WAR OF CONFUSION (video)

In March I released a mashup made with music of germany's 80's popgroup
Propaganda and vocals of The Temptations, Edwin Starr and Nas, which
was well received.

The lyrics of the song Ball of Confusion, by The Temptations,
though more than 30 years old seem as relevant today as they were
then and conjured up a lot of imagery when listening to it.

After viewing Godfrey Reggio's Naqoyqatsi, loosely translated as 'Life

as War' an idea started to form that his use of imagery and editing

and the subject matter would well fit with this audiomashup of mine.

To get the idea was easy, to execute it was a different matter.
I had no experience with video editing except the very basics and
what I wanted to achieve would definitely need more than that.

It took countless hours of experimenting and searching for
materials, watching hours and hours of documentaries of which some
were really gruesome to see and for about 3 months I was solely
dedicated to bring this project to fruition.

Do I have a political agenda with this video?
No, but like any sane person I am disgusted by the atrocities and
accompanying cynicism that occurs on our planet. And we grow indifferent to many of the news about it. I hope this video shows that wars, neglect, famine, etc are no trivial matters at all and definitely not glamorous.

A lot of the material used is from the USA, my video is not
specifically targeted against the USA, it's simply that there is lot
more media coverage from there to be found.

At the end of the video a creditroll with all sources is listed.


Special thanks to DJ Not-I for kindly previewing the video and
giving helpful suggestions and my wife who had to endure viewing
this over and over again.


WARNING THIS VIDEO CONTAINS STRONG GRAPHICAL IMAGES OF VIOLENCE AND
IS NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN. VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVICED


youtubelink

War of Confusion from Virtual DJ on Vimeo.

link to the downloadable mp3 (15MB 256bitrate) (through divshare)

link to the downloadable video (mp4 format (640x480)(through divshare), the widescreen version will follow soon 111MB



edit 10 oct: The video received great reviews and has been featured (among others) on Audioporncentral, mashupfacts, Bartcop Entertainment, and was voted for Video Of The Month at Sound-Unsound.com.

In Case You're Wondering

In case you're wondering why I haven't posted anything new the last 2 months, the reason is that I am working already about 2 months on an elaborate video for my mashup War of Confusion.
I expect to finish this somewhere in September, it's the most complicated and ambitious mashup related thing I have done until now. Here are some screenshots from the still unfinished video to get an idea:

Video for Empty Islands (Supremes, Cardigans, Madredeus)

This is the second video I have made to any of my mashups.

Music:
The Supremes - My World Is Empty Without You (acapella)
Cardigans - Lovefool (acapella)
Las Ilhas dos Acores -Madredeus (Instrumental)

Images:
Anima Mundi - Godfrey Reggio
Earth - Alastair Fothergill & Mark_Linfield
The March of the Penguins - Luc Jacquet

Youtube:



Myspace:

Empty Islands


The mp3 can be found here

3 Summer Mashes

Last year one of my first mashups was included on BBI's Summer Booty compilation and since the demise of BBI the original producers went their own separate ways resulting this year in 2 albums:
DJ Useo presents Summer Booty 2008 and the Summer Booty album by Sound Unsound Network.
I made a track for each album and they have been available already for some time but not yet on my own site.
So here they are and a brand new one as well. (direct links below)




Lebanese Thieves Don't Lie:
Shakira - Hips Don't Lie (acapella)
vs
Thievery Corporation - Lebanese Blonde (instrumental)
(256Kb/s)

This one was featured on DJ Useo presents Summer Booty 2008.

Direct Link (through fileden):
Alternative link (through divshare):


Mas Que Sensual:
Snoop Dogg - Sensual Seduction
vs
Sergio Mendes ft Black Eyed Peas - Mas Que Nada
Donna Summer - Love To Love You Baby
Dee-Lite - Groove Is In The Heart
Chic - Good Times
Herbie Hancock - Rock-It
Don Omar - Reggaeton Latino
Salt 'N Peppa - Push It
(256Kb/s)

This one was featured on the Summer Booty album by Sound Unsound Network.

Direct link (through fileden):
Alternative link (through divshare):


and the brand new one, not released anywhere before, is a kind of Ska/Reggae version of Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer spiced up with the horn section from Superstitious by Stevie Wonder.


Hammer Madness:
UB40 - Reefer Madness (instrumental)
Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer (acapella)
Stevie Wonder - Superstitious (instrumentals from the multitrack)
(256Kb/s)

Direct link (through fileden):
Alternative link (through divshare):

Electroswamp - Talking Heads vs Goldfrapp

When I was listening to Ooh La La by Goldfrapp I thought that the chorus could probably match very well with the chorus in the Talking Heads song Swamp.
What I did not expect was that the two songs would match entirely so well.

In my opinion Swamp is one of the weaker Talking Heads' songs, but in this combo I like it a lot.


Electroswamp:

Talking Heads - Swamp (from Stop Making Sense)
Goldfrapp - Ooh La La (extended remix and Phones re-edit)





(click on the divshare logo to download)

Summer Booties 2008

Last year BBI released the album Summer Booty, a 3 CD monster collection of tunes around a summer theme. This was the first album I was featured on, the album was a huge succes, even though (or maybe because) not all tracks were flawless. I think it worked as a kind of jumpstart for a lot of mashup-artists who were just starting or not very well known and were featured along arrived bootleggers.
This year there will be two Summer Booty albums, due to some differences of opinion between the facilitators of the first edition. The first one has just arrived, DJ Useo presents Summer Booty 2008 and features one track of mine:

Lebanese Thieves Don't Lie
Shakira - Hips Don't Lie (vocals)
Thievery Corporation - Lebanese Blonde (instrumental)

It's on my myspace player but not yet available for download. You can download it by going to the summerbooty site

Soon Sound UnSound Network (The successor of BBI) will present their Summer Booty compilation as well on which I also will be featured.

So even though this little quarrel might have stirred some rivalry the bootleg afficonados ultimately profit by having more to listen to.
For the record, both sides have laid down their quarrel and are in support of each others product.

Mistah Pok's video to Psycho Robots

A while ago after I had made the mashup with Psycho Killer by the Talking Heads and Robots by Kraftwerk, Mistah Pok made a video to this, which you can see here. I recommend to take a look at his My Space profile, he has lots of excellent videos.


psycho robots