drwex: (VNV)
No, this isn't the Morse code for the number 2 or IO, it's an attempt to hang together some totally unrelated music tracks that I want to talk about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GB_S2qFh5lU
I expect you'll hear this one a lot if you're not already familiar with it. It's Billie Eilish's theme song for "No Time to Die" - the latest Bond film. It has a great deal in common with other Bond themes, particularly in the orchestration and phrase structure. But Eilish takes her vocals in an unusual direction for Bond music. Rather than belting them out as Shirley Bassey did and many others followed, Eilish goes soft, singing close to the mic, a technique she used to great effect here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKmqtaxIS3Y - in her cover of "Yesterday" for the 2020 Oscars memoriam. It works well here, too.

Fun factoid: Billie Eilish's legal third name is "Pirate" and why she doesn't use that more I have no idea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1pui3EyzkM&list=PL_0eRJbQmueCZ2M9tH9Kwi3q6dqYiRnJh&index=2&t=0s
Requires actual watching and you can search "dragonfly tribe" or "Tiana Frolkin" on YT and elsewhere to see more examples. She's got some pretty amazing muscle isolation going on. Unfortunately, most of the vids I was able to find are amateur quality so the resulting lighting and sound leaves something to be desired.

The term "tribal" is falling out of favor among the (small set of) US-based bellydancers I know. It's considered appropriative and carries on the misunderstanding of the art form that white men brought back from their earliest encounters with (likely) Berber people in Africa. A polite way to look at it is (I'm told) as the "fantasy form" of bellydance. That said, the term is still in wide use online and searches for it will likely turn up results.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB-cK_Dzntw
Miss Monique (Alesia Arkusha) is a Ukrainian DJ whose techno and prog house mixes I've been enjoying for a bit now, though sadly the "weekly" podcast seems not to have appeared for several months. While she's clearly having fun and enjoying what she's doing I tend to set these things to play in the background while I'm getting work done. The mixes are generally smooth and upbeat with good energy. If you don't want to listen to the whole thing, check out the bit leading up to the transition at 5:10 (like +/- 30 seconds) to get a sense for what her style is like.

https://soundcloud.com/desertdwellers/sets/breath-reimagined-vol-1
Desert Dwellers is another of the things I found through links from Beats Antique and I think you can tell why pretty quickly, as they share some of the same influences. the tracks have echoes of psy trance and a lot of ambient influences as well as deep dub and liquid bits. Much of this falls into what I call "night music" - those things you play after dark when you want to glide between the widely separated pools of light. Or maybe that's just me.

https://soundcloud.com/father-funk/fresh-prince-of-new-year
And to bring it all home, here's a "lost" funk mix from Father Funk. As explained in the liner notes, this was intended to be a funky New Year's Eve throwback set, featuring lots of 90s (and earlier) tracks and samples. However, due to a last-minute laptop failure the set wasn't played before now, which is a real shame. But at least you can bop along to it, now if you're a child of the late 20th century. I *KNOW* that's not just me. I like this set because it contains a lot of Father Funk's own remixes; usually we only get a couple of his tracks mixed in with the rest of his set list, so this is a real treat.
drwex: (VNV)
...where X is a crappy drwex mood, the solution is "apply more funk." Long sets here so I'll do just three for now and save more for another post.

http://www.groovelectric.com/stackthedeck.html
Another great Groovelectric mix from DJ Steveboy, this one is full of funky throwback tunes and covers of things you've heard before. It's hard to pick a favorite here. Maybe Ministry of Funk - Orange (Funky Live Mix) - which I couldn't find as a separate track but you can get on Beatport here: https://www.beatport.com/track/orange-funky-live-mix/8702899

I first got into Groovelectric because of their "new old funk" sound, the place where funk came back to life in house music not just as samples, but as a full-on set of styles and effects that build together. Some of it is the horns, some is the beats, some is the vocals. Love me some funk.

https://soundcloud.com/ghettofunk/dancefloor-outlaws-live-at-the-backroom-bristol-dec-2017
Another funky set of house music, this time from Dancefloor Outlaws last December. There's no track list so I can't pick out a favorite for you but the sound is pretty consistently funky house throughout. I like the track that starts at about 22:30, wish I could identify it. The Outlaws' style is a little more what I'd call electro-bounce and they call "future house" than Groovelectric but it's definitely in the same camp. As a live club set, this mix has less vocals and more open space than I'm used to.

https://soundcloud.com/father-funk/fractal-forest-mix-2017
I think the thing I like most about Father Funk's style is how he infuses well-known tracks into his sets. This one opens with "Whole Lotta Love," pays tribute to hip-hop pioneers NWA ("Express Yourself"), and closes with "Guerilla Radio", originally from Rage Against the Machine but I actually think Father Funk's own remix of Daft Punk vs Federation Of The Disco Pimp doing "Robot Rock" is the best of the bunch.

What do you guys think?
drwex: (Troll)
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?

----------

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.
drwex: (Troll)
The rest of the music tabs - this batch includes several remixes of, or uses of, favored old tracks.

https://soundcloud.com/father-funk/whatcha-gonna-do
It's hard to know whether to open or close with this one. You'd have to go some way to find a better take on modern funk than Father Funk remixing a Fort Knox Five track. This one has all the hallmarks, from the phat horns to the bow-chica-bow electronics and the vocals are straight out of the 1970s Soul Train era. If you like that sort of thing you will love this track and if not, just keep scrolling, because we have some change-ups coming.

https://soundcloud.com/francis_p/rave-banzai-of-the-wild-francis-p-edit
Francis P has a groove-house mash of three tracks. I like all three of the base tracks and the mix has an interesting thing going with blending raw vocals with various electronic and orchestral backing bits. Bonus first appearance of DJs from Mars in a supporting role.

https://soundcloud.com/gojamusic/goja-x-winnie-the-poo-deviant-original-mix-free-download
GOJA brings us "Deviant", a bouncy electro-house track. It won't surprise anyone who listens to my picks regularly that I most enjoy the vocal bits that start about 0:30 in.

https://soundcloud.com/getdarker/om-unit-feat-tamara-blessa-dark-sunrise-kromestars-leanin-mix-free-download
Om Unit, and specifically this remix, was recommended to me by a fellow gamer in a discussion of "what music do you game to?" I'm one of those who tends to like most (thoughtful) game music and sound design. But I can understand how some people find it repetitive and simplistic. This music, and its remix, is sort of the opposite. It's sonically dense, with complex off-beat rhythms and poetically structured vocals. I plan to check out both more Om Unit and anything I can find from the vocalist Tamara Blessa.

https://soundcloud.com/shuval/the-white-stripes-vs-chuckie-junxterjack-seven-nation-noise-army-shuval-mashup
Along with "We Will Rock You" (see last item in this post) the White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army" gets used a great deal in mashes. It has a strong rhythm that's instantly recognizable. And like WWRY, I judge a mash in part by how it uses 7NA. This is an interesting contrast mix that I'm not sure I 100% like but I link because I think it does good things with 7NA. I could do without the electro-bounce bits that SHUVAL puts in but the basic A|B is pretty good.

https://soundcloud.com/djandreone/dannic-sick-individuals-feel-your-love-andreone-remix-1
AndreOne's remix of "Feel Your Love" uses the same electro-bounce effect as the previous track but in a totally different context. As before I'm not bowled over - I think the remix improves a bit on the original (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ6K4t5jb2s) but it caught my ear strongly enough to blog.

https://soundcloud.com/phibesbigboots/phibes-aint-that-fresh
"Ain't That Fresh" is notable for me in that I first heard it in mash-ups and it took some time to track down the original. Yes, kiddies, back before Google that sort of thing was hard. Skee-Lo wasn't particularly well-known but this one got picked up and used a lot. So now we have PHIBES cover/remix and it's not bad. It's definitely got a more electro-disco feel to it.

https://soundcloud.com/youngsaints1/queen-vs-dv-lm-vs-andres-fresko-skellism-we-will-hum-you-young-saints-mashup
In starting with Father Funk I decided to end with this instead. I've mentioned before that any "We Will Rock You" mash has to rise or fall on what it does with the signature boom-boom-clap and I really like what the Young Saints have done here. The mix uses not just the background, but Mercury's vocals and just when you think you know what the track's going to be like - about halfway through - it changes up again and starts firing musical machine guns. Yes, there are more changes and the whole thing ends up being rather frenetic and slam-dancing but that's OK sometimes. Bonus appearance of DJs from Mars in a supporting role.

Moo zik!

Mar. 20th, 2015 01:42 pm
drwex: (VNV)
With all the travel and such I haven't had time to listen to a lot of the stream, but I do have an assortment of tabs to close. A good helping of funk then some varied offerings.

https://soundcloud.com/father-funk/its-all-about-u
First up, Father Funk's latest piece makes me nostalgic and excited at the same time. There's so much in here - from the finger-snaps to the soul-inspired bass track - that reminds me of the early days of funk and then it's clearly built up with fuzz, electro, bits of hip-hop and other very modern things. I need a wide-brim hat.

https://soundcloud.com/stickybuds/stickybuds-featurecast-3-6-9
Stickybuds and Featurecast give us another very modern take on old themes, here using funk and do-wop stems to build up a glitchy, dubstep-influenced dance track. Totally dope and totally groovy.

https://soundcloud.com/stickybuds/toots-the-maytals-hard-to
Another entry from Stickybuds, this time a remix of a classic, "Hard to Handle". Stickybuds credit it to Toots and the Maytalls and their version is excellent (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5oANHA8wxE) but I believe the song originated with Otis Redding. Regardless, it's great source material and this remix has the trademark glitch and electro notes you heard on 3-6-9, assuming you click the links in order.

https://soundcloud.com/carlosserranomusic/nas-vs-flume-made-you-hold-on-carlos-serrano-mix
Nas was an influential rapper and hip-hop artist but I never got into his music the way I did others. Here Nas is mixed up against Flume's "Holdin On" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aynV4UOU-As) and the contrast is interesting and unobvious and it works. The Flume track is interesting itself - a skinny white kid playing obviously black gospel-influenced music - and the mash replaces most of the originals distorted vocals with Nas's raw lyrics.

--- I can't think of a clever transition from the previous track to this one so just imagine a set change happened here ---

https://soundcloud.com/armadamusic/cosmic-gate-jes-yai-here-we-go-again
Cosmic Gate has a series of vocal trance "sessions" out and if this is representative of what they're doing, I want more. It has the earmarks of great trance: high BPM, subdued but urgent, and fantastic vocals. Listen around 1:50 when she does the first "Here we go again" - it gives me spine tingles. Sadly the track doesn't feature as much vocal (or as much length) as I'd like, but you take what you can get.

https://soundcloud.com/doornrecords/sander-van-doorn-firebeatz-julian-jordan-rage-original-mix
Sander van Doorn is someone I've listened to off and on for some years. I got re-interested a couple months ago and have been trying to find that stood out from the typical house sounds. I think "Rage" fits the bill nicely. It starts off the way you'd expect, kind of pulling in various musical threads to the point where it has your attention and DROPs hard with an unashamed electro bang.
drwex: (Troll)
OK, right, Friday. Lots of music tabs to close so hold on tight. The first section is heavily funkalicious; the second group are remixes of favorite tunes.

https://soundcloud.com/father-funk/funk-aerobics
If more aerobics classes had soundtracks like this I might do some. It's Father Funk doing 37 minutes of funktastic remixes. It's all here: phat horns, electro-fuzzy bass lines, and solid beats. Oh, yeah, and free downloads.

https://soundcloud.com/looandplacido/beyonce-x-duck-sauce-x-syn-cole-x-merk-kremont-loo-placido-bootleg
Don't sit down just yet - Loo & Placido have another funk-dancing mix for you. This one is largely a Duck Sauce remix but it's got all kinds of goodness. It starts off fast, builds for a couple minutes, then has a nice brass + vocals interlude in the middle before thundering off again.

http://www.djsteveboy.com/blockpartyfunkblast.html
Oh yeah. Sexy, sweaty, core funk. This is why I first started listing to Groovelectric many years ago and I love when he comes back to his roots. There's so much to like here but my favorite bit is definitely the Beatangers' "Get Up Everybody." Unfortunately it's not online (except a randomly chopped sample) so I can't link it for you, but if you can piece it out of this mix you can get it on Beatport.

https://soundcloud.com/stilvortalent/oliver-koletzki-feat-leslie?in=stilvortalent/sets/svt140
This is "No Man No Cry" from Oliver Koletzki (who is German so most of the info I could find on him is not something I can directly read). I like the track and it's a great example of how modern music is still being influenced by funk. This track also has some heavy electro-disco and obvious 90s-era electro-pop influences, but that's not always a bad thing.

----------

OK switching gears now

https://soundcloud.com/sed-rah/sedrah-thumb-around-for-galvanize-mashup
Sedrah (or Se3drah) brings a very modern take on the classic "Jump Around", largely by mashing it up with another classic, the Chemical Brothers' "Galvanize". This ought to be a trainwreck, but it works surprisingly well, bouncing back and forth between the two sources.

https://soundcloud.com/rems79/adele-vs-alan-parsons-project
I could have sworn I was All Done(tm) with Adele remixes. Not that they're bad - it's just that when she burst into popularity you couldn't turn around without stumbling over three remixes and two mash-ups. This one is using her popular "Rolling in the Deep" but mashes it with the Alan Parsons Project. If you have no idea who that was, well, you're not as old as I am. Suffice it to say Alan Parsons and his partner created some of the weirdest and artiest output of the prog rock genre. Rems79 uses the Adele vocals over Parsons electronica in a stroke of genius.

https://soundcloud.com/rems79/mackelmore-feat-ryan-lewis-vs
Speaking of things I was Done With, here's Rems79 again with a Mackelmore mash. Except it's using Queen's legendary "We Will Rock You". It's almost like a cover version, very true to the original vocals, but with this unusual backing track.

https://soundcloud.com/looandplacido/ac-dc-x-showtek-x-muse-x-a-trak-justice-x-lil-jon-loo-placido-bootleg
Another Loo & Placido entry, this one falls on this side of the divide because it's built around AC/DC's awesome "Thunderstruck," which is one of those great tunes I never seem to get tired of hearing. (If you're like me, check this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2AC41dglnM - a vid that went up a couple years ago of a 1991 AC/DC performance of the tune; man, they were young back then!)
drwex: (VNV)
A couple new items appeared in the stream today prompting me to do this overdue post. We've got a couple of things you don't hear often and some long-form listening to get you over these rains (or whatever the weather is doing when you read this). There's also a lot of really good old-style funk in here.

https://soundcloud.com/dj-moule/good-love-good-rock
For a while Joan Jett was a popular remix source then she kind of fell out of favor. DJ Moule brings her back in a mash against Led Zeppelin that hovers on the edge of trainwreck but ends up holding together. This comes out of the Fissunix Whole Lotta Mix set, linked below.

https://soundcloud.com/father-funk/get-up
Father Funk gives us an old-school style of ghetto funk with this "Get Up!" remix. This track is about a year old and they've got a bunch more stuff up on Soundcloud now that I plan to check out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_bVp0S9LoA
https://soundcloud.com/slynk/stickybuds-bouncy-bouncy-slynk
Speaking of funking, it doesn't get a lot better than this. The original is at the first link: "Bouncy Bouncy" by Stickybuds & South Rakkas (featuring Rage). One of the best hard-edged electro-funk tracks I've heard since the style hit the dance floors. Lots of fuzz, some scratching, and some definite reggae influences. The second link is Slynk's remix, which is surprisingly toned down. It's a little faster and a lot more melodic, with less of the hard edge that the original has.

https://soundcloud.com/pimpdaddysupreme/bubble-bottom-girls-queen-vs
It's been WAY too long since I heard a really good "Fat Bottom Girls" remix. It's one of my favorite ignored Queen tracks. Mashing that up with Major Lazer is surprising, and it works, though I wouldn't necessarily listen to this outside of headphones at work. I know Lazer isn't to everyone's taste but I think it really works here. Fast-paced rap, Queen's harmonies, and... yeah, it's a concept I found myself grinning along with.

https://soundcloud.com/djschmolli/land-of-sonic-numbers
If you ever thought to yourself "I wonder what it would sound like if Phil Collins sang for Kraftwerk" then you are not me. Also, you're not DJ Schmolli who has produced this brilliant weave of two sources that don't get mashed approximately ever. Bonus points for choice of media samples that all us geeks will recognize.

https://soundcloud.com/reset-1/reset-x-holi-dance-festival-x-zero
RESET did this summer festival dance set and it's a pleasant surprise. It's less turbofunk than some of their previous efforts, but it's got definitely funky moments. Italy is kind of ground zero for nu disco and you can definitely catch some of those influences here but damned if this isn't some seriously great wailing horns.

http://www.djsteveboy.com/childrenoftherhythm.html
It's been a while since I linked one of DJ Steveboy's Groovelectric mixes. He's been experimenting with a lot of different styles and like any experiment there are some good and some bad. It's hard to recommend an entire set that's sort of 50-50. Steveboy also does a lot of his own mixing and alteration to the tracks he puts into his sets. You can usually pick up the originals on Beatport (and I urge you to do so - it pays the artists) but that's not necessarily going to be the exact sound that you get in the mix. Here, however, Steve has gone back to Groovelectric's "new old funk" roots and this one really rocks along.

https://soundcloud.com/fissunix/whole-lotta-mix
Fissunix has assembled ten tracks, all of which are based off of "Whole Lotta Love". There are some really good takes on this - I pulled out the Joan Jett mix above but you can sample for yourself. Of course, if you don't like the base track I advise skipping this one entirely.

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