Depeche Mode tease new album with Blawan & Matthew Dear remixes – BeatPort News
Mist – Tilt – Alëxone @ Gallerie AtDown
I first met street artists Mist and brother from another mother, Tilt, back in 2009 at Toronto’s Circa club opening in collaboration with Kid Robot. They were both running around airbrushing babes with their signature bubble letter styles. It’s great to know that the guys are still at it, in combination with Alëxone. They’re showing together and I wish I could be there, but it’s all the way out in Montpellier! Here’s a vid of a similar project they all worked on, also through curator, Nicolas Pinelli.
BEAR now on Xbox 360!
Ghost Capsules
I’m really impressed with this new album from Ghost Capsules, made up of Vienna’s Bomb The Bass’s frontman Tim Simenon and a supporting band he met back in the day. It’s a far cry from Bug Powder Dust (classic) but it has that classic Chilled Out Vienna sound (yes, I think that is a thing?) that you’d have heard in other Germanic trip hop artists from the late 90s like Rainer Trüby, Tosca or Kruder & Dorfmeister but updated with modern technology and dark synthy aesthetics echoing Trentemøller’s epic dirge ‘Even If You’re With Another Girl‘. Like everything old, this stuff is having a comeback and i’m really happy that it is. As if the jellyfish/space zeppelin/mothership/portal album art work wasn’t enough… whoah….chills! I wish I could post the full album to give you the full effect but I’ll let you figure that out on your own.
10/10!
Don’t F*ck with Giraffes!
I was watching a random animal documentary on Netflix and came across this vicious tidbit. What we think we know of giraffes as gentle creatures is so incredibly wrong. They are actually highly territorial beasts with enough power in their forelegs to bludgeon a lion (or human) to death! I was skeptical at first so of course I rushed to the Youtube to see if I could see any vids of them in action. Most were cheesy family videos from African Lion Safari type parks with the long-necked buddies leaning into car windows for a snack, but I did find these choice two.
The lesson? Do not fuck with giraffes (or any wild animal for that matter) or you will FEEL THEIR WRATH!
Surprise Diplo DJ-set creates a frenzy at Uniun – BlogTO
Hormones ran high Thursday night as hundreds of Toronto partiers flocked to Uniun Nightclub in hopes to get an earful of Diplo (Mad Decent label founder, DJ and rising super-producer) and quaff some sudsy Buds, Bud Light Platinum that is.
A group of a few hundred media, industry members, and professional partiers — a.k.a. “influencers” — were initially invited, but the floodgates were opened to the masses a day before the event, which caused a mad rush to sign up with a “first come first served” disclaimer. Unfortunately many didn’t read the fine print, as hordes of people were being turned away when I showed up at 11pm.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen a Toronto crowd this hyped up for anything. Everywhere I went on the sprawling dance floor, people were jumping into each others arms, grinding, winding, and getting down with new make out partners. Never underestimate the power of free American beer with a “bold, smooth, triple filtered” 6% alcohol content and a sexy ad campaign featuring edgy, high contrast photos of tattooed babes in sheer, lacy nightclub wear and dudes in chambray and plaid shirts.
I don’t think Diplo was really bringing his A-game to the night but unlike the beer, the sound was not light or watery. He even dropped some poppy crowd-pleasers like a remix of Rhianna’s Birthday Cake, and a couple “Oppan Gangnam Style!” samples between the jackin’ car-alarm Moombahton beats.
Prior to arriving, I was a bit concerned that the sponsors would ask him to tone down his sound given the corporate nature of the event but this was a balls-out rager. Getting to the downstairs washroom required pushing through the frothy orgy of fun-loving bodies. The table of cowboys in plaid shirts, hats and boots, fresh off the plane from Calgary didn’t seem to mind either, and were some of the last men standing on the dance floor.
Many factors came together to pull off a decent launch party, so cheers to the crew for pulling it off. Even when he’s not bringing his A-game, Diplo’s pretty darn good. The Food Dudes truck parked at the exit doling out snacks to exiting partiers was a nice touch too.
Photo by Conrad M. Stocks
Hormones ran high Thursday night as hundreds of Toronto partiers flocked to Uniun Nightclub in hopes to get an earful of Diplo (Mad Decent label founder, DJ and rising super-producer) and quaff some sudsy Buds, Bud Light Platinum that is.
A group of a few hundred media, industry members, and professional partiers — a.k.a. “influencers” — were initially invited, but the floodgates were opened to the masses a day before the event, which caused a mad rush to sign up with a “first come first served” disclaimer. Unfortunately many didn’t read the fine print, as hordes of people were being turned away when I showed up at 11pm.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen a Toronto crowd this hyped up for anything. Everywhere I went on the sprawling dance floor, people were jumping into each others arms, grinding, winding, and getting down with new make out partners. Never underestimate the power of free American beer with a “bold, smooth, triple filtered” 6% alcohol content and a sexy ad campaign featuring edgy, high contrast photos of tattooed babes in sheer, lacy nightclub wear and dudes in chambray and plaid shirts.
I don’t think Diplo was really bringing his A-game to the night but unlike the beer, the sound was not light or watery. He even dropped some poppy crowd-pleasers like a remix of Rhianna’s Birthday Cake, and a couple “Oppan Gangnam Style!” samples between the jackin’ car-alarm Moombahton beats.
Prior to arriving, I was a bit concerned that the sponsors would ask him to tone down his sound given the corporate nature of the event but this was a balls-out rager. Getting to the downstairs washroom required pushing through the frothy orgy of fun-loving bodies. The table of cowboys in plaid shirts, hats and boots, fresh off the plane from Calgary didn’t seem to mind either, and were some of the last men standing on the dance floor.
Many factors came together to pull off a decent launch party, so cheers to the crew for pulling it off. Even when he’s not bringing his A-game, Diplo’s pretty darn good. The Food Dudes truck parked at the exit doling out snacks to exiting partiers was a nice touch too.
Photo by Conrad M. Stocks
Blue Cat Crap – Gary Taxali
As if there weren’t enough cats on the internet, now you can frame them on your walls too with Gary Taxali’s Blue Cat Crap. Comes with a free box of fries… and kitty litter. Ok, not really. If you’re feeling nostalgic, you can skip over to my interview with the man from my Format Mag days where he dishes helpful advice on creating your own vinyl toy sculpture from start to finish.
Li’l Pooh
I got an email from this rapper named Li’l Pooh today, possibly one of the most awkwardly named guys in the rap game. The message he sent me only had a link to a cover he did of Trinidad James’s “All Gold Everything” but the video content was pretty dull, just a static shot of him posin’ all gangster like, so I did a Youtube search and found this instead. I don’t think it’s the same guy but I figured this was a bit more entertaining. I hope Lil Poo of Santa Fe is holdin tight in max min. pen. and gets off his 15-30 year burglary charges early for good behaviour. We’re waitin’ for ya li’l homie!
Dreamgirl Whatever – Debut show
Check out some footage from Dreamgirl Whatever’s debut show at El Rancho Relaxo in Toronto. This is one of a couple projects started by singer and composer Nicole Simone (aka Miss Late July) and Dusseldorf-based producer and remixer Nico Vetter, who’s just 22! The two got in touch through another band, Mystery Skulls, and have yet to meet (not even Skyped!), but that could change soon.
There’s an undeniable guilty ‘electro-pop’ pleasure quality to the tunes and while they’ve really just begun, there has been some interest from some high level people (Ellie Goulding’s management) according to rumours but it’s really too soon to say where the wind might take these day dream believers. Tuesday’s show featured Bart Bret Simpson on guitars.
Check out their full EP below, and make your way to the website for some tumblr-esque fun.
Afrojack: Bleep Right And Work With Michael Jackson And Chris Brown – Huffington Post
The Dutch producer mostly wants to make sure everyone he knows gets treated well.
“Take good care of the people around you, take care of the people around you, take care of your friends, and always take care of your principles,” Afrojack tells Huffington Post Music Canada. “That’s the most important thing, because if you don’t, you’re a dick!”
Raised in Spijkenisse, a suburb of Rotterdam in Holland, he’s been able to take the values he grew up with on the professional road.
“The most important thing is you’re doing what makes you happy and the next day you can look at yourself in the mirror and be proud of yourself and not think, ‘yeah, I fucked that guy over, I’m an asshole,'” says the man known on his passport as Nick van de Wall. “Because you will never be happy. You will never be happy if you fuck people over, because you will know that you made yourself by fucking people over.”
While good business ethic is refreshing and important in any industry, Afrojack’s musical integrity has come under fire, mostly through a radio ad spoof where cuts of his signature repetitive bleeps are played over and over, each as a separate song.
“That’s my thing,” he argues, taking the jab in full stride.
“Some people always wear red shoes, I always put a bleep in my songs,” says Afrojack, who covered former special friend Paris Hilton’s music with his bleeps. “But you can’t just make a song and bleep it the fuck out, you need a good buildup, and the bleep has to come from an unexpected corner.”
And hey, it’s true. A signature sound is what will get you recognized at the end of the day. And it’s not like he doesn’t semi-secretly work with megastars on the side. It’s perhaps a lesser known fact that he produced “Look At Me Now” for Chris Brown, Lil Wayne and Busta Rhymes, as well as “Pon De Floor” for Major Lazer. And his latest remix had him approached by the Michael Jackson Foundation to put his touch on “Bad.”
It was both a thrilling and chilling experience.
“I was thinking, ‘Are you sure you’re talking to the right guy?’ I’ve been making music professionally for the last five years and you want me to remix the biggest legend of pop music? Yeah. It was weird and scary, but you can’t say no. If Michael Jackson were still here and he asked you to moon walk, you have to say yes.”
