The fight for diverse and conscious voices

It's been about two weeks since I posted music and I'm not likely to be online much for the next couple days, so here we go. If I wasn't rushed I'd try to write something about how the nu disco is going back to its funk roots and recapturing what made that music good way back when. Instead let me just give you a few examples and let you figure it out for yourselves.

http://audioporncentral.com/2012/11/french-horn-rebellion-love-is-dangerous-chrome-canyon-remix.html
Another of the strongly funk-influenced nu disco tracks that are popular right now. French Horn Rebellion (http://frenchhornrebellion.com/news/) is a US-based synth duo that's been getting a decent amount of press since their debut last year (MTV, Rolling Stone, etc). This is a remix by Chrome Canyon (http://chrome-canyon.com/) of the title track from their new album. It's a decent remix.

http://audioporncentral.com/2012/11/sharam-jey-dirty-disco-youth-till-we-drop-tocadisco-remix.html
"Dirty" disco is apparently what happens when you put the funk back in, a trend I'm all in favor of. This "'Till We Drop" is originally a collaboration between Sharam Jey & Dirty Disco Youth that has been thoroughly worked over by Tocadisco (http://www.tocadisco.com/). It's an awesome slam-banger of different styles. Seriously, about every 60-90 seconds the song seems to morph into something else. Toscadisco is a German/European DJ and remixer who's been gigging around for something like 15 years and pours a lot of that variety in here.

http://soundcloud.com/kolombo/yazoo-dont-go-kolombo-edit
Yazoo (Yaz) were by far my favorite offshoot of Depeche Mode. This is a delightfully funky, slightly bluesy, rework of their "Don't Go" hit single.

http://audioporncentral.com/2012/11/aldo-vanucci-youre-all-show-dsteph-remix.html
I almost turned this track off after the first few seconds, as it's a standard (boring) thump-thump-thump dance intro. But be patient - about 30 seconds in Kylie Auldist (http://kylieauldist.com/) starts her vocals and the track becomes backing for her. How a half-Samoan Australian learned to sing the funk this well is anyone's guess, but man does she nail it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDs6KIwyJjY
http://rcrdlbl.com/artists/Duran-Duran/track/Man-Who-Stole-a-Leopard-Gosteffects-Remix/
Duran Duran have kept on well past the time one would have expected them to go away. Somehow they manage to remain serious, without taking themselves too seriously. This is their 2011 track "The Man Who Stole A Leopard" first in video form directed with appropriate spookiness by David Lynch and then remixed by Gosteffects. The original is a gently intense vocal duet with the kinds of complex orchestration they've been using lately. The remix strips out the orchestration in favor of energetic dance beats and electronic fuzz-fills. Both are worth your time.

Last time I said I would review the Bootie Blog Top 10 for February. Here's my review: it sucks. Skip it. Too much Gaga and Ke$ha who, as I said to MizA, bears approximately the same resemblance to good music as a K-Mart plastic tube with a lightbulb in it bears a resemblance to a real light saber. Even when they're nodding to The Kleptones they picked one of the worst bits of Uptime to link.

In replacement of which, I give you
http://www.kleptones.com/blog/2010/02/10/video-violence/
The first entry in The Kleptone's "Videotones project", an invitation to video mash-up artists to produce visual materials that go along with Uptime/Downtime. This piece by Instamatic renders out the "Welcome Back" mash that they built around Def Leppard's "Welcome To the Jungle".

http://djsteveboy.com/groovelectric.html
Also back in excellent form (finally) is DJ Steveboy with his latest stream titled "New Ground." He's moved up north to the SF Bay area and clearly the name is a tip of the hat to the new studio he has set up. The start is a bit slow, but it's got plenty of good funky stuff and the ending of the mix is some of his best work in a long time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3stsDXki__U&feature=fvw
OK, I'm probably the only one here who doesn't watch the Grammys. So you've probably all seen and heard this performance already. But I hadn't. If I ever said anything bad about P!nk I take it all back. This piece combines great vocals with excellent costuming and fabulous staging. Yes, it's true she's not doing all that difficult a silks bit. But who the hell cares - she's doing it herself, and singing at the same time. Smokin'. Also, I could point a finger about half a hundred performers who should study that costume for pointers. H/T to heinleinfan for the link.

http://audioporncentral.com/2010/02/simon-iddol-we-are-in-the-go-go-club.html
APC's Simon Iddol hasn't posted anything of his own in a while and I've missed his particular style. Here he's got Empire of the Sun's "We are the People" going up against Vybz Kartel's "Go-Go Club" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1YjnfU8xcc). Iddol has stripped out the reggae vocals of the latter but kept the dub clicks and bumps. It's a neat combination.

http://www.mashup-industries.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=38&Itemid=36
Mashup Industries changed its site organization and along the way linked to a video for this track, which Clivester did back in 2007. The vid is OK, but the track is... haunting. You'd think it was a Beatles mash, and it sort of is, but some of the real chills come from Erik B and Rakim's contributions, and strategically chosen samples from Duran Duran's "Come Undone" (http://www.tsrocks.com/d/duran_duran_texts/come_undone.html)