Jazz Articles about DJ Spooky

DJ Spooky: The Secret Song

by Mark Corroto
October 6, 2009

DJ Spooky again proves hip-hop is jazz. Like its grandfather bebop, mixologist/DJ/producer Paul Miller's (aka DJ Spooky) hip-hop is as vibrant and creative as the great revolutionaries in jazz. On The Secret Song he mixes dub, reggae, rock, classical, world, electronic and, well, jazz into a jazz thing.

Spooky's reflections on the financial and world meltdown of the last eight years pulls together a global perspective on the people's culture, be it “Azadi," the Farsi word for “freedom," sung by ...

DJ Spooky Vs. Dave Lombardo: Drums of Death

by AAJ Staff
May 2, 2005

Word to the wise: play Drums of Death at full volume. Piss off the neighbors--some things are more important. You'll want to feel your chest vibrate with the bass, your bones sizzle with the drums, and your very flesh seared by the guitars. These mutant hip-hop funk metal jams are not for the faint of heart, nor the closed of mind, nor the timid of spirit. But man, they do move you right along.

DJ Spooky has never ...

DJ Spooky vs Dave Lombardo: Drums of Death

by Paul Olson
April 19, 2005

There have been about thirty thousand attempts to fuse hip-hop and heavy metal music since the Beastie Boys tried it first on Licensed to Ill back in 1986. Most of these attempts fall somewhere in the continuum between “unsuccessful-but-well-meaning (Ice-T's metal band Body Count) and outright bad (the odious nü-metal of Korn and Limp Bizkit).And then there's Drums of Death, the new Thirsty Ear collaboration between hip-hop/electronic conceptualist DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid and thrash-metal drummer Dave Lombardo ...

DJ Spooky: Celestial Mechanix

by Mark Corroto
July 8, 2004

We arrive at the mix, the remix, and the original sound recordings from the same place. Your ears, you see (you hear), cannot differentiate between the original and what has been reconstituted. But your psyche can.

DJ Spooky knows this and he is a master of playing with your subconscious mind. He deals in fragments, found sounds, and memory. That is why when you hear Captain Kirk from Star Trek and Commander George W. Bush mixed (er, remixed) ...

DJ Spooky: Dubtometry

by Farrell Lowe
March 12, 2003

This is such an exciting time in the world of modern jazz. We are in the midst of a new wave of fusion where jazz artists unabashedly embrace current pop and world music sound forms. When Miles Davis went electric in the Sixties, it caused quite a stir; I can only hope this new brand of fusion can create a similar unrest in the world of jazz. The process of discovery and assimilation of new insights into culture and music ...

DJ Spooky: Dubtometry

by AAJ Staff
March 10, 2003

Formally Dubtometry represents a remix of 2002's bold jazz-tronic record Optometry. Indeed, the common denominator remains DJ Spooky, who produced this 17-piece set. But the comparisons between hip-hop and jazz, which Spooky so effectively blended on last year's record, end right there. It might be jazzy, but this is a straight-up hip-hop record, no matter how you cut it.

So take it on its own terms. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. For Dubtometry, Spooky (aka Paul D. Miller) ...

DJ Spooky with Mad Professor: Dubtometry

by Mark Corroto
March 4, 2003

Did you catch that sample of Chef from Apocalypse Now in the remix of DJ Spooky’s Optometry ? Not Dennis Hopper or Marlon Brando, but the crazed boatmen who transport Martin Sheen up the river and into the heart of darkness are sampled here.

There have to be cosmic implications for quoting Apocalypse Now, or perhaps Apocalypse Now Redux.

Since Peter Gordon’s Thirsty Ear label and its producer Matthew Shipp are melding hip hop culture ...