you should be using bandcamp

I love bandcamp.  Please delete your spotify subscription and buy music from bandcamp.  If you want your favourite musicians to make a living, Bandcamp is the way forward.

Artists there get 85% of what you pay, and you get to own a lossless (FLAC) copy of the amazing music.
Never trust the cloud.  Never trust in Spotify to nurture musicians and communities.

Sometimes it's nice to go to the Bandcamp front page and just watch the infinite scroll of albums being purchased in real-time.

I decided to follow my years-long passion for BC and putting some stuff up there.  It won't be much, but you should still follow me there too because it's just neat.
https://caitlynpascal.bandcamp.com/

here are some recommendations:
https://pwelverumandsun.bandcamp.com/album/microphones-in-2020
https://themountaingoats.bandcamp.com/album/songs-for-pierre-chuvin
https://batboymusic.bandcamp.com/album/couldnt-keep-up-ep
https://sarchasm.bandcamp.com/album/bat-boy-vs-sarchasm-split
https://davidgrollman.bandcamp.com/album/my-shit
https://raespoon.bandcamp.com/album/superioryouareinferior
https://linguaignota.bandcamp.com/album/all-bitches-die
https://djshub.bandcamp.com/album/powwowstep
https://auvol.bandcamp.com/album/apothecary
https://beaunoise.bandcamp.com/album/buchlaworks-module-i
https://girlslivingoutsidesocietysshit.bandcamp.com/album/trans-day-of-revenge
https://merdarahta.bandcamp.com/album/as-the-dark-clouds-swept-away-we-could-see-the-sunset
https://yamantakasonictitan.bandcamp.com/album/yt-st

a few notes...

1) as of New Year's Eve, I will be removing all 2010 blog entries from the server.  Go to http://www.thetastates.com/mp3s/blog/ and download now while you can.
2) someone informed me that I had accidentally removed my address from my wishlist.  I fixed that.  But also realized I should probably link to my wishlist at amazon.ca, since I am in Canada and no point shipping me stuff from the USA.
3) in case you missed it, be sure to check out my year-end holiday mega post and best-ofs.
4) have a great 2013, people!

~Caitlyn / cPI

Reasons I am a terrible at this DJ thing:
I don't care what anyone else wants to hear.
I don't have sexy glossy photos.
I don't network.
I don't care about fashion.
Instead of going to other DJ nights I stay home and work on noise projects.
Chances are I do not have what you want to hear.
I get confused as to why people aren't in to what I am doing, but strive to not actually care, and stay focused.

I feel like I need to wipe the slate clean of that pretension, get back to my original focus, and stop comparing myself to DJs that actually have "success" or "demand" or "buzz" or any of that, because really that's never what it was about, but somewhere along the way I lost the plot.

I've been busy

Just teaching my baby the finer points of beatmatching...

A note for new visitors!

*waves*
Hi everyone coming here from Ubu and WFMU! 
I wanted to point out that this blog is a bit eclectic, so in addition to the "digitized albums" tag that you are probably browsing right now, you should also really check out:

The excellent DJ mixes


and the weekly mp3 blog

The mixes are a wide variety of music, from chillout beats to dancey pop, all with nods to the underground and wonderfully mixed.
The mp3 blog is a weekly .ZIP file for ease-of-download of all sorts of amazing new stuff.

Enjoy!
~Caitlyn / CPI

Daphne

WARNING: things are changing around here.

WARNING:  things are changing around here.

BABY.

My wife and I are expecting our first child and that will have a direct impact on the level of my activities here, as it should.
My time will be much more limited, my projects less focused, my gigs less prevalent.

I have been DJing dance parties less and less over the last few years, for a few reasons.  A big part of that is getting older and less and less of my friends being able to come out and party until 2am.
And another part of it is my disillusionment with the scene in general.  I realize that DJing is 50% fashion, and I just don't care about fashion.
Being a woman, when I held residencies I would get one or more random dudes come up to me on any given night and make creepy and/or sexual comments to me.
And being a larger woman immediately makes one less viable as a DJ.  Female DJs are always required to have sexy glossy shots for advertisements.  And if you can rock that look, less people care if you're that good.  I've read bios on female DJs that even state they only started last year, but oh they're already booking tours.  Oh look, a  photo gallery!
I have no animosity towards other DJs that have clothing sponsorships and model on the side or can rock the queerio hipster couture, but yes it is hugely important to recognize that it is 50% fashion.

Fashion is fine!  It's just not my scene.   I care about sound.
And family.


I will most likely continue to work in the area of dreamer beats and ambient music and experimental production.  Those were, after all, my first loves.  The slogan has always been: Bedroom music for bedroom people.
Dance music drifts in utility for me if I am not being hired to play it any more.    I will still do the occasional party.  I am still available for events and weddings.  But I won't be playing 4 times/month any more.
I will probably maintain the MP3 blog, as it occurs more organically.

After Djing a birthday party for a 2-year-old this weekend I will officially be taking a leave of absence from DJing and art projects until the end of the summer, where I already have 2 major private parties booked.  After that point, I'll just play it by ear.
I am going to be training 2 proteges in 2 different cities, but details on that later.  It might be a terrible disaster, you never know.  :)

With the gigs I will still be doing, I probably will not be taking any further gigs in places that do not recognize gay marriage.  There are many states in the USA where my wife and I would have no rights as a married couple if something were to go wrong.  We could be legally denied access to each other, and to our child.
And this is not a hypothetical, these kinds of horrible things happen far too frequently to gay families across your country.  (my stats counter says most of you are located in USA...)
THIS IS SERIOUS BUSINESS, PEOPLE.
I want to make my request absolutely clear:  please do whatever you can to elect officials who will work enact full equality for LGBT people and families.   Marriage rights is only one of many complex issues, but it's a big one, and the most symbolic.
Gay families are everywhere, and if your government or state does not recognize and support them, they are hurting families and children.

That's it for now.  I will continue using the small snippets of free time I find to do what I love.   And when love is involved, who knows what can happen.

Caitlyn / CPI.

(picture by Amanda Wong)

we got a new article!

Amazing article on Q-Bounce, Rae Spoon & CPI!

warning!

Warning!  Warning!  Warning!

Once the clock flips over to 2012, we will be deleting all of the blog files from 2009!
If you wanted to grab any of them (check http://thetastates.com/mp3s/blog/blog_history.txt for the breakdown and http://thetastates.com/mp3s/blog/ for the links) do it ASAP.
As per usual, the "best of 20xx" posts and the holiday posts will stay online, but all other shall vanish.

~Caitlyn / CPI

[BEST OF 2011] 2011 in review

2011 in review
Wow, another year!  They are positively cascading away from me.  All downhill from here…  Are you reading this?
I'm doing things slightly different now.  A few changes this year:  I am only going to bother with the top 40 albums.  Not 50.
I am not going to bother with listing my favourite mixtapes (because obviously they are the ones I made), nor best EPs nor reissues.  I will still post a selection of my favourite experimental records.
I will write less about the albums.  I will write more about myself.  I will offer a schedule.
Dec 07: this.
Dec 08: best of instrumental & experimental
Dec 12: BO2011:  40-21
Dec 13: BO2011:  20-1
Dec 15: annual holiday music post



So what did I accomplish this year?
I spent most of my time on the Chosen Families series and am incredibly proud of them.  Download them ASAP if you have not already…
The development of my "dreamer beats" aesthetic has resulted in mixes that are very rewarding for me.  They are their own little worlds that span genres and conventions, but give me the emotional hooks I am looking for.  All the while being as smooth as possible.
CPI - Directions To My Special Place (chosen families 1)
CPI - Glittering, Waiting (chosen families 2)
CPI - Always More Than This (chosen families 3)
CPI - Oh, Glorious Perversions (chosen families 4)
Combine that with last year's Moonchild (in memoriam) and you have over 7 hours of musical mixes that you probably can't find anywhere else.  If there's anyone else doing this, I'd love to know because I would want people making stuff like this for me.

I released a new single by Lesbians On Ecstasy featuring bounce sensation Big Freedia, including my own DJ edit of it.   Check the video and get the MP3s.

I have an art book collection which you can browse over at Librarything,  I just set up my profile there this year.  I like to get my books as cheap as possible though, so to assist I created a new tool.
Amazon Used Deals Finder scans anyone's wishlist and finds the best deals on it, and as well tracks historical trends in an item's used price.
It's pretty damn cool, even if like my mixes, I have no idea how to promote it and get it in to the hands of those who need it.
But that is how I work:  focus on a project, make it as best I can, dump it online to be obscured by the sheer volume of the internet and then move on to the next.

I set up a lot of different sites.  Like http://caitlynpascal.com for starters.  I also got on twitter at and tumblr.

In Ottawa, in collaboration with Ad-ver-sary, I started a new noise & experimental performance series called Pitch Black.  Check us out at http://PitchBlackNoise.ca if you are in to weird sounds and/or want to perform for us.
My jadedness about queer clubs/DJs in Ottawa boiled over and I decided fuck it, I'm starting my own.  It will be called Q-Bounce and shall debut in January.   QUEER BASS UNDERGROUND.  Http://q-bounce.ca to get on board for that.  CPI favourite Rae Spoon will be performing at the opening night.
I also still run an LGBT-focused underground documentary series called Divergence Movie Night, http://DivergenceMovieNight.com and we just finished our SIXTH YEAR.
Q-Bounce will be a joint fundraiser for Divergence Movie Night and the amazing people at the Venus Envy Bursary Fund.  Pitch Black and Q-Bounce will be quarterly.  For the next year or two I will probably move DMN to being bimonthly, just so I can fit it all in sanely.

I had the magical opportunity to score a new sound-piece for contemporary dancer Lana Morton.  It debuted in May.

Posted 63 mp3 blogs.
Uploaded a bunch of youtube videos.
We had 11 Divergence Movie Night screenings.
Curated 2 art shows.



THE FUTURE

There is just SO MUCH MUSIC nowadays, it's pretty foolish to think you can ever be on top of it.
This year I spent most of my time listening to new music, let's say a few hundred albums from 2011, and still there are tonnes of BEST OF lists out there with albums I have never heard.
I found a crapload of amazing music. And that also means there is also a crapload of amazing music out there that I didn't hear.
It is exciting! And terrifying!
Every once in a while I feel I have to abdicate some internal desire to check out everything that people hold high and exclaim about. Every once in a while I have to remember to go back and listen to records that didn't just come out this year.
My joy received from hearing great music must be tempered by the realization that there is far more amazing music out there than I will ever properly consume. That the vastness of talent out there is well beyond my grasp.  That I barely even listen to classical genres, that I barely watch any contemporary dance!  The world spins fantastically.
Back in the pre-Internet days, the music world consisted of what the 2 or 3 awesome records shops had stocked and what ended up on traded mixtapes you dubbed. It seemed much more containable.  You felt like you could hold it in your hands if you tried hard enough.
I want to feel more content with the reality that I am just scraping the surface, to just be happy with that, and enjoy that small amount with as much prescience (and fidelity!) as I can reasonably accommodate.

I do not know how much longer I will continue doing this blog.  I am not really sure if a significant number of my friends use it at all.  Every day 10 new music blogs spring up by people who know how to wite and have more time on their hands.
Even if sometimes I feel like a mid-size fish, the world is a gigantic pond, and so it can feel discouraging to continue.  Do people still download these?  Do I still bring anything to the table?



ALL I ASK
If I can ask for one holiday gift, please just pass my new mixes along to whomever might enjoy them.  I put a lot of work in to them.
If you can write about them, or know someone that can, please please please any press is great.  No blogs write about my mixes.  The internet is a deafening silence.

The blogs are filled with mixes that just don't interest me.  Bleeding-edge tracklists that aren't interesting and shoddy mixing.  Poorly thought-out transitions and massive key clashes abound.
I feel like I've produced something worthwhile.  The music world reflection tells me otherwise.
I've written to over a hundred music blogs in the past, but no replies.  There are thousands of people flogging their unheard masterpieces out there.

If you can signal boost, in any capacity, it would be greatly appreciated.

At the very least, I am going to keep working on my mixes since in the end I make them for me and me alone.  I got addicted to the joy of having other people love them too, and it is a harsh crash when expectations aren't met.
I will continue to work on producing local events here for my communities.  At least with that the change can feel palpable.  I'm not the anonymous millions on the internet flogging their toss-off mixes, I am actually doing real things with real people.
Real movement, real smiles.

Thanks for sticking with me for so long.  Let's see what 2012 has in store.

Music Organization.

I keep my albums sorted in to 33 different genre folders.  Some are somewhat specific ("IDM"), some are catch-alls, vaguer... ("Rock - Harder").

The latest genre folder to be created? "Early 20th century"
I have started gathering albums from before 1950.  Only 22 albums there so far, not a lot of selection, but some really really amazing music...
Alessandro Moreschi - The Last Castrato (Complete Vatican Recordings)
Benny Goodman - Live At Carnegie Hall 1938 (2 CD)
Benny Goodman - Stompin'
Cab Calloway - Best of the Big Bands
Cab Calloway - The Best of Big Bands, Cab Calloway ft Leon 'Chu' Berry
Chants de la Guerre d'Espagne
Charley Patton - Complete Recordings 1929-1934 (5 cd)
Jelly Roll Morton - Last Sessions; The Complete General Recordings
Lead Belly - Last Sessions (4 LP) (1948)
Sato Chiyako - Japanese 1920's
VA - American Primitive Vol. I; Raw Pre-War Gospel (1926-36) (1997)
VA - Baby, How Can It Be (Songs Of Love, Lust And Contempt From The 1920s And 1930s)
VA - History Of Carnival; Christmas, Carnival, Calenda and Calypso from Trinidad, 1933-1939
VA - Junkers, Jivers & Coke Fiends (Vintage Songs about Drugs 1926-1952)
VA - Old Time Mountain Banjo (2005)
VA - People Take Warning; Murder Ballads & Songs of Disaster 1913-1938 (3 CD)
VA - Pop Music, The Early Years 1890-1950 (2 CD)
VA - The Best of Big Band Vol 1 (2004)
VA - The Best of Big Band Vol 2 (2004)
VA - The Best of Big Band Vol 3 (2004)
VA - The Best of Big Band Vol 4 (2004)
VA-  American Primitive Vol. II; Pre-War Revenants (1897-1939) (2 CD) (2005)


2 new specialization genres have arisen.  Don't laugh...
But my "Soundtracks" folder (now 80 albums) now has an offshoot:  "Soundtrack; musicals"  (19 albums...)
My "Spoken Word" albums also dropped an offshoot, "Spoken Word; audiobooks" (43 albums), as a way of separating proper book readings from all of the other spoken word weirdness I have.

A few unexpectedly heavily populated genre folders...
Indigenous, Traditional, World:  195 albums.
Electro-acoustic, Tape Music:  170 albums.
Kids Music:  40 albums.
Noise & Experimental:  604 albums.


The other new-ish genre folder:  "Field Recordings".  84 albums.  Here in all their glory...
5_4 - Podcast #2; Dawn Chorus, 24 May 2010 (2010)
Aki Onda - Bon Voyage! Cassette Memories, Vol. 2 (2003)
Akira Rabelais - Hollywood (2008)
An Anthology of Over 200 American Bird Songs (1980)
Animals of Africa - Sounds of the Jungle, Plain & Bush
Anton Mobin - Floating Wood
Bad Radio Dog Massacre - Dog Pound Found Sound
Bernard Fort - Paysages Canadiens (Canadian Soundscapes) (1995)
Bernie Krause & Ruth Happel - Midsummer Nights (2002)
Bernie Krause - Mountain Stream (1988)
Bernie Krause - The Nature Company Environmental Sounds Collection (3 CD)
Bill Fontana - Landscape Sculpture with Fog Horns (1982)
Birds Of Venezuela (1973)
Bruits et Ambiances d'Afrique No. 1
Bruits et Ambiances d'Afrique No. 2
Chris Watson & BJ Nilsen - Storm (2006)
Chris Watson + Jana Winderen - Holystone (2006)
Chris Watson - Cima Verde (2008)
Chris Watson - Outside The Circle Of Fire
Chris Watson - Stepping Into the Dark (2009)
Chris Watson - The Galapagos Islands, An Audio Diary (2005).mp3
Chris Watson - Weather Report (2003)
Coney Island In Stereo (1960)
Dan Gibson - Solitudes Volume 10 (1985)
Dan Gibson - Solitudes Volume 2
Dan Gibson - Solitudes Volume 6 (1982)
Dan Hower - 80s Arcades (14 CD)
Daniel Menche - Raw Fall (2010)
Diesel Hydraulics on the Western Region (1975)
Donald J. Borror - Songs of Western Birds (1971)
Douglas Quin - Madagascar, The Fragile Land; Wild Sanctuary (1998)
Douglas Quinn - Antarctica
Dr. Roger S. Payne - Deep Voices The Second Whale Record
Echoes OF Nature - Bayou (1994)
Echoes Of Nature - Ocean Waves (1992)
Environmental Sounds - Nature's Music... Recorded Live On This Planet
Iron Horse Rambles
Jean C. Roche - A Nocturne Of Nightingales
Jean C. Roché & Bill H. Gunn - Les Loups en Liberté (Wailing Wolves From Canada & France) (1994)
Jean C. Roché - Le Monde des Singes (Afrique, Asie, Amerique; Primate World) (1994)
JM Charcot - Cambodge (2010)
Jodi Rose - Singing Bridges (2007) (3 CD)
Jondi Productions - Ocean
Juanjo Palacios - Borde Litoral (2010)
Kenneth Granville Attwood - Memories of Steam
Kiyoshi Mizutani - Bird Songs (2000)
Kiyoshi Mizutani - Scenery Of The Border (2 CD) (2005)
Les Sonnailles (2000)
Listen To My Cat's Purr
Machinefabriek - Tapes Of The Day (2008)
MZ-N710 - Paysages Ferroviaires (2010)
National Geographic Society - Guide to Bird Sounds (4 LP)
Nature Recordings - Dawn & Dusk In The Ventana Wilderness (1986)
Nature Recordings - Mountain Stream (1985)
Nature Recordings - Thunderstorm In The Big Sur Mountains (1986)
Nature's Relaxing Sounds - Song of the Whales (1988; 1995)
Neil Feather - Revelation of An Anaplumb (1998)
Newfoundland Heads the Waverley (1962)
NorthSound - Loon Talk (1992)
Philippe Vilain - Field Recordings
Railroad Sounds - Steam and Diesel (1958)
Relax With Nature - Forest Raindrops
Relax With Nature - Mountain Stream
Rostov Chimes (1985)
Rudolv Eb.er & Joke Lanz - Akustische Aktion (Essen) (2001)
Simon Whetham & VA - Active Crossover (2010)
Sounds of Nature - Amazon Rainforest
Sounds of Nature - Sounds of the Dolphin (1991)
Sounds of Nature - Sounds of the Jungle
Sounds of Nature - The Sounds of a Sun Filled Stream (A Babbling Brook) (1988)
Sports Car Caravan
Storm Sounds
Sui Kin Kutsu - Autumn (2003)
Sui Kin Kutsu - Spring (2003)
The Conet Project - Recordings Of Shortwave Numbers Stations
The Relaxation Collection - Mountain Retreat
The Sounds Of Nature - Electrifying Thunderstorms
The Sounds Of Nature - The Cry of the Loon
The Vancouver Soundscape (1973)
Toshiya Tsunoda - Extract From Field Recording Archive # 1 (1997)
Urban Bird Sounds Project
Voices Of The Earth
Walter Marchetti - The Bird Of Paradise (2001)
Xarhope On The Road - Cairo Mall (2010)

events...

For any Ottawa residents that laments the lack of good shows here, I want to point out this amazing upcoming schedule:
Sep 02: Secret Chiefs 3 @ Mavericks
Sep 09: MUDHONEY @ Maverick's
Sep 15: BRAIDS + Gobble Gobble @ babylon
Sep 17: The Dodos @ Mavericks
Oct 06: Ohbijou @ Ritual
Oct 09: Napalm Death @ Mavericks

Anyone want to join me for any of these amazing evenings???

best albums of 2011, so far...

Well hello there cats and kittens, we are fast approaching the middle-mark of 2011!  Since I often release the BEST OF at the start of December, it makes sense.  really.  You put that calendar away!

So here for you perusal is the list of ALBUMS YOU SHOULD HAVE HEARD BY NOW.
haha.  oh my. 
The best albums of 2011, so far....  IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER!

13 & God - Own Your Ghost
Aurelio - Laru Beya
Bill Callahan - Apocalypse
Blue Sky Black Death - Noir
Cloud Nothings - Cloud Nothings
Colin Stetson - New History Warfare Vol. 2; Judges
Deaf Center - Owl and Splinters
Decemberists, The - The King Is Dead
Elbow - Build a Rocket Boys!
Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
Fourcolor - As Pleat
Go! Team, The - Rolling Blackouts
Hey Rosetta! - Seeds
Jessica Lea Mayfield - Tell Me
Kronos Quartet, Kimmo Pohjonen & Samuli Kosminen - Uniko
Love Cult - Nebulaes
Lykke Li - Wounded Rhymes
Mates Of State - Crushes
Natural Snow Buildings - Waves Of The Random Sea
Ø - Heijastuva
PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
Radiohead - The King Of Limbs
Reve Steich - Stunning for 18 Miles
Rigel Orionis - Variations on Sonic Integrity (2 CD)
RxRy - A (Alpha)
Sidi Toure´ - Sahel Folk
Tune-Yards - W H O K I L L
Vladislav Delay Quartet - Debut
Young Galaxy - Shapeshifting
Yuck - Yuck

Amazon Deal finder

I've written a tool to help find deals on your Amazon.com Wishlist.  It searches through available used books and sorts them all based on savings and priority.
http://thetastates.com/amzn/amazondeals.php

art books...

my mother told me not to stare into the sun

Restate my assumptions:
1) Music and art are essential for a developing society.
2) There is an ever-increasing amount of amazing new music to discover.
3) There is far too much good music for anyone to listen to mediocre music.
4) My friends are far too busy being beautifully brilliant forces in society.
Therefore, I will research and gather all of the greatest new music for them and share it with them in the most convenient ways possible.
Everyone else is more than welcome to come along for the ride.

Happy 2011 everyone.  Prepare for full-speed-ahead resumption within a week.

twitter now

Hey cats and kittens, add me on twitter at http://twitter.com/DJCPI

deleting old blog files

Just a quick note to warn you of the upcoming deletions!
Once we hit 2011 I will be deleting all of the 2007 and 2008 blog entry files from my server.  I've decided to only ever keep 2 years of blog archives available.

I will probably be keeping some special posts, like the year-end summaries and the xmas ones, but all others will vanish Jan 1st, 2011.

All of the archives are currently at  http://www.thetastates.com/mp3s/blog/

~Caitlyn / CPI


PS:  The rest of the BEST OF 2011 will be posted on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week.

oh Bleep.

Dear Bleep:

Your "Best of Bleep Top Fives" page is a ridiculous sausage fest.

Do you seriously not know any women?  1.65% (2/121) female representation, by my count.

Electronics doesn't have to be a penis party!

thanks,
~Caitlyn

marking a line in the sand, making a line in the palm

Thanks to all who came and worked it.
Philadelphia is one helluva city.

It is going to be an eventful summer.  Of that you can be sure.
But I might not be around for a some of it, and I apologize in advance.

In the meantime, here's a crib sheet, in case you were sweepy.
Here are 30 fabulous things that were released in 2010 that you should buy.
alphabetically, I give you:

CPI's picks of 2010 so far....

Ali Farka Toure & Toumani Diabate - Ali & Toumani
B. Dolan - Fallen House Sunken City
Basia Bulat - Heart Of My Own
Beach House - Teen Dream
Bobby Mcferrin - Vocabularies
Bonobo - Black Sands
Chiddy Bang - Air Swell Mixtape
Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles
DZ - The Proliferation Sequence
Ellie Goulding - Lights
Eraldo Bernocchi & Blackfilm - Along The Corridors
Fang Island - Fang Island
Four Tet - There Is Love In You
Frightened Rabbit - The Winter Of Mixed Drinks
Gil Scott-Heron - I'm New Here
Gogol Bordello - Trans-Continental Hustle
Hot Chip - One Life Stand
Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me
John Zorn - Book Of Angels, Volume 13, Mycale
Jónsi - Go
Justin Martin - Five Years Of Dirtybird mixtape
Lisa Bozikovic - Lost August
The National - High Violet
Omar Souleyman - Jazeera Nights
Owen Pallett - Heartland
Richard Skelton - Landings
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - I Learned The Hard Way
Sunn O))) & Earth - Angel Coma EP
Titus Andronicus - The Monitor
Yeasayer - Odd Blood