DMb | Dance Music blog

Photo courtesy of SinningInLA.com

The Do-Lab crew know how to set a mood: trademark organic structures, well lit environment, indoor and outdoor stages, happy people doing things to help good causes, top-notch artwork in every direction you look… oh ya, and big name dance music acts pushing some serious sound. This year’s annual Lucent L’amour event in honor of Valentines Day, was a perfect example of this. If you weren’t outside taking in the live avante garde dance performances or live art, you were treated to this years headliners: N.A.S.A., Bassnectar and Stanton Warriors (in order of appearance) on the multi screened main stage inside. (more…)

Sorry we’ve been missing in action for a few weeks while we moved to a new webhost, but we’re back and we have some great things planned to the rest of 2009!

This great little Trance/Progressive Podcast has been growing and growing since its start a little over 2 years ago and now finds itself delivering some serious downloads for any DJ featured. Check em out, subscribe, and send em a mix.

TranceDesign.net

I recently heard about TechnoBox from AudioRealism for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and already being a fan of thier Bassline VST instrument I had to check it out. $10 for this app is a steal when compared to the price of a VST instrument or any music creation software for that matter. Compared to the price of most iPhone apps it is on the higher side but it’s well worth it. Basically TechnoBox is similar to the old Rebirth program by Propellerheads but better sounding. I definitely see someone using this app in a live set, but you would have to deal with manually syncing it up. Definitely worth a look.

From the AudioRealism website:

TechnoBox is your virtual techno studio on the go for iPhone / iPod touch featuring stunningly accurate emulations of three classic boxes: The legendary 303 bass line machine together with the smooth 808 and punchy 909 drum machines. technoBox has easy to use sequencing capabilities which lets you tie together patterns, or use it live by improvising pattern switches on the fly!

Featuring the same high quality audio engine as ABL2 which was painstakingly optimized to be able to run on mobile devices. For the uninitiated our audio engine has aliasing free oscillators and full range non-linear filters.

The drum section features 11 parts with 808 or 909 sounds (for a total of 22 sounds) with variable amount of shuffle per pattern.

technoBox comes with a session manager which allows you to load/save sessions in realtime without stopping the internal sequencer — great for saving realtime improvised patterns without interrupting the audio stream.

TechnoBox Website

Cr2 Records first launched there LIVE & DIRECT compilation series at the tail end of 2007. The series started with a bang, featuring a head-to-head electro house battle between Dirty South & Kurd Maverick. Having said that, the series reached new heights with the Miami 2008 Compilation, which was extremely well received and leaped straight to the top of the charts. This was no mean feat considering the competition, which included the mainstay brands such as Azuli, Ministry of Sound and Defected.
 
Cr2 Miami 2009 follows on exactly where the 2008 edition left us…hanging on for one more tune! The compilation again offers 3 CD’s, with the theme across the CD’s spanning CD1-Day / CD2-Night and CD3-Classics. This combination seems to really work enabling the label to cover the broad spectrum of music they release.
 
The compilation features a massive 47 tracks, of which 20 are exclusive to Cr2! Featuring upfront cuts from DJ Sneak vs Herve, Mark Brown, Harry Choo Choo Romero & Jose Nunez… plus ‘Love Emergency’ the huge new single from Kurd Maverick Feat. Sam Obernik.
 
The Album is available for download now and will be out physically Monday 16th March as mixed and unmixed CD’s. There are also 3 x 12” vinyl Samplers.

Check it out here.

Artist: DJ Nth
Title: Dance by Numbers 8.8.8 Mix
Length: 79:31
Website: www.djnth.com and myspace
Homebase: Los Angeles, CA

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DJ Nth – Dance by Numbers 8.8.8. Mix

Tracklisting:

01. DTL and Mathhead – Bricks
02. Plastikman – Spastik (Dubfire Rework)
03. Underworld – Ring Road (Fake Blood Remix)
04. Sandy W – Bleep
05. DJ Tocadisco – Music Loud
06. True Pseudo – Freaking Me Out (DJ Nth’s Glitched Reconstruction)
07. The Black Ghosts – Any Way You Choose (DJ Nth’s Original Blood Reconstruction)
08. Fake Blood – Mars (DJ Nth Needs Women Reconstruction)
09. Mighty Dub Katz – Magic Carpet Ride (DJ Nth’s Little Fluffy Osawa Mash)
10. DJ Dan – Illectrolingus (Jelo CDJ Laser Damage Remix)
11. Treasure Fingers – Cross the Dancefloor (Laidback Luke Remix)
12. Brad Hed – The Girlz & Boyz (Vandalism Club Mix)
13. Frederico Franchi – Cream (DJ Nth’s iPlay a Prank Caller on TV Reconstruction)
14. JF Presents Smokescream – Retox
15. Chromeo – Fancy Footwork (Guns n Bombs Remix)
16. Midfield General – Disco Sirens (D.I.M. Remix)
17. The Whip – Trash (South Central Remix)
18. Kid Cudi – Day n Night (Crookers First Remix)
19. The Villains – Thrilla (Villains Remix)
20. Hot Chip – Ready for the Floor (LA Riots vs Villains Nth Reconstruction)
21. Streetlife DJ’s – Gunn Crime
22. Little Boots – Stuck on Repeat (Fake Blood Remix)
23. Portishead – The Rip (Noise Floor Crew Remix)

I am not happy with the level of participation of DMb readers!  Sooo I thought what would everyone like to see and get involved with…?

Everyone wants to find those great new tunes, so I thought I’d show you a couple of my current favourites, in the hope that you all will comment and tell us the ones you can’t stop listening to at the moment.  There’s no prize for the best or anything, but hopefully you’ll find a couple of new tunes that you wouldn’t have otherwise. 

If it goes well then once a month or something we’ll repeat it and maybe review last month’s best tracks.

So, at the moment, I can’t stop listening to:

•  Day ‘N’ Nite (Crookers Remix)- Kid Cudi
• Saturate (Stanton Warriors Remix) – Chemical Brothers
• Prodigy – Breathe (David Guetta remix)
• Robin S vs Steve Angello & Laidback Luke- Show Me Love vs Be (Hardwell Bootleg)

Leave a comment with your favourites and lets see what happens!

Much dancing love – DMb

Once again, DMb has the pleasure of introducing another up-and-coming UK act;  Serotonin Thieves.

They have been picking up support from the likes of Fedde Le Grand, Shapeshifters, Damian Wilson (CR2), Lucien Foort, Danny Dove and Thommy Davis (Code Red).  On top of this, ‘Can U Tell Me’ was picked by Pete Tong for his Fast Trax show. After the show, the track was signed to his Bedroom Bedlam label & EMI Music Publishing.

Serotonin Thieves are Ryan King & Scott Blake, who have been making dance music together for the past 6 years, creating their own label called Steal the Love Records.  You can find some of their work on the net, including Coldplay and Kraftwerk reworks.  Check out their myspace here:

www.myspace.com/theserotoninthieves

They have just returned from playing in Sligo, Ireland, after recently DJing for Kidology Records in London & Ibiza.  They are also in the beginning stages of hosting their own night with Pete Tong’s ‘Future Stars’ the Bad Boy DJ’s at Herbal in Shoreditch, with their first gig down there on Sunday.

Early 2009 will see some of their new work released (for free!), so Dance Music blog will be keeping an eye out for these two in future… keep your eyes peeled!

Contact dancemusicblog@googlemail.com if you think you’ve got what it takes to get your creations featured here.

“The most important poll in dance music”

DJ magazine’s top 100 DJs poll 2008 is now three weeks away from closing, if you havent voted yet, click the link below…

http://top100djs.djmag.com/

Voters get a free track from Trackitdown and a digital copy of the mag as an incentive, so there is no excuse to not have your say.

You can vote for literally anyone (local DJ, favourite DJ etc..), and the poll is a 100% public vote, so the results show who really are the most popular DJs at the time.

Recent winners include Armin Van Buuren (2007), Paul van Dyk (2006, 2005) and Tiesto (2004, 2003, 2002).

The results will announced in London on 29th October.

After passing these guys at Global Gathering, I looked them up, listened to their work, spoke to them and thought that DMb readers should know all about them too…

JJ Metcalf and George Hilton, aka Vibrosis and Prof. Oblivion, won a Mixmag competition to open the Mixmag Terrace on the Friday, and their set proved that they were worthy winners!  The Buckinghamshire (UK) duo are based in London, and are hoping to play some more big stages in the not too distant future.  They play a wide range of styles, mixing some of the most unlikely tracks together – check out the Siegfried Android pages below to listen to some of them.

For Siegfried Android’s Global Gathering mix click here.  Leave a comment if you want the tracklisting for the mix – it’s too long post up.

Siegfried Android Myspace and Facebook pages:  www.facebook.com/pages/Siegfried-Android/10630644771  www.myspace.com/siegfriedandroid

Vibrosis told DMb:  “Global was unreal! Seriously, we were in Belgium when we got the call, had to take a week out of our trip to do it, was stressful was but well worth it. Apparently we nearly got disqualified because the mix we sent Mixmag overran by like 10 minutes.  The crowd were easily the biggest and best crowd we’ve played to so far – you guys just loved every bit of it!”

Ones to keep an eye out for in the future…

Think Dance Music blog readers would be interested in your work?  Get in touch at dancemusicblog@googlemail.com.

Amsterdam Dance Event

The Amsterdam Dance Event is now officially the biggest club festival in the world, with over 700 DJs playing in 40 different venues across Amsterdam. The total audience last year was 72,000, and this year there are an extra six venues.

A preview of the lineup has just been released, with all the big names playing, including: Armin Van Buuren, David Guetta, Erick Morillo, John Dahlbäck, Markus Schulz, Paul van Dyk, Sven Väth.

Ticket information isn’t available yet, but the festival is not far away, taking place on the 22/23/24/25th October. There are also a few ‘unplanned’ afterparties the night after for those that can handle it…