Cut Chemist
11/4/6
Apple store instore performance
Cut Chemist is the work of sensational sampler Lucas MacFadden and this performance was nothing short of impressive between the music and the visuals. With a set of almost a complete hour in duration that you couldn’t help moving around to (those darned chairs!), MacFadden deftly played five turntables at once combining (as on his recordings) eclectic samples ranging everywhere from old television and film samples to jazz, hip hop and more. MacFadden also used a small sample from DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing, which was a real treat as it’s one of my favorite albums.
The visuals were as diverse as the samples, consisting of classic film clips, cartoons, clips of people in public, and MacFadden himself spinning at a store counter. The highlight for me was hearing “My (1st) Big Break” and seeing legions of robots on the large screen behind him. For anyone not familiar with Cut Chemist’s most recent release The Audience’s Listening, I would highly recommend it. During this summer, there were days when I listened to it three…even four times in a row over and over again. It’s great for the kind of day when you feel like you need to get out of a sloth mode and be productive. Another fantastic song played Saturday from this album was “What’s the Altitude.”
There’s definitely something to be said for the art form of the DJ turntablist. The great ones like MacFadden take all of the random auditory information you feel you’ve been collecting for years and storing back in your self conscious and somehow make it cohesive. If you could picture a giant sound funnel sifting through all of the information to make sense of the chaos and making the sounds chosen all that more relevant and interesting in a new context. After all, in case of a nuclear attack, protection of records is essential.
Listen to Cut Chemist on myspace
View the complete photo set on flickr
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