Glasgow-based DJ/producer JD Twitch (a.k.a. Keith McIvor)—who, in addition to his solo work, also makes up half of Doubleheart and co-runs the legendary club night and label Optimo—recently helped launch a new mix series with two hours of his favorite tunes fit for 5 a.m. listening. Curated by fellow Glasgow promoters Vitamins, the Nocturne Tapes series is said to give listeners a “glimpse into the personal nighttime listening habits and the lesser-heard regions of the record collections of [each mix’s creator].” Twitch explains that his mostly beatless mix only has a few proper songs, inviting “the voices of John Balance, Holger Czukay, Robert Wyatt, Nick Cave, and Arthur Russell,” among others, all of who share a tonality fit for blending with the minimalistic textures of his more ambient-leaning selections. Twitch’s mix and accompanying Q&A can be found here.
Hotflush- and Turbo-affiliated rising star Locked Groove (a.k.a. Tim Van de Meutter)—whose latest remix premiered in today’s edition of Press Play—has announced that he’ll soon launch his own label, aptly named Locked Groove Records. Van de Meutter’s new endeavor will start out as an outlet for his own material, though he hasn’t ruled out the possibility of releasing other artists in the future. Each forthcoming release will be regulated to limited vinyl pressings, the first of which will be a new Locked Groove 12″. Though we currently have no clips or an exact release date, we do know that “Waves” b/w “Shirts Off” will drop sometime in May. (via Resident Advisor)
The Italo/boogie-influenced sounds of Dreamboat (a.k.a. Mickey de Grand IV & EDG4R) have been paired with a clip directed by Michael J. Ruiz-Unger which meshes well with the band’s nostalgic and nocturnal vibe. The black-and-white visuals are fairly light on plot and heavy on observation, following an unnamed woman around a carnival through cheesy, rickety attractions as she kills time before making a shady deal with the members of Dreamboat. “Special Kiss” is taken from the duo’s new 12″ (out now via Miami boogie outpost Cosmic Chronic), which also features one more original tune and a remix by Tom Noble.
Today, we have West Coast DJ/producer Vin Sol‘s new single for the unstoppable Unknown to the Unknown label, “Edges of a Vortex.” The undeniably energetic tune takes no time launching into a blast of spastic bird chirps and a four-to-the-floor stomp. Perhaps inspired by those songbirds, Vin Sol introduces an incessant one-note melody into his dancefloor tune, allowing it to glide along with the track’s wild percussion and zig-zagging bassline. It’s been a big week for Vin Sol, as he not only released a new solo record, but also the digital package of a collaborative EP with XLR8R columnist Nick Hook and Matrixxman, the “straight-to-the-dancefloor ghetto house and techno” sounds of I Can Feel It, which can be streamed here.
It was yet another busy week for new bits of audio and video on the internet, and Press Play is here to round up the best of it. We’ve got remixes, originals, premieres, videos, entire record streams, and more from the likes of Scuba, Locked Groove, FaltyDL, George FitzGerald, Floating Points, Hackman, Teen Daze, Ghostpoet, and Peaking Lights, among others. Take a look after the jump, and start clicking those play buttons.
Before Aus label boss Will Saul (a.k.a. Close) unleashes his debut LP via !K7 on June 3, the album’s lead single “Beam Me Up (feat. Charlene Soraia & Scuba)” can be streamed in full, along with an accompanying remix from George FitzGerald.
The man behind the Eglo label, Floating Points unveiled his jazzy “Wires” track from his imprint’s forthcoming compilation.
Today, we’re premiering the entirety of Innershades’ forthcoming That Girl EP, complete with remixes from Locked Groove and Vakula.
UK DJ/producer Hackman seems to be on quite a roll lately, and continues that streak with a remix of this new Tim Goldsworthy-produced tune by electro-pop chanteuse Little Boots.
Speaking of pop-turned-house remixes, New York’s FaltyDL dropped his version of Alice Russell’s new “Heartbreaker” single.
Check out this well-executed new video for Ghostpoet’s latest track of touching hip-hop, “Meltdown.”
Heaping psychedelia onto more psychedelia, the dub fanatics of Peaking Lights dropped a stellar remix of “Chasing the Dead” by Chrome Canyon.
The week after Vondelpark released its debut LP, Seadbed, Factory Floor has issued its angular and stripped-down version of the lush “California Analog Dream.”
Teen Daze randomly dropped a new EP this week, saying that all the money made by The House on the Mountain “will go towards my wedding budget.”
UK dance-poppers Redlight get a hefty house version of its new “Switch it Off” single by Manchester DJ/producer Paleman.
Just before Lorca’s If I Told You EP is made available digitally, the whole thing can now be streamed in its entirety.
Here’s a disturbing video for Clockwork’s “One Way Ticket” tune, one which tells the story of a man who loses his sense of smell.
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Deetron‘s Out of My Head EP is set to drop later this month via Music Man, but before then, the five-track effort—which features remixes by KiNK and George FitzGerald—can now be heard in full exclusively on XLR8R. The release is built around the Ovasoul7-featuring title track, which is said to serve as the second single from Deetron’s forthcoming LP before it appears sometime later this year. Deetron’s “Out of My Head,” in all of its current forms, can be streamed via the player below before the record officially drops on April 29.
Thanks to Frankfurt’s annual Musikmesse conferenece taking place this week, the past few days have been full of juicy gear announcements—including the unveiling of Korg’s new analog mini-synths, a new bass synth from Novation, Pioneer’s latest DJ mixer, Ninja Tune’s Ninja Jamm app, and more. Again, we’ve compiled the best of the week’s new audio toys and production news in one convenient place for the latest This Week in Music Tech.
Earlier this week, XLR8R caught up with Sandwell District affiliate Silent Servant to take a look at his San Pedro studio and ask the producer about his inventive methods. Our full interview and picture set can be found here.
Ninja Jamm, a “mixing and jamming” app that allows users to remix songs from Ninja Tunes‘ catalog, was released as a free download this week. The app supplies the separate pieces of tracks from Bonobo, Cold Cut, Amon Tobin, and others, all of which can be tweaked, chopped, and rearranged using the in-app modulators and editors. The stems for additional songs from the Ninja Tune catalog (and possibly more labels down the line) will also be available to purchase from the in-app store, and the resulting creations can be shared on Facebook, SoundCloud, Twitter, and Tumblr. The free iOS app can be downloaded here.
On Wednesday, Korg unveiled the forthcoming Volca line of analog mini-synthesizers. The three new synths—simply called Keys, Bass, and Beats—appear aimed at continuing Korg’s recent moves towards making analog synthesis portable and affordable. The Volca synths will retail for $149.99 when they hit stores in July. For more information, head here.
This week saw Pioneer unveil a new four-channel DJ mixer, the DJM-750. Slated to hit stores in June, the 750 brings with it a few fresh functions while still representing a streamlined take on professional-grade Pioneer mixers. The full details of the DJM-750 can be found here.
Novation introduced the Bass Station II earlier this week. Inspired by the original, ’90s-era Bass Station, the new unit is said to be “completely reworked for the 21st Century,” and features two analog filters, two analog oscillators (along with an additional sub oscillator), a pattern-based step sequencer and arpeggiator, and a comprehensive set of analog FX and modulation—all for the street price of around $500. Full details of the new synth, which will hit stores in June, can be found here.
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This week, Avid announced the upcoming release of Pro Tools 11, the next upgrade to its flagship audio workstation. The latest version of the DAW is said to feature a “newly designed architecture [that] turbo-charges production with more plug-in processing and the ability to run more virtual instruments.” More details can be found here, and a very comprehensive video look at the forthcoming program can be viewed here.
In addition to announcing a new version of its Lead series of synthesizer, the Lead 4, Nord also revealed the Drum 2, a six-channel “modeling percussion synthesizer,” and the Nord Pad (both pictured above). Nord itself hasn’t revealed many details for the Drum 2 unit on its own, but Create Digital Music managed to gather all the information it could find in a single comprehensive post, which can be read here.
Lastly, Ableton co-founder and CEO Gerhard Behles recently sat down with KVR Audio for an interview in which he briefly discussed the roots of Ableton Live, the Push controller, Live’s partnership with Cycling 74, and more. The full interview can be read here.
Los Angeles-based producer PHORK (a.k.a. Neal Reinalda) just sent over this cut plucked from the tracklist of his latest tape. “Undone” has a sparse, percussive beat overlaid with skittering vocal chops that repeat anxiously within the droning soundscape. PHORK, whose name is an acronym for People’s Higher Order of Royal Kinship, debuted on NNA Tapes with last year’s Discrepancies LP, and followed it up this week with “Undone” and the rest of his “surrealist techno collage,” Entertainment.
Like many of his comrades in Bristol’s Young Echo collective, Joe McGann’s work as Kahn has skipped across genres at will. In addition to garage- and dubstep-based efforts for bass-music mainstays Punch Drunk and Deep Medi, McGann has lately put his name to an exciting series of releases with his friend Neek (a.k.a. Sam Barrett), which essentially fed grime and bashment dissociative steroids. This self-titled EP ramps up those releases’ marginal vocal presence—every track here features a different vocalist—and the backdrop is considerably eerier.
It would seem that McGann is now turning his attention to the sort of calculated murkiness pioneered by the likes of Old Apparatus and the Tri Angle label. The producer is adept at conjuring these sorts of atmospherics; the EP’s tracks are blurred by reverb and underlined by crackle, but their rhythms are persistently crisp and propulsive. Unfortunately, most of his guests’ performances are not as pristine. “Prophet” and “Snake Eyes” feature dub poetry from Rider Shafique and Jabu, respectively. The commanding former opts for cryptic cod-mysticism; Shafique goes on about “apocalyptic visions” and the “age of reckoning,” yet his words are never concrete enough for these “prophecies” to make an impact. On “Snake Eyes,” Alex Rendall delivers a sort of half-rap that recalls both The Streets and so many American backpack MCs of the last decade. Although his words are delivered with a grounded seriousness, they quickly meander. The track is marginally picked up by bluesy organ and a smoothly crooned chorus, however.
McGann himself delivers the vocal on “No More.” Its mumbly melodrama is pretty trite, but he does know how to ride his own production—one wonders how a full record of similar experiments might sound. “Badman City,” with Flowdan, features the record’s most innovative production, synthesizing classic grime and foggy, ethereal dread. Although the tough veteran MC’s performance is mostly unremarkable, McGann builds him a powerful framework, which takes cues from “Wot Do U Call It?” in its strings and melds distorted square waves with unsettling vocal drones. Interestingly, the record’s best vocal performance comes via the uncredited female guest on “Cover Me.” While her counterparts drown in their wordiness, she delicately drifts between glimpses of spoken word and wordless song, as smudged strings drone below. Hers isn’t a stunning performance by any means, but it’s a suitably airy complement to the producer’s morose palette. Overall, though, the EP’s self-titling is a misnomer, as many of McGann’s best aspects are compromised in favor of his guests.
For the b-side of its recent single for This is Music, Australia’s Light Year elected to rework its own lead track into a more straightforward dub version. While the original “Bliss” takes on the form of a bass-infused house tune, the so-called “Channel 6 Dub” dives even further into the song’s house and disco roots. To its credit, Light Year stays rather true to the dub format, working with a driving bass loop whilst scattering chopped pieces of “Bliss” around the dancefloor-focused core.
