Around 2007, when FabricLive.37 was released and bass-wobble dubstep was articulating itself internationally as actual music, I read an article defending the genre. The author annotated the craziest song they could find. The graphic was just an absurd zig-zag of sixteenth notes splattered up and down the page. Listening to Rudi Zygadlo is like that sometimes. In a good way. The fourth song of his exclusive FADER Mix, about seven and a half minutes in, enters in such a whirlwind of sounds it's best described as scrubbing your ears viciously. There's rapid fire keyboard tuned to dogs barking and drum rolls and synth bass. It's Rudi Zygadlo's edit of Frank Zappa's "G-Spot Tornado," a song Zappa assumed would be impossible to play by humans. Sometimes the mix is hard to get your head around, but that makes its moments of pure emotional force so much stronger (the little voices at 26:30, for example). And then it ends. Before the mix's final ten minutes of unabashed classical music, there's this spoken sample that comes from who knows where. Maybe it's also Zygadlo's thesis:
"…If you can't have it in every degree, from the cheesiest to the most exalted, because they all need to exist together. Without "Louie Louie" a symphony is not quite so grand. You need all the different stuff for contrast. It all has a right to exist. It won't hurt you. It's music! It is an art form. Even if you think it's ugly, somebody else may like it a lot and you don't have the right to keep them from listening to it. That's my point of view and you're going to like it or lo-lo-lo-love it."
Download: Rudi Zygadlo's FADER Mix
Rudi Zygadlo's incredible Achtung 12-inch is out now on Pictures.
Rudi Zygadlo's FADER Mix Tracklist:
Laurie Anderson - From the Air
Jean michel Jarre - Zoolookologie
Afrika Bambata - Get Up and Dance
Frank Zappa (RZ edit) - G Spot Tornado
Kuedo - Whisper Fate
Floating Points - Farukx
Mirrors - Fear of Drowning (Lapalux Remix)
Slugabed - Moonbeam Rider
Rustie - Hover Traps
Starkey - Eris
Rudi Zygadlo - Extract I/II
Lounge Lizards - Epistrophie
Michael Nyman - An Eye For Optical Theory
Cinematic Orchestra - Manhatta
Sergei Rachmaninov - Etude Tableaux Op.33 No 5 Dminor Moderato
