I dug out a classic this week. An old album by DJ Spooky called Riddim Warfame.

Riddim Warfare is a mashup from well-before anyone used the term mashup to describe this work. At the time of the release, it was self-described as “illbient”, but it was best known as a DJ mix, but not like Oakenfold or Paul Van Dyk and their 2 minute songs mixed together with 20 second of blending… by contrast, Riddim Warfare is constantly mixing and blending bits and pieces of sounds (video game blips, song choruses, street noise, crowds, original electronic material, jazz, and more). All these pieces are tied together in each song by a longer feature, like a rapper or a jazz musician, which enhances the schizophrenic nature of Spooky’s underlying mashup.

I think Mashup culture is similar to Sci-Fi in that 98% of it is crap, but the remaining 2% is unbelieveably brilliant. DJ Spooky definitely falls into that 2%.

Added Bonus: DJ Spooky is a Creative Commons user and advocate. Rock on. I’d license my site CC, but I’m not excited about making the copyright status of this site persistently explicit. So, use the material on my blog however you choose as long as it doesn’t harm anyone. That said, CC is the set of ideals that aligns closest to my beliefs so I’m very sympathetic to their goals.

You can find an assortment of DJ Spooky’s newer material at the Hype Machine. There are also some “web-exclusive” mixes on his site. However, what I REALLY recommend is Riddim Warfare, which you’ll have to go to Amazon to pickup.