The electronic music webspot shares a spectacular compilation of exclusives.
For over 10 years, Percussion Lab has supported electronic musicians from their New York base of operations, moving into live event production and non-profit hosting for DJs around the world — completely ad-free.
To continue their mission, they’re offering the Cambio compilation (a collection of exclusive tracks from the Percussion Lab family) as a fundraiser for site fees and Hurricane Sandy relief.
Along with premiering Cambio below, FACT spoke with Percussion Lab co-founders Brian Blessinger and Praveen Sharma (aka Praveen, Braille, and one-half of Sepalcure) about the origins of the site and the story behind the compilation.
Could you tell us a bit about Percussion Lab, and how it came about?
“Back in 2001, Praveen started up the site as a counterpart to his Percussion Lab radio show on WVKR. It was an interesting mix of ambient, turntablism and IDM with regular guest DJs, MC battles and interviews. A few of the compilation artists were guests on that radio show – artists like Team Shadetek, Calmer, RJ Valeo and more traveled from NYC upstate to perform on live radio.
“In 2005, when Praveen moved to NYC, the radio show became a 24/7 stream of music via the website and a series of events organized with Brian Blessinger and RJ Valeo focusing on booking unknown local producers playing live sets. This event series has gone from a monthly, to a weekly back to a monthly with Nooka Jones as our resident dj and artists such as Scuba, Dorian Concept, Sbtrkt, XI, Mux Mool, Shigeto, Daedelus, Flying Lotus and more having graced venues small and large around Brooklyn for us.”
Why choose now to release a compilation?
“We re-launched the site as a curated and user contributed mix archive in 2009, which totally changed how Percussion Lab related to the greater electronic music community. 3+ years later, the update needs an update, and our personal focus has switched from being hyper local to taking part in the broader cultural conversation about global dance music. In order for those things to happen, we need to do some back-end updating and ensure our users a more consistent experience. Also, we’ve never had any ads, and our reputation is based on that level of commerce-free integrity if you will. We need to raise some funds for the above reasons, but we’re averse to ads because of how they taint the user experience; this seemed like a more Percussion Lab-approved approach to that.”
Obviously some of the artists are well established, could you tell us a little about some of the lesser known names on there?
“Contakt, ENOE, and Archie Pelago are three of the lesser known acts. We picked these guys for the comp because we’ve developed a great, personal relationship will all three acts over the last few years, and feel that they represent a certain aesthetic or sound taking hold in Brooklyn right now. Also, these three acts are super hardworking and dedicated to dance music culture, so we’re kindred spirits in that way. The other lesser known acts – Calmer, Handshake, RJ Valeo perhaps – are old, old friends of the site, people who’ve been down with us since day 1. RJ introduced Praveen and I, and Collin/Calmer was Praveen and Travis/Machinedrum’s roommate for years; Travis still has a bed in that apartment to this day.”
Outside of Percussion Lab, what else do you have on the go right now?
Brian: “I run an outdoor advertising company (@mediacynyc), a projection mapping collective (@integrated_vp), and I just got my real estate license for NY state. And I have a girlfriend and two cats that take up a lot of my time as well. Busy busy.”
Praveen: “Apart from my musical output as Praveen, Braille and Sepalcure, I’m an iOS developer for a startup and find myself busy trying to convince my girlfriend we should get two cats.”
