French producer Onra has taken a momentary step away from his vintage-inspired beatmaking to put together a collaborative LP of “spiritual, deep jazz” alongside fellow Parisian Buddy Sativa, who together have formed the Yatha Bhuta Jazz Combo. The outfit’s forthcoming self-titled LP houses 12 tracks of “liberating” jazz which is at times cosmic and free-flowing, bluesy and subdued at others. The pair’s collaborative debut is set to drop on April 9 in vinyl and digital formats via All City, and will be preceded by a limited 7″ in the weeks to come. In the meantime, you can check the artwork and tracklist for the upcoming Yatha Bhuta Jazz Combo below.
01 Universe Is Love 02 UFO Paradise 03 Dark Karma 04 360-> 05 The Muse Inside 06 Endangered Species 07 Honey, Hash, Rose 08 The Garden of Heavenly Delights 09 The Time is Now 10 COs (X) 11 Untitled (Afrojazz) 12 Wandering, Wondering
It’s been about 10 months since the young, Berlin-based producer Rkss had some new tunes to share. Still, it seems the budding artist hasn’t lost his step, as “Submerged”—the title track from Rkss’ new EP out today—again finds the artist mining the more experimental ends of house and techno, and coming back with another promising piece of audio. Its set of tuned chords effortlessly lead the proceedings, as a bevy of organic percussion sounds and metallic hits wrap around the steady four-on-the-floor kick below. Best yet, it all comes with just the right touch of electronic weirdness to keep listeners on their toes.
Two years after the release of his solid It Can Be Done But Only I Can Do It LP, Detroit techno mainstay Omar-S has announced the details of his latest album, scheduled to drop via the DJ/producer’s own FXHE imprint. In an interview with Juno Plus, Omar-S commented that his newest endeavor, the 14-track Thank You for Letting Me Be Myself LP, will feature 100% new material, unlike his last few releases which were collections of old productions. Though the artwork for Thank You for Letting Me Be Myself may not be revealed until it’s released on CD and vinyl formats in mid-March, you can view its tracklist below.
1. I’ll Bring U Ah Lil Sumpin Back 2. I Just Want (Mixed by Luke Hess) 3. Air Of The Day 4. Be Yoself 5. Rewind 6. The Shit Baby (CP-1 Played By D.Taylor) 7. Hellter Shelter 8. Amalthea 9. Tardigrade’s 10. Thank U 4 Letting Me Be Myself 11. Ready My Black Asz 12. Messier Sixty Eight 13. DumpsterGraves 14. Its Money In The “D”
French software and hardware designer Arturia has made its first foray into the world of apps, reworking the comapny’s highly regarded, Minimoog-modelling VST plug-in, the Mini-V, into a $10 iPad instrument called iMini. Said to use the same audio-rendering and analog-modeling technology as its VST counterpart, the iMini boasts the ability to realistically recreate the sound of the legendary ’70s Minimoog, while also being compatible with core MIDI and mappable to other controllers and devices. The iMini app can be found in the iTunes store now, and more info can be found on the new product, here. Those interested in seeing the iMini app in action can take a look at Arturia’s video tutorial/overview below.
Red Bull Music Academy continues with its H?SHTAG$ web series today, dropping a video which finds beatmakers like Flying Lotus, Shlohmo, TNGHT, and The Gaslamp Killer talking about their craft and the “beat scene” at large. What’s more: XLR8R editor Shawn Reynaldo makes an appearance in the clip, and dishes out knowledge on the way the LA-centric sound has evolved over the years. Benji B, Dorian Concept, and FLyLo collaborator Thundercat also appear, talking about the rise and near ubiquity of instrumental hip-hop. This piece follows previous episodes which focused on the genres of “post-dubstep” and “alt-R&B.” You can watch H?SHTAG$ – Don’t Call It #Beats below.
South London trio Dark Sky, who appeared in our The Art of Collaboration feature earlier this week, has a fresh record in the works for Pinch’s Tectonic label, which is set to appear in the middle of next month. “Confunktion” b/w “Double U” follows soon after the outfit’s Miriam EP for 50Weapons and its collaborative single with Breach, “The Click” b/w “The Fallout.” In an interview on Tectonic’s website, Dark Sky said of its upcoming record, “It’s quite evil. I hear that. It’s definitely aggressive, not one you’d listen to at home.” Before “Confunktion” b/w “Double U” drops on March 18, you can listen to both of its tunes below.
Deceivingly bare and slyly subtle, the stripped-down house tracks from UK producer Decyfer—whose “Hoarder” b/w “Chewed Up” single released earlier this week—rely on sneaky chords and a bit of weirdness to keep listeners intrigued. “New Surroundings” might be the producer’s most captivating production yet, as swaths of low end hold down a mantra-like synthline and fragmented chords try to break out of step with the groove. Decyfer’s latest is taken from a forthcoming compilation curated by the fledgling XVI label, entitled Imitating Life, which is due sometime next month.
Brooklyn house DJ/producer and the man behind the XLR8R Pick’d Hardcourage LP, FaltyDL has announced that he’ll be supporting James Blake on an upcoming North American tour. The string of dates is scheduled between April 23 and May 9, following FaltyDL’s European tour in March (not to mention his solid podcast for The FADER), and will see the two artists travelling from Seattle to New York, making stops in Canada and the Midwest inbetween. You can check out the full list of FaltyDL’s upcoming performances below.
FaltyDL European Tour Dates: 3.07 – London, UK – Oval Space 3.08 – Dublin, IE – Bodytonic @ Twisted Pepper 3.09 – Paris, FR – La Machine 3.14 – Amsterdam, NL – Melkweg 3.15 – Cattolica, IT – 20Hertz 3.16 – Manchester, UK – Sankeys 3.17 – Hamburg, DE – Golden Pudel Club 3.22 – London, UK – XOYO 3.23 – Berlin, DE – Gretchen
FaltyDL US Tour Dates w/ James Blake: 4.23 – Seattle, WA – Neptune 4.24 – Portland, OR – Wonder Ballroom 4.25 – Vancouver, BC – Commodore Ballroom 4.27 – Salt Lake City, UT – The Depot 4.28 – Denver, CO – Ogden Theatre 4.29 – Lawrence, KS – Liberty Hall 5.01 – Minneapolis, MN – First Avenue 5.02 – Chicago, IL – Metro 5.03 – Detroit, MI – Majestic Theatre 5.04 – Toronto, ON – Danforth Music Hall 5.06 – Montreal, QC – Metropolis 5.08 – Boston, MA – House of Blues Boston 5.09 – New York, NY – Terminal 5
Quite possibly the biggest retailer of electronic and DJ-specific music, Beatport has been sold to SFX Entertainment, the company owned and operated by Robert F.X. Sillerman which set out last year to build a billion-dollar EDM empire. As the NY Timesreports, Beatport was purchased for an estimated $50 million. Speaking on his recently acquired company, Sillerman says, “Beatport gives us direct contact with the DJs and lets us see what’s popular and what’s not.” He continues, “Most important, it gives us a massive platform for everything related to EDM.” The chief executive of Beatport, Matthew Adell, reportedly sees the sale as an opportunity to expand the online retailer’s business to include live events and reach countries “where the dance genre is exploding, like India and Brazil.” There are currently no reports as to how SFX’s purchase of Beatport will affect its current inner and outer workings.
Native Instruments certainly took its time in bringing its flagship DJ software, Traktor, to the iPad. Conceived by the same team behind the desktop Traktor, the touchscreen-centric approach brings a new perspective to the entire experience, including everything from navigating your music library to adding effects and setting loop points. It does away with virtually all skeuomorphic detritus, opting instead for a more minimalist, laser-focused approach on usability. The results, while a bit late to the table(s), are immediately playable and surprisingly robust.
How It Looks There’s nary a virtual knob to be found here, but that’s not the biggest leap made by the team behind Traktor DJ: Instead of looking at a virtual record on a virtual platter, your main means of interfacing with your music is via the waveforms of the two songs you’re mixing. There’s a crossfader and a tab system for using EQ, FX, and loop mechanics, as well as a dropdown X/Y interface for “playing” (and locking, should you so desire) individual effects. It’s all incredibly clean, dressed up slick in NI’s now-trademark black, grey, and orange color palette. It looks minimalist and feels intuitive, with hundreds of small-but-smart touches, like a popup jog wheel for tempo, and even a built-in tutorial to get you up and running.
Browsing in Traktor DJ
How It Works Traktor accesses the music directly from your iTunes library. After the initial bulk import—which can take a couple of hours for big libraries—you select a track and load it into one of two decks. You don’t need to use it, but the app has its own built-in recommendation engine, which uses tempo, key, and other metadata to determine which songs will work well with the one you’re currently playing. When you load a new track, it will auto-sync; when it’s not perfect, you can go in and adjust the beat markers to tighten things up. You can then easily surf and scrub a waveform with your fingers; setting cue points and hacking out different-sized loops is incredibly intuitive. Perhaps the most fun comes when you tap the Freeze button on one of your tracks, which lets you trigger slices of a loop quantized to the set beat grid, playing them like a you would with a sampler. (If you’re a Traktor Pro user, you’ll be happy to know that the app syncs in both directions with the desktop software; all of your imported library files, cue points, and beat grid fixes are automatically shared between the two via Dropbox.)
How It Sounds Audio was fast and pretty much artifact-free on an iPad 3, even with NI effects loaded on both tracks (you’ll need at least an iPad 2 to run Traktor DJ, and yes, it also works quite well on the iPad mini). With support for Core Audio, the app works with any class-compliant audio device via USB and the iPad Camera Connection Kit (you can use a standard issue headphone splitter cable for headphone cueing, though this limits you to mono output). Each of the eight included effects sound every bit as good as their desktop counterpart, and provide lots of room for experimentation.
Setting cue points in Traktor DJ
The Bottom Line Traktor DJ feels very much like the tablet DJ app re-imagined, at once both a back-to-basics and future-forward piece of software. It serves as a fine entry point for DJ novices looking to get their hands dirty, and the sync functionality makes it a no-brainer for seasoned Traktor Pro users (as NI’s introductory video makes clear, the company imagines it as a great tool for the DJ putting together his or her set en route to the gig). That said, it does only offer two decks (instead of four), and as expected, the software beat matches 4/4 dance music more consistently than anything else. But it’s hard to complain: There’s plenty here to keep even the most active DJs busy, and the hands-on playability makes it lots of fun to use.
