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Image by Kathy Vitkus
Big Shot Magazine
Gear Review: Native Instruments Traktor Trolley By UDG
Packing for a night out at the club can always be underestimated; you may not know where you are going to wake up the next day, to say you aren’t going to stay up until the next party. As a digital DJ, your life is even more complicated, you have gear you need to schlep and watch after. Fortunately the folks at NI (with the help from bag aficionados UDG) have developed a carryall that is specifically designed for the working DJ.
This stylish trolley will part the sea of party goers as you approach the club, eliminating the need for a backpack, laptop pouch and controller bag. Inside this internally massive bag, there is more than enough room to secure all the tools needed to rock the dance floor for days on end. A perfectly fitted pouch for your Traktor S4 controller sits in the rear, while another pouch opens up for your laptop and all of its accessories. In the front of the bag there is even room for your headphones bag, external soundcard and the host of other cables and tidbits you always bring out. Remember that lucky Tiësto mix CD you got before Tiësto was big? Yep, you can even stash that in there…. along with several hundred other CDs. Think of this bag as the Doctor’s TARDIS, it is much bigger on the inside that what is seen on the outside.
When I first packed it up and headed out to a gig, I was amazed at how much stuff it fitted, and that my 18” Alienware laptop fit just fine. At the club, it was defiantly a sight to see, as your status from amateur to professional just changed. In addition, this bag is fully class compliant for air travel, and will fit perfectly into the overhead bin, assuring your gear’s safety when arriving at your out of town gig. Although it’s a bit on the big side for bringing to the café to work on music, this bag receives only the highest marks as an essential club companion for a serious night on the town.
Album Review: Alex Under / ‘La Máquina de Bolas’ (Soma)
★★★☆☆
An ambient album that’s essentially a dreamy essay about how to control a loop in the middle of the pleasure-pain theory, you can take Alex Under as a sedative or someone to whiten your knuckles by. Ten- and 11-minute passages from the Spaniard mean there’s a lot of time for thoughts to enter your head. If you turn it on and leave it humming in the background, that’s fine — therapeutic washing machines and faraway steam trains are comparable in sound if your mind is set to counting sheep by slow stewing house. If you’re an insomniac who can’t stand playing shepherd, you’ll be drawn in by the scrabbling, rhythmic raindrops and subtle insertion of tension. The cycling, sometimes tribal kaleidoscope, becomes undercut with blood reds and monochrome slashes, before morphing out with charming and carefree burbles and flickers to have you teetering on the edge of the bed. Atmosphere creeps up and cloaks you from faint composition gaining strands of strength (“Bola 4” records the sounds of wandering dead souls) and patient programming, which sounds an obvious component to press home, but shouldn’t be overlooked.
La Máquina de Bolas translates as “pinball machine.” Under isn’t interested in high scores and hitting flippers into a blur, but nonetheless chops and screws the LCD displays and sets the ball shooting down the runway in slow mesmeric motion.
File under: Dolly La Parton, Friendly People, Thomas Fehlmann
Actress, Oakenfold Collaborator Brittany Murphy Dies
Actress Brittany Murphy, who starred in such films as 8 Mile, Just Married and Uptown Girls, died today after going into cardiac arrest. The Los Angeles Times reported the Los Angeles Fire Department responded to “a medical request” at Murphy’s home in West Hollywood, and took her to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center near Beverly Hills, where she was pronounced dead. In 2006, Murphy teamed up Paul Oakenfold on the chart-topping club single “Faster Kill Pussycat.” Murphy was 32 years old.