Post-mashup?

Mashup is the music of non-linear editing.  Maybe the ADHD of music?

If you keep your ears open to ‘mashup‘ music, you’ll have noticed the ever increasing complexity and density of mashups.  Compared to the early mashups which were mainly the accapella of one song and the instrumental of another, the last year or so has seen the emergence of mashups that combine four, five or even more songs, sometimes entirely re-contextualized.  Listen to Apollo Zero’s blog for some brilliant examples of this emerging development of the genre.

I have been tentatively been calling this ‘post-mashup’ music as it seems to me to reflect a significant change in the both the theory, talent and tools involved.  Mashup artists are no longer content to do some basic mixing and beat-matching to highlight the similarities and differences of two songs colliding into a strange juxtaposition.  Mashing is now transforming into a cultural exploration bringing together decades of music into new relations, curiously reviving the multiple memories and enlivening our musical imagination as we hear these admixtures of music permeate our normally solid concepts of genre in pop music.

I just bought the new Girl Talk album ‘Feed the Animals’ from Illegal Art (an enthralling experiment of a music label… read something here).  Taking the cue from Radiohead, this is a ‘pay what you want’ album, andfor a mere $5, you get access to the FLAC compressed version.

‘Feed the Animals‘ is the most coherent, intricate and developed expression of the post-mashup aesthetic I’ve yet to hear.  I’ll be blunt - get this album.  Pay whatever money you can and take a look at other exceptional artists on Illegal Art as well.