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CAT. STP–011 FSG · 2022

4

Machine Time

The machines that fixed the grid in place, and what they made possible

01Soothing Sounds for BabyRaymond ScottScott went on to use these machines to create some of the first commercial recordings of electronic music—some unsuccessful, like the eerie 1963 album Soothing Sounds for Baby; some profitable, like jingles for General Motors, IBM, Bendix, and the cosmetics company Lightworks.
02I Feel LoveDonna SummerAnother producer working in Germany, Giorgio Moroder, merged disco with machines on a 1976 track for Donna Summer, “I Feel Love.”
03SharevariA Number of NamesIn 1981, the Electrifying Mojo began playing a local record, “Sharevari,” by a group called A Number of Names, and went on to champion other local records, including “Alleys of Your Mind,” released in 1981 by Cybotron.
04Alleys of Your MindCybotronIn 1981, the Electrifying Mojo began playing a local record, “Sharevari,” by a group called A Number of Names, and went on to champion other local records, including “Alleys of Your Mind,” released in 1981 by Cybotron.
05Planet RockAfrika BambaataaIn New York they dubbed their electronic dance music “electrofunk” or simply “electro,” ignited in 1982 by Afrika Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock,” a drum machine–powered reworking of Kraftwerk’s “Trans-Europe Express.”
06Trans-Europe ExpressKraftwerkIn New York they dubbed their electronic dance music “electrofunk” or simply “electro,” ignited in 1982 by Afrika Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock,” a drum machine–powered reworking of Kraftwerk’s “Trans-Europe Express.”
07On and OnJesse SaundersIn Chicago they called it “house,” fueled by the 1984 track by Jesse Saunders, “On and On.”
08Techno CityCybotronAnd in Detroit, a 1984 track by Cybotron, “Techno City,” would be the first mention of the word from which the local music eventually took its name.
09Imaginary Landscape No. 1John CageTwo years later, in 1939, Cage created a piece called Imaginary Landscape No.
10ApacheIncredible Bongo BandTheir discoveries were assembled gradually into a canon of break records, many of them obscure to the general public but known to every DJ for the vital moments within them: The first seven seconds of the Incredible Bongo Band’s 1973 remake of the Shadows’ “Apache.”
11Funky Drummer (Part 2)James BrownTwo minutes and thirty-eight seconds into the 45-rpm single of James Brown’s “Funky Drummer (Part 2),” released in 1969.
12Give It Up or Turnit a LooseJames BrownFour minutes and twenty-nine seconds into James Brown’s “Give It Up or Turnit a Loose”—the faux-concert version that appears on his 1971 Sex Machine album, not the one released as a single two years earlier.
13Sex MachineJames BrownFour minutes and twenty-nine seconds into James Brown’s “Give It Up or Turnit a Loose”—the faux-concert version that appears on his 1971 Sex Machine album, not the one released as a single two years earlier.
14Sucker M.C.’sRun-DMCThis school of production was established in large part by the Queens programmer-musician Larry Smith in 1983 with the song “Sucker M.C.’s” by Run-DMC.
15Big MouthWhodiniSmith, the following year, would be responsible for another minimal, drum machine–driven rap song by Whodini, “Big Mouth.”

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dilla time

An unofficial reader’s listening guide to Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm by Dan Charnas (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022).

Every record here is from the book’s own Selected Discography, in its four sections and its order. Years, labels and credits are Charnas’s, uncorrected. Where the chapters discuss a record, the sentence that does is quoted beside it and the chapter named; where they do not, the record is listed without one. That is most of them — the discography reaches every posthumous release and the story stops at his death.

The chapters carry what the book names, in the order it names it. A record is here because Charnas lists it in his own discography, or because MusicBrainz has a release of that name credited to somebody the passage names — that second test is what lets the guide carry the music around J Dilla as well as his own. Years and labels are shown only where Charnas gave them.

Releases are set in italic and tracks in roman, which is the book’s own way of telling them apart. A track that came off a particular record says so underneath.

Links run YouTube searches, so they resolve in any country. Records belong to their artists and labels; the drawings here are original work in the jacket’s idiom.

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