Robert Dume of Briefcase Productions is working on a video for Cambrian Dive. This is one earnest, hard-working artist and it has been an absolute pleasure to stand before the camera that stands before his vision.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Monday, September 12, 2011
September 13, 2011 - I'm Still Down
It was September 1996. I was a freshman in high school. Bill Clinton was the president, again. Michael Jordan was playing basketball and there was no facebook, or even myspace. My friends and I were outside. I can't remember if it had rained all day or the drops began in the evening but by the time Niesha walked up the block on that night, Friday the 13th, rain was definitely falling. It should've added drama to the news she and her wet eyes delivered to us. 2Pac died. But it didn't.
We were jerks, not the guys you come to with news of celebrity death. We laughed at her. She cursed us out for saying he got what he deserved for dissing the East Coast. I didn't know that come December I would be purchasing Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory on cassette tape from The Wiz; I didn't know that by the next summer I'd be listening to nothing but Pac and West Coast "gangsta rap". Neither could I imagine being enthralled online, reading conspiracy theories about 2Pac's supposed faked death. I had no idea, that I would eventually become curious enough to start writing my own rhymes while listening to Made Niggaz and Death Around the Corner. On that September evening, I was just confused as to why Niesha cared so much. I wasn't a fan of Pac's while he was alive but that's only because I barely listened to music back then, high school was the catalyst for my need to listen to lyrics and beats--hip-hop was the style of expression that reached me the fastest, 2Pac was the first who was most loudest and most clear.
I chose to remix these 2 songs because I knew I could do something new to them. But whatever I created for both Hellrazor and Only Fear of Death has been pulled through the well of inspiration that has long since been influenced by the original artist. Mr. Shakur in part, created these remixes himself. My interpretations are a peephole through which you can understand how I perceive 2Pac's music. Much of the reason I chose 2 songs that were released posthumously was because all his living material is as it should be, its definitive material--And I could only perceive them as they are. I don't want to hear or create remixes for Hit 'em Up, Dear Mama, or Ambitionz Az a Ridah. And even though R U Still Down? (in my opinion) was the only organic posthumous album, it still houses material 2Pac, for one reason or another, decided wasn't ready to surface. This uncertainty almost invites experimentation.
Still, these two songs exhibit with great strengths two major facets of 2Pac's style, Passion and Contemplation. I couldn't help but rap along while remixing these songs -- the electricity of HLLRZR is an energy that seems so real and honest that one wonders what the sessions for this recording were like. Its as if each lyric is in the middle of kinesis, exploding into the microphone, not seeming to come from a human being who is stationed and limited in a booth but angrily running and storming through thought after thought, fighting with every breath. NLY FR F DTH, on the other hand, is dark and introverted, very comfortable but eerie. Its almost like listening to thoughts not meant to be shared. I held on to these prime impressions as I remixed each song. I hope the result is something refreshing yet natural to the essence of Pac. May you rest in peace and shine on, crazy diamond. I dedicate these songs to September 13, 1996 and my homegirl Niesha.
-Azrael Encarnacion
Electrocute us all--Nice dream.
KLVN and I have been thinking of working together for some time now. We've had a few false starts but after scoring the anti-score for his experimental motion picture, Egg Sack Lee--we've taken to trying out ideas of a collaborative nature. The result has been interesting and definitely worth a pursuit. Robert Dumé, of Briefcase Productions, has sat in on some of the sessions with his incessantly perverted camera to document some of the mayhem. Wine, thoughts, and the random spirit of pi have guided what has thus been captured by the lens.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Friday, September 2, 2011
2PAC remixes
Just finished two remixes of early pre-deathrow 2Pac songs: NLY FR F DTH (Only Fear of Death) & HLLRZR (Hellrazor). I'm really starting to enjoy omitting vowels.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Picture Me Rollin'
Worked on mixing sound textures and
tried to re-format lyrics to a new beat (not working)
I remember when I didn't know how hip-hop beats were produced. At one point this was as mysterious to me, as childbirth is to a 5 year old. I grew up right before the world wide web, I was a teenager by the time it started calling itself, the internet. It wasn't the information network it is today, the idea was there but the reach had yet to exceed its grasp. So when I listened to a Dr. Dre instrumental and tried to figure out how it was made, I didn't have youtube MPC tutorials or wikipedia entries about samplers, synths, and drum machines--I wasn't into magazines (or more to the point, my empty wallet wasn't into magazines) and I didn't have any friends who made beats. So like that 5 year old kid, that sits with chin in fist at the street curb wondering where babies came from, I simply relied on my imagination.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Act V Song Lyrics
ACT V
In the case that this advent is horizon to the storm
allow me proudly fist to spend while I open doors
in the case that my only anchor to grace is forced
early extinction when permission is the bastard of a whore...
take her from me, watch the color exit earth,
sky above me drench in dirt, trust the hover of hatred when it bursts
aboard heart, minus life from her breast--much confess do i
peace without she is nevermore
good sir, you've managed too well to find her
spread your venom dancing but good sir
she's hell to vanish, a survivor form
definition of a silhouette, the interest
of each drum beat my cardiac machine is kicking for
and all hopes in the most her will provides to kick you
in the throat and distance between your hands and her life will grow
grow...grow...like new earth as a grave for you good sir
as she's preserved and she'll breathe as you won't
if i have two and you have one
then you have two and a third
just in case something happens to the first
just continue breathing
and i'll do anything you need
i'll do everything you need
lung! lung! my kingdom for a lung
lung! lung! my kingdom for a lung
watch as the moon takes the night, youth in shade
plots that consume parlour of plight loops in place
no use fretting as a flight freight chapter
in charter captured misery's default setting
and its ever sound, this twilight broken brook
i took from her lips, a love, and among all its compounds
a prism to bend a head from shrouds
take her from me--it must be why capsules
taught me how to drown
there's a fire in the day, never so fair
immense desire, i'd kill a million christs
for one strand of her hair
an empire as a trade, my queen of spades
i'll take ten ozones for her life
in the case that this advent is horizon to the storm
a room shuts with her and opens nevermore
(c) Primitive Prime! All Rights Reserved.
Cambrian Dive Song Lyrics
CAMBRIAN DIVE
I sat on a fire escape under a sheet of static clouds
that did but choke and sparks of electric phlegm did approach
and spoke did they with aim to listen a gather awake
a cancer of shake ran its branch fingers of plasma
upon a stroke of heart ache
like the sudden snap of dagger from sheath
a wink of light blew a kiss--we drew the lips close
when this fire grew to width that smoke
became air became stones to breathe; there, no time can be
defined by speed a fair fear
farther sped and garnered each ear in despair
each eye a leech sucking the view by heaps of Mercurian leaps
the curious creep to the light and reach
a new new forever an old cold bold successor to now
design it over make it colder make every last silence a sound
don't tell me you can't see it above us ain't it presently beautiful
cambrian prime for me and you, for me and you
cambrian prime for me and you...
a wedding and a funeral...
and when the first drop lands, announced by thunder with proud roars
with palms of hands we await the taste like fate's connoisseurs
deluge advance, breaking our windows and yawning our doors
you've made us dance, from fossils of us distant future explore
tell me the flavor we never were neighbors
its weighing in acres when date...
later remakes us through accents of paper
and mute translators mistake...
our passion for pleasure our labor for leisure
our jesters for teachers and no one alive to cure your amnesia
mother athena preserve us in your blade
when the first drop lands...
(c) Primitive Prime! All Rights Reserved.
Lady Supernova's Lover Song Lyrics
LADY SUPERNOVA'S LOVER
She lets me sing my song even mumbles along but the lyric is just one word,
"boom..."
She dresses me, impressed when she smiles and sees I'm
doomed...
Wakes up to dusty rain gust, glittery spray rust,
powder that makes lungs anxious breathing
as he fuels it with stained love.
His lungs: rustoleum red, rustoleum read on atmosphere canvas.
Canvass surveillance that nobody sweats he signs, in hand print.
Phobia Falcon cauldron browsing Atlas for Crimson Badges.
Occupies time keeping his hands dry in the drowned hearts of Atlantis.
Phantom! He's a sunset with a heartbeat and a huntress
with an army silhouette attached to arteries
assigned to detonate in his chest.
In his last breath, so he's gone far; millipeding his steps,
never repeating attempts, ever just feeding his strengths;
ever just biding his time, opportuning design when Today provides
her voice/his name the bright song along the explosion left behind.
"T'was moon tide of summer, at mid-time of night
and stars in their orbits shone pale thru the light--
the brighter cold moon; mid-planets, her slaves
herself in the heavens, her beam on the waves"
(-EAP)
City of statue citizen in canceled subscription to capsule submission,
a classroom of ash and a laser in fashion
attached to subtraction of life from the caption.
Lung in adaption of love and compassion,
she's proud of me now I'm a gallon of acid in radiated ration,
twisting her smile so bright and so loud she's singing.
Clouds fall to the ground, dragging the sewer,
flash-flooding Obscure; angelic metallic replaces organic.
The trees, they all choke! Air becomes fewer...
Oceans evaporate open to propagate casket for planet.
I drop and break, landing on a bed of dead fish
and sunset electric in a reservoir pageant...
...Of a beautiful glass. I'm in the iceberg of her eye
and she kisses me in between space and time;
new dimension walks on, my heart perfectly fits
in her mouth the way she likes; with one word we unite...
(c) Primitive Prime! All Rights Reserved.
Good Saturday
Spent most of the day with Mini till she bounced, at which point after a few random pictures I went home and wrote a song. Can't think of a title yet. But it fits with my idea for an album about people and their behaviors.
On another note, I finished up the instrumental for an older song that I want to record and release soon.
Monday, August 8, 2011
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Nebula in the Far
A special thanks to those beams of life who have dipped their hands into the plasma. Surge with me. Generate with me. Cambrian Prime.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
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