It's music, deal with it

[drwex]

(I've had a muttering or two that I post too much music stuff. I'm not likely to stop, but if people don't want to read this I don't feel compelled to post it or maybe I can make an opt-in music filter. Opinions welcome.)

First up this time, a trio of new-to-me voices that I think are worth keeping an eye on. Then a couple remixes and finally we'll close out with a long-form item of awesomeness.

http://www.reverbnation.com/monicarichards
Monica Richards has done front work for a number of indie and unknown bands. She was (is?) part of Faith and the Muse (http://www.myspace.com/faithandthemuse or http://www.mercyground.com/), a dark folk/goth rock duo that's been around for about 8 years now. Her solo stuff shares some of those influences, but has more rock stylings and some tribal steals, too. For example, "I Am Warrior" is a pretty straight-up goddess tribal piece, though it gets kind of audio-cluttered in the middle. Still, worth a listen.

http://www.myspace.com/elizabethharper
Class Actress is a trio fronted by Elizabeth Harper, a sultry deep-voiced nu-disco queen. She gets compared a lot to early Madonna, which is not musically apt, but conceptually I see the comparison. Remember early Madonna played heavily off sexual themes and musically stole quite a bit from disco? Yeah, that. But there the similarity ends. Harper is much more of a torch singa, as well as being more delicate and wistful than Madonna ever was. She's still early in, with one EP and one full LP just out. I love this line from her MySpace page: "Class Actress is [...] Depeche Mode meets early Madonna and Five Star as played on KTU Radio in the leather backseat of a cab".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n1wAzuXAKU
Lindstrøm's new "De Javu" is a high-energy fun dance piece off his upcoming album. There are some minor vocal bits, but mostly this is carried along by a wind-ey, bouncy combination of keyboards, rhythms, and some phat horns. Much liking.

New voices out of the way, let's take on a couple remixes...

http://audioporncentral.com/2011/11/dj-shadow-ft-little-dragon-scale-it-back-party-ben-remix.html
Party Ben (http://www.partyben.com/) does a fine, low-key job of remixing "Scale it Back" by DJ Shadow. The original, which has a fun video (http://www.okayplayer.com/news/video-premiere-dj-shadow-x-little-dragon-scale-it-back.html) is a light and wistful piece with jazz riffs and lovely harmonies and is not at all a dance piece. So Party Ben speeds it up, gives it a disco beat line, and does some vocal clip-mixing. By the time he's done it's almost a wholly new piece, which is a fine kind of remix.

http://audioporncentral.com/2011/11/illegal-sunday-dj-y-alias-jy-another-one-bites-this-way.html
DJ Y alias JY (http://www.checkdissout.de/) takes three classic rock tunes and mashes them up

Finally, your awesomeness of the day...

http://audioporncentral.com/2011/11/illegal-sunday-amerigo-gazaway-fela-soul.html
Amerigo Gazaway has put together a 9-track remix album under the name "Felasoul" that combines work from pioneers Fela Kuti and De La Soul. Kuti was an influence on De La Soul, just as he influenced pretty much every hip-hop act ever and it's beautiful to hear his pioneering jazzy horn- and soul-filled works combined with the complex and smart rap items from De La Soul. If you only have time for a couple, I recommend "Breakadawn" and "Ooh". The latter, done originally with Redman, was one of De La Soul's few crossover hits later in their career; the former was one of their early hits and gets props for being one of the first "jazz-hop" tracks. Gazaway lovingly picks up the best elements and builds his tracks around them, with bonus vocal samplings mixed in.

Comments

my $0.02

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

if people don't want to read this

they can just move along, no one is forcing them to read it.

Re: my $0.02

[asciikitty.livejournal.com]

I agree with this comment. I don't always read every post, but that doesn't mean that I think that anyone should change his or her LJ habits based on my reading habits. Skimming over a post a week isn't a great hardship.

Re: my $0.02

[catness.livejournal.com]

Seriously. Your journal, you get to pick the content. We get to choose whether or not we read it.

Re: my $0.02

[drwex]

Thank you. I particularly think you'll enjoy the last item in this post, if you have the time to listen.

Re: my $0.02

[catness.livejournal.com]

That stuff is indeed very tasty. :) Thanks for the tip!

[rednikki.livejournal.com]

Faith and the Muse is actually closer to 20 years old. They played at my club in 1997 and had been in existence for at least 5 years before that.

[dpolicar]

Well, since you asked: if your music posts were an opt-in filter, I would not opt into it. That said, I absolutely endorse you posting what you want to post in your journal.