http://retromaniabysimonreynolds.blogspot.com/2011/03/blog-post.html
Radio Soulwax
Soulwax, a/k/a mash up pioneers 2 Many DJs, dedicated over two years to a supremely labor-intensive project: an app that contains a large and ever-swelling number of one hour-long mixes that each come with a film that recreates the covers of every single track in that mix. Then the duo–Belgian brothers Stephen and David Dewael – realized that they could they couldn't find a way to monetize the project, on account of all the clearances required. The only way to get around it was to become an internet radio company and give the app away for free. Here's the official communiqué from the brothers Dewael:
"Ok, so it's a radio station, but not as you know it. For now, it's a growing collection of 24 one hour-long mixes with visuals that we are sharing with you for free, and hopefully it will become a platform for many more things to come. We call them mixes, but in reality they are more like musical films based on the record sleeves. Every hour has a different musical and visual theme (always based on the covers), to eventually make for a varied day-long radio schedule that will remain online in a rotated and continuous loop. Over the next few months we will be adding a new show every week, culminating in a 24-hour musical and visual 'experience'. Sorry, we couldn't think of a better word than experience. We have no idea how you will experience this, though, whether it will be too intense or too much to take in, or perhaps not enough. All we know is that we love it and had to do it, even though everyone called us crazy. We spent ages trying to get everything to sound, look and feel right. We hope you appreciate this labour of love as it has taken a ridiculous amount of work."
You can get the app for free here:
http://itunes.apple.com/app/radiosoulwax/id434410393&mt=8
I haven't actually checked it out myself, in large part because a performance by 2 Many DJs in Manhattan in the early 2000s was one of the most depressing night-outs of my clubbing life. Oh I know all the theoretical justifications for mash-ups: it's the musical equivalent of fan-fiction and all those cut-ups and karaoke jobs on YouTube... we live in the age of the curator-as-artist... Borges on the copy and how it is never identical to the original, always something new... blah blah blah... But just think about all the musical knowledge, taste, unstinting meticulousness and sheer exertion that must have gone into Radio Soulwax.... Wouldn't it have been better to direct that towards creating just one completely new piece of music, one completely new record cover? Instead of what is effectively, and ultimately, a Herculean feat of annotation, a heap of footnotes to History.
More on "Soulwax's mashup marathon" at The Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/jun/29/soulwax-introversy
