No text, just music, Part 6

"Face Control" by Danton Eeprom

I'm suprised that I did think of posting this one earlier. It's not exactly a current hit, but this track was doing very well over the summer in Berlin. It's by a French producer called Danton Eeprom, who has been blowing up over in Europe during the past year and then wowed everyone at Mutek in Montréal last June (I still haven't blogged about that weekend...sigh). His style follows in Ricardo Villalobos's footsteps in a sense--in the sense that he likes to have at least one slow-moving, echoey, atmospheric element that floats over all of the other rhythmic activity. On the other hand, his beats are much more trancey and spaced-out than Villalobos's beats, which tend to be really punchy. I remember posting a few weeks ago about standing in line and hearing someone behind me talking about how Villalobos's music sorta overwhelmed her emotionally in a way that was sometimes rather ambivalent or confusing. Over the summer, a friend of mine played me this Danton Eeprom track, pointed to the perpetually-rising synth line that starts around the 4-minute mark, and said, "It just gets into your head! If this sort of thing hit me in the right way, in the right situation, I might just lose my mind." So listen from about 4:00 into the track and let the sound spin for a while and see what you think about it. There is something hypnotic about it, I'll admit.

In fact, here's one of my favorite Villalobos tracks, just so that the comparison is complete. Note the lovely video.

"Dexter" by Ricardo Villalobos

The corresponding moment where the "atmospheric" element enters in this track is around the 2:39 mark.

No text, just music, Part 5

Today I got a fair bit of work done (for which I am rather proud, considering I only had about 4 hours after work to review a bunch of Levinas texts and organize my thoughts). After that, I went out with a friend from work for drinks, then dinner, then more drinks. Good times were had, but I stumbled home rather...um...non-productive. I slept well, though.

"Requiem of a Dream" by Johnny D

Woo! I managed to get Beatport to create an embeddable player. If I can manage to duplicate this feat, I might go back an insert a player for the track I posted on Tuesday, which didn't have anything on iMeem.

Anyway, this track is rather interesting, from a perspective of affect / emotion. On the one hand, it has a stream of clicks that have the same upbeat, swing effect as a "hi-hat ride" might have for dance-band/jazz drummers. On the other hand, you've got a string quartet playing a series of slowly-shifting chords that approximate the orchestral score for the gut-wrenching film, Requiem for a Dream. As it turns out, the main title track from the soundtrack, "Lux Aeterna," has had its own history of re-use.

So I'm fascinated by this mixture of depressive affect, serious contemplation and "party time!" music. It works as a minimal techno track, although I haven't seen it deployed on a dancefloor yet. I wonder what this does to the mood of a club. It's been listed as one of the top 50 listed tracks of October on Resident Advisor, so it's obviously working for some people...

No text, just music, Part 4

The chapter-writing continues, so the music posts continue as well.

"Ratman (Hugo Remix)" by Minimono

So I love resonant bass on this one (starting around 0:31 and continuing from there); the bass drums are pitched very low on this one, so you need to listen to this through good earphones or a set of speakers with good woofers, because otherwise you'll be wondering what all the fuss is about. I also am somewhat fascinated with the insertion of crowd noises / conversation (around 1:31 the first time, then passim), which I think was the addition of the remixer, as I can't find it in the original. The other remixes and the original mix are also pretty good and can be found here, on Beatport.com

P.S. Tonight was also the night that the Mumbai terror attacks began, so I was up until 3 or 4 in the morning, gripped by the mixture of hysteria and help on the #mumbai Twitter stream. If you are concerned about people you know who are in Mumbai, you can go to the Mumbai Help blog to see a list of the deceased, injured and rescued. They also posted the help phone lines for some of the hotels. Also, take a look at the comment thread in the top post, entitled "May We Help?" if you want to try and help out; people will post requests to relay messages, call numbers, type up the names of the dead, etc.

No text, just music, Part 3

Alas, this next track hasn't been posted on iMeem, so I had no handy player to embed in here. You'll just have to follow the link below to preview it on Beatport.com.

"Lucky Drawls" by Matt Nordstrom

Listen here on Beatport.com; both the original and the remixed version are good. I'm always impressed by Mark Broom's remixes and then disappointed by his DJ sets.

UPDATE: I managed to get BeatportPlayer to work! Here's the release in embedded form:

No text, just music, Part 2

The non-writing continues!

"Bell Clap Dance (Slam Paragraph Remix)" by Radio Slave

Sometimes this guy puts out amazing tracks, sometimes less so. But this was is pretty great, and the remix that Slam does for this track distills it down to a bubbling, churning sort of minimal froth similar to the SIS track I posted here a couple of months ago.

No text, just music, Part 1

Hello hello. I'm going into chapter-writing hiding, so I'm not going to be posting much to my blog. On the other hand, I feel bad not posting something, so I've decided to play the musical curator and post links to tracks that I've been enjoying with some minimal review/description. In general, I'm culling these from recent DJ charts and published playlists, so that what you'll be hearing here is what I've been hearing in clubs in Berlin and Paris these last few weeks.

So, without further ado, the first installment:

"Radar" by Stimming & H.O.S.H.

Those of you who have been reading my blog over the summer and fall already know how much I love Stimming's work. If this boy gets any better, I'll be asking him to marry me. Anyway, this is another track that was featured in his live sets, along with the ever-popular "Una Pena" and "Safari." Be sure to listen to just past the 5-minute point, where a long, siren-like build-up makes this sudden u-turn into mellow electric organ chords. It somehow works, and I can personally attest that it makes for a great climax on the dancefloor. These chords, pumped through a really powerful soundsystem, can have a really tactile "wash" effect. Anyway, great track.