Aux-In

Appreciate the kinds words, mate. I'm really glad I found all of it, which is cool because I found a lot of it basically by accident. Sometimes those are the best discoveries.

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"All over a bowl of bitter beans."

Aux-In

Sometimes I come across music in places I least expect to find it, particularly when it comes to new, good music that I have never heard before. As such, it was by accident and happenstance that I came across this next track while I was watching a Russian car-crash video. Not exactly a place I was expecting to find EDM.

Not knowing what it was, and being in a language that wasn't my own, I thought it might be somewhat difficult to track down the name of it. Luckily, it wasn't too difficult, and after exploring the YouTube comments, I was able to ascertain that "Prituri Se Planinata" is based off Bulgarian folklore of old. I believe it has something to do with the mountains burying two shepherds. According to this link, which also carries an English translation of the song, "in Bulgarian folklore, the mountains and forrests [sic] were considered as living beings." That's as much as I can pull from it without doing more research, because I can't quite connect why the mountains would swallow the shepherds, unless they were chopping down trees or something like that.

The particular version that NiT GriT remixed was from Stellamara's 2009 album The Golden Thread, if you're wanting the genesis of it without the dubstep. Sonja Drakulich, the lead singer for Stellamara, "an electro-acoustic world music ensemble steeped in the Middle East, Balkans, and beyond," as is described on their Web site, brings a heavenly and beautiful tone to the piece. NiT GriT takes the track down the valley of dubstep: dark, epic, melodic and orchestral. To be sure, it has the effect of making the listener slightly uncomfortable due to its mood, as if it were walking down the back alley of some desolate city street. Yet, at the same time, Drakulich's soul-touching vocals shine through the darkness and lift the piece into the heavens.

This song would also make its way into the dance-based movie "Step Up Revolution." Based on my initial reactions of the song, I wouldn't think it would translate well as the type of dance music that would be in such a movie, although I haven't seen it to be able to tell you if the song was used in a culturally contextual form as is intended in its folklore beginnings. I guess that supposes that cultural context is even relevant to music-listening, which I'm not sure I'm convinced of. Suffice it to say, understanding the lyrics isn't necessary unless exploring and gaining a better understanding of Bulgarian culture is on your itinerary. And, having found it where I did, it goes to show that you can still find musical gold in unexpected places.

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"All over a bowl of bitter beans."

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I'd put this next song as being in the same vein as "Prituri Se Planinata." It is a selection from Mt Eden, a New Zealand duo comprised of Jesse Cooper and Harley Rayner.


Although this is a remix, the original was created by Freshlyground, a South African Afro-fusion band hailing form Cape Town, South Africa. Their song is titled "I'd Like." I would personally write this up as Freshlyground - "I'd Like" [Mt Eden Remix], but that's just me. Mt Eden provides the entire song with pure, consistent bass, yet they keep the emotion of the original vocals intact. Interestingly, I'm not sure why Mt Eden called their remix "Sierra Leone," as that would indicate a geopolitical message of some sort. This isn't the case, as a political message is absent in the lyrics:

I'd like
What would you do if I kissed you?
What would you do if I held your hand and laid you down?
Would you find me overly unkind to you?
Would you call me insensitive, and say that I deserve to die?
What do I do with all these feelings tearing me up inside?
What do I do with all these wasted hours dreaming of you at night?
I' d like to call you sometime...

I.e., as best as I can tell, it's a love song.

Another one I like...


This was an earlier release when they called themselves Mt Eden Dubstep. The original, by Lisa Miskovsky, was used as the theme song in the Xbox 360 game "Mirror's Edge." The Mt Eden Dubstep remix is a slow, ambient, drifty jam which proved to be fairly popular with over 45 million YouTube views. Technically, it could be titled Lisa Miskovsky - "Still Alive" [Mt Eden Dubstep Remix].

One other song I sort of like from Mt Eden is "Airwalker," although that one is a bit rougher to get through.

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^Checking those out later today.

I've also DL'ed the first 11 songs on this list to go in the compilation I'm making:

01-Hexagon – Heiko Laux
02-Injection – Marco Bailey
03-Four H (Original Mix) – Bryan Clara
04-Sarasani – Francesco Tristano feat. P41
05-Iajirobai – Oscar Escapa & Lander B
06-Noursed (Matt Sassari remix) – Alessan Main, Luca Morris, Matt Sassari
07-Eclipse (Chris Liebing Clap Edit) – Psyk
08-Night Vision – Dolby D, Sync Therapy
09-Tio Salamanca (Original Mix) – Dea’n’ Dep
10-Mindspace – Marco P
11-Tornado (A-Delight Remix) – T00Z
12-Amsterhodes – Maxime Dangles
13-Dogma (Dario Sorano & Gracie Remix) – Fabrice Torricella
14-Consequences – Flug
15-Ek Sal – Andriette, Adam Tas
16-This Is Cocaine Speak – Withecker
17-Rage (Special Schranz Version) – Scott Kemix
18-Total Confuzion – Scott Kemix
19-Digital Face – Withecker
20-Hart Leben – Yves Kavella
21-Hart Leben (O.B.I. Remix) – Yves Kavella
22-Hart Leben (Orman Bitch Remix) – Yves Kavella
23-Hart Leben (Ron Ronsen Remix) – Yves Kavella
24-Is Mine (Alex Raider Remix) – Double-K
25-Flashback (Weska Remix) – Remotion, Madson Scaut

From here: Top Techno Songs 2015 List, Top 10, 20, 40 New Songs 2015

As I'm fairly new to all this, do you have any recommendations on or off that list? I've been digging Panama - Always, so there's some reference for you.

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Aux-In

Techno itself is a specific genre that's been around for awhile (it has multiple sub-genres as well). Techno isn't something I ever really got into, so I am unable to recommend any songs for you to check out. #sadface.jpg. However, what I would recommend as an excellent place to start is the online-radio service Digitally Imported. You can't flip through songs or whatever, but the stations offer a fine-tuned, genre-specific type of listening experience.

Here are the Digitally Imported channel listings: Digitally Imported - addictive electronic music

^^ Just click on techno tab and browse a few of the channels to see if one of them is in your wheelhouse. If you want to explore other genres, you can do that on there as well.

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Reviews l YouTube Playlist: Another Dimension

"All over a bowl of bitter beans."

Plankton

I guess I misrepresented the question, since I'm not well versed in all the different genre's. All the tunes I grabbed from that list are dull, droning, and just don't do anything for me.

I should have just asked if you could recommend anything similar to Panama - Always:



Not sure what genre that is, but it kicks some serious butt on a good stereo. I'll give those links a shot and see what I can dig up. Thanks aux.

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Nothing that's coming to mind right off the cuff, although I'm sure I do come across a lot of similar tunes in my daily upload checks. I looked it up and Beatport has that listed as Indie Dance/Nu Disco, so you might try heading over to Digitally Imported and see what you can unearth (click on the tab labeled "Dance" and you will see the sub-channels for Indie Dance and Nu Disco).

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"All over a bowl of bitter beans."

Aux-In

Some Zeds Dead, and no, there is no correlation to producer Zedd. Wikipedia says the Canadian duo's name is a reference from the movie Pulp Fiction. Haven't seen that movie in ages so I don't remember the reference, and that's as far as I feel like Googling movie references at the moment.

Zeds Dead & Dirtyphonics (ft. Bright Lights) - "Where Are You Now"



^^ This track is more pop-oriented than it is driving/beat-oriented in its structure, although it still has dubstep drops. Also, even though Bright Lights tends to sing in the same range in a lot of her songs, it's works for me.

Zeds Dead (ft. Memorecks) - "Collapse"



This one's more chill. Maybe a little on the light side for me; I tend to like my light music a certain way, which is hard for me to put into words.

That's all for now.

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"All over a bowl of bitter beans."

Aux-In

Note: I'm going to change from calling it Review Randomizer to The Randomizer, as these are more like mini write-ups instead of full-length reviews of each track.

Similar to last time, with four songs to choose from. For this entry, I'm going to deviate slightly from the formula by choosing the first one as an editor's pick. For the other three, it's the same randomization process as before, where I choose selections from the master list by closing my eyes and pointing a pen at the paper.

Leading off with this instrumental from Ziggy. It's one of my favorite underdog instrumentals that I go to after overplaying everything else, or when I'm simply seeking a break from all the vocal tracks.

With "Metal," I see crossovers with both progressive house and electro house. I did try to find an official listing, but it's not on Beatport, and, as it turns out, Ziggy is a fairly common name insofar as Google searches are concerned. I checked Discogs and Ziggy's Soundcloud as well, and came away empty-handed. I'm going to say it's progressive house because it follows a progressive structure. If I'm wrong, it's not my fault if you were to have quoted me . If you dig this, Mercer - "Supreme" is a similar-sounding track, which I've already posted for your perusal.

Onto The Randomizer, which is kind of like how the lottery chooses picks. Or maybe not...

THE RANDOMIZER

Andy Moor is one of my favorite producer/DJs. He is 35 years old as of this writing, and owner of the label AVA Recordings. Solid production from Moor as well as excellent remixing from Antillas & Dankann. The result of this is a melodic trance banger. Sometimes the mix of low-tone, melodic vocals that lead into heavy-hitting instrumentals doesn't always work, but it does here. While the song is about standard relationship dynamics, it's meaningfully done, with lyrics such as the following:

I let myself in
Ignored the warnings
I left the keys inside the door

Drew back the curtains
Windows wide open
So you know, you know I'm here.

You can check out Moor's bio here.


Kind of a middle-of-the-road track with some good vocals from Polina. The beat is better than average, but not top tier. Still, it was good enough for me to buy the single, and it belongs here. My favorite part is the elongated vocals that start @ 2:40.


This wasn't really my style at first, but it grew on me. While it's fairly popular at a current view count of over 24 million, it doesn't sound overly commercial. There are a few tracks that can give me chills from the vocals, and this is one of them. Oddly enough, it's the only track I have with Novelli on vocals, so I'm not sure what it is about it that does that. I know she's well-known in the electronic scene, and while I've heard a few other tracks that she's been in, I'm not all that familiar with her catalogue.

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"All over a bowl of bitter beans."

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Five more, because I feel like it. Chosen at random, but put in alphabetical order by artist name.

^^ Clever lyrics on this. Has a soaring, melodic vocal. Male vocals this time. Just A Gent gave the track a different life over the original with his remixing skills.


^^ While a lot of my tracks may have a broader appeal to people who don't listen to electronic music -- if electronic music is something they wanted to explore -- there are some selections where you'd pretty much have to be into the genres to appreciate them. This is one of them. It's a progressive trance instrumental. There's an epic feeling to this, although it never gets bombastic about it.


^^ I've had some selections from Xilent already, and that's because he's one of the best. I have a few more, but if you want to get ahead of me, you can check out all his stuff yourself. I'm actually listening to his new album We Are Virtual as I write this. Mediks I'm not all that familiar with, but I think they are known for their drum & bass material. It sounds like the vocals are male, but they're set to that high-pitched sound to where you can't tell if it's female vocals. This is electro house. One of the ways you can tell if something is electro house is that these tracks often have two different beats in them, whereas a good chunk of the instrumental is characterized by a stutter-step structure. For this song, you can hear that it moves in one way and is melodic, but then the beat changes -- almost stops. This stutter-step pattern can be heard @ 0:53 in the song. Probably not the best way to describe it, but that's the general idea.


^^ From the 2011 album Spitfire. This was the first time I had ever heard of Porter Robinson. At the time, I was going through a period where I would to go to the trail to walk/jog/run. This is about the same time I started getting into the newer releases, and I needed something different than my usual playlist. One day, I decided to flip through the online radio stations/apps on my phone to see what they were all about. They had always been there, sitting dormant. And there's a ton of them, too, so it felt overwhelming to try and sift through them all. Having been new to this material at the time, I didn't have the same sense I do now in regard to which genre I wanted to listen to. Characteristic of Sprint's typical coverage area, my signal was weak and it took forever to connect. Once connected, however, the service usually went uninterrupted, so the wait was worth it. Anyway, I was lucky enough to catch this on one those stations, and I'm able to post it now in all its glory.

This is an example of why I've come to like finding selections at random over listening to complete albums. You never know where you're going to be or what you're doing when you hear something fresh and exciting, whether that be while clicking on a random YouTube mix, or being out in nature with all the creature comforts of your cell phone. To be sure, I still enjoy and listen to albums.

Robinson's follow-up album Worlds was a letdown in my opinion. He went in a cheekier direction which is a departure from the sounds he produced on Spitfire.


This is probably Xilent's best-known track.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xilent

Personally, I think "Universe" is his best track, but this is quite good as well, if not a modern dubstep classic.

I may or may not do another album review on my next post. Only time will tell.

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"All over a bowl of bitter beans."