The fight for diverse and conscious voices

Procrastination is me. I'm having a very hard time getting (keeping) going on things I ought to be going on, so let me write a few words about music instead. The top half is going to be electronic dance - I'll save the funky stuff for the second part. As usual the best is saved for last.

https://soundcloud.com/monstercat/tut-tut-child-dance-to-it
This tune, from a few years back, showed up on one of my Pandora stations recently. Tut Tut Child bring a hard-edged electro-dance sensibility to their "Dance To It" track. It has obvious dubstep influences and some people call it glitch hop but it doesn't have the hip-hop beats I'd expect from that. Instead, it has a get-up-and-move beat under electronic instrumentation and some fun vocal sampling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnSVCsUs9Qc
J-Trick & Aristic Raw's "Crues-Lee" is a spiritual descendent of the previous track. This is 2016's electro-dance. Dub is out and it has more trance and ambient overtones, but it's still the same basic formula - 110 BPM or so, minimal or no vocals, and raw electronic instrumentation. This track has some nice change-ups and unconventional beats but like a lot of modern tracks it clocks in very short.

https://soundcloud.com/djandreone/andreone-djampo-falcon-original-mix-1
AndreOne working with Djampo on a prog-house dance track titled "Falcon". I like the basic track but the mix feels slightly 'off' to me, somehow. Does it sound that way to anyone else?

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https://soundcloud.com/copycat-edits/beastie-boys-brass-monkey-re
The Beatie's "Brass Monkey" always had major funk influences (just listen to the horn part, fr'ex) and here Copycat does a remix that plays up some of those elements. It's an interesting take on an old 80's favorite, but the original is still hard to beat.

http://fatherfunk.bandcamp.com/track/ray-charles-the-blue-brothers-shake-your-tail-feather-father-funk-remix
One of the great things John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd did in their "Blues Brothers" incarnation was make another generation of white folk aware of the great artists and music that they'd missed out on because radio was so heavily segregated. I had heard songs like "Shake Your Tail Feather" as a child and then forgotten them until I got to love Ray Charles's performance in the movie. Here Father Funk gives a modern update to the classic, with tribute to the movie along the way, but all in their trademark electro-funk style.

https://soundcloud.com/ghettofunk/official-ghetto-funk-podcast-07-shindig-weekender-2016
This... this is happiness for me, packaging so much into 80+ minutes. It's got memories and updated sounds and new twists on old favorites. Funky as hell, hip-hopping and soulful and jazzy and seriously rocking beats. It's the promo for the UK Shindig Weekender that I wish I could attend. Failing that I'll just listen through this set again.

I should've started this post on Monday but here we are anyway. Lots of good stuff this time so let's dive in. Five of the ten open tabs here; I'll try to get the next set together soon. This one bookends two really good dance tunes around three sweet deep house tracks.

http://www.vevo.com/watch/faithless/insomnia-2-0-avicii-remix-(official)/GB1101500984
This should be titled "Avicii Has Giant Brass Balls". I mean, seriously, Faithless's "Insomnia" is one of the most well-known and beloved dance tracks. It has endured for ten years in a variety of forms, and is widely sampled despite the fact that Faithless have objected to that in the past. Both the rhythms and the "I can't get no sleep" vocals (from Maxi Jazz) are iconic - every dance club-goer knows them. So for Avicii to release a 2.0 version, updating it to 2015 style takes some kind of chutzpah. So, is it any good? Unqualified yes. It still has the signature elements of the original but it's done the way a hot club dance track is done today. My sole complaint is that it's too short. The original was ~9 minutes long if I remember correctly, and was pared down into two very distinct versions. This one is only three minutes and really begs for the full treatment. I suppose that's better than doing an epic remix that fails - do something short and good - but still, I loves me some extended mixes.

https://soundcloud.com/satchmode/fade-mount-remix
MOUNT's remix of Satchmode's "Fade" is soft and beautiful, with gentle echoes and soft harmonies. I think of this sort of tune as "night music" - the sort of track I'd want playing as I wandered or drove around under the stars. It's not entirely deep house, but it's close to the sources deep house draws from.

https://soundcloud.com/malu-landman/haevn-finding-out-more
Apparently HAEVN have sold this tune, "Finding Out More" for use in a commercial, which is making it harder to find online. That's good for them - yay getting paid - and a shame, because it's a really beautiful track. It's low and slow and I've been trying to remember what it reminds me of. It's a little like Bronski Beat and a little bit like Jamie Woon. It's also thematically like "Fade" in that low, slow, deep-house sensual way.

https://soundcloud.com/soundplate/19-hundred-oh-boy
Still on the same theme, but less deep and more house, comes 19hundred with "Oh Boy". This tune is almost a throwback to a few years ago when (nu) disco had a real surge going on. This has very definite disco stylings in the music, but the track often drops out the disco entirely to feature the vocals, which are layered, mixed out the wazoo, and beautifully harmonic.

https://soundcloud.com/dj-djampo/hardwell-armin-van-buuren-vs-daft-punk-off-the-technologic-hook-djampo-ido-keshet-mashup
Like Insomnia, Daft Punk's "Technologic" has been sampled a million times. This is like that, only better. Djampo (https://soundcloud.com/dj-djampo) an Italian DJ has slammed together this track with Hardwell & AVB's "Off the Hook" to make a fun dance banger. The original two tracks are each somewhat spare and "Off the Hook" itself samples heavily from "Technologic". So why not put the original back in? It's a brilliant idea and the result is a dance banger supreme.