The fight for diverse and conscious voices

https://twitter.com/theglitchmob/status/818644021228670976

So, this showed up on Twitter recently. It's a snippet of the ongoing development of Blade 2.0, the Glitch Mob's custom performing instrument. They couldn't find anything off-the-shelf that let them play their music the way they wanted to play it, so they created a thing. It's awesome.

In case you're wondering what it's like live, here's a pretty reasonable facsimile: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7SoQWTFJ_k

I have no idea if/when they'll make it back to Boston but if they do you can bet I'll be there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUu8jxWDSOU&feature=youtu.be

A really nice little 15-minute look at the Glitch Mob's new performance set, dubbed "The Blade". It's a lot about the process of designing and making the stage set and a good deal about why. When I reviewed Simon Posford's recent show I noted that he suffered from a problem lots of DJs have connecting with their audiences. The Glitch Mob take that challenge head on - everything about The Blade is designed to connect the audience with the performers through the music. Having seen it live twice, I'd say it's a success.

Herewith an assortment of shorter listening. The fact that they're all short is about the only thing they have in common. Well, and I like them.

https://soundcloud.com/theglitchmob/lords-of-summer-the-glitch-mob-remix/
It's Glitch Mob; it's Metallica. Do you need to know any more? Glitch Mob have often covered metal tunes as part of their shows, notably Prodigy in the past. Here they're remixing the acclaimed masters of metal and it's every bit as much fun as you want it to be.

https://soundcloud.com/fissunix/interstellar-power
Speaking of metal, Fissunix gives us a power-pounding mash of Kanye West with some Led Zeppelin drums and some heavy-duty samples.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdZzSFUYpBE
Those of you who've been reading me for a few years may recall that I mentioned Up and Over It some years ago as part of a music story post. Since then I haven't kept track of what they've done. So here we are a few years on and they've got this interesting hand dance done to a minimalist pop tune. What the animal masks have to do with anything is beyond me, sorry.

https://soundcloud.com/mac-stanton/butyreux-your-love-mac-stanton-remix-out-now-on-so-french-records
Mac Stanton has a vocoder - let him show it to you. I remember when these things were everywhere and while it's possible to overuse any kind of sound I'm a little sad they've fallen out of favor. The basic track has the funk and the horns I love.

https://soundcloud.com/bodyheatmusic/msystem-diva
And while we're on the funk, let me close this out with a little turbofunk from Msystem. I've been unable to track down the original but this is good as it stands. It's hot, it moves, and I need that sort of thing these days.

I doubt I'll be posting music on Friday, and I just had both my afternoon meetings cancelled AND it's the end of year so I'm going through a bunch of "best of" tracks, so let's clear the decks shall we?

https://soundcloud.com/ando-tutnixx/dj-schmolli-farbenkarussell-she-moves-the-sun
DJ Schmolli is back with a pleasant and fairly sophisticated mash. He's got four tracks including two versions of "She Moves" by Alle Farben (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HC1MmjPu3Xo) a lovely vocal dance piece that has some obvious swing influences. Schmolli skips his usual metal componentry in favor of more subtle beats and horn accompaniments. Using other vocal bits from "La La La" as counterpoint works very well. If it wasn't December I'd say this was a great summer track.

https://soundcloud.com/frail-limb-purity-1/sets/xoxo-the-glitch-mob-the
This is an oldie but somehow I failed to notice it. Back in 2012, dj bahler and Frail Limb Purity sat down with their friends from the Glitch Mob and put together a full mixtape of mashes using mostly music from Glitch Mob and The Weekend. The set tones down and mixes nicely with Glitch Mob's usual bombast. I'm on my fourth listen-through and I think my favorite is still the opening track "Unspoken" which uses five tracks in a mash that is at once innovative, surprising, and intimate.

https://soundcloud.com/killmrdj/you-oughta-beg-banks-vs-alanis-morissette-vs-stevie-nicks
https://soundcloud.com/killmrdj/wake-up-down-under-avicii-ft
https://soundcloud.com/killmrdj/wicked-london-grammar-kylie-minogue-chris-isaak-madonna
A triple-pack from a new-to-me remixer who goes by kill_mr_dj.

The first one, I am not quite sure what to make of. It is clever and it makes me listen to Alanis Moreupset again, which I generally try to avoid. The mix is definitely arranged as a point/counterpoint with a strong transition starting about 2:30 in. I confess that "Edge of Seventeen" is one of my weaknesses, having come into my hearing when I was about that age, and feeling some of those feels. I don't know if it'll appeal to anyone else, though.

The second is a straight up A|B mash using Men at Work and Avicii. It, too, is clever and more pop-appealing than the previous track.

The third one, well you can like or not. It's using London Grammar's cover of Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game" which I think is as haunting and even more beautiful than the original.

https://soundcloud.com/chasing_planets/i-see-firethugz-mansion-ed-sheeran-ft-nas-tupac
Speaking of clever, ChasingPlanets has built a nice combination using guitars from "See Fire" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fngvQS_PmQ) a track off the previous Hobbit movie soundtrack. This is overlaid with some of the lyrical poetry that made Nas and Tupac famous. It's haunting and beautiful in ways wholly different from the original, but similar in spirit.

https://soundcloud.com/madmixmustang-1/wanna-get-up-and-start-being-a-sex-machine-long-version-1
James Brown mixes are easy to do wrong. You end up with something spastic or something that just recapitulates what everyone who followed Brown sampled and took from him. Here MadMixMustang shows us exactly that by using Michael Jackson's "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" with Brown. WBSS is very clearly a direct descendant of Brown's work and pairing the two is a nice Master-and-pupil duet. A bit too much Michael for my tastes, but that's just me.

I don't have the time for a full music post but since we're going to see Glitch Mob next week I wanted to share this gem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saPr6gqjsdY
Khameleon808 returns with another of their tightly-edited video mash-ups, this one set to the Mob's "Warrior Concerto." Featuring snips from videos and movies ranging back as far as Revenge of the Nerds and as recent as Guardians of the Galaxy it's fun to see how many snips one can recognize. The video has a great sense of timing and pace and matches the Concerto perfectly. All of which just makes me want to see Glitch Mob score a movie someday.

Been meaning to write this up and keep forgetting. The Glitch Mob are a fun thunderous show. 4/5 for them, though there were... challenges. Thanks to taura_g who kid-sat for us very late.

The opening acts were so bad as to be worthy of negative mention. First (after the obligatory hour-past-doors wait) was Penthouse Penthouse. They were unremittingly awful. The two of them bobbed along frenetically to a beat that existed only in their heads, not in the discordant and disjointed noise they produced. It was like jazz and electronica had a head-on crash with no survivors.

Ana Sia, a solo female DJ, was... passable but by the time she got started we were two hours past when I wanted to be seeing Glitch Mob and her adding a further 45 minute delay moved her from "mediocre warm-up act" to "get off the stage already".

Listening to Glitch Mob you can feel the bombast and barely controlled thunder. They come out of L.A. and a style there that is simply called "beat". If you're not familiar with their sound, try http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKxDzyHPo0o - That's "Can't Kill Us", their set opener, which is used in the new trailer for the upcoming Sin City movie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHCJfhXvDM0). I was hoping their live act would have the kind of rolling percussive assault that I haven't heard since the last Concussion Ensemble show, way too many years ago. I was not disappointed.

Their electronica is a set of large-pad consoles that they use to trigger musical phrases and sequences. But behind the three of them are several pairs of drums, which are hooked up to cool lighting and video effects, and... drums! In person the effect is phenomenal. They are loud without being offensive - I could feel the pulse of the bass against my skin even though we weren't up close.

On stage they're three guys clearly having a great time. This was the second night of their tour, and they were excited though still finding their feet. Some of the transitions were not as smooth as you'd likely see late in the tour but they made up for it with a freshness and energy I really enjoyed.

We decided to get actual seats, which put us in the balcony rather than on the floor. We missed the crush and the crowd surfing that went on below but, for me, the ability to have room to dance and being able to sit for the hours while I waited for Glitch Mob to hit the stage was crucial. I was notably less people-phobic the next day than I am after a standard general-admission show.

A weird assortment of music tabs left over from various things.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EF4LkCx5wpw
Yoshida Brothers was a discovery from Pandora, via MizA. The brothers are a pair of shamisen-playing Japanese musicians. You can find many of their pieces up on YouTube. I'm fond of the shamisen played in traditional styles, and I am even more fond of how these guys mix the traditional instrument with modern (Western) beats and synth pieces.

http://rcrdlbl.com/artists/Dennis_Coffey/track/Ubiquitous_Steinski_Mix
Once upon a time there was this thing called rock&roll and a feature staple of rock&roll was the electric guitar. Over the years many masters and lots more lesser players made their mark using the electric guitar. When I was growing up one of the staples of a Top 40 rock&roll song was the guitar solo. Often with the drummer along to keep something like regular time, guitarists would use these solos to show off their style. Some of the better ones would bounce melodies back and forth with other band members like the bassist or guitar player. Others would just rip or shred or whatever verb was used to describe their style and it was fire and it was, some said, the essence of rock and roll. These days you don't get a lot of that, at least not in the music I usually listen to. Dennis Coffey is a throwback to those days and that style. He's good, and this instrumental track lets him show off what he can do with a few backing instruments.

http://audioporncentral.com/2011/04/depeche-mode-puppets-royksopp-remix.html
Also back in the dark ages (but not quite as dark as all that) there was this phenomenon called Depeche Mode. Here, Royksopp gives a very modern electro-disco update to one of the old D.M. tunes. APC claims this track is 30 years old, which just doesn't seem right, somehow. 'Scuse me while I shuffle off in search of my Geritol.

http://audioporncentral.com/2011/04/lobsterdust-policy-of-dance.html
Speaking of D.M., lobsterdust (who remains too cool to have DJ in front of his name) takes another of their popular singles (this one a mere two decades old) and weaves it together with Gaga's "Just Dance" pop hit. Like Gaga, D.M. were generally not known for the depth of their lyrics. What makes this mix interesting is that lobsterdust is good - really good. Listen to the middle bit, particularly starting around 2:35 where he's weaving the sounds in and out and using different layers from each song.

http://rcrdlbl.com/artists/Jessica_6/track/Prisoner_Of_Love_feat_Antony_
Jessica 6 is a modern disco-lounge trio with a silky sound. Nomi Ruiz, nominally the front woman for the trio, takes a back seat on this track to some darker male vocal. I love the slinky feel and if you let their stream play you'll get treated to some more house-kick tracks as well.

http://djsteveboy.com/luciddrumming.html
http://www.shopliftwindchimes.com/poems.html
http://www.myspace.com/vimrecords/music/songs/julson-ni-ba-ya-saba-jamie-d-remix-mp3-78756149
DJ Steveboy put out another mix he calls "Lucid Drumming." Nominally it's a tribal/drumming mix but what makes this one unusual is that he is mixing in spoken word pieces. The mix opens very strong with a nicely re-synched version of Hauswerks - Savanna (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5XkZL5V26A to hear the original) with some black vocal over it. I also wanted to point at the mid-mix track called "Gorgeous" by Rives. The Rives in question is a poet/spoken word artist. It's worth pausing the mix to go to Rives' site and listen to the original of "Gorgeous". If you also take the time to listen to the Julson remix you can get a sense of just how much work Steveboy is putting into these mixes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtnVduIY75Y
I'm pretty sure this one is Purple Terror's fault. I was at a party and this came on the sound track and I did one of those classic head-snaps. "Hey! That's... Glitch Mob!" and went to find him to confirm. That it is. It's not particularly new, but I love it in part because it builds from such simple components. You start with a simple pattern of notes, add a melody track, then build a beat complex around it with staccato and, yes, heavy wub. Get over it.

Don't worry, I promise I'll explain that title. Most of what I've been listening to these days are longer mixes and sets, so there are only a few URLs here but a lot of hours of listening pleasure.

http://www.djsteveboy.com/groovelectric.html
DJ Steveboy's latest is "Oblivion Express." It's another drone mix, which means it's less bouncy and more spacey/cerebral than the usual stuff from him. I'm not a huge fan of his drone mixes, but this is great background music for work or study where you really need to concentrate on what you're doing and not be bouncing around too much in your seat.

http://www.mashup-industries.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=357&Itemid=36
Mashup Industries is hosting two good sets from KrazyBen. In these sets he has included 40 different tracks from the pure.fm November compilation, remixed by him. Also on the page are four links to his own mashes, all of which are quite good.

As you'd expect from a 40-track set there's a lot of variety here, but most of it carries a signature slower tempo and somewhat downtempo feel. He also mixes sources I don't usually hear, which is very nice. All four of his mixes are top-notch and you can download those directly via the separate links. I also wanted to pull out two tracks that give you a feel for the range here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXlHQokybrg
I'm quite fond of the Editors' "You Don't Know Love" and here the Cagedbaby remix pumps up the fuzz and funky base-line without messing up the silky noire voicings that make the original so great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P8DtOlAH7s
This is the Venaccio Remix of Jónsi's "Go Do" and I confess I'd heard of neither before this. Here's the official video for the song - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYb2Q3DvLNE - but it doesn't do much for me. Near-falsetto male vocal isn't a big thing for me. What Venaccio (http://www.myspace.com/venaccio) has done is tone down the highs, lay on a fast house beat track, and generally fit it into standard electro-house style with cuts and dubs.

http://www.theglitchmob.com/music/drinkthesea-theremixes/
The Glitch Mob have put out a big, beautiful, luscious 24-track remix sampler in two parts. Using material from their "Drink the Sea" album this two-volume collection brings in a different remixer on every track. To my great surprise, the collection is much more unified in sound and feel than you'd expect from that description. For one thing - in keeping with the theme of this posting - most of the tracks are down-tempo, slower and pay at least a nod to dubstep if not being actual dubstep themselves. Even the included remix of "Drive It Like You Stole It" - the track that drew over 100 remix entries in their contest last year - is downtempo.

Since dubstep seems to be the theme here (and may be the hot new things for club tracks in 2011, we shall see) I sent a link to http://soundcloud.com/theglitchmob/between-two-points-spl-remix - the dubstep remix of "Between Two Points" which I love for its torch-singa vocal quality to a friend of mine. He replied that he found it good, and dubstep good in general, because the sound is sparse and leaves him (a musician) space to fill in his own stuff, as he says, "oontzing and beeping" along with the track.

So, you see, oontz is totally a verb.

Someone pointed out that I hadn't visited Bootie Blog in a while and it's true. They have a bunch of top N lists up that I want to check out and will probably blog next time. Which means I need to clear out the other backlog, so here goes.

http://t.opsp.in/K8OC
That link should get you a download for the ZIP file of "Drink the Sea", a free CD length mix from The Glitch Mob (http://www.theglitchmob.com/). You can get the MP3 from their site; the ZIP also includes JPEG cover art.

The mix is awesome! When I blogged the first Glitch Mob track I'd heard back in April, I noted good beats with the muted electro and hot funky undertones. You get that again here in bigger format. Yeah, they're using older stuff like Daft Punk and La Roux, but their approach is fresh and styling. I just wish they'd provided individual track links to all of it, but such is life.

Finally, I have to give extra props to The Glitch Mob for mixing in some of the better rap/hip hop elements without falling into the bitches/niggas/hos quagmire that turns me off from so much of that genre.

http://audioporncentral.com/2010/08/omd-if-you-want-it-video-and-villa-nah-remix.html
OMD, OMG! Every over-tuned electro-disco gayboy wannabe that has come out in the past two decades can just step back. The original masters are back with a beautiful, understated, melodic tune that reminds me why I first liked them. You can watch the official video for the original track and also listen to one of the remixes by Villa Nah - http://www.myspace.com/villanah - a Finnish electro-pop duo who just released their debut album this year. This remix and a bunch of others will come out with the upcoming single release. APC also says that Villa Nah are touring with OMD, so I'm off to listen to more of their stuff.

http://audioporncentral.com/2010/08/shit-robot-i-found-love.html
In the best/worst names category we have Marcus Lambkin who performs as Shit Robot (ugh) but whose first release is called "From the Cradle to the Rave" which is just an awesome name. Once again we get an example of how a remix can really lift up a mediocre track. The first MP3 is the original, which is sort of OK, but not really remarkable. The second, a remix by TBD (http://www.myspace.com/whoistbd), is much better - though I admit the first 45 seconds almost turned me off.

http://audioporncentral.com/2010/08/superman-there-aint-no-such-thing-as-superman.html
Superman (http://soundcloud.com/sprm) has produced a fascinating project. It is an hour-long reconstitution of Orson Welles's classic radio drama broadcast of the War of the Worlds adaptation. It uses the original radio audio and a wholly new ambient soundtrack. The two tracks play against each other, sometimes foregrounding one and sometimes the other. It's a brilliant project and unlike anything I've ever heard before - the modern music re-infuses the old sounds with a deeply atmospheric and slightly scary air, bringing to mind how listeners of the original were said to have been frightened by what they heard.

http://rcrdlbl.com/artists/Booka_Shade/track/Teenage_Spaceman_Booka_In_Space_Mix
Booka Shade (http://www.bookashade.com/bookashade/) make what I call driving music. It's high BPM, but low distraction. Very listenable and pushes me forward without being jarring or monotonous. It's the kind of thing I'd put on the player if I had hours of highway to cover. Good, smooth electro.

http://rcrdlbl.com/artists/Roots_Manuva/track/Butterfly_Crab_Walk_feat_Riddla
Roots Manuva (http://www.rootsmanuva.co.uk/rootsmanuva/) are a low-key Caribbean riddim dub duo. According to the extensive blurb on RCRD LBL these tracks aren't per se originals but rather reworks by a DJ/producer who goes by Wrong Tom (or Wrongtom - www.wrongtom.com). Since I never heard the originals I don't have much to compare against, but I like these.

But I've got a ton of open tabs and want to close some of them out, so here goes:

http://www.mashuptown.com/2010/04/audio-lynch-heartache-joy-dont-go-freemasons-feat-sylvia-masonjames-vs-yazoo-vs-livin-joy-vs-double-.html
This is a really brilliant mix from Marc Johnce & CjR working under the name Audio Lynch (http://audiolynch.wordpress.com/). It's got five major tunes, phat horn sounds, and a pleasant but not overdone dance beat. What's not to like?

http://bootiemashup.com/top10/mp3s/I%20was%20made%20for%20a%20heavy%20cross%20%28A%20Copycat%20Mash%29.mp3
It's pretty rare that I link to anything from Bootie that I haven't seen elsewhere - see next link for example - but this one is ridiculously catchy, assuming you have some old fondness for late 70s metal and aren't utterly revolted by disco. It's merging The Gossip's (http://www.myspace.com/gossipband) "Heavy Cross" with old Kiss guitar licks. And it doth not suck.

http://bootiemashup.com/top10/mp3s/kleptones_welcomeback_dj.mp3
I've already sung the praises of The Kleptones' latest effort, but you should grab this single remix of their "Welcome Back DJ" track. Again, it helps if you like old metal, as this track absolutely rises and falls with classic GnR.

http://audioporncentral.com/2010/04/moonrunners.html
Daft Punk are very much old hat by now, so nobody should be mixing against them, right? Well, it's good so screw that. Moonrunners (http://myspace.com/moonrunners.universe) put their "Feels Like Magic" up against a Daft Punk staple and if it is, as APC says, a guilty pleasure it's a damned danceable pleasure. This is very much a pick-you-up-when-the-world-sucks track.

http://audioporncentral.com/2010/04/the-glitch-mob-drive-it-like-you-stole-it.html
Speaking of things you want to dance to, this Glitch Mob track - the first off their upcoming album - has a really sweet set of beats going. Some definite house thump going on here, plus fuzz-muted electro and near-ambient vocals that I really like. "Drive It Like You Stole It" - drive with it cranked WAY up.