Since the folks at Ableton recently released the format of their Live instruments to third-party sound artists, a slew of these Partner Instruments have been popping up for sale on the Ableton website. Now, in a generous turn, the company is offering its Partner Instruments Compilation to users of its music-making/performing program for absolutely free. The downloadable pack is a gigabyte-or-so’s worth of content taken from the whole of the Partner Instruments that includes 58 instrument racks, 16 drum racks, five live sets, and 80 live clips, and is available here. Additionally, Ableton is offering a free pack of inspirational and instructional goodies made exclusively for the program by a handful of Minus artists. Click Box, Hobo, Heartthrob & Troy Pierce, Magda, Marc Houle, Fabrizio Maurizi, Barem, Ambivalent, JPLS, and Gaiser all contributed live sets and corresponding lessons to the package, which you can download here.
London grime producer and Planet Mu/Butterz/Hyperdub acolyte Terror Danjah may not be as widely known as, say, Wiley, but he’s certainly just as generous. Just as the eccentric Eskiboy hooked up a load of his music for free download via Twitter, Danjah delivered a link to download a supposedly brand-new album on his Twitter profile. The free record, entitled Shock to the System, follows three releases the prolific producer dropped this year: the Acid/Pro Plus 12″ for Hyperdub, the Bipolar EP on Butterz, and the Power Grid EP that dropped July 12 on Planet Mu. Snag the latest from Terror Danjah here.
We reported on news of an upcoming series of EPs coming from Blunted Robots co-conspirator Shortstuff just over a week ago, and now, thanks to FACT, we’ve got a chance to stream The Summer of Shortstuff. The release, which is set to drop early August via Ramp, features six original tunes from the DJ/producer, along with one extra track on the digital release. All seven frenetic, shuffling, bass-encumbered future-house tracks are included in the player below, with Summer‘s artwork, as well.
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Thanks to the blogosphere’s usual bang-up music journalism, it’s unclear whether Christopher Laufman (a.k.a. Wise Blood) hails from Houston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, or Mars. Regardless, his ‘+’ EP, from which “STRT SRNS” is taken and which also happens to be available for free download, shows real promise. Well, as much promise as any other lo-fi bedroom project these days that perilously skates the line between musical genius and happy accident. With his off-kilter vocals and heavily echoed drum beats, all wrapped in the requisite layer of hazy fuzz, Wise Blood is definitely borrowing from the Animal Collective playbook, but the melody here has a bit of a tropical R&B bent. Jeez, how many more 2010 music buzz words can we cram into this blurb? Was Wise Blood created in some kind of a lab as the perfect marketing tool for targeting upwardly mobile urban tastemakers and thought leaders? Hmmm… we can’t rule it out. Let’s just say that yes, we like this, but we kind of hate ourselves for liking it. (via Pitchfork via Delicious Scopitone)
Marco Niemerski, the Hamburg, Germany native known musically as Tensnake, doesn’t mind when people point out his influences—he is, indeed, trying to make his music sound like the records he loves. “I get really excited when I come close to a point where it sounds like that,” he says, and this excitement translates viscerally into the irrepressible joy that his tracks evoke on the dancefloor.
Niemerski’s work isn’t exactly pop, but the immediacy of what he does is just as important to him as the level of craft. This partly explains why there’s no Tensnake album quite yet. At the time of our phone conversation, the affable Niemerski is at home between gigs, soon to complete the last remix he has slated for the year. Until now, he’s preferred to release EPs and 12-inches, citing the speed of expression that those formats allow. An album will come—he’s worked at it before—but he’s too much of a perfectionist to hurry it. “I have to restart again and get some inspiration first,” he explains. “I’ll wait until I feel it’s the right time to do it.”
One can’t fault him for working at his own pace—his quality control to date has been impeccable. Recreating and reimagining the old, but never recycling wholesale, the Tensnake singles and EPs of the last few years are a happy confluence of warm, vintage disco, boogie, and house sounds filtered through a Larry Levan-like lens of funky eclecticism. That said, Niemerski doesn’t self-identify as a DJ. “I used to DJ some years ago, then I quit,” he says with a laugh. “There are so many good DJs out there… I don’t think the world needs another one.”
Even as a producer, Tensnake shuns the idea of playing others’ sounds. For instance, it’ll occasionally seem like he has employed, say, a keyboard sample from a classic ’80s house track, but it’s nearly always a sound that he has generated himself. “If you’re using samples in a creative way, that’s fine, but playing everything and making it sound like a sample is more interesting to me,” he explains. This process of reshaping his favorite records’ sounds has lately resulted in Coma Cat, an EP that feels fresh yet bears few marks of the present. “Need Your Lovin” has the nostalgic glow of a Chaz Jankel disco cut, while the title track shuns subtlety in favor of tropical-tinged keys and house jubilance. Meanwhile, the warmth of 2008 space-disco track “Congolal” would dovetail nicely with Lindstrøm’s most futuristic jams.
While his music often references the past, Tensnake is mostly definitely rooted in the present—next up is a release for Tim Sweeney’s Beats in Space label, and Niemerski’s own label, Mirau Musik, will be releasing a few records by younger producers this year. As Niemerski observes with delight, clubs everywhere seem to be catching up with his fun-loving mindset. “You find a lot of house music again… there are so many more melodies. People don’t care if it’s minimal or this or that—they just dance, party, and have fun.”
The members of Brooklyn dance-pop outfit Restless People might have their hearts in the right place, but their band isn’t what we’d call, you know, good. The original version of “Days of Our Lives” is a bit of a trainwreck that leans heavily on uncomfortably emotive vocals and misguided rave nostalgia (think Tiesto synths), but this remix by Kingdom (pictured above) wisely whittles out the awful and transforms the song into a quality piece of taut house music. Pitch-shifting the vocals into a lower register is a vast improvement, as is the subtraction of the original’s chipmunky vocal snippets and dabblings in Eurodance. Kingdom’s version puts the snapping drums out front, and relies on bass stabs and lazer-like synth swooshes to fill out the melody. To hear more of his fine craftsmanship, check out That Mystic, his new EP on Night Slugs—a streaming preview is available here—which drops this week. (via Pitchfork)
Stussy and Greensleeves have teamed up to release a book/mix-CD package all curated by London-based DJ and graphic designer Alex Newman (a.k.a. DJ Al Fingers). The book will feature articles as well as the album art of the first 100 releases on the legendary reggae label, most of which were created by artist Tony McDermott. Newman was approached by clothing label Stüssy to produce a mix CD back in 2008, and now its 56 tracks are ready for release, as is a range of t-shirts and badges incorporating elements of some of the record sleeves from the book. Greensleeves: The First 100 Covers is available now here or at Stussy stores and stockists.
Ok, so maybe M.I.A.‘s summer hasn’t gone exactly as planned. Turns out that people aren’t exactly loving her new album, but maybe she can find some salvation on the remix front. We’re not sure if this reworking from DJ Mujava (pictured above) was officially commissioned or not, but it’s certainly a good start. With the help of DJ Qness, the South African kwaito wizard places M.I.A.’s pop vocal turn over some galloping drum beats and accentuates the piece with some beeping and bubbling synths. In the right hands, maybe ///Y/ Remixed could turn out pretty solid. (via Mad Decent)
From the oft-reliable Astralwerks stable of artists, Parisian chamber-pop trio Revolver (pictured above) recently gave fellow Frenchman Joakim a go at its vocal-heavy, sullen number, “Birds in Dm.” While still focused around lead vocalist Ambroise Willaume and his backup singers, the producer transforms the band’s even-keeled, acoustic song into an epic electronic dance tune that builds slowly and confidently into an overwhelming sonic experience. And even though Joakim’s remix—which will be released on a limited 7″ next month—is heavy with rhythm, it’s his composition of thickly layered melodies and gradual introduction of chaotic noise elements that take the song over, turning it into some kind of i-Dose before it becomes a moody dance track again.
Diplo and his Mad Decent crew are expanding their annual free block party outward from Philly to include stops in LA, NYC, and Chicago this year. MD family Maluca, PO PO, Bosco Delrey, and Paul Devro plan to hit every stop on the tour, which happens July 31 until August 21. And their friends Theophilus London, Kid Sister, The Deathset, Ninjasonik, Freddie Gibbs, Das Racist, Gaslamp Killer, Blaqstarr, Dirty South Joe & Flufftronix, DJ Sega, Eli Escobar, Ghetto Division, Max Glazer, Mike B, Nadastrom, Oro11, Total Freedom, Willy Joy, Brick Bandits, and Brendan Bringem will bring the mayhem to the individual cities along the way. RSVP for your town’s get-down here, and check all the tourdates below!
July 31st-Philadelphia Outside the Mad Decent Mausoluem 531 N 12th Street between Spring Garden & Green Streets
August 7th-New York The South Street Seaport Pier 17
August 14th-Los Angeles Outside Lot 613 613 Imperial St between 6th and Jesse Streets
August 21st-Chicago Outside The Hideout 1354 West Wabansia Street
