The fight for diverse and conscious voices

First, I must note that VNV are going on tour again. I already have tix for their show in my town. Check out their site and get yours. Just sayin'. Lots of tabs open; let's do the first five now and see when I can get to the rest.

https://soundcloud.com/cashcash/dare-you-remix
I don't usually blog previews as they're often too short to get a sense for what the track does. This previwe is 6 minutes long and well worth your time. This is Cash Cash doing an "official" remix of Hardwell's "Dare You". The original (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clRjbYa4UWQ) is very much a teen-rebellion anthem, a modern pop confection. Still, it's got good female vocals over dance beats so OK. What Cash Cash has done is made the song richer. There are synth complexities and vocal layering in the remix that the original lacks. And while the original is danceable, this is dance, with a jumped-up BPM and the sort of drops and pops a good house dance track tends to have.

https://soundcloud.com/dazedandconfused/chvrches-recover-kingdom-remix
I've gone back to CHVRCHES a couple times since their "Bella Lugosi's Dead" reignited my interest. Most of their stuff has been OK, but this one stood out for me. It's actually a Kingdom remix of their "Recover" and it's got an interesting contrast going on. There's still the high poppy vocals, but there's an undercurrent of dark creepy snap-pop electronica that reminds me of the Bauhaus cover. I don't think I'm going to turn into a huge CHVRCHES fan but I will keep looking for good remixes to blog.

https://soundcloud.com/mashupgermany/mashup-germany-happy-little
Both MizA and Cthulhia thumbs-downed my previous blog of a Mumford & Sons remix, but I carry on anyway. Here we have Mashup Germany picking up two M&S tunes along with nine other tracks for a bouncy banjo-rich mix. Props to M.G. for the use of Louis Armstrong and Starship in the same mix; that's just flat-out hilarious. And yes, cthulhia, it has the Mumford vocals, at least sampled.

https://soundcloud.com/florrie/seashells
Florrie's new EP should be out any day now, and it's apparently being labeled as "pop" but this isn't like most pop I'm used to. It's got a simple vocal line, true, but that's laid over some very nice non-traditional rhythms, which I mark as Indian-influenced (Goa?). It's up-tempo and urgent without being too frenetic. I'd like it more if the vocals matched the music for complexity and novelty but it's a start.

https://soundcloud.com/enchufada/buraka-som-sistema-sente
Buraka Som Sistema give us a new zouk bass track, "Sente". If you've never heard BSS or zouk this is as good a place to start as any. It's a sound that's evolving as it goes, and I like that. This variant still has the minor-key Rom roots in there, but it blends in some (surprisingly muted) stomp bits, and chop electronica that you don't hear in BSS's tracks from a year ago. It's toned down in a way that gives space for more complexity and experimentation than you get in your typical club track.