The fight for diverse and conscious voices

I've been holding onto this post for a while, due mostly to the first track. Everything else should be considered "bonus material."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLFSVBO9WOE&feature=player_embedded
Halsey (http://iamhalsey.com/) has apparently gotten quite popular in the last couple years, which tells me that I'm even further out of touch with current pop music than I thought. Anyway, this song is particularly appropriate for this day in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and I've been holding onto it since it appeared on our work #listening Slack. This one is for you, mizarchivist; I hope you don't get as earwormed by it as I did, or at least you don't mind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aW5Ugq7eYo
While I'm noting things off our #listening I should blog this one, which I very much like. It came up in response to a discussion of "the" birthday dirge - turns out there are many such things, which surprised me. But I digress. The Birthday Massacre (http://thebirthdaymassacre.com/) is a Canadian goth-rock band with a small but dedicated following. New Favorite Cow orker found them at Dragoncon and I need to hear more from them.

https://soundcloud.com/morganpage/morgan-page-feat-lissie-dont
I'm normally not a huge Morgan Page fan - I find his stuff to be not very deep and a little too smooth pop. This track definitely falls into the "pop confection" category, but I find Lissie's (https://soundcloud.com/lissiemusic) vocals interesting and endearing at the same time, which makes this worth a listen.

https://soundcloud.com/the-mashup-wyvern-2/marianas-trench-vs-thefatrat-fall-zero-mashup
Things you never expect, Part N+1. Back in June, I noticed a mashup done by someone posting as The Mashup Wyvern. Interesting A|B composition with good source material. I find a lot of those and don't post most of them. Anyway, back at the beginning of November someone commented on that entry, identifying themselves as the Mashup Wyvern. I guess my entries show up in Google searches, which is cool. Anyway, they suggested a couple of other things they'd done for review and I've picked this one as another fun entry in the A|B style. It's bouncy and light and the mash works well.

https://soundcloud.com/st-enextra/carnage-kshmr-blasterjaxx-bassjackers-toca-your-mystica-locast-en-mashup-1
Some of you know that I moonlight as an amateur intellectual property geek. I spent a bunch of years blogging on the topic and let me tell you that St-eN Extra is completely mistaken about what Fair Use allows. That said, this is another fun and danceable mash-up using some fun originals. I particularly recommend Fly Project's "Toca Toca" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5GwTfI_PD8) which is a modern Latin electro-dance track and of course the Sak Noel's "Loca People", often known as the "What the Fuck" song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4dMon78h5A)

I have a couple of longer pieces to point at today. Like a lot of compilations or sets they've got good and bad points but I hope there's something for everyone here. So as not to overload everyone I'll do two of the big sets and a couple smaller pieces today. There are a couple more big sets I'll blog later.

http://audioporncentral.com/2012/02/illegal-sunday-dj-schmolli-moombahcuts.html
First up, DJ Schmolli's half-hour massive moobahton set. Moombahton is the beautiful love-child of reggaeton and moombah. It's a little more relaxed on the BPM than standard house music and often incorporates unusual and interesting syncopations. There are 11 tracks on this set from ten different DJs and the stand-out for me is definitely Schmolli's own "Ikobahton". I love the New Orleans traditional melody that was popularized by the Grateful Dead and the Neville Brothers (among others I'm sure) and this is a fun if too-short remix. I also like the chop-stop Alvin Risk remix of "Dirty Dancer" though I could do without the electronic bloops and bleeps. The whole set moves along nicely.

http://audioporncentral.com/2012/02/morgan-page-ft-tegan-sara-body-work-the-video.html
I've noted before that Morgan Page is one of those guys I'd love to have DJing a party for me. He's got a great sense of pace and flow. This is the video for his new single "Body Work" which would be a fun if unremarkable track except that it features both visually and aurally the awesome twin-sister duo of Tegan & Sara. It is possible that some day I will find something that is not made better by adding Tegan & Sara to it, but that day is not today. They're beautifully melodic to listen to and they're fun to watch as visual counterpoint to the writhing bodywork dancers.

http://audioporncentral.com/2012/02/illegal-sunday-bref-electro-mashup-compilation.html
Sugamotor presents us with "bref. on a fait des mashups", a 17-track compilation of electro-house goodness with lots of extra fun thrown in. I'm not a huge electro fan but I found myself grinning and bopping along with most of this, even when it gets nearly sacrilegious with Nine Inch Nails. And of course I adore the "Bref funkhop" though it's too short. Anyone but me recognize what he's mixing over?

http://audioporncentral.com/2012/03/sam-sparro-happiness-the-magician-remix.html
Sam Sparro's "Happiness" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV2ndDV8cQk) gets a stomping remix from The Magician (http://www.facebook.com/themagicianmusic). Sparro has a brassy almost Motown sound to start with and The Magician adds the beat and a bit of electronica to complement it nicely.

http://audioporncentral.com/2012/03/illegal-sunday-dunproofin-narcissistic-freak.html
It's interesting to me how much I don't like Skrillex's work by itself but how well he mixes with others. Here we get a full-on assault from Dunproofin' who takes Adina Howard's "Freak Like Me" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUMHMMZf8L4) and slams it up against Korn/Skrillex. Howard's 1995 tune was full-on stolen from old-school funk and r&b and this mash-up keeps her vocals more or less intact but lays it over a rock/dubstep/scratch backing. The result ought to be a trainwreck but it's not.

Some links and a musical story at the end.

http://www.myspace.com/venaccio
Last week's musical pointer to Venaccio (in which, disappointingly, nobody commented on my subject line) led me to listen through his posted collection. I quite liked it. Most of it is electro, and lyrics-free which makes it good for background for many things. He's got a moody minor-key thing going through several of the tracks which makes me feel like it's "night music". I'm not sure why.

http://audioporncentral.com/2011/02/morgan-page-ft-jan-burton-ive-had-friends.html
Speaking of night music, this track and the accompanying video (hotness!) make me wish I was 20 years younger, in which case I would definitely want to be going to clubs like this and dancing all night to DJs like Morgan Page. This track, "I've Had Friends", is the kind of high-energy thing you'd want to drop around 2AM when you want to push things up a notch. I like the vocal mix and it's sort of sad that the bit APC posted cuts off so abruptly. I'll have to get the LP to see what it sounds like

http://hypem.com/#!/item/19ad1/Fredrik+-+Rites+of+Spring
Fredrick (http://www.myspace.com/fredriktheband) are a Swedish trio I stumbled across by accident. If was not a word "folktronica" then someone has coined it to describe these guys. They also are in the same darker/moodier camp that lots of new music seems to be inhabiting these days while blending sampled sounds and electro-beats with the kind of simple plucked strings and earthy vocals that characterizes lots of folk music.

http://djsteveboy.com/groovelectric.html
DJ Steveboy is back again, with a killer 10/12ths of a set for Groovelectric's 5th anniversary. Unfortunately he puts two tracks on the end that, while interesting in their own right, don't really fit the set.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUm7Qok-kO4
I have to call this one of the two don't-fit tune out because it's a "who the HELL thought of THAT" moment. The hosting site - MaxMashups - doesn't identify the mixer who decided to put The Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up" against Enya's "Orinoco Flow" (it's not called "Sail Away", guys). This thing is scary-close to a train wreck and yet avoids it... somehow. You have to hear it to judge for yourself.

http://www.myspace.com/chrisfraserishere
http://www.mp3rocket.com/mp3/-1_00/Dan-le-Sac-vs-Scroobius-Pip-Thou-Shalt-Always-Kill-Chris-Fraser-Remix-Edit.htm
Once upon a year or so ago someone (mzrowan I think) pointed me to Dan le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip and their "Thou Shalt Always Kill". This odd, minimalist Brit-rant was both perplexing and amusing at the same time. It was firmly tongue-in-cheek and serious at the same time. It was unlike anything since Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" and at the same time was completely modern.

This being the 21st Century, of course it needed to be remixed, and Australian Chris Fraser turns in a very nice job keeping the essential rythmic chanting of the original cut up and interspersed with electro-house beats and sounds.

All of which is good, particularly because it led me to the linked page there on mp3rocket, which includes an 8-minute interview with Dan and Pip about some of the less obvious elements of the original track. And now, finally, I understand why the song's final directive is Thou shalt always kill.' I won't spoil it here - ask in comments, or just listen to the interview.