PacificUV releases the new Weekends LP tomorrow (January 31st) off Mazarine Records. The album mixes ethereal shoegaze sounds with electropop and features guest appearances from members of Montreal and The Olivia Tremor Control. I’m digging the single entitled “Funny Girl,” which houses a unique surreal vibe that really captures the album’s essence.
“Dongdan” is the first single from a new album’ The Beijing Gang’ by producer and composer Chris Bemand. Chris has released many innovative electronic albums since his early days with acid jazzsters Marden Hill and filmic Chill Out group 45 Dip. He has collaborated with Ashley Beedle ( Ballistic Brothers/Xpress 2) Rob Dougan,(Clubbed to Death) and Mark Doyle (Hed Kandi) . As well as a large discography, Chris has written and produced countless scores for all kinds of TV shows including mainstream cartoon series, Bafta nominated Skunk Fu! and King Arthur’s Disasters. He’s also known for writing choral stings for top shows including the X-Factor and Top Gear.
Dongdan is a clever, quirky fusion of classical Chinese instruments paired with contemporary beats as has ever been heard before. Chris recorded in Beijing with a handful of virtuoso musicians from Peking Opera and the resulting blend is original and unique. Chris also worked with film director Ed Bignell to produce a series of promotional videos (shot in Beijing) to accompany each single release.
Chris explains ‘I was in Beijing and found the most vibrant club scene, but they were playing generic Western music. I couldn’t understand why no home grown music was being played in the clubs and bars so I decided to experiment.” Chris set up a studio in Beijing and put his huge experience and creativity to the task of creating something modern, danceable and interesting whilst keeping the integrity of the Far Eastern flavour of the music intact. “All the musicians on the album are at the top of their game but most had never played on Western Music before and couldn’t imagine a fusion of the two styles,” commented Chris. “They were all knocked out with the finished tracks. The album is intricate but cool, a real feast for the aural senses.”
Squirky Music Ltd is a new label which releases eclectic and original filmic music.
The Beijing Gang ‘Dongdan EP’ (Squirky) by vision music promotions
It’s Saturday night and you go to bed at 11 pm. You set your alarm clock for 5 am in the morning. You wake up, have a couple beers for breakfast, and then you’re ready for the floor. You arrive at Bergain, Panorama bar, Berlin at 6 am. Most likely you show up to find Johanna Knutsson at the DJ booth. Johanna is the latest star on the more mellow techno scene within Berlin- the scene that peaks at 7 am when the party starts over again.
This is the latest single from This Is Head, now in one exclusive remix. We’re proud to present De Trop (Johanna Knutsson Cosmic Support Remix).
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This Is Head – De Trop (Johanna Knutsson Cosmic Support Remix)
Mirror People’s new Reaction 12″ is out now! The release marks a turning point in electronic ambient beats from Portugal’s own Rui Maia. With delicious breaks, soothing dips, and classical piano interludes, Maia rediscovers a bit of his own musical past while recreating a brand new contemporary selection in the process. The album is released courtesy of Hands of Time Records.
Having already made his point in several remixes (one being the devastatingly good mix of Neon Indian – find it here), Mirror People are making themselves a force in the industry with their own unique originals. Catch much, much more online at mirrorpeople.net.
Buy it now on JUNO, PHONICA, or PICCADILLY.
Empty Space Orchestra certainly knows how to fill a room. The Bend, OR quintet of impeccable musicians crafts a symphonic, melodic sound that seamlessly weaves together elements of space rock, prog-metal, noir jazz, post-rock and afro-punk all in one massive blast of energy. Having built up a substantial following in the Pacific Northwest, the band has released their self-titled debut album May 10th and brought their genre-defying sound nationwide.
Their 9-song, 50-minute self-titled debut album is a hook-laden marriage of heft and harmony that veers far away from the navel-gazing jamming often associated with music of such explorative origins. Elements of The Mars Volta’s most frenetic moments merge with soaring post-rock of Russian Circles, as well as hints of Deftones, Dub Trio and lilting chamber pop all colliding in brilliant synergy from one song to the next.
The group of classically-trained musicians is anchored by the stunning power and precision of drummer Lindsey Elias — clearly a musician soon to hold rank amongst her most celebrated male counterparts. Guitarist Shane Thomas and bassist Patrick Pearsall provide a balance of head-bobbing riffs interspersed with tasteful and inventive lines that weave like musical narrative throughout. Meanwhile, multi-instrumentalists Keith O’Dell (keyboards, piano, lap steel) and Graham Jacobs (saxophone, flute, synths) add myriad melodic layers and cinematic moods that often deftly counterbalance heavy riffs with glissando piano melodies and swaggering horns.
The disc was recorded at the popular The Hanger Studios in Sacramento, CA with engineer Robert Cheek (RX Bandits, Deftones, Tera Melos) and mixed by Matt Bayles (Mastodon, Pearl Jam, ISIS) at Red Room Studios in Seattle, WA. Since the band’s inception in late 2007, ESO has built a devoted and rapidly growing fan base in the Northwest exclusively on the weight of their highly memorable live performances. While the album perfectly showcases the band’s musical precision, it must be noted that ESO is an extremely loud band — quite possibly the loudest band you will ever see with a saxophone on stage.
“I was spending a lot of time thinking about what Miles Davis used to say; ‘It’s not about the space you play, but the space you leave,’” explains Thomas. “That’s where the ‘Empty Space’ came from… ironically we don’t leave much space in our music.” Nonetheless, the sum of Empty Space Orchestra’s myriad parts never seem bloated, overblown or obtrusive.
Empty Space Orchestra’s self-titled debut album will be available everywhere on CD/Digital May 10th.
EMPTY SPACE ORCHESTRA LIVE:
04/20 Seattle, WA @ Sunset Tavern
04/21 Bellingham, WA @ Jinx Art Space
04/22 Portland, OR @ Portland State University campus (free)
04/22 Portland, OR @ Ash Street Saloon
05/11 Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios (album release show)
05/12 Eugene, OR @ Sam Bond’s Garage
05/13 Corvallis, OR @ Bomb’s Away
05/19 Bend, OR @ Century Theater
Empty Space Orchestra – Brainjar
Empty Space Orchestra – El Viento
Coming together for a live recording in glorious & Technicolor fashion at the Kutshers Country Club @ All Tomorrow’s Parties in Monticello, New York, on Sunday 13th September 2009, The Caribou Vibration Ensemble took electronica and live performance to a whole new high-jumping level and reached for the unknown horizons with no hindsight in looking back.
Featuring a 15 piece band including Sun Ra’s Marshall Allen, Kieran Hebden from Four Tet, Koushil Ghosh from Koushik, Luke Lalonde from Born Ruffians, a five piece horn section, and four capable drummers all screaming “mine, mine, mine …” This Sunday night event was produced and played with a rich Canadian love, and now its available in 2011 as a whopping free download courtesy of Dundas, Ontario’s Caribou, and their Vibration Ensemble – bestowing performance & longevity to the entire universe.
Slammin,’ nourishing music for all.
C.V.E feat. MARSHALL ALLEN – Every Time She Turns Round Its Her Birthday
C.V.E feat. MARSHALL ALLEN – Hendrix With Ho
C.V.E feat. MARSHALL ALLEN – Melody Day
Taking this to a Nirvana like ode level, up n’ comer William Besson commits his life and soul to the cause and then decides to form a band with staggering outcomes and similar energies to either Junip, Nirvana or AIR – and a wink and a nod to even Beck and Radiohead too.
Believing in the age ol’ concept of the music video as its most visual snapshot to sell what their band-based sound can represent, Alphacloud, via Berlin, Germany’s mother land, wants the whole world to enjoy their original French based continental science. Sign me up please!
The most angelic and thought provoking group to emanate from Belgium is back on Aerial Noise waters and returns with a five track showcase surprise that’s worth more to the heart than a two and a half minute radio edit selling for $9.99 on a twilight zone version of iTunes online. Pure, twinkle tone, Amatorski heaven.
It’s amazing what a nudge in the right direction can do.. and finding out about I AM XCI is by no means, no exception.
Remaining true to the statement, “Less Is More,” this man of very few words in I AM XCI (which means “I am 91” in Roman numerals) is setting his own humble musical project up in a seminal and highly unique countdown fashion through his own website and social networking page-centres.
All that I can gather in writing this article to date is that I AM XCI is from the United States, and that his countdown clock (on his webpage) will cease to zero come Tuesday 28th June 2011, with something else being intriguingly planned for Tuesday 23rd August 2011 (via the above video) also.
Sounding like a cross pollinated version of the ambient side of Aphex Twin and a early Nathan Fake, I AM XCI’s partial Moby-esque vocal has put himself on the highest of high jump bars and drawn a line in the sand to all long standing ambient/alternative fans and said, “right.. who’s with me?”
Conveying an imagination and a sound with captures all sorts of subtle and underlying depth, I AM XCI’s music thus far, is meaningful, epic and approachable. Each and every one is a personal jewel in its own right, however, the track called ‘You’ has those all special track-ahead-nudges and sprinter like photo-finishes emanating all over it.
This is one for the future classics.
Creating more floating noise in the air than overhearing an highly stressed out next door neighbour screaming loudly at her kid continually, Rhythm Scholar re-injects an already modern day classic in the projection of Daft Punk’s seminal Tron Legacy diamond called ‘Derezzed.’
Heavily electronic and relentlessly stagey, Rhythm Scholar captures a whole new essence and dimension quite perfectly. More academic awards await him soon – no doubt …
The man known as Michael Martin has sent us a truly refreshing concoction of well thought out electronica that has been served wonderfully from his ever-enduring Indidginus melting pot of enriched ambience, uplifting breaks, and gorgeous dub & dubstep enhanced positive progressive.
If there was certainly an album to unravel the mind and provoke the senses in digesting more and more food-for-thought, “Sofa Surfer” would indeed have any grocery store card brand reaching for its pockets and demanding that it had an unlimited amount of points credited to this Michael Martin production time and time again.
Originally from the United Kingdom and now based in Cape Town, South Africa, the imagination that follows Michael around has lead to a splendid collaboration-centerpiece of new flavours inspired by the likes of Tripswitch, HFB, Colin Angus, Suns Of Arqa and 7ft Soundsystem. So to continue from where “Circa Diem” left off, Indidginus indeed paves the way for all present day, and future bound artists to excite, titillate, and to appreciate, electronic dance music happiness for all of us to savour.
“Sofa Surfer” is out on Monday 4th July 2011 but you can get a sneak overall taste from his magnificent Soundcloud album-megamix below, as well as from any of the five audio samplers featured also. The live element of the didgeridoo has never sounded more grander.
Indidginus – Sofa Surfer LP (Album Mashup Mix)
INDIDGINUS & HFB feat. SEB TAYLOR – Algoriddim
INDIDGINUS & TRIPSWITCH – Sunrise Over Sapporo
INDIDGINUS feat. COLIN ANGUS – Lost Coast
INDIDGINUS feat. SUNS OF ARQA – Out Of The Dark
INDIDGINUS feat. RAGGASOULJAH & 7ft SOUNDSYSTEM – Wobble And Buzz
Janine Rostron aka Planningtorock is simply scary. Not scary in the SAW movie franchise kind of way, but scary in the way of chilling your mind/ears over with an excessively perfect flow of beats. Centred in one of the many highly prolific European capitals for electronic dance music as a whole, Berlin hosts Planningtorock’s drive, whilst DFA and Rostron Records take care of all of the PR work and future bookings.
Brooklyn, New York’s duo of Creep are Lauren Flax and Lauren Dillard-sensational.. so they both deliver a glossy coating in melancholy and uplift, you don’t know whether to get your tissues out or to have a slow but effective sway from side to side. The xylophones will always be magic in my book.
Featuring the enchanting voice of Sarah Assbring (El Perro Del Mar), Unspoken is the latest single from Pacific!’s alt pop ballet Narcissus. The song tells the story of Narcissus’ admirer Echo, rejected by the vain Narcissus, she leads a lonely life, pining for her unrequited love and fading away, until only her voice remains. Beautiful, simple, elegant, and a must have for all you Pacific! fans.
With remixes from Santiago & Bushido, Moonlight Matters, Alex Gopher & Pierrick Devin and Anoraak, the single was released on April 18th. Check out Anoraak and Moonlight Matters remixes below!
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Pacific! is the sun-kissed, blissed-out baby of Bjorn Synneby and Daniel Hogberg — two childhood friends from the seaside city of Gothenburg, Sweden, whose natural Scandinavian feel for the idyll is evident in a musical aesthetic that is as charming and as it is uninhibited.
Since the early days of the last decade, Synneby and Hogberg have been sewing a patchwork of manifold influences to imbue their delicately crafted pop-not-pop songs with a distinct joie de vivre that seems to hark back and look forward simultaneously. West-Coast, Baroque, Daft Punk, Beach Boys — you could mention any one of these in the same breath, yet Pacific!’s sound remains unmistakably their own: love songs for the new century, dance music for outside the club, nonchalant romance for the carefree generation. The band’s debut album Reveries surfaced in 2008 on Swedish label, Dolores Records, to wide critical acclaim and offered an increasingly musically-aware public a breeze of harmonic and melodic fresh air.
Pacific! – Unspoken (Anoraak Remix)
Pacific! Unspoken (Moonlight Matters Remix) by Vulture Music
Good ol’ Fenech Soler is back at it again. This time with a disgustingly good classic and brilliant track entitled Stone Bridge. The guys sent it over as their newest freebie and I couldn’t be happier. Wow, what a track.
I honestly don’t know what else to say. It’s fantastic. You should buy their music through the link below!
* note: The file is .mp4 format and is therefore not recognized by our audio player. You will simply have to trust me and download the track by right-clicking and saving the file as..
Good things come to those who wait, but in some cases, wonderful things happen when you least expect them to. Inspired by the actual birth name of one of Germany’s most famous poets in Friedrich Schiller, the initial production partnership of Mirko von Schlieffen and Christopher von Deylen gave birth to some timeless and most memorable dance floor wonders in the shape of ‘Das Glockenspiel’ throughout 1998 to 2000, and ‘Ruhe’ between 1999 and 2000.
Wonderful remixes from those two tracks in question in no doubt helped DJ Tiësto, Humate, Tom Middleton, Trisco and Sumsonic onto Ministry of Sound’s Data Records path of production-greatness and remix-folklore. But alongside the numerous-own Schiller projects and fertile promotion that these two men worked through, this duo always found time to maintain the attention of Zeitgeist/Island Records who in turn released their debut LP entitled “Zeitgiest.”
The “Weltreise” (Voyage) LP soon followed in 2001 and then the “Leben” (Life) LP in 2003. Somewhere between then, Christopher and Mirko experienced the age old hurdle of creative & artistic differences. And despite being really unfortunate to iron out those divergences naturally, Mirko decided to depart and Christopher picked up the ball to continue in the world we now as Schiller come today.
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Without alienating music fans in the mother-language in which Schiller’s LP’s have been published, the continuation of releasing the album’s title’s and track names in German and then into English, remains a constant revealing flow. Throughout the whole of the Noughties, in conjunction with Christopher’s own stadium-like-inner-drive, the Echo & OPUS music awards closely preceded and his collaborations with all several, outstanding female artists soon following in suite.
Thirteen studio-based and concept-branded albums have followed since 2003 (with two more following in 2010 & 2011). But before then, we land on gently towards the 14th Schiller album (or 6th depending on who you talk to), which exuberates monumental, perfect ambience, of the very same entitled name.
The “Breathless” LP has an ongoing heartiness to it which makes the worldly feelings of sluggishness and exhaustion absolutely redundant. After spending a month on the oceanographic research ship known as the Polarstern in Germany, a nineteen track voyage of tender and infinite-whisked melodies were inspired onto the hills of the Schiller fortress once again. The pearls of aural wisdom in which these gates were opened to were among the Princesses and Prince’s known as Lenka, Nadia Ali, Midge Ure (lead man of Ultravox), Mia Bergstrom, Anggun and many more to add to favour.
Within their strength also, they helped glide, traverse and energise “Breathless” into a universe of unmitigated tranquilly and abundant, idyllic peacefulness. Together with “Breathless” (also known as Atemlos) featuring a quintessential number in the form of the song called ‘Try,’ the United States version of this album will be accompanied with the “Sehnsucht” (Desire) LP which originally came out in 2008.
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Re-releasing the dazzling reminder of the single called ‘Breathe’ with vocalist September (and further exhibits from Despina Vandi, Kim Sanders, Xavier Naidoo and Jette Von Roth), “Desire” in its equal self retains a crisp bodied finish with an outlook on all things ambient and unanimously spirited.
The roads in which have been made and laid down for Schiller to continue on have not been sought after without a reflection to the past and an identical eye on the future, so with the enthused knowledge of Kraftwerk, Jean-Michel Jarre, and Tangerine Dream to contemplate over, Mike Oldfield fans alike are in no doubt to be content and humbled by that mystical and heart penetrating sound that moves and captures us all from Christopher “Schiller.”
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Bookmarking the calendar for his epic nineteen date tour in December later on this year, will indeed hypnotise and spell bound all sorts of fraternities from chill out to trance to ambient to Balearic and back again. So in the words of a true composer, musician and producer.. “My Name Is Christopher Von Deylen… and I am Schiller.”
Long may his vision live on.
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Schiller feat. Lenka – Sunrise
Schiller feat. Kate Havnevik – Don’t Go
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