Here in the darkest depths of winter, having reached full saturation, DJ Fundi throws down a sidetrip set that explores a thick stack of recent musical acquisitions. It's a casual night here at the Podcast Cafe, not too many people out and about on these drizzly nights, but we've got a fire goin' in the hearth, frothy beverages and musical terrain to explore together.

Thing is, Fundi has barely if at all listened to most of these releases, so he's spinning on intuition and belief in the beauty of randomness, often picking tracks simply by a title that tickled his fancy. Some of it will be good, some great, but it is the spirit of the journey that matters most : a deep-diving musical safari over the landscape of new music discovered here in the winter doldrums of February 2010.

This mix features several double-shots from albums that are too laden with goodies to pick just one (The Bird and the Bee's new record is so juicy they scored an unbelievable quadruple-shot of selections.) DJ Fundi recorded this mostly on-the-fly, with minimal edits and no overdubs or fancy sonic trickery.

Such a blessing to have so much varied music to explore and engage all our lives, our musical tastes evolving as we ourselves evolve, learning and growing to the tempo of a reliable groove.

oxoxo

Bassnectar

Heyoka

ill.Gates

Beats Antique

Welder

Mimosa

An-ten-ae

edIT

Timnokey

Nosaj Thing

Vibesquad

This mix is an overview of the electronic sounds I am currently filling my head with, including several DJs I learned about for the first time at Burning Man 2009. Heavy San Francisco emphasis here, as that is where my favorite grooves are coming from these days. Special guests include Maketa, Scotty G. and Suga Cubed, recorded both in Black Rock City and on the road to home post-Burn, decompressing and reorienting from the Best Burn Ever.

xo, DJ Playaduster

www.destinationburningman.com

Our annual look back at the year in music, spinning tunes that have inspired, perplexed, soothed, challenged and/or forced us to shake our booty and reprogram our bass chakra protocols. DJ Fundi is joined here and there by his compadre/alter ego DJ Playaduster -- you'll know when Playaduster takes over the decks. Because 2009 was such a strong year for music making -- is there more good music then ever before, or simply more ease of access via the interwebs and iTunes? -- this session clocks in just shy of 2 hours, so you best get yerself comfortable with a warm winter beverage in hand.

"Winter Solstice 2009 Retrospective" includes selections by The xx, Andrew Bird, Beirut, Phoenix, Neko Case, Built to Spill, Dirty Projectors, Bon Iver, Fever Ray, Heyoka, Bassnectar, ill.gates, Welder, The Mountain Goats, Iron & Wine, Grizzly Bear, Cymbals Eat Guitars, Yim Yames, The Avett Brothers, Joker, DJ Rupture, Zero 7, M. Ward, Tinariwen, Nirvana and Andras Schiff paying Bach.

Here's to glory in 2010~

The Cave Singers, Built to Spill and Pearl Jam open this mix with a triple blast of Northwest moody rock juju.

From the fourth corner, we travel outwards over a diverse terrain of tracks, most of which are new on the scene from the past month or so. Several are lifted from the "Dark Was the Night" double-album, which I highly recommend you purchase (proceeds go to AIDS research and prevention via the Red Hot Organization.)

Bon Iver, Kid Cudi with Ratatat, Modest Mouse, Monsters of Folk, Sharon Jones & the Dapp Kings, Fever Ray with Bassnectar, Feist with Ben Gibbards, The Decemberists, David Byrne with Brian Eno, Beats Antique, M. Ward, Sufjan Stevens, Iron & Wine, Thom Yorke, Yim Yames and Q-Tip are the elements of this mix, which skewed heavily towards man-rock and beard-folk for some unknown reason. As it turns out, Sharon Jones and the Fever Ray singer are the one female representatives here -- they holds their own, I'd say.

I'd like to close by quoting Built to Spill from a new song, "Things Fall Apart," which I think are some of the most authentic lyrics I've heard in years:

"We've all seen enough, now it's time to decide

The meekness of love or the power of pride

It doesn't matter if you're good or smart

God damn it, things fall apart

Let's go for a walk. yeah, let's go for a drive

Don't know how to say, thanks for being alive

Let's go for a lifetime. let's go for a fling

Don't know how to say anything"

Good friends over at our sister site wwww.DestinationBurningMan.com sent this video to us and we thought fans of the Podcast Cafe would appreciate it, so we're passing it along. Enjoy and don't mind the dust! ~DJ Fundi

* * * * * * * * *

Now it is time to launch a video project I humbly offer up: "EVOLUTION: Burning Man 2009".. At just under a half-hour in length, this video seeks to celebrate Black Rock City in all of its ephemeral glory as well as commemorate the once-in-a-lifetime quickening of people that came together organically to form Camp Get Found at 3:30 & Lineage. This production utilized the photos and videos of many friends, as well as borrowed footage from Ben Wiggins, Mr. Nightshade and John Chavez. The soundtrack features Random Rab, Welder, ill.Gates, Ezekiel Honig, Nosaj Thing and Shpongle.

View or download this and many other playa videos by subscribing to Destination Burning Man (via iTunes link or RSS feed in the sidebar) or by visiting http://vimeo.com/album/53765.

love, DJ Playaduster

www.destinationburningman.com

A special rebroadcast from our sister site, www.DestinationBurningMan.com:

40-some days until the 2009 Burn -- here's a mix full of serious world-beat psychejuju to keep your preparations for the playa moving on the good foot.

I was meditating on evolution while spinning out this set, particularly how species develop at different paces in different places around the planet. I love how one bird species, for example, will look and behave totally different from continent to continent, morphing form and behavior to match the physical ecosystem. But I also appreciate how all of life shares a common foundation, animated by the mysterious cosmic spark.

How does any of this apply to "Evolutionary Psychejuju"? Music is both universal as well as totally local. It begins with the heartbeat, and evolves in to a groove, a language every human can understand. I love how indigenous music is fitted to a particular place -- how the heat and aridity of Mali, the rhythm of the waves in Jamaica, the humid fecundity of Columbia have each inspired their own musical traditions. And I also love the ways in which some artists combine and blend those traditions in new and surprising ways. Musical evolution on a global scale.

That's some of the thinking going on behind the scenes here at Radio dBM in the production of this here mix.

Adios!

DJ Playaduster

www.destinationburningman.com

This is the third and final installment in the unexpected Michael Jackson tribute trilogy, "Blame it on the Boogie." Parts 1 and 2 are posted at www.http://www.destinationburningman.com/stuff/podcasts/index.html. I first thought it would take only one session to spin out my favorite MJ tracks in memorial of his surprising passing, but the first set started to get longy before I even in to "Bad," and so got split in to two sets.

But then, in cyberspace explorations for MJ music, I kept finding amazing material to work with: early Jackson 5 basement jam sessions, dance floor remixes, rough demos, alternate takes, etc., and my appreciation for his output over his nearly 50 years as a performer grew -- at the end of the second set, I still had all kinds of oddities and gems to share, like a reggae remix of "Ben," the lost "Thriller"-era track "Cheater" and "Off the Wall" B-sides. I also had yet to include "We Are the World" or "Man in the Mirror," which I felt like were essential pieces of this puzzle (I tried to keep them interesting by using a rough demo and live version). So, needless to say, a third set was spun and is being released to the people approximately two weeks after this whole tribute series was initially started.

Unlike the first two, this session is not chronological, but instead bounces around the different versions of MJ according to feel instead of timeline. To me, it feels a bit less cohesive than the story I've told of his musical evolution in the first two sets, but still has plenty to tell and is not to be missed.

The first two sets have been downloaded over 500 times each in the short period of time they've been put out on the internets, which makes me very happy. I envision Michael Jackson dance parties happening around the planet to the soundtrack of joyful music I've weaved together here. I appreciate the positive feedback I've heard from many listeners in diverse corners and hope that those who appreciate these mixes will share them widely with friends.

Michael Jackson's story is a very complicated, weird, mysterious and, ultimately, tragic. Some think his troubles originate in his childhood at the hands of his father, other argue that he brought it all on to himself. "Blame it on the Boogie" sidesteps all of these debates and instead focuses on the unmatched legacy of Michael Jackson's music -- his original blending of Motown, disco, r&b, funk and soul, spiced up with a huge amount of confident showmanship. MJ was a musical genius who created a huge body of uplifting, emotionally moving, booty-rocking music, and I hope this tribute trilogy helps remind listeners of how, beneath all the controversy, MJ was an extremely and sensitive gifted artist.

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Part 2 of my Michael Jackon Tribute series picks up where Part 1 ends, delving back in to the "Thriller" era before committing to an extended appreciation of "Bad" and then dropping in on a fast-paced, booty-rockin' exploration of MJ's underappreciated Late Period. I had no idead he was still putting out such amazing and ground-breaking music post-"Bad," tracks like "Scream", "They Don't Care About Us", "2 Bad", "Xscape" and "Jam." Like Part 1, this mix tells the MJ story through nontraditional tracks: home demos, remixes, dubs and rare tracks. I've been listening to both constantly these past 2 weeks, with mad appreciation for MJ's gift of groove to the world.

Against my better judgement, I had to start a third (and hopefully final!) installment in the tribute series. As I was mixing this one up, I kept finding amazing remixes and rarities online, but I wanted Part 2 to come in at under 80 minutes so it could be burned to CD, and the incoming rush of MJ music had to spill over in to a 3rd mix. A Michael Jackson "Trilogy" was unplanned when I first started out, but that is what this process has naturally evolved in to, so there it is. The man just put out too much great music -- blame it on the boogie!

www.podcastcafe.org

This musical journey starts with some selections from the Jackson 5, of course, before exploring his early solo career, with a multifaceted look at "Off the Wall" and his original melding of disco grooves with Motown soul. Eventually, we reach "Thriller," looking at half of the album's hits from various different perspectives, before running out of time at the 79:45 mark -- just the right length to be able to burn this mix to CD. Part two, to be released in a couple of weeks, picks up with the second half of Thriller and runs through various side projects and the most intriguing sounds from his later releases.

Now, those listeners looking for a run-through of his greatest hits can, well, purchase or dig out his many "Greatest Hits" collections. In other words, this ain't your mamas Michael Jackson. The mix is built on alternate takes, mash-ups, early home demos, interviews and, especially, remixes. There are many, many remixes of Michael floating around out there in cyberspace, and I chose a wide variety of reinterpretations: some ready to bump your booty, some corny and others just plain weird. I reveled in the wide, creative diversity of remixes that MJ inspired, and listening to them over the past week, it dawned on me just how universal his music was -- there was an essential DNA of heart, soul and groove in just about everything he performed, and those core elements were able to be fit in and reprogramed in all kinds of musical scenarios. House, reggae, grunge, glitch, ambient -- Michael's words and voice sounded natural in so many different genres and environments, in part because it was so real. And I guess that is why he was loved the whole world over -- his gift of song was universal. It touched the heart and moved the booty, no matter what culture or creed.

More commentary and musical mixes at www.podcastcafe.org.

Feedback: [email protected]