drwex | In the midst of it all, music (Reply)

Holy exploding life-mines, Batman! The rain of debris from the past week or so is going to take a while to settle. (My life? Mostly OK. Bombs dropping all around me on people I care about? Not OK.) Here are some pleasant, almost mellow, listening suggestions.

http://www.partyben.com/downloads/
http://www.partyben.com/PartyBen-AnotherSleeplessNightAlone.mp3

I've been lost for several days in the Party Ben mixes. I totally blame

mrf_arch; he started it. Party Ben has been a featured artist at Bootie parties for at least the last five years and lots of his mixes do the fun thing of taking a modern tune and mixing it over an old favorite, usually from the 80s. Sadly, even his talents can't make Lady Gaga interesting again, so skip that. He shines when he pulls even older favorites; for example, I really liked "Hella Dare You to Smoke" which mashes Gorillaz and No Doubt against Deep Purple.

But that's not what I'm here to talk about. I'm here to talk about his (currently) second-newest item, "Another Sleepless Night Alone". One of the things I like about remixers is that I get to hear things from them I wouldn't normally encounter, but it has been quite a while since I had a new discovery this way. This mash from Ben uses Bat For Lashes (http://www.batforlashes.com/) and her new tune "Sleep Alone" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1vtr9fXdg8) which is beautiful and haunting. Bat For Lashes is Natasha Khan, a Pakistani-Brit with a voice like Loreena McKennitt and inspirations like Siouxsie Sioux. *melt*

Ben mashes against the ambient electronica of Egostero (http://www.egostereo.com/ - warning, starts playing on load) which is not bad. I don't mind the samples on their page, but you get a much better sense of their sound by playing the stream on their MySpace page - http://www.myspace.com/egostereo. So that's two new finds in one mix. Win!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikoNdWageFo
DJ Purple sent me this pointer, to Just Jack's "Snowflakes". This is a tune that has had actual pop airplay, including use in high fashion shows. It's a rap done over The Cure's "Lullaby" instrumental track and it holds very true to the dreamy goth-ness that underlies the best Cure tracks.

http://audioporncentral.com/2010/02/booka-shade-regenerate.html
Booka Shade (http://www.bookashade.com/) gets listed as "German electro-house" but this track from them is much more mellow and almost ambient electronica.