The fight for diverse and conscious voices

I kind of fell off the music posting bandwagon. I tend to do a standard group of DJ sets and not as much random music these days. Tabs have accumulated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khpL08_O1WE
Over the past year Aron Chupa and Little Sis Nora have released several tracks. This is my favorite of them, both for the tune and the video. It has all the things I like from a modern swing track, the lyrics are fun and a little sly, and the video choreography is excellent. 5/5 stars, this one has been on my repeat play list for some time.

https://soundcloud.com/forkingandcountry/together-r3hab-remix-feat-tori
One of the commenters called this "swingstep" which is an interesting idea. It's definitely not "pop". It combines rich harmonic vocals with an uptempo beat. R3HAB worked with King & Country to do this remix of their track "Together". As with many of these things, my main complaint is that it's too short. As posted the track barely tops 2:30 and I have to believe it could easily be filled out from here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeMGF7oVJEU
I wish I could remember who suggested Harsh Armadillo to me. This ensemble hits several of my sweet spots, particularly the live funky horns, smooth vocals that draw from both older scat and modern rap stylings. They are New England local and I had been planning to try and track them down and see them live pre-COVID. Maybe that's a thing I can do now. I have to point out that this track is also an excellent example of how to mix a rich full sound without swamping out your lead vocals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPxoZbEA7sw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV38vlz0Dq8
Been a while since I did one of these pairings. This is Solarstone's "Seven Cities". This track is popular in many of the DJ sets I listen to and has been off and on since it was first released in 1999. The original is long, high BPM, and almost frenetic. Interestingly, there's a drawn-out synth track that soars behind the speedy beats. So what if you flipped that around, and emphasized the dreamy nature of it? The second version, Tom Staar's remix, does exactly that. Gone are the high BPM and instead we get a track I think of as 'sunrise music'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ei3IaJDgZGk
Violet Orlandi was also quite prolific during lockdown. She's released a string of her trademark covers, often collaborations. This cover of Disturbed's "Down with the Sickness" is one such. Ai Mori (https://www.youtube.com/c/AiMori) a Russian cover artist brings the screaming insanity this track requires, leaving Orlandi to do what she does best.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeEI7eC4OIQ

I love approximately everything about this. I love Skye's look and her voice and the musical arrangement that supports her. This is apparently a single off a new album, Blackest Blue, that is due to release in mid-May. One can only hope there will be a tour of the US in the future - their site (https://www.morcheeba.uk/tour) currently only shows dates in the UK, EU, and Russia through March next year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjzxX9yokrE&list=PL-x7LdqszqWrkaIla22SIblrqRH7Ipcfo

Four remixes of Chali 2na's "How We Do". I like listening to remixes when they give different takes on the same theme. Here Chali has collaborated with four different stylists to get just that.

Of the four, I think the first two are clearly the best. The first one (Krafty Kuts & Dubra Remix) does a really good job of fronting the vocals - which are what I like about Chali the most - and giving it a really electro-funk feel without getting too much into the squeeps and bleeps that annoy me.

The second one (Balkan Bump Remix) is wildly different - so much that it's hard to compare to the other three. I love Balkan Bump in general and I've never heard them take on this kind of funk before. They do a decent job but I feel like the flow and the instrumentals aren't as well blended as I'd want. Essentially, the track has to fade one out to clear space for the other.

The other two are OK, but I wouldn't blog either on its own.

Armin van Buuren's "A State of Trance" (ASOT) just broadcast its 1000th episode. That's a lot and it has been going on, and growing, for many years. The episodes leading up to 1000 involved a lot of hype and people voting the top trance tunes of all time, which got played in order, of course.

Then for 1001 AVB did something of his own - a two hour mix of some of the best tunes voted in, some of his own remixes of those tunes, and some great things that were overlooked in the voting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKSp33zY4WU&feature=em-lbrm&ab_channel=ArminvanBuuren

It's a very good mix for the most part with many highlights and "oh, I remember _that_" moments. it also reminded me of this track

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3Iksp8g3vA&ab_channel=NERYCORPORATEDNLG

Vini Vici's "Great Spirit" which I was sure I had blogged when it came out a few years ago but maybe not. Enjoy it now, in any event.

Below, links to a three-part video series from Bloomberg on the music revolution that started with the first MP3 and whose latest chapter is the past year of Coronavirus destroying live performance as we knew it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHVRItc38-c&ab_channel=BloombergQuicktake

It begins with Napster, which is a popular place to start if not entirely right. As someone who traded tapes before there was digital music I recognize the antecedents. Still, Napster was revolutionary to me. I trace my discovery of the remix to my experience with Napster. Perhaps I was odd in how I used it. I didn't want just a rip of a CD - I wanted sounds I couldn't get any other place or way. Live recordings, too.

Along the way I discovered dozens of new artists and realized that the world of music was much much bigger than what the airwaves or CD store would bring me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01DOCnCA1j0&ab_channel=BloombergQuicktake

I remember the war on sharing quite well. I wasn't a particularly heavy user of the second wave of sharing systems but I started blogging about the Copyright Wars, a hobby that would last about 15 years. Through that I met some interesting folks and became somewhat versed in some odd corners of the law.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=392B71DgBCY&ab_channel=BloombergQuicktake

It has always been true that artists need to get paid. If they don't, you don't get (as much) art. The issue wasn't paying the artists, it was giving money to vast corporate empires that sucked everything dry and maybe returned a pittance to a few creators. Meanwhile, thousands starved, waiting for their turn in the spotlight, a chance to be "discovered". The democratization of music, and the multitude of ways that have emerged to reward creators, are the best things to come out of this mess. But I will die mad at the RIAA nonetheless.

https://soundcloud.com/theglitchmob/sets/drink-the-sea-10

It's beautiful and I am so sad this tour did not happen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEUs9rwNFcs&ab_channel=TheGlitchMob

The 2020 Remaster of "Drive It Like You Stole It" is solid and smooth. This is one of my favorite tracks not just from Drink the Sea but from their entire catalog. It's definitely a "turn up to 11" track.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIPBm2vpScs&ab_channel=VioletOrlandi

I thought I had mentioned before but can't find, so here's a recent cover from the Brazilian-based cover artist (https://violetorlandi.com/).

If you check out her YT channel - and you should - you'll find a lot more. She's prolific artist and she doesn't shy away from harder material. I find her things come in three general varieties, of which I like this video's style the best:
- collaborations with other artists when she's working on material out of her range or skill areas
- covers where she's more or less trying to imitate the style of the original
- covers where she's doing her own interpretations and arrangements of the original.

Here she's not trying to be Dan Reynolds or any other member of Imagine Dragons; rather, she's transposed their vocals into pieces she can record and harmonize with herself. It is very much a Violet Orlandi performance and it shows nicely what she can do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vud6MtI4o4&ab_channel=DavidGuetta

I've been enjoying the sets that have come out of this competition. This is Guetta's set, which is apparently a first for him - a live production of all his own music. There's a lot of good camera work so you can see his hands and what he's doing in the live mix. I really enjoy that part.

I also like how they're setting up these performances. AVB's was done in the stands of a racetrack; this is in some kind of glass-domed building in Amsterdam. Full lights and effects - makes me a little nostalgic for clubs.

Notable in this set I think are his mixes of "Titanium" and the latest (Eilish) Bond theme near the end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8DxOW1QMZk&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=WestwoodRecordings

I'm nohow sure what to call this but I'm damn sure it should be played loud. Funk Hunters and Stickybuds are two masters of modern (electro) funk and this is their first collaboration. However, it's not a funk tune in any sense you'd expect. It's them backing Flowdan in a track that's a little like electro funk meets grunge.

That's not surprising if you know Flowdan. He's not popular here but in the UK he's known as one of the pioneers of grime sound through Roll Deep, of which he was a founding member. People may know grime because of Dizzee Rascal, who charted pretty well in the US.

As with so many of these tracks that I like, my main complaint is that it's too short.