Shaped by a "Do It Yourself" culture, Jeffrey Acciaioli was driven by his love of music to create the moniker The Great Mundane at first to only satisfy himself. Born and raised in Farmington Hills, Michigan he was exposed and later influenced by genres such as classical, jazz, bossa nova, hip-hop, and electronica. His broad range of favorites and training allow us to enjoy his "one of a kind" sound that is anything but mundane. The Great Mundane's twisting textures, catchy drum whips, and unique soundscapes leave us with a melodic collage that is unlike anything we've heard before. The Great Mundane was first introduced into the Chicago music scene before taking his passion and energy nation wide. Soon international ears were falling upon his unique sounds and requesting his talents. Recognized and appreciated by his untraditional sounds, The Great Mundane worked with Belladonna Records to release two limited time EP's and has released his debut album "When Falls Arrive" with Psymbolic--sounds.
As many of you have heard, The Great Mundane and DJ Slouch have put together an EP and its ready to rock! In the spirit of the season, we've decided to give it away for free! Drop by www.TheGreatMundane.com and pick up your free copy of The Wires Remix EP. We're very proud of this collection, and we hope you'll enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it.
we have started a blog called "the empty plate". this blog is a collective of various artists such as 18andcounting, Dolor, Lorn, Fresh Classics, prototype(m)D and killernapkins. we will be throwing up all our favorites and all the most hated - facts and fiction. cool hope you all check it out
http://the-empty-plate.blogspot.com
"It's not our intent to discourage aggressively limited records, they are a valid creative choice for artists. But today, most artists feel they have no option other than mastering their records to be as loud as everybody else's."
www.turnmeup.org
Stan aka 18andcounting had his 22nd birthday bash. This is what happens when an amazing artist takes drunken party photos...
you get amazing drunken photos... CLIIIIICK
As many of you have heard, The Great Mundane and DJ Slouch have put together an EP and are about ready to drop it. In the spirit of the season, we've decided to give it away for free! So, on december 23rd, you'll be able to drop by DJSLOUCH.NET or THEGREATMUNDANE.COM and pick up your free copy of the Wires Remix EP. We're very proud of this collection, and we hope you'll enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it.
Calvin, a 14 year old boy from Australia has made my day by creating these short skate videos. 7 years ago i was editing my own using two vcrs... pause play record pause...rewind... this guy is way ahead of me. looks like we got a future filmmaker on our hands... not to mention hes got great taste in music.
skate1
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Textura wrote up a nicely textured review of When Falls Arrive by The Great Mundane
The Great Mundane's When Falls Arrive is more than just a pleasant surprise: DIY-producer Jeffrey Acciaioli weaves fifteen cuts into a solidly crafted travelogue of IDM-inflected instrumental hip-hop that goes down easily indeed. Par for the course, the beats are crisp but he brings an equal amount of attention to the tracks' melodic content and compositional structures. There's no shortage of collage-styled crate-digging on display too but Acciaioli arranges the elements into cohesive wholes where the bits (e.g., the bright piano flourish echoing throughout “The Great Escape”) are used in service to the whole. The level of imagination and resourcefulness impresses also: strip away the slippery rhythms punctuating the aggressive ostinato in “Collecting Rain” and you're left with a keyboard motif that could fit just as easily into a classical minimalism piece.
There's lots to dig into in Acciaioli's fully-developed cuts and sample-heavy interludes: jazz-hop Moroccan swing (“Bombs 2 Business”), laid-back funk-hop (“No Dumping in Jersey ”), and bouncy glitch-hop (“Worm Eaters”). “Neglecting Your Lover” nicely lays out his head-nodding style with a shape-shifting mix of acoustic bass lines, tight beats, and arcade melodies, and Acciaioli even works a samba feel into the heady Rhodes flow of “Disguising Discomfort.” Perhaps the strongest cut is “Chatter Box” which chops heads with pummeling bass buzz while its synth melodies inject a subtle shot of Boards Of Canada flavour into the mix. Prefuse 73 is an obvious reference but The Great Mundane's material is considerably less frenetic than Herren's, making When Falls Arrive a good introduction for those new to the genre.
~ Textura
12rec has released their 50th album. They decided to make it a compilation. All exclusive. All free. All for you. 12rec drummed up the whole bunch and asked them to deliver the best they have. The compilation includes seventeen tracks from recent and future 12rec artists.
You can download the compilation for free via www.12rec.net
follow the links =)
Daniel Merrill of Aligning Minds wrote up an inspiring review of When Falls Arrive by The Great Mundane located on: Eighty-Eight DC, the When Falls Arrive album review page and below//
In my ever increasing quest for music with individualistic character, that is, music that stands with a solid presence of unique personality that reflects that of it’s creator (rather than a genre/formula), I’ve had the pleasure of meeting up with the sounds of The Great Mundane (www.thegreatmundane.com). Emerging from whatever shadows he had been hiding in, producer/instrumentalist Jeffrey Acciaioli has been swiftly perking up the ears of listeners who join me in that search.
First, through the connection made between 88 and the beautiful people over at Chi-town collective Psymbolic (www.psymbolic.com), I had the chance to meet and communicate with Jeffrey and hear his music. Then, I got to perform with him at the Sacred Earth Open Air Festival thrown in Wisconsin by the collective known as the Chilluminati (www.chilluminati.org), which was simply perfect. Through talking and listening, I discovered he’s both an outstanding producer and an exceptional human being. So, now catching up to his sound a bit after the fact, I’ve learned that he’s been pretty busy for a number of years, flexin’ his style until it came to bear the fruits of 2 Ep releases on Belladonna Records, which are now unfortunately out of print. Of course, I’ll be hitting him for my own personal copy.. :)
No worries however, as it was all leading up to the album in question, released recently on Psymbolic Sounds (the label platform that is a part of the aforementioned multi-faceted Psymbolic collective), called ‘When Falls Arrive’. This album is without a doubt a definitive moment in the career of the Great Mundane, as it flawlessly showcases a signature style and work ethic that is just…truly different.
I feel that his sound, no matter where it eventually leads you, is based on a very firm foundation of hip hop work ethics and very intelligent sound design. The rhythms and general themes of all these 15 tunes are very hip hop influenced, and you could easily throw an mc on any one of them. Think funky-chunky breaks, moody ambiances, g-funk leads, experimental beat structures and heavily edited/fragmented sample layers, and you could be getting close to describing his sound. Only close though- as the combination of these elements only hint at things familiar. The sound design is exceptional, swaying your senses constantly and keeping you in check with extreme textural manipulations and stereo field imaging that work in subtle and suspicious conjunction so well calculated you feel like you’re getting a subliminal math lesson. New neural pathways get opened with this music for sure, making you question the direction at all times- and challenging your expectations of linear musical development by delivering surprises at every turn. Some may hear similarities to Prefuse 73. Totally different styles, but there are certainly similar decisions made in some major regards, which is quite the compliment.
Composing and producing this album completely in Reason, he makes me want to go back and check it out again. His melodies are consistently warm, playful, melancholic, and full of dreamy connotations, heavily utilizing flutes, Rhodes, and monophonic synth lines that weave their way around, full of motion and movement. Standouts for me are ‘No Dumping in Jersey’, ‘Disguising Discomfort’, ‘Circus’, ‘ and ‘When Falls Arrive’- all tunes that linger in the domain of melodies that make me feel discomfort through comfort, if that can possibly make any sense. There is also so much diversity on this album, you’re continually exposed to new varieties of sonic oddities, texture and nuance. Every track is a different flavor, but extremely cohesive to the album through such a common set of ground rules, which I think is the ideal for an album, as it shows that the artist has a solid grasp on his vision.
As a debut album, this is most promising- I can’t recommend it enough. It might be a bit different from what you encounter with your normal listening habits, and that’s a much-needed thing. It’s inspiring and hopeful to run across artists who have no fear of really pushing limits as well as the ability to do so. If you have a bone in your body that wants to hear something unique and distinctly fresh, you’ll follow along with this fellow- he’s got you covered.
~ Daniel Merrill - Aligning Minds / Eighty-Eight DC
