The Following Aesthetic Reasons

Eli Verveine is a DJ from Switzerland who is anything but neutral. Her mixes, which are few and far between on the internet, are not only exquisite but are also exotic--in a word, recherche. The sense of the exotic comes from the warm, transcendent affect of the tracks, that are supremely mixed, deep, dubby and with a flavor of *Detroit*. Adding to the intrigue is the fact that the tracks are extremely hard to find on their own. Eli Verveine is a part of p45 records, and she has a radio show on Audioasyl called Scandal! I'm posting a selection of studio, radio, and club mixes. Among them is a mix called Carebear, which is a must-listen. All highly enjoyable!

First up, here is the highly anticipated Ssg Cast from Eli Verveine posted a few days ago.

robert hood – still
octal – heavier petting
swayzak – live, part 4
claro intelecto – dependant
dj joey anderson – thee analysis
stl – orange patterns
maus und stolle – extra vergine
chiapet – westworld
herbert – over and out
steve o`sullivan – she don`t do chicks
madteo – radici

Here is the Carebear Mix from Eli Verveine. Named an all-time favorite mix by just about everyone I know... who I am friends with.

rhythm & sound - carrier - rhythm & sound 05
dean decosta - precursor - lo-fi
son.sine - upekah - nurture
localfields - pico - zerogrounds
arne weinberg - spectral disease - aw
vector lovers - futures in plastic [claro intelecto remix] - soma
omar s. - detroit 02
claro intelecto - tria - ai records
donnacha costello - melan - force inc.
omar s. - detroit 04
maus - find a way - belowhttp://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=1022966290545396155
plastikman - artifakts - novamute

Here is a mix from Julietta, Vera, and Eli Verveine at the Harry Klein Club. 7 hours long and more soul/deep house/clubby. Sass in a glass.

Oh oh, here's a good one, a rare mix from 2007. Appearing on Comfort Noise Radio, Eli plays a 4 hour set with interviews. The playlist is too long to post but it can be found on the Comfort Noise website.

Here's another studio mix called Dustbunnies.

And a live set from Air Festival 2007...

Download this 7 hour set from Manuel Tur, Dplay, and Langenberg @ Slowclub, Essen September 27, 2008

It's slow, pretty deep, groovy and dubby but with little vocal. Really great for work if your officemates don't appreciate the whole constant breakdown thing.


And when you have a minute to yourself, hang your hat on this vid from Moscow:



Vid provided by Infernal Techno Blog.

We've seen a number of music documentaries lately, including two standouts...Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell & Patti Smith: Dream of Life...

As artistic portraits they are quite nice. I would especially recommend Wild Combination, and not just for the Arthur Russell fan, but for any good ole music snob. I wish I could say that the intimate footage, exclusive performance material and endearing interviews will reverberate in everyone, because it should. (Arthur Russell vs. Britney Spears) It will certainly penetrate anyone who's affected by music. The shear amount of material that Arthur Russell produced is impressive, the grounds broken are inspiring, and the sounds of his cello are downright haunting...

My review of Dream of Life for Boston's Weekly Dig is here.
Buy Wild Combination from Other Music here.

The original "I'm in Love with a German Film Star" is a post-punk classic by UK band The Passions, but it got a fresh makeover from artist and film-maker Sam Taylor-Wood in October of this year. The disc released on Kompakt also included remixes by Gui Boratto and Juergen Paape.



I found another cult classic at Retro in the Perfect Sense of The Sentence, Liasons Dangereuses' Los Ninos Del Parque. Influential to many DJ's and a rad album.

Finally, I totally fell in love with the UK's own La Roux this Spring, and I just found out that her track Quicksand was picked up by Kitsune and it's being released December 15th. The Passions and Liasons Dangereuses aren't listed in her influences but, err, they should be.

Totally obsessed with these photos of Michelle Williams that I came across on the Some Notes on Napkins blog. You can find them and many more shoots on Michael Sanders Flickr photostream...

My radio show "The Following Aesthetic Reasons" is on every Monday night on WZBC 90.3 FM from 7-10pm EST Click here to see my playlist from the first day of December! You can stream it live weekly at wzbc.org.

In Boston this week: On Thursday check out WZBC's Monthly Countdown at Rivergods (River Street near Central Square, Cambridge MA), presenting our favorite indie rock tracks from the previous month (and if you didn't know it already, Rivergods is one of the best bars in Boston)...Then walk over to Make it New at Middlesex (Central Square, Cambridge MA) for some minimal techno (and another fabulous bar). Sunday, TT the Bears has Iceland's Kira Kira (with members of Mum and Parachutes, they opened for Sigur Ros in September) and ambient performers Dygn.

(My picture here is made with Poladroid.)

032c is a bi-annual contemporary culture
magazine at the intersections of fashion, art and politics. Finding the new
in the old and the old in the new,032c invites leading and emerging
creatives to collaborate on mono-thematic issues. It has been considered
to be "dedicated to the celebration of ideas" by i-D, "revue ultra-pointue"
by French Vogue, or simply as "the Berlin magazine that propogates an
aesthetic of brutal elegance" by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. "The
magazine fuses art and architecture,literature, urban studies and fashion
in ways", states New York Times, "that can make one forget how depressing
a visit to a newsstand has become."
032c is internationally distributed to selected art bookstores, fashion
boutiques and newsstands. The magazine has been exhibited at places such
as London Design Museum, Colette (Paris), GAS (Tokyo), The Pineal Eye
(London) and the 3rd Berlin Biennial. The 16th issue is chillingly called
"Post-America", although it might as well be called "Post-NYC" because
apparently the only bookstores that carry the mag in the entire USA are in
NYC. I'm not surprised, just mildly bemused. Anyways, this is what you will
find in the 16th issue. I'll be picking it up when I'm in America, oh
excuse me New York, over Thanksgiving holiday.

16TH ISSUE
"Post-America", Winter 2008/2009

INSIDE: "A new world is coming into being almost unnoticed." JOHN GRAY tells Hans Ulrich Obrist about the political and financial unrest in the "Post American Age;" STEVEN MEISEL reveals fashion's cruel and beautiful in a rare interview (plus a seven-page foldout madness of all his Vogue Italia covers); Wes Jones illustrates Dubai and the effects of superabundance; artist STURTEVANT tackles copy, copyright, and the ready-made; architect Jürgen Mayer H., and artists Ralf Ziervogel and RothStauffenberg form a cluster of 3-4 FANTASTIC GERMANS (with 032c's Architectural Digest visit to Mozambique's Grand Hotel gone bad); Photographers Max Farago and Alasdair McLellan bring on "THE NUDES;" and so much more on 246 pages.

D €10 EU €12 US $20