Musique Non Stop - Jazz, Funk, Soul, Broken Beat, Electro, Electronic, Funk / Nu Disco, NU Jazz, House, Techno, Ambient, Lo-Fi, Downtempo... and Many More!
From Camden by way of Congo and Cape Town the musician is following in Spoek Mathambo’s footsteps with his dark mix of 80s electro and African styles, shaped by alienation, exile and a friendship with Mos Def
Petite Noir is remembering the moment he had to choose between pop music and God. Well, kind of. Then still in his teens, and known as Yannick Ilunga, the South African musician met township tech star Spoek Mathambo at a Cape Town club. “Spoek called and asked if I wanted to record some guitar for him,” he says. “But I had church band practice the same day. So I told my worship leader I wanted to go to the studio, and she said, ‘If you leave the church for this, you never gonna come back.’”
You can guess which way he plumped by the fact that Petite Noir is now signed to Domino subsidiary Double Six (“for a crazy sum”) and is about to release a compelling debut EP. God, the 24-year-old likes to think, stuck with him anyway. But the intervening half-decade has involved a serious innocence-to-experience-style journey. “Back then I was hardly even drinking,” he says. “Now I’ve seen so much, so much, so much…” Petite Noir, as you’ll gather, can in conversation be as nebulous as his bespoke tees and baseball caps are sharp. At times he seems less to be responding to questions, more freestyling languorously over his own private beat.
Paul Morley made a startling claim in this music documentary celebrating the work of Germany’s industrial pioneers
Who’s your favourite member of Kraftwerk? It’s a question no one ever asked anyone, or should ask, or ever attempt to answer. The German pioneers of electronic music, who have been putting sound out of their Düsseldorf Kling Klang Studio for over 40 years, are like the very antithesis of 1D; assassins of the cult of personality, eternal limelight eschewers (though there is a place for neon in their world). They’re No Direction. Or – better – Every Direction, because – as the writer and professional talking-head Paul Morley says in Kraftwerk: Pop Art (BBC4) – you can hear their ghosts everywhere.
Yes, Friday is music-doc-on-BBC4 day. And this is both a tricky one and a special one. Tricky because, apart from a 1981 interview with Ralf Hütter, there’s no contribution from any member, past or present. They haven’t even put up any robots for interview.
The Silverchair singer leaves behind his heavy rock roots to release sultry R&B song with a four-track EP to follow in March
Daniel Johns has released a new song called Aerial Love, his first in eight years. It debuted on Triple J on Thursday and was released online.
It’s a soft and slow, soulful ballad, that sees Johns alternate between a sultry croon and a nicely controlled falsetto over a throbbing drum beat. Working with Johns on the song was New Zealand producer Joel Little, best known for his work with Lorde and Broods.
SANTA BARBARA! If you haven’t heard already, an all-star cast of dance music’s finest including LOUDPVCK, Djemba Djemba, AC SLATER, and Zimmer are coming to town this Saturday night (1/31), and you don’t want to miss them. Featuring a variety of bass music, house, disco, and more, the anticipated event held at the Earl Warren Showgrounds has something for all electronic music listeners to enjoy. Head over to the Facebook event for more info and/or grab your tickets on MusicIsLove.org.
In the meantime, enjoy this mix from the Night Bass don, AC Slater, to get hyped for this Saturday night.
WMC is just around the corner, and we’re already counting the days til we’re back in South Beach. To add to the excitement, we’re privileged to bring you the exclusive premiere of KANT‘s ‘Sub Man’ off Toolroom‘s forthcoming compilation MIAMI UNDERGROUND. This track goes into the depths of house and sends you jackin straight into the darkness. Deep, minimal, and reminiscent of the late nights in Miami to come, get lost in this new original from KANT – and be sure to pick it up when it drops on Feb 2nd!
Kicking off the Miami season in style, blending brand new exclusives & this year’s hottest alternative tracks from the biggest artists is ‘Miami Underground 2015′. Offering an array of fresh, underground beats from Maceo Plex, Dubfire, Sven Vath, Maya Jane Coles, Deetron, Alan Fitzpatrick, Sidney Charles, Hollen, Weiss, Dosem, Jay Lumen, Eelke Kleijn & many more, plus 14 brand new 100% exclusives from KANT, Full Intention, Kevin McKay, Ben Remember, Bluford Duck, Low Steppa, Retchordz, Mario Ochoa, Erik Hagleton & Thee Cool Cats! -Release Date: 02.02.14
We kick off Thursday with a premiere and free download from LA local duo Night Crime, who have championed a low end driven house flip of Lana Del Rey’s single “Black Beauty”. The future groove jacks while the bassline rolls along, carrying Lana’s haunting vocals all the way through. Fans of Oliver Heldens, Gorgon City and Cazzette will be all over this one – listen below and grab it while supplies last!
This week Richard D James has been flooding Soundcloud with unreleased recordings. More musicians should follow his example and explore the creative opportunities of the web
For fans of Aphex Twin, the outside world stopped on Monday when a mysterious Soundcloud user started uploading tracks purporting to be early unreleased Aphex Twin demos. Four days in and the giving continues – at current count more than 100 tracks have now been added. Who knows how many it will be by the time you’re reading this – or whether they will still even be there.
While this is symptomatic of a new move to openness by the Cornish producer – as symbolised by this truly remarkable interview from late last year, in which he shared intimate details of his recording process– it is also the latest example of a new willingness on the part of Aphex Twin to embrace digital media in very unexpected ways.
Björk’s new record, Vulnicura, is a jolt of life — real life. A richly coloured, broken eggshell glued back together, the jagged cracks still visible, belying its facade of whole.
Her reappearance is like that shift in The Wizard of Oz, when everything grey turns to vibrant, vivid jewelled tones and shimmering saturated hues. She's not just a star, but rather an entire constellation. She makes the very act of art its own organism, or as casually necessary as the reflex of breathing.
Björk’s artistry is a well documented, decades-long, sky-scraping tower of genius. Her mental landscape is an ecosystem, a branched and bundled world of moving parts. Vibrant splashes and sharply differentiated tones, gentle whispers and shattered-glass cries. Everything existing and co-existing in contrast to and in contradiction with each other.
(Illustration: Samantha Smith/CBC Music)
Björk’s is a world entirely of her own creation and she invites us inside it, presents to us these monuments of human complexity, a woman’s capacity, an artist’s worth. Curves like rounded shoulders and jagged edge collarbones, precise observations and excavations, animalistic gut instincts and bruised-heart emotional storms, lush forests and sparse moonscapes, tiny miracles and cavernous, all-consuming dreams.
The swan dress, a bones-deep, Icelandic belief in fairies and sprites — whatever real or imagined insult one tosses at Björk does nothing to negate the scope of her creativity. She doesn’t think differently because she’s an artist; rather she’s an artist because she challenges herself to think differently. She listens and looks and feels with every nerve and every synapse ready to witness, consider, absorb, reflect and react all the time.
She’s not overly precious about her art and yet this doesn’t diminish its power or importance — if anything, in acknowledging the amount of actual work and time that goes into her carefully laboured executions, Björk roots even the most fantastical and outlandish creation. She has no interest in the myth of creation; she yanks back the curtain and instead offers to show us the mechanisms of her genius, the intricacies of her wild creativity. The art is in the thinking, the utility, the manifestation and the experience.
There’s a relatively modern expression, "full of try," that has made its way around the last seven years or so, allegedly when people my age (and hipsters, yeah, fine) were allergic to effort, would rather burst into flames than be seen as working toward a goal — a slimy kind of desperation driving oneself rather than the appearance of effortlessly acquiring one’s arty/cool status. I think it’s actually the desperation that people are referring to when they describe someone as full of try: desperation to succeed, to be popular and important, to matter, to be among the cool kids and be a capital A artiste.
Lady Gaga is full of try.
Don’t get me wrong. I like Lady Gaga (I’m humming "Bad Romance" as I write this sentence). And I also think most of us are full of try in our own small ways. But I’ve thought a lot about why Gaga’s star has lost its sheen the last few years, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s at least partly due to how badly she wants to be considered an Artist. The weight of all of that desperation, her overwhelming need for approval, it’s oppressive.
Gaga’s persona feels like a construct of artifice — like she’s willfully outlandish, "shocking" and bizarre just because those were buzzwords attached to her idols, not because they are actual manifestations of her real self. It’s as if she wants to take a shortcut to those adjectives, rather than earning them as a result of — or as a reaction to — her own work. This saps Gaga’s art of that intangible feeling of authenticity.
And then there’s Björk. She’s (arguably) a niche musician, whose work may not appeal to everybody, but it’s impossible to deny her authenticity as an artist. There’s nothing about her that feels contrived. And this is a woman who has talked openly and frequently about Björk the myth versus Björk the real person. The innate clarity of her own distinction is the foundation of her authenticity; it’s why her creativity is such a multi-layered archaeological wonder, each incremental depth revealing new aspects to her artistry and her personhood.
In honour of the surprise release of Vulnicura (sped up by two months because it leaked online), it seems like a great time to reflect on the Icelandic artist, her non-stop creative evolution and almost four decades in music.
Click through the gallery above to help us celebrate the artistic genius of Björk: innovator, feminist, reluctant icon, avant-garde mad woman.
Superstar DJ will also be ‘music consultant’ to the Hakkasan group, as the big casinos unveil scores of attractions for the coming year
Calvin Harris has become the latest star to sign an extended deal to provide entertainment to Las Vegas gamblers. The EDM superstar has agreed an exclusive three-year partnership with the Hakkasan group, under which he will act as music consultant and extend the residencies he already holds in he city.
He will be a resident DJ at Hakkasan nightclub and Wet Republic at the MGM Grand hotel and casino, and at Omnia nightclub, which will open at Caesar’s Palace later this year. As music consultant to the Hakkasan Group, reports Billboard, he will “help guide its expansion from restaurants and nightclubs into the hotel space”.
Indie electronica, hipster R&B and other cross-genre mash-ups abound as Laneway festival tours a host of local and international stars around the country
St Jerome’s Laneway festival has already kicked off (26 January – 8 February), bringing with it a host of hip, zeitgeisty acts around the country. Here are five artists you should have circled on your schedule.
The nominees for the 2015 Juno Awards were announced in Toronto today. Magic! leads the pack with five nominations (fan choice, single of the year, breakthrough group of the year, songwriter of the year and pop album of the year), while Kiesza and Leonard Cohen have four each. Here are the nominees for major categories:
Artist of the year
Bryan Adams
Deadmau5
Leonard Cohen
Sarah McLachlan
The Weekend
Group of the year
Arkells
Chromeo
Mother Mother
Nickleback
You+Me
International artist of the year
Katy Perry
Lorde
One Direction
Sam Smith
Taylor Swift
Single of the year
"We Are All in This Together," Sam Roberts Band
"Hold On, We're Going Home," Drake featuring Majid Jordan
"Hideaway," Kiesza
"Crazy for You," Hedley
"Rude," Magic!
Album of the year
Serge Fiori, Serge Fiori
No Fixed Address, Nickelback
Wild Life, Hedley
Popular Problems, Leonard Cohen
Where I Belong, Bobby Bazini
Breakthrough artist of the year
Kiesza
Glenn Morrison
Jess Moskaluke
Mac DeMarco
Shawn Mendes
Breakthrough group of the year
Magic!
Adventure Club
USS
Alvvays
Zeds Dead
Alternative album of the year
Alvvays, Alvvays
Shrink Dust, Chad VanGaalen
July Talk, July Talk
Animism, Tanya Tagaq
Hot Dreams, Timber Timbre
To check out the rest of the nominees, go to the official Juno page. The 2015 Juno Awards will take place in Hamilton on March 15.
What do you think of these nominations? Who do you think will win? Who do you think should have made the list but didn't? Let us know in the comments or tweet us @cbcradio3.
The nominees for the 2015 Juno Awards were announced in Toronto today. Magic! leads the pack with five nominations (fan choice, single of the year, breakthrough group of the year, songwriter of the year and pop album of the year), while Kiesza and Leonard Cohen have four each. Here are the nominees for major categories:
Artist of the year
Bryan Adams
Deadmau5
Leonard Cohen
Sarah McLachlan
The Weekend
Group of the year
Arkells
Chromeo
Mother Mother
Nickleback
You+Me
International artist of the year
Katy Perry
Lorde
One Direction
Sam Smith
Taylor Swift
Single of the year
"We Are All in This Together," Sam Roberts Band
"Hold On, We're Going Home," Drake featuring Majid Jordan
"Hideaway," Kiesza
"Crazy for You," Hedley
"Rude," Magic!
Album of the year
Serge Fiori, Serge Fiori
No Fixed Address, Nickelback
Wild Life, Hedley
Popular Problems, Leonard Cohen
Breakthrough artist of the year
Kiesza
Glenn Morrison
Jess Moskaluke
Mac DeMarco
Shawn Mendes
Breakthrough group of the year
Magic!
Adventure Club
USS
Alvvays
Zeds Dead
To check out the rest of the nominees, go to the official Juno page. The 2015 Juno Awards will take place in Hamilton on March 15.
Pioneer of electronic music and founder of the Berlin-based band Tangerine Dream
Edgar Froese, who has died aged 70, was the founder and mastermind of the Berlin-based band Tangerine Dream, a prolific solo artist, and one of the most influential pioneers of electronic music. That term, however, was one that Froese rejected. “We don’t like what we do to be called ‘electronic music’,” he insisted. “We are people making music, not machines. We are writing songs and compositions and then translate them with synthesizers ... but also other instruments.”
This philosophy would enable Tangerine Dream to encompass various kinds of classical, avant-garde and minimalist influences within their music as well as heavy rock and ambient atmospheres, and it set Froese and Tangerine Dream apart from other “Krautrock” bands such as Neu! or Kraftwerk, whose so-called “motorik” beats emphasised machine-like repetition. Froese’s versatility and artistic inquisitiveness drove Tangerine Dream to create more than 100 studio albums; his catalogue of more than 20 solo albums included Macula Transfer (1976), Stuntman (1979), Kamikaze 1989) and the four-volume series Ambient Highway (2003).
From Björk’s heartbreaking return to the Charlatans’ latest, stream new releases out this week and let us know what you’ll be listening to
Why you should listen: After the death of drummer Jon Brookes in 2013 from a brain tumour, the Madchester-affiliated four-piece return with a soulful, and at times cheerfully arranged, album.
Over the past year, the gifted vocalist, Mark Johns, has been making quite a name for herself, showcasing her pipes on handful of jams from her Moving Castle squad and more. For her latest effort, she’s teamed up with Australia’s bass music specialist, Sable, for a chilled-out cover of “Ni**as In Paris” by Jay-Z and Kanye West. If her music thus far is any indication, Mark Johns is set for future success, so have a listen and keep her locked.
When you start naming the greatest Canadian musical acts of the late '80s and early '90s, we understand why you'd be hesitant to stick the Kids in the Hall in there with Sloan and Weeping Tile — but we'd like you to reconsider. Many of the Kids' greatest sketches centered on music, and they actually produced some remarkably catchy tunes, even if the lyrics were jokes. (Admit it, you've caught yourself singing "Terriers" under your breath more than once.)
Since Bruce McCulloch's new show Young Drunk Punk made its debut this week — and since it's cold and grey and horrible out and we need a laugh — we decided to take a look at the Kids' greatest musical hits.
Just months after Syro, Richard D James has released an EP. Just don’t expect to be thrilled by it
In 2014, Aphex Twin returned after 13 years with Syro, a collection of acid tracks whose pH had been increased with the bicarbonate of middle age. Now with this new EP, just four months later, he’s emptying out more of the archive he has amassed over the long gap between releases, and it’s even less vital.
Syro had plenty of fans – Guardian critics collectively voted it the fourth best LP of 2014 – but I wasn’t really one of them. James’s masterpieces are among the greatest electronic music ever made (and in the case of Windowlicker the actual greatest) – works of staggering expressionist beauty full of love, sex and violence. Those were times when he had something to hurl into the world. Syro, on the other hand, is a very cute presentation of highly advanced production, made because he can. Its sheer richness and craft was enough to propel it along though, which is more than can be said for this EP.
Troyka’s last album, Live at Cheltenham Jazz Festival, spliced this British jazz/electronica group’s take-no-prisoners fusion approach with the sound of a big band. But Ornithophobia represents the trio at their most unbuttoned and sometimes their most lyrical. They stir together prog-rock clamours, thrash-jazz, blues, minimalism and a cauldron of other volatile ingredients. The album, enclosed in Spanish comic artist Naiel Ibarrola’s surreal artwork, can be pulsatingly mellow, rippling with Kit Downes’s soft keys lines, then veer off into Zappa-like melodies and thumping electric blues. Spacious movie-soundtrack swoops are accompanied by hip-hop beats, and there are almost motionless stretches of Hammond organ minimalism, mood-music that turns to heavy rock, or spacious reveries like the seductive finale, Seahouses. The title track, inspired by guitarist Chris Montague’s fear of birds, joins jagged figures, weird Latin grooves, murmurs of synth-strings and guitar-hero sprints. Produced by Django Bates collaborator Petter Eldh, Ornithophobia is Troyka’s best album to date, and a kaleidoscopic series of impressions of how fast they’re moving on.
The Icelandic musician spoke about gender double standards and making new album Vulnicura, in a Pitchfork Review interview
For those keeping a tally of female musician’s statements on feminism, there’s another set of quotes to add. Musician and producer Björk has spoken candidly about gender and authorship in music, claiming that she initially struggled to get credit for her musical ideas.
“After being the only girl in bands for 10 years, I learned – the hard way – that if I was going to get my ideas through, I was going to have to pretend that they – men – had the ideas,” she said, in an interview due to be published in the Pitchfork Review at the end of next month.
The Barcelona festival has announced its full line-up, with Sleater-Kinney, Interpol and Alt-J also set to join the bill
Festival Primavera Sound has announced the full line-up for its 15th edition, with Patti Smith, the Black Keys, the Replacements and several more acts booked for the three-day event.
The line-up was revealed via a mobile app – Line-App, for pun fans – in the form of a video game. 1990s shoegaze band Ride and New York indie five-piece the Strokes were among acts previously rumoured to be playing the festival, after huge banners displaying their names were unveiled in Barcelona.
This Nottingham mother’s minimalist songs are an island of restraint amid current overblown mainstream pop. And she’s a dab hand at a masturbation metaphor
You might have heard Indiana’s single Solo Dancing last year. It made the top 20 and got played on BBC Radio 1. Moreover, it stood out by dint of being understated in an era when most mainstream pop stars seem to think subtlety is a village in Languedoc that’s had a lot of one-star reviews on TripAdvisor – I might have heard of it, but I’m certainly never going there. While the rest of the singles chart was either frantically grinning and doing jazz hands inches away from your face, or theatrically boo-hooing its way through ballads, Solo Dancing glowered in the shadows. It offered a tense, electronic pulse, topped off with a murmured vocal. The lyrics, depending on your interpretation, were either the negative image of Robyn’s Dancing on My Own – in which the titular activity was symbolic not of heartbreak, but empowerment and self-reliance – or were fit to join the the pantheon of songs about masturbation, which includes the Who’s Pictures of Lily, Cyndi Lauper’s She Bop and Kevin “Bloody” Wilson’s I Gave Up Wanking. A certain amount of grist was given to the latter theory’s mill by the video, which featured the singer literally flicking a bean, beating some meat and choking a chicken.
If that seemed intriguing, then so did the woman behind it. Amid the fresh-faced Brit School alumni and squeaky graduates from The X Factor, Indiana (AKA Lauren Henson) is a 27-year-old mother of two from Nottingham with a fondness for Gary Numan and Joanna Newsom.
Guy and Howard Lawrence respond to accusations by songwriter Katie Farrah Sopher, who claims that Disclosure and guest vocalists Sam Smith, Eliza Doolittle and AlunaGeorge used words from a stolen songbook
Earlier this week, Disclosure and their collaborators were accused by songwriter Katie Farrah Sopher of using stolen lyrics in a number of their tracks. The electronic duo, brothers Guy and Howard Lawrence, have responded, asserting that the allegations are “completely false”.
Sopher alleged that in 2009, her ex-boyfriend Sean Sawyers stole her songbook and sold its lyrics to music-industry contacts. She claims that Disclosure’s White Noise, Latch and You & Me feature words taken from her personal songbook, and is asking for £200,000 in damages for the tracks, according to legal documents obtained by the Mail on Sunday.
Firstly we want to make it very clear that every Disclosure song we have put our names to has been written by us. We sometimes write lyrics and melodies alongside whoever the featured singer may be (i.e. Sam, Eliza etc) and the great Mr. Jimmy Napes, but that is it. When we do, we always make sure everyone gets proper credit. We take great pride in our self-sufficiency, our work and the way we work, and it’s incredibly frustrating when someone tries to take that away from us, by claiming we stole even one word or one note of our music from anyone.
Australia’s music industry judges have selected nine albums to win, including Chet Faker’s Built on Glass and CW Stoneking’s Gon’ Boogaloo
Nine albums have been shortlisted for the 10th annual Australian music prize (AMP), which will award $30,000 in prize money to the winner.
More than two dozen industry judges selected the shortlist from a longer list of 300 albums. Chet Faker’s Built On Glass, REMI’s Raw X Infinity and the self-titled album by Laura Jean are among those making the cut.
US company plans to hand-build a limited run of three large-format synthesisers first released in 1973 - with price tags ranging from $10,000 to $35,000
Moroder. Kraftwerk. Numan. Without Moog, chances are that none of these artists would have their place in the music hall of fame.
Half a century after Dr Robert Moog unleashed his first synthesiser on the world, Moog Music has announced plans to release a limited run of its three most sought-after large format, modular synthesisers: the System 55, the System 35 and the Model 15.
From the debauchery of Faux Mo to a Syrian wedding singer turned electro superstar, the Guardian Australia team pick their festival highs and lows
Hobart’s seventh Mona Foma (Mofo) festival ended, at least for me, around 2am on an arctic Monday morning in the Odeon theatre at one of the festival’s now legendary Faux Mo parties. Occupying an enormous block every night of the festival, the parties appear to be designed by and for someone on LSD.
Entering through a slit in some fabric, it felt like a birthing suite: people lying on the ground murmuring mantras and ambient synth playing, punctured by screams. In a confused moshpit, a weird liturgical dance troupe wearing only strips of black tape wound its way through the crowd (a mixture of art school types and pissed Hobart teens).
Is he taking us forward or back? Adam Bainbridge’s modern pop incorporates proto-house, classic R&B, disco and more, even as he hides behind collaborators like Robyn and Dev Hynes
As Marmite musicians go, Kindness, AKA Peterborough-born pop dude Adam Bainbridge, divides people more than most. His two albums, 2012’s World, You Need a Change of Mind and last year’s Otherness, have been criticised for their almost scholarly homages to classic R&B, early disco, proto-house, acid jazz and go-go (the list goes on …). But his champions say these contribute to his complex style of modern pop, rehashing the building blocks started by producers such as Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and Babyface into something quirky and new.
No matter where you stand, you can’t dispute Bainbridge’s ambition. It’s no coincidence that his headline London show is at the Electric Brixton, formerly the Fridge, the club where British R&B group Soul II Soul hosted their legendary nights in the early 90s. Their influence is all over Otherness. Recreating that vibe brilliantly, he’s joined by a 10-piece band – including, at one point, three drummers – and special guests crop up throughout the set, including frequent collaborator Dev Hynes (AKA Blood Orange), pop iconoclast Robyn, Gabriel Stebbing from Night Works and Brit School alumni Tawiah. The effect is more a carefully curated revue than a pop-star performance, though at times it means Bainbridge appears like a spectator, or reluctant participant, in his own songs. He lets his three more accomplished backing vocalists take centre stage, cowers awkwardly behind Hynes, or hides up at the back with a tambourine.
Our weekly roundup of online music news, with Noel Gallagher’s choice words for Sleaford Mods, white males sweeping the Brits and more
Frankly, that’s quite a broad sweep of disdain to harbour, from Sheeran’s relentlessly unprovocative guitar pop to Sleaford Mods’ shouty soliloquys set to song. In any case, Gallagher made his thoughts on both acts clear, in an NME interview: “They’re like fucking Brown Bottle in Viz,” he said of the Mods’ Jason Williamson and Andrew Robert Lindsay Fearn. “There’s no joy in that, is there? It’s just two guys, one clearly mentally ill, who’s just shouting like Brown Bottle about fucking cider and fucking shit chicken.” Right.
Lupe fiasco came at me so I fired back, I'm a girl who stands up for herself and yall mad.
¡¡ ladies and gentlemen !! i am very proud to announce my new album is coming out in march it is called : vulnicura http://ift.tt/17FKqlo
To kick off 2015, Wax Motif gives up a new original called ‘Since I Left You.’ This one takes us into disco/electro overdrive with a big synth lead, a fat kick and the melodic aid of a classic Brandy vocal. Fans of Alex Metric, Oliver and Grum will be all over this one, and it comes with an interesting back story from the Wax-man himself:
“So this is a track I did almost over a year ago now. It was during a really difficult time for me as I was new in America and my ex and I had just split up. I was just crashing out on people couches or guestrooms, whoever would have me, while I tried to figure out if I was gonna even keep going with music. It was a Friday night and I really didn’t feel like going out and my friend who I was crashing with had a studio so I sparked one up and this is where ‘Since I Left You’ was born.”
The dubstep originator turned pan-genre jockey empties the contents of his psychic record bag
It’s more of a melodic soundscape piece with no drums. It’s the piece to reset the vibes so it means I can really build the dynamics of my set from there.
Press play: now name your top tracks about poker hands to Xbox adventures, survival strategies or chess moves, all in the devious games of love and life
Hello. And congratulations for clicking the link that has brought you here. You have now entered a game. The game is known as Readers Recommend.
RR is a game which, at the same time, isn’t a game. But it is certainly playful. But even if a game, it is certainly like no other. Why? Because simply by entering the game of RR, you have already won. The more you enter and take part, the more there is to discover, the more fun there is to have, and so the more you win. There aren’t rules, as much as guidelines. So then, first, some general ones, particularly handy for new players:
“If Pac-Man had affected us as kids, we’d all be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive electronic music.”
Wally De Backer and the Talking Heads legend in conversation about remarkable Nigerian synth pioneer William Onyeabor, whose music will be reborn for two nights at the Enmore, Sydney in the Atomic Bomb! tribute, featuring Luke Jenner of the Rapture, Pat Mahoney of LCD Soundsystem and the Mahotella Queens Continue reading...
by Guardian Staff via Electronic music | The Guardian
The artist and composer on getting music out of stones, building palaces out of paper, training insects as a string quartet and why art is 49% problem-solving
In 2003, Mira Calix premiered her groundbreaking musical composition Nunu in London. On stage at the Royal Festival Hall were an orchestra (no surprises there), Calix (playing electronics), and then the insects – both live and recorded. The piece revolved around wasps. Calix used them like a string quartet.
Their songs were taped in an anechoic chamber at the Natural History Museum of Geneva. In this vault, which is free of echo, Calix sourced the kind of sounds that human beings are normally unable to pick up. She expounds wide-eyed: “I heard amazing things like ants walking or moths coming up out of their pulps.”
Nordrhein-Westfalen is the place that the Grandbrothers call home, and it sounds every bit as obscure as the music that they make. Focused primarily on instrumental driven compositions, these two have stumbled upon a sound to call their own. A sound that FILM (Future Is Listening Music) Records in Berlin has enjoyed enough to help the duo release their debut 12 track LP, Dilation. Unclassifiable – yet full of class, this elegant arrangement exudes a flair for life with syncopated minimalist percussive loops complete with rim shots and well placed kicks as layers of piano and background noise swell with lead strings. It’s truly something else.. have a listen.
For Canadian-born, London-based artist Caribou — aka Dan Snaith — life over the last few years has been "incredible," and he wanted to say thanks.
But instead of sending out flowers and thank you cards, Snaith is giving music fans one of their very favourite gifts: a mixtape.
This isn't just any mixtape, however; it's a sprawling, 1,000-song mix that runs the gamut from Nina Simone to My Bloody Valentine to Four Tet, and from Kanye West to Serge Gainsbourg to Kraftwerk.
"As you can imagine, music has been a central love of my life since I was a teenager and over the years I've been introduced to a lot that has stayed with me. I've collected the majority of that music here – and I thought sharing it with you seemed like one way I could say thanks," writes Snaith in a Facebook post.
"I'm sure some things are under-represented or over-represented, but roughly speaking this is a musical history of my life."
Snaith recommends that people listen to the mix on shuffle, as he did not order it in any way. He also invites followers to share music they like "in the hope this becomes a dialogue rather than a monologue."
Note that if you listen via the embedded player, you will only get the first 200 tracks, as YouTube has a 200-track limit. But you can access all 1,000 tracks here.
The Prodigy have announced details of their new album, The Day is My Enemy. Described by Liam Howlett as “an attack”, their first album since 2009’s Invaders Must Die is due for release on 30 March via the band’s own label Take Me To The Hospital.
The Braintree group, whose sound is known for its fast and furious blend of debauched electronics, drum‘n’bass and punk, said that their new material is still imbued in a sense of aggression.
It’s official – my Holy Ship! cherry has been popped. Three days on the 4th largest cruise liner in the world with some of dance music’s most devoted attendees was one for the record books (now I do it all again in February). It’s pretty incredible to be in such close quarters with some of the most talented DJ’s around the globe, and I think this shared connection allowed for a lot of risks on the turntables, that, or the expected three sets from each performer willed them to dig deep into their collection. Either way, the music was incredible, as was the setting and the vibe. So swell in fact, I’ve put together my Top 10 Tracks as heard on Holy Ship! 2015 (January Sailing).
#10 Flume
Flume was slotted for the sail away set – meaning as soon as the boat took off he would be the first artist to set the vibe. A hefty assignment, FOR sure. With everybody all ears and antsy on the pool deck as Miami was fading from eyesight, Flume went with the perfect throwback.
#9 Boys Noize b2b Djedjotronic
On the flip side – the last song of the ship is equally as important. Sealing the deal on a successful sailing with the perfect 1-2 punch was Boys Noize and Djedjotronic with the wicked combination of “Sweet Dreams” and “Club Going Up On A Tuesday.” Talk about coming out of left field, and I really don’t even like that Makonnen cut.. but there is something about just having gone 72 hours straight on this boat and the time switching over to Tuesday AM and watching these two dudes duke it out and close with that track. A fitting farewell.
#8 DJ Falcon:
If you don’t get excited any time you see DJ Falcon’s name on a bill, you’re doing it wrong. The dude is a legend, and he never disappoints. Night 2 in the Galaxy Disco for the Boys Noize Records party was a pretty tumultuous evening for the ocean. Major swells were rocking the boat semi-viciously from side to side and the whole crowd responded to the ebbs and flows with the electric slide. Big moment.. and the tune to accompany said second in time?
#7 Annie Mac
First time catching this iconic DJ and she happened to be hosting her own party (Brits Aboard) in the Galaxy Disco. Besides being one of the most bad ass chicks behind the decks, she picks a mean MP3. After a scorching set that had the whole crowd on their toes she hopped on the mic to say, “I know it doesn’t really fit but it’s one of my favorite songs of all time and I have to play it.” Those who caught her set on the Pool Deck on day three may have also heard it again, but no time was more fitting than the packed house in the Galaxy Disco.
#6 GRiZ
GRiZ is da biz. Every time I see this guy wailing on his Sax onstage I am left with my jaw on the floor. Add to the fact that he is mixing a set and working the crowd over in the mean time is other worldly, and the fans know it. They were pouring into the Pantheon Theater all set until they were spilling over the balcony to catch one of the last sets of the ship. The big standout moment for me, though, was when he hopped on that new Mark Ronson tip and rinsed the new single “Uptown Funk” (my current theme song) complete with his own rendition with a scorching Saxophone solo. Mark Ronson better get at this guy for a remix because I had to drop everything to do a little jig.
#5 Justin Martin
The most beloved member of the Ship Fam had a little surprise in store for the pool deck on the final night, a surprise that included a 2 hour extended b2b set with Guy from Disclosure. OOF. With an extensive Dirtybird Discography, I was ready for some major heaters from the funky SF house label. My prayers were answered with the Eats Everything Re-Beef of Tiga’s “Let’s Go Dancing.” A v rare tune that can’t be found anywhere and had only been heard once by myself prior to this moment, and that was from Eats himself. You can’t really follow up with much after this, it’s THAT big.
#4 What So Not
Emoh Instead? Emoh always. This guy is the realest. Wanna know how I know he is the realest? Because he is the only person I have ever heard drop this in a set. Major swoons..
#3 Guy (Disclosure)
I was pretty astounded at Guy’s DJ abilities. Not that I thought he was going to be bad, it was more in the depth of song selection that took me by surprise. This Fatima Yamaha jam had me whip out Shazaam to get these ducks in order in what was my only Shazaam of the weekend. Big ups Guy, you went in..
#2 Busy P
If Busy P ever needed another career, I think he would do quite well in the stand up comedy world. The dude had everybody busting up on the Pool Deck where he rung in the third day with an early set ripe with classic rock and throwback jams that had everybody dancing with their fist in the air and drink in the other. By far his greatest moment was when he hopped on the mic and said, “So you all like deep house, yah? How about some deep purple?” Then went straight into..
#1 Armand Van Helden
A private island filled with the entire ship and Armand Van Helden going back to back with Guy from a prop Pirate Ship, crystal clear waters, white sand beaches, everybody was on that turnup. Anything they played would have been a hit, the vibe could not be diminished, but it reached it’s peak when Armand went old school with his library and dropped this classic gem.
Quality not quantity. That’s been the subtle motto of 21-year-old producer, Durante, who defined his sound in 2014 with the original production, “Slow Burn,” racking up over a million listens after premiering on YouTube giant, The Sound You Need. He followed that with an official remix for London songstress, Laurel, once again laying down his pleasantly delicate touch for a beachy, House take on the original that became an instant favorite of 2014.
Now, in his third outing, Durante goes for a perfect 3/3 with new original, “Full Moon.” Snagging inspiration from House legend Kerri Chandler, the youthful producer puts his old soul on display in the club-ready record. Where “Slow Burn” and his remix of “Shells” exhibited Durante’s ability to make tunes for the sunshine, “Full Moon” highlights the nocturnal side of his skillful production and is fully aimed at dimly lit, peak time play.
Listen first below and get more of Durante on Soundcloud. √+
Stream new albums, from Liam Hayes’ upbeat rock to Joyce Moreno’s jazz, and let us know what you’ll be listening to
Why you should listen: Animal Collective co-founder Noah Lennox offers up squelching synths and reverb-drenched songs that ought to still please fans of his past solo work. See how well the album, which premiered track-by-track on radio stations across the globe, shapes up as a cohesive whole.
There’s a glossy quality to this debut from London-based electronics whiz James Greenwood: every track has been polished to such a high lustre, and the 24-year-old’s softly-spoken vocals are delivered with such composure, that a little bit of messiness here and there wouldn’t go amiss. The pleasure, and it’s considerable, is in the detail. Greenwood has woven an intricate tapestry of bleeps, acid squelches and melancholy synths, but he’s hidden the threads: tracks such as Lucky are more layered and complex than they initially appear. It takes a lot of skill to make something this painstaking sound so smooth.
I was asked. How do I put this delicately? That island mentality of sailors getting on their boats, going off to find new lands and coming back with the good news is fairly embedded in Australian culture. I feel like I’ve been away for a very, very, very long time, but from another point of view, I left yesterday. I’m not really sure what the expectation is there or what it means. But I’m looking forward to it.
