Aux-In

THE RANDOMIZER

Song Analysis: This is from Armin's Intense album. I get a strong rock vibe from "Won't Let You Go." Definite banger. At one part in the song, there is the line "I still believe in God, in love, and you and I." Generally, I avoid religious and political connotations in my music. Don't want it, don't need it. However, I am able to put myself in the position of a passive observer, and I can't shake the fact that that line is a powerful and uplifting addition to the overall sentiment of the track. So there's no confusion, this is top-shelf material.

Artist Info: For this song, Armin teamed up with Aruna Abrams, an American-born singer, songwriter, DJ and pianist. Stylistically, I think she is similar to Nadia Ali, although they each have their own sound. In checking Aruna's Wiki, I find that she studied classical piano as well as getting involved with jazz improvisation. What is interesting to me is that I have vetted every song from this journal upon first listen, and subsequent listens, without judging the material based off of the musicians', well, musical knowledge. In other words, the extent of an artist's musical training doesn't matter to me, as I have no problemo sipping on some home-brewed tunes, but it's increasingly clear that a lot of these producers and vocalists aren't just industry-produced hacks and wanton pop-tarts. Ergo, no talent in EDM? Horse hockey.

Apparently, Abrams is, or used to be, a metal head. For instance, her Wiki notes that "in 1996 she worked on the 'Portal' project together with members of the progressive metal band Cynic, providing vocals and keyboards."

It also notes this:

Read More: Aruna - Wikipedia


Song Analysis: Not much to say. Good, solid, ambient melodic dubstep.

The Cooks in the Kitchen:

Embrace One: Embrace One, also known as Liam Pitcher, is from Cape Town, South Africa. I checked his Soundcloud, Wikipedia, and his Facebook page, and can't find much of a bio on him other than the previous sentence. However, he is quite active as he mostly talks on Facebook about the gigs that he does, having worked with some of the major names, such as Xilent, Cosmic Gate, and Seven Lions, among others.

Shaz Sparks: This is the same Shaz Sparks that was featured on Xilent's "Universe," but until the next sentence when I start doing some research on her, I don't know anything other than that. Fast forwarding to sentence #2, and now that I've looked at both her Facebook and Last.fm accounts, I still don't know much as far as a bio because there's not much there to read. I skimmed her Facebook, and I do see that she has good musical taste; I see several "liked" tracks that are already on my list that I haven't yet talked about, even though I will be getting to those later. I like her vocals a lot, but based on what I'm seeing, it's hard to tell how active she is/isn't on the music front these days.

Serobliss: French producer and DJ. Self-taught musician. Not a lot of other information.

Madeon is a French DJ and producer. Male vocal track. I'm not super big on "Finale" or whatever, but it is well-produced and I wouldn't feel right leaving it off any comprehensive list of electronic music that's been released during this time period.

Some fun facts:

Read More: Madeon - Wikipedia


Song Analysis: This track is really cool. "Fearless Moments" is another one of those songs where vocal splicing functions as an instrumental. This is straight bass most of the way through. I bought this off of Bandcamp, and I couldn't pick up on any sound degradation when I played it in my car. The sound quality is that good.

Artist Info: Sub.Sound hails from the South East England county of Kent, and he appears to be just a dude and his computer, which I think is fantastic, because that's all that's needed to make a track that some bloke on another continent, like myself, is going to dig. To me, something like this is the modern equivalent of discovering a garage band that no one has ever heard of, whether it's just one person or a duo/multiple people.

I'd also be remiss not to talk about the incredible background art, which is derived from the DeviantArt account of Cyril Rolando. The piece is entitled "Jaded," and even though Rolando noted that he wasn't happy with the result for this, I am very impressed with the themes that it not only tries to convey, but does so successfully.

As Rolando described it:

Jaded by AquaSixio on DeviantArt

I look at stuff like this and I (sometimes) think back on the decision I made when I was younger to not pursue more of my artistic side at the expense of wanting to eat. I'm still not sure it was a good idea to leave so much of that undeveloped, but that doesn't make it any less inspiring when taking in the beauty of such a piece as "Jaded."

~ aux-in

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Aux-In

Alison Wonderland is a DJ and producer hailing from Sydney, Australia. She is also a trained cellist and bass player. Unrelated observation: When she's DJing, she looks down and/or likes to hide her face for some reason. Maybe she's shy or something.

1) "Run": Album's title opener. Starts slow. Getting a Tove Lo-like vibe from this, just with trap"ish" beats. The song isn't that interesting, but you can hear that her production skills are tight and this would stand out to me over lesser material. If I hadn't previously heard of her, and I heard this, it would make me want to look into her further.

2) "U Don't Know" (ft. Wayne Conye): Nah. It has a hip-hop/trap vibe which has a hollowed-out sound that I don't typically like, so I'm going to pass on this one.

3) "Take It To Reality" (ft. SAFIA): Oh yeah! Love this track. Catchy, bangin', full of energy, and it has a good melody. Basically what this journal is all about, and it's the track that made me pick up this album. Wonderland on vocals, supported by SAFIA, an Australian trio comprised of all dudes.

4) "Naked" (Alison Wonderland x Slumberjack): Kind of boring. Sounds like a B side from Lana Del Rey's first album, just set to some trap/hip-hop beats.

5) "Carry On" (ft. Johnny Nelson & Ganz): Interesting. Wonderland on vocals, but her voice is used more like a sample than it is for singing. Then a male rapper comes in, and I gotta tell ya, I grew tired of the whole female pop/male rap singer combo that's been popular for ages now in music. Thankfully, the instrumental is the star here.

6) "I Want U": Good song, especially the beat. Starts off with a dream-like sound, then vocals come in, then the beat does its magic. This is currently her most-viewed YouTube video, although I'd put this as the second-best track on the album.

7) "Games": Between the vocals and all of the sounds that are incorporated into the track, the result is that it sounds too busy for its own good. It has potential to be more, but I'm going to have to hit the reset button on "Games."

8) "One More Hit": Pass. Filler song. "One more hit, you need it" lyrics set to the instrumental. We're not curing cancer here.

9) "Ignore": Slower, grimey beat. Good song for a Halloween party, but not one I'm going to return to on my own accord.

10) "Back It Up" (Alison Wonderland x Awe): Junk.

11) "Cold": Break-up song.

Come get your clothes and leave the keys
Don't need your insecurities
You're a good guy who makes mistakes
Wish I could say it makes my heart ache
But it doesn't

...And so on. Third-best song on the disc.

12) "Already Gone" (ft. Brave & Lido): This is the most mainstream-sounding track on the album. Even though the beat is electronic, the way the male vocals are structured gives the track a pop/R&B flavor more than anything. The pace of the beat is slow to midtempo. This style of music is boring to me.

SUMMATION

Best Song: "Take It To Reality (ft. SAFIA)"
Worst Song: "Back It Up"

While I really like some of the sounds that are on this, and Wonderland does a good job of making sure the songs don't all sound the same, Run is like any other album out there: it has a few hits, some filler, and some other songs that are ready-made for your garbage disposal. There's also this underlying feeling that I can't seem to shake, and that is that I'm still undetermined as to whether I think Wonderland is a produced act, or not. It's almost like the label said to themselves, "This type of sound in electronica has been popular for a while now, so we need a chick DJ and producer to cash in on things." Hopefully I'm not being too disingenuous to Wonderland's influence, as there is no way for me to know exactly what percentage of Run is her effort alone. I checked the liner notes, and Wonderland has writing and production credits on every song, but none that she has exclusives on as there are other names involved in all of the tracks as well. Note: just because an artist has others write some or most of what they do, that doesn't mean I can't or won't enjoy the music.

Having said the above, and even if Wonderland is, in some way, a product, she has enough of her own style to not be considered overly generic within the genre. Keep making stuff like "Take It To Reality," and I'll continue to be a patron of the arts for $1.49 (or so) a track. All. Day. Long.

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"All over a bowl of bitter beans."

misspoptart

You've probably posted this somewhere or mentioned it somewhere, but do you have a youtube channel or a favorites list perhaps that I could get linked to? Would love to check out what you're listening to and while I'm work it's a bit tedious to keep clicking back and starting new vids here (not to mention I often forget where I left off!)

Amazing thread, wish I had more time to read everything, but you are really my favorite journal on MB right now

Aux-In

I mainly use Pandora and YouTube, neither of which is ideal for list generation. I don't use other music services that would provide a function similar to what you're asking. I did the YouTube playlist thing for a while, but it's not good as a comprehensive collection as a lot of videos get deleted or set to private, even by the artists themselves. So I quit doing that.

Not sure how I could make it less tedius. What you could do is open each video in a seperate tab, while you're logged into YouTube, and save them all to a playlist of your own that you can access anytime you want. Also, indexing the journal would be cool, but a lot of work. Once I've gone through most of the list, that would be a fun (or not) project for me to take on.

I can update the OP with a list of songs I've already posted if that would be helpful.

Thanks for checkin' things out .

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"All over a bowl of bitter beans."

misspoptart

I'll make my own playlist as you suggested then I think You're already doing enough work here!

I know what you mean about videos getting deleted but at least it would be a good way to get them all playing with just one click. Thanks again bro.

Aux-In

Some hand-selected picks that I want to talk about.


I love how raw and animalistic this drum & bass tune is in its energy and sound. The video features four blokes who go to a construction site to probably do some bad things. While there, they encounter a strange, dust-like substance that makes them want to bust a groove, instead of people's faces. Who knew asbestos held such powers? If you like Skrillex or rap music, this might be up your alley.


Here's another one from Rogue. He got his friend Megan Dean to do the vocals for this track. It's slightly repetitious in some parts, but it's infectious nonetheless. Love the silky-smooth lead-in to the first drop. Overall, "Cataclysm" is a really solid, clear, melodic vocal song that keeps me coming back to the replay button. This is glitch-hop. From the Earth EP.

Without Pandora, I never would have come across this track. This is from 2002 and it does sound a tinge dated, but it doesn't matter. Even though I missed it upon its release, and while it's not directly connected to any person, place or thing, in listening to it now, it gives me a sense of early-2000s nostalgia. Off the album Intuition.

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"All over a bowl of bitter beans."

Aux-In

Upon conducting a recent inventory of my master list, I have discovered that I've discussed and/or linked to 111 of 361 tracks, which translates to roughly 30.7% of everything that I plan to cover, as of today's date. That's more than I thought I had gotten to, but there is a long way to go yet, not to mention any future additions. While I'm always seeking new tracks to expand my library, I have unearthed quite a bit already, and if that 361 number would never change, I would still be satisfied that I had done all that I can do.


What's exciting about the current state of music is how connected everything can be, especially if your favorite artists have social-media accounts where they distribute their content. If an artist has created something that is top tier, in my eyes, then I want to support that creation, if I can. A $1.29 (or so) a song isn't much, but it's something. Now, I've been into various memorabilia collecting off and on over the years, mainly in sports and non-sports trading cards, as well as some miscellaneous art purchases of the starving-artist variety, including music downloads. The former of which I have largely outgrown, and the latter of which I have become completely addicted to [music]. This leads me to some of my music memorabilia, which is basically all that you see here, outside of music CDs, boxed sets and band t-shirts.


Pictured above is a robot-shaped USB drive from MC Lars that contains a digital album of This Gigantic Robot Kills. According to Wikipedia, Lars is "the self-proclaimed originator of 'post-punk laptop rap,'" in addition to a lot of his music being comedy-based, "Weird Al" Yankovic style. I mention it because, sadly, the only reason I ever heard of him was due to someone's death. Lars was one of the musicians that this person's mother had mentioned, and there was a song by Lars that I was surprised I liked as much as I did. Although I've not yet found a proper way to go into more detail on this, that USB drive and subsequent photo only came into my collection because the song has a story, which serves as a reminder of how powerful and important music can be.


I went to a ton of rock concerts back in my day, but it never really behooved me to get an autographed anything. Autographed items were reserved for other hobbies I was into at the time. Recently, I couldn't pass up an opportunity to grab an auto'd CD from Veela, a vocalist who is fairly popular in the underground electronic scene, and one from which I will have several songs to post.


Who's Veela, you ask? Right. It's this chick:


^^ Some YouTubers are saying this is a Doctor Who reference, but I can't remember the last time I've been in a phone booth, so I'm not up to speed on such things. Whether the references are in the video or lyrics, or both, I dunno. I dig the production that Rudebrat was able to bring to the track. Veela's vocals are also ace. NLJ is the rapper dude. This is one of those tracks that I found from clicking on a bunch of random YouTube videos, instead of getting it from Pandora or the radio. It makes me wonder how much other good music there is out there that I will never get to hear.


I thought about getting prints of these two pieces of digital art ever since I saw them in their respective music videos. That is to say, I sat on the idea for a long time, simply because I'm a cheapskate. As you can see, I finally broke down and placed an order. These two pieces arrived a few weeks ago, and they now adorn my walls.

This is the music that accompanies "Katharsis":


Without the entries you see in this journal, my music collection would have remained lackluster for who knows how long. I think, as it's hard to say what other shape it would've taken without the discovery of this type of music. Having been out of music for several years prior, more or less, it's great to be back, and I'm having a good time doing it. As it were, finding great art in a fresh, organic way like this has always been my can of soda, and the fact that so much of it is tied to music that I really, really like, well that's just hot sex.

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"All over a bowl of bitter beans."

Aux-In

NOTEPAD EXCURSIONS

A few days ago, I posted this in the Your Day thread.

I also had three other, small notepad files that were strewn about various folders and backup drives. For cohesive purposes, I copied the contents of each into a single notepad file, and from there I began sifting through everything I had.


Sometimes a song will resonate right away, but other songs may need a little more time. Or, it's that I didn't have time, at the time, to explore the material in depth, so I'd ctrl+v the track's title into a notepad file, to be properly explored at my convenience. I find this to be a cleaner system than bookmarking everything in a browser, which can get out of hand if you have too many of those. I can also type, edit and add notes if I want. If you were to look at the playlist in my computer or portable music player, this is the behind-the-scenes work that goes into it.

When taking in a new song for the first time, I listen for elements within the song that I like, even if I find that the original and/or remix that I stumbled upon isn't quite right. At that point, if I hear enough to want to explore a different mix, I will write down such things as, "find the best remix." There are a few tracks where I was able to find a better version than the original by doing this, and some where I could not, so those got the axe.

After sifting through these notepad files, here are the two standouts:


If you're into drum & bass, you might know Netsky. There is some confusion over the genre for this track: is it drum & bass, dubstep, drumstep? Beatport has it as dubstep, but it's uploaded to the UKF Drum & Bass channel, so that's what I'm going to call it.

And this one:


Knife Party was formed by Rob Swire and Gareth McGrillen, two members from Pendulum. If you want to read more about the link between Knife Party and Pendulum, with some straight answers, you can check out this article here.

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Aux-In

It's boom time.


Toronto-based singer-songwriter Delaney Jane teams up with the duo Dzeko & Torres, also from Toronto, Canada. The result is a progressive house banger that just can't be denied. This was a YouTube find, and it was able to hit me right away. The one downside of this is that the first chorus should be a full vocal lead into the drop instead of the extended/choppy effect that was used. But that's a minor issue as the track follows a normal structure after that. My favorite part is @1:04 where you can feel the energy of both D&T and Jane at full speed. "Freedom take me tonight..."

Delaney Jane is a newcomer, at least in my world, as this was the first time I ever heard her awesome voice. She's collabed with Adventure Club and some other artists, so hopefully she'll continue to sing on tracks like this.

Here's a link to an interview from her: Interview. I'll just pick one quote.


Another newcomer for me is Delacey, who reminds me of Delaney Jane, just with a raspier voice. I like the video as well, but it says all it needs to say and I don't need to describe it in my own words. Delacey has a ton of photos and info on her Facebook if you want to check out her stuff. Lots of selfies, but some nice artistic photos as well. And on the production front, as is often the case, Schulz rules.


This is one of the earlier songs I came across when I was getting into this kind of music. I heard the original first, and even though I liked the structure of it, I needed something with a little more kick and movement to it. So, it was off to YouTube to type in the title and then add "remix" to see what their algorithm would spit out at me. From there I sifted through the remixes and liked this enough to be satisfied. This was the first time I heard of tyDi as well. I'll have more from him later, so I'll hold off on any kind of bio write-up at this point in time. It's about the tunage anyway.

I'm going to hit the brakes on things for my next entry by picking some slower jams. Slow doesn't always have to = boring. That's all for now.

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"All over a bowl of bitter beans."

Aux-In

CHILL OUT SESSIONS: PART I OF II

Welcome to my chill out session, where this is as slow as I'm going to get with any of the music you will hear in this journal. I'm going to hit these songs in two chunks. This is part I.

---

In some respects, I could say that this first one is too fast for this session, but the slow intro and equally slow background beat compels me to add it. It surely isn't the alien creature with the big vinyl-disc-shaped head that's putting me up to this. Can't be...


The video: it has crew members in black turtlenecks, desert donkeys (are those even donkeys?), orbs of light, red planets, buildings shaped like cancer sticks that turn into rockets, and an alien that does what any self-respecting terrestrial would do -- control minds. What's not to love? Musically, the track starts slow until it eventually builds to the vocals:

Welcome
To my world
We are not alone
Stay
You are not alone

Ultimately, "Four Three" crescendos into a moderately-paced violin fury, and this enables it to firmly plant its flag on the surface of my playlist.

Fun fact: "Four Three" made it into the CSI: Miami "Wheels Up" episode.


This is a slow-moving (but catchy) electro-pop song from a duo based out of The Netherlands. I can draw two possible takes on the social commentary that exists within the lyrics: (a) a critique on modern city life and/or (b) a critique of homogeneous suburban culture, where a stereotype can sometimes exist that there's a facade built up between neighbors, just before they close their doors, of course. I'm going to spend more time on the first one, because I think that's closer to the narrative.

*My interpretation in blue. I added the / to split the ideas between work and ordinary living so I can cover both interpretations (sorry if it's hard to read).

We've come together where the buildings rise (individuals have arrived at work/home)
We're crawling up where the concrete meets the sky (walking up a high-rise building)
We walk in line (walking into the office/home life with a sense of detached readiness)
We've come together in our daily grey (drudgery of work life in a cubicle/boredom of home life in a domicile or complex)
Where all our private boxes look the same (cubicles look identical/homes looks the same)
In every possible way (in every possible way)

Sell our souls when the market's right (has a job that pays but sucks the soul out of them/perhaps this is about Wall Street trading as the album this song is on was released in June 2009/unable to relate this to a home thing)
Shake hands as we're pulling down the blinds (day is done, so feign comradery to wrap up a day's work/say hello to a neighbor, make small talk, then get on with things)
It's almost fine (It's not fine. It's an empty feeling from unsatisfying work/too much modernity can feel cold and distant; removed)

We've been missing out on daylight lately (working too much/spending too much time indoors and missing out on the things that matter in life)
Killing time with late night TV (TV is a poor and plastic substitute to fill an empty void that would otherwise have been filled with people interactions and going outside like they used to do in "olden times")

I didn't touch on every line in the song, but I think that paints a pretty decent picture of what Anderson is trying to get at. The video itself is comprised of old movie clips from the mid-20th century, which is evident in both the analogue video style of the recordings, as well as the clothing styles of the people it features. The aforementioned is mixed with sped-up/time-lapsed traffic scenes which depict the hubbub of modern life. So, by using the old clips and juxtaposing them with those of the modern era, Anderson could be harking back to a supposedly simpler time where everyone knew their neighbors and there was a pie in every window.

I'd be fine with either of the above interpretations, (a) or (b). Hell, perhaps there's a (c) or a (d).

Originally, I thought the title was weird, where it has a person's name, Michael, and then the rest of the track's title. I kept having to do a double-take to make sure I wasn't looking at some sort of typo on this relatively-obscure track. Low and behold, in preparation for this write-up, I was able to find an article that tells me that Anderson's vision for their album It Runs In The Family, on which this song appears, was to have an idea of a family that was spread out all over the world, each of them having their own story. Read more: Anderson Interview. Subsequently, each track on the album has a person's name in it. That's certainly an interesting concept, and I think I'm going to have to check out the rest of the album.


Andain is the duo of Josh Gabriel and Mavie Marcos, and they released this trance classic all the way back in 2003. Although I'm posting the original, it's only because an official video for the Gabriel & Dresden Unplugged Mix was not available, even though it's the best mix. This is not the best video by any stretch of the imagination. However, if you need your Tiesto fix, this will be the only time you may see him in my journal. He's the DJ in this recording.


*Blackmill is an unsigned artist from Carrbridge, Scotland.
*At a current count of 7,232,543, this is both Blackmill's and Veela's most-popular song.
*I have no idea what the lyrics mean. It seems to be about two lovers who are tentative about starting something, but I could be wrong. I like it that way, though, as I think that I've mentioned before that I prefer ambiguity in lyrical content.
*It's a calming, melodic dubstep tune.


Such a cool, chill track. "First Snow" has some vocal samples mixed in with some nice chord arrangements, as well as some intricate piano work. The vocal sample at the end is unconventional and I'm not sure if it's supposed to be funny, but it works for me. And sure, that snow leopard with the Photoshopped eyes is awesome. I would not want to mess with that beast. Great photography.

(to be continued)

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