This one is 4k
Category: Mixtape
A mixtape for U
See you in the city very sooooonnnn… Thank you, UV.
This mix is for you.
‘第1章’
DK is always going to be the DK that started in the 1990s, and that means, Tokyo. And that means, karaoke. And that means, nostalgia right now. I’m digging through the Soundcloud covers of stuff I remember; and new things that are popping into the frame. That’s how we roll, here, in S P A C E. Mixing it up as we go, holding on to some things, falling into the wild and dreamy new spaces of new and still yet curious others. It’s a trip, for sure. Nostalgia.
HT KY
‘The A Train’
Makin’ a mix tape.
I like to do this sometimes.
Like this:
HT Friends of Papers, subscribers of S P A C E.
Mixtape | See you Saturday, maybe
Good evening from Ho Chi Minh City, ladies and gentlemen. Let me share with you the mix tape, ‘See you Saturday, maybe,’ featuring a few musicians I’ve gotten to listen to often and sometimes even chat with in real life (remember when that was a thing?) about art, composition, intrigue, and sharing.
Every time I hear the Cambodian mix I feel a little homesick for one of my more recent ‘homes’ (I have a lot), namely Phnom Penh, hence the song I’m including from Justatee about the feeling of wanting to go home. it’s a good mood, suddenly, listening and feeling. Of course I have to end it all with Punjabi tunes.
Since I’m big into relational aesthetics, I have to acknowledge all the people I was thinking about while making this. HT PS, over in Chandigarh, or?, somewhere thereabouts. Mixtape, ‘See you Saturday, maybe!’, dedicated to my friends NDS, aka DNLD on Soundcloud. And VT. Cool. Thanks, too, for MM for inspiring me lately. And of course MD and AM for always listening when I need to talk. And CS. Gosh. I have a lot of people I can count on in these difficult times. Lucky me. Special thanks of course to Boss. And SJ, who told me to blog more and write what I think, which I appreciate. Though he probably isn’t reading this, I want to say, ‘I hope you are safe, there.’
Mixtape!, ‘Osmosis’
One of the more interesting parts of being in Vietnam since February, somehow getting more and more accustomed to the idea of it, is that, um, I’m starting to understand Vietnamese.
Okay, it’s cool that I got some help with that, like, real life and exchanging language and conversation in a casual, light way, but also, it’s relaxing to be able to pick up on a few lyrics for songs now. So when I’m out and about and I hear something that catches my ear, I ask about it. ‘What is this? I want to know!!’
Edges and reaching beyond those edges..
You start learning a new language and all kinds of things start to appear in your midst.
Slowly learning by osmosis..
And people I meet really love it when I say stuff to them like, ‘Well, I’m your neighbor,’ or ‘Did you guys meet at work?’ I think it means a lot to people when you make a basic effort, and I’m finding that I can do a lot with just a few phrases to ease more fluidly into a place that, seven years ago when I first arrived in Southeast Asia and Hanoi for the first-ever time, um, I was like, completely unaware about anything really meaningful. Now I can see even when I curate the mini-mag S P A C E for stories set here that there are things that are culturally significant and worth sharing, and other things that are just what tourists would quickly snap and leave having snapped it. you know what I mean?
There is more to say about that, see the stuff below at the end of this post about ‘decolonization.’ I mean, well, no, ask AD. I will put more together about how we can arrange that in some future conversation in S P A C E when I get to that, in early 2021, after finishing up our stories set where I am right now, which is Ho Chi Minh. Another month for Atelier S P A C E // HCMC, and then… maybe make a move to another part of the country. Or. Depends on our crowdfunding. Let’s see.
The mixtape is called…
O S M O S I S
A mixtape
4
friends of
Atelier S P A C E // HCMC
all… around… thế giới
<3
dk
I.
‘Đi Về Nhà’
JustaTee
I kind of just really adore this one. I really do. I don’t know what it is but it just makes me feel good vibes. The theme is ‘home’ and going there and going when you feel all kinds of feelings. Good ones and not so good ones, you can just ‘go home.’ It’s a nice idea….
II.
‘Vì Một Câu Nói’
Hoàng Dũng
A pretty voice, I heard this and got intrigued. Especially because I could understand the line that repeated over and over again, and stuff like that. I thought about going to see this person who is going to be in HCM in concert very soon but the idea of sitting in a room with a ton of people with their smartphones out taking video doesn’t sit right with a music-lover like me. I’d much rather go to a small venue where the people who are there really want to just listen, and not get caught up in recording everything and themselves so they can tell everyone how ‘cultural’ they are. I found a new local venue that I think fits my criteria for that, and got to now a couple of kids who love jazz as much as I do, over there, a few nights ago. Well, well. If it wasn’t a pleasure getting to hear Sonny Rollins coming off strong on the very first number! Wow. Made my whole year. HT T, K, lookin’ at you.
III.
‘Kẻ Mộng Mơ’
Reddy
I got to hear this one and really admired the song, the voice, the earnestness. I think there is a lot of emotion in the male vocalists I get to hear on these occasional bouts with getting to see, um. Karaoke. Even if I can’t understand everything I really love the feeling of just being swept away in someone’s heartfelt telling-it-all-and-laying-it-out-there. Up in Dalat, when I hung out on one of my last days with DSP, he told me that writing Vietnamese lyrics is really hard because of all the things that you have to pay attention to with the ups and downs of tones and stuff. I guess that’s something that people who grow up listening to English lyrics really never had to consider as a technicality to building something song-wise. You know, writing this down here makes me feel like I’m some kind of musician, or something. I’m not. I just like what Iike. Is all.
IV.
‘Hà Nội Mười Hai Mùa Hoa’
I have to put this one in, because it’s something that VT told me about. We were talking about ‘culture’ and all this kind of craic as we used to call it when I lived in Ireland (and became very much a fan of Irish musicians, songs in Irish, people from Cork and the songs they gave us, and many more stories related to stories, pints, stories, and did I say stories?) Music and stories and time together. What else is there?…. Yeah..
Anyway! Aside from this one about the seasons of Hanoi which takes you into a different kind of space, in the way it feels when you leave HCM and go to HN, perhaps, because of the abrupt formality you kind of walk into, well, yeah, aside from that, the songs above came from those, ‘What is this!!!’ kinds of questions that I put to people like bartenders, baristas, and fellow guests of whatever place I happened to land in.
Winging it, and making S P A C E..
I’m still in the city of Ho Chi Minh, still exploring and making forays hither and tither to discover, and share, what I find curious and interesting and the people whom I meet, too, to invite them to co-create with me. Always a fun task. Most people don’t want to make a commitment and that’s okay, but it’s my work to show up for the people who want me to make space for new thinking to invite itself into… well, S P A C E. Discovery and design our our themes. Let me expand a little.
ATELIER S P A C E // HCMC. Part of DK’s work is to discover and insist on making and pressing out S P A C E. I know. That’s a lot of vagueness. Still if you are familiar with DK, you know what I mean. We make S P A C E for the new and different to engage and interact with themselves, in a flat hierarchy not a Western-lens thing that tells you what to think about everything. I am working with my good friend AD in the cloud, in Papers, on a zine about ‘Decolonization’ right now so it’s on my mind, this idea. Anyway! So here I am, writing to you, the Internet, an those who read this blog, about what I found out. In case you want to know what contemporary Vietnamese choosers-of-music like to hear that isn’t that old school stuff that is like only just the old love song stuff. Besides that, what is there. That stuff makes me so sad. So I enjoy these things. One is a rap. Really fun. HT VT, QN. Fun ha.
This year kinda reminds me of my life in Kyoto, years ago, when I started to study Japanese. This was my favorite part: going to independently study, by renting CDs from Tsutaya, and singing what I could at karaoke. Those were fun days, and these are, too. I’m recalling what it’s like to slowly get wind of things, by osmosis. You learn. That way. A lot. Loving that the words I know keep showing up, words about ‘home’, and ‘us’, and ‘dream’, and ‘together’, and ‘happiness’, and stuff like that, I am happy when I can ask what a thing means and understand what is written down. Coolio.
Get involved.
If you are in HCM, check out these opportunities.
Protected: ‘Vì Một Câu Nói’… [Về điều đó]
Look at Me
Mixtape: December
Mix tape: ‘NAIV’
It’s here..
Mix tapes..
This one includes some of my favorite songs from those days when I used to have cassettes (including Bollywood ones, yeah). Also, I put something from the jazz genre because I really, really miss hearing live jazz. Soooooo many songs I wanted to put on this mix tape are not available to listen to where I am… here, in Vietnam.
Not available in Vietnam.
So, yeah. Me being me, I thence named this tape: ‘NAIV.’
Cool. Checkit..
.
Mix tape: ‘Introducing Gen X’
‘Music is important’..
i made a mix tape for you, sài gòn.
thank you for this welcome.
dk <3
tháng 9. 2020
A
***
These Days
Nico
***
Mind Circus
Miki Nakatani (中谷 美紀)
***
Last One Standing
Ladytron
B
***
Sài Gòn Cafe Sữa Đá
Hà Okio
***
Sublime
The Ocean Blue
***
Dheeme Dheeme (Zubeidaa)
Kavita Krishnamurthy + A. R. Rahman
Hey Seattle, I made you a mix tape
Dear Seattle… Reading the news, thinking of you. With a long look from afar (very, very far). It’s been 2004… so, what’s that, 16 years?, since I started this studio in Seattle, out of an apartment in Capitol Hill on a laptop with my best friend, Akira Morita.
I decided to make you guys a mix tape. I’m not sure if the article that made me think up the idea’s worth clicking over to, but a particular paragraph was pretty much me going… “Yup…”’ Here’s the part that’s good: ‘… but Gen Xer’s — the latchkey kids of the ’80s and ’90s — are uniquely qualified for social distancing. In their youth, they spent hours alone in their rooms, watching after-school specials, doing homework, making mixtapes for their friends. To this day, they’re perfectly content holed up at home and finding ways to entertain themselves.’
For those of you who still read this blog, thanks.
I made you this mix tape, ‘Dear Seattle’…
Here it is..
‘Dear Seattle’
A mix tape.. <3 dipika
A
safe hands by world health organization’s dr. tedros adhanom ghebreyesus (@DrTedros)
don’t stand so close to me (the police)
look sharp ! (roxette)
posse on broadway (sir mix-a-lot)
yoshimi battles the pink robots (flaming lips)
B
ghen cô vy with English subtitles (nioeh x khắc hưng x min x erik)
play with me (taylor eigsti)
sleeping in (the postal service)
staring at the sun (simple kid)
A
safe hands (world health organization)
There are simple things we each must do to protect ourselves from #COVID19, including 👐 washing with🧼 & 💦 or alcohol-based rub… [Note: this is a great video to show you how to do it super correctly!]
— World Health Organization Western Pacific (@WHOWPRO) March 18, 2020
don’t stand so close to me
look sharp!
posse on broadway
yoshimi battles the pink robots
B
ghen cô vy
play with me
sleeping in
staring at the sun**
**Erm, and about that hat… Yup. I know Shelby NC. HT RJ and AP…
Exit Vantaa
IN THE 1990s, I used to make tons of mix tapes. I wish I could make one right now, but I don’t know how to do that easily so what I’m going to do is cue up a playlist for you. It’s inspired by the things I got to know a little bit about over the summer, a few inspiring soundbites that left me thinking and wondering and curious and open to learning more, in each of the different musical directions. (You’ll see, in a bit, what I mean, I hope, when you see the list.)
That’s how it is in S P A C E. Keeping an ear to the ground, walking towards the new. Seeking the opportunities, when the mood is right of course, not always. I’m not always looking for an ‘experience.’ But when I find one, hey. Let’s note it. Let’s make a blog post. This one kicked off my last night in Helsinki, when I went to a concert and heard the song ‘Kaksi Planeeta,’ which means, ‘Two planets,’ by Maagine. Of course I had to ask them, personally, some questions about it, and find out more, and discover things about the planets and so on because, after all, we are writing every day here in S P A C E about spacious things.
This happened at a back-alley venue in Helsinki called Semifinal, which took me a bit of time to find, but I’m glad I did. (Special thanks to VK for inviting me to listen to the show, and for the good conversations, both in Helsinki and Kärsämäki. Conversation… my favorite-ever kind of jam.)
The mix tape is called ‘Exit Vantaa.’ Find it on Spotify here. Or check out the YouTube links, below.
I hope you like it.
E X I T V A N T A A
elokuu 2018
S P A C E || H E L S I N K I
A
Kaksi Planeeta
Maagine
The Lion Sleeps Tonight
The Tokens
The Book of Love
Magnetic Fields
Killing me Softly
Roberta Flack
The Look
Roxette
B
‘Don’t just document, Make Art’
DK x Benjamin Nwaneampeh
If Your Mother was a Hamster
Gunslinging Bird
Itserakkausjuttu
Mariska
Fly me to the Moon
Brenda Lee
Beat It
Michael Jackson
Nyt On Lähtö
Vesala
Radio Nova, A-Ha, and ‘Take On Me’
ONE OF THE FUNNEST things about being in the middle of Finland all summer is listening to Radio Nova. I’m not kidding. I really like it. I don’t know. I think it’s because of all these 1990s songs, hit songs, stuff I haven’t heard since… well… then. I don’t listen to the radio much except when I’m in places that are otherwise rather remote or quiet or just the sound of the new language is interesting to hear. Pieced between the many announcements, often about ‘summer,’ because I am beginning to pick up a few words (‘Friday,’ ‘good,’ ‘let’s see then, maybe,’ ‘thank you,’ and ‘mind peace’), there is stuff like A-Ha. I’m listening to’ Take On Me’ Great video–do you remember that? I remember that. I remember being very, very intrigued. Drawing and animation and this song. This song. I’m listening to it right now. I was going to link to the YouTube but you know what, they have these stupid ads now, and they have tracking, and it’s annoying–and—wow that’s a high note—and it’s been… really interesting to hear how people listen to songs like Roxette‘s Listen to Your Heart and Sinéad O’Connor‘s Nothing Compares 2 U. Plus that one that’s been playing all summer and is ‘oh, you don’t need to know the words, it’s like all the Finnish songs, about being sad and lonely and depressed and wanting to commit suicide…’
BLAST FROM THE PAST. Nineties music. Nice to hear it all. Zining while listening to this stuff reminds me of something else.
Mix tapes. Collaging. Curating. Sharing. Now you just queue things up on Soundcloud, in a playlist. Or?
Thinking about all that, all those things. Listening to the ‘Hot 9 at 9’ back home. One of the places that used be home, but isn’t now, I guess, would be more accurate. Talking about Home in one of our online forums. Talking about Arrivals. Talking about Slow Moments. Talking, talking, writing, writing. Listening to the radio and drinking coffee at 11:25PM and wondering where the sun went. It is the first time this summer that I’ve needed to turn on the lights.
Bicycling home last night from karaoke, too. First time I had cycled in the dark.
Next, I’m pretty sure, Radio Nova will play us some Michael Jackson. Annie are you okay…