drwex: (VNV)
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.
drwex: (VNV)
I have tabs! They have music on them! Let's close some of them - once again another all-funky selection, with variations on the themes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-ls0pZWWSA
I haven't posted nearly enough Stickybuds. This one I'm pretty sure came out of one of their Shambhala mixes. It's reggae, it's funky, and it's political. I'm also pretty sure this is a short version of a tune I've heard longer mixes for but it's the best I could find online when I looked. The featured vocalist, Burro Banton, was a riddim DJ out of Kingston in (checks online) the 80s and 90s which is why the name seemed familiar but it's long enough ago that I didn't remember details. In those days most of that music went to the UK and it was hard to get in the US. But now we have The Intarwebz and things are better.

https://soundcloud.com/bbprecordings/skank-spinatra-thank-you-free-download
Skank Spinatra might be the best musician name of the past year. This track, a remix of "Thank You For Letting Me Be Myself", keeps some of the original Sly & The Family Stone disco/funk edge but resets it into a 21st-century glitchy-infused style. I'm normally not a big glitch fan but I can forgive a lot if it's got a funky beat. As I said to MizA in a different context: "First comes the beat, then the bass" is like the first commandment of my religion.

https://soundcloud.com/cuttinitfine/gramophone-soul-dj-to-dj-free-download
Apparently I'm feeling funk-infused - shocking I know. Here we get Gramophone Soul doing "DJ to DJ". This is a rockin' track that blends a number of styles, going all the way back to 1950's era twist in a tight little four-minute dance track.

https://www.cuttinitfine.com/blog/2018/12/14/-cif-03-podcast-december-2018-
Cuttin' It Fine productions produced an irregular podcast back last year. This, from December, is a beauty of a set, including a number of fine remixes. The best part is that everything is listed with links to where you can get the tracks (mostly Bandcamp, which I recommend as a site that sends a good chunk of the money back to the original artist). I wish all sets came annotated this way - I'd buy a lot more music.
drwex: (VNV)
We're going to get sent home early today (it's Feb 12th as I type this; no promises on when it posts) and so meetings are being shuffled around. A couple things I need to do in-person will get postponed and that all means I have a little space to write about music. Buckle up and stay warm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5F-aj171QM
Bob Mould brings us the latest installment of his personal post-punk music odyssey. This has the expected Mould vocals and guitars and it's definitely punk-influenced. It's also somewhat autobiographical, as Mould has moved to Berlin and the song comes from his personal experiences of having trouble fitting in. It's also more gentle and pop-influenced than traditional punk. There are melodies and nobody screams or thrashes but at its core it's a song about social oppression and (not) being part of the larger culture. If that's not punk, I don't know what is.

https://soundcloud.com/dirtwire/the-whip-an-ten-nae-remix
Dirtwire just posted this "swamp crunk" remix of their track "The Whip". I love that concept, and this tune. It's got a good beat and the spare claps and whistled melodies are drawn out with echoes that invoke outdoor spaces without being creepy or too much like country-western for my tastes.

https://soundcloud.com/dirtwire/the-whip-an-ten-nae-remix
I usually post Sander van Doorn mixes, as I listen to his weekly podcast and posted setlists whenever they appear. I'm pretty sure I got this track from one of them but it's been a while so I've lost track. This "One Love" is a great mix of high-energy/high-BPM brackets around a really lovely guitar-led romantic track.

To close this out let's have some serious funky stuff from Stickybuds...

https://soundcloud.com/stickybuds/doyourthing
First up, a James Brown tribute mash with "a ton of samples" from The Godfather of Soul and elsewhere. Definite chair-dancing music and I particularly like how they use other musical styles (particularly reggae) to vary the mix.

https://soundcloud.com/stickybuds/ff18
And to take you home here's the Stickybuds Fractal Forest mix from the past year's Shambhala festival. In my fantasy universe where I have the money and time (and physical/mental resources) to do music festivals this one is always top of my list. I love the setlists that come from it; like this one they're deeply funk-infused and dance-encouraging.
drwex: (VNV)
I realize my frequency of posting these has dropped off dramatically. I'm... not sure what's up. I still listen to music though mostly sets from people I like and those are harder to blog, not least because I want to listen to the set at least twice for comment purposes. I have a few tracks I'll put down here first, then try to do a series of sets. Some of these individual tracks come from the aforementioned set - when I can pull out favored tracks I do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XaS93WMRQQ&feature=youtu.be
Start with this - a cover of "Zombies" from Bad Wolves. Apparently, this is the track Dolores O'Riordan was going to the studio to do when she died. Bad Wolves did the vocals themselves and released the cover in her memory. It's... brilliant. Covers can be better or worse, and this is certainly the best cover I've heard in a year or more. It's a heavy metal cover and it transposes the song exactly right into that genre, from the opening solo piano to the full crashing chorus, to the gentle drop-outs behind the emotional lyrics and the screaming guitar solo. To respect the original and build something great on top of it is fine artistry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZbeQKnmjok
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz2DZC_yPSU
That cover set me looking for others I might have missed and I turned this up. First is Lika Morgan covering "Relax", a track that gets a lot of covers. This version is from 2015 and it has a very nu-disco feel, while keeping some of the key elements of the original and adding some modern EDM tropes.

The second cover from Ms Morgan is Eurythmic's "Sweet Dreams" and also from 2015. This one feels like it's trying too hard - the same sort of nu-disco+EDM messes with the vocals a little more than I'd like. Yes, you've got the same rhythm and chord progressions, but Annie Lennox's voice does some amazing things in the original - it's one of the reasons the song was so popular - and this remix doesn't have that. (Amusing sidenote: while researching this, I discovered Lennox was awarded an OBE - neat!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMq2rFzoE3s
So, this is a thing. KAAZE featuring Elle Vee "Opera". It's a pretty standard tech-house track but with Vee rendering the kind of soaring vocals you typically get with European-style vocal trance. If you search her stuff on, say, Soundcloud, you get a selection of things she's fronted in the last year or two. They range from this "Come A Little Closer" (https://soundcloud.com/djsepofficial/sep-ft-elle-vee-come-a-little-closer-original-mix) which is a little darker, little deeper house to "Wild Ones" (https://soundcloud.com/codeblackmedia/code-black-feat-elle-vee-wild-ones) that is a completely frenetic stomp-hard track. Seems like someone worth following.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WOwRVTKJUw
Despite the age of this track I think I've never blogged it before, despite it being one of my favorite AvB numbers. "Feels So Good" is a standard dance song, not the usual trance style van Buuren is best known for. But it's just such a fun and bouncy track I keep coming back to it.

https://soundcloud.com/fortknoxfive/give-it-a-minute-ft-bcap-stickybuds-remix
And what would a music post from me be without at least SOME funk. This is Stickybuds' remix of "Give It A Minute" from Fort Knox Five. I'm sure I found FKF through Groovelectric originally, but I can't recall where I found this track - the tab has been open for a month or two. This is some killin' electro-funk with neat little scratch-dub bits thrown in.

Moo zik!

Mar. 20th, 2015 01:42 pm
drwex: (VNV)
With all the travel and such I haven't had time to listen to a lot of the stream, but I do have an assortment of tabs to close. A good helping of funk then some varied offerings.

https://soundcloud.com/father-funk/its-all-about-u
First up, Father Funk's latest piece makes me nostalgic and excited at the same time. There's so much in here - from the finger-snaps to the soul-inspired bass track - that reminds me of the early days of funk and then it's clearly built up with fuzz, electro, bits of hip-hop and other very modern things. I need a wide-brim hat.

https://soundcloud.com/stickybuds/stickybuds-featurecast-3-6-9
Stickybuds and Featurecast give us another very modern take on old themes, here using funk and do-wop stems to build up a glitchy, dubstep-influenced dance track. Totally dope and totally groovy.

https://soundcloud.com/stickybuds/toots-the-maytals-hard-to
Another entry from Stickybuds, this time a remix of a classic, "Hard to Handle". Stickybuds credit it to Toots and the Maytalls and their version is excellent (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5oANHA8wxE) but I believe the song originated with Otis Redding. Regardless, it's great source material and this remix has the trademark glitch and electro notes you heard on 3-6-9, assuming you click the links in order.

https://soundcloud.com/carlosserranomusic/nas-vs-flume-made-you-hold-on-carlos-serrano-mix
Nas was an influential rapper and hip-hop artist but I never got into his music the way I did others. Here Nas is mixed up against Flume's "Holdin On" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aynV4UOU-As) and the contrast is interesting and unobvious and it works. The Flume track is interesting itself - a skinny white kid playing obviously black gospel-influenced music - and the mash replaces most of the originals distorted vocals with Nas's raw lyrics.

--- I can't think of a clever transition from the previous track to this one so just imagine a set change happened here ---

https://soundcloud.com/armadamusic/cosmic-gate-jes-yai-here-we-go-again
Cosmic Gate has a series of vocal trance "sessions" out and if this is representative of what they're doing, I want more. It has the earmarks of great trance: high BPM, subdued but urgent, and fantastic vocals. Listen around 1:50 when she does the first "Here we go again" - it gives me spine tingles. Sadly the track doesn't feature as much vocal (or as much length) as I'd like, but you take what you can get.

https://soundcloud.com/doornrecords/sander-van-doorn-firebeatz-julian-jordan-rage-original-mix
Sander van Doorn is someone I've listened to off and on for some years. I got re-interested a couple months ago and have been trying to find that stood out from the typical house sounds. I think "Rage" fits the bill nicely. It starts off the way you'd expect, kind of pulling in various musical threads to the point where it has your attention and DROPs hard with an unashamed electro bang.
drwex: (VNV)
A couple new items appeared in the stream today prompting me to do this overdue post. We've got a couple of things you don't hear often and some long-form listening to get you over these rains (or whatever the weather is doing when you read this). There's also a lot of really good old-style funk in here.

https://soundcloud.com/dj-moule/good-love-good-rock
For a while Joan Jett was a popular remix source then she kind of fell out of favor. DJ Moule brings her back in a mash against Led Zeppelin that hovers on the edge of trainwreck but ends up holding together. This comes out of the Fissunix Whole Lotta Mix set, linked below.

https://soundcloud.com/father-funk/get-up
Father Funk gives us an old-school style of ghetto funk with this "Get Up!" remix. This track is about a year old and they've got a bunch more stuff up on Soundcloud now that I plan to check out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_bVp0S9LoA
https://soundcloud.com/slynk/stickybuds-bouncy-bouncy-slynk
Speaking of funking, it doesn't get a lot better than this. The original is at the first link: "Bouncy Bouncy" by Stickybuds & South Rakkas (featuring Rage). One of the best hard-edged electro-funk tracks I've heard since the style hit the dance floors. Lots of fuzz, some scratching, and some definite reggae influences. The second link is Slynk's remix, which is surprisingly toned down. It's a little faster and a lot more melodic, with less of the hard edge that the original has.

https://soundcloud.com/pimpdaddysupreme/bubble-bottom-girls-queen-vs
It's been WAY too long since I heard a really good "Fat Bottom Girls" remix. It's one of my favorite ignored Queen tracks. Mashing that up with Major Lazer is surprising, and it works, though I wouldn't necessarily listen to this outside of headphones at work. I know Lazer isn't to everyone's taste but I think it really works here. Fast-paced rap, Queen's harmonies, and... yeah, it's a concept I found myself grinning along with.

https://soundcloud.com/djschmolli/land-of-sonic-numbers
If you ever thought to yourself "I wonder what it would sound like if Phil Collins sang for Kraftwerk" then you are not me. Also, you're not DJ Schmolli who has produced this brilliant weave of two sources that don't get mashed approximately ever. Bonus points for choice of media samples that all us geeks will recognize.

https://soundcloud.com/reset-1/reset-x-holi-dance-festival-x-zero
RESET did this summer festival dance set and it's a pleasant surprise. It's less turbofunk than some of their previous efforts, but it's got definitely funky moments. Italy is kind of ground zero for nu disco and you can definitely catch some of those influences here but damned if this isn't some seriously great wailing horns.

http://www.djsteveboy.com/childrenoftherhythm.html
It's been a while since I linked one of DJ Steveboy's Groovelectric mixes. He's been experimenting with a lot of different styles and like any experiment there are some good and some bad. It's hard to recommend an entire set that's sort of 50-50. Steveboy also does a lot of his own mixing and alteration to the tracks he puts into his sets. You can usually pick up the originals on Beatport (and I urge you to do so - it pays the artists) but that's not necessarily going to be the exact sound that you get in the mix. Here, however, Steve has gone back to Groovelectric's "new old funk" roots and this one really rocks along.

https://soundcloud.com/fissunix/whole-lotta-mix
Fissunix has assembled ten tracks, all of which are based off of "Whole Lotta Love". There are some really good takes on this - I pulled out the Joan Jett mix above but you can sample for yourself. Of course, if you don't like the base track I advise skipping this one entirely.

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