elecTONIC

Mezz’s summer tracks

// July 9th, 2010 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

I’ve listened to thousands of electronic songs in the last few months, here’s my favorites at the moment:
(set the youtube to at least 480p for decent sound quality!)

This is the biggest song out there right now. Skip the vocal version and lose yourself in this riff
One – Swedish House Mafia

Fedde takes us to the future with a sound you’ve never heard before
Back & Forth (feat. Mr. V) (Fedde’s Future Funk remix) – Fedde Le Grand

Afrojack and Chuckie have a new contender in the Dutch House scene, Angger Dimas
Pass That Dutch (Angger Dimas Bootleg) – Missy Elliot

Angger Dimas, Vandalism, and Jack Hammer with a KILLER electro house track
She Got It (Jack Hammer remix) – Vandalism & Angger Dimas

Trippy, groovy, creepy. You have to check out Tobacco!
Backwoods Altar – Tobacco

Hardcore from an artist named after the neurodevelopmental disorder that makes people act like elves. Pseudonym of Kasparov of Noisecontrollers.
Secrets – Williams Syndrome

SonicC transformed My Guns On Display to something a lot quicker, maybe a machine gun. I loved the sound of the original, but it was way too slow to keep my interest or get me dancing. SonicC fixed all of that.
My G*O*D (SonicC remix) – Laidback Luke

Remember the video or Christopher Walken dancing to this song? Yeah. It’s been Electro House’d by Lazy Rich for your nostalgic party purposes. A monster track in its own right.
Weapon Of Choice (Lazy Rich remix) – Fatboy Slim

Disco & Funky House exists for songs like this.
Groove In You – Steve Angello

Tech Trance is keeping things alive with some great sounds
Perpetual Sunrise (The Tribal Re Rub) – Will Atkinson

Very Popular, a year old, but still beautiful
Temper Trap – Sweet Disposition (Axwell & Dirty South Remix)

The 1920s meets electro house? Something like that, anyway. WHoaAa
Make My Music (Zodiac Cartel remix) – Emanuel Kosh

Something by Uffie that I can actually get people to dance to! It’s about time. Death to Ke$ha, Uffie was there first.
ADD Suv (feat. Pharrel Williams) (Armand Van Helden Club remix) – Uffie

And finally:
Deep at Night (Adam K & Soha remix extended) – Ercola vs. Heikki L

Dance to John Roman

// November 16th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Uncategorized

It’s about time for you to check out what little-known Canadian DJ and producer John Roman has been brewing.

Imagine Boys Noize playing an awesome set at Coachella. Now imagine it starts hailing guitars like lightning bolts and absolutely everyone dies.

“Carnivores” should give you a pretty good idea (start it at 1:00 if you want the club experience):

Get your headphones on for “Who’s Afraid of Cornelius?” (referring of course to Cornelius by The Bloody Beetroots)

Heads Will Roll (John Roman remix) by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs:
It’s a lot softer, but absolutely indispensable.

Less than 2000 listeners on last.fm! Give this guy some publicity!

Bonus Zone:
• Martyr – John Roman
• Ready For This – John Roman
• Carnivores – John Roman
• Panther (John Roman remix) – DJ Barletta
• Tron Legacy Theme (John Roman remix) – Daft Punk
• Heads Will Roll (John Roman remix) – Yeah Yeah Yeahs

-Mezzanine

When titans collide

// October 21st, 2009 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

If you looked at yesterday’s Music Tuesdays on Youtube, you probably caught this disco throwback video:

While it may look like it belongs in the seventies, the track is actually the first single from Duck Sauce, the collaboration of two dance music legends, Armand Van Helden and A-Trak.

Armand Van Helden is an American remixer who’s famous for making one of the biggest house tracks of the 90′s, a remix of Tori Amos’ Professional Widow.

Van Helden’s racked up quite a prolific discography, with his European chart-topping singles “My My My” and “U Don’t Know Me,” alongside a slew remixes for Daft Punk, Puff Daddy, Ayumi Hamasaki, and The Rolling Stones. And he’s no stranger to funk either. In fact, one of his biggest singles was this classic:

The other half of this superduo is Canadian A-trak, who from a young age was recognized as one of the world’s most talented DJs. He won the prestigious DMCs World DJ Championship in 1997 when he was only 15:

His list of accomplishments kept piling up. He won five more DJ championships by the time he was 18, developed his own notation system for turntabling, and in 2004 became Kanye West’s tour DJ. In recent years he’s been running the Fool’s Gold label and has turned his hand towards producing, making 2008′s massive Say Whoa and this recent remix of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs:

But that doesn’t mean A-Trak has lost his DJ touch. Actually, far from it:

Duck Sauce’s aNYway EP comes out October 26th.

Local artist: V.J

// October 6th, 2009 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

V.J is the alias of Vijay Jayant, an 18-year-old composer and remixer (and also one of my best friends) hailing from Fremont, California. Inspired by the work of Justice, Muse and the Chemical Brothers, V.J started messing around in FL Studio, only to become passionate about making music. His banging B-side compilation was released earlier this year, and he’s currently working on his full-length debut. You can download Aura, one of the lead tracks off the album, right here, absolutely free.

He’s also the drummer for the band Flux and does collaborations with other local artists such as Soul Poet and The N. Check out the rest of his work at his Myspace and his much more frequently updated Facebook page.

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This is a planned first in a series, if you have any suggestions for local artists to feature here on the elecTONIC blog, email them to ayu@electonic.us or send me a message on my Myspace.

Techno? Wait, what?

// September 29th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Uncategorized

I Love Techno 2009 is one of the world’s biggest dance music festivals. Just a quick glance at the roster (Deadmau5, Boys Noize, Zombie Nation, Tiga, Fake Blood, and Bloody Beetroots, to name a few of the very many) shows us all why we should move to Belgium. (Quick note: A few of these people are going to be at either LovEvolution or Subsonic Halloween Spookfest, so it’s not that bad.)

One thing this festival is known for doing is releasing a genre-pushing mix by one of the headliners a month in advance (2007′s mix by Dave Clarke is my favorite). This year, however, really stretches the boundaries. It’s mixed by?

Crookers.

Yes, Crookers, the guys who brought us that Day ‘n’ Nite remix, the guys who make electro versions of rap tracks and hip-hop remixes of electronica tracks. Definitely a shock when the opening tracks of a self-proclaimed techno mix album are banging fidget house tunes. It does veer back into familiar territory eventually (Osborne’s The Count), but the CD as a whole goes places you’d never expect.

Just take a gander at the Crookers remix of Fever Ray (Track 4) and see if you’d call this techno. [I don't even know what to call it, other than awesome.]