I currently don't have any tunes that I'm that hype about.

Apart from the following two bangers:

Justin Faust's remix of 'With You', which is a lot more intense and dance-powered than his usual mellow stuff. Having said that, it's not too noisy. Faust blends the nice soft side of his music with a pacier funked-up bass and pounding drum pattern to create a sexy little dance song. Noice with an extra 'o'.
Then you have The Aston Shuffle, who I've loved since that awesome Grafton Primary remix, with a tasty new tune. Stabby synths and souped up 80s bits and bobs are laced all over 'Do You Want More', but it retains quite a sharp and bangerrific edge to go with the bounciness.

And while we're on the subject of bangers - how good is that Villains remix of 'She Wolf'?
Very good.

Probably almost as good as that DatA remix of La Roux I keep banging on about.

Bestrack - With You (Justin Faust) Buy
The Aston Shuffle - Do You Want More (feat. DAnimal Kingdom)[AS Remix] Buy
La Roux - I'm Not Your Toy (DatA Remix) Buy DatA

Grum(p)y

So, I've had a phenomenal amount of work lately, and because I've yet to do anything towards reducing it, I still have a phenomenal amount. Sucks to be me. However, I intend to have it all done by the 12th, so from that point on normal posting will resume.

Anyway, because it's been some time since I posted, I have a backlog of banging tracks and summer-type tunes to put up before they become too unfashionably old.

So, 5 tunes for today, varying from super-hype electro to acoustic-electronic fiddling, but all with the essential property of amazingness in common.

I have blogging powerhouse discodust to thank, as I so often do, for the first tune on my list: Ellie Goulding's cover of 'Black & Gold'. Now, 'Black & Gold' is obviously, like, soooo old now, but Goulding's cover adds some summer (this is a key word for today, I'm trying to destroy rain) freshness to it with a nice bit of clapping, some melodic acoustic strumming and an ... interesting singing voice. When I say interesting, I'm referring mostly to her accent, which is ...erm... unusual, and not her actual technique - she sings beautifully. But also weirdly. Anyway, the cover is very good, very chilled, and overall puts a very nice spin on the original. It's different - Goulding's style is fairly unique. She uses a combination of acoustic and soft synth elements (like a more laidback Friendly Fires, I guess, without the percussion) to create a sound which I imagine will get her all sorts of critical attention. Hopefully. The rest of her stuff is also worth checking out, for those who are interested.

Where to go from there? Let's go East, vaguely in the direction of Paris, where DatA hails from. Cheers to deathelectro for the heads up on this one. I imagine most people will know DatA either because of his tunes 'Aerius Light' or 'Rapture' (both laced with awesome), and his new track 'One In A Million' draws on both of those to make a very ear-friendly club banger. I've been listening mostly to the Club Remix, actually, because it's slightly more hardcore, and thats the one I've put below. However, the original, unadulterated version is there to see, for free, on his myspace. The video is pretty trendy, (some guy turns up to a house party in a wolf costume/ Partying ensues) and the song has all the elements of a good electro piece - funky bassline, bright synths, sing-along vocals, happy times.

Now it's dubstep time. Everyone loves dubstep! It's the new bandwagon. In an attempt to secure my seat upon it, allow me to point you in the direction of Caspa's 'I Remember' remix. It's good. I'm a huge fan of the original, and I was a little worried that Caspa wouldn't do it justice, but he keeps it fairly simple. And anyone who's heard the Caspa mix of 'Moments in Love' will know what I mean when I say 'simple' - he basically adds a cracking drum beat and a warbly dubstep bass, but it's a fairly decent take on a solid summer anthem. (Caspa and Rusko also did a fairly tasty mix of 'We Are I.E.' recently, which is worth checking out.)

To be honest, all the tracks above are solid, but they aren't quite summery enough for me. And what with clouds threatening to return again and make us all miserable, I need summer tunes. 'Something Good Can Work', by Two Door Cinema Club (you know they're cool, because they have 'club' in their name), is a step in the right direction. The guitar is nice and trebley (think Phoenix/Housse de Racket), with some lovely, chirpy wah-wah bits, the vocals aren't over-complicated, the drums patter along at a fairly decent and regular pace... they sample what sounds like a party halfway through... ... it starts with a bang...
I'm running out of descriptions, but basically it's very happy, very trendy indie.

But... still not summer enough. Friendly Fires were the sound track of last summer, alongside Vampire Weekend, so I feel like I should turn to them for help. Or rather, to Leeds-boy Grum's absoloutely incredible, super happy, super awesome electro remix of Friendly Fires 'Skeleton Boy'. I listened to the original 'Skeleton Boy' before Grum's version, and I couldn't help thinking that it lacked a funky 80's bass, a dance beat, and some shiny electro synths - I'm quite particular in what I want - so I was fairly happy when Grum came along and introduced all those elements. He starts it off all funky and cool, does wonders with the vocals, and then builds it slowly until the synths are ready to come in (after a classic, trance-style, reverbed breakdown, of course). The track has summer written all over it, in 50ft, flaming, neon-pink letters. I've listened to it every day for about 3 weeks.
Anyone who likes the track, and thinks that Grum might possibly be the best thing to happen to the English electro scene ever (or recently, depending on how hyperbolic you feel), should check out his myspace and tell him as much.

This post is too long! Why am I not working!?

Friendly Fires - Skeleton Boy (GRUM Remix) Buy
DatA - One In A Million (Club Mix) Buy
Ellie Goulding - Black & Gold Myspace
Two Door Cinema Club - Something Good Can Work Buy
Deadmau5 - I Remember (Caspa Remix) Buy


After the 12th, some new shit off the 80Kidz album 'This Is My Shit' (ironically), and probably some Allure. Summer's coming!

Gutted

Gutted. My 'Feed Me Bangers' post has been savagely and abruptly removed. I suspect it was either to do with the Lady GaGa remix or the Muse one.

Bastards.

As always, I will persevere. For anyone who missed the tracks, they were:
Lady GaGa - Just Dance (Feat. Colby O'Donis)(Matt Price Remix) Muse - Knights of Cydonia (Feed Me Remix) Ghostland Observatory - Club Soda Foamo - Everything Cool Kap10Kurt - Mission Complete (SymbolOne Remix) Boy 8-Bit - Fog Bank (Jack Beats Remix)

And they are all still highly recommended. (And easily available elsewhere, hopefully).
I also highly recommend you head over to hyperbole for the full Danger remix of 'Walking On A Dream' which has finally dropped. Look for the CSK OK tunes on there as well. Because, as I've said before, they are bangers.

As for music on this blog, this post includes a mix of new (to me, at least) and old tunes. Both 80Kidz and A-ux have been fairly recently ushered into the loving arms of my iTunes collection, and I felt it was high time to spread the love. Much like a bitter and devious student spreading an STD. Apart from these tracks are in no way similar to STD's.

The 80Kidz song is a Bag Raiders-ish track with a bit more grit. It's not as cheerfully Japanese as I would like (a more Perfume-ish sound would be ideal), but it's still pretty hardcore. No distracting vocals - just straightforward rises and falls, piano breakdowns, gut-punching/face-slapping drums, and strings doing whatever the opposite of a breakdown is.

A-ux provides a smooth, come-down vibe, with enough tempo to keep you interested. I've been trying to think of acts to compare him(?) to, but I don't want to cloud anyone's preconceptions. And it's difficult to pin-point anyway; the track would be equally at home on a Chilled Ibiza compilation or a Ministry of Sound one. Probably.

I don't have a hand in either compilation so couldn't say for sure.

Basically, listen to 'Journey to New Hope'. It's cool.

As for the other two tracks... I'm assuming they need very little introduction. The Punks Jump Up remix of 'Breaking it Up' is a classic: It really brings the song to life, and is unashamedly bright and cheerful. (I definitely do behave like the aforementioned Punks whenever I hear it drop.) The Kitsuné/DATA track is another old favourite, simple yet effective, and I highly recommend you get it if you don't have it already.

80Kidz - Life Begins at Eighty Buy
A-ux - Journey to New Hope Myspace
Lykke Li - Breaking it up (Punks Jump Up Remix) Buy
DatA - Aerius Light (Kitsuné DJ Friendly Edit) Buy (Original)



(Thanks to Resonator for the A-ux tune I nicked, and to Discodust for the old Lykke Li favourite.)

Work Not In Progress

I’ve got an essay due soon, so I thought it was high time I wrote a blog. (Fault the logic).
And speaking of blogs, for some reason my posts keep disappearing. If I had the time and the inclination, I might try and find out why. But seeing as I don't have the inclination, I'll just have to live with it.

Anyways, I was off raiding the intranets for tuneage this morning and I stumbled on Ekleroshock records myspace. Seeing as they are currently looking after the almighty Danger and the only slightly less amazing DatA I thought it would be worth looking into their other artists. The apparently insane Crunc Tesla has a kind of interesting dubsteppy electro thing going on, but it isn’t really interesting enough for me to waste more than a sentence on. More promising is the work of Leonard De Leonard (so good he named himself twice). The remix of ‘Bad Girls Need Love Too’ is a bit of a banger, although it feels a bit too fast and there’s not really enough variety. Still, you can get about 30 seconds of good stuff from it.

Starskee’s ‘This Time’ also started fairly promisingly, and I thought I was on a bit of a roll, but around 18 seconds a more than slightly annoying vocal sample crops up, the funky synths disappear for a while, and the song never really recovers. The first 18 are worth a listen… but if you’re looking for something a bit better Starskee-wise, then try Danger’s remix of ‘My Way’ (which I won’t bother posting, because it’s all over the place anyway). I slagged off the remix before, but having listened to the original I can see that Danger has actually done a fairly good job. It’s a grower.

So yeah, really my raid wasn’t that successful at all. DatA’s ‘Rapture II’ provides a bit of a pleasing contrast to ‘Rapture’, and I like the whole funky electro/hip-hop vibe, but his remixes are a bit more exciting. Nothing else really caught my eye (ear?). In fact, the only new electro song I’ve had much time for is the Damage remix of Grum’s ‘Go Back’, which is nicely epic. Although not really amazing.

All in all, I’m posting a bunch of tracks that I don’t have that much time for – although I’ll be keeping an eye on the artists in case they turn out something truly amazing. I feel like I need to provide something a bit more special though, so I’m including one of my favourite ever remixes: Boys Noize version of ‘Lights and Music’. I could evaluate the song but it wouldn’t be a particularly critical evaluation, as I basically love everything about it.

Cut Copy - Lights And Music (Boys Noize Happy Birthday Remix) Buy
GRUM – Go Back (Damage Remix) Myspace
DatA - Rapture Pt.II Buy
The Toxic Avenger - Bad Girls Need Love Too (Leonard De Leonard Remix) Buy
Starskee – This Time Myspace