drwex: (Default)
Between traveling and some big heaping doses of Do Not Like in my random musical samplings I've not had enough material to be worth a post in a while. I still have a bunch of tabs open on things I might blog about but let's start with a few clear winners.

http://rcrdlbl.com/artists/Chk_Chk_Chk/track/AMFM
The group's official name is "!!!" - yes, three exclamation marks. I'm just going to call them Chk Chk Chk, particularly since that's how their site (http://www.chkchkchk.net/) is found. I'm having a hard time classifying the sound here. It's got some high-BPM beats, very strong electro influences, but overlaid with a mellow almost trancy vocals. The AM/FM track is a real throwback style to early 90s electro; the second track, a Hot Chip (http://www.myspace.com/hotchip) remix has a thumpier house beat, fast-rap lyrics and a much funkier groove. I like both of these, but in very different ways.

http://djsteveboy.com/groovelectric.html
DJ Steveboy's latest mix has a goofy name ("Lotion") and he plays it as a lighter mix, but he's found some excellent tracks with a lot more energy than he lets on. It's got definite danceable funk lines and wicked cool rhythms. Unfortunately his sources are hard to duplicate. For example, there's a track -- Tone L0c- Wild Thing (Punx Squad Mix) -- that just rocks my socks but damned if I can find it. Apparently it's known as Moguai vs Tone L0c elsewhere (http://www.moguai.com/?a=457) but still no MP3 I can point you guys to. However, see below.

http://www.nuttymp3.com/mp3/608863
This track, known mostly as The Bongo Man - Ugwanga (Vortex Remix) is probably the best item off the Steveboy mix. Turns out The Bongo Man (aka Tony Thomas) has an EP of remixes of this track. Five of 'em are on iTunes for $5 and you can find others around with some searching. Of all of them I love this one best. It's a DEEP deep house mix with a lot of energy but not too many BPM and some excellent electro riffs over the bongo sounds. The MP3 linked above is about a 1:30 teaser for the longer track, which you should definitely get.

http://www.mashup-industries.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=317&Itemid=27
What if you took Rihanna and Cyndi Lauper, feed them some speed, and threw them both into Benny Benassi's studio? You'd probably get something like this. It's goofy and if you don't like the original artists you're not going to like the mash any better, but I do and I did.

http://audioporncentral.com/2010/06/world-premiere-dj-schmolli-no-good-cockeyed-tiger.html
OK, more confession time. I used to listen to "Eye of the Tiger" more or less obsessively. It was a great track to put on Really Freaking Loud while trying to pound out a big block of code. Here DJ Schmolli has built a six-track mash including Survivor's one hit. The most prominent elements are the various vocals that he's pulling in, primarily the chorus from Monosurround and The Prodigy's looped lyrics. That said, one of the best parts is about halfway through the mix when he swaps in the Survivor lyrics over other melodies, and then swaps things back again.
drwex: (Default)
This entry has a couple of old favorites and some stuff from people I haven't found likable enough before to blog.

http://audioporncentral.com/2010/06/miike-snow-the-rabbit-stuart-price-mix.html
Miike Snow has done a bunch of things that were... good, or OK. RCRD LBL likes to promote him (http://rcrdlbl.com/search/miike+snow) so I listen and think... eh. Nothing really moves me. This one is just that extra bit better that makes me want to blog it, and it's not just because of those hot writhing chicks in the video (though they don't hurt). Stuart Price is a UK remixer whom I've not heard before and I really like what he's done here. The song is catchy without being syrupy and it's still got Miike Snow's trademark slightly-off-kilter weirdness.

http://www.mashup-industries.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=315&Itemid=27
Marc Johnce is someone I've also wanted to blog several times. His remix style hasn't appealed to me as much in the past. This one... whoa. It doesn't hurt that he's starting with the legendary Deep Purple's "Smoke On The Water". And putting up against Christina Aguilera's recent "Not Myself Tonight" is brilliant. I really like the mix - it is true to both the hot scratchy vocals of the C.A. tune and that signature Deep Purple riff (bomp bomp bomp, bomp bomp ba-bomp bomp). The extended edit has a few more house thumpy filler bits than I'd like, but I'd drop this into any club set for sure.

http://www.mashup-industries.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=314&Itemid=27
If the Jonce mix goes long, the worst thing I can say about this awesome smash from DJ Schmolli is that it's too short. He's got two classics - Queen's "We Will Rock You" and Cypress Hill's "Insane In The Brain". Neither one is that long of a track and both are ridiculously simple. The best bit is near the end where he's using Brian May's guitars over Cypress Hill rhythms.

http://audioporncentral.com/2010/06/big-nuz-ft-dj-tira-umlilo.html
Hey spinners, check this vid out! Big Nuz is a South African rapper who just won their Best Album of the Year award. There's not much else of his out on the Web that I could find to check out, but I like this track - it has obvious hip-hop styles but uses the down-beat rhythms I associate with traditional south African music.

http://audioporncentral.com/2010/06/dj-earworm-like-omg-baby-capital-fm-summertime-ball-mashup.html
DJ Earworm has been remarkably quiet this year. Since releasing his "United States of Pop" in January his blog hasn't updated. He plays a part in the student documentary "Walking on Eggshells" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jt0ASo_6Sdg&feature=PlayList&p=6DE7C8C33450E9CC&playnext_from=PL&index=0&playnext=7) about remix culture, but this appears to be his first big new track in months. It's a 15-source mega-mix showcasing bits of the artists who played at a London concert. As before, this track stands out because of the level of detail in the work - he's mixing down to the word/beat level and reassembling something wholly new. It doesn't quite rock as hard as the previous megamix, but it's still very danceable and an impressive piece of work.
drwex: (Default)
I write a lot about dance music, mostly because I find that to be an interesting set of genres. One of the surest metrics for 'goodness' in music I listen to is "does it move me?" If I'm moved then there's a much higher chance I'll like it. What measures 'goodness' in music for you?

http://rcrdlbl.com/artists/We_Have_Band/track/Honeytrap_Co-Pilots_Flying_High_Edit
We Have Band have a gorgeous tribal rhythm thing going, and a sharp-edged electro-dance thing going and I'll be damned if I can classify them. They've appeared at several festivals and have single tracks on a bunch of compilations and their "debut album" was just released this month. The stream on RCRD LBL gives you a wide-ranging sample of what they can do. I'm guessing most people will find something to like here.

http://www.mashup-industries.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=277&Itemid=36
http://www.mashup-industries.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=278&Itemid=27
The DJs at Mashup Industries do so much work in English that it's easy to forget they're European. Then they pull out mixes like this that I can't even begin to parse the lyrics for, but man does it have beat!

The first one is Clivester putting Skero's Kabinenparty (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I-I6yMx23g) up against David Guetta & Kid Cudi's "Memories" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px3_wP2LQj0). Watching that first vid will give you a good idea of what a "kabinenparty" is, even if you don't speak any German. Both of these are pretty standard house-dance tracks and the mash doesn't do much that's original, but it's still moving me.

The second is Marc Jonce promoting a local (to him) German band called Rosenstolz. You can find the original for "Blaue Flecken" on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhtD5we5sCg) which really lets you sink into the luscious vocals and rock piano arrangements. Jonce has stripped that down, pitch- and beat-shifted it, and tightened everything up to give a much more techno-dance result. From what I can find on the Web, Rosenstolz has been performing for almost two decades and it's really a shame their music hasn't made it over here before now. AnNa R. (as she is apparently known) is really worth a serious listen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwnefUaKCbc
I think I'm indebted to 'song for this one. Janelle Monae (http://www.jmonae.com/) blends together some of the best elements of at least four musical styles - R&B, funk (dig that horn section!), rap (with help from Big Boi), and hip-hop. If you said there were gospel influences in here you probably wouldn't be far wrong. Of course all of these styles are woven together at least to some degree. Anyway, one of the fun things is watching the video, which is a straight-up dance vid that itself plays around with several styles. And yeah, makes me want to dance.
drwex: (Default)
But I've got a ton of open tabs and want to close some of them out, so here goes:

http://www.mashuptown.com/2010/04/audio-lynch-heartache-joy-dont-go-freemasons-feat-sylvia-masonjames-vs-yazoo-vs-livin-joy-vs-double-.html
This is a really brilliant mix from Marc Johnce & CjR working under the name Audio Lynch (http://audiolynch.wordpress.com/). It's got five major tunes, phat horn sounds, and a pleasant but not overdone dance beat. What's not to like?

http://bootiemashup.com/top10/mp3s/I%20was%20made%20for%20a%20heavy%20cross%20%28A%20Copycat%20Mash%29.mp3
It's pretty rare that I link to anything from Bootie that I haven't seen elsewhere - see next link for example - but this one is ridiculously catchy, assuming you have some old fondness for late 70s metal and aren't utterly revolted by disco. It's merging The Gossip's (http://www.myspace.com/gossipband) "Heavy Cross" with old Kiss guitar licks. And it doth not suck.

http://bootiemashup.com/top10/mp3s/kleptones_welcomeback_dj.mp3
I've already sung the praises of The Kleptones' latest effort, but you should grab this single remix of their "Welcome Back DJ" track. Again, it helps if you like old metal, as this track absolutely rises and falls with classic GnR.

http://audioporncentral.com/2010/04/moonrunners.html
Daft Punk are very much old hat by now, so nobody should be mixing against them, right? Well, it's good so screw that. Moonrunners (http://myspace.com/moonrunners.universe) put their "Feels Like Magic" up against a Daft Punk staple and if it is, as APC says, a guilty pleasure it's a damned danceable pleasure. This is very much a pick-you-up-when-the-world-sucks track.

http://audioporncentral.com/2010/04/the-glitch-mob-drive-it-like-you-stole-it.html
Speaking of things you want to dance to, this Glitch Mob track - the first off their upcoming album - has a really sweet set of beats going. Some definite house thump going on here, plus fuzz-muted electro and near-ambient vocals that I really like. "Drive It Like You Stole It" - drive with it cranked WAY up.
drwex: (Default)
It's Friday, so we've got some odd dregs and leftovers. I didn't think much of the first new mix on Mashuptown today, but this...

http://viprhealthcare.typepad.com/files/marc-johnce---weapon-of-mista-boo.mp3
This works. Unfortunately the mix is something of a rough cut - you can hear a few places where it skips rather than matching beats cleanly. For reference, you want to (re)watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7Ky5R-vxns - the original Fatboy Slim video featuring Christopher Walken. The Fatboy Slim tune itself steals very heavily from Pfunk, and this remix plays that up a little.

(Fun trivia bit: the video was done by Spike Jonze, whose adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are is coming out soon.)

http://fairtilizer.com/tracks/4502
While I'm on the remix side I wanted to blog this dancey house mix. It's been sitting in an open tab for long enough that I've forgotten the chain of events that led me to find it. The basic track, Don't Believe The Hype, has been remixed at least six ways I could find and none of them seemed to be much improvement on this.

OK yesterday I promised you some odd German stuff...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdtLCfEcPL4
Peter Fox's "Alles Neu". The song isn't that odd, but the video is pretty bizarre and features some nice work by a Cold Steel Drumline. Watch the stick-passing in particular. I'm pretty sure I'm indebted to KJC for the first pointer to this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgd1QmjCzEA
Far and away the weirdest of the set. This is one of those idiotic catchy things that gets into your brain and sticks and you wish for some mental floss. It's not as bad as Gummibar but it's up there. Also? Very gay!

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