drwex: (pogo)
Yes, it's time to unload the backlog again.

https://soundcloud.com/djschmolli/dj-schmolli-pirate-nation
First, an 11-track mash of awesome and love. DJ Schmolli's fourth "Pirate Nation" collection has ten full tracks and one demo preview that range from the very modern and electronic way back to classic rock and roll and metal. I've only had time to listen to it once so far but I think the standout for me is going to be the Ellie Goulding/Martin Solveig mash at the core of "I Like The Lights Out".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZGydDAe02M
Panic Girl's latest is a nice mix of light and almost trancey vocal-pop but with a breathy dark underside. I've seen her music described as beautiful, dark, and fragile and all seem apt in varying degrees here. She's definitely at her best when it's stripped down and just her singing with the piano.

https://soundcloud.com/nickraymondg/disco-fries-murika-free
Thissongissick has been posting a ton to Soundcloud and this electro-house banger called "Murika" by Disco Fries (https://www.myspace.com/discofriesmusic#!) is one of my favorites of the past week. It's a song with a varied profile, not the typical steady-thump of house, almost a sampler of different styles. And yes, it's got a wub middle but I find myself liking it and bopping along despite the wub. The transition at about 3 minutes in is a genius move.

http://www.mashup-industries.org/mashups/scream-shout-on-the-floor-ay-rabiosa/
I had to blog this, if only because it amused the hell out of me for its use of Dan Balan, about whom I blogged in 2010. It's a nice five-way mash from Marc Johnce, with a fun Latin dance feel. But, really, can you resist going back and re-watching "Chica Bomb" after that? I couldn't.

http://audioporncentral.com/2013/04/fab-mayday-later-1982.html
The Italians really are rolling in the nu-disco this year. This is "Later 1982" by Fab Mayday (https://soundcloud.com/fabmayday) an Italian DJ and art director for several clubs - or so says his profile. This track mixes in a fair amount of retro europop sound which gives it a bit more edge than other nu disco tracks I've heard lately. This one sounds like a club opener - the kind of thing you'd play as people are filing in - it's extensive but not intrusive, and energetic without being too high BPM.

https://soundcloud.com/nickraymondg/vicetone-vs-nico-vega-beast
Another Thissongissick premiere, this one is tonally more relaxed than the previous banger, but still pretty driven. It's labeled "progressive house" and you can definitely hear the electronic influences, but it also rolls in some very heavy drums and male vocals that sound straight out of a 1970s-era rock ensemble. It's an interesting blend of styles that comes from the artists: Vicetone are a Dutch house duo who are working here with Nico Vega (http://nicovega.com/), an LA-area hard rock indie quartet. They got some minor fame recently as their song "Beast" was used in a BioShock Infinite game trailer and apparently also in a trailer for the movie Reacher, or so says Wikipedia.
drwex: (pogo)
I've had most of this hanging around for a while, but doing these posts requires a lot of link-following and that's hard to do when on a crappy wireless and then LJ was DDOSed which makes posting tricky and I hate losing mid-post and blahblahexcusesexcuses OK enough, just listen to this. Bonus: a story at the end!

http://djsteveboy.com/groovelectric.html
DJ Steveboy's last mix of 2012 was an extremely solid deep house mix, with several tracks showing the new/old funk influences that first got me listening to Steveboy's sounds. His output last year was somewhat inconsistent and I didn't link to mixes that I thought had weak sections. This one is an hour of great background/dance/get-stuff-done mixing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDiNSyJRDhY
Beats Antique put out the video last month for their latest single, "Skeleton Key". The vid is a delightful, if slightly creepy, stop-animation cross of steampunk and Dark Crystal. The song is pretty much in their traditional instrumental vein, though with somewhat more orchestration and a richer mix than you tend to expect them to have.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q0dsG8fTHY&feature=youtu.be
http://soundcloud.com/mashupgermany/mashup-germany-top-of-the
Lots of people linked to the first one, which is DJ Earworm's traditional year-end mash-up. Frankly I'm underwhelmed. I get that he's limiting himself to the Billboard top 25 list but the whole thing feels technically proficient yet uninspired. You can hear around 0:55 he's sort of built to the peak and then it kind of limps along from there.

I vastly prefer the second link, which is Mashup Germany's year-end mega-mix. It's 33 tracks (!) and it's a much better effort. It builds slowly up to about 1:22 and then you get several treats of sliced, sped-up, and interlaced bits that you're likely to recognize if you listened to pop music in the past year and then there are little ear-teasers that leave you going "wait, what?"

http://soundcloud.com/nickraymondg/krewella-killin-it-mutrix-1
Another new-to-me find picked off the SoundCloud dashboard this chop-step remix by Thissongissick of Krewella's "Killin' It" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ9-1WD-rBA) is awesome. The original is kind of frenetic and seems unable to decide whether it's hip-hop or dubstep. The remix is like "f all that; throw some electronica in there, smooth this out, and scratch the vocals all up". It's totally stomp-dancin' good.

http://audioporncentral.com/2012/11/frail-limb-purity-bare-naked-ladies-v-porter-robinson.html
You really don't see a lot of BNL mash-ups, so this one stood out from the start. Frail Limb Purity pushes it almost over the edge but if you can make it to 1:45 the mix really takes off. It helps if you like the underlying tracks (which I do) and feel like getting up and dancing (which kind of gets me odd looks at work, but who cares).

----- Story time -----

People think I know a lot of music, but mostly I listen to a lot and look up things when I am curious about them. Sometimes, though, I forget to be curious. For over two decades I've been listening to TGU - Trans-Global Underground - and you should, too. They were one of the first to do world fusion, and they've been wild and fun and experimental and different every time. It was through TGU that I found Natacha Atlas and Fun-Da-Mental, among other things.

For a long time one of my (our) favorite tunes of theirs has been "Nile Delta Disco" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XnEP-mzv90&feature=youtube_gdata) which is a fantastic mix of jazz, swing, and African-inspired beats under some psychedelic vocals. It begins with the invocation "Hipsters, flipsters, and finger-poppin' daddies..." which amused me but I didn't think much about at the time. After all, the song's main refrain includes the line "Egyptian pharoahs fell from the sky/ fell from the sky and played the blues" and it assures us that "...the River Nile is like a disco." So, y'know.

Scroll forward to the long weekend just past in which I'm catching up on my back reading and I come across this piece on Boingboing: http://boingboing.net/2012/12/24/lord-buckley-meets-groucho-mar.html

That is Groucho Marx so you should not be drinking anything while watching it. I love all things Groucho, so I'm merrily listening along when HOLY CRAP WHAT DID HE JUST SAY?!?
Go on, listen to it, I'll wait.

Of course, I then have to search out Lord Buckley on the Web and be ashamed that I've managed to be ignorant of this corner of high American weirdness for so long. I tried to make up for it in a small way by adding this reference to his page on Wikipedia. And now I know a bit more about music and music history and how influences can travel than I did before. Maybe you do, too.

If you made it this far here's a little reward: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfgdjfgtJw4
This is Natacha Atlas and TGU doing what they did best together - song and sound and drums and oh the beauty of her voice.

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