Third, Portishead’s first new music in more than ten years, is being released on April 28, 2008. If you’re industrious, you can preview an advance copy that’s floating around. Portishead cornucopia: Homepage, MySpace, Wikipedia, iTunes, Amazon MP3.

Blue States - First Steps Into… (Amazon, iTunes), Disrupt - Foundation Bit (Amazon, Boomkat), Faithless - Forever Faithless: The Greatest Hits (Amazon, iTunes), Faithless - To All New Arrivals (Amazon, iTunes), The Future Sound of London - From the Archives Vol. 1 (Amazon, Boomkat), Iron & Wine - The Shepherd’s Dog (Amazon, iTunes), Lusine Icl - Language Barrier (Amazon, iTunes), Mum - Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy (Amazon, iTunes), Radiohead - In Rainbows (homepage), Regina Spektor - Begin to Hope (Amazon, iTunes).

Back in 1997, I played around with reworking the song Joyful Girl by Ani DiFranco. I thought her sedate vocals combined with the simple acoustic guitar for a nice listen—and sample-worthy material. I also liked the ironic, trip-hop-ish version featured in this video (YouTube). I never got very far with that remix, but I’ve kept a few loops in my sample library ever since.

While testing some Audio Unit plug-ins I made with SonicBirth (it’s free and open source now, BTW), I dug out those loops from ten years ago. The result is a relaxed, ambient travelogue (slightly reminiscent of Aphex Twin’s extended remix of Journey by The Gentle People, a favorite from my ‘chill out room raver’ days).

I have uploaded Jfl_Grrl (Chill Kids Rework) (18:12 minutes, 34.5 MB MP3) for your consideration.

I have uploaded a mix of recent unreleased music (50 minutes, 87.37 MB MP3) for your enjoyment.

Track order:

1. Nerd Rock, excerpt
2. Laxometric
3. Snwd_Ndr
4. Little Book of Germs vol. III
5. Ocean Strategy, Blue
6. Slow Ghosts Rise
7. The Thaumaturgeon
8. Sector Boundary