Continuing with music publications’ unending proclivity for genre corralling and list making, FACT magazine put together a new rundown of its 20 favorite tunes from the vintage sound of minimal wave. In addition to the list of songs and artists, writer Veronica Vasicka includes a brief history of the genre, and writes relatively lengthy and informative blurbs on each of the selections included in the piece. A large number of truly esoteric artists are named in the list, unless, of course, you happened to be alive and part of that underground community at the time. For those not so in the know, it’s easy to treat this as more of a primer for the lesser-known synth-toting artists of the mid-’70s to early-’80s (with a few newer acts peppered in, as well). Check out “20 Best: Minimal Wave” here.
Kanye West is going to be kicking himself. One day, not far from now, someone from his entourage will lean over to him, and say, “Kanye, man, we just got this disc of these three white kids from Michigan making crazy weird beats. Shit is even sadder and more ominous than anything you’ve done.” Perplexed at the claim, Kanye will ask to hear said beats, and his friend will pop in Salem‘s debut album, King Night. After the intro for “King Night,” the title track’s massive, blown-out bass synth, cinematic choir vocals, and crunk-inspired hip-hop beat will drop. About three minutes later, when the song ends, Kanye will look to his friend with a single tear slowly rolling out from underneath his sunglasses, and say, “Damn, those beats are dope.”
King Night will be released September 28 via IAMSOUND. (via Stereogum)
Dutty Artz dancehall vocalist Jahdan Blakkamoore just shared a brand-new mixtape of remixes and previews of tracks from his forthcoming new album for Lustre Kings, Babylon Nightmare. Entitled Global Warning!, the free mixtape features productions from Matt Shadetek, Liondub, Digital Ancient (a.k.a. Andrew Moon Bain), and Madlib, among many others. Check out the artwork and tracklist below, and download the free mixtape here.
London-based mix-master and RinseFM cohort Braiden was one of many wonderful DJs and producers to grace the stages at last week’s Sonar festival, and apparently, he proverbially killed it. If you’re like the rest of us North American dwellers who couldn’t get out to Barcelona, you’re probably wishing you could catch a bit of the magic. Thankfully, Red Bull Music Academy was there with recording gear in hand. Braiden’s DJ set was captured in its hour-long entirety, and subsequently made available for streaming through RBMA Radio. It’s a tastefully eclectic dance mix that rarely stays in one place for too long, though it still allows each track its due time, and never sounds overwrought with turntable trickery or unnecessary flair. While we couldn’t enjoy the mix live amongst the sweaty throngs of Sonar, at least we can close our eyes and listen in hopes of transporting ourselves to the time and place it all went down. The mix player is embedded below. (via FACT)
Ecstasy, a blog ran by Honey Owens and her Miracles Club cohorts, just posted this cover of Moodymann’s “I Can’t Kick This Feelin When it Hits” by blog contributor Leech. The producer was inspired to do his own take on the track after checking out a reggae cover of the song Moodymann’s original was built from, Chic’s “I Want Your Love.” Leech’s cover of the expansive old-school techno track is a dubby affair, as it borrows its samples from that reggae version of “I Want Your Love,” but stays true to the original’s deep grooves, funky bass work, and slow-burning dancefloor vibe.
A big part of Night Slugs‘ appeal is that the London-based crew tosses so many kinds electronic music into a virtual blender, only to produce something new and fresh in the end. Whether it’s techno synths married with dubstep’s low end, or grimey drums paired with a chopped-up house vocal, the results are always exhilarating, and it’s been that way since the jump, as Mosca‘s Square One EP kicked off the label with aplomb and helped set the table for an exciting new wave of UK dance music. Now, less than six months after its release, we’ve tapped Mosca (a.k.a. Tom Reid) to put together an exclusive mix for the XLR8R podcast, and a quick glance at the massive tracklist makes it clear that his influences aren’t limited to what’s popping in London, or even the usual list of genre suspects. Over the course of nearly 70 minutes, he navigates hip-hop, grime, dancehall, house, techno, garage, cumbia crunk, tribal guarachero, and a litany of other sounds, ultimately producing a mix that is, quite literally, like nothing we’ve ever posted before. While the hyperactive playlist could have meant an ADD-addled mix lacking in sonic harmony, Mosca’s flow feels entirely natural, and we’re guessing the podcast will please music fans of all stripes—particularly those with a predilection for dark, sweaty, and tropical bass sounds.
Mosca will be making his first trip to the US later this week, where he’ll be performing only two shows—this Saturday, June 26 at Icee Hot in San Francisco, and the following Friday, July 2 at TURRBOTAX® in Brooklyn. We highly recommend that you find a way to attend.
01 Cash Flow “Orange Hill Riddim” (Cash Flow) 02 I-Octane “Puff It” (Cash Flow) 03 Wu-Tang Clan “Clap 2010” (Gold Dust) 04 Shlohmo “Antigravity (Low Limit Remix)” (Friends Of Friends) 05 DJ Panik “Hold Up” (Self-Released) 06 Paul White “Wait For Me” (One Handed) 07 DJ Villa “La Cumbia Del DJ Villa” (Self-Released) 08 Ward 21 “Cosa Nostra Riddim” (Ward 21 Production) 09 Professor “Too Rich (Cosa Nostra Riddim)” (Ward 21 Production) 10 Mosca “Tilt Shift” (Fat City) 11 DJ Panik “Make It Drop” (Self-Released) 12 Deadboy “Long Way 2 Go” (Well Rounded) 13 Unknown “Unknown” (from The Album Super Mambo Supremo 2008) 14 Charlie Blacks “Lighter (12 Furlong Riddim)” (Sankofa Productions) 15 D’Angel “Hot Gyal (12 Furlong Riddim)” (Sankofa Productions) 16 Oh No “Sneaky” (Stones Throw) 17 Letherette “Blad” (Brownswood) 18 Mobb Deep “Flood The Block” (Jive) 19 Mutamassik “Interlude For Granma” (Soot) 20 Levon Vincent “These Games” (Novel Sound) 21 Leroy Styles “Workbird” (G-Rex) 22 Unknown “Milk & B” (Self-Released) 23 Wiley “Wot Do U Call It? (Igloo Bass Mix)” (XL) 24 High Frequency “Malibu (Instrumental)” (Self-Released) 25 Unknown “Tlikitiani Tribal” (Self-Released) 26 Pretty Tony “Fix It In The Mix” (Music Specialists) 27 DJ Gregory “Dama S Salon” (Defected) 28 Blawan “Iddy” (Hessle) 29 Riva Starr “Dance Me (Jesse Rose’s Made In St Lucia Remix)” (Made To Play) 30 Mosca “Gold Bricks, I See You” (Fabric) 31 Paul Wall “I’m Throwed” (Swishahouse) 32 Untold “Come Follow We” (Hemlock) 33 Gel Abril “Spells Of Yoruba” (Defected) 34 Durrty Goodz “Switching Songs II” (Awkward) 35 DJ Baddmixx “Hump In They Back” (Juke Trax Online) 36 Q-Bass Ft Skeng Gee “Gun Connection” (Suburban Base) 37 DJ Q Ft Lenky “DC Gang” (Insatiable) 38 Blackjack “Jacked” (Self-Released) 39 DJ Otto “Bara Suballo” (Self-Released)
Sometimes less really is more. Where Booka Shade‘s highly acclaimed second album, Movements, epitomized the duo’s low-key, approachable beats and dappled, warm synth melodies, the German tech-house producers’ fourth full-length intends to provide exactly what its name suggests: More! In this case, cohorts Arno Kammermeier and Walter Merziger mean more energy, more ornamentation, and more friends along for the ride. The resulting album, which has been 18 months in the making, is certainly more complicated, although not more sophisticated than previous work.
Hoping to capture the mood of their famously energetic live performances, the boys departed from their trademark clean studio electronic instrumentation and added textures of live drums, extra-thick layers of ambient synths, and quirky accents. Plucky, infectious instrumental “This is Not the Time” comes closest to Booka Shade’s usual subtly cultivated melodic journey. Meanwhile, “The Door” opens with promising warping bass and a driving beat before running into a hodgepodge of spoken samples, ratcheted percussion, and new-wave synths that never really gel.
Adding to the distracting flurry of decoration, More! also features a handful of guest vocalists—a first on a Booka Shade album. Peculiar meandering female vocals set against marbled synths on the pretty “Regenerate” fall nicely into the song’s overall balance. On the other hand, the vaguely Faithless-reminiscent “Divine” features spoken contributions from new-wave kings Yello, and Chelonis R. Jones’ pop vocals combine with cheesy synths on “Bad Love,” leaving the listener longing for Booka Shade’s deceptively simple instrumental melodies of yore.
Christian Prommer is not one to think within the traditional rubric of what is considered electronic dance music; after all, the Munich-based percussionist and producer is best-known for his Drum Lesson Vol. 1 release, which reworked classic techno and electronic tracks into jazz instrumentals and sent his profile through the roof. Now in the midst of releasing Drumlesson Zwei (!K7), Prommer is as ecstatic about organic, non-electronic music as his own techno productions, though the inspiration for both is still his grounding in Detroit techno and the European synth workouts that gave rise to so many early techno producers’ ideas. Here, he takes us through the process of how he uses Apple Logic 9 as a recording tool.
Levels Keep your levels down. No need for hot channels or loud recordings. All the plugs sound better when driven not so hot. I try to keep the channel fader at -10db. I even put the gain plug as the first plug in the insert and put it at -10db. Within 24bit it is not a big deal, but when you add the channels up to 16 or more, you will hear the difference for sure. Better imaging and big low end. And low end is what we want, right? It worked great on the track “Sueno Latino,” which was mixed in the box with Logic.
Sample Replacement A new feature in Logic 9 is the sample replacement or addition to a drum track. I used this on a few tracks like “Sueno Latino” and “Acid Eiffel.” You get the original unquantized hits of a drum track played by an EXS sample—good when the drummer has the right feel but the kick sound is not strong enough. I always put the velocity on a constant level and put the new sample low under an organic one. I really love the EXS preset kicks for this. Sometimes I layer two or three.
“Acid Eiffel”
Fader Groups I use fader goups in multi-track recordings to group drum and bass tracks together and give them a general groove treatment. Make a fader group and select your faders, and check the Phase Locked Audio button. Then put the Flex algorhythm on Rhythm and let the program do its math. Then select all the tracks of the group and quantize them with a fixed 16B setting. Lower the Q amount in the extended quantize parameters box to 0%. Start the playback and raise the percentage up to where you change the groove enough to get a locked vibe. Usually, 60% is more than enough. It is a great feature to get long tracks that are out of sync to swing tighter.
Sidechain Compression An old trick but it still works wonders in a mix, especially when you move the kick that you use to trigger the comp (and that is muted) around an eighth note. I love this feature for all the percussion sounds… congas, shakers, and the like. It provides some room for more radical sound treatment like the distortion, bit-crushing, and filtering of the compressed sounds. I used it a lot on “Groove la Chord” and “Jaguar.”
“Jaguar”
Trust Your Instincts …and your ears. What looks wrong and bad but sounds inspired and interesting is way better that the other way around. I spent a lot of time getting drums right and fixing stuff to the grid just to go back to the beginning of the recording and fall in love with the “interesting”interpretation of the performance. Sometimes it’s good to remember the art aspect of what we do within all the science and technology.
E.Super have previously crafted beats backing the likes of Busdriver, Nocando, and Oh No, but now the production crew is poised to drop its own style into the massive pool of SoCal’s beat scene. If this track off the group’s forthcoming Side A EP is any indication, that style includes a bit of Daft Punk’s vocoder-heavy pop sensibilities, lots of guitars, plenty of sparkling synths, and a breakbeat that just won’t quit. “Embedded in Me” isn’t quite what you’d expect to hear behind the lyrical prowess of someone like Busdriver, but it’s sure to find some fans if they’re looking for a carefree dance tune with a vocal hook that’ll be stuck in your head for days.
Stones Throw recording artist and white-boy boogie-man James Pants just dropped a brand-new EP tailor-made for your summer’s fiestas. The New Tropical EP features six tracks of instrumental get-down goodness, and finds Mr. Pants trying on a few new hats, namely those of bass-centric booty tune producers, while still keeping to his roots in the soulful R&B-loving sect of beatmakers. Check out the artwork and tracklist, and listen to New Tropical‘s first track, below.
1. Driftwood 2. 1988 3. Hanama Beat 4. This Crazy Sound 5. Diamond Head 6. Say Yes
“Driftwood”
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