Coming to New York for its second year, the long-running and beloved German techno festival Time Warp has announced its return to the United States for a two-day indoor event at the historic Bedford Armory in Brooklyn on November 20 and 21. With over 20 years of experience bringing cutting-edge techno to cities like Prague, Vienna, Milan, Holland, Argentina, and now New York, Time Warp has been long been heralded as one of the worlds most prominent electronic music spectacles.
Having just announced phase two of its lineup, twenty-one artists are set to play over the two day event, including such legends as Ricardo Villalobos, Seth Troxler b2b Jamie Jones, Black Coffee, Apollonia, Sven Väth, Len Faki, and many more. Check out the full lineup in the flyer below and be sure to grab tickets now before its too late by going here.
After a full year of international touring, that included stops in the Ukraine, Serbia, and Los Angeles, Detroit-electro king DJ Stingray 313 has announced that he will be releasing a new four-track EP called Communications System in December.
This latest disbursement from the Drexciyaaccomplice will be issued by Croatian record label, Barba—which is the techno and electro sub-label of Burek. The record comes with three original productions, and includes a remix of the title track by UK-based production veteran Aubrey, whose recent remix of Plural’s “Shifting Forward”on Juan Atkins legendary Metroplex label earlier this year garnered a lot of attention.
You can set a reminder to pre-order Communications System over on Clone, and you can find out more about DJ Stingray 313 by clicking here.
Sam Shepherd (better known as Floating Points) has dropped a number of teasers in the build-up to the release of his long-awaited debut album, Elaenia, including a compelling, dance-focused video for lead single “Nespole.” The LP sees an official release on November 6 via Pluto in the UK and Luaka Bop in the US, but for now, a full advance stream is on offer from NPR. Hear the album in full here.
In an age where experimentation is rife, with club-music producers taking off in all sorts of directions, it can be easy to forget the music’s primary function—to make you dance. “Oh Boy,” from the new 19Hundred project on Soundplate Records, is a blissful, shining bubblegum-house record, one that doesn’t have a huge back story behind it or tales of technological adventure crammed within. It’s just a feel-good festival anthem (released a little late in the season) with pop hooks and rolling dance-floor aesthetics written all over it. It’s the same winning structure and formula that’s seen the likes of Duke Dumont‘s stock rise.
“Oh Boy'”s message (or lack of) is clear from the opening bars of the track, as breezy swathes of acid-drop bass hits and warbling vocals (courtesy of DAZE) set the pace, and a kick drum and snare pattern builds clarity and pace. It’s this momentum and build-up which typifies the track as a whole, swelling up with major tonal chords and cascading before the bass-loaded drop brings in widescreen, polished groove built around infectious chops and that soaring vocal melody.
This infectiously happy one-tracker is destined to either be a gleeful respite to all that moody techno you love…or a complete bugbear that’s hell-bent on ruining your life with it’s ear-worm tendencies. Bouncing, uplifting, positive and freshly naïve, the song’s nostalgia levels are turned up to maximum levels as it crosses from archetypal deep house to mainstream glamour with aplomb and ease.
From its inception, Decibel—the Seattle-based electronic music festival that just finished wrapping up its 12th edition less than a month ago—has always prided itself on providing free technology-based arts education to the public with three days of panel discussions and arts talks aptly named dB Conference. Over the years, dB Conference has played a significant role in fostering emerging talent while bridging the gap between the music industry and festival attendees. This year, Decibel was proud to partner with online education company CreativeLive to co-produce the 2015 dB Conference, which took place September 23-25 at The Crocodile.
For the final panel of the weekend, XLR8R put on a discussion in association with Decibel Festival and CreativeLive on “Getting Your Music Heard.” The panel was moderated by XLR8R CEO John Wander and included a diverse panel comprised of different key figures in the music industry, including Dave Sumner a.k.a. the techno legend Function, CEO/Co-Founder of Ghostly International and Drip.fm Sam Valenti IV, USA XLR8R Editor Luke Cheadle, and Dave Segal of The Stranger.
Unloved consists of Irish electronic musician David Holmes, film and TV composer Keefus Ciancia (True Detective), and Jade Vincent from the Jade Vincent Experiment. Forming in Los Angeles, this group of veteran music producers would regularly come together with a bundle of other experienced LA-based musicians during Jade and Keefus’ Tuesday night residency at The Rotary Room in Los Feliz. The trio eventually realized its potential at Woody Jackson’s VOX Studios and formed the band, crafting a sound that is heavily influenced by cinema and 60’s girl rock.
Set to release its two-track debut EP, Guilty Of Love, on October 30, British techno savant Andrew Weatherall delivers a dubbed out remix of the title track, aptly named “Guilty of Dub.” Keeping the track’s bassline in tact, Weatherall surrounds the piece with reverberating synths, soundscapes, and guitar chords that brilliantly drift and boomerang around the mix.
Featured as today’s exclusive XLR8R premiere, you can listen to “Guilty Of Love (Andrew Weatherall’s Guilty Of Dub)” in the youtube video below, along with the music video for Unloved’s original version of the track.
Having just released his latest EP, Án Mynda, on October 9, Alek Fin has recently put out a devastatingly gorgeous music video for his track “Lift Up (feat. Robot Koch).” The gentle guitar loops and serene vocals from Fin, which move alongside the experimental and futuristic pop stylings of Robot Koch’s production, make for a unique and enticing collaboration.
The music video, which was created by Anthony Ciannamea (aka EFFIXX), takes place in an art studio which seemingly comes to life on its own when the owner locks up for the day. Ciannamae has made a name for himself by providing breathtaking aesthetics for a variety of musical acts; providing live visuals every month at Low End Theory in Los Angeles and having previously directed music videos for Nosaj Thing, Starkey, Dibiase, Deru, Shigeto, Eskmo, Take, and more. (You can click on the hyperlinks to view their music videos).
You can check out more music videos from EFFIXX by going here and be sure to check out Alek Fin’s Án Mynda EP by going here.
You’re most likely familiar with Olivier Mateu under his current moniker, Rodriguez Jr.—and if you’re not, get acquainted ASAP, as the French-born artist, a mainstay of Anja Schneider and Ralf Kollmann‘s Mobilee label, is a great producer with a series of releases that manage to walk the line between warm intimacy and clubland efficacy. (Check a clip from his red-hot live set from this past spring’s Desert Hearts festival and stream his recent Chrysalism EP for proof.) But this isn’t Mateu’s first dance with the dancefloor—for a decade-long run starting around the turn of the millennium, Mateu served time with his erstwhile partner Gilles Escoffier as one half of the Youngsters, producing techy, chunky and occasionally tripped out grooves, largely for Laurent Garnier‘s F Communications imprint. In short, he’s a man who knows how to work the studio and rock the revelry—which is why, if your in the vicinity of the City of Angels, you should head to Halloween night’s Minimal Effort blast at LA’s Belasco Theater, where Mateu be joined by Agoria, Hunter/Game, Blond:ish, Adana Twins and a host of other notables. We’ve asked the talented musician and producer to take part in our occasional Trainwreck series, and he’s met the request by recounting the tale of a gig from hell.
Let’s go back in 1999. I was part of a duo called the Youngsters and we used to play live performances. The following scenario happened somewhere in Bretagne during a cold and rainy winter day—the perfect landscape for such a scary story.
The club was in the middle of nowhere. It looked like a haunted castle in this empty landscape. We met the owner who was clearly worried about something. And he actually had good reasons to be anxious: An old guy showed up at the club with a shotgun a couple of hours before our arrival, threatening the crew because “the music we were going to play was perversion and mental pollution for the youth, and an incitement to the use of drugs.” He wanted the party to be cancelled or he would come back during the night with his gun. Nor the police, nor the owner knew how to deal with this situation. After a long discussion we decided to confirm the party and move forward anyway.
Wrong decision, even if the weird old guy with his gun never showed up again. The party ended up being a human and technical disaster: no monitors, disco lights, no crowd except a bunch of drunk people asking for gabber music. But at least we were alive! And we were so much looking forward having a good sleep after such an epic day.
We still had to drive 90 minutes again through the dark countryside before reaching the hotel, which was actually under construction and not open to public. Our host reassured us again: He got the keys from the hotel owner, the renovation work was almost complete, and therefore we wouldn’t be annoyed by any noise because we would be alone in it. We ended up the night all together in the same cold paint-fumed room, surrounded by brushes, ladders, paint cans and buckets. Shall I mention they haven’t installed any heater yet? It was so freezing that it was physically impossible to sleep.
In the morning, our host brought us back to the airport, confessing he couldn’t pay our fee. As a replacement, he kindly offered us to stop at his place where we could get either his VCR or microwave, which had both the same value on the second hand market. It was a touching and nice offer from him, but we didn’t want to be responsible of any social drama—so we declined the offer and definitely forgot about our fee. We were so happy to be alive and to fly back to our Montpellier anyway!
Having just released his six-track vinyl debut on the fresh Hungarian imprint Farbwechsel, Berlin-based artist James Booth has offered up his track “Bathers” as today’s XLR8R download.
Originally from the UK, Booth released his debut LP, Reunion, via the Los Angeles-based label 100% Silk in 2013. In his bandcamp bio, James Booth describes his debut album as a documentation of his “ten most northern isolation reveries” when “tracking melancholia house shadows and overcast bedroom bangers on a home-rigged dictaphone/Tascam arrangement” while living in Manchester. LP cut “Bathers” kicks off with a skittering and somewhat harsh percussion arrangement, eventually leading into a deep, repetitive bassline that gradually increases in measure while being engulfed by slow, icy synth pads. “Bathers” can be downloaded for free below, alongside a music video for “End Tipsy.”
Having just celebrated their one year anniversary last month, one of Los Angeles most up and coming late night event series, Dig Deeper LA, has booked Terre Thaemlitz (aka DJ Sprinkles) to play a three hour set the Golden Box in Hollywood on October 29. With a true passion for music and an obscene amount of hustle, the seasoned promo team and resident DJ-duo Alison Swing and Masha Mar have managed to craft a widely respected brand and solidify a place in Los Angeles’ dance community, bringing in revered acts such as The Black Madonna, Jay Daniel, Mister Saturday Night, LONE, and many more.
Check out Alison Swing, MASHA, and DJ Sprinkles this Thursday by purchasing your tickets through XLR8R’s new ticketing platform!
