GTA V: Official Trailer!
Intersections: Baldwin & Spadina – Now Magazine – First photo credit!
While I’ve made the odd cameo appearance in Now Magazine via Zach Slootsky’s photo column and Graeme Phillip’s NowTube, this story marks my first photo credit with them! The fire took place in what is a derelict squat that happens to be my backyard unfortunately. While the squatters that crawl out of the structure like rats and cockroaches do provide for some off beat, against the grain entertainment, it would be really great if the city could get their shit together and make something happen here! It’s been way too long. How many more spontaneous disasters will it take before action is taken?
Here are some more shots of the fire that didn’t get published.
New York producer MNDR on signing to Ultra, eating diamonds, and Tom Cruise’s son – Beatport New
Interview by Jesse Ship
Amanda Warner (aka MNDR) has been living a pretty serious musician’s life, moving from her hometown of Fargo, North Dakota to Oakland to New York, all in the name of music and exploration. She’s been touring hard since 2009 and was on her third music gathering of the weekend when we caught up at Montreal’s Osheaga Festival—which is fitting since she’s actually secretly French Canadian (well, half of her is). But that half has built bonds with other Canadian divas like Austra and Emily Haines’ band Metric, both of whom she’s remixed in the past year. Singles are still trickling out from her 2012 album Feed Me Diamonds, with another one in production, and she’ll soon be releasing a tune with RAC and Bloc Party’s Kele Okereke. Mon dieu!
There’s a lot of uncertainty as to how to pronounce your artist name. Set us straight!
It’s just the letters M-N-D-R. It’s the DJ/IDM name that I used in the Bay Area, a combination of my legal name Amanda Warner. I had a lot of criticism with that at first, but now with artists like SBTRKT, it’s lifted. I will claim that I paved the first no-vowel road officially in 2004.
So what do you do for fun in New York?
I have a party called Youth Group that I throw with another DJ friend named Musa who DJs for Spank Rock. The party is starting to make tech-house and downloadable dance singles as part of the party/label. We will be releasing those in the fall; it’s a footwork, tech-house, dirty-bird genre. We call it that because the party’s on a Wednesday; it works across the board.
What sort of music influences you?
I moved to Oakland to be at the US center for techno and tech-house. I like labels like dirtybird and Kid 606’s Tigerbeat6. So that’s my world. For the Feed Me Diamondsalbum, I wanted to make a straightforward pop album; not something electro-pop-defining but I have a feature coming out with RAC that will be more electronic-sounding.
Did signing to Ultra influence that?
Patrick [Moxey, Ultra’s owner] wanted to sign a pop project, not so much an EDM thing. I am definitely an artist that they don’t usually sign but they’re growing the label and signed some more hybrid acts like myself and TOKiMONSTA.
How did you meet Connor Cruise?
I played on The Late Show with David Letterman and his dad, whom you may know, Tom Cruise, was the guest. He threw an after-party where Connor DJed. He asked if he could do the remix and I agreed. He’s really young but he’s a great DJ—totally not bullshit. I think he’ll do well.
Feed Me Diamonds is a reference to the performance artist Marina Abramovic. Can you tell us more about that?
I think when you’re writing pop songs and trying to be really honest in your writing, you have to go to really scary emotional places. She was doing her MoMA sitting-and-staring piece [The Artist Is Present] for 30 days where she sat for eight hours straight. I thought, “Oh, I love her so much,” and in my research I found she claimed her father was murdered by being fed diamonds, a tactic used to kill kings and queens. If you do that, it rips your GIs apart and you bleed out. But it’s a beautiful metaphor and I knew it would be a great song idea. Lyrically, I go through different phases when I write songs. This album was very personal and politically motivated. I draw a lot of inspiration from sounds, beats, music that I love, which is mainly electronic. It’s a marriage of both. Prior to that, it was mostly just beats and sounds. Now it’s fun to be motivated lyrically as well; it’s a different creative thing.
Andre Saraiva – What’s Your Dream Concert?
Over the past few months, André Saraiva has covered the city streets of Los Angeles, New York, London, Venice, Paris and Basel with his fantasy concert posters. These Dream Concerts represent the ephemeral quality of street art and daydream aspect of the artist’s practice. At Gallery Steinsland Berliner, André will present the concert poster series alongside two mythical nightclub sculptures. Together, the works create a new narrative of illusion versus reality in the constantly evolving worlds of music and nightlife.
Saraiva is also the impresario behind Paris’s Le Baron, located in the notorious red light district, Place Pigalle. On Saturday August 24, Saraiva will kick off Stockholm’s Mercedes-Benz Swedish Fashion Week with a Le Baron pop-up club installation “Back To Sweden”.
GTA V Gameplay vid
Xbox Freebies Rolling out – Battle of Gen 4 Loyalty
You know the battle of the next gen consoles is starting to send out the artillery when Xbox, as promised, has deployed its “handpicked” freebie handouts to Xbox Gold members.
Starting today, you can download the cyberpunkish Crackdown, arguably far better than the mediocre sequel, Crackdown 2 (I think the best thing to come out of that were the free skull-stomping boots for my avatar. There’s nothing more annoying than having random players jumping in and out of your game and fucking shit up in your campaign. Thanks for that less than useful feature. Not to mention unintuitive and hard as steel wrecking balls gameplay.)
The August line-up of titles includes:
· “Crackdown” ($14.99 US ERP ) – Available between August 1 and 15
· “Dead Rising 2” ($29.99 US ERP) and “Dead Rising 2: Case Zero” (400 Microsoft Points) – Available between Aug. 16 and 31
Dead Rising 2 and the DLC sequel are being released in anticipation of Dead Rising 3
You can even get them straight from the Xbox Games Store link here (if you havent snafued your Microsoft login email like I have. OUtlook, MS Passport, Hotmail combined with an iron gate of customer service? Geez guys, could you get it together?), which will automatically download to your Xbox 360 console the next time you log on.
More games to come every month until the launch of Xbox ONE!
Free iTunes Osheaga 2013 Playlist!
Here’s a juicy cherry to top off my unexpected Osheaga adventure (thanks to Beatport News and Montreal Electronique Groove Fest). The sold out festival has brokered a deal with iTunes and is offering a free playlist download featuring some more under the radar artists that I’m discovering myself like Robert DeLong, The Head and the Heart, and Shovels & Ropes, along with some of my favs like Beach House, A Tribe Called Red and Rich Aucoin!
You can snag it here, and enjoy some nifty instructional writing from the team. You can even scan redeemable barcodes now with your iCam. TECHNOLOGY! IT’S AMAZING!
- A Tribe Called Red “Bread & Cheese (feat. Black Bear)”
- Beach House “Myth”
- Daughter “Still”
- Father John Misty “Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings”
- Frank Turner “Recovery”
- Frightened Rabbit “The Woodpile”
- Hannah Georgas “Somebody”
- Hollerado “So It Goes”
- Little Green Cars “Harper Lee”
- Raine Maida “Montreal”
- Rich Aucoin “Brian Wilson is A.L.I.V.E. (All Living Instantly Vanquish Everything)”
- Robert DeLong “Happy”
- Shovels & Rope “Birmingham”
- The Head and the Heart “Down In the Valley”
Paris’ Sound Pellegrino Thermal Team gear up for Montreal’s MEG and drop new compilation
By Jesse Ship
Parisian producers Teki Latex (aka Julien Pradeyrol) and DJ Orgasmic (aka Cédric Caillol) first met decades ago while skiing the French alps. Over the years, they’ve continued their adventures together through various music undertakings like the seminal French electro-rap group TTC, the brash and sadly short-lived Institubes label, and their current Sound Pellegrino imprint, whose name—and its attendant Thermal Team live setup—cheekily riffs on the popular mineral water. With finely honed ears, they have been breaking under-the-radar artists Gucci Vump and Crystal while releasing tracks from other fellow countrymen Jean Nipon and Canblaster. Before the Sound Pellegrino Thermal Team hit Canada’s MEG Festival, we checked in with Teki Latex about the label’s new comp and why they love Montreal so much.
Tell us about the origins of your name. Has the bottled water company given you any grief over it?
Sound Pellegrino is a reference to the bottled water San Pellegrino. We wanted to evoke something bubbly and effervescent and at the same time, convey an idea of classicism. What’s better than an Italian thermal city with natural springs to convey that? The idea was to get everyone to think of our label when they order water at the restaurant. We think it works, but the downside is that when we tell people our name, they think it’s tied to the bottled water. In fact, San Pellegrino knows of us, and they let us be, so shout-out to them!
Awesome! So you met initially through your rap group TTC and then worked together on Institubes. How did your past experience prepare you for Sound Pellegrino?
We actually met on the ski slopes 20 years ago. But our past helped us learn from our errors. Institubes sadly closed in 2010. We’ve been through so many musical movements that we have a certain point of view given our industry experience, so we can determine if a musical trend is going to last or if it’s just going to be a one- or two-year thing. That definitely influences our choice of music to put out and artists to sign. We definitely have a better view of what’s going to last and what’s going to pass.
What are some emerging sounds right now?
There is definitely a trend in distorted industrial techno where people are going back to a very raw sound with the return of the warehouse rave in a context that is a big place with a very metallic sound, with labels like L.I.E.S. I see that being quite big for the rest of the year. It’s tricky to say, since things change so quickly, but one of the most enjoyable shows I saw recently was Lorenzo Senni at Sonar. It could be qualified as ambient, but technically it’s beatless or drumless trance—it’s trance patterns you could say. It’s very surreal. It’s great to listen to at home and it’s great to play in my sets when mixed with techno tools, so I decide which beat to put on top of these trance leads. It’s very interesting to play with. I guess trap is going to be big for another six months, too, and something else will replace it, but in Paris, American rap has never been bigger. The way it’s merging with electronic music can be a bit cheesy at times, but with any larger-than-life movement, it always announces a second wave of more challenging stuff.
Tell us about your new compilation, Sound Pellegrino Presents SND.PE Vol. 1.
We just wanted to have something that was a little more of a home listening experience than the EPs we have put out so far. Following the direction of the Matthias Zimmermann EPs, which are somewhat built for the club, but there’s a warmer and—dare I say—poppier and melodic aspect that can be enjoyed outside of the club. That is pretty much the direction we wanted to go in. It manifests most blatantly through the Eero Johannes track “Real Virtuality,” which is a futuristic take on a Rodney Jerkins production with a Scandinavian lo-fi punk vibe.
That’s great you have Modeselektor on the compilation as one of the larger names.
They definitely are the most known name on the compilation, and we’ve been doing stuff with them since the TTC days. The deal was to put out the digital version of the “Negativity” track and they would put out the vinyl and instrumental versions with the Bambounou versions on their own label, Monkeytown Records. We’re old friends. It’s great to be accepted as part of that German family.
You’ll be performing at the Montreal Electronic Groove Festival (MEG) on August 1. What are your thoughts on Quebec’s music scene?
Montreal was the best party scene for me for a good three to four years of my life. I think that Omnikrom definitely had an influence on the rap and electronic-music crossover coming out of Montreal, with guys like Lunice or Tommy Kruise. Even though they were a lot more pop-oriented, the fact that they were everywhere back in 2006-2008, along with TTC, definitely prepared the field and gave birth to an environment for young producers to merge electronic and rap. The Turbo Crunk parties definitely had something to do with it, but in a way, they were an evolution of Ghislain Poirier’s Bounce Le Gros parties. People forget that. I’m super-eager to return to this new scene that’s evolved so much since I’ve been gone.
You’ve been promoting the heck out of this new compilation with a massive and diverse audio assault of mixes and music videos. What are a few of those?
We did a number of mixes for the album, like the Diplo and Friends mixes, Lucky Me radio show on Rinse FM, a techno and grime mix for Discobelle, and a mix for Thump. There are also two videos, one for Nicolas Malinowski’s “Skateboarder” that he recorded himself and sampled noises from a skate park that’s very reminiscent of the old Hexstatic and Cold Cut videos. There’s also 3D video I recorded with a Japanese group we signed called Crystal. The song is called “Get It?!”
What’s it like working with the BBC’s Diplo & Friends show?
We always had a good relationship with Diplo. Myself and a friend promoted his first party in France 10 years ago at Le Triptych which eventually became The Social Club. We’ve been in touch with Mad Decent ever since and hit them up now because we felt it would be good timing with the new compilation release. We sent the mix and they add all the sound effects, air horns, and the sound bites. Along with the number of mixes to promote the new compilation, I recently did one for Tsugi magazine. It was an early-2000s Euro-crunk mix using tunes from European producers from labels like Institubes and Bpitch Control. It was distinctly European and the first time when electronic music and hip-hop would blend since the explosion of both genres. The style lasted four-five years until it was replaced by the second era of French touch. It’s interesting that all the producers from that era all became successful, only after using different names and groups, but they can all be traced back to that era.
James Murphy Says ‘I See Myself as a Scorsese’ – AOL Spinner
- Posted on Jun 10th 2010 1:30PM by Jesse Ship
“All of a sudden I got asked to play shows in England,” Murphy tells Spinner. “It was supposed to be a one-off thing where we were going to play weird stuff and never really be a band.”
But watching Murphy onstage is like watching a world-class conductor — there is never any question that he’s in control. He likens his album writing process similarly.
“I may be flattering myself here, but I see myself as a Scorsese and my bandmates are all my De Niros — they’re involved in the script early on. Unlike typical bands, we escape the regular infighting and bruised feelings. It’s sort of like, ‘I don’t want to have to be in that meeting.’ OK cool, let the director deal with that stuff.”
The latest album, ‘This is Happening,’ continues where ‘Sound of Silver’ left off, infusing disco, funk and house with indie rock sensibilities. Murphy justifies his streamlined sound experimentation saying, “You’re perpetually chasing that same alchemy, you’re never really done. It’s like cooking food — you’re not going to cook meat and then never cook meat again. Making music for me is like an endless way of trying to play the stuff that you like.”
So, if everything is gravy with the crew, then why the recent news to put an end to the band?
“LCD Soundsystem has become a full-time job, which is fine. It’s a great full-time job, but I like to be able to do other things such as coming up with ideas and pursuing them,” Murphy admits. “I have a notebook filled with ideas. Forty seems like a pretty good [age] to be getting into that notebook.”
Murphy surely won’t be able to completely avoid the spotlight, but he assures that he has “no plans to be in a supergroup with a bunch of clowns from other bands from the last ten years. I just want to be making music from the same place but not being in the business in the same way.”
While Murphy insists he’ll be spending some of his time “eating with friends, making records for them and coming up with great ideas,” he expects to have plenty to work on — like more movie soundtracks, like Ben Stiller’s recently released ‘Greenberg,’ ecologically sound rooftop vegetable gardens and abstract sound installations for the New York Subway. There is no telling what new directions the man might take in his early LCD retirement.
Putting his most successful project to rest comes with some relief. “It was always hard to say, ‘I would love to go on that tour with you but I have to meet with city officials and talk about that weird subway installation.'”
Mad Decent Block Party 2013 Toronto Edition
In case ya dun know, the Mad Decent Block Party hits the T-Dot this Friday! Ok, so it’s not exactly a block party this year, as it will be held at Fort York, but you could argue that this might have been a POW prison block at one point and time in history? Along with the epic lineup, I’d like to celebrate the fact that Toronto’s Embrace Productions (along with TMWRK) are handling not just the local parts of the tour, but the entire North American adventure. Congrats guys!
