Barbeque Beets presents what N.Y.C.'s Agriculture collective calls "roof music" -- a quirky, chill mix of scratchy dub and ambient and whatever beats blended with random city sounds for an experience not unlike actually hanging on a Brooklyn rooftop. Mixed by
DJ Olive, the set features work from
Qpe (the sparse beats and chopped vocals of "Devil May Care"), Ladies Man (the curious, vaguely Middle Eastern "Old Spice"), and
Lloop, whose "Long Jumps" is a breathy, shuffling affair full of faraway cries and fractured piano. This attention to sonic randomness permeates
Barbeque Beets -- there seems a conscious attempt to catalog the sounds that would normally be wafting up from the street and surrounding windows.
Scotty Hard contributes some off-kilter hip-hop flavor with "Diurnal," Weyerhauser provides fodder for lightly dancing feet, and
DJ Wally builds a groove from crisp percussion, twinkling music boxes, and a Blade Runner sample.
Barbeque Beets is also bookended by "Enter" and "Exit," two sound collage pieces from
Olive that bring you up the fire escape and back down again. Watch out for the barking dog! ~ Johnny Loftus