Sander van Zoest: Behind the Scenes

Ever since the 4th film by Quentin Tarantino hit the big screen, I knew that the movie would launch a few underground tunes containing a variety of "Kill Bill" samples and remixed versions of tracks used through out the film.

Of course, the original soundtracks provide you with some killer tracks from the movie score, keep in mind however, that these two soundtracks only contain a small sampling of all the tracks that were used in the film. There are several sites that attempt to make a complete list of them, so I won't try to list them here.

I wanted to talk about the underground remixes that I have found, with the hopes that some of you know of others.

The largest collection of tracks can be found on the Hanzo Steel Vol 1 Limited Edition Remix CD. This CD is being put together by the folks that bring us the One Nation parties at places such as the Casbah and the Whistle Stop. This CD contains a version of the Tomoyasu Hotei track "Battle without honor or humanity" remixed by Blackstone and Atari. The original track was used as the signature track for the movie. Blackstone and Atari overlay "Shout" by Tears for Fears which brings a unique twist to their version of the track.

Other tracks that remix/sample/related to the movie are:

• Williams - Tomoyasu Hotei (White) - Breaks
• Dope Ammo - Kill Bill/The Unexpected (DA Industries) - Hotei Drum & Bass Remix
• Timmy Vegas - Kill Bill (Anything) - Twisted Nerve Remix
• Kill Bill - Misunderstood (White) - Santa Esmeralda House Mix
• Digital Cowboy vs Danny Gilligan - Kill Bill/Powwer (Vacuum) - hard tech trance, Mix?
• Robbie Long and AMS - Kill Bill/Here we go (Thin N' Crispy Promo) - Happy Hard Core, Mix?

Of the ones above, I found the Dope Ammo and Williams tracks to be the most entertaining. Although at times, I can't wait to listen to the house beat layed along the Twisted Nerve track by Timmy Vegas. It also uses the sound effects provided on the first soundtrack to transition between parts of the song.

Oh, and I still expect Tarantino to release a single Kill Bill boxset (similar to the Japanese one) that contains the complete Kill Bill movie in a single edit.

Let me know if you find any others, I am hoping to collect them all.

I have had little chance to expose myself to the latest new tracks, so I will simply focus on the tracks that are currently in heavy rotation at the house. As you can see, most of these tracks are almost a year old if not older. Regardless, I have gotten to really like these tracks and hope you get a kick out of them.

• Body Language [Original Mix] - M.A.N.D.Y., Booka Shade (Get Physical 2005)
• Lola's Theme [Alternative Mix] - Shapeshifters (Nocturnal Groove 2004)
• Seven Hours [Martinez Apocalypse Now Mix] - D-Nox (Electribe 2005)
• The Other Side [Deep Dish Other Than This Side Remix] - Paul van Dyk (Vandit 2005)
• The Careless Kind [Naum Gabo Remix] - Infusion (Polaroid 2005)

Since I am not spinning vinyl at the moment, because I have been told to keep the bass to a minimum by the ladies. I have been getting some tracks from BeatPort with great success. It is not quite Bleep, but it has a much wider selection of tracks. It is good to see that getting tracks online is something that is actually possible now, although I find many of them lack the vinyl intros and outros.

A few days after my last day at DivX, I had some of my old co-workers informed me that Electronic artist BT (also known as Brian Transeau) was in the office. Obviously, being a big electronic music fan and I was bummed to hear I missed out, but simultaneously happy to hear DivX was working with BT. I have had his latest album, This Binary Universe, for more then a month now and it is quite an experience. I am normally not that much into downtempo type music, but combined with the video it sets a very different mood. I wish I could have gone to one of his screenings, but I rarely get a chance to go to a show these days. I think the last show was seeing Satoshi Tomiie at the Karma Lounge of On Broadway several months ago.

Anyways, you will find the BT track named 1.618 in DivX HD 720p with high quality MP3 Surround audio on Stage6, which is nothing short of amazing to watch. Unfortunately, I do not have a 5.1 setup in my studio or office, so I was not able to take advantage of the MP3S audio encoding. However, having listened to the DVD I must say surround sound is a must have. I tried to play back the HD clip on our Philips DVP 5960/37 DivX Ultra Certified DVD Player, but it said it didn't support 720p via the USB drive. Which is not surprising, but it was worth a shot. I would only assume that this would playback on a HD capable player, such as the I-O Data AVeL LinkPlayer2. If you have 5.1 speakers hooked up to your computer, or you simply haven't seen the beauty of DivX in HD before. Be sure to check it out, otherwise enjoy it in Home Theater with MP3S.

Also, be sure to watch the very candid interview by Alastair "Digital56K" Mayo at BT's home in front of a Elektron Monomachine.

BT talks about the creation of his latest album This Binary Universe in depth. He discusses how he found the animators, how he financed it and its tour among other things. It was also interesting to hear his thoughts around being a new father and how that relates to his music. It reminded me of my experiences with my daughter while messing around in the home studio. BT also talks about music discovery via the internet and how it is truly a curse and a blessing for someone who does music for a living. He mentions that his records did not bring in any money and how compensates other artists when he likes a particular track. He mentions a variety of ways to find music including one of my online favorites BeatPort. He makes a brief mention of csound and how he integrated orchestral works into his album, but the one hour interview focuses primarily on what it took to create his latest album.

All and all, some great new content on Stage6 provided in its signature quality. Enjoy!

As I have mentioned before, I have been getting some of my new tracks in digital form from Beatport lately, as I am not really setup right now to listen to them in vinyl, nor do I have the time to convert the vinyl to FLAC and MP3s.

As it turns out, Beatport just recently decided to give existing customers 3 free credits in honor of their three year anniversary. I have some ideas as to what I would get, but I have a better idea. What would you get if you had 3 credits at Beatport? Please leave your suggestion as a comment and I will make a later posting as to what I actually ended up getting.