NORTHERN ALLSTARS vs HARDINO - DON’T STOP BELIEVING vs IT GIRL / How much in the world is purer than the intent of this mix of songs? Since I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed by the concepts expressed in this track, I’ll just make a short list of things I’m impressed with here and hope you can help me connect some of the dots.
- “Midnight Train” recontextualized as rave drug reference
- Boy or girl singing? Is this concept a Steve Perry reference?
- Sample clearance for guitar solo or complete re-record?
- The generic rave build owes a lot to Journey anyway
- Now Americans have the wherewithal to create mix CDs called “Clubland Smashed”
- Might make your uncle’s entree into rave scene
- This will be many teens’ first exposure to these lyrics
- ”Hold On To That Feeling” also recontextualized
- Repetitive lyrics not too far from standard vocal trance anyway
- The “It Girl” comes just as you were about to stop believin’
SKY FERREIRA - LOST IN MY BEDROOM / Sky Ferreira occupies much the same space that Hermione Granger does in my psyche, only she has a lot more hard techno production going on all around her, which makes her dangerous for people like me. Not in a stalkery/jailbat kind of way (yet) but in a Downton Abbey / Hunger Games sort of way, which is maybe probably the best way to show your dedication to a serialized artist catalog, as most serious money-concerned chanteuses seem to be these days. The half-Portuguese, half-Angeleno heart killer has left her native LA for NYC at the same age I did. I await her permanent return with an open mind and an open heart.
HIGH CONTRAST - THE ROAD GOES ON FOREVER / High Contrast has very quickly become one of my very very favorite music guys in the whole world, and his label Hospital Records has very quickly become one of my very favorite things in the entire universe. It has always been hard for me to directly express the ecstasy (doink) one simple, gentle raver experiences through music in a non-disgusting way, and most of the people involved in Hospital do it every day for a living! Can you imagine such a job? Like all real real clever artists in 2012 they have also figured out a way to make shitloads of money off of their releases through a tightly-woven ecosystem: unmissable weekly podcasts, a breathtakingly-paced release schedule (that seems to be 100% leak-proof), endlessly fascinating/sold out/independently-wrought parties, and most importantly, a refreshingly simple take on what music should be in peoples’ lives: a constantly powerful force for fun and emotional workout. If this is what it’s like inside the hospital I don’t wanna be well! Make sure to check out some sick early remixes from High Contrast of Missy Elliott, White Stripes, Kanye, and especially his very cute “drum n’ bass / surf” remix of M.I.A.’s “Born Free.”
KATY PERRY - LAST FRIDAY NIGHT (T.G.I.F.) - JOHN MONKMAN & JOHNSON SOMERSET REMIX / Did you know that my favorite genre of music is “remix?” I have known it, inside, for a long time, but never fully acknowledged it to myself, especially to Tumbler, until I heard this song. Remixes are important. Remixes bring a song to you many months or even years after you originally knelt at its altar in a form that comes at you subtly (if it’s done well). Sometimes, there’s no hint of the original at the genesis of the remix, and as you detect familiarity mixed in slowly over the course of a few bars, your heart starts to melt and your eyes get blurry but you are not sure why. It’s like you have tasted the slightest hint of Purr in the air but you don’t even know what Purr is. Then, as a pre-verb of blissful proportions brings itself into aural view, a smile comes to your brain, and then…only then, after the brain smile…do you realize what is going on, and you fall in love all over again, and that is what music is for, and that is why remix is my favorite genre of music: it lets you do it again.
ORBITAL - LIVE DJ SET FOR MIXMAG / One of the things I miss about enjoying music is the caliber of mass hysteria surrounding one artist we had before 1995. Chuck Klosterman calls it a unilateral moment, where everyone is geeking out about the same thing, and bands that can elicit that response in the trash-flooded landscape of music are so rare these days. Orbital does that for me, which is why I live-ripped their DJ set this morning and felt the need to publish it ASAP, I freak out when I hear this music. Stream up there or download here. [note: missed the first 15 minutes, very sorry]
RHYE / OPEN - If there’s one thing I wish could have some sort of revolution in the way it’s done it’s these goddamn music publicity emails! But this one sounded so good and weird I couldn’t handle not: “Details are being withheld about the identities of the duo behind Rhye. They live in LA, but both have European backgrounds…the singer’s voice may be recognizable to some: it’s immaculate…so uncomplicatedly sweet it makes me sick to my stomach about every half-nice thing I’ve said that should’ve been more direct.” It’s probably Sade.
CAPSULE / STEP ON THE FLOOR - Sometimes your day was OK [Jamba juice breakfast] and then it gets better [dinner special] like when you see your favorite alien in your favorite band holding speakers like they are skulls like some sort of Shakespearette from Earth 2.
HELLO PODCAST 001 // Sun’s Getting Colder / Hello and welcome to a brand-new music venture / broadcast opportunity from DJ Trent called HELLO PODCAST. Very high-quality (style AND bitrate, LOL) enhanced shows tell you what you are listening to as it gets mind-squeezed into another song from a different dimension. Please listen, SUBSCRIBE, love, and learn learn about new music (DIE ANTWOORD + Wiley + Frederic Robinson) and old music (Willow Smith Dubstep Remix + Arpeggiator Paul McCartney + Sky Ferreira dn’b rmx) at and reblog. HELLO PODCAST
GWEN STEFANI - EARLY WINTER / Can I tell you a little story? Not to get weird on you, but some friends and I were walking through an open-air mall in Las Vegas, drunk off Holiday Yogurtland and Holiday Starbucks. The sun was setting, bleeding orange and red from behind a classic Hollywood-style row of perfectly aligned palm trees. Could you imagine what was coming out of the palm trees? It was this song. Like a lot of otherworldly desert-based moments, it was something that was too transcendent to try to explain in a blog or a website or a line drawing or oil painting. From far away, I could have sworn it was Nina Persson, flying through space and time to sing hello to us from the roof of the Abercrombie. That would have been fine, but it was Gwen, so perfectly in tune with the emotions the modern retail experience elicits. We Shazam’d it, and the rest is history. You can find me most days driving around the Target parking lot, crying, my ears bleeding from playing this song far past “11” on repeat, the blood and tears mixing together and flowing out the window in a pink ribbon that I hope can be in some way evocative of Gwen Stefani’s contribution to the universe.
CAPSULE - JUMPER / An oldie but goodie, but you wouldn’t know that from the landscaping that Capsule found in a present place to piece together for this, one of many perfect executions of stabbing harmonic post-rave that point to an F-Zero existence (if F-Zero’s ROM-based soundtrack had gotten on that Wipeout 2097 CD-ROM tip) on their Yamaha Music release More!MoreMore!. Sometimes you see some pictures of Japan and you think, that’s the 80’s version of the future, and then you realize you were looking at like a Japanese 7-11, where the 80’s version of the future actually tastes better than the present taquito on a roller we have in the USA. Then you morph into a wireframe, or something.
