Here are three mashups from unrelated challeneges but part of a trilogy – mostly downtempo or plunderphonic, the middle section is more a traditional A vs B – but very much about the state of play in the USA today from the outsdie.

It’s apparently a Superb Owl? My tribute to America 😛 You probably won’t like it…

There is a serious side to this mashup, inspired by Negativland’s ‘Our National Anthem’ which is really bothered by the co-opting of Black Lives Matter to sing lines like ‘Rockets Red Glare, Bombs Exploding In Air’ – remember Tulsa? 

That anthem disturbs me, in this age of possible WW3 and new cold war….and of course I am ambivalent or worried about American globalism as much as I am bothered by Chinese and Russian sabre-rattling….we’re in the middle!

Also deeply ironic that something so American and against an attack by the British on a fort was stolen from an English drinking tune. And a pagan one at that about Anacreon, an ancient greek poet again double ironic given the puritan history of the States.

Instamatic – America (Contrafacto) (Mickey Guyton vs Team America vs Childish Gambino vs Pete Seeger vs Oak, Ash & Thorn)

Someone on reddit yesterday said I was like Ben Sherman and hated hiphop and didn’t think it was music – I LOL’d cos I probably have forgotten more hiphop than they’ve ever heard.

So in that vein I was checking the new Post Malone album I loved the collab with Fleet Foxes, not so fond of the song but the backing is amazing….so I mixed it with Sia’s cover of California Dreaming I think just for the San Andreas soundtrack? It’s one of my favourite songs of all time.

It’s very moody.

Instamatic – Love-Hate Song To California (Sia vs Post Malone featuring Fleet Foxes)

This is the third track in the American trilogy – the first ‘America’ was also a challenge track which was ambient/experimental, and the 2nd is the Sia vs California Dreaming one which is more traditional. This is classic tbc ambient ‘Moody Mash’ yet with a very sharp point, and I pumped up the experimental by focusing on a theme and the panning/call and answer/juxtaposition intercutting and FX – delay on stun and wanted the kitchen sink BIG sound in places. 

Like it is a film credits blues gospel song for the end of an empire

It’s about the American Dream gone wrong, it’s my personal reaction to Uvalde and the rise of fascism in the US, so it’s a mix of plunderphonic and mashup, but there aren’t many pop mashups with Suicide in them, or indeed about this subject.It’s more in my mind closer to Negativland’s Our National Anthem or Guns within a mashup structure than most things. Also the original LCD track references the death of Alan Vega, so hence using Suicide. 

And there’s a lot of me in here, hence the schizophrenic sound, off-kilter, it is not meant to be a happy cheerful listen, even if it hangs together. That push/pull tension is intentional because I don’t want any to think I am using ‘Dixie’ and ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’ (which is part of the Elvis track) in any way other than utterly scathing contempt and anger. Also a LOT of America tracks are flag waving patriotic ones, or uncritical, like the T-Swift. Again using that cross-purposes here, recontextualising it. 

Also I was playing with speed, I’d never normally slow something down that much, or use sources that were several semitones apart, but I forced myself, pulling the sources far away from ‘Kansas’ as possible.

tbc aka Instamatic – American Dream Part 3 (American Trilogy) (LCD Soundsystem vs Paul Simon vs Elvis Presley vs Suicide vs Idlewild vs Taylor Swift vs MKTO)