Heist—who made the absolutely-insane I Need Killers drumstep track that sampled James Avery as Shredder, and was also featured in Pendulum’s off-the-chain 2010 Essential Mix—has released a free download called Pray for Japan.

Heist – Pray For Japan

While you can download it for free, Heist has donated his time and considerable skill in the hopes that in exchange for the track you will donate a couple bucks/pounds to The British Red Cross Society’s relief effort for quake-stricken Japan.

So don’t be a dick.

Our fine friends in Japan need our help. And you want that Heist track.

Additionally, Beatport is donating 100% of today’s net proceeds to The Mile High Chapter of the American Red Cross’s Japanese Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami Relief.

So fill yer boots.

Maybe grab some more Heist. Like this one:

Document One – Forgive Me (Heist Drumstep Remix)

While I was reviewing some of my correspondences, I came upon this draft email that I composed to myself in a brief moment while I was in Victoria last August. I want to say I was wearing shorts and sandals and a t-shirt with something cool printed on the front. But the fact of the matter is that I had pried myself away from my vacation to write a test in a desperate bid for a communications job, so I was probably wearing jeans and a hoodie. And panic, which I gushed out in my prosaic approximation of poetry.

August on Vancouver Island is too good to be true, and I guess I knew that all too well:

You know it’s coming.

It’s going to be January soon enough. No, January has been uncommonly warm for the past couple years. There’s a bright period that feels almost like spring. It’s gonna be February. February is when the real cold comes. When the hope that March will bring an early spring is condensed into a black jewel of desperation by the sheer weight—the unfathomable pressure—of the soulscarring cold.

The seeped-in feeling of feelinglessness. Locked-in. Snowed-in. Tractionless. Pointlessness.

The lifeblood of the earth turned to dust and cast to the ground. Burying us.

In retrospect, I should have spent the morning at the park.

Thank you, Charlie Sheen, for providing us with a supremely germane example of how hopelessly-flawed modern drug prohibition policies are.

You see, through some of my various adventures, I have met a number of individuals who are not unfamiliar with some of the less frequently practiced ways in which one might enjoy his or herself. Some of these people have chosen to exalt Sheen as their champion. And, as a free-minded libertarian, I was initially inclined to sympathize with that sentiment. To the extent that I went ahead and liked the following facebook status:

Charlie Sheen says he won’t give up his wild life… great man.

But then I thought about it for a second.

Hasn’t Sheen engaged in some manner of physical brutality against his fellow human beings?

According to Wikipedia, he certainly has. Wrapped up in a whole bunch of speculative conjecture on the extent of Sheen’s more questionable and violent conduct, we see that he straight up plead guilty to misdemeanor assault.

That’s not cool.

Rather than quietly unlike the aforementioned status, I set about composing a comment that would qualify my affinity for Sheen’s hubris. The initial attempt went something like:

But I can’t condone his violence against women.

But then I thought about that for a second.

Was it really a sufficient sanction against such conduct?

Notwithstanding my predilection for employing litotes as a means of sounding even-handed when I am anything but, I rolled out a fortified statement devoid of ambiguity that read thusly:

Although I unequivocally condemn his violence against women.

That’s right, Charlie. You can start crying now, you remorseless bastard.

And policymakers, this is where you can start paying attention. Did you happen to notice how I differentiated between condemning something and not condoning it? Doing one of those things, it turns out, is not tantamount to doing the other. It’s completely possible to reserve condemnation of an act without implicitly condoning it.

Even though I’m not entirely sure exactly what bagging seven-gram rocks entails, I’m pretty sure it’s nobody’s business but the bagger’s. It’s not an activity we need to condemn or condone.

Unlike domestic violence, which we are shamefully all too happy to acquit.

I’m happy to hear that Britney’s still rocking the wobble. Whether or not she ever intentionally referenced dubstep in the past, she’s picked up that gauntlet like a true champion. Now, some serious popstep.

The xx – Shelter (HULK Remix)

HULK, the adamantine duo of Claw and Richie August, have been hanging out at the top of my playlist for a good six months now. You should listen to their remix of The xx’s Shelter as much as possible, because it becomes a free download at 10,000 plays. And I want that download. (ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED!)

When the weather’s warmer, I make a habit of muttering into a voice recorder under the cover of darkness along the margins of suburbia as it bleeds into the wilds of the Canadian north. I discuss things like used vehicle sales practices and paragraph spacing with Mister Peepers, my ornithological confidant. We once discussed HULK.

If I recall correctly, this topic resulted in an unusual amount of hooting from Peepers, presumably because he—for once—agreed with my statement that HULK fucking rules. The stealthy raptor, you have to understand, is a hard-line anarchist who rarely entertains my ruminations as he disagrees with their socialist leanings on a deeply fundamental level.

But I guess all free-willed radicals love a dope bassline.