The fight for diverse and conscious voices

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.

Don't worry, I promise I'll explain that title. Most of what I've been listening to these days are longer mixes and sets, so there are only a few URLs here but a lot of hours of listening pleasure.

http://www.djsteveboy.com/groovelectric.html
DJ Steveboy's latest is "Oblivion Express." It's another drone mix, which means it's less bouncy and more spacey/cerebral than the usual stuff from him. I'm not a huge fan of his drone mixes, but this is great background music for work or study where you really need to concentrate on what you're doing and not be bouncing around too much in your seat.

http://www.mashup-industries.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=357&Itemid=36
Mashup Industries is hosting two good sets from KrazyBen. In these sets he has included 40 different tracks from the pure.fm November compilation, remixed by him. Also on the page are four links to his own mashes, all of which are quite good.

As you'd expect from a 40-track set there's a lot of variety here, but most of it carries a signature slower tempo and somewhat downtempo feel. He also mixes sources I don't usually hear, which is very nice. All four of his mixes are top-notch and you can download those directly via the separate links. I also wanted to pull out two tracks that give you a feel for the range here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXlHQokybrg
I'm quite fond of the Editors' "You Don't Know Love" and here the Cagedbaby remix pumps up the fuzz and funky base-line without messing up the silky noire voicings that make the original so great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P8DtOlAH7s
This is the Venaccio Remix of Jónsi's "Go Do" and I confess I'd heard of neither before this. Here's the official video for the song - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYb2Q3DvLNE - but it doesn't do much for me. Near-falsetto male vocal isn't a big thing for me. What Venaccio (http://www.myspace.com/venaccio) has done is tone down the highs, lay on a fast house beat track, and generally fit it into standard electro-house style with cuts and dubs.

http://www.theglitchmob.com/music/drinkthesea-theremixes/
The Glitch Mob have put out a big, beautiful, luscious 24-track remix sampler in two parts. Using material from their "Drink the Sea" album this two-volume collection brings in a different remixer on every track. To my great surprise, the collection is much more unified in sound and feel than you'd expect from that description. For one thing - in keeping with the theme of this posting - most of the tracks are down-tempo, slower and pay at least a nod to dubstep if not being actual dubstep themselves. Even the included remix of "Drive It Like You Stole It" - the track that drew over 100 remix entries in their contest last year - is downtempo.

Since dubstep seems to be the theme here (and may be the hot new things for club tracks in 2011, we shall see) I sent a link to http://soundcloud.com/theglitchmob/between-two-points-spl-remix - the dubstep remix of "Between Two Points" which I love for its torch-singa vocal quality to a friend of mine. He replied that he found it good, and dubstep good in general, because the sound is sparse and leaves him (a musician) space to fill in his own stuff, as he says, "oontzing and beeping" along with the track.

So, you see, oontz is totally a verb.