guess.“
What makes this even more interesting is that it is an extension from one of Vidler’s most popular mashup albums, Spliced Krispies. With that mix Vidler took ’60s and ’70s standards and, well, spliced them with each other (with a few outside sources to boot). Now he’s again taken a modern approach with the classic sound he was attempting to build on and has created something original, unique, and… well, really fucking good.

Mark Vidler // Go Home Productions The Future, The Past & The Present Tension (zip)

​Offering the ying to Vidler’s yang comes the Hood Internet this week with a song that is definitely more of a ‘feet’ track than a ‘head’ track; combining Daft Punk with DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince into “Summer Circuit.” It’s a summer banger than can’t help but lead one to wonder what would have happened if Will Smith hadn’t gone the route of “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit’ It” and “Miami” (and Scientology…) and had created something that would allow him to stay remotely relevant, musically, for… say… more than a few years (though in the Jiggy man’s defense, the cash had to be awesome). Case in point, his biggest pops in the past few years has been when he’s joined Jazzy Jeff on stage for a run-down of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme. There’s nothing wrong with that, but people aren’t exactly going ape-shit over Willennium these days. Right?

ABX “Summer Circuit” (mp3)

Call it a Hood-bonus; a few other recent tracks that have caught my ear from the Chicago-based duo: “No Train Running” (Air France vs. the Doobie Brothers) & “Fire Ant Paint Job” (Dorrough vs. Bibio).

​As a conclusion for the week, NY’s dj Lobsterdust is essentially bringing together each of the collective parts of the previously mentioned tracks with “Funky Smoke.” You’ve got the riff from Deep Purple’s classic rock standard “Smoke on the Water” bellied up against Daft Punk’s electrofied banger “Da Funk” with a hint of cheese in Usher & Lil’ Jon. Toss in some Ludacris for flavor and baby, you’ve got a mashup.

Also worth noting is his recent combination of the Beastie Boys’ “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” with Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock N Roll.” The song is predictable and sounds just exactly like you’d imagine it would… but it’s perfectly done reinvents an interest in revisiting the ’80s (well, some of the ’80s).

dj Lobsterdust “Funky Smoke” (mp3)

[This post was originally published by City Pages.]