Lazy Rich is a fantastic Electro House producer from Vancouver and friend of Miles Dyson, which should tell you everything you need to know about his style of music. If you happen to be unfamiliar with either of these names, they both make incredibly hard hitting Electro House which is great because their tracks works great for lots of situations and fit into electro sets for your hipster, liberal arts college crowd as well as house sets for your massive candy raver crowd. I posted tracks by both of them in this post in case you missed it, along with an Electro House anthem by Sharooz. Unfortunately, Lazy Rich is not a big fan of giving away free music, even for low quality; however, I managed to find these few tracks in random places and they're all great quality. Also, you can read a great interview of him HERE.
P.S. Apes With Barrels is proud to announce that we will soon be featuring an interview with an artist that we have posted about on this very blog. I am also proud to announce that I will be working with this artist to book them a show at Wesleyan. Get pumped!
Burial (William Beven) is a south london based dubstep producer, who, until last year, had chosen to remain anonymous, hes even said that of the people that knew him personally only 5 maybe knew he was making music. Lauded by the likes of Flying Lotus (they even have a collab.) He is a highly influential, highly respected pioneer of the genre. He's on Kode9's hyperdub label now. I'd descibe his music as this very ghostly super dark, ethereal, machine. Imagine rainy london night with bullet shells dropping right and left. The atmosphere he creates is really tight. He's the face of the word Haunt-ing. One problem is his releases are all very similar, and im worried he doesn't have much more room with the sound he's created, but really, what a sound it is a lot of 2step Garage influence, uses alot of soul-ish samples for vocals.
So, here's basically Everything he ever did on a few .zip files (sorry if you dont like that idea)
John Dahlback is a house producer from Sweden (my viking relatives fucking own this shit right now / refer to post about Swedish House Mafia at ULTRA). Well, he makes a more interesting sort of house in a way as it's more bright and musical than a lot of other guys right now. He's a little harder to put into a genre than, say, Axwell, as it's definitely got a big electro house influence but there's plenty elements from just about every other house genre throughout most of his songs. His collaboration with Sebastian Ingrosso is even extremely reminiscent of some good old fashioned Daft Punk Space Disco. The important thing is that his music is all fun as hell and is basically a winner for any house DJ. All around great producer.
Our dear friend and contributor, Jumpman, has gone missing. He's not returning any of my texts/calls/facebooks/pigeons, and I'm at quite a loss for how to go about contacting him. I might blast the album Mustache (Half A Scissor) by Mr. Oizo off of my balcony in an attempt to lure him similar to when he showed up at my school without any batteries in his cell phone. It's also very possible that he's opened up his own barber shop in Cuba where he designs customizable facial hair to order. Or, maybe Bowser's finally gotten the poor sucker. Well, if you're out there, dear Jumpman, give your droogies a ring and let us know that you still kickin' it with your maskie on. Try to meet us as Union Station, otherwise we'll be waiting at Coney. Until then, here's a hit with you in mind.
During Euro Party (detalied in last post), I basically got to play random rave jams in the begining when nobody was there, when I stumbled upon Andrea Bertolini. I had downloaded his album a while back and remembered liking it. I forget exactly how I found about this album, one of the tracks may have been in an Essential Mix or something like that. Well, I threw on a random song (Computer Crash) and it was awesome. Once again, nobody was in the room but I happened to be on the phone with Julien and he asked me to post it so here it is. It's very minimal with a tech house lean, pretty similar to Trentemøller. Good rave music.
Tonight, I got the pleasure of DJing for Elena's birthday party. And yes, it is, or was I guess, a Sunday. She's from Bulgaria, so she requested a lot of Euro House, especially the likes of David Guetta. I went for 3 hours, playing tons of different stuff, even got to lay down some Flying Lotus and Ratatat beats while a kid from our dorm free styled over them, and well I might add. But I also got a new challenge, as she handed me a few CDs during the show and asked me to play some of the songs from it. I popped it into my computer and listened to them in iTunes, and they were Bulgarian songs, sort of like eastern hip-hop-ish around 180 BPM. Some of them were songs off the Garden State soundtrack, the fuck am I supposed to do with that? I thought I'd post some of the songs I ended up having to mix on the spot; it was a very interesting experience. Track 10 I actually ended up mixing into Paper Planes (DFA Remix) - M.I.A. which worked quite nicely and went over really well.
It's leaked. Unfortunately, it's not the best quality (160 kbps), but at least we get to hear the entire thing start to finish. Really digging it so far, haven't quite listened to the whole thing yet. It's cool to see that a band like Phoenix that was around when Daft Punk released Homework (which I now own on vinyl) is still highly respected and still making great material. 2009 Tour...?
Since I wasn't at Ultra, I was doing my normal liberal arts college weekend all the meanwhile wondering what was going on at Ultra. However, a few friends of mine (including Myles and my future roommate Nate) formed a funk band with some other guys here called Mad Wow Disease and played their first show. Unbelievable. I had such an amazing time and really am pumped to see them again.
On a side note, I decided I'd check out some of the Yellow Magic Orchestra tracks that I had downloaded a while ago in the hopes that I'd go through them one day for samples. I stumbled upon this gem. The quality is shit, but it's a cool song. It's got a very disco house bass line, but instead it goes in the 80's, synth pop, classic electro direction, as french/disco house wasn't really in existence then, and these guys were pioneering this sound along with Kraftwerk anyways.
This is a long post, bare with me. It's 5 in the morning and I'm exhausted, but at this point since I'm getting up at 9, there is no point going to sleep so here is a review of Ultra (go to the site to see the lineup. Don't be fooled, the order they are in does not mean the lateness of when they played).
A simple way to describe Ultra would be: interesting. It's not as flashy and glamorous as LA raves (though of course you had your fair share of ravers with candy and all that) and you didn't have people coming up to your all the time trying to sell you pills or some other drug. While Ultra didn't have the same friedliness that you can see at LA raves, it also had less assholes just trying to fuck with you for fun or looking at you strangely. Ultra attracted a much larger crowd which really extended beyond ravers. The festival itself sort of smelled of a combination of sweat, greasy food, weed, tobacco and god knows what else. The large amount of wind, especially friday, made sure that we would smell all that. I will say that I never set foot in the Carl Cox and friends tent (though I did want to see some people in there) mostly cause of time issues and never went to the smaller stages. The heat was horrible but not unbearable as shade could be found. We ended up taking more breaks then I would have liked and for longer then I would have wanted but that's not a big deal. The key for me I've realized is to rarely takes breaks, cause once I start a break I don't want to stop, and I just get so much more energy at the stages (for example, was extremely tired saturday when we first got there, got to the stage where LA riots was playing, and immediately my energy was back).
NOTE: The videos obviously aren't great quality, it's more about listening to the audio as best as you can and listening to what he's doing.
Here are the ratings of where I would place the acts:
Swedish House Mafia: I saw their set in parts because they ended up having a two hour set (I don't know what happened to Tiga) and there were other things I wanted to see at the same time (Para One and Surkin). The beginning of their set was mediocre, nothing special to be honest. I was more impressed with Josh Wink. I went to go see Para One, came back to Swedish House Mafia maybe about an hour into their set. What a show. I mean they went from some remix of thriller (might have been louis La Roche's), into the buildup of Be, which then dropped into satisfaction, back into the buildup of be (but it worked), to drop into the laidback luke thing where he takes Show Me Love (I was dissapointed I wanted to hear Be) and calls it a rework when it's just him mashing it up with Be (Rynecologist did it first let's be honest, but as Be is Laidback's song, who cares), then into some remix of technologic, might have played soulwax Kids but I can't remember fully. They played some other stuff afterwards including let it go and open your heart, but I really couldn't name the rest. The thing that Swedish House Mafia really had, aside from the best stage in my opinion for Friday (they were in a tent which really made everything better, aside from the heat which actually got worse), were these extremely epic buildups. I won't describe what they were doing here, but what really seperated them from other Djs was also the length of these buildups and how hard they all dropped, every single one. I will add though that their use of samples from other things at the end of buildups was really fantastic, and the crowd was overwhelming. My only criticism would be that the buildups they touched were all very similar, but I didn't really care that much because of how good they were. this was Be into satisfactioN:
back into Be into show me love:
I wish I was here for this part, it's respectable for djs to play one more time if it's fucking as good as they're doing it here:
Boys Noize: What a G. I mean his stage prescence is just so cool. He just seems like a really cool, calm, and collected guy; yet still nice and ready to have fun. You can tell he loves djing as much as we love seeing him, and that he's having just as much fun and probably more fun then the crowd. Let's go for some honesty: he wasn't like Swedish House Mafia or some of the other djs who will be named after, who kept the crowd going for the whole time (or at least very large portions). I'm giving Boys Noize number 1 because he was in complete control and played one of the most impressive sets I've ever heard. While most of the djs were doing stuff in the buildups that I could identify, I found myself stumped time after time with Boys Noize about how he was doing what he was doing. I say he was in complete control because there were times when people weren't dancing and weren't cheering as much, but that doesn't mean he wasn't doing amazing stuff. People like simplicity, lots of delay on buildups, a loop brought down to a miniscule segment... Boys Noize wasn't going to do that every time, though he very well could. I also applaud him for not playing as many safe songs as I felt a lot of other djs played. Some examples of un-safe songs are Popof and other minimal (I can't remember the song name, but I can tell you it wasn't motherfucking bass and that's what brings it out of the safe zone. I also say this because this stage was almost purely electro or something related to electro) and his remix of Royksopp (which is not a banger but is still amazing). I was having a blast when he played the para one remix of my head, but nobody else seemed to share as much enthusiasm about the song as I did. But when he dropped lava lava, nothing mattered anymore; everybody was going nuts. I was surprised that nobody really went nuts when he played superfresh, but I guess that's much less popular then lava lava. From what I could tell he also played a lot of new material which was really awesome (I could tell by the sounds used and the vocoder we all know so well from arcade robot being heard in some songs I didn't know, unless he was doing that live). If it wasn't new material, then it's old material that I just don't know very well (there's quite a bit). I was kinda dissapointed that he started and ended his set with the my moon my man loop and never played the song, but that's ok. He also left that Royksopp remix on for too long. Some Tracks:
An old remix by Boys Noize that I never had and just recently found. It's bad quality and you have to be patient with it as it doesn't really drop until like halfway through the song, but when it does drop it's crazy. Dudun-Dun (Boys Noize remix) by Para One
His dj set was good but at the same time you really have to wonder how much he can do with his own stuff. It was well mixed, and sometimes he would create big buildups. He played some version of ghosts and stuff which was cool which then dropped into the original. I wish he had played slip, but oh well. He's just my number 2 becuase it's Deadmau5 and I love all of his songs, and it's so fun to see him in the mask. Interestingly, he was using 2 computers; I wonder why. EDIT: I found out that he's actually doing a live show as well as djing, so now he definitely deserves this number 2 spot. Some good ones:
Cut Copy: I was feeling like shit saturday afternoon when we got there around 4. Part of me that morning really didn't want to go to the festival, but I knew I had to. We laid around in the shade for about an hour before getting up to see the end of La Riot's 20 minute set (which was good but nothing amazing). I didn't feel like dancing: I felt like sitting down and getting out of the sun. I wasn't in a bad mood, but I wasn't super happy either. Cut Copy really helped me out. It really lifted my spirit and made me really happy, and that happiness gave me energy for the rest of the day. That's really quite an accomplishment. Gotta love it when they played that knightlife remix of so haunted and their own remix of kaiser chiefs. It was really nice to just sing along to their songs and to see actual live music in a sea of djs. Go get their albums if you don't already have em, it's worth it.
Dirty South: It's dirty down south. I can honestly say I don't remember much of his set, but god damn it blew me away. I just remember being really happy and everybody going nuts. When a set, especially a house set, is really good, it trances me out. I just kinda leave this world, start moving side to side, until the next buildup. Then I get hyped if it's a good buildup, dance more hardcore when it first drops, then back to trancing out. That's what happened with Dirty South, so I know it was good. Otherwise I would have been standing there bored. Look at that 400 in the picture, must be an old picture or sometimes before he got more famous.
I made a playlist of a long list of videos that a guy put up of dirty south:
Let's be honest, I hate the new album. But they killed it. I mean really a crazy high energy set, and even though I wasn't in the main crowd, I couldn't stop but think wow everytime something dropped. It was less about the greatness of the buildups (a lot of filters) and more about how heavy everything was which complimented the lightness of the hi pass filters. And they played a lot of their old stuff, which made me happy. They also kept the crowd at a constant state of excitement. If they were playing their new stuff, either I didn't notice it or it might mean their stuff hits much harder live (but I didn't hear vocals). I left early to go see Prodigy however. I deleted their new album off my hardrive, so for those who don't know it: The least known but really crazy MSTRKRFT song: Beautiful Fighters (MSTRKRFT remix) by Ayumi Hamasaki (she's going deaf)
Beginning of their set:
I'm sure you can all recognize the song they go into here:
5. Busy P and Josh Wink Busy P: He was great at coachella last year and he was great this year. His song choice was pretty safe in my opinion, but I still really enjoyed his set. Aside from the safe songs, he played a lot of other electro songs I liked and knew which is always nice (numanoid!). His transitions were on par and his buildups were good enough to attract a crowd and get people dancing. I mostly giving him props for not fucking things up, and his song choice was good enough to pull him the rest of the way through. When we entered the tent where he was playing, there were a good amount of people but it definitely wasn't full. By the end it was packed. Funny, while we were leaving, they put out so much fog that I couldn't see 1 foot in front of me. It's really awkward to be leaving and not be able to move because of all the smoke surrounding you and just standing there waiting for it to go away, while wondering if you should still push forward or not. Go look at a recent older post to get some Busy P: HERE
Josh Wink: The House Djs Friday really pulled through. Thank god he got a haircut, and I'm pretty sure his hair was still short on friday, cause other pictures of him are just ridiculous. He was the first guy I saw at the festival, and he got me excited for the rest of the festival. His buildups were extremely well done, most were on par with Swedish House Mafia, transitions were smooth. The only reason I put him down here is because I don't know him well enough and didn't see as much of his set as I would have liked. But he played Slip as I was leaving which made me force chase to run back in with me and if I remember correclty the Herve remix of omen. I actually don't have a single track by Josh Wink, I'll make sure to post a bunch at some point. For now be content to look at his myspace and to find tracks on hypem.
Swedish house mafia playing Josh Wink's higher state of consciousness:
Honorable mention: Surkin: Played a good set, a lot of songs I did not expect to hear at all at this festival (Momy as an example), and did some interesting things with it. But for some reason I just wasn't hugely moved. Chase thought he was terrible.
I was extremely excited to see them to say the least. I was so let down. First of all, they came on like 40 minutes late, but the main stage sucked with times like that (hence deadmau5 playing two songs on friday). They kept shouting "where are you, Miami" well where the fuck were you Prodigy. I stayed for two songs, both sucked, not many people were dancing except in the very front. We left to go get some water before Deadmau5, I wasn't going to miss a minute of deadmau5 for prodigy. I listened from afar to their set, and really it didn't improve. They must have had two to three songs left (because of how late they came on, and they would never shorten Paul Van Dyke's set) by the time we got up to go see deadmau5, and none of the ones I wanted to hear had come on (omen, invaders must die, warriors dance) They played world's on fire, but something must have been wrong with their mids because all I heard were drums and the guy shouting. No idea where the synths were. The actual song is good, but live it just wasn't. However, I will say that a lot of people really though that the prodigy did a great job. Maybe my expectations were too high, or maybe I don't know enough of their stuff, but I just didn't enjoy it. It might also have been cause I was pretty pissed that they came on so late because I wanted to see a good portion of their set before seeing deadmau5.
I only stayed for 20 minutes of his set before going back to Swedish House Mafia, and thank god I went back. Those 20 minutes were boring and even annoying. He kept teasing us with midnight swim, but didn't play it. EVERY SONG SOUNDED THE SAME. I don't know if it's because he kept using this sampled scratchy sound, but it sucked to hear it every song. And he kept using this sample of an open hi hat over all of his stuff. His bass was just too high as well. Could barely distinguish the song. But that was partially because I was in the front row and there were huge subwoofers on the floor in front of me. However, even when I moved back it still didn't sound good. I made motions to try and help him, but he didn't see me. Oh well.
I love Benny Benassi's new album Rock 'N' Rave. Too bad in the 40 minutes out of the hour he was playing, he did not play a single song from it or a single song from his first one. Benassi actually ended up playing a lot of electro, which is usually fine with me, but not in this case. I was just bored. He played a lot of songs I liked... But did he do anything? I'm not sure. I feel like an ipod would have worked well in his place, maybe a dj with the IDJ. Let's just say, there was a huge crowd for Swedish House Mafia, and they all left when Benassi came on. I also spent half the time wondering who was on stage and where the fuck Busy P was because he was supposed to go on before Benassi. Also from afar Benassi kinda looked one of the guys from swedish house, but I think that's because I think he was right next to them the whole time they played.
Mediocre:
4. The Bloody Beetroots Very mixed bag with Bloody Beetroots. And I gotta say, I think I was most excited to see them. Certain points were great, others not so much. I saw them twice, an hour set on friday and a 20 minute set on saturday. They had some good buildups, and I really liked their stage prescence as they're really into it, shouting and stuff. For most of their set on friday, I wasn't dancing much and neither were a lot of people around me. But by the end it picked up and it was really fun. Saturday's set was better, I mean they played positif. It's hard to say exactly why saturday was better, but it definitely was. But my conclusion about the bloody beetroots is that they are lazy. Though I liked saturday's set better, it made me realize how lazy they really are. They played warp three times: once on friday, and twice on saturday (once in the beginning and once in the end. The song does sound better live). More then half the songs they played saturday they had already played on friday. On friday they went from warp to cornelius. Guess what, they did it the exact same way saturday or at least in a very similar way. Where was all the Bloody beetroots I wanted to hear? Mac Mac, Butter, I love the bloody beetroots, 72 virgins remix, summer of 98...anything... I was so pumped to hear miscommunication, but saddened quite a bit when it turned out to be dimmakmmunication. They also played a really safe set, Kids (soulwax remix), wake up, diplo remix of bart bmore, raven (crookers remix) which is less safe then the original but I heard that song too many times, One More Time (the safest song of all time)...There was more but I can't remember right now. It was cool though when they played baggy bottom boys. It wasn't cool when they cut out the second half of the second buildup. However, some of the stuff which sounded like them that I didn't know and could be on the new album, sounded pretty cool. So we'll see.
Horrible video, but all I've found for now:
Most overplayed songs: 1. Kids (Soulwax Remix) by MGMT, please make it stop. It's great, it's not amazing, and the original has been overplayed. I must have heard it at least 7 times, twice at the house stage...
2. Raven by Proxy, I thought the hype about this song was over, I guess I was wrong. Even when the crookers remix was played I was just tired of it.
All the DJs had quite a few safe songs in their sets, maybe because Ultra is a huge festival, and like at a college party, people love hearing what they know, and DJs wanted to make a good impression. No matter how many times people heard that fucking kids remix, they always went nuts.
Acts I really wanted to see but didn't get to: Crystal Castles (heard they sucked from some EDIT: According to some commenter they were great) Fedde Le Grande Moby More of LA Riots Pete Tong Carl Cox Rabbit in the moon SIMIAN MOBILE DISCO: Tony and Devra were so fed up with dance music by 11 pm on saturday that they had no intention of staying to see simian. Me, most importantly without any cash, and really not in the mood to stay there alone (though if I had money I probably would have), had to leave too. :( Booka Shade (Really wanted to see, but it just didn't end up happening) Evol Intent Infected Mushrooms Kaskade
Some things I noticed about the djs:
I heard very few to no mashups.
A lot of filters out of songs.
Quick cuts from right before where a buildup would be in the song to the buildup in a new song For the loops which became smaller and smaller and smaller i'm pretty sure they were using the pioneer mixer and not the cdjs.
Fuck computers, the best djs didn't have em.
They cut in parts of really popular songs that everybody knew, but didn't actually play the song. In deadmau5's case, he cut in parts of harder better faster stronger and he did it in a really cool way, but he didn't play the song or his remix of the song, and people were dissapointed when it dropped back into hi friend for the third time (he played the version without the vocals the first time, and after the first buildup, dropped into the version with the vocals). I'm not so down with that.
Overall I'm not complaining. I really enjoyed seeing all those djs. However, I think next time I go to a festival (whether its a massive in LA or something else) I'm going to try and see more house music then electro acts, unless I really want to see that electro act.
I'm sure most people already had this and of course I'm just behind as usual, but here is the second cd that comes with Vitalic's O.K. Cowboy collectors edition: O.K. Cowboy Collectors Edition CD 2 And here is Vitalic Live. Just for Kicks.
There's some really good stuff on both, I definitely recommend going through both of them.
I'm really just waiting for a new Vitalic banger and the wait is becomming unsettling. He said he was in the studio making another album in like 2006 (might have been 05); so either he gave up or he's taking a long time to finish it.
Just recently, I posted about Louis La Roché's fantastic debut, The Peach EP, on Audible Musings a few days back. Then I received an email from the manager of this emerging French House Hero and received the art work and a mini mix for his upcoming release, Me & Her. The track-list will be as follows:
1. Me & Her
2. Be Brave
3. Distant Lovers
4. Sunshine Hotel
Here's the minimix, and I must say Im really excited about this release, because it seems that will be receiving more of those Disco beats that he does so well. If you would like to download the mix, it's available at his myspace.
Unfortunately, I'm not aware of how to stream it on this blog despite my few attempts. They specifically asked me not to post it for download but rather to link to his myspace, so please go there to grab it, it's worth it.
The other day I was sitting on my bed, and my roommate, who usually plays these electro mixes full of songs I already know (including one with ghosts and stuff), played the remix I posted of We Are your friends. Even just hearing the first aspect of We are your friends made me skeptical. You don't fuck with that song unless you really think you have something good. I was so ready to just dismiss it off the bat, being as pretensious about this kind of stuff as I am. But it really caught my attention and got me interested. Later I found a disco villains remix of Tiga, which is by far the best remix of mind dimension I have heard so far (which is saying a lot as there are so many out there). Thank Matt for introducing me to The Disco Villains.
This is my last post until someone else puts something up. Jumpman, you asked me to put this up a while ago so here it is, catch up on their material before you see them live at Coachella.
Remember him? It's now 6:00 AM and my little all-nighter break ends in 30 mins and I've got to get back to work then. So for my break I've been going on blogs bitching about Dim Mak and checking facebook every so often, stumbled upon this. MYSPACE
And if anyone is reading this that isn't Bastille or Jumpman, this kid went to our elementary school.
Duke Dumont is a producer from London (once again, props to London for being awesome right now) on Turbo Records. However, he is not bound by genre, which is immediately clear if you have listened to any two of his songs. But this newest song I got took me by complete surprise, as it sounds like something our local hero Flying Lotus (he's SO much cooler / more innovative / worthwhile than Dim Mak it kills me) would have made. It's got fantastically chopped vocals, highly recommended.
Our hero Deadmau5 doesn't have the best opinion of DJs it seems. I still fucking love his music and consider him the best producer right now, but it just makes me sad. Read the article HERE, and his response HERE.
Glad I stumbled upon this, because the one genre I really really really want more of is hard hitting Electro House. Sharooz is just that. He comes from London (it seems the UK is doing quite well for itself now). Here's his track Get Off with some remixes, including one from Miles Dyson, a name that's synonymous with hard hitting Electro House. The other remixes are definitely worth your time as well. The Superstrobe is minimal/chipy/ravey and the Lazy Rich is more housey with a cool electro bassline that comes in, something I could actually see someone like Laidback Luke dropping if he was in an electro mood. Every song is perfect for live play, just depends on your set which one you'd pick. I'd probably go with the Original or the Lazy Rich one as its probably the most accessible.
And catch an interview with Lazy Rich HERE, where he even talk about Aoki and the hipster movement.
Also, I was talking to one of Jordan's friend's from NYU that produces, I'll do a post on his stuff when I get more of it, and he recommended this book called The Dance Music Manual. Sounds like the perfect summer reading and reference book.
So he brought them into his record label and collaborates, tours, gets fucked by, etc. them. Here's their latest collaboration, got it from Lafriendly. It's not what'd you expect, like, at all. Sounds like a rock band and very uptempo.
Man, The Bloody Beetroots were so much more awesome pre Dim Mak. Hopefully Warp will be cool once we get the whole song. They need to stop touring/partying/being hipsters for a month or two and just sit in a studio. Their remix of Mind Dimension was total bullshit. And I'm also proud to say there's finally a wikipedia article on them.
UPDATE:
Warp is out, and it's not that cool. And the video sucks. Above statements still hold.
SNOOP RAPS OVER DUBSTEP! So I decided I'd go grab the track he rapped over, which happened to be by Chase & Status, two Dubstep/DnB producers. So far I'm quite pleased, and by quite I mean immensely.
Tocadisco's album is a pop piece of shit, not worth your time, even for the 1/2 songs that were enoyableish. Still, hugely popular and helped get him to where he is today. His remixes, on the other hand are pretty great. Here's my favorite, not really dance party material.
Capsule are a Japanese electro pop music duo formed in 1997 which really have been denied on blogs (at least you can't really find anything on hypem). In either case they are awesome. Their earlier stuff that I was listening to was varying from J pop with somewhat electro beats behind it (alot of just pure J Pop). They ahve progressively become more and more influenced by electro music and it really shows in their newer albums Sunglasses Girl, Flash Back, and More More More (we can see the beginning of this trend in the album Fruit Clippers especially. Though I must admit you definitely hear the pop influences in a lot of songs, but that's fine with me). It's cool to also note that alll three of the albums (not fruit clippers) were all released in a little over a year. I still want to give a better listen to their earlier stuff and will post that later. There's some stuff I havn't found yet like their newest EP Tape + Demo + Tour or a remix album they made in 2000, and would really like to find. If I had to characterize their music, it would be strong influences by Yuksek, some shinichi (maybe), some Petits Pilous, and certain songs M83, and certain sounds really remind of Crystal Castles. I'm sure they have Japanese influences that I just have no idea about. You can thank Sean Fujiyoshi for getting me interested in looking them up (I was looking at his facebook profile and looked at his music info and other electro/techno there was capsule).
This album starts with an awesome vocoded voice which would even be good to use in a dj set to introduce yourself. The voice really marks the change that Capsule has overgone over the years. Some of the stuff on here sounds similar to their earlier stuff but we can start hearing those electro soudns in the background starting to come up, song like Fruit Clipper and dreamer dreamer have J Pop sections dropping into hardcore electro sections. Sometimes I feel like it clashes how different the sections of the songs are, but it's definitely worth a listen, I still very much enjoyed it. Still songs like Jelly and especially Megalopolis and Crazeee skyhopper (which have an actual ravey feel) are hardcore. Robot disco on the other hand has a more laidback feel kinda like Breakbot. In general this mix of more J pop stuff with electro background, and just pure mind blowing electro beats characterizes all the albums to come. Get Fruit Clippers.
I don't really have the time right now to describe this album, I will edit this post later (someone is waiting on me). Just know it's quite good and here is the link:
The album flash back really varies from the hardcore songs like Flash Back (previously posted in one of my favorites playlists) or Mussixx and the more m83 feeling I'm feeling you, love me, and You are the reason. Its quite early to actually say, but I feel like this is my favorite of album of theirs that I have posted. Get Flash Back
Following Flash Back we have More More More. Very similar to Flash Back but even further from their Jap pop roots as there is just banger after banger on this album. However half hte album has songs like Phantom and Pleasure Ground with a real synth pop feel kinda like MGMT mixed with J Pop with a more electro feel. I previously uploaded the song E.D.I.T. and stick by how amazing it, but really give this whole album a listen, it's incredible (the intro song runway is short but crazy). I expect to play e.d.i.t at the next party i dj cause it's crazy. Get More More More. EDIT:
All these albums are really worth a listen and here's a preview of their earlier stuff: Music Controller
EDIT: I vote we remix runway off of more more more.
I made a transition tonight from The Twelves remix of Black Kids into Mstrkrft's remix of Ayumi Hamaski. It reminds me a lot of that sound of children screaming every time you get a head shot with the Grunt Birthday Party skull on. You'll see why.
This candy raver wants YOU to click on THIS LINK to grab some Electro House remixes. I'm thizzin so hard just looking at her. The DJ Jean and Madison Avenue are both highly recommended.
Jack played this song while we were sitting in the tent of fire in Jordan's backyard wearing goggles because we couldn't keep our eyes open otherwise. It's like the sweat lodge of weed. Well, I heard this song and though it was some of the raviest shit I've ever heard. I'm gonna look for some rap to mash it up with.
Zombie Nation's long awaited and hyped album, Zombielicious, has been released. Whether or not you've been a fan of the few leaked tracks, I highly suggest you give it a listen as I was impressed with it. It may not be exactly like the electro that we love, but its much better than I thought. Also, having heard Forza and Mind Dimension live just last night (Boys Noize and Erol Alkan dropped them respectively), I definitely have a new perspective. Let me know what you think of it, a particular highlight was the track Seas Of Grease.
We might also want to consider grabbing HARD summer tickets early. Presale price is $55, but judging what HARD has been pulling off, we know that we wont want to miss this, and the price will just go up if we're lazy.
