Lee Reynolds & Machino “Very Heavy”

Co-founder of the Desert Hearts movement and longtime dancefloor legend Lee Reynolds has recently dropped a new collaborative EP titled Moon Matrix alongside the respected new wave producer from Northern Mexico, Ramón Daniels (a.k.a Machino). Lee Reynolds first came to Los Angeles from the UK in 1988 while chasing his dream of becoming a pro-BMX rider. After an unfortunate accident which left Reynolds in rough shape, Reynolds stumbled into the vibrant world of electronic music. Mixing up and down the west coast of the United States, Reynolds honed his ability to craft and mix a concoction of solid grooves and beats to help people move their feet. A quarter of a century later, “Papa” Lee Reynolds (as he is referred to by many) has lived his life according to the dancefloors spiritual creed and holds the title “patriarch of Desert Hearts,” a party which is widely regarded as one of the United States’ fastest growing gatherings/cultural movements.

Reynolds, Daniels, and Desert Heart have graciously offered up the EP cut “Very Heavy” as today’s XLR8R download. With an ceaseless, fast-paced, and diverse drum arrangement, this 123 BPM banger exerts astronautic synth lines that sporadically burst alongside a monologue that encourage the listener to “relax,” to help balance out the flurry of dance induced hysteria that this track is bound to generate.

You can download “Very Heavy” below via WeTransfer.

Very Heavy (Original Mix)

Ticket Giveaway: Goldenvoice & XLR8R present Moderat at The Fonda Theater

This Thursday at the Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles, XLR8R and Goldenvoice will combine forces to co-host an intimate performance by the highly praised collaborative project between Modeselektor and Apparat fittingly known around the world as Moderat. This event will be the first of three shows to take place in Southern California over the weekend, with a performance scheduled for Friday at The Observatory North Park in San Diego and a headlining slot on Saturday at Lightning in a Bottle Festival. The remarkable trio also released their latest album titled III this past April and XLR8R sat down with all three members of the band for a full-length interview that you can read right here. The show at the Fonda will also see a performance by Telefon Tel Aviv producer Joshua Eustis. The show is currently sold out, but never worry because XLR8R is here to give two lucky winners a chance to grab a pair of tickets to the show this Thursday.

For a chance to win tickets, please enter your information in the form below. We are choosing two winners, who will both receive a pair of tickets. Winners will be chosen on Wednesday, May 25 at 8PM. Winners will be contacted by the email provided.

This show is sold-out, and the only way to win tickets is by entering this giveaway!

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[infobox]

Terms and Conditions:

The promoter is, Goldenvoice and agent, XLR8R.com whose registered office is at 1515 Park Lane, Venice, CA, USA.2. Employees of Goldenvoice / XLR8R.com or their family members or anyone helping to set up the competition shall not be permitted to enter the competition.
There is no entry fee and no purchase necessary to enter this competition.
Closing date for entry will be Wednesday, May 25 2016 at 8PM (PST). After this date the no further entries to the competition will be permitted.
No responsibility can be accepted for entries not received for whatever reason.
The rules of the competition and the prize for each winner are as follows:
Only 1 entry per email address accepted
Must be 18 years of age or older to enter.
Tickets will be at Will Call on night of the show. Winner must be present and have ID to claim tickets.
Prize is for 2 tickets to Moderat at The Fonda Theater in Hollywood, CA on May 26, 2016. The promoter reserves the right to cancel or amend the competition and these terms and conditions without notice in the event of a catastrophe, war, civil or military disturbance, act of God or any actual or anticipated breach of any applicable law or regulation or any other event outside of the promoter’s control. Any changes to the competition will be notified to entrants as soon as possible by the promoter.
The promoter is not responsible for inaccurate prize details supplied to any entrant by any third party connected with this competition.
No cash alternative to the prizes will be offered. The prizes are not transferable. Prizes are subject to availability and we reserve the right to substitute any prize with another of equivalent value without giving notice.
Winners will be chosen at random from all valid entries received and verified by Promoter and or its agents.
The winner will be notified by email within 8 hours of the closing date. If the winner cannot be contacted or do not claim the prize within 1 day of notification, we reserve the right to withdraw the prize from the winner and pick a replacement winner.
The promoter will notify the winner when and where the prize can be collected.
The promoter’s decision in respect of all matters to do with the competition will be final and no correspondence will be entered into.
By entering this competition, an entrant is indicating his/her agreement to be bound by these terms and conditions.
The competition and these terms and conditions will be governed by US law and any disputes will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of US.
The winner agrees to the use of his/her name in any publicity material. Any personal data relating to the winner or any other entrants will be used solely in accordance with current US data protection legislation and will not be disclosed to a third party without the entrant’s prior consent.
Entries into the competition will automatically opt-in email for XLR8R.com weekly email newsletter, The Lowdown and any future events mailers. User may unsubscribe at anytime.
Entry into the competition will be deemed as acceptance of these terms and conditions.
This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook, Twitter or any other Social Network. You are providing your information to XLR8R.com and not to any other party. The information provided will be used in conjunction with the following Privacy Policy found at https://xlr8r.com/legal.

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Watch a Rare Madlib Interview at RBMA Festival

Widely recognized as a global institution committed to fostering creativity in music, RBMA has just wrapped up another great edition of its festival in NYC. Today, RBMA released an exclusive interview with one of the most prolific hip-hop producers of our time, Madlib. In this interview, The Beat Konducta touches on subjects such as “Prince, the importance of doing taxes, the death of his Quasimoto alter ego, how he manages to stay so prolific even after having kids, collaborating with Kanye West and his love of industrial music.”

You can watch the full video in the player above.

Starting on January 18, music makers from across the globe are invited to apply for RBMA’s 2016 edition in Montreal. The application form can be downloaded from the Academy website and must be mailed in by March 7, along with a CD of recorded material by each applicant. The RBMA jury will then select a group of participants from the submitted applications.

You can learn more by heading to Red Bull Music Academy‘s website here.

Ben UFO, Richy Ahmed, Jackmaster to Headline BuggedOut! in Dreamland

Seminal UK event promoter BuggedOut!, known for their popular club nights in London and the more recent BuggedOut! Weekender Festival, have revealed the first details surrounding the lineup for their newest project, BuggedOut! in Dreamland. Set to take place in the creative seaside town of Margate in the UK, BuggedOut! will bring its 22 years of event production experience to the much loved and newly-renovated Dreamland theme park, transforming the venue’s rides, rollercoasters, arcades and emporiums into dancefloors showcasing top-notch local and international talent. Headlining the bill are American house music magnates The Martinez Brothers and Crosstown Rebels mainstay Richy Ahmed, whose sleek and groove-inducing cuts are sure to match the amusement park’s upbeat and fun-loving energy. Other highlights of the lineup include DJ sets from Ben UFO and Glasgow favorite Jackmaster, as well as a highly anticipated performance from globally adored duo Groove Armada.

For more information about the event, visit their website. You can view the full lineup for BuggedOut! In Dreamland below.

Buy tickets here.

[row]

[column size=’1/3′]The Martinez Brothers
Groove Armada (DJ Set)
Jackmaster[/column]

[column size=’1/3′]Richy Ahmed
Ben UFO
Joy Orbison[/column]

[column size=’1/3′]Artwork
Lemmy Ashton
Harry James[/column]

[/row]

Stream the Upcoming Virginia Album in Full

As announced in April, Virginia is set to release her first full-length with Ostgut Ton, following on from several EPs on the Berlin-based imprint.

The release, entitled Fierce For The Night, was co-produced by Dutch artists Martyn, Steffi and Dexter, and features Virginia’s vocals on all tracks. According to the label, the album channels funk, boogie, disco, UK garage, drum & bass, and house influences, and is “first and foremost an album about relationships,” centred around the basic message to “go out, enjoy yourself, loosen up and take what’s good for you.”

Fierce For The Night is scheduled for release on May 27, and can be pre-ordered at the Ostgut Ton store. Ahead of that, however, the full album can be streamed in full below.

Vinyl Tracklisting:
A1. Bally Linny
A2. 1977
B1. Obstacle
B2. Lies
B3. Believe In Time
C1. Funkert
C2. Fierce For The Night
C3. Subdued Colors
D1. Raverd
D2. Follow Me
D3. Han

The live act will see her touring as Virginia feat. Steffi & Dexter (her on vocals; Steffi and Dexter on machinery), all upcoming dates below.

28 MAY IR, Westmeath, Life X1 Festival
16 JUN ES, Barcelona, Parc Del Forum
09 JUL FR, Corsica, Calvi On The Rocks
13 JUL FR, Paris, Peacock Society
16 JUL DE, Gräfenhainichen / Ferropolis, Melt! Festival
26 JUL CR, Pula, Dimensions Festival
16 SEP UK, London, Village Underground
18 SEP MA, Marrakech, Oasis Festival
30 SEP NL, Amsterdam, De School

Steevio “Primes”

As you may remember, in early April XLR8R published a guide to modular synthesis, with the help of Wales-based modular techno pioneer and Freerotation Festival organiser, Steevio. The piece was accompanied by a video of the Sunderland-born artist using his set up to produce “Primes,” a track that he has now made available below as one of today’s free downloads.

Primes

Pär Grindvik Isle of Real

Looking for someone to work on the soundtrack of your next gothic-horror flick? Pär Grindvik might be your man. The title track of the techno vet’s new album, Isle of Real—somewhat surprisingly, his debut long-player after two decades on the scene—is a stately, slightly ominous elegy. Its mournful swoons, echoing chords and dirge-like organ signify a determined dread, perfect for the scene in which our hero trudges over the moors to save his maiden while facing near-certain death. The song hints at Grindvik’s skill at setting a mood—sometimes, as with “Isle of Real,” through melody and instrumentation, but just as frequently through his precise arrangements, a knack for sound design and an ear for resonant ambience that imbues even his most throbbing techno cuts with a layer of gauzy atmosphere.

Isle of Real’s tracks alternate between fragile emotionalism and driving galvanism, with the common factor being a kind of fine-cut elegance that’s the Stockholm LTD boss man’s stock in trade. Grindvik has posited the LP’s theme as “spaces once inhabited, long since abandoned and reclaimed by the creep of nature”—and that creep is clear on tracks like album opener “Never Give In,” which pairs a distant weeping wails with bursts of percussive squelches, as if some formless being is intruding on forbidden lands. A yearning synth line wraps itself around a syncopated, modulating kick in “Shelter,” while the repeating riff of “Shine” rises skyward, grounded by deep bass tones and jostling percussion—tracks like these see Grindvik squeezing as much emotion as he can from his electronics.

As you might expect from Grindvik, the album is brimming with propulsion, and there is plenty of full-bore techno on Isle of Real—but even in the album’s tougher moments, there’s plenty of ethereality and emotion on tap. The power of “Holy Nothing” comes from its low-end pulse, high-frequency tension and compressed synth shards, but Grindvik entwines the track in enough dub to swim in; “The Marlton” has the spaciousness of an mid-’90s Get Physical cut (complete with hooky, minimalist riff) but wraps it in a layer of billowing haze; “Limits of Real” lays a shimmering sprinkle of chiming keys over a sinuous acid spiral. There’s a kind of fluid, spinning feel to these cuts—but rather than spiraling off through centrifugal force, the circularity of these tracks drive the attention inward, focusing attention to their core. Isle of Real might be Grindvik’s debut album—but it’s the work of an artist who’s been refining his craft for years, and its strength, sophistication is the culmination of that experience.

Answer Code Request Prepares New EP for Ostgut Ton

Ostgut Ton has announced that Patrick Gräser (a.k.a. Answer Code Request) will be releasing a three track EP via the label in June.

Gräser’s involvement with the Berlin-based label began back in 2014, with the Breathe EP. He has since released a highly-acclaimed full-length, Code, as well as material on Marcel Dettmann Records. Now returning to the imprint, he offers up a three-tracker that they describe as “meandering between restrained club contexts and brittle break beats, machinery and futurist soulfulness.”

Neume is scheduled for release on June 24. Preview snippets below.

Paral·lel Festival Finalizes Lineup

Paral·lel Festival, held in Guardiola de Berguedà just north of Barcelona, Spain at the beginning of September, has added the final five names to its lineup for this year.

Avian co-founder Guy Brewer (a.k.a. Shifted) has been added to the bill, along with A.P, Guillam, Jamie Mc Cue, and Samuel M. Those five acts join ten more already announced acts, including Spanish techno producer Svreca, Abdulla Rashim, Peter Van Hoesen, and Eric Cloutier. The varied lineup will be distributed over 30 to 40 hours of performance, broken into prologue, story and epilogue.

For more information and the complete lineup, head to the festival’s site. Buy tickets here.

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Gear Review: Rane MP2014

Rotary mixers have been in the slipstream of the vinyl’s steady rise in popularity over the last years. The rare E&S DJR400 and MP2014‘s bigger brother, the MP2015, have been appearing in DJ booths worldwide. A growing number of artists now prefer the smooth touch of a rotary mixer over the commonly used fader mixers (such as the Allen & HeathXone, which has become an industry standard over the last ten years).

Anticipating this change of fashion, Rane presents its smallest, two-channel home model—the MP2014, which has a design and circuit almost identical to the MP2015. Many praise the warm sound, smooth equalizers and endless creative mixing joy that the dedicated filter and isolator sections offer. Let’s give this baby a test ride and see if its more than just a trophy for the DJ-fetishist. Don’t believe the hype?

How it looks

With its wooden side panels, vintage design and sizeable rotary knobs reminiscent of the classic Moog modular systems, it’s hard not to instantly love this device. “They don’t build ’m like that anymore,” my dad used to say. Well, they do, but it’s not cheap.

For a rotary mixer, the Rane MP2014 is surprisingly compact and has a familiar layout: two main channels centred on the device, each with gain control, with a three-band equalizer and a larger volume control at the bottom of the device. Even a first time rotary-mixer user will know his way around in no time. The top end of the mixer is reserved for the isolator section, with three steep 24dB/octave filters with adjustable crossover to manipulate your main mix.

How it works

Rane has come up with a good mix between the classical Rotary mixer and a DJ mixer we are all familiar with, as well as incorporating a range of tools to blend your tracks together creatively.

Tone Control

The 12 dB/octave (2nd-order) Linkwitz-Riley channel equalizers are incredibly smooth and accurate, which makes it a pleasure to mix with. You can fine-tune the equalizer section to your taste using the the selectable crossover points of 150 Hz/6.0 kHz or 300 Hz/3.0 kHz . Unlike the isolator filters, the channel equalizers don’t have on-board rotary control for crossover points, but you can control them from the Rane Control Panel on your computer, when connected via USB.

Channel Filter

Besides the sublime isolator section (which we will come onto later), each channel is equipped with a switchable filter section, and a single resonance knob controlling both filters simultaneously. The filter can be switched to highpass, lowpass or “Pioneer style” high/low mode, with a reach between 20 to 20.000 HZ. Together with the resonance control, this is an extremely powerful tool for creative mixing.

In high/low mode, the filters are bypassed when the rotary is in a neutral position. The filter knob sweeps either the lowpass or highpass filter depending upon rotation direction from center, with the lowpass filter on the lefthand side. Rotating the knob from fully counter-clockwise to center sweeps the lowpass filter from 20 Hz to 18 kHz. Rotating the knob from center to fully clockwise sweeps the high pass filter from 35 Hz to 20 kHz. This feature allows you to manipulate the sound intuitively without having to switch filter modes.

Mic Aux

The mixer also comes with a MIC and AUX section on the left hand side. The MIC section comes with its own tone control, with a single rotary controlling the equaliser. This tool can, for example, be used to illuminate feedback when performing with a live vocalist in a loud club environment, or simply to color the voice to taste. The AUX section, which is typically used to run your output signal from the mixer through an external effect, has a filter control to control the return signal. This enables you to only mix the desired frequency band of your wet signal with the dry signal playing on your main mixer.

Isolators

If you have ever heard Theo Parrish work the crowd using an Isolator, you know what damage they can do on the dancefloor. But where Parrish is taking the use of the isolator to an extreme (by, for example, completely cutting all the low and mid frequencies in a build up, leaving only the highest register to be heard to later kick in the muted frequencies simultaneously) this tool can also be used in a more subtle way. Small adjustments to the output signal can be made on the spot. Older, less powerful productions that lack presence in the bass region can be instantly made more powerful by slightly pushing a certain frequency band using the low control and crossover adjustment.

The crossover points are 80 Hz to 640 Hz for the low-mid range, and mid-high crossover is adjustable from 1 kHz to 8 kHz.

Besides that, it is worth mentioning that the knobs are a pleasure to mix with and have just the right resistance for precise mixing. Buttons that activate the various equalizers and filters on this mixer (unlike many other mixers) are of a comfortable size and are luminous, which makes night time DJ mixing even more pleasurable. The same goes for the LED audio input indicators in the main mixer and master section.

How it sounds

With that said, the question remains: does it sound as good as it looks and feels? The answer is yes.

Even with all the filters and tone controls deactivated or in neutral positions, the sound is notably clear and warm, due to the high quality circuitry. The expression “a chain is only as strong as its weakest link” is especially true when it comes to audio, and if you want to make your carefully collected vinyl sound as good as possible, this mixer is definitely recommendable. Even your jazz and classical vinyl will shine when passed through the superior phono pre-amps of the MP2014.

When compared to the industry-level Allen & Heath Xone mixer, the Rane excels on every level. The punchy lows, the warm tone in the mid and the crispy but friendly highs remind me of my high-end studio equalizer. The different mixing and blending tools make this more then just a mixer; rather, it could be an expressive instrument if used by the right person.

With long waiting lists for the E&S DJR400 and no real other options for a compact, high-end two-channel rotary mixer, the MP2014 is perfect for DJs and hobbyists that are willing to pay for quality—it is money well-spent.

The Rane MP2014 retails at $1.999,00.

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