The fight for diverse and conscious voices

Right. Bunches of tabs to close. All good stuff this time, with lots of variation in style.

http://www.mashup-industries.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=361&Itemid=36
KrazyBen does a nice re-layering mix here based on the happy electro tune by Martin Solveig & Dragonette called "Hello". It's mashed with Duck Sauce's "Barbra Streisand" but in a clever way, using both a remix of the Hello track as well as the original Hello a capella. I still think the Streisand tune isn't all that hot on its own but the mix works really well.

http://soundcloud.com/jessmillsofficial/jess-mills-vultures
http://audioporncentral.com/2011/04/jess-mills-vultures-photek-remix.html
http://soundcloud.com/jessmillsofficial/jess-mills-fighting-fire-ft
I find it unbelievable that I haven't talked about Photek (http://photek.fm/) before. I'll have more to say about them later. Right now, though, I want to talk about Jess Mills' "Vultures". She's got a silky, breathy style that feels sensual and gives me chills to begin with. Photek have applied some techno-trance production, but left the backing sound low-key so you can still appreciate Mills' voice. She's definitely on my watch list now. The other track, Fighting Fire, is less haunting but still fun electro-dance. Also a great lyrical one-liner.

http://www.djbc.net/anotherjay/
Hey! You got your rap in my ambient! Well, you got your ambient in my rap! Two great tastes that... well, it's a concept album. dj BC has put together a 12-track mix of Brian Eno's ambient and spoken word pieces with the rap stylings of Jay-Z. Being that it's a tad heavy on the profanity I wouldn't blast this on the office speakers, but it's a fascinating experiment in melding two very different styles and making it work.

http://soundcloud.com/invisiblesandwhiches/invisible-sandwhiches-feat-kat-graham-sassy-found-a-dime-mix
Recently I got an email on Soundcloud asking me to vote for one of three tracks, two of which I found unremarkable. Then there was this one. It's based off the (over)autotuned Kat Graham pop confection "Sassy" which is itself dull. This mix by Invisible Sandwhiches uses Sassy about the way an Olympic diver uses the 10-meter platform. Gotta start somewhere, but after that it's all twists and turns and a remarkably graceful entry. Invisible Sandwhiches mix in several different styles and... well, listen and see what you think.

http://audioporncentral.com/2011/04/win-win-ft-alexis-taylor-%E2%80%93-interleave.html
Imagine if Daft Punk and The Dream Academy had a love child. That would be Win Win. This track features the strong bass vibrato Daft Punk brought to the Tron soundrack, and classic New Wave male vocals. It's kind of spacy/dreamy but usually the wifty stuff doesn't have that level of thrum.

Don't worry, I promise I'll explain that title. Most of what I've been listening to these days are longer mixes and sets, so there are only a few URLs here but a lot of hours of listening pleasure.

http://www.djsteveboy.com/groovelectric.html
DJ Steveboy's latest is "Oblivion Express." It's another drone mix, which means it's less bouncy and more spacey/cerebral than the usual stuff from him. I'm not a huge fan of his drone mixes, but this is great background music for work or study where you really need to concentrate on what you're doing and not be bouncing around too much in your seat.

http://www.mashup-industries.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=357&Itemid=36
Mashup Industries is hosting two good sets from KrazyBen. In these sets he has included 40 different tracks from the pure.fm November compilation, remixed by him. Also on the page are four links to his own mashes, all of which are quite good.

As you'd expect from a 40-track set there's a lot of variety here, but most of it carries a signature slower tempo and somewhat downtempo feel. He also mixes sources I don't usually hear, which is very nice. All four of his mixes are top-notch and you can download those directly via the separate links. I also wanted to pull out two tracks that give you a feel for the range here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXlHQokybrg
I'm quite fond of the Editors' "You Don't Know Love" and here the Cagedbaby remix pumps up the fuzz and funky base-line without messing up the silky noire voicings that make the original so great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P8DtOlAH7s
This is the Venaccio Remix of Jónsi's "Go Do" and I confess I'd heard of neither before this. Here's the official video for the song - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYb2Q3DvLNE - but it doesn't do much for me. Near-falsetto male vocal isn't a big thing for me. What Venaccio (http://www.myspace.com/venaccio) has done is tone down the highs, lay on a fast house beat track, and generally fit it into standard electro-house style with cuts and dubs.

http://www.theglitchmob.com/music/drinkthesea-theremixes/
The Glitch Mob have put out a big, beautiful, luscious 24-track remix sampler in two parts. Using material from their "Drink the Sea" album this two-volume collection brings in a different remixer on every track. To my great surprise, the collection is much more unified in sound and feel than you'd expect from that description. For one thing - in keeping with the theme of this posting - most of the tracks are down-tempo, slower and pay at least a nod to dubstep if not being actual dubstep themselves. Even the included remix of "Drive It Like You Stole It" - the track that drew over 100 remix entries in their contest last year - is downtempo.

Since dubstep seems to be the theme here (and may be the hot new things for club tracks in 2011, we shall see) I sent a link to http://soundcloud.com/theglitchmob/between-two-points-spl-remix - the dubstep remix of "Between Two Points" which I love for its torch-singa vocal quality to a friend of mine. He replied that he found it good, and dubstep good in general, because the sound is sparse and leaves him (a musician) space to fill in his own stuff, as he says, "oontzing and beeping" along with the track.

So, you see, oontz is totally a verb.

Sorry folks, this one is full of Gaga and disco. If that makes you cringe just skip on. But I do have to talk about a couple things.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbQHvUObMbA&feature=player_embedded
I'm certain that I'll be inundated with Gaga remixes for the rest of this year, too, and most of them will suck as much as the original or worse. This, however, just WORKS. It's disturbing, really, when you think about it. How DJs from Mars (http://www.myspace.com/djsfrommars) managed to mix up Metallica's classic heavy metal anthem "Enter Sandman" with Gaga's ultra-pop "Telephone" hit is completely beyond me. The video isn't bad, either, but what really works is the underlying hard thunder that made Metallica famous which somehow pushes this track to the next level. (h/t to 'Song for the original pointer to this one.)

http://www.vevo.com/watch/christina-aguilera/not-myself-tonight/USRV81000022
Gaga's vid is not only heavily remixed and heavily played, it's getting responses. This here, the latest from Christina Aguilera, is not a mere shot across the bow - it's a direct slap back at Gaga from C.A. First, she's using the same production team as did the "Telephone" video. Then there are some very direct copies of dance moves, and a not-at-all-subtle use of a telephone and serious digs at Gaga's cheap product placements. Then there's the content - C.A. is basically all over the latex thing, and ALL OVER several men and women (take _that_ ambiguous bisexual Gaga). The blonde wigs are also a pretty out-and-out "Yeah, you did it but I was here first and I am way nastier than you" get-your-freak-on challenge.

The song? It's OK. Uses the f word somewhat gratuitously. It's danceable and I like C.A.'s voice somewhat better than Gaga's. It'll be remixed, too, but I don't think this is going to de-throne the queen of the moment. There will, as DJ Purple said to me, be war. Should be interesting; I'm reminded of the way male rappers dis each other - taken to a whole new level. Who was it said women always fight nastier than men?

http://www.mashup-industries.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=281&Itemid=27
OK, disco. I don't do... sigh, I can't say that anymore, can I? I mean, I really don't generally like disco. But damned if KrazyBen hasn't put together something altogether likeable out of two disco tracks overlaid with the reggae-rhyming Dizzee Rascal (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUPleuj42w0). Arabesque's "In the heat of a Disco Night" are to blame for starting this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcEssAf1cXE - if you can bear to listen) and it somehow has mutated from godawful to... y'know, not bad. Not bad at all.

http://audioporncentral.com/2010/04/einmeier-ovenbrod-i-feel-o.html
And if you're going to do disco you probably can't overlook the queen of disco herself. Here Einmeier & Ovenbröd (http://mimu.eu/) turn out an acoustic electro-disco stutter-mix using Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8TBmeK9Abg). The track does a great job of taking the floaty bits from Summer and layering them over hard, high-BPM house rhythms.

http://www.mashup-industries.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=283&Itemid=27
The latest Clivester mash, which is another synthpop confection I have to confess I like. (Synthpop is the disco of the last 15 years, trust me on this.) The beats of the mash are pretty standard club stuff, built around German boy-pop-band Polarkreis 18's "Allein Allein". And I had to close with this one just so you could marvel with me at how this guy manages NOT to explode into flames: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsHV4i59RaM

Seriously, watch that vid. I swear they had a brace of techs standing just off camera with extinguishers in hand.

Next time, I think, we'll be back to more usual stuff.