I’m definitely still half-asleep this morning (and that’s giving myself some credit), so I’ll keep this short. The PopCultureShock Monday Mix is back! And we’ve got some original stuff this week.

It was a long, long weekend. The best kind of long weekend. New York’s post-winter hot-flashes finally settled down to a temperate spring, and 60-degree weather had called my roommate and I out to the streets in search of adventure and good records. He’s recently broken up with his girl, you see, which means it’s back to me to take the guy out and help him cope with his loss, mostly by taking him around Brooklyn digging for music, the way I do whenever I’ve got something I want to keep my mind off of. It’s kind of this routine we’ve got down. I mean, we’ve been living together for almost 2 years now. I guess that makes this the most long-term relationship I’ve ever had.

Anyway.

We spent most of Sunday afternoon killing the bins at Halcyon, in DUMBO, and drinking cold cans of Sapporo in Brooklyn Bridge Park. Made out with a few good records. A really nice Peanut Butter Wolf/Charisma joint that I hadn’t heard before, a good Ryuichi Sakamoto 12″ I’d been keeping an eye out for for a while, a couple Luscious Jackson 12″ of tracks I already had (but with some remixes I didn’t have), and some pretty nice stuff by Tundra (the Urban Quilt EP), off this new(ish) label out of, surprisingly, my neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Okay, to be fair, they’re closer to Bushwick Ave than Bedford, but I gotta say, I didn’t know there still people in our neighborhood putting out this kind of music. I thought we were pretty much known for hipsters and LCD Soundsystem, not dope instrumental hip-hop and other fine downtempo beats. I’m pretty sure the picture on the sleeve is from around the block too, although in my half-asleep state I couldn’t tell you which exact corner. I can post a picture of it, though.

The label is Inner Current Recordings, and they’re the real deal. It looks like they’ve added Take to their roster, who had some nice stuff on Plug Research’s Sounds of LA series, and whose DJ sets I’ve also caught on Dublab.com a few times. Nice to see his work getting out there, I’ve always liked the guy. And it’s nice to see a new label popping up, especially out here in New York City (it seems like a lot of the “future roots” stuff is staying on the west coast these days), putting out solid downtempo music again. Once again, Inner Current Recordings: Check them out.

Now, despite all this chat, none of these songs are in the set I’m posting today. That’s because I picked up all these new tracks on Sunday, and recorded this little selector-style set while chilling with some friends Saturday night. The style is still the same, I suppose. A lot of future roots type stuff (that is what they’re calling it these days, right?), and, as I look back on it, kind of a Los Angeles theme going on. It was accidental, but it works.

Anyway, this Monday Mix isn’t really heavily mixed, but more of a half-radio-style set I could probably call Sometimes DJs Get Tired of Mixing. Kind of like an ode to our old days of hardcore pirate radio in Miami, only without me talking over anything. It’s got some weird stuff, some tracks more accessible than others, but still a lot of good downtempo stuff that came out this year and last year, along with a few other oddities thrown in for good measure. Hopefully, if I can churn out another set for next Monday (or, uh, the one after that), it’ll have some of the new stuff I picked up this weekend (and whatever I make out with between then and now). For now, he’s just some good tunes I had kicking around the crates but hadn’t gotten to recording yet, and a little set that seemed to fit the crowd hanging with us Saturday night. May it bless your own upcoming work-week with fine vibes and chunky beats.

(That wasn’t really “keeping it short”, huh? Ah, heh.)

The Mix.

Dylan_Garret_-_Infinite_Ways_05-14-07.mp3
(download Infinite Ways)

I didn’t have a chance to jot down all the track names yet, and don’t have the records in front of me to check, but here’s a quick rundown off the top of my head of what you’ll get in this show, with MySpace links for most in case you want to dig deeper. And, as always, tons more mixes and musical goodness up on B&C:

Clark
Umod
Ta’raach & The Lovelution
Flying Lotus
Ammoncontact
Madvillain vs Four Tet
A Tribe Called Quest
Dabrye
Sach
Georgia Anne Muldrow
Digable Planets
Milosh
Daedelus
Bonobo
Herbert
Cut Chemist