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Category Archives: Tuneful
Ulrich Schnauss “Ten Years”
Published on Jan 3, 2013
Marvelous fusion of electronics that intoxicates the mind with it’s mesmerizing & infectious sound. This piece is taken from the brand new album ‘A Long Way To Fall’ (2013).
A little birdie told me (Mr. Oizo vs. Mr. Saxobeat)
Alexandra Stan (or I should say her producers Marcel Prodan and Andrei Nemirschi) could learn something from Mr. Oizo when it comes to capitalizing on a saxophone sample.
“Stan and her personnel decided to make a new song to become at least a moderate hit.” – (Mr. Saxobeat entry on Wikipedia)
I always got that sense listening to the track.
But it makes me think of Mr. Oizo’s “Patrick122″ which features a clip of Bob Forman busting out a phat sax solo at 2:41 of the song, part of the well sampled Gary’s Gang “Do It At the Disco.”
Annie Mac Saturates: Inside the Question
One of the most respected entities on the planet in both the worlds of dance music and broadcast news is the one and only BBC. And the two BBC Radio 1 shows I generally listen to at some point during the week are the ones presented by Pete Tong and Annie Mac.
So when I found out that Ms. Annie’s bio page was linking here to the Frequency Horizon less than a day after I randomly put up a post with a photo of her DJing at 99 Sudbury in Toronto, I almost fell off my chair. So first thing’s first, I want to welcome all you international dance music fans to the Frequency Horizon, a place where the musical spectrum collides with fantastic visual perspectives and unbounded thought.
Strangely enough, all week while I was surfing the internet and prepping other blog posts, I had the distinct pleasure of doing it to the sounds of Annie Mac herself, since she was back in Britain and covering the Nick Grimshaw show all week (or “Grimmy” as she affectionately says).
So in honour of the Olympics and thanks to BBC spreading some love round this way to the Frequency Horizon, I figured I’d also turn my gaze across the pond and toss up a pic taken by my ‘lil bro when he toured the BBC complex in England.
What you’re looking at is the interior courtyard at the BBC News complex, as I understand it. The whole building is in the shape of a giant question mark and from this vantage point you are inside of it. “The BBC” or “The Beeb” is one of the (few) journalistic establishments you can consistently point to as a source of unbiased news focused on setting the tone for world affairs. So it’s nice to see that even the architecture is decided focused on keeping the corporate functionaries inside inquisitive for life.
Whether seeking out new music or blowing up huge stories that’s probably a pretty good mantra: stay inside the question mark and everything else will follow.
Magazine Shopping on 17th Ave
Justin Martin recounts being honoured by the one and only dnb maven and Metalheadz boss Goldie while adorned in a giant diamond in the corresponding mag pic.
I met Goldie for the first time last week in Miami, and I had one of those life moments and got a little emotional behind my sunglasses. He pulled me aside and told me that he loved my version of ‘Kemistry’, and I was completely speechless.
read online: dj mag
Here is the aforementioned track:
ADSR – Seekae
(Via Toothsvideo)
In this episode of ADSR we meet Sydney electronic trio Seekae in their Sydney City studio.
They go through the process of writing ‘+Dome’ – their 2nd album. You’ll find out what plugins and hardware they use, how they make their loops/samples and how they bring it all together to perform live using Ableton Live.
I snagged one of Seekae’s track’s off xlr8r.com I believe a while back and it just floated through various playlists over the months. It was always one of those tunes that worked well to move between disparate genres and electronic hodge-podge. It’s always rewarding to check in on the audio craftwork of percussive synth aficionados.
“It’s hard to say what ‘live’ is really.”
“Put more compression on the snares, or whatever.”
“Our last show at the Manning Bar the fire alarm went off and it was in some of our like more uptempo hip-hop tracks. And I don’t think many people realized it was actually the fire alarm going off, because it was kind of this kind of oscillating sine wave which was excruciatingly annoying for us.”
These are the sorts of quotes you can expect from the trio.
Kid Koala Shined Bright @ Snowblower
As I watched a local DJ drop sweet tunes as part of an art opening at Calgary’s city hall premises recently I couldn’t help but look back at this year’s Snowblower festivities when Kid Koala dropped sick dubstep and funky grooves just across the street on what is normally a skating rink.
This had been the site of the Occupy protests just a few weeks prior, and so I guess the artistically minded benefitted in a way from the dispersing of the anti-corporate efforts, although I’m not sure they would have seen it that way.
It was awesome to see so many taking in the high calibre rhythm and flow of one of Canada’s top talents. And Mr. Eric San, the Montrealer in the hot seat, was happy to dish out toasty beats as if they were hot chocolate, warming the winter crowd.
Annie Mac @ a Canadian Warehouse
Amid the flashing lights, cerebral techno and pulsating crowd intent on getting the most out of the evening’s British music offerings, Annie Mac stepped up to the decks and gave the Canadian partiers a dose of sonic energy.
Guvernment Freedom
(@ Freedom 2011 )
Congrads to the Guvernment Entertainment Complex which was rated 27th best club in the world for 2012 by DJ Mag for its 4,000 capacity parties.
Synth Bank
Just look at all these electronic music makers. Aren’t they lovely?
Don’t they just inspire you. Don’t they just take you higher? I feel like I should write a haiku about it, except that I don’t particularly like haikus. But I think you get the point.
Basically this is a wall of possibilities… possibilities that I certainly am not afraid to explore.
Because this moment is only the beginning.
Stabbing @ the Symphonic Typewriter
Courtesy of Music Fail Blog, where they referenced Cake’s “Shadow Stabbing,” so I have included a cool fan vid I found below…
Fozzy Fest Forest Fun
During the thick heat of afternoon slick rolling kick-drum beats woven among energetic hi-hats, jet propelled synth leads and gushing bass phrasing that pumps like oxygen through the bloodstream wafts between stately mountains in this Kananaskis river valley…
Lush hillsides sway side to side along with the music as banks of cumulus clouds roar across the sky at varying altitudes. The dozen kids give or take on the top of the white bus carry on a banter with no particular direction, sunning themselves as the set progresses into the next track.
Many of the campers have no way to tell time since our cellphones have died by now and we’re miles away from the nearest outlet. But that’s just fine by us. Since the music is continuous, with thematic elements rising and falling as seamlessly and unexpectedly as the drastic changes in the thermometer courtesy of the passing cloud patchwork, it’s easy to get lost in the energetic tranquility of Fozzy Fest.
Diamond Diplo
As the Stampede gets underway here in Calgary, I figured I’d toss up a pic from the first event I got to take in on the grounds months back. International electronic maverick Diplo, who commands stages and awards all across this little planet of ours, graced the crowd at the Big Four building courtesy of an automobile promotion and Embrace events.
He’s been busy as of late releasing this rework of Sleigh Bells’ “Demons” which you can download over at Soundcloud.
It wasn’t until months later that I learned that the venue (which had pretty awful sound IMHO) took its name from the four financiers of the original Stampede, cattlemen all.
Simian Mobile Disco takes us deeper
James Ford and Jas Shaw of Simian Mobile Disco have managed to wrangle their way from the top of the pop electronic roster, through the wilderness of the sophomore slump (a reality caused by too many elevated hipster expectations anyhow) and now right back to the forefront of the dance music subculture. That probably has quite a lot to do with their engaging live performances, as in this 99 Sudbury gig over in Toronto’s Queen West neighbourhood.
Grabbing cover articles on top dance titles and getting high praise from critics for their unabashed experimental approach to staying strong in the genre, don’t ever count these guys out. And if you head down to one of their gigs it will become apparent tout suite that these guys are fully invested in what they’re doing. The knobs and buttons they are twisting and punching are so much more than on and off switches. Sliders are portals to new galaxies and LFOs regulate just how fast the journey will go. Just be careful you don’t get swept too far down the rabbit’s hole.
After all, their latest effort “Unpatterns” is sheer bliss, that is if you enjoy storytelling electric gagets, infectious thematic builds and challenging sequences. Check it out for yourself and decide.
It’s like Sasha scored for Frequency Horizon
(pic via dipity fyi)
I was listening Jian G’s program Q yesterday in his new CBC studio where Philip Glass dropped by (along with Cadence Weapon who infused the listening public with slick funky rhymes) and I enjoyed how Glass talked a bit about how powerful broadcast media could be.
(Good eye/ear: The Telegraph used this pulsating still from Koyaanisqatsi: Life out of Balance to delve into what is undoubtably Philip Glass’s best repetitive soundscape)
When he scored Koyaanisqatsi and it was played on PBS he immediately racked up more “views” (in modern parlance) in one airing than the number of people who had ever seen him live, he said.
So when I came across this gem of a mix from international superstar DJ Sasha, I couldn’t help but feel like it might make a great backing track for Frequency Horizon.
The musical narrative was originally laid down in Tokyo’s Womb Nightclub and is less the spacey trance of the Xpander era but more of a house take on his New Emissions foray. So, basically perfect. What do you think?