#( AWESOME MIX TRACK ⁞ GROOVES. )

[obsessivemusicfr3ak]

10/18/24 12:00 AM

NEW FUCKING MACHINE GIRL ALBUM JUST DROPPED WE FUCKING LISTENING BITCH

1:Ok fr tho already heard first song from single its aight (better than i remember now that im listening again) ((theres also no lyrics out yet so im not gonna mention those at all))

2:Second song titled "nu nu meta phenomenon" is fucking INCREDIBLE the sound design and awesome drums continue the awesome trend of live instrumentation mixed with glitchy elements that leads to a heavenly experience!

3:Glitchy goodness continues on the third track, which has some amazing synth leads that are just a fucking amazing vibe. The ending is great aswell! A nice build up and climax to some CRAZY noise.

4:The standout element of this album is definitely the drums. The groove you get from them is exemplified perfectly on this track. Pretty nice track although ill have to let it grow on me a bit ngl.

5:This track is completely unique from anything else ive heard on the album. (I cannot get over the fact that the first verse uses the same flow as your favorite martian on mr douchebag.) The sound design continues to be otherwordly, legitimately so on this track sounding like music from outerspace. The latter half of this track is a lot more smooth and enjoyable than the first half.

6:Ohhh my god this interlude is amazing. Super ambient yet creepy vibes. Just a really nice relaxing track im definitely coming back to a ton.

7:Ive heard this song before. Absolute peak. Easily top 3 machine girl songs ever released, imo. Perfect blend of awesome electronic drums and live instrumentation in the more "punk rock" sections. The idm sections have an awesome groove and the transitions to the punk rock sections are just SO good. When this first dropped i was very surprised by it, but hearing it in context it makes perfect sense and fits snuggly as the center of this album.

8:Super cool track. Awesome drum grooves with some really unique vocals. Overall this is just a really fun song, with the high pitch really "bright" sounding instruments. The switch up later on brings a really nice element to this track aswell. Will be returning to this track many times i can tell. Not much to say here its just really good lol

9:The high pitch vocals really make this track for me. Super (again) groovy feel and awesome sound. The chaotic ending gives this track a good feel that makes it stand out from the rest of the tracklist

10:Living up to its name, "Grindhouse" starts with super dark feeling, as if you are in a house party on acid in a movie. This track just gets me moving man its so dancable! The second part of this track blends themes of house and techno with the experimental dark sound going on here, machine girl style with crazy sound design and distinctly machine girl vocals. This song just has a bounce to it that i love.

11:Another great interlude that sounds like a radio transition on a bad trip.

12:Transition into this song was amazing. The vocals already are captivating me with this aphex twin drukqs synth vibe, similar to cock/ver10. Vibing hard to this crazy ass track, just loving this switchup midway through, suddenly switching to a nice chill beat that still somehow sounds cracked out. AND IT SWITCHES UP AGAIN! Holy this song is so fucking good... the bass synths going loud in my ears and insane sounds im hearing definitely makes this track sound exactly like its name, "schizodipshit". The glitchyness adds to it aswell, and the cut back to reality with this simple beat right after omggg this song is phenomenal!!!!!

13:This was the third single for MG Ultra, and i love this song through and through, from the starting section with amazing drumming and superb chorus. I know the lyrics by heart to this song already i love it so much!! Its super relatable to me with it being about being belittled in small ways adding and not feeling respected by your peers. With lines like "psychic attack, when you're talking shit behind my back, psychic attack when i fall and hear your laughter" reveals this theme. Amazing final track that is a perfect closer for this just amazing album.

FINAL THOUGHTS: This album is the start of a new direction for machine girl, one of punk rock influence and more live instrumentation which I am really excited for! This keeps the same crazy energy and wild sound design and mixes it with punk rock groovyness. A must listen for machine girl fans. They have outdone themselves with this record. 10/10

[styrmwb]

I beat Rift of the Necrodancer

my fingers are sore but my ears are thriving

I love rhythm games. I love em a whole lot. I'm not the best at em, but I'm pretty good. So when I see a friend of mine playing one that has a really nice art style and has monsters? I'm interested For Sure. (then said friend gifts the game to me cause I'm poor and they are a wonderful, Wonderful person).

Rift of the Necrodancer is more of a Guitar Hero like rhythm game; my experience mainly lies in things like Theatrhythm or Taiko, so it's a bit of a learning curve (the last time I played Guitar Hero was with Warriors of Rock during the PS3 days). I also haven't played the original Crypt of the Necrodancer, nor was I SUPER familiar with it? So this was a pretty new experience for me. Let me share my thoughts, as I do.

Gameplay (of the Necrodancer)

Very unique. Like I said, it's SUPER Guitar Hero like; but instead of notes, it's monsters that all have different patterns (the activatable point increase still exists). They took their dungeon crawler and turned it into a traditional rhythm game, and I think they absolutely succeeded with that. Food items to heal your health, traps to adjust enemy behavior, it absolutely feels like that transition was clean.

I do have a couple problems with it though. Now, before I go into this; I did actually beat this game a couple weeks ago, but I know how rhythm games go. You HAVE to grind them, get used to the mechanics, and get slowly and slowly better. Hell, I know from writing this post I am going to improve. But at my current point, I feel like the two biggest problems with the game are the 3 lanes, and the visual overload.... which I guess could be combined into one general idea of "overcompression".

With only 3 lanes, especially on the higher difficulties, there's A LOT of enemies, and with the angle you're given, as well as the beat indicators being a shadow, it's really hard to tell who is where, what the patterns are, and also to execute it properly. I only got 3 fangors they can't dance that well. HOWEVER. I do recognize there are fixes to these problems. You can adjust controls. I personally have been trying my best to use two hands, but it's hard to learn. I also think this would benefit from something like a fightstick, unironically?

When it comes to not really being able to figure out what's what, I would say this drawback is one side of a coin, the other side being something I applaud the game for. The trick is to learn the music. I know that feels obvious, like what rhythm game has you NOT learn the music? But like... I feel like the notes are very well linked to the track itself, so once I figure out the melodies, I can rely on my ears, rather than my eyes (I still need my eyes). Something about this game feels like it very much rewards you for feeling the beat and the groove with super fun combos. Although, at least in my personal experience, sometimes things like traps or the stranger enemy movements can still really get in the way of this and create more overload for my fingers and eyes. I acknowledge that's a skill issue though. (I'm reading this paragraph back and I think it's obvious how limited my rhythm game experience is)

There's 2 other bits of gameplay unlocked in the story mode. Minigames and boss battles. I love the minigames so much, they feel just like Rhythm Heaven, which is one of my favorites. The boss battles are a wonderful mix of Punch-Out and Osu, which is amazing, something I would have never thought of but it works really well. Both of these also have hard modes which is awesome; the minigames work really well, but I still to this day do not comprehend the hard boss battles.

One last thing I wanna talk about that I love is the custom music. GIves a bunch of replayability to the game, which is so essential for a rhythm game. I made my own track (self-promotion); while the editor felt kinda clunky at first (It's a holdover from the last editor from what I've heard so I get it), I got the hang of it quickly. That's something I never thought I'd enjoy doing, but honestly I might make more.

Story (of the Necrodancer)

This is actually the only section I wrote right after beating the game, so like being pulled out of a rift, it might feel really out of place! (I mainly wanted to do this cause the story would be fresh out of my brain and I know I'm about to go into rhythm hell)

It's fine. It's a vessel to have you play the songs, use the characters in cute ways, and introduce the minigames/boss fight mechanics. It's nothing special, and honestly personally I didn't really understand the "being controlled by the rift" bit, and the villains felt... kinda nothing? But I acknowledge I could just be dumb there. I also think that the NecroDancer being presented as a fry cook but then actually being the big bad was a Bit of a cop out? It felt like it was leading to a new force and "no never mind it's him again". That's me being awfully negative, though. I liked the character interactions, I liked the isekai setting; I think Suzu's arc was the absolute best part of the whole thing, it felt the most solid and like she had a genuine motivation there. Honestly? If they ended it with that and not with "The NecroDancer did it" I'd probably feel a lot better about it. But again! This isn't the focus of the game. It's not the same sin as if like, an RPG did it. We're here for the songs and those do not disappoint.

Speaking of!

Music (of the Necrodancer)

Dude. This soundtrack FUCKS. Granted, you really can't have a rhythm game worth playing if you don't have a good soundtrack, but that doesn't take away the fact that it's a banger. A wonderful mix of lo-fi songs, heavy metal, techno, funk, and other genres I'm sure I'm missing, it's got a wide variety that also manages to feel nice and unified.

I ended up making a little tier list of songs for my friends that have been playing this alongside me, so I think something like this is a perfect thing for me to slot in.

This tier list is lucky it only had the main songs because Unglamorous J.O.B. tops everything

What's really cool about this soundtrack is seeing names I recognize. I've been following FamilyJules and Alex Moukala for a while, so it was awesome to see them in this. Definitely listen to it if you have the chance.

Art (of the Necrodancer)

Short bit, but I LOOOOOOOOOVE the way this game looks. I love the vibrancy, the simple coloring/shading, the outlining. I subscribe to the theory that every artist must have two styles: big and small. This game has the big "serious" portraits for most of it, but then in the minigames you get the characters looking small and silly and dumb (in a good way), and it brings a lot of joy to my face.

Also, love the character design. Modern Cadence is fucking peak.

Final Fugue (of the Necrodancer)

I feel like my post might give a sense that the game was a bit of a mixed bag, but I did really enjoy it. I'm still not great with writing about indie games (crazy that that's all I've played so far this year who am I) cause there's simply not as much as a full AAA RPG, but it's been nice. I'm gonna keep grinding this game, and hopefully be able to start taking on hard rifts.

8.5/10. Creative concept with amazing soundtrack, but with a skill floor MUCH higher than I'm used to.

[kirkoid-music]

Alone (Demonic Mix) - January 2022

After a very long break I finally got back into music making in 2022. I had started messing around with a few samples in Lockdown in 2020, but didn't get around to finishing anything.

This was a track I worked on a few years earlier, with different vocals. I was never totally happy with it, and that hung around in the back of my mind for years, I had unfinished business with this track!

So I revisited it and found Kara's wonderful rendition of Alone by Edgar Allan Poe on ccMIxter. It was a perfect fit. I did think about adding the original vocals back in, with one on each channel à la The Murder Mystery, but decided against it as I had messed around with them so much trying to mask them, and couldn't find the original.

The demonic voice in the background is actually a slowed down sample of speech from a well known Sci-Fi movie. At one point it reveals itself.

Reviews for Alone (Demonic Mix) on ccMixter and Looperman:

Deeply cool groove.

Hey Kirkoid! It’s great to see you here! I really dig your dark, hypnotic mix with those crisp, catchy drums. Thanks so much for including my vox.

Wow, what a fantastic intro my friend. Great track. Well done, Maj.

Cool, it is retro and future at the same time. awesome!

Really creative work and like Maj said, the intro was pretty awesome. Well done. I hope all is well. Bear

[randomvarious]

Next Evidence - “Dune” Stockholm Mix Sessions 2 by Jesper Dahlbäck Song released in 1999. Mix released in 2000. Deep House

It’s kinda strange how you can’t find a proper bio about this French deep house duo anywhere. You’d think that when an enormous major label like Capitol/EMI puts out someone’s album, it’d help to generate some kind of fanfare for the artist, but it doesn’t really appear to have done so in the case of Next Evidence; at least not to the point where some professional music writer publishes a few sentences online about what the duo does and where they’re from. All we really have to go on here is a poorly written, unverified thing from some last.fm user. Crazy.

But allow me to piece together a narrative here that differs slightly from that last.fm entry. Next Evidence was made up of Maxime Cohen and Michael Tordjman. In ‘97, while they were both in their mid-20s, the pair put out their debut record, and in '98, they started their own small record label, Basic Recordings, which ended up releasing material from a handful of house talents, including Julien Jabre and Dennis Ferrer.

The following year, with five releases solidly under their belt as a duo, Next Evidence put out an EP called Sands on the Paris-based Versatile Records. And it’s on that little EP that you’ll find a deep house banger of theirs called “Dune.”

Now, what appears to have sonically set Next Evidence apart from most of their fellow deep house peers is that they had a special affinity for African percussion. While most deep house makers were just using standard drum machines or software to construct their backbeats, these guys were on some different shit, making sure that just the basest parts of their own productions were unique enough to catch and then captivate one’s ear. And that approach, when it comes to just the music itself, will definitely give you a leg up on your competition, because at jump, when all you’ve really introduced is your drums, you’re already putting out something that doesn’t sound like most of what else is out there, and your tune’s barely even gotten started yet! And that’s not to say that others weren’t also using African percussion in their deep house at the time, but it definitely wasn’t nearly as commonplace as other methods of crafting a backbeat.

So, next, you add some space-dubby synth-work to the track, and then by making some slight alterations here and there, you can just coast on that combo for as long as you’d like and you’ll still have a mighty fine track, right? Well, yeah, you could do that, but Next Evidence had other ideas, because just as you really start to sink yourself into this groove for the long haul, they decide to unexpectedly seep in some fantastically sex-wet jazz sax, courtesy of some French dude named Denis Guivarc'h, who’d apparently been lending his talents to records for years before this one and still does to this day. He’s doesn’t appear to have ever released anything on his own, but you can hear his exploits on a sizeable chunk of releases that have been coming out since the early 90s.

And then after Guivarc'h finishes his part, a new top layer of percussion suddenly arrives, courtesy of a guy named Nicolas Krassilchik, who provides an awesome solo on timbales, further enhancing this experience even more. According to Discogs, this was only Krassilchik’s second-ever appearance on wax, but it sure as shit doesn’t sound like it, because his contribution here is simply electric. And Krassilchik is another guy who’s never released anything on his own either, although he was a member of a group called 26 Pinel, who ended up putting out a couple albums in the mid-2000s.

This fully-packed track is amazing. Like, I would’ve totally dug it if it was just only made up of those drums and synths; it was that good already. But then Cohen and Tordjman decide to bring in those back-to-back sax and timbales solos, and the song just ascends to another plane 😌. 

What a superb tune from this duo who you can barely find anything about online, even though they’ve had a major label album release!

[metalsongoftheday]

Friday, August 18: Judas Priest, "Solar Angels"

R.I.P. Dave Holland (1948-2018)

Point of Entry was an album of mixed emotions, a record where Judas Priest aimed for American radio rock and somewhat succeeded on a qualitative if not commercial level.  There was little in the way of real heavy metal, but there were hooks and strong riffs and choruses to be found throughout.  And in the case of “Solar Angels”, a rare instance of Priest just riding a steady groove and building a story around it.  Dave Holland’s drumming regularly took heat for being more simplistic and less imaginative than his predecessor and successor, but on his first 3 albums with the band he knew exactly how to propel the songs forward, giving them an unyielding momentum that perfectly supported Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing’s riffs and frequently gave Priest a steamrolling quality that made them a lethal force on stage.  With “Solar Angels” Holland’s 4/4 rhythm gave Tipton and Downing ample space to chug, sway and solo, while Rob Halford largely floated over all of it.  The bridge essentially functioned as a wordless chorus, and there wasn’t a single pummeling moment that announced itself- in a way, this was arguably one of their more experimental tracks, since it had the basic sound of early ‘80s hard rock but without a conventional song structure.  And that was what made it awesome: here was Priest flexing their prowess without showing off, vamping a bit without being overindulgent and letting the groove do the lifting and speak for itself.

[corvuscorona]

& THERE'S THE CROSSFADE !!!

Good morning. Present for me. This is the first time there's been a whole Video Construct for one of these; it's pretty neat! Other stuff I noticed on a first listen:

the Mystery Track I was so curious about is a collab! Better than the one on BOOTLEG and a bit more in agreement w/ his usual style than the one on STRAY SHEEP; I like it

I forgot ゆめうつつ was gonna be on here. Respect ! 🫡

As expected, the slow tunes in the middle & (confirmed) at the very end do at least cohere, like, album-ways. And there aren't TOO many. The one at the end does intrigue me, too...

We are leaning into making music that Fucking Grooves this time around in the general sense which is awesome. car tunes.

The "sagashi ni ikou".......... (←her ass was listening to しとど晴天大迷惑 literally yesterday and is now constructing some kind of Throughline between that + this + 感電)

Something changed about the way these songs are mixed recently I think & the difference between RED OUT (new) and KICK BACK (less new) illustrates the difference perfectly. The sound has been more pro lately; it fills out the space better.

title track confirmed for rulez thank fucking god

Love that lil robot. Can't wait to get my lil robot and his weird plastic prison in the mail. Soon ...

[boonesfarmsangria]

At the end of the month, Yannis & The Yaw will release the EP Lagos Paris London, a collection of songs that sees Foals frontman Yannis Philippakis team up with late Afrobeat legend Tony Allen. Sessions began back in 2016 but were uncompleted when Allen died in 2020, Philippakis getting the tracks to the finish line with Allen’s trusted team of collaborators in Paris over the past couple of years. It makes for an excellent melding of sounds, a union of Allen’s restless, toppling grooves and Philippakis’ knack for dexterous rock riffs and yearning vocals. Last week, Niall spoke to Yannis over Zoom about how rehearsals for Yannis & The Yaw’s live shows are coming along (see here for ticket and date details), his favourite memories of working with Allen, where the Yannis & The Yaw project could go next and more…

Hello Yannis, how’s it going?

Yeah, good. I got back last night after being away for two weeks, so it’s one of those where the hot water isn’t working, the internet doesn’t work, the house smells like bins…

Haha.  I saw some videos you put up from rehearsals. How are they going?

It was loosely rehearsing, it wasn’t full band. I’ve been going over to Paris semi-regularly now for a few years, obviously to finish the record and since then to explore how to do the live show because without Tony being around, we have to be thoughtful about how to do it. We’ve also got to create more material for the show, because the EP is only about 20 minutes long.

Like an early Foals show!

Yeah, exactly. It’s like when we first headlined Brixton and we played for 40 minutes, the shortest ever headline set at Brixton Academy.

I was at that gig. It wasn’t just that you didn’t have loads of material, it was that you played the songs you had really quickly too.

The nerves controlled the tempo that day.

So have you cracked that nut in terms of what you’re going to do for the Yannis & The Yaw live shows?

We jammed a bit with this Malian guitarist so we’ve got some extra material. We’re going to do some improvised sections, extend certain sections, jam out bits of the songs that people know, and then we might do a couple of Tony Allen covers as well.

We’ve got an amazing band. We’ve got Dave Okumu on guitar. We’ve got Seye Adelekan, who plays bass for lots of people and is the live bass player for Gorillaz and who’s really awesome. I’ve wanted to play with him for a long time. Then the Vincents, Vincent Taurelle and Vincent Taeger, who were the producers and musicians on the EP so I’m quite familiar with playing with those two. And Kit [Monteith, a member of Foals’ live band] on percussion. As a collective, we’ve never played together so there’s definitely a big question mark about how it’s going to come together. But it’s exciting because I have absolute faith that the other guys are going to come and elevate all of the music. There’s some nerves, I want it to do justice to the EP and to Tony and for it not to suck.

Who’s playing drums?

Vincent Taeger. He’s perfect for it. Tony really admired a couple of younger drummers. One of them is Femi from Ezra Collective and the other one was Vincent. Vincent had worked on other Tony Allen records and had been in Tony’s orbit for a long time and knew him intimately to the point where when we were mixing the record, both the Vincents could tell me exactly the frequency that Tony would want his kick drum mixed at and things like that, they know it so intimately that they almost can translate what Tony would have wanted. Because Vincent was in on the sessions, it just felt right.

I love the EP. What’s the full timeframe from when you started it to release?

How many years? I mean, do I have to say?

Yeah.

It’s probably like six or seven years, or maybe the better part of a decade. I think we first got together in 2017, I’m not that good with dates.

I read 2016.

It might well have been 2016.

What’s it like living with a piece of music like that for so long?

For a while, it was OK, because I quite liked to pull out this little trump card late at night at parties when everyone’s playing their own music and I’d be like, ‘Oh, have you heard this stuff I did with Tony Allen?’ and whack it on at three in the morning. It would most often be heard in that kind of setting.

I didn’t want that chapter to close, so part of the reason why I think we didn’t hurry to finish the tracks was that we enjoyed the collaboration with each other. And also, it wasn’t something that was driven by a record label or by an idea of completion. It was an exploration with Tony and we enjoyed jamming with each other. I think that we would have probably done a whole album had things turned out differently. We were enjoying each other’s company, we enjoyed playing so there was a part of it which was pleasant that there was this material bubbling away on the back hob for a long time while he also made other records and I was focusing on Foals. The problem with that obviously was that we didn’t get to complete it while he was alive so that’s the bit that’s the bit where now there’s a feeling of slight remorse that we just didn’t finish it.

But in terms of like having the songs living alongside you unfinished, it wasn’t something that was aggravating to me. I quite enjoyed the fact that they were just there in the ether but it does now feel awesome to have it done and have it out. I think that that needed to happen once Tony passed away. They needed to be completed.

Thinking back to when you first went to Paris to meet Tony in the studio, how did it go in terms of what you were expecting versus what actually happened?

I didn’t really know what to expect, it was all quite French in terms of the communication! Genuinely, when I got to Paris that morning, I didn’t know whether I was playing on a written piece of music that I was going to be slotting into, or if it was one tune or many. In terms of expectation, it was quite loose. All I knew was that I was going to go into a studio with Tony Allen and I was excited. I guess I was a bit anxious about how it was gonna go. I didn’t want to get there and be like, ‘Oh, this isn’t clicking’ or ‘I’m a letdown’ or something.

The not-knowing what I’m walking into would freak me out.

It didn’t freak me out but I just didn’t know. I had a guitar and a loop pedal. I knew if I needed anything, I could find it on that loop pedal. It’s quite a Luddite way of working but I had about 80 loops in this little box that I’d go around with. I went in there and it wasn’t necessarily frosty, but it was kind of quiet. It was a cold morning, pretty early, it was December, it was a bit grim outside. And Tony was sat there in this basement studio and it was already pretty smoky in there.

What was incredible about it was the realisation that we were going to build something from scratch, them saying, ‘Oh no, there’s nothing written, you’re not playing on something that’s pre-written, we’re gonna go in and we’re gonna jam and you’re gonna play with Tony’. That moment was like, ‘Alright, OK’. Once we started playing and just how natural it felt, it’s been one of the peaks of my musical life, the fact that it flowed so well with Tony and there was this innate understanding and appreciation that felt like it was a two way street.

What your favourite memory of hanging out with Tony?

Probably Café OTO because it was the first time that I hung out with him fully socially in London. He came to play a small show at Café OTO in Dalston. It was amazing to watch him onstage, post having played with him, in this intimate venue. He was beckoning me over into his roped-off area, we were drinking whiskey together all night. To see him for the first time in a social context and to remember how much of a legend he is but then also to just be hanging out drinking Chivas Regal with a single cube of ice and a plastic cup well into the night, it was good fun.

Tell me about how some of the songs on the EP came to life. What about the opening track, Walk Through Fire?

Walk Through Fire was super quick. It’s basically the riff that I was checking my set-up in the studio with, it almost felt a bit like ‘Whoa, steady there’ because Tony was already playing along to it and and the producers were recording already. One aspect of the EP was things would happen very quickly in the studio, and then there’d be long lunches. I’d always be like, ‘Guys, can we just get back into the studio now?!’ I had to slow my rhythm down to conform with that way of working. It was Tony’s way of working as well, not to force stuff. He didn’t do many takes. There’s actually audio of me asking him to play something again and him refusing, saying, ‘No!’ and leaving the room.

My voice was feeling really strong at that point as well. I’d come straight off a tour and my voice felt elastic, like the range was kind of at its best. I remember that moment of singing some vocal takes and kind of seeing Tony not expecting that to come out of me. He seemed to be more into my voice than than the guitar stuff.

That must have given you confidence.

Yeah, even though he collaborated widely, I think that’s a point of newness, where it’s a kind of rock energy meeting with his style. We had some discussions about the lyrics, I wanted to make sure that he was included in it, and also to find a point of difference with Foals, so they are less introverted and more outward looking. He wanted the songs to be engaging with the streets or society more.

How did Rain Can’t Reach Us come about? I love that tune.

I do too. It’s one of my favourite pieces of music I’ve been part of. I was basically scrolling through my loops and when we were on that one, people got interested, Tony was like, ‘Let’s try that one’. There was probably five layers of guitars, so one went to the marimba, one went to a keyboard, one went to one guitar and another guitar and there was four of us playing that those parts in the room. And then Tony came in, and then I sang over it. There was definitely work done to it afterwards in terms of all the strings and the keys and stuff, but the first time we played it with Tony, that was it.

Is part of you sad it’s completed now?

Yeah, definitely. I’m really pleased to be releasing it, but there’s also a corner of it in which there’s sadness that we’re not doing it together, even the interviews and stuff. It would’ve been fun to have done them together. I’m looking forward to people hearing the EP in full and playing the shows to celebrate it. The idea of the Yaw means that there is a possibility in the future to collaborate with other people or do a record, some sort of continuation of it. It’s not necessarily a full stop or a dead end, but obviously the material with Tony, this is it, there’s no more.

Is this somewhere you could maybe find a home for the stuff you did with Karl Hyde that’s never seen the light of day? You also once told me you wanted to make a Greek folk record…

I need to figure it out. The Karl Hyde stuff would be awesome, I don’t know where he’s at with that. I’m feeling a pull to wanting to do more with Greek music. I’m not sure where that sits, it might be with this or it might be something different. I need to think it through a bit more. I like the idea that this record is postcards from different locations from different cultures, so maybe a future record could be like that. But this pull towards Greek music is definitely happening and I need to deal with that. That’s the big thing I’ve learned from this project with Tony, it is important to throw yourself into wherever you’re being pulled and finish it as well.

What about Foals, what’s the plans for that at the moment?

It’s at the stage where I think we’re enjoying having a bit of time off, all of us individually. We’re chatting quite a lot. It’s [Foals guitarist] Jimmy’s 40th today, we’re jumping on a call later to virtually wish him happy birthday because he’s on the other side of the world right now. We’re probably going to go to Iceland to hang out towards the end of the year to and we’ll know more about what we’re doing after that. We’re going to go to a remote house in Iceland and see what happens

[corvidcrybaby]

5, 6 and 7 of the fanfic writer ask?

Thanks so much for the ask!!! <3

5. Do you listen to music when writing? 

Hell yes I do! I'm often one to chew through full death metal albums whilst writing, especially in an academic context - this is a genre that's really built to be experienced in full album format rather than singular tracks, especially since if I put on my mixes of individual bangers, I'm liable to distraction. Hard to write when my attention is diverted by the lyrics of what I'm listening to or whatever. But with death metal, it lulls me into this primal groove that is still very alert and cognizant. It's like I enter the flow state, dude, it's awesome.

6. If you listen to music when writing, what were you listening to when writing [Fanfic Name]?

I'm choosing to use Lesions of a Different Kind for this answer and especially going off of the early chapters back through mid-Formulas, I was listening to a lot of Dormant Ordeal - a band I plug openly in the text once or twice. They have such a mature, regal and domineering sound to their writing - it feels like death metal with a master's degree that just published a dissertation. It's complex but easy to follow, and emotional without being overwrought. They're one of my favorite bands going right now TBH, I think their stuff is incredible.

7. What story/headcanons do you feel the proudest of? 

I'm extremely proud of Lesions and how far it's come (and how far there is yet to go) and I'm especially tickled at finally getting to introduce golems to the Hellsing universe. Their parallels with Alucard and Anderson are extremely strong, and it's been very fun extrapolating the ways they differ due to being an entity of Jewish origin. Incorporating Judaism into the Hellsing setting in general has been a blast, and I'm happy that folks have found it interesting to see the way the ideals and dogmas of Jewish characters clash and interact with those of their Gentile counterparts in Hellsing. Rabbi Loew in particular is simply a delight to write for.

That, and also I'm enjoying exploring the three-person dynamic between Alucard, Zemira and Integra - one thing I feel a lot of people miss out on when writing a romance with Alucard with 'Tegs still around is that due to the Alucard/Integra dominant and submissive dynamic (which doesn't have to be indicative of Alutegra as a romantic relationship but their bond is very close, no matter how you slice it), if you get involved with Alucard then you probably get involved with Integra too. It doesn't make sense to me why she wouldn't want to have some serious oversight into someone's relationship with Alucard, since he's HER pet first and foremost, so it's been fun having Integra LAY DOWN THE LAW on Zemira and also working with her to help her come out of her shell and become more comfortable with time.

Also, as a polyamorous person, I see so few poly fics that it breaks my heart so I'm just jumping for joy that I decided to take the plunge on this one.

[sonicmusicmusings]

original upload: 10/25/2012

Can you Molten Mine from Sonic and the Black Knight. - momiji-numata

What’s going on, my friends?  This is a really heroic sounding track! I really love the feel to it, with all the different instrumentation going on. I think my favorite part is the bell sounds in specific places, not to mention all the horn sounds, and the electric guitar leads (especially in the intro, awesome!)…and the acoustic guitar lines! Those are really impressive to me, and give the song a whole other layer of color on top of the mix. The groove is really fresh, giving it a sort of Spanish feel, in my opinion. Or at least, a warm climate, which is especially fitting of the level. There are orchestral percussion aspects in this as well as rock drums, and it all mixes together for this really neat sound. Awesome mix!

[hifreqblade]

12, 24, and 28 for your wrapped!

12. This song fucks, it’s got such a fantastic groove to it. I really love this entire album and all its weird pop, dance, and emo aspects. Saw these guys play this at Riot Fest and it was such an awesome experience!

24. Love me some Massive Attack - dark, sexy, timeless downtempo electronic music. This album didn’t really do it for me, but the title track is one of my favorite songs of theirs.

28. Mike Patton ruled my wrapped this year, he’s got so many projects spanning multiple genres and styles. He’s extremely versatile and adds his own unique touches to each project. This one is “his take on pop music”, which doesn’t say enough about the dizzying variety of sounds just within this album.

[changterhune]

FRONTIERS CHAT

On Monday Sept. 4 I did a livechat on Bandcamp during the FRONTIERS listening party. I’ve edited it for coherence. I hope it sheds some light on the music and me the music maker.

I will talk a little bit about what FRONTIERS is about. I'll split it into the meaning, then the music, then the recording unless it's still just me. Okay, so about the music itself. What I wanted to do was gather newer music I've been working on. My last 2 releases were of older - but still balls out awesome! - tracks. Since Jan '23 I've been working on both my recording and composing skills. Both have improved I believe.

I guess FRONTIERS is about 2 things: expanding your horizons and letting yourself groove. By that I mean allow yourself to explore and learn, educate and illuminate yourself. FRONTIERS for me encapsulates one of the few resolutions I've made at New Year's Eve and kept. And that was to get out of my own way. So that I could explore the frontiers.

With SUBTLE DISTINCTIONS I created something a bit lighter and peppier than my usual stuff. I hope. I think that's what the EP is about to be honest. HOPE. It's something I've not had a lot of lately. But over the course of this year things improved immensely and it seems like maybe there's some sunlight up ahead. What the songs on FRONTIERS have in common is they're all pretty upbeat, brighter in sound. I've been working on more space in my recordings and FRONTIERS is the newest and best example of that.

My tracks have always had a lot going on tho I came to realize they were sometimes muddy and unclear. I actually discovered that driving back from my sister-in-law's funeral in February. I was playing tracks for my wife on the drive back and half of them sounded muddy with a lot of the highs lost.

Of course a 2018 Subaru Forester isn't a great listening environment but it still sounded blech. When I got home I listened on my studio monitors and read up online and came to realize that I needed to up my recording game. So I did and I'm happy to say that not only I think they sound better but my beta listeners all agree they do. "Modal Auxiliary" is a great example of a lot of soundscaping and sound bed taking up space while the actual melodic/harmonic/ percussive stuff is up front. It was fun to craft it to mix the more ambient soundscape parts with the melodic ones. I reeeeeaaaaallly love how the last half of the song is pretty much just audio sludge.

SOMETIMES I do wonder if my outros are too long but that's what my beta listeners are for. They'll tell me if it is too long. And you can blame Autechre for that. After decades of their long, deconstructed endings it's one of my favorite things to do. Oh man that ambience at the end always gets me. "So CRT what's up with your titles?" Great question! OUTPATIENT is sort of about my time in an outpatient program. hence the name. Now that was a fun one, too, because the main synth parts are almost all Arturia plugins. The Buchla Music Easel is especially wild. 

This and INSECURITY can best be summed up as inspired by Meat Beat Manifesto. I got sick of A/B comparing my songs to MBM songs. I thought I was doing everything right but they still sounded weak. So I went to the woodshed so to speak (the real one is full of spiders), studied and I think this track and INSECURITY both slap about 60% as much as an MBM track. Okay 50% but still I just want to make big bangers sometimes ya know? Boom bapp beats, dub delays, noisey shit! What's funny to me is how all it takes is a little extra time and a little tweaking and then BOOM the track just opens up! Long ago a friend said it's all about panning & EQing which I came to find is 2 out of 3. I'd say the 3rd part of that is gain staging. It's more technical than I want to get into now but it's made all teh difference in my mind. About 1/2 way through OUTPATIENT there's a big long ambient part that I sometimes wondered was too long. Now I think it works as a break between the two parts. A… frontier if you will.  After 6 minutes in the track is basically a long slow fadeout lol I love how it all combines into this weird, glitchy thing where all the loops go in and out then come together. The noise gets big and brash then slowly washes out. The last 2 minutes are a nice bit of ambience themselves. I even thought about breaking it into 2 tracks but they don't work either alone or as a shorter track. You need to hear the whole damn thing to get the entire idea. Imagine being only shown one square foot of the Sistine Chapel at a time? Okay my work isn't on the par of Michelangelo but you get what I mean.

Now INSECURITY was actually never supposed to be on an album. It's a track I started then used as my guineau pig for teaching myself about recording. And in the end it ended up sounding pretty dope. When I sequenced this ep I was surprised how well it worked with the other tracks. And that beat is straight up MBM. Boom boom bapp! Well kinda.  I have become obsessed with one section of this song at about 4:15. This break came out so smooth. Last for almost a minute. Almost as funky as Funky Drummer! And the buildup after works nice too I think. I will say I'm considering 2 followups to FRONTIERS. One will be a remix and the other will be an ep exploring what separates frontiers... Well I hope I've enjoyed learning a bit more about FRONTIERS and my methods. Or madness. 

- CRT

[hennethgalad]

MUSIC TUMBLR!

help! i want a 90s jungle remix of the Dune 2 sound effects, thumpers, ornithopters, Sardaukar etc, so i asked chatgpt who said the below. i mean i have the musical ability of a brick, so many of these words are meaningless to me, plus i have no PC, only an ipad, and this stuff looks PC level.

can you help, fellow humans?

chatgpt: "That sounds like a cool concept! Dune II has some iconic, retro sci-fi sounds that would pair well with jungle’s heavy bass and fast breakbeats. Here’s how you can approach it:

1. Extracting and Sampling Sounds:

• Use tools like Audacity or OpenMPT to extract sounds from the Dune II game files (they might be in formats like .voc or .wav).

• Alternatively, you can find existing sound packs or record audio directly from gameplay.

2. Sound Processing:

• Clean up and normalize the samples to get rid of noise.

• Use EQ to accentuate the more metallic or sci-fi qualities of the sounds.

• Time-stretch or pitch-shift the samples to match the tempo and key of your track.

3. Jungle Bass and Drums:

• Layer classic jungle breaks like the Amen Break or Think Break over your Dune II samples.

• Add a deep, rolling bassline using a synth like Serum or Massive, and keep it syncopated to give that jungle groove.

• Chop and re-sequence the breaks to keep them dynamic and energetic.

4. Arrangement and Effects:

• Place the Dune II sounds as stabs, risers, or fills to complement the drums and bass.

• Add reverb and delay to create an expansive, sci-fi atmosphere.

• Use filters and phasers to give a more spacey vibe.

5. Mixing and Mastering:

• Balance the levels, giving the bass some room to breathe without overshadowing the sci-fi sounds.

• Sidechain the bass to the kick to maintain clarity.

• Use compression on the drum bus to make the breakbeats punchy.

Let me know if you want tips on specific aspects or ideas for the structure! Would be awesome to hear the final product!

[orionswhisper]

Retro Beats: 80s-90s Dance Party

#OrionsWhisper #Relaxingmusic #dance 🎶 Retro Beats: 80s-90s Dance Party 🎶 Dive into the vibe of 80s and 90s dance hits! This mix is for those who love energetic beats, synth waves, and nostalgic melodies. Let every track take you back to the dancefloor of the past! 💃🕺 🔥 What do you prefer? Deep, dark cosmic soundscapes or retro 80s-90s vibes with a danceable groove? Let us know in the comments which style you enjoy more! 👉 Subscribe to the channel and hit the like button! Your support is crucial for the channel’s growth and helps us create even more awesome content for you. Thank you! ❤️ 🎧 New content every day! Don’t miss out on fresh mixes and playlists. For your convenience, timestamps are included in the description for easy navigation.

[musicarenagh]

Breaking Boundaries: Kroyan Discusses His Experimental Sound "Kroyan's new single, "Yekaye," is seriously something else. It's like a trip through different soundscapes, blending Afro-house rhythms with these cool, progressive beats and organic sounds. You've got this awesome mix of tribal grooves, really dreamy vocals, and sparkly synths that give the track this energy but also this thoughtful vibe. Right from the start, "Yekaye" grabs you with its detailed percussion and this smooth, flowing bassline that just keeps things moving. Then these synths and arpeggios weave in and out, adding this light, almost magical feel. It really takes you somewhere else. What's really cool is how the song develops. It's almost six minutes long, but it never feels boring because it's always shifting and changing, with these subtle shifts in sound and texture. It's definitely got that Afrobeat groove that makes you want to move, but it also has these moments where you just want to chill and think. Kroyan's not afraid to push boundaries, and you can hear it in this track. It really shows his idea that music has no limits. Whether you're dancing, walking around, or just relaxing, "Yekaye" just connects with you. It's a great way for Kroyan to kick things off, and it makes you really excited to hear what else he has coming." Listen to Yekaye https://open.spotify.com/track/2UD2q6moA5HrgXWmaRd455?si=e626bc6f11e84aa9 Follow Kroyan on Instagram Telegram   What does the name Yekaye mean and how does it relate to the themes of the songs? I actually came up with the word Yekaye myself, as I sang a small part of the word Yekaye yekaye (letters and sounds I came up with) while creating the track and of course I decided to call it that. How would you describe the mood and style of Yekaye to someone who is hearing it for the first time? A cheerful yet soft African style that makes you beat your heart out and makes you move and breathe easily. Were there any challenges or surprises while creating the single? During the creation I was thinking about making it lighter without synthesizers and sequencers) But still decided to develop and of course, like many producers, I thought for a long time about the final sound and I had 5 versions of the sound, in the end I left this sound) the main problem is deciding which version to publish). [caption id="attachment_58324" align="alignnone" width="1600"] During the creation I was thinking about making it lighter without synthesizers and sequencers[/caption] What message or emotion do you think listeners will take away from Yekaye? First of all, they will feel the rhythm and soft voice that creates a mood and an atmosphere of lightness, comfort, the growing sounds of sequencers and arpeggios that create a wave that subsides after a storm) I would like to convey with this composition the feeling of goodness, peace and dancing on the seashore Is Yekaye a separate release or part of a larger project, such as an upcoming album or mini-album EP? Individual approach I decided to release singles to understand the audience's reaction and how music critics, bloggers and ordinary listeners will perceive it, while I look at what the female audience likes more. I am preparing an album where I combine Afro classical and electro, I have been working on the album for 2 months, but I may release an EP. In my future releases you can hear operatic Satvki, classical instruments, orchestra mixed with electronic sounds and African elements, it is difficult to explain in words, but I am working on the sound quality after creating a composition, it takes a lot of time for the best result in my opinion. I have big plans because I now sit at the keyboard a lot and spend all my time in the studio eating and sleeping)). https://open.spotify.com/artist/276adQYjRNZGypNEEFyOnY How do you manage to maintain a balance between being true to your style and experimenting with new sounds? Honestly, I don't have such a specific style, I

experiment more and look for something new, create and try to be different, which is why I often get rejections from labels that need exactly what they already have 300 releases, they demand a similar 301, but I experiment trying to keep the style trends and my ideas What can fans expect from you in the near future? In the near future, the single Ofsanna will be released together with the Armenian female choir, where I mix Afro house and Armenian folk song.  

[randomvarious]

1990s House Playlist

One of these days I'm gonna add, like, a supervolcano's worth of house bangers to this playlist, but for now, with this brief update, I'm adding one delicious morsel instead, and it's William Orbit's aptly titled "Throbjam Mix" of Fuzzy Logic's "Obsession," which features the vocal stylings of Erire.

For those who might not know, William Orbit is dance music royalty. His greatest commercial achievements may be what he did to help keep Madonna's career surging into the new millennium, with unforgettably advanced, retro-futuristic bops like "Ray of Light" and "Beautiful Stranger;" but before that monumental partnership ever came to fruition, Orbit was pioneering the UK progressive house underground with his very own label called Guerilla Recordings, which he co-founded in 1990.

And in '92, he dropped this beaut' of a remix on Guerilla, which came with all these pulsatingly hazy, digi-chemical bleeps, bloops, tones, and squelches that volleyed with some integrally lovely, zone-flooding organ work too, all of which went along with diva Erire's own vocals. And much like he ended up doing with his pop production work later on, this very song sounds pretty dang ahead of its time in some ways too. I don't really much care for what progressive house became later on down the line, but this early stuff, just when house music itself was still in its own relatively early days at not even a decade old, is tremendous. And for how dope this track is especially, it's unfortunate to only see it at ~8.2K plays, because when Erire goes gravelly and that organ hums, you simply cannot beat something like this. Such warm dance bliss 😌.

Fuzzy Logic - "Obsession (The Throbjam mix)"

Now, normally with the YouTube versions of these playlist posts, I have other songs that aren't on Spotify to add to them too, but I actually don't have any this week. However, I did do some much needed house-cleaning of this thing, because apparently a handful of songs had been removed since my last update, and that included tunes from the unfortunately overshadowed early 90s Warp Records house comp, Tequila Slammers and the Jump Jump Groove Generation, as well as a rare remix of Björk's "Isobel" by the great Dimitri From Paris. An official version of that Dimitri remix was actually put on Spotify and YouTube within the past year (OMG, finally!), but whoever put it on there must've not actually listened to it, because the thing becomes an unlistenable glitch-garbled mess at a certain point ☹️. So I'm not putting it on the Spotify playlist until it's fixed, but I was able to find that someone else uploaded it to YouTube 👍.

And this playlist is also on YouTube Music.

So this update now brings us up to 16 songs that clock in at 108 minutes on Spotify, but over on YouTube we're now at 36 songs that clock in at 255 minutes. So if you want more of that awesome underground house shit that Spotify will probably never get its own paws on, do yourself a favor and check out the YouTube one!

And here's the growing list of comps and mixes that I've used to put this whole playlist together:

The Vertical Iris (1998, ZoëMagik Records) Jackpot Presents Guerrilla by Phil Perry & Danny Howells (1997, Jackpot) Tequila Slammers and the Jump Jump Groove Generation (1993, Warp Records) California Dreaming (1994, Internal / FFRR) La Collection (1994, Fnac Music Dance Division) The Warehouse Remixes (1994, Djax-Up-Beats) Monsieur Dimitri's De-Luxe House of Funk by Dimitri From Paris (1997, DMC Publishing Ltd.) St John's Playhouse: Fierce Club Classics by DJ Dave Matthias (1997, Sony Music Special Products) Live and Rare (1998, F Communications / PIAS France) Ultra.Dance by Boris Dlugosch (1997, Ultra Records) Bakchick EP #3 (1997, Basenotic Records) Soma Quality Recordings - Volume 4 (1997, Soma Quality Recordings) Ultradance 2 by Sash! (1998, Ultra Records) Club H Vol.2 by Harry the Bastard (2000, Statra Recordings) Profound Sounds Vol. 1 by Josh Wink (1999, Ruffhouse Records) E=wMC2000: The Equation for Quantum Groove Theory (2000, EMusic) Architecture Volume 2 by Terry Francis (1998, Pagan Records) Trancespotting II (1998, Hypnotic Records) Plastic City Reconstructed (1999, Plastic City) Essential Selection, Volume One by Fatboy Slim & Paul Oakenfold (2000, London Records 90) Bakchich EP #4 (1999, Basenotic Records)

New 90s London playlist next week!

Enjoy!

More to come, eventually. Stay tuned!

Like what you hear? Follow me on Spotify and YouTube for more cool playlists and uploads!

[muskmelon-enjoyer-199x]

@chiomaus tagged me to post 5 songs ive been playing lately

1. walls are closing in / come back someday - laura les

I've been listening to the old Laura Les and early Gecs tracks a lot lately. This is two songs i guess but idgaf :^]

2. god is a girl (nightcore) - groove coverage

neverending nightcore phase but it's all 2000s dance stuff and questionable 2010 pop songs from ke$ha and cash cash lol

me:

3. i don't care if you're contagious - pierce the veil

im still emo sorry mom

4. urine speaks louder than words - wingnut dishwashers union

i can't stand to listen to a lot of the johnny hobo and wingnut stuff anymore. it's just rough to hear sometimes. even though it resonated with me as an angry messed up teen, it just makes me feel ill a lot now. I get preoccupied with people that aren't around anymore or that fucked up their whole lives

I vibe a lot more with the sober Pat stuff from the end of his music career, but this song is still awesome.

5. joyful thought - girls rituals

I love this song. I love Devi McCallion. I love the video of her making it. It's such a nice song.

6. dumbest girl alive - 100 gecs

perpetually in rotation. I blast it in the car. I blast it at home. I sneak it in to the work spotify lineup and make all of the guys upset (not my idea--we had a woman who would sneak early Taylor Swift songs into their gangster rap mixes and she was honestly so based for doing that)

it's always on. anyways, nightcore gecs because ive already posted the original in like twenty million of these song tags lol

uh I tag @louderfade @godblessyoublackemperor @turbulentornado