"...SEAMLESSLY BLENDING THEIR FASCINATIONS WITH FUNK, DUB, SOUL, AND LATIN RHYTHMS."
PIC(S) INFO: Spotlight on a CD pressing of "The Mix-Up," the seventh studio album by BEASTIE BOYS, released in June 2007 under the Capitol Records label. The album consists entirely of instrumental performances and won a Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Album.
ALBUM OVERVIEW: "Hailed in some quarters as a back-to-basics masterstroke, derided in others as flaccid and stale, it can be universally agreed that "To the 5 Boroughs" performed the crucial task of lowering expectations for the BEASTIE BOYS. Until then, it was expected that each of their new albums would be a radical step forward -- or at least a virtuoso consolidation of strengths à la "Ill Communication" -- but "To the 5 Boroughs" was neither; it was a straight-up hip-hop album, not quite like anything they made before yet sounding undeniably familiar.
Its modest success and mixed reviews had the unexpected effect of humanizing the BEASTIE BOYS, which in turn meant they could do what they wanted without having to face the daunting expectations placed on them ever since "Licensed to Ill," and "The Mix-Up," the 2007 follow-up to "Boroughs," is certainly not an innovative record, but nor is it a retreat. It's the Beasties' first all-instrumental record, grounded in soul-jazz, a sound they've been mining since "Check Your Head" (arguably, even "Paul's Boutique" had elements of the sound in its samples), as they peppered their albums and B-sides with lazy, hazy funk jams.
Most of these were gathered up on the 1996 compilation "The In Sound from Way Out," which undoubtedly sounds similar to "The Mix-Up," but that's at heart an odds-n-sods collection, bearing the evidence that it was patched together from different sources. "The Mix-Up" was designed as a specific project, so it holds together better, and it's also decidedly less knowing in its references than the cleverly kitschy "In Sound" (its title and artwork borrowed from classic '60s LPs).
This is a fusion of sounds -- cool organs, elastic guitars, loping basslines, rolling rhythms -- where all of the elements are integrated together, turning into a style that's recognizable as uniquely, undeniably the BEASTIE BOYS, even if they don't utter a word on this record. As always, they're more about feel than instrumental acumen, but they've sharpened as players, creating tighter, assured grooves and seamlessly blending their fascinations with funk, dub, soul, and Latin rhythms.
Even if the instrumental interplay is tighter, the overall atmosphere is alluringly warm and friendly: it's music that flows easily and it's a perfect soundtrack for a slow summer afternoon. Most of all, the Beasties sound relaxed and comfortable, enjoying the process of making this music, and if you're on the same wavelength, it's hard not to get sucked into it too. "The Mix-Up" is not a major statement, but that's the nice thing about the record: it's as personal and idiosyncratic as any old funky soul-jazz LP that you'd find deep in the crates of a second-hand record store. It's easy to enjoy and it's indelibly stamped with the personality of the group, which is not only no small thing, it's also a good, rewarding path for the BEASTIE BOYS as they approach middle age."
-- ALLMUSIC, review written by Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Source: www.discogs.com/release/1002631-Beastie-Boys-The-Mix-Up.
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LibreVastServitor computing stack designs 1/?
Just a quick reminder here, this is a customized computing stack manifestation game where I simply write what I desire and then let the wider universe manifest it for me whatever way that means, including personal efforts of mine. Boils down from customizing and adapting research material into a actionable series of items to manifest.
Ashur dream specifications
(mid-tower personal workstation computer)
2+ 2560x1440p monitors (one vertical, one or more horizontal)
Intel Core i5-4690 @ 3.5 GHz with its 4-cores (hoping forward to upgrade the RISC-V + OpenPOWER like processor for something decent with ~12-cores & much more open design) central processor unit
32GB of RAM
Some recent mid-range AMD GPU
64 GB Linux swap partition (mostly for virtual machines and RAMdisk partitions)
4TB+ SSD storage
Bluray burner
Floppy drive
Cassette / datasette drive
Themed GRUB bootloader
S6 init system
Arch-like package manager and software ecosystem
Customized alternative Linux kernel between Linux Libre & Zen kernel ( XanMod + Liquorix )
ZealOS, Parade, OpenBSD, OpenIndiana...
CLADO, DIS, Venera, Perseus, Maskoch, Synod, Monad, Valenz, Constans?
KDE Plasma with Liquid shell as desktop environment, complete with custom ricing, dot files & all the KDE desktop environment utilities;
Bash + Fish, Tmux, Astro-Neo-Vim with LSP, Emacs, LibreOffice Suite, Calligra, Bottles, Wine, WineTricks, QGIS, Firefox, LibreWolf, Dolphin, Konsole, Inkscape, Karbon, OpenStreetMap, GPlates, GProjector, Itch, Steam, GOG Galaxy, Lutris, Cyberpunk 2077, Ken Silverman's, FreeBASIC, Common Lisp, Godot + Qodot, VLC, MPV, .ogg / .ogv media player, musical tracker, 'Landchad.net', Brasero, K3B, FloppyFormatter, LibreCAD, AutoCAD, Blender, Kate, Qt, Nim, MUSL, C compiler, assembly monitor, HxD debugger, Rust, Swift, Kotlin, F#, C#, GNU make, NASM, Sweet Home 3D, some digital audio workstation software, Audacious, FFMPEG, Wayland, Morevna OpenToonz, some HTTP(S) web server suite, MongoDB, Hexo, Netlify CMS, RSS feed reader + generator, Pomodoro, Calendar, timely Tracker, Notion-like service, Tape, Gollum, some level editors, FreeCiv, The Sims 2, SimCity 4, Quake 1, Doom 1 & Doom 2, Markdown / Argdown, Konqueror, some WYSISYG rich media editor, some Raycaster engine, Daggerfall Unity, Portal 2, Source (1 & 2) Engine modding, some VirtualTableTop software, some remote desktop control software like VNC, OpenSSH, some distributed share storage software, Trenchbroom, StableDiffusionXL, ChatGPT open source alternative, DAO, Krita, GIMP, G'MIC & its plugins, PaintDotNet, CataclysmDDA, CataclysmBDA, Evennia, Python 3, Firefox for KDE (Developer Edition), Perl, PHP, MariaDB, lighttpd, Apache, Nginx, Themix Oomox GTK+ theme editor, Falkon, ...
Custom shell scripts, interactive REPL programming languages, some GUI programs, command aliases and dot file configurations;
?
Venera (computation "deque" project)
Original components:
RISC-V + OpenPOWER = LibreVast (tribble word-based open hardware architecture designed for daily use & tinkering developer purposes)
Tropix + OGAS = Nucleus (optimized distributed processing micro-kernel, like 'Inferno' & 'Plan9')
RedSeaFS + Parade = CLADOgram (direct-access rich media agentive filesystem & file server suite)
KDE + POSIX-compilant CDE = VUE (lightweight desktop environment with profound customization options)
CommonLisp w/ CLOS + Nim = Pan-Lisp (both low-level and high-level REPL programming language)
Existing components:
Fish, Tmux, Vim, Konsole, Flatpak, Git
KDE Plasma w/ Liquid shell alternative
Konqueror, LibreWolf
GIMP w/ G'MIC & Krita w/ G'MIC
Hexo (flat blog self-hosting web server), MariaDB, "Landchad.net" stuff
QEMU, Wine, Wine-tricks, Proton, Bottles, Lutris
Trenchbroom, Godot w/ Qodot
Kate, KDevelop, Okteta, Mousepad, Notepadqq
[...]
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Witches Brew !
Ingredients:
45 Ml Melon liqueur
45 Ml Orange liqueur
30 Ml Fresh lemon juice
Ice
Dry Ice
Instructions:
01: Add ice to a cocktail shaker
02: Pour in all the liquid
03: Close it up and give it a good shake until icy cold
04: Strain into a lowball glass filled with ice
05: Garnish with a cherry or some gummy worms skewered onto a cocktail stick
Tips for using dry ice in a Witches Brew cocktail:
Put on safety gloves and goggles
Put the dry ice into a plastic bag, let out the air, and tie it up
Take a rolling pin (the kind you use in baking) and bang the bag with all your might to break the dry ice into big chunks
Carefully remove one chunk and place it on a working surface
Using a small ice pick, break the dry ice into smaller chunks. The ideal size you’re looking for is around ½-inch to 1-inch in size
Using a pair of tongs, drop the dry ice into the cocktail and watch the magic happen
How to make a Witches Brew for a party:
To turn this drink into a crowd-pleasing punch, you will need bigger quantities of Witches Brew ingredients: 530 ml melon liqueur, 530 ml orange liqueur, 355 ml fresh lemon juice, and ice. Stir all the liquids together in a punch bowl, and add ice just before serving. Then, add a bigger chunk of dry ice to the punch to get it bubbling. Remember to give your guests all the safety info above.
Courtesy: The Mixer
This article was not sponsored or supported by a third-party. A Cocktail Moment is not affiliated with any individuals or companies depicted here.
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