Hear and Now: Cut Chemist

Welcome to Artbound's new music series Hear and Now, where we explore songs with a sense of place. The idea is simple: put Southern California musicians in the locations that inspired a song, and document a performance of the song, in that place. Through this juxtaposition, Hear and Now aims to paint a rich, multidimensional portrait of the creative process and draw connections between musical inspiration and the environment that nurtures it. Look closer. Listen in.

Six songs. Five locations. One day. For this installment of Hear and Now, we commissioned DJ Cut Chemist to make a mix for our city; a collection of songs that represented a few of the many neighborhoods in Los Angeles. Then during one crazy day, we drove across town, setting up guerrilla performances in each of these locations.

We started in the heart of Los Angeles, downtown, nestled in a snarl of our arterial freeways, and headed west, down Wilshire Blvd., that linear city lined with skyscrapers all the way to the Pacific. From day break to sun down, we explored a fraction of this sprawling city -- just one road among many - but witnessed the way L.A. neighborhoods blend together, the same way the sound of two records becomes blurred and interwoven by a DJ's mixer. As the sun tucked behind the ocean, in an almost post-card-ish, "Endless Summer" kind of sunsets, we had half the city behind us, leaving us with memories of pineapple paletas at MacArthur Park, burning sage in Little Ethiopia, parking tickets downtown, and the never-ending bustle of Venice Beach. Songs for our city. Enjoy.