The fight for diverse and conscious voices

I'm still not wholly trusting my revivification within the Google+ world so I'm going to drop the music here for a bit. APC has been bringing us the good vibes lately.

http://audioporncentral.com/2011/08/marina-and-the-diamonds-fear-and-loathing.html
Eee! New Marina and the Diamonds! And it's just exactly what I hoped for. Back in July I noted that she was young, and poppy, but with remarkable lyrics. This time "Fear And Loathing" is not at all a pop confection. It has decent lyrics and OMG vocal range! Marina can sing, oh yes she can. This is part one - i can't wait 'till next week when part two hits.

http://audioporncentral.com/2011/08/lobsterdust-stayin-hot.html
DJ Lobsterdust is a Very Bad Man. It's kind of an article of faith in my universe that The Bee Gees are the epitome of all that was bad about disco and I do not like Bee Gees. No, really. Um... except. Damn, this track is good. Like it or not, "Staying Alive" carried the core of the essential in its beat track, like unexpressed DNA. Lobsterdust hooks that with Nelly's "Hot In Here" if only to prove that rap and disco are more than a little bit related. It's like Neanderthals mating with Homo Sapiens - we kind of know it happened, but prefer not to think about it too much, even as we enjoy the benefits.

http://audioporncentral.com/2011/08/lyrics-born-ft-sam-sparro-coulda-shoulda-woulda-party-ben-remix.html
Speaking of rap voices, Lyrics Born (http://www.lyricsborn.com/) has a really nice vocal touch that includes the faabulous Sam Sparrow (http://www.samsparro.com/). Party Ben's remix is hotter and more dance club with less of the electro-funk of the original, and I find myself enjoying both.

http://audioporncentral.com/2011/08/when-saints-go-machine-church-and-law-fcan-remix.html
Back in July I blogged about When Saints Go Machine (http://whensaintsgomachine.blogspot.com/)'s "Church and Law" original. Relistening to it makes me think it's more psychedelia than I first thought. FCAN does a good job of keeping the song's feel in this remix, adding in gentle but persistent dance beats while keeping the original's echoey electronic vocals.

http://hypem.com/item/1dbp0/Goodwill+%26+Hook+N+Sling+-+Take+You+Higher+%28Club+Mix%29
MizA tossed this track at me a while ago and I've been meaning to blog it. Goodwill, Hook N Sling seem to be pretty prolific remixers but I can't find a formal home page for them. This track is an upbeat dancey club tune with fairly simple electronic riffs. A fine bit of brain candy to round out the set.

Meant to do this yesterday then got busy at the end of the day. Oh well. Herewith an attempt to lighten up the dark with fun and cute and more pop than my usual fare.

http://www.elizadoolittle.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBHDaXoaGR4&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKprKZHYfl0&feature=player_embedded
It doesn't get much cuter than Eliza Doolittle (a shame she's so young, really) and her latest video for "Skinny Genes" is a straight-up pop party tune. This video might take the prize for "most sexual innuendos in a PG video this year". Or maybe I just don't watch a lot of pop videos. Anyway, it's a fun and bouncy tune. I feel like I've blogged her before but I can't find it now. This song has spare enough instrumentals that you can hear her voice well, including the faint British accent.

If you like what you hear, you can check out the two YouTube vids, which are live acoustic recordings of her doing covers, one of Cee-Lo’s "Fuck You" and the other of Coldplay’s "Yellow". She's young and it will be interesting to see if she can take it to the next level or if she just settles for easy pop stuff.

http://audioporncentral.com/2010/12/illegal-sunday-lobsterdust-boulevard-of-aeroplanes.html
Did I mention DJ Lobsterdust (http://djlobsterdust.com/) is back? Yeah, this isn't up to the level of poppy that Doolittle hits, but it's still a mix, lifting the emo anthem "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" up with B.o.B - "Airplanes" (http:www.bobatl.com) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn6-c223DUU). Interestingly the Airplanes tune isn't that upbeat either, but Lobsterdust makes the combination work. Two downs = one up? Who knows.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuH3UZQmlh4
Another one I thought I had blogged before but can't find. Dj Jasper Weeda (http://www.superduper.nl/DJ_Jasper_Weeda.html) a kid from the Netherlands I'd not heard of before gives us a nice mash of White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army" vs. Tone-Loc's "Wild Thing".

http://official.fm/users/okiokinl
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PSQv_2aXzo
Speaking of DJs I hadn't heard before from the Netherlands, check out oki mashups! This guy has a ton of stuff I need to listen to. Unfortunately the site is nearly impossible to search so I pulled out one (terrible video) from YouTube so you could hear his "Only Supermassive Girl" - a mash of Rihanna and Muse that is definitely the rocking-est thing in today's list.

http://www.mashuptown.com/2010/11/bootie-berlin-feat-the-fabulous-beatmashers-1911-friday.html
I like to check out mega-mashes when I find them. Most are just so-so stringing things together but some are downright fun. This one, called "Invasion over Berlin" by T.N.T. for a Bootie Berlin party promo, mashes up AC/DC, Spencer & Hill, Three 6 Mafia, Run DMC, Shop Boys, and B.E.P. Whew, that's a lot, but it works very well. It's an unashamed party tune and that's OK some time.

No Art of Noise this time. I promise, soon. However, APC published some _awesome_ stuff this week that I want to share with you. First up, another video story...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkx9vxu4UW8&feature=player_embedded
A couple weeks ago I pointed to You Say Party in particular their video for "Lonely Lunch" which told an sf-nal story with the song as soundtrack. Now comes WAX TAILOR feat Charlotte Savary with "Dragon Chasers", which is a brilliant bit of noire down-tempo sound and video. Like all good noire, it's dark and mysterious and gets by less on action than on the way people _look_ at each other and things. Also, nice nods to the graphic novel form.

http://audioporncentral.com/2010/11/simon-iddol-fogashaz-minimix.html
Simon Iddol did a little five-track minimix to promote a party in Budapest that he was DJing. The track list is there and all are pretty rocking. I have a problem listening to Jay-Z's "99 Problems", but the rest of the mix is good, with some really brilliant combinations including two surprising Beatles remixes. I guess getting their stuff on iTunes means we'll hear more Beatles mash-ups in the coming months.

http://audioporncentral.com/2010/11/the-good-natured-be-my-animal.html
Another original+remix pairing, but this time I'll take the original over the remix. The song "Be My Animal" is by The Good Natured (http://www.facebook.com/thegoodnatured) and part of what makes it pleasing to my ear is the way the lead vocalist, Sarah McIntosh, is featured. She's got a potentially powerful voice, and though it's a bit too autotuned and clipped here, you get the sense she's got some power to show off. The remix loses a lot of her vocals; it's not bad on its own - just not as good.

http://audioporncentral.com/2010/11/illegal-sunday-lobsterdust-down-unda-club-vj-brewski-video.html
I can't remember if I blogged DJ Lobsterdust's amusing mash of Men At Work vs 50 Cent before. The mix is a couple years old, but it's gotten a new video treatment, so it's worth a (re)visit.

http://audioporncentral.com/2010/11/illegal-sunday-mixtape-caveirao-dance-1-2.html
It's been a long time since Bootie was good. It's been nearly forever since they were this AWESOME. These are two hour-long dance mixes that contain more clever blends and neat mashes than you can shake a stick at. I started playing this and narrating some of the great combos for MizA who eventually got enough time to play the mixes and started naming combos back to me. It's a blast. Sadly there's no tracklist I can find to verify against.

End of the week, let's see how many of these I can close out. There's some really good stuff in here.

http://audioporncentral.com/2010/05/scissor-sisters-fire-with-fire.html
Last week I noted Scissor Sisters for their "Invisible Light" track. APC linked to this track called "Fire with Fire" also from the upcoming album and called it "...the perfect pop tune." I don't know about perfect but it is DAMNED good. It's catchy and danceable without being cheap or overly auto-tuned; I like it more every time I play it. I also adore the video, which is simple and yet has absolutely brilliant lighting design. I've been searching for the right way to categorize this band. It's got some of the glam-rock sound of Invisible Light, but it also has a more ballad-like feel over some pretty straight-up rock-metal drumming (check out the raised drumstick twirl straight out of GNR or Def Leppard). I'm having a hard time thinking of another band with good male and female vocal leads (B-52s?).

http://audioporncentral.com/2009/10/aggro1-rage-against-the-machine-aeph.html
Aeph (http://www.myspace.com/aephsound) is a UK DJ who lists himself as drum & bass but whose tracks have a much slower and more heavy metal sound than I usually associate with d&b. Here Aggro1 (http://aggro1.com/) takes a classic d&b feeling track from Aeph and weaves it with Rage Against The Machine's thundering classic "Bulls On Parade." The result is slamming sound that needs to be turned up LOUD!

http://www.mashuptown.com/2010/05/dj-lobsterdust-knock-out-eileen-ll-cool-j-vs-dexys-midnight-runners.html
DJ Lobsterdust is back! This is another one of those mixes that probably only works if you like the underlying tunes. He's taking the classic piano-rock tune "Come on Eileen" from Dexy's Midnight Runners and facing it off against LL Cool J's "Momma Said Knock You Out." I don't know how he managed to match these two up, and the concept alone is amusing enough but the execution works. Trust me.

http://www.mashup-industries.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=309&Itemid=27
Also back in fine form is Clive$ter who complains he's gotten too busy because of his "Kabinenparty Memories". The price of success I guess. Here he's using the beautiful vocals of 7th Heaven's "This Is Your Life" and Yordis's track "Tonight". Yordis is a heavy-beat electro-house DJ I've not heard before and though I like the original (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNKUz4Kr1gI) I think Clive$ter really improves the track by stripping out the electronic voice and using the 80s harmonic sound from 7th Heaven.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=li580259YwU
Finally, let me close out with this bit of video from Marc Webb for the group Godhead. They're covering the Beatles' classic "Eleanor Rigby" which is one of those tunes whose lyrics always seemed a little... off, to me. Throw in Godhead's vocal death-metal feel and the whole thing becomes screamingly disturbing, and yet you want to play it cranked up to proper volume.