A rampant world-traveler, exâInfernal Noise Brigade guerrilla Grey Filastine assimilates influences from his journeys and filters them through gully aesthetics that are heavy on low-end fetishism, which makes his association with DJ /rupture's Soot label logical.
The follow-up to 2006's similarly promiscuous, beat-mongering effort Burn It, Filastine's Dirty Bomb (Soot/Post World Industries) is a bounty of ethnic-music hybridizing. Thankfully, Filastine operates several kilometers away from the Putumayo's domesticated style of world-music branding.
On Dirty Bomb, the sonic equation is eclecticism minus dilettantism plus profligate rhythm collision, equaling an often disorienting, sometimes beautiful sound-clash that speaks in a riot of tongues. Dub, dubstep, drum 'n' bass, dancehall, reggaeton, and rap commingle with Middle Eastern devotional songs and melodic contours, lustrous orchestrations, and the wonky distortion common to leftfield, 21st-century electronic music. Snatches of radio/TV/film chatter and street-people talk filter into the mix, mirroring the Sublime Frequencies label's approach to capturing raw cultural ephemera. Tracks like "Marxa," "Blung," and "Bitrate Sneers" traverse the exhilarating zone occupied by the elusive, ethnodelic sounds of Muslimgauze and late-period Meat Beat Manifesto.
Maneuvering 180 degrees away from stultifying, one-dimensional track making, Filastine transforms the global sonic smorgasbord into sublimely whirled music that'll have you seeking new ways to move yourself to it. The only victim of collateral damage from Dirty Bomb is predictability.
Early warning: Filastine plays Chop Suey on April 11.
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This month, Broken Disco's brain trust imports Jona from Berlin. Jona (aka Jonathan Troupin) has released on Carl Craig's Planet E and Get Physical, two labels that maintain rigorous quality standards. Jona's tracks are nocturnal, burrowing, and sensuous, but devoid of cloying cheese. Unusual percussion touches and subtle horn phrases enhance his productions, which come off as an elegant truce between the techno and house genres. Jona reconfigures Dave Brubeck Quartet's quintuple-time jazz standard "Take Five" into a sizzling tech-house winner, with throbbing bass line and percolating hand percussion. It's a wholly satisfying update of a song many probably think of as untouchable.
Jona and fellow Berlin citizen Nutownproject (Jean-Christophe Bougnet) have collaborated on "Turning Point," an inventive, muted chugger with metallic percussion accents that will surely get clubbers' arms thrusting ceilingward. Another joint cut between these two, "Ashes & Dust," uses the clacking of femur bones (or so it seems) to prod a swift, strutting, tech-house bassbin-shaker. Unfortunately, U.S. Customs denied Nutownproject entry into the country, and his entire North American tour has been canceled (Aurora Diving Club will replace NP at Broken Disco). 
Broken Disco: Jona, Jacob London, Broken Disconauts, Skyler versus Dr.Mr.M., Eddie, Mateo, Aurora Diving Club perform Fri Feb 20, Chop Suey, 9 pm, $10 before 10 pm/$12 after, 21+.
