Bubbling Under the Top 75: Filastine – ‘LOOT’

Artist: Filastine

Album: LOOT

Label: Muti Music

Image: http://images.popmatters.com/news_art/f/filastine1.jpg

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Filastine
LOOT

Wherever I go in the world — says this California-born bass producer — I find a shopping cart. So in the interests of nomadism he integrates his gear with shopping carts and joins himself with the locals, whoever they are, a Japanese rap crew for one song, an Indonesian singer for another. He’s strongest when he lets the rest guide him, going long when a Javanese gong wants to go long, bunching up for Balkan brass, and echoing the short syllables of the Japanese rappers with an electronic dit-dit-dit, rolling up and dipping. Works well with others: his activist credentials coming across blatantly in a few songs, more subtly in the rest, when, instead of inserting sampled voices that tell you, “Share the planet, don’t be greedy,” he demonstrates it by taking on Japan then Europe and becoming nearly anonymous, or by covering a local protest song in that place’s language. But the sense of urgent rhythm must be his, this smart combination of stretch-and-yawn plus jitter. Possibly one of the most eager and disciplined international solo acts of the year. — Deanne Sole