DJ Zhao of the Ngoma Blog is on the decks for the latest instalment of the illustrious Blogariddims series and brings a heavyweight bass mashup mix to the table.

Ngoma is Swahili for drums, dance and song which is perfectly suitable for the sounds coming from young Zhao’s blog and his addition to Blogariddims. This mix is one our favourites from the series so lets hear what the man had to say about it…

[DJ Zhaoi] “This is made with material i prepared for Fusion Festival, and is also an attempt to communicate new conceptions of hybridity by fusing sounds from disparate locations and eras into cohesive new musical entities, with focus on traditional and regional music framed by urban bass and beats, or is it the other way around?”

“This part 1 is the relatively listening set, stay tuned for Part 2, which will be strictly for bouncing off walls.”

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Tracklist

1. Deadbeat - Lost Luggage // Indonesia – Spring Water
2. Itoa - Sgt. Peppers Lonely Heart’s Dub Band D1 // Indonesia – Morning Sun
3. The Mahotella Queens – Muntu Wesilisa // Wiley – Bang Bang Instrumental
4. African Headcharge – Belinda // Blir – 19_4_04
5. Indonesia Traditional – Sanda Kandung // Unknown Grime instrumental
6. Benga - Half Ounce // [Burundi: Music from the Heart of Africa] bernadette ii
7. Indonesia Traditional – Ngantosan // Mark One – Slang
8. Danny Weed – Dirty Den // Huseyin Ali Riza Albayrak – Ey Zahid
9. Ragga Twins – Spliffhead
10. Burial - Unite
11. Dub Terror [ft. Echo Ranks] – Technology
12. Hiripsime - ces femmes qui me ressemblent // Cyrus – Random Trio – Bounty
13. African Headcharge – Run Come Saw // DQ1 – Wear The Crown
14. Indonesia Traditional – Padang Magek // Omen – Rebellion
15. L-Wiz – Sub // Armenia Traditional – Boulbouli Hid (Le Chant du Rossignol)
16. Vex’d – Destruction // from 2046 soundtrack
17. Hijak - Nightmares // ø – Toisaalia
18. Shackleton - Blood On My Hands / I Want to Eat You // Dashti – Abdoinaghi Afsharnia
19. Kode 9 – Magnetic City // Akhenation – 361 Degrees
20. Mulatu Astatge – Kulunmanqueleshi // Dj Hatcha – Just a Rift
21. Loka - Fire Shepherds – Freda Mae // Dubwoofa – Devoliz
22. The Mahotella Queens – Ndodana Yolahleko // Skream – Skunkstep

Mashups: a cheap one liner trend collapsing all narratives into a heap of meaningless garish post modern rubbish, or a new way of interacting with cultures, of thinking about the world, of experiencing and creating music? I’ve always been excited, if not by most of what i have heard, by what i imagined was possible.

And what i imagined was Digital Gamelan, Ethiopian Grime, Afro-Arabian Dubstep — sounds from far away and/or long ago fused in ways that are both surprising but also intuitive… i wanted to make a particular kind of mashup, producing results that people would want to listen to, maybe over and over. is it possible to make the fusion, the bastard Frankenstein assemblage, sound better than the original sources? a tall order for sure, especially when the original sources sometimes are master musicians, but one that i nonetheless hope to have achieved in some of the mashups included in this mix. judge for yourself — admittedly a little difficult since you can not hear the originals next to them — so i suppose just go by how well the hybrids work…

i am always hearing the same beat patterns, the same compositional devices, the same dynamics, the same arrangements, in music made both spatially and temporally far apart from each other: i think ultimately i absolutely believe that the traditional non western music are the roots of modern music, and indirectly perhaps, but absolutely, deeply connected to the most current forms dance music evolution is taking. (this has to do with the “Afro Asiatic Roots of Classical Civilization” but that’s a HUGE topic for another day).

enough BS, please to enjoy:

DJ Zhao