The fight for diverse and conscious voices

Lots of work means lots of backed-up music tabs. Still trying to close out some of the older stuff to make way for newer...

http://audioporncentral.com/2010/03/tanita-tikaram-twist-in-my-sobriety-alf-tumble-re-dress.html
Tanita Tikaram was a 19-year-old insta-hit in the late 1980s who had one commercially successful album, a couple of popular tracks, and then *poof* vanished. I confess I'd quite forgotten about "Twist in My Sobriety" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJdgSRzv8wE) until this remix popped up on APC. Alf Tumble is a Swedish producer who has produced an updating of this 1988 hit. It still has Tikaram's sultry voice but the spare musical accompaniment is redone as an uptempo disco-ey track.

http://audioporncentral.com/2009/11/illegal-sunday-dj-fac-time-is-releasing-me.html
Muse are generally too emo for my tastes. Here DJ Fac puts their "Time is Running Out" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TntXy36euYQ) under modern Swedish hip-hop/R&B diva Agnes Carlsson's "Release Me" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSb6e3grdL8) - itself a nice danceable track. The mix is pretty simple, taking the heavier drums and guitars from Muse and letting Agnes' vocals run above them. The result is a lot more heavy metal than you'd expect and really wouldn't it be cool if some heavy metal bands would get hot R&B singers to front for them?

http://www.mikedoughty.com/music
Via MizA via Wil Wheaton I've been made aware that Mike Doughty has a new album out. Doughty's solo stuff has been very hit-or-miss for me, in part because he hasn't returned to the soaring spoken-word style he used with Soul Coughing (http://www.last.fm/music/Soul+Coughing). Doughty's solo stuff is very simple guitar lines with minimal drum beats and sometimes low-end electronics. And the lyrics can be anywhere from straightforward to enigmatic to just plain whacky. Check out the video for "(You Should Be) Doubly (Gratified)" to get a good sense of what I mean.

http://rcrdlbl.com/artists/Echo_and_the_Bunnymen/track/Proxy
If you need me to explain who Echo and the Bunnymen (http://myspace.com/thebunnymen) are then I probably can't help you. Still, I didn't realize they had released a new studio album last year. Judging by the two tracks featured here they've moved much closer to standard pop and much farther away from the punk sound I associate with them from listening to them in heavy rotation in the early 80s.

http://rcrdlbl.com/artists/Lady_Chann/track/Sticky_Situation_Toddla_T_Remix
And if that was too much pop for you, this is probably too much rap or too much reggae. Lady Chann (http://www.myspace.com/ladychann) tends to do heavy vocal riddim-rap stuff on her own. This track, off what is to be her first studio album, has a scratch-cut, high-BPM style that she still manages to carry off with good lyrical stylings, but without a lot of the 'girly' sound I hear in her other stuff.

I've been spastically busy, with no time even to read LJ let alone blog this stuff. I'm seriously thinking of opening up a Blogger or similar host site for these just so I can point people at them without them having to wade through the rest of my LJ. Of course, that'd reveal just how excruciatingly few people actually READ this shit, so maybe not. ANYway...

http://rcrdlbl.com/artists/Vitalic/track/Second_Lives_The_Bloody_Beetroots_Remix
Vitalic (http://www.myspace.com/vitalicofficial) is an electro-disco master. His stuff has just enough of a funky edge to be interesting and avoid the over-drone that so much electro loses with. The first track on this page is pure instrumental; the second has some interesting if subdued female vocals. I like them both. This is the kind of stuff I like to listen to when I'm doing long highway drives - it keeps me moving and the beat is fast enough to match with the flow of the cars.

http://rcrdlbl.com/artists/Music_Go_Music/track/Light_Of_Love_diskJokke_Remix
Music Go Music (http://www.myspace.com/musicgomusic) is another act that does most of its best work with no or very subdued vocals. The other tracks in this mix are a bit more plastic-pop than I like but the diskJokke remix is really nice.

http://audioporncentral.com/2010/03/class-actress-%E2%80%93-journal-of-ardency.html
Hot hot hot! Class Actress (http://www.myspace.com/elizabethharper) lays down some nice funky beats under good vocals. Also I'm extremely susceptible to the sexy writhing woman thing. Yep, still a guy!

http://audioporncentral.com/2010/03/dj-fac-things-just-aint-forsaken.html
I thought I had mentioned work by DJ Fac (http://djfac.wordpress.com/) before but I can't find it right now, so let this be an interesting intro to what he's capable of doing. First, not a lot of people mix against VNV Nation, one of my favorite acts. So that got my attention. He's put the minimalist instrumental bits of their "Forsaken" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sme5EWwFViY) against Canadian R&B singer Deborah Cox's "Things Just Ain't The Same" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7W7CRIkHK8) which I'm not all that impressed by on its own. How the heck Fac makes this combo work is beyond me, but it does work.

http://www.myspace.com/looandplacido
Loo and Placido released two new mixes - "Rolling for Cash" and "Californication" - which were immediately picked up by bloody every music blog I scan. The first one is a high-BPM take on making a Rolling Stones classic into a 21st-century dance track. Definitely a good pick-me-up. The second one is much more house-funk but also very danceable, with a slightly slower set of beats that drive hard under a bunch of synth-stretched vocal samples.

And heck, while you're listening definitely do not miss "Betty Got Jacked", which still has my vote for best remix of 2009.