The fight for diverse and conscious voices

Lots of tabs have hung about open for a while. Herewith an attempt to close the first half dozen of them. I'll save the real brain-twister for last, I promise.

http://soundcloud.com/groups/glitch-mob-remix-it-like-you-stole-it-competion/tracks?page=1
A while back the Glitch Mob announced a competition in which people would remix their "Drive It Like You Stole It" track, the remixes would be posted on Soundcloud, and people would vote for their favorite. The winner is now up, a high-hard fast scratch mix by mirkokosmos. It's not my favorite personally, but it's quite good.

I've only listened to three pages of entries so far. The Soundcloud set-up is nice in that you can just push play on the first track and it'll stream all the entries on that page. I don't recommend doing more than a few a day, or you'll get seriously earwormed, but the variety of styles and influences brought to bear shows there's some awesome talent out there just waiting to break through.

http://www.kleptones.com/blog/2010/10/08/much-better-you-than-i
Speaking of talent, The Kleptones have another beauty of a mash-up posted on their blog. "Vicarious Devil" puts together Tool's disturbing "Vicarious" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hii17sjSwfA) with Laura Marling's "Devil's Spoke". I confess I'd never heard Marling before and I must now immediately remedy this. Both tracks have a dark energy that makes them work extremely well together.

http://audioporncentral.com/2010/09/duck-sauce-barbara-streisand.html
http://audioporncentral.com/2010/09/duck-sauce-barbra-streisand-the-video.html
I admit I wasn't that taken with the Duck Sauce (http://www.myspace.com/ducksaucenyc) "Barbara Streisand" track when I first heard it. It's a bit of a dance-pop confection but it didn't seem worth calling out. The video made me change my mind - it makes so much more sense when it's not taken on its own but rather as the soundtrack to a video. And what a great vid - featuring Streisand herself - for anyone who loves or even likes New York a bit. The video shows the wild variety that makes the city so interesting, and features lots of fun short snips remixing the original, including a guest scratch from Armand Van Helden.

http://www.youtube.com/user/GravitonasLABORATORY#p/a/u/1/5d1FejZJ6cs
Sometimes things get blogged because I can't stop playing them until I do. About a month ago I posted about Gravitonas' (http://www.gravitonas.net/) "Religious". That track is remixed a bunch of times on their YouTube channel, and more and more of them are being blocked by copyright claims, which is just a damned shame. The song, both the original and the remixes they've got up, remains beautiful and haunting and something I play over and over because I like the way the sounds wash over me, and move me.

http://audioporncentral.com/2010/09/jamie-woon-night-air-ramadanman-refix.html
This extended remix by Ramadanman (http://www.myspace.com/ramadanman) is another one I'm loving for the lush soundscape. It's an extended remix of Jamie Woon's beautiful "Night Air" (http://www.youtube.com/user/jamiewoon). Unfortunately there are only short bits from the original online, but you can still get a sense for it. There are blues, jazz, and definite soul influences permeating this track, and yeah, it's perfect to stream out the open window after dark when you're stargazing.

http://audioporncentral.com/2010/10/wax-audio-stayin-alive-in-the-wall.html
OK, I promised a brain-twister to close this out and here it is. Wax Audio (http://www.waxaudio.com.au/) have done A Bad Thing. They've taken The Bee Gees' "Stayin’ Alive" and mashed it with Pink Floyd's "Another Brick In The Wall Pt. II". Yes, really. Go listen. What's even more frightening is the video - both of these songs are not just aurally famous, but have appeared prominently in iconic movies (Saturday Night Fever and The Wall).

It's even more personally disturbing for me, as those movies both have drwex stories associated with them and both are reminders of a long-ago time when I was a very different person, who is also me today.

Sitting around waiting to see if I'm going to get a call back from New Not-Boss, so perhaps I can put together a music post while I wait...

http://leedm101audiolego.blogspot.com/
http://soundcloud.com/leedm101/leedm101-roxannes-tainted-fly-the-police-soft-cell-miley-cyrus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OjkiuCp0bU

I first picked up on LeeDM101 on one of the Bootie Top N posts and went to check out his page, the first link there. Like any massive compilation it's got high and low points. The Soundcloud set-up is very nice since it gives you a one-button play option or you can skip tracks you don't like. I thought I'd pick out two tracks that struck me as particularly different and interesting.

The first is "Roxanne's Tainted Fly" which you can see from the URL mixes up the classic rock Police track "Roxanne" with Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" and lays them over the beats of Miley Cyrus's 2008 hit "Fly on the Wall". Cyrus is one of those whose lyrics make me want to slap them, so it's great not to be subjected to that, and Lee manages to pull really the best parts out of the other two tracks.

The second one is a "Tubular Bells" remix, something I haven't heard in several years. Putting it up against the very mod "Girls on Film" from Duran Duran makes an great combination. The video by Instamatic is also a great accompaniment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaAhtWyZKFs&feature=related
East & Young (http://www.myspace.com/eastandyoung) turn in one really moving prog-house track. This is another genre that isn't to everyone's liking, I know, but a good progressive house tune is sweeping and lush and gives you the musical sense of being lifted up and carried along. I got this one off a DJ Steveboy mix, and am looking forward to investigating more of Ivo de Jong's and Marc Vano's work.

http://audioporncentral.com/2010/09/gravitonas-religious.html
Swedish singer Andreas Öhrn (hot!) leads the duo Gravitonas (http://www.gravitonas.net/) in a track that APC calls pop, but I think is much closer to the prog-house sound, though with more vocals and more stripped down vocals. But when they bring in all the instrumentals and the backing vocals to fill around the solo piano... well, listen for yourself. I can't help thinking about Faithless "God is a DJ" - there's a mash-up waiting to happen.

http://www.myspace.com/music/10223893/songs/73310077/
Lest you think I'm going all soft, I'll leave you with this one. Rad Bad, another Bootie find turns in a wild thing 10-minute megamix that has hundreds of samples, all bangin'. They flow and mix in interesting ways, while keeping the thing moving. It doesn't have the tight precision of some mega-mixes but it's fun to listen to the stream go by and try to see how many samples you can identify.