The fight for diverse and conscious voices

On Friday, not 10 minutes after telling DJ Purple that I was putting together a music post, my building lost power and they sent us all home. Since all my open tabs are here (I listen to a lot of music at work; let me tell you about my lovely loud cubicle environment some day) this had to wait.

All the songs here are favorites reworked; I'll save the new tracks for next time.

https://soundcloud.com/bel-air-deejayz/stromae-alors-on-danse-bel-air
While looking up some old favorites I came across this, which is Bel Air's bootleg of Stromae's "Alors on Danse". It's really more of a mash-up, as it draws heavily on Egypt's "In The Morning", a bloopy disco electronica track from years ago (that's the source of the "Let your love come in" vocals) and several other uncredited tracks. I remain fond of Alors and this was a nice find.

https://soundcloud.com/bel-air-deejayz/sebastian-ingrosso-vs-daft
Another rework of a perennial favorite from Bel Air: Daft Punk's "Harder Better Faster", this time mashed up against Swedish DJ Sebastian Ingrosso's "Reload" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuAtcpFQpMw), a Euro tech-pop hit from last summer. Once again the Bel Air DJs haven't done much but lift the best bits of their source tracks, and that's OK.

https://soundcloud.com/lobsterdust/too-busy-thinkin-marvin-gaye-vs-touchgo-lobsterdust-mashup
Lobsterdust offers up a sweet little house mash-up of a classic Marvin Gaye track, "I'm Too Busy Thinkin' (About My Baby)". The track retains a fair bit of Gaye's original soul sound, but with modern up-tempo beats. Lobsterdust is, as always, an excellent technician. I just wish he's put in a few more surprises in his tracks.

https://soundcloud.com/londongrammar/london-grammar-hey-now-zero-7-remix
https://soundcloud.com/londongrammar/london-grammar-hey-now-sasha-remix
Two recent remixes of London' Grammar's "Hey Now" give a chance to compare-and-contrast. The first is Zero 7's slinky electro groove. This one tip-toes into the darker air you can hear in the original track, but doesn't dive in headfirst. The track tries to keep a lighter feel with a persistent upbeat that I think doesn't improve the effort. It's apparently taken from their limited edition vinyl release so the track ends rather abruptly. Not bad, but wouldn't make me sit up and take notice.

The second is Sasha's chill-dance remix. Unfortunately, Sasha doesn't seem to share my belief that Hannah Reid's voice is the main thing you want out of London Grammar. He fills the first couple minutes of this track with completely disposable electronica that would be good to play in a club while people were filing in, but doesn't make for good focused listening. We are Not Impressed with Sasha, sorry.

https://soundcloud.com/discosid-mashups-1/rihanna-vs-panjabi-mc-beware-of-the-rudeboy-discosid-mashup
Discosid is someone I've been listening to off and on for a few months but haven't liked anything enough to blog. Here he hits a solid double by mashing two of my favorites: Rihanna's "Rudeboy" and the Panjabi MC's piece from a few years ago that he did with Jay-Z called "Beware". The mash uses Panjabi beats and Indian traditional riffs with Rihanna's voice, which I think is a wise choice.