Tiny Mix Tapes | Chocolate Grinder Mixes

To listen to ZULI's We Are All Anemic mix is to be confronted by decay. Sliding across an arid terrain, its sounds move, but with a momentum that is staggered, labored. The force of entropy is taking hold. Rough trenches wound its territory, their depths unthinkable. In the air whorl clouds of sonic debris: old computers, satellite parts, strange alloys. Across an hour of sound, we toggle between depth and surface, contemplation and distraction interwoven in noise, bearing witness to a fading geography.

I first listened to ZULI's mix on a train to Glasgow. In the city, I listened to Denise Ferreira da Silva talk quantum physics and Leibniz's concept of the plenum. She wondered how we could come to perceive the world otherwise, how we could loosen the constraints of coloniality, its ways of knowing and being. I wondered: could listening — hearing — provide us with a way out? Does sound not move us away from the concept? When we listen to ZULI's mix, do we need to know? Or can we not simply enter into its moods, inhabit its structures, and leave with our perceptions altered?

In Glasgow, I heard Fred Moten and Nathaniel Mackey talk about debris and decay as a way of getting out from what keeps us under. They wanted an aesthetic of breakage, against wholeness. They want to register history as the sounding of decay, or decay as the sound of history. No smooth lines, but jaggedness, wear and tear.

In From a Broken Bottle Traces of Perfume Still Emanate, his epistolary novel, whose interlocutor he names "Angel of Dust," Mackey writes:

Dear Angel of Dust,

I'm enclosing a tape of my latest composition. I call it "Not of Rock, Not of Wood, Not of Earth" and (here you can say you told me so again) I got the inspiration for it from the work of an artist named Petlin who works in pastels. I saw a canvas of his at the house of a friend not too long ago and was instantly struck by how he manages to make texture constitute itself of its own erosion, infuses color with a certain aura of captured ruin. It seemed he'd worked the powderiness of the medium so as to have it collapse into a capacity for infiltration, that a spectral choir of massed incursions chromatically cloaked itself in vows, in conceptual hoods of deprivation. I was surprised to find myself so moved (and moved to music no less), especially in light of my letter to you a few months back. But what I saw to be the tactile or coloristic counterpart of hoarseness proposed a scratchiness of voice, a self-seeding smudge with overtones of erasure as a possible arc along which our music might pass. I tend to pursue resonance rather than resolution, so I glimpsed a stubborn, albeit improbable world whose arrested glimmer elicited slippages of hieratic drift.

Listen to ZULI's We Are All Anemic mix for us below:

Forces - "Frontiers of Freedom

City & i.o. - "Anxiety Object"

Daniel Ruane - "IV (CF BD)"

Selm - "Nineteen Voices"

xin - "Myopia"

YYYY - "lo que hay detras del miedo"

First Tone - "Reaction 2"

Cy An - "FINALFLIGHT(M)"

Shapednoise - "Moby Dick" ft Drew McDowall & Rabit

SDEM - "Mitherer"

FAKE - "solid scenario"

1127 - "Fragmented. Thought Train"

Emptyset - "Blade"

0N4B - "S7"

Rainer Veil - "Third Sync"

Katsunori Sawa - "Hatsushimo"

The Fully Automatic Model - "Long Forgotten Oxids"

Constant-Pattern Solutions - "A General Situation"

Renick Bell & Fis - "Tchae Eh"

Youthman - "29-300"

Broshuda - "Leg"

Every other year since I started Chocolate Grinding, I've done a Halloween mix. The past three were called Day of the Dead: The Halloween Hangover Mix, Devil's Night 2015, and The World's A Graveyard and Every Day Is Halloween. This one's called Day of the Dead: The Remake, because I sampled some of the same vinyl I used for the first mix. Also, presumably, with the holiday falling on a Thursday this year, a lot of people will be attending Halloween parties during the Day of the Dead festival. Thirdly, I was going for more of a funny-scary mood this time around, like a bad-good remake with extra schlocky special effects.

Thanks to Geng a.k.a. King Vision Ultra, Ryan Graveface of Marshmallow Ghosts, Andy Koufax, billy woods and Blockhead, Spaghetti Blacc, and Seth Graham for throwing me tracks to use on this mix. The King Vision Ultra demo is for an upcoming project with Sour Spirit, the Marshmallow Ghosts track is out now on limited-edition vinyl, Andy Koufax's "Issues" is an unreleased beat, the billy woods and Blockhead demo is an unreleased cut from 2015, Craymen's "Succulent Manila Tamarind" will be on an upcoming album, and Seth Graham's demo is an unreleased fragment. As always, the rest of the songs on here are from albums released this year.

Lastly, if you've enjoyed this and/or any of my Halloween mixes, some credit is due to former Infinity Records employee Damien. Yes, that's actually his name. If you ever went to Infinity around this time of year in the late 2000s or early 2010s, you might've caught him making Halloween mixes or demo-ing them on the store's stereo system. I haven't seen the guy since he stopped working there, and I don't have any of those mixes, but they were a big inspiration nonetheless.

I hope you enjoy it. Happy Halloween!

[00:27] King Vision Ultra - "Wretch" (Demo)

[01:10] Lingua Ignota - "Fucking Death Dealer"

[03:28] Shitao - "Castle"

[05:46] Joragon - "If you see a bad bitch with a Chainsaw Car RUNNN!!!"

[08:04] Yugen Blakrok - "Metallik Crow" ft. Jak Tripper (Sword Edit)

[12:40] Kinlaw & Franco Franco - "Eric Draven"

[15:43] Ghostride the Drift - "B2"

[16:20] The Marshmallow Ghosts - "S.O.S." ft. The Casket Girls

[19:56] Andy Koufax - "Issues"

[22:15] billy woods - "Witching Hour" (Blockhead Demo)

[25:06] CARL - "The Arboretum"

[29:52] City & i.o - "Fatal Flower"

[32:56] Craymen (Spaghetti Blacc & Zenmaster Dead) - "Succulent Manila Tamarind"

[35:29] Seth Graham - Untitled Demo

March 17 would have been Sean Price's 47th birthday had the MC aka Ruck lived past age 43. On February 8, 2019, P's longtime label Duck Down Music Inc. teamed with Coalmine Records and producer Small Professor for the rapper's second posthumous album, 86 Witness. Produced mostly before Price's untimely demise, the album got its title when Small Pro and executive producer Matt Diamond (no relation) realized that references to the year 1986 kept popping up in P's rhymes for the project. Sean Price was 14 in 1986. Hip-hop was about as young.

Sean Price's lyrics have always had something of a cafeteria cipher feeling about them. Sometimes his words make little sense together at first ("Dikembe Mutumbo, Feliz Navidad"), perhaps a testament to their being pulled out of thin air, but the rhymes are rarely ever left unresolved, and a perfectly timed punchline can set any verse on fire ("You buy Echo to get us free like Amistad"). Those types of lines also abound 86 Witness, as do features, so the cipher vibes are even more present than usual.

In celebration of the album's release, to which Sean's widow Bernadette Price gave her blessing, Tiny Mix Tapes reached out to Small Professor to compile a guest mix featuring only instrumentals from 1986. Included are a number of classic cuts such as "Peter Piper" and "Push It," as well as some more obscure selections like Anquette's "Throw the P" and Faze One's "Layin' Down a Beat."

Stream Small Professor's 1986 Instro Flow below and cop 86 Witness on Bandcamp or direct from Duck Down.

[00:00] Doug E. Fresh Intro

[01:02] Original Concept - Knowledge Me (Instrumental) Prod. by Original Concept

[02:40] Beastie Boys - Paul Revere (Instrumental) Prod. by Rick Rubin

[04:30] Mantronix - Bassline (Instrumental) Prod. by Mantronix

[06:22] Salt-N-Pepa - I'll Take Your Man (Instrumental) Prod. by Hurby Luv Bug

[08:17] Kool G Rap - It's A Demo (Instrumental) Prod. by Marley Marl

[09:37] Run DMC - Peter Piper (Instrumental) Prod. by Rick Rubin & Russell Simmons

[10:58] Anquette - Throw The P (Instrumental) Prod. by David Hobbs

[12:43] Faze One - Layin Down A Beat (Instrumental) Prod. by Dave Ogrin

[14:44] Janet Jackson - When I Think Of You (Instrumental) Prod. by Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis

[16:40] Beastie Boys - Slow And Low (Instrumental) Prod. by Rick Rubin

[18:16] Ultramagnetic MC's - Ego Trippin (Phat Bonus Beat) Prod. by Ced Gee

[19:26] Schoolly D - Saturday Night (Instrumental) Prod. by Schoolly D

[21:31] Biz Markie - Make The Music With Your Mouth, Biz (Instrumental) Prod. by Marley Marl

[23:30] Salt-N-Pepa - Push It (Instrumental) Prod. by Hurby Azor

[25:30] Just-Ice - Put That Record Back On (Instrumental) Prod. by Kurtis Mantronik

[27:20] Mantronix - Listen To The Bass Of Get Stupid Fresh, Pt. 2 Prod. by Kurtis Mantronik

[29:08] Fat Boys - Human Beatbox, Pt. 3

Bálint Szabó (a.k.a. Gosheven, a.k.a. Gosheven is hot) isn't stopping anytime soon. His exquisite (and Wire-approved) debut Leaper was released only last year, but we're currently on the brink of experiencing even more alternate-tuning goodness from the Budapest-based SHAPE affiliate: Bivaq, his equally hot follow-up, drops on Opal Tapes TODAY via CD and digital formats. In case you're interested in hearing and seeing what it's going to sound like, C Monster did some premiering for the "Until Exhaustion" video.

If you'd also like to hear some of Gosheven's "diverse inspirations from [the] past and present" (a.k.a. music that he's into), I'm delighted to inform you that that is very much possible. In fact, the following mix -- put together by Gosheven -- is here for precisely that purpose. It includes some interesting stuff indeed, ranging from Jóhann Jóhannsson (RIP <3) and Wooley, Lytton, Grubbs to Gosheven's improv band 12z and Oneohtrix Point Never (damn, "Betrayed In The Octagon" was released in 2013).

I won't delay this for any longer. Check out the tracklist below and enjoy the ride. True wonder:

[00:00] Wooley, Lytton, Grubbs - "Seven Storey Mountain" (excerpt)

[14:42] Ian William Craig - "Before Meaning Comes"

[17:51] Jóhann Jóhannsson - "Odi Et Amo"

[20:51] Jessica Moss - "Entire Populations (pt 3)"

[26:42] Felix Lajko - "Live At Academy" (excerpt)

[32:53] Nine Horses - "The Banality Of Evil"

[40:48] Hyperactive Kid - "Der Denker"

[43:17] 12z - "White Mountain Apache Knows No Fear"

[52:50] Oneohtrix Point Never - "Betrayed In The Octagon"

[56:09] Arve Henriksen - "Opening Image"

“Come on, just one more song?”

“Come on, just one more song?”

“Okay, last one I promise.”

“You can head out if you want. I can make it back alone.”

Stream below, subscribe to our podcast.

Tracklist:

[00:00] JPEGMAFIA - “Baby I'm Bleeding”

[02:31] Diamond Soul - “Luxury Firmware”

[04:32] Honnda - “It's a Foxx Ft. Toiney”

[07:13] Charli XCX - "Track 10"

[12:00] SOPHIE - "FACESHOPPING"

[15:41] Jam City - "Earthly 000"

[18:12] James Blake "If the Car Beside You Moves Ahead"

[22:09] bl00dwave - "Nothing Lasts Forever"

[24:26] Jam City - "Earthly 000"

[26:50] Frank Ocean - "Moon River"

All that's solid melts into bingo; the future's already here and it's distributed on WeChat.

2017 tunes from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mainland China, and Singapore 2065.

Stream below, subscribe to our podcast, and read more about each selection here.

[00:00] 蟑螂合唱團 IPIS - "忘了我是誰 (Sonia Calico Bootleg)"

[00:24] Hyph11e - "Unknown Number 未知"

[02:29] thruoutin - "Exploring the Interior 探索内部"

[03:45] Lujiachi - "竹林"

[08:54] David Boring - "Brian Emo"

[14:08] ST.OL.EN - "Copy Shop"

[18:02] 33EMYBW - "Medusa"

[20:56] Nang Band - "The Belt and Road, Sing Along"

[21:34] Damacha - "松松松松松"

[23:26] Howie Lee - "A Junkie's Whispering"

[25:25] Lawrence Lek - "You Never Render The Same River Twice" + "Hui Neng"

[27:22] Sonia Calico - "Butterfly Spy"

[28:20] RMBit - "Enter the ether_p2"

[32:05] Faded Ghost - "The Tide"

[34:11] Chui Wan - "Sheep's Shadow"

In the mob's damning stares, the shtetl woman saw reflections of not only burning torches but also burning hypocrisy, and this the worse conflagration. It wasn't enough that they'd spread their shameful lies to her customers. It wasn't enough that they'd marked and ransacked her market stall. They, whose children daily enjoyed the fruits of her sister-kin's bloody toils, now dared bring their accusations of blood libel to a part of town they'd otherwise never deign to enter and to the door of her family home?! No, not this night, she thought, not without real sacrifice. For that was what they accused, and that was what they demanded, wasn't it? So be it then.

"Yes! Yes, I drank of your child's blood!" she moaned at her nearest accuser. "And yours," she cried to the next. "He's the fat one, isn't he? Tonight I'll bathe in his!" The crowd inhaled a ghastly gasp. "And yours!" And another. "And yours!" The horde receded. "And tomorrow the streets will run red with goyim baby blood!"

Stream below, download the WAV version, and subscribe to our podcast here.

[00:17] Angelo Badalamenti - "Dark Mood Woods (Twin Lakes Mix)"

[04:27] Grandmilly & Shozae - "Halloween" (Unreleased)

[06:34] Alförjs - "Ajiba"

[09:21] 30XX - "Death Machine"

[09:21] Mars89 - "Poltergeist"

[11:04] Evan Caminiti - "Possession"

[14:35] ELUCID - "Piano Wire"

[16:45] Oaht - "Till Days Over (Gothic Marxism Mix)"

[19:45] Anthony Pasquarosa - "Godforsaken Country (Seq. 2)"

[21:58] Rozewood - "Stranger Danger"

Special thanks to Grandmilly and Shozae, whose Mausoleum EP is coming October 31; and to Andy Koufax, whose voice can be heard on the "Twin Lakes" and "Gothic Marxism" mixes and whose ancestral in-laws inspired the tale above.

"But if nostalgia as a political motivation is most frequently associated with fascism, there is no reason why a nostalgia conscious of itself, a lucid and remorseless dissatisfaction with the present on the grounds of some remembered plenitude, cannot furnish as adequate a revolutionary stimulus as any other."

– Frederic Jameson

An unnecessary nostalgia:

The seductive quality of the past — particularly of one not so great — is a curious trick of the psyche. Perhaps it is the desire for maintenance, or, in the language of McLuhan, demanding the new medium do the work of the old. Sometimes it seems like an attempt to resuscitate the past using whatever Frankenstein methodology our technology can muster. This unnecessary nostalgia is completely ahistoric and frighteningly reductive. Let's plug our ears with wax and forget everything we ever learned.

A necessary nostalgia:

The past could be worth so much more than a destination we desperately try to visit. Why must nostalgia shore the status quo? Rather, can we not use nostalgia to recover what was marginalized or unobserved, what was threatened to be erased by our obsession with victors and their monuments? Many seem set on shackling ourselves to the past. Instead, we might find greater benefit in leveraging what was lost toward the future. This is what Jameson might refer to as the "revolutionary stimulus" of nostalgia.

A present affection:

That's why I consider myself a bit grateful to Mark Templeton for this mix. Having just completed his Heart triptych, Templeton finds himself eyeing both past and future, delivering himself to a constructive nostalgia in this electroacoustic dreamspace. Constantly blurring past and future, the man himself says,

In my Heart trilogy, each release acts as an emotional response to a major change in my life. The theme of nostalgia is prevalent, as is the idea of waiting expectantly for the future. Gentle Heart marks the shift towards the future. This mix incorporates artists that have been present during these changes, ones who have influenced my process and folks that I am more recently intrigued by.

A true oneiric trip from the heights of delicacy (Cilio & Budd) to the low-down and in it (Fujita and Jelinek) to the outer reaches of imagination (Atkinson and Hassell). Sprinkled in for good measure are a couple of choice cuts from Gentle Heart, including "Cab Lights," a TMT-certified banger — check out Alex Brown's mix after this.

Stream below, and subscribe to our podcast here.

[00:00] Luciano Cilio - "Terzo quadro da 'Dialoghi del presente’"

[01:20] Robert Ashley - “The Fox” (excerpt)

[03:22] Phonophani - “Life’s White Machine”

[07:52] Michèle Bokanowski - “Tabou” (excerpt)

[10:07] Ahnnu - “Found”

[11:33] Harold Budd - “Bismillahi ‘Rrahmani ‘Rahim” (excerpt)

[13:31] Mark Templeton - “Pond” (excerpt)

[14:47] Masayoshi Fujita & Jan Jelinek - “Botuto”

[19:47] Semuin - “greetings prelude”

[22:50] Mark Templeton - “Cab Lights”

[25:52] Visible Cloaks - “Bloodstream”

[29:11] Leo Kottke - “Owls [Instrumental]” (excerpt)

[30:55] Mark Templeton - “Horizontal Plane”

[34:27] Andrew Pekler - “Seascape / Ship”

[36:40] Jon Hassell - “Air”

[40:41] Inventing Masks - “3’11””

[43:42] Ezekiel Honig - “August Rooftop”

[44:28] Nicola Ratti - “w6”

[48:11] Félicia Atkinson - “Curious In Epidavros”

[51:05] Nikolaienko - “Wir Bauen Eine Neue Welt”

[53:58] Mark Templeton - “Burning Brush"

"But I hear sounds in my mind;

Brand new sounds in my mind"

– Lorde

VIII.

The Russian frost does wonders for my health;

Anew I fall in love with life's routine:

Betimes I'm soothed by dreams, betimes by hunger caught;

The blood flows free and easy in my heart,

Abrim with passion; once again, I'm happy, young,

I'm full of life - such is my organism

(Excuse me for this awful prosaism)

– Alexander Pushkin

When autumn comes. City landscapes. Sidewalks, leaves and shit. Getting colder, breezy. Still hot some days. Subtle maneuvers. Drive at night. Turn the ignition, crack the windows. Stare at the glow of an iPhone. Connect to Bluetooth. Pull-up music, shuffle it. Shuffle all of it. Wait for songs — good ones, bad ones; like some, resent some. You know how it goes. Just listen. Accelerate. Brake. To travel is better than to arrive. Sit at a red light. It's late. You share this four-lane road with no one. The moment feels limitless. Subtle maneuvers. Turn signal. On, off. Lights in the rearview. A rhythm surrounds you. Speed up. You realize you're driving too slow. I hear sounds in my mind. A song stuck in your head. Not the one playing over your speakers, a different one. You long for it, long for that song to satisfy your hunger. But you can't switch the one playing. Not always.

Think of seasons changing, people changing, growing. Excuse me for this awful prosaism. Summer days fade gray, fade into memory. It went by fast. Look back with fear and relish. Soothed by dreams. But I'll be present — I always have been. The wreckage of past days sorted into neat boxes, pack them away, open them later, rearrange them into something they're not. What's it all for? Who is listening? Anew I fall in love. Subtle maneuvers. A soft breeze, a harbinger of the oncoming cold. You remember now — rays of sun cutting through water, through blades of grass. The immeasurable weight of balance, of time. It all takes time.

Stream below, and subscribe to our podcast here.

[00:00] Lil B - "Wasup JoJo"

[02:46] Air Max '97 - "ALL THE THINGS U SAID (AM 97 RERUN)"

[05:50] KirbLaGoop - "My Lil Angel"

[07:44] 24hrs - "2 Much"

[10:08] Lorde - "Green Light"

[13:52] UMFANG - "Pop"

[05:50] Lady Starlight - "E2.2"

[20:02] Mark Templeton - "Cab Lights"

[22:40] Richard Dawson - "Weaver"

[28:20] Chief Keef - "Grab a Star"

[31:50] Chino Amobi - "THE FLOATING WORLD PT. 1"

[33:21] Future - "Might As Well"

I hate how society demands how "ME" I have to be. You want "ME?" Cut me in front of a Metrocard machine, yo. It's a twice-a-year thang to get a Metrocard. And I understand panhandling. I get you ain't got cash on hand. I see your failed credit card interaction. Does that give you a ticket to both Metrocard machines without me losing my cool. Yes! Yes, it does. I will play it cool because fucking white people give enough a bad name to this America so like, "I'll forever exisist humanity's jackass." Keep talking, Clifford. This is juxtaposition of the flagrant. Now leave. Shivering. A naturally evolving country of white people left to where they have always belonged: underground in a segment we like to call, "Please, Pretend We Never Happened. Thanks! Kay."

Ohhh, if y'all just knew how much I wanted to completely rip apart my body and watch it put itself back together in the pain of frustration. Emotional status on a physical node. Saying I used to scratch Nike symbols into my skin as a kid. Saying anything at all in belief of faith. Humanity crumbling into a dimensional internet that was always fucking here; and I'm the fool: because I really am. Look at me [refer to the above picture]. People not really liking anything but themselves inside on a nice day binging everything they can consume in one heaping pile of trash bags that're memories bestowed upon an afterlife nobody will ever fucking care about because the memory of YOU is worth a fucking wooden nickel with a buffalo on it that's been a burger since 1956, digested into shit, sewage, and is now soil for a money-tree in some region of West China that only dynasty family may enter.

Stream below, and subscribe to our podcast here.

[00:00] Upgrayedd Smurphy - "Epsilon"

[04:05] Darren Keen - "How Polite"

[07:50] Laural Halo - "Moontalk"

[12:20] Kirt The Flirt - "Back2Biz "

[16:35] DIVORCE - "Tea Lizard's Lament"

[19:14] Care Bears - "Care Bears Countdown" (Judith Priest Hard Edit)

[22:41] Fugitive - "Bebephat"

[25:56] Nmesh - Hepatic Portal

[31:39] Bloom - VISION (osno1 remixx)