 |  Music: Music blog | guardian.co.ukArticles published by guardian.co.uk Music about: Music blog http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog рекомендовать друзьям >> |
- Scene and heard: Moombahton
When tech-house producer Dave Nada slowed down his DJ set to 108bpm, it was to appease the reggaeton-loving crowd. But chance would see a new global bass genre being born
Rarely has one man's attempt to save his skin been so fruitful. After turning up to play at his cousin's house party, tech house DJ and producer Dave Nada worked out pretty quickly that the Dirty Dutch House floorfillers he'd brought wouldn't go down too well with a bunch of rowdy kids going crazy to reggaeton.
Keen to leave in one piece, he took a risk and slowed down Afrojack's remix of Silvio Ecomo and DJ Chuckie's track Moombah to reggaeton speed and crossed his fingers. "It worked like a charm – the kids went mental. I was blown away by how big it sounded at that tempo," recalls Nada. Barely over a year later, his eureka moment has seen moombahton getting underground buzz everywhere from the states to eastern Europe – and now Britain's getting involved too, with Radio 1 already offering full support to a genre that has only one official release to its name.
The original template may have been the searing electronica of Dutch house mixed with the dembow rhythm of reggaeton and latin cumbia, but moombahton's a sound that has an ability to assimilate other genres, yet still sound utterly unmistakable: "I like to describe it as mid-tempo global bass music. It draws from house and reggaeton, but also dubstep, indie, UK funky, Baltimore club, soul, etc. The only real rule is that the tempo should be about 108 bpm," says Nada.
It's a wide-eyed, Balearic approach that's scarcely been seen since the early days of the Heavenly Social, and has already seen it inspire an almost Dionysian response Stateside: "Every time there is a massive party it's a wrap, we are going in at 10," says David Heartbreak, another of the scene's key men. "It's always nuts. DC – nuts, SXSW – nuts, Miami – nuts. People climbing on speakers. It's just something about this music that gets people wild."
Radio 1 DJ Toddla T has ceaselessly championed the likes of Nada, Dutch prodigy Munchi and LA's Dillon Francis, whose Westside EP also caught the attention of Annie Mac, while Zane Lowe has just pegged Francis's remix of Toddla's Take It Back as his hottest record in the world. UK producers like Smutlee are looking to add a British spin, and nights like Fiyapowa and Club Tropicana LDN are being prepped for the summer, while elsewhere dubstep doyens like Skrillex are getting involved, as are big-shot mainstream DJs like Laidback Luke.
"I think people just see the endless potential," says Nada, who's soon to release the scene-defining Blow Your Head compilation on Diplo's Mad Decent, and is working on original moombahton tracks as part of Nadastrom. "It really is a versatile sound with an uplifting vibe. And most importantly, it's fun to dance to. Who can't relate to that?"
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - New music: Brian Eno – Glitch
The ambient pioneer's latest track, from a collaborative album with poet Rick Holland, is a darkly thrilling experiment
A year ago almost to the day, Brian Eno curated the Brighton festival. In among nights dedicated to Afrobeat legend Tony Allen and a live score set to images of the Apollo moon landings, was the work of relatively unknown poet Rick Holland. Eno first collaborated with Holland back in the late-90s on the Map-Making project before they started recording together in 2003. None of the songs from those initial sessions will appear on their collaborative album, Drums Between the Bells, released through Warp on 4 July, but Glitch was first played in an early incarnation as part of Eno's "three-dimensional instantiations" (his words, obviously) last year in Brighton. Featuring a heavily treated, monosyllabic vocal intoning lines from Holland's poetry such as "there is a glitch in the system, outside the brain flow ... the only joy there is, is onward search through the darkness" it's initially pretty heavy going. However, there's a vibrancy and an infectious sense of experimentation that makes each of the impeccably programmed pulses and distant cymbal splashes all the more joyful. Around the minute-and-a-half mark it sounds briefly as if the robots are taking over as a jagged synth riff seems to disintegrate.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Secret diary of a band: how dreams are made and lost
In the first of our new series, an anonymous musician writes about the trauma of trying to make it in the music industry
In the years before we started our band, I watched several friends venture out into the deep, mysterious waters of the music world only to be sucked in and spat out the other side a couple of years later. Penniless, they'd return home from tour for the last time, finally admitting grim defeat. In the idle months that followed, their grief would turn to anger, as the gallons of bile they'd been repressing finally spurted out of their mouths, directed at the "industry" they'd once so highly praised.
Then came the stories, all the odd moments they'd tried to ignore at the time, because they so desperately wanted everything to work out. A hilarious anecdote for their memoir rather than the second everything went wrong. One friend told me how at the height of his band's hype a desperate A&R had led them into his plush office, and presented them with "The Rule Book" – a copy of the Yellow Pages adapted for the purpose – which he attempted to rip up. Sadly, the significance of the gesture was marred by the fact that phone books are practically indestructible. As my friend's sniggers grew, so did the A&R's pink-faced embarrassment.
Another friend, upon having her band signed, told me of the endless and increasingly fraught meetings about artwork and marketing budgets. The creative team seemed to be constantly growing, so much so that towards the end of his time with them, my friend couldn't even get into her own crisis talks. Then an album, finished and ready to go, was held back by the label for reasons unknown. The only way to ensure its release would be if my friend bought it off the label for a princely sum. She never managed it and somewhere in a vault in Kensington, the album remains.
It's easy to make bands out as the victims; the poor struggling artists who just want to get their music heard.
If it's really that tough, why not just get a proper job, you might ask. Perhaps the reason it doesn't work for most bands is that they're simply not good enough, you might also say. After all, there are plenty of musicians who make plenty of money, it's just that the market is oversaturated. And it certainly seems that for every perfectly thought-out "product", there are eight identical outfits, and what you end up with are four wistful, quiffed boys from Surrey who've just been dropped. Perhaps they were unlucky, perhaps they weren't good enough. Or perhaps their debut album is still sat in its wrapping in the depths of their record label's basement.
Before we started this band, I was smug. I thought I knew it all, thought I'd heard enough horror stories and seen enough people fail to know that I could skirt round the potholes. It would be different for us. And it was – they're not potholes, they're gaping craters.
But the joke's on us because we're still trying.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Record Store Day: how was it for you?
There were early morning queues, a scramble for 7ins and at least one broken foot. But in the melee of Record Store Day, did anyone else notice a lack of women?
For all the bluster that's surrounded Record Store Day this year, the 800-strong queue that curled around London's Rough Trade East at 9.30am on Saturday was eerily quiet. Blame mild manners, hangovers and pre-emptive disillusionment for the calm.
Adam Shoesmith joined the queue at 7.45am. "I'm after the Radiohead 12in, Beth Ditto's EP and Danger Mouse's single for a friend." The hugely limited Radiohead single eluded him – at present, there are 65 copies for sale on eBay – but he did manage to pick up Ditto's EP with Simian Mobile Disco. Phil Monroe brought his young son Joe along in a fruitless search for White Stripes reissues, but left happy with the Kills' release (Joe looked relieved to escape the queues). And never mind the eBay scalpers – it was student Ned Powley's dad who was trying to pilfer his son's Talulah Gosh 7in when he finally emerged from the shop. "And you didn't get me a copy of Earth either?" he cried.
I wanted – and found – Grinderman's remix EP, Wild Beasts and Bat for Lashes singles, and picked up Hello Pink Mist, a 12in compilation of bands on Big Scary Monsters, Holy Roar and Blood and Biscuits that looks like laminated candyfloss. The 12in pressing of Of Montreal's The Past Is a Grotesque Animal was tempting, but I couldn't justify spending £14.99 on a song I already have. Even pricier, however, was the Vaccines' live "bootleg-style" album at £18.99 for the LP and a flabbergasting £23.99 for the CD.
In Stockton-On-Tees, Sound It Out – the subject of this year's official RSD film – had a memorable day. A rogue box of hip-hop CDs fell and broke shop-owner Tom's foot, "but I told him to suck it up as he couldn't leave on the busiest day in the shop's history!" joked employee Kelly Laybourne.
Rough Trade East doubled its profits on last year, with similar trends reported by regional independents, according to RSD spokesman Steve Redmond. Though RSD releases aren't chart-eligible, if had they been, they would have made up eight of this week's top 10 physical singles, and nine of the top 10 vinyl albums.
However, I was struck by the lack of women in the queue. The male-female ratio evened itself out during the day – and experienced a boost thanks to Gaggle's mid-afternoon appearance at Rough Trade East – but of the early(ish) risers, I felt in the minority. Did anyone else notice this at their local record shops? And back to the point of the day – what did you buy?
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - New music exclusive: Digitalism – 2 Hearts
Enjoy electronic symphonies for the brain? Look away now, then! Here's some drunk-in-a-field synthetic rock just in time for the festival season ...
Jens Moelle and İsmail Tüfekçi, aka German indie-dance duo Digitalism, don't really do subtle. Part of a scene that emerged out of forgotten dance genres such as electroclash and nu rave, their raison d'etre is simple enough; big dance riffs, big beats, big choruses. Their re-workings of tracks by the likes of the White Stripes, The Futureheads and Klaxons saw them emerge alongside DFA and Soulwax as acts most likely to continue the dance/rock hybrid that Daft Punk helped initiate. With their forthcoming second album, the awkwardly titled I Love You, Dude due out in June (and featuring a co-write by Julian Casablancas), the pair are hoping to get everyone dancing like it's 2006 again. 2 Hearts – a Guardian exclusive – opens with a heavily-treated guitar figure before a very Klaxons-circa-Myths-of-the-Near-Future chant-like chorus kicks in over an arena-sized synth riff. This isn't intricate or complex dance music for the brain, it's energised, drunk-in-a-field synthetic rock for the impending festival season.
2 Hearts is released on 13 June via V2/Cooperative Musicguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - New music: Radiohead – Supercollider/The Butcher
Released for Record Store Day, these brand new Radiohead tracks were recorded during The King of Limbs sessions
When Radiohead's The King of Limbs was released as a download earlier this year, there was general consternation at the speed with which people were posting reviews. Here at guardian.co.uk/music, we were quite dismissive after a first listen, while NME gave it 7/10. The verdict from other sites was "it's good, it's just nothing we've not heard before". And you know what? They were right. The King of Limbs is a good album but, unlike In Rainbows or Kid A, it's not a grower – the songs are either too fiddly or too slight.
Happily, the album seems to be a gift that keeps on giving as two new songs from the sessions were released on vinyl for Record Store day – and have emerged online. The Butcher is built around an intricate electronic beat that skitters around a one-note bassline before Yorke's voice lurches up out of the gloom. The track is closer to the sound of his Eraser album than The King of Limbs.
The seven-minute Supercollider, however, features a calm electronic pulse and synth riffs that wouldn't be out of place on a chart botherer. Of course, this being Radiohead, there's not an obvious chorus and the constant talk of shadows is unlikely to induce a singalong. But there's a lovely rise and fall to it, especially around the four-minute mark where Yorke's falsetto merges with a synth crescendo.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать
 | Блог о медовом бизнесе - время пчелы. Узнайте, почему самый успешный в мире бизнес продолжает помогать таким людям как Вы, получать удовольствие от свершений и невероятных личностных достижений! Присоединиться → |
| rss2email.ru |
| rss2email.ru | отписаться: http://www.rss2email.ru/unsubscribe.asp?c=90855&u=756462&r=477547156 управление подпиской: http://www.rss2email.ru/manage.asp партнерская программа: http://partner.rss2email.ru/?pid=1 |
