Skrillex – Bangarang EP

After my latest post about Skrillex, he transformed into massive superstar, one of the most recognizable faces of North American dubstep explosion. His latest EP “Bangarang“, follows his highly successful “My Name Is Skrillex“, “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites” and “More Monsters and Sprites” in truly spectacular fashion with more interesting tracks and great collaborations.

Seven track EP was released for download on Beatport on December 23, 2011, was made available from other music download sites like iTunes and Amazon on December 27, 2011, and will be physically released on January 24, 2012. The EP is a collection of songs that had all been previously played live (with the exception of “Right On Time“) during the Mothership tour, which ended a week before the release of the EP.

On this EP Skirllex created another two tracks together with Sirah “Bangarang” and “Kyoto“, “The Devil’s Den” was produced together with Wolfgang Gartner, “Right On Time” with 12th Planet & Kill The Noise, and “Summit” with Ellie Goulding. The song “Breakn’ A Sweat” was produced as a collaboration between Skrillex and The Doors, made for the music documentary “Re:Generation”.

Another latest masterpieces from Skrilex include his amazing remix of Avicii “Levels” (Dance Energy Selected), half a dozen another remixes for La Roux, Benny Benassi, Rob Zombie, Lady Gaga, Nero, SebastiAn, Robyn and Damian Marley, collaborations with Foreign Beggars “Still Gettin It“, Kaskade “Lick It” and Knife Party “Zoology“. And don’t forget about his collaboration with American metal band KoЯn, he produced two tracks – “Get Up” and “Narcissistic Cannibal” – for their tenth studio album “The Path of Totality” (released on December 2, 2011 in Europe and December 6, 2011 in the US).

Knife Party

Knife Party is a side project of two members of Australian drumandbass band Pendulum: Rob Swire and Gareth McGrillen. They experiment with more modern, exploding dance music genres – moombahton, dubstep, electro, and house, but you still can hear some echoes of typical Pendulum sound.

In recent months you could hear their genre-crossing tracks in different radio shows and mixes (for example on Essential mix live from Space club in Ibiza). And finally on 12 December 2011 they released first EP “100 % No Modern Talking“. The name of the EP “100% No Modern Talking” is a reference to a waveform in Native Instruments’ wavetable-based software synthesizer, Massive, called Modern Talking. It features four tracks: “Internet Friends” (my favorite Facebook psycho story, “Dance Energy Selected”) “Destroy Them With Lazers,” “Tourniquet,” and “Fire Hive“. The EP originally had a track called “Back to the Z-List”, but was replaced by “Destroy Them With Lazers” as they no longer liked that song. It was released digitally through Pendulum’s record label, EarStorm, as a free download from their official website and Facebook, as well as being able to buy on iTunes and Beatport.

Before that Knife Party released some great remixes – on Swedish House Mafia‘s single “Save The World,” which was released on 10 June 2011, Nero‘s single “Crush On You,” which was released on 13 October 2011 and, finally, of “Unison” by Porter Robinson which was released on 19 October 2011 on his debut EP, “Spitfire“, released on OWSLA, Skrillex’s label.

In recent Knife Party mixes you can hear some new tracks “The Box“, “Suffer” (which reminded me the most of Pendulum oldschool sound), “Intro (Where’s the Bloody Knife Party?)” and some great collaboration with Mistajam “Until They Kick Us Out” and Skrillex “Zoology“.

Latest work of Knife Party is collaboration with mighty Swedish House Mafia “Antidote“. And what is even better, this track has two different music videos – “Clean” version and great movie/video game like “Explicit” version.

Of course, as the project name suggests, you  can see Knife Party live in some great parties, especially here in UK – Ministry Of Sound in London on 21 January 2012, and The Junction in Cambridge on 04 February 2012. Latest Knife Party news you can receive through their Facebook and Twitter, music you can listen and even download for free on their SoundCloud.

Swedish House Mafia vs Knife Party – Antidote (Clean)

Swedish House Mafia vs Knife Party – Antidote (Explicit)

Kaiserdisco

The two producers and DJs from Hamburg, Frederic Berger and Patrick Buck met in summer 2008. While Frederic could already celebrate various successes as part of Nudisco, and Patrick could say the same as a member of Kaiser Souzai; common sympathies bring people together, and so the way was paved for the creation of their new project, Kaiserdisco.

The first production from the two was a remix for Phunklarique (one half of Piemont) and Pierce “Swoosh“.  It was done mostly for fun, but as the way it sometimes goes, a bit of fun led to an absolute hit!  Three days after the release, it stayed over a month as #2 on Beatport’s charts in December 2008 and won an award as one of “Beatport’s minimal top 10 selling tracks in 2008”.

After further remixes for Koen Groeneveld and Groove Garcia, they concentrated on their debut “Traction EP” that was released in November 2008 for the Berlin label Micro.fon, increasing sales, and making a name for themselves.

In February 2009 they presented their newest EP, “Pipe!” on the Cologne label MBF, followed by further remixes for Access Denied, Holgi Star, Christian Fischer, Extrawelt and many more. With their “Zapateria EP” (MBF 12055), they created their first summer hit and title song, the a-side “Espandrillo” got very high in the Beatport charts as well as selling very good through Kompakt distribution as vinyl.

Then followed “Amalfino” which evolved as the biggest hit they had so far. Climbing up to no3 in the Beatport sale charts and staying in the charts for over 3 months, “Amalfino” was hitting the bulls-eye in every respect. Richie Hawtin, Laurent Garnier, Stephan Bodzin, Dubfire, Tiefschwarz were among the many to celebrate the track in their sets and to boost the popularity of Kaiserdisco.

Releases on Terminal M, Drumcode (collaboration with Flavio Diaz “Le Feu EP“), Kling Klong and Micro.fon showed that their potential was huge. Their re-interpretations of Booka Shade “Bad Love”, Umek “No One Could Have Suspected” and Robyn “Hang With Me” firmly established their reputations as excellent remixers.

Kaiserdisco debut album “In No One´s Shadow” was released in November 2010 and compiled ten new and previously unreleased tracks plus their chart breakers “Aquja” and “Carachillo“. Much of the album delivers efficient, solidly produced tech-house that’s neither too minimal nor excessively embellished. The two former singles slot into the tracklist nicely, still sounding like firm highlights, while the two furthest departures from the duo’s formula arrive at the beginning and end of the album: the strong, melodic opener “Tripping Lure” and my personal favorite “Djuma Of Love“, which features some fairly wooly acoustic guitar deployment.

Latest releases from Kaiserdisco include album of remixes of “In No One’s Shadow“, new EPs “Victoria Harbour” and “City of Kings“, plus some new remixes on Martine Eyerer & Kosheen “Your Move” and Heartik “Mini Swing”.

Kaiserdisco – Amalfino

Kaiserdisco – Aguja

Kaiserdisc0 – Djuma Of Love

Skream

Skream (born Oliver Dene Jones in West Wickham, Bromley, London on 1 June 1986) is a dubstep producer based in Croydon. One of dubstep’s first and most prominent producers, he has played an important role in the genre’s development.

As a teenager, Jones worked at Big Apple Records, a Croydon-based record store that was at the center of the early dubstep scene; even prior to this, Jones had become acquainted with Hatcha, another dubstep pioneer, because Jones’ brother worked on an adjacent floor in Big Apple Records. As a result of this encounter, Hatcha was the first DJ to play Skream dubplates.

Jones began producing music at the age of 15 using FruityLoops and claims to now have roughly 800 songs in varying stages of development. Skream’s early productions were often with another alumnus of Big Apple, Benga, and are of a decidedly darker and less melodic nature than later releases. As dubstep gained notice from conventional media such as The Guardian and Pitchfork Media, Jones’ music started to take on a more melodic sound; less overtly influenced by the darker, UK garage influenced sounds of early dubstep artists with dub, house, and even jazz influences instead.

The 2005 Skream track “Midnight Request Line” has been described as “dubstep’s most recognizable crossover hit,” and has been praised by producers as diverse as grime producer Wiley, and minimal techno producer Ricardo Villalobos. The key change in the chorus, which The Wire has described as “an epic change of key and tempo that recalls the classicist mannerisms of Derrick May,” has been credited as being a key factor in the evolution of a more melodic sound in the dubstep genre.

Skream has released records on a variety of UK record labels, such as Tempa, Tectonic, and Big Apple Records, including a self-titled album “Skream!” which was released in 2006 on the Tempa label. He collaborated with Benga, Niall Henshaw (otherwise known as Spectrum), Cluekid, Distance, Hijack, Loefah, Warrior Queen, Freckles, D Bridge, JME and many others musicians and vocalists. Since 2006 he produced 5 volumes of his “Skreamizm” EP.

In 2009, he rose to further prominence when his remix of “In for the Kill” by La Roux became firstly an underground hit in the early part of the year before bursting onto the mainstream, being used in promotional material for the 2010 video game Bayonetta and was featured in an episode titled “Hair” on the hit HBO series Entourage. Skream also created great remixes for Bat For Lashes, Toddla T, Klaxons, Dave Gahan, Chromeo, DJ Zinc, Donaeo, Lethal Bizzle, Digital Mystikz and Katy B.

In the summer of 2010, Skream released his second full-length album “Outside the Box“. He also making records as a part of Magnetic Man, a live electronic music project consisting of dubstep producers and DJs Skream, Benga and Artwork. From January 2011, Skream, along with Benga, will be replacing Alex Metric in his ‘In New DJ’s We Trust’ slot on BBC Radio 1.

Latest hits from Skream include his collaboration with Example “”Shot Yourself In The Foot Again” and new great megahit remix of Casssius “I Love U So” which recently became Essential New Tune in Pete Tong’s Radio 1 show Essential Selection.

Skream – Midnight Request Line

Skream – Funkanomika

La Roux – In For The Kill (Skream Remix)

Skream & Example – Shot Yourself In The Foot Again

Cassius – I Love You So (Skream remix)

Soweto Gospel Choir

I currently working on one project based on World Music, so you see a lot of post about ethnic music from different corners of the Earth.

And one of the first posts is dedicated to Soweto Gospel Choir, gospel group from South Africa. Mixing African gospel with traditional hymns, Jamaican reggae, American pop, and spiritually themed secular songs, the Soweto Gospel Choir are an impressive performing unit. Formed in Soweto in 2002 by choir directors David Mulovhedzi and Beverly Bryer, the group includes 30-some members and the show it produces is a powerful expression of hope and joy full of gorgeous South African vocal harmonies.

The choir’s debut album “Voices from Heaven“, appeared in 2005 from Shanachie Records, followed that same year by “Blessed“, also on Shanachie. “African Spirit” was released two years later in 2007 on the same imprint. In December of 2009 the choir lost co-founder and musical director David Mulovhedzi to cancer. In January of 2010 they released “Grace“, their fifth album on the Shanachie imprint.

The world-renowned singers recently have been again nominated for a Grammy Award for their fifth album, “Grace“, in the Best Traditional World Music Album category. It’s the group’s fourth Grammy nomination in five years. The albums “Blessed” and “African Spirit” won Grammys for Best Traditional World Music Album in 2007 and 2008 respectively. Other silverware in the choir’s trophy cupboard includes an American Gospel Music Award for Best Choir in 2003; Gospel Music Award for Best International Choir in 2004; and a Helpmann Award, Australia’s prestigious Performing Arts Award, for Best Contemporary Music Concert in 2003.

“Grace“, released on the Universal Music label, was produced by Robin Hogarth and Zwai Bala, and directed by Lucas Bok, Vusi Shabalala and Diniloxolo Ndlakuse, working with engineer Richard Mitchell.

The choir has performed with international heavyweights such as U2, Celine Dion, Peter Gabriel, Queen, Diana Ross, Johnny Clegg, Jimmy Cliff and Bebe Waynans. It has performed sold-out concerts around the world and sung for Oprah Winfrey and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and former presidents Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki and Bill Clinton, to name a few.

Part of the choir’s philosophy is giving back to the community. This is done by donating money it raises to orphanages and community groups. At the conclusion of each performance, the Soweto Gospel Choir invite audiences to donate with funds 100% of the funds going to the many AIDS Orphans Establishments which receive no government or private funding with 100% of the funds collected through concert donations going direct to the charity. To date, Soweto Gospel Choir have raised almost $1 million from audience donations and last year fed, clothed and housed over 600 orphans.

In 2003, it founded its own Aids orphan foundation, Nkosi’s Haven Vukani, an outreach program that helps home-based organizations in townships. Those it helps include Sizanani Home-based Care in Orange Farm, Tsogang Sechaba in Protea South, Rosca House in Braamfontein, Living Hope in Germiston and Hillbrow Home of Hope.

“Vukani was made what it is today with the donations that we have received at our shows,” Bryer says. “We are seriously trying to make a better life for orphans. We have to play a part in assisting those children.”

If you want to see how Soweto Gospel Choir looks when they sing, I collected 10 videos from their Live performances, starting with classical Christian hits and following with traditional African songs.