#trap house anthem is STILL my jam thank you very much

[lovesickgolbach]

if anyone actually cares or was curious about why the fuck my username is lovesickgolbach but im a f1 fanpage, many, many moons ago this used to be a sam and colby fanpage lmao and if you remember that era you're a real one💀

anyway im just not a huge fan anymore, i just watch their haunted stuff sometimes but i was really a huge fan when they were still in the original trap house

and if there are any f1 moots who are also sam and colby fans drop me a dm! lets be friends :)

but colby beat cancer!!! couldn't be more proud of my baby bubba🫶🏻

[trespeak]

What's your favorite house album?

Wow, that’s a toughie. Might just have to give you a list instead.

This ended up being pretty long so I’ve put all the big descriptions I wrote for each of ‘em under the cut, but here’s the gist:

Daft Punk, Discovery (2001)

Kaskade, Fire and Ice (2011)

deadmau5, For Lack of a Better Name (2009) and 4x4=12 (2010)

Phantoms, Phantoms (2017)

Justice, † (2007) 

Lazy Rich’s singles

Porter Robinson/Virtual Self – Spitfire (2011) and Virtual Self (2017)

I like a lot of deep house and electro house, so most of my picks here are within either or both of those subgenres (as well as progressive house, in deadmau5′s case).

For more of my thoughts (and there are many!), see below.

Daft Punk, Discovery (2001)

Accept no substitutes. For Guy-Manuel de Homem Christo and Thomas Bangalter, making quality tunes seems to just be second nature. Their second album replaces the underground, city-street feel of Homework with a shiny, discotheque-ready sound that stands on the shoulders of giants but does so as a means of updating and widening the reach of their own influences (with “Harder Better Faster Stronger”’s use of “Cola Bottle Baby” as a perfect example thereof). My favorite track on the record, “Digital Love,” perhaps only barely qualifies as house, but between the earnestness of the vocoded lyrics and the heart-stopper of a guitar solo, I don’t even mind – who cares about genre conventions when you’re a smitten robot? It’s utterly brilliant and its era exists as the gold standard for many DP fans, myself included among them.

Kaskade, Fire and Ice (2011)

Ryan Raddon’s seventh album and the one I hold the most nostalgia for. An ambitious effort on Kaskade’s part, Fire and Ice is a double album, with original tracks on one side and remixed, chilled-out versions of the same songs on the other (geddit?). The ICE mixes are something of a mixed bag, with some having more reason to exist than others, but the Fire side of the album earns it a place here on its own, with Skrillex and Raddon giving us their own brilliant take on a classic track from Guy Manuel de Homem Christo on “Lick It,” as well as the smooth vibes of Ryan’s collaboration with his band Late Night Alumni and Inpetto on “How Long.” Another standout track: “ICE,” a big, bumping jam Ryan made with Dan Black and Dada Life.

deadmau5, For Lack of a Better Name (2009) and 4x4=12 (2010)

Oh, Joel. These days he’s earned a controversial status as full-time internet troll alongside his career as a musician, but he’s still had a palpable impact on the industry at large (pop juggernaut Marshmello more or less owes his entire career to the allure of the man in the cute mask, and while Daft Punk did it first, Mello’s own interpretation is particularly and explicitly influenced by the way deadmau5 did it). These two albums dropped when I was twelve/thirteen and still opening my eyes to the wide world of electronica, and I think they’re particularly significant as the point where I went from being a casual fan of it to a devotee, sparking an investment in the Scene® that I still have to this day. The degree of control Joel flexes over his work at its peak was unprecedented for the time and still holds up now – “Strobe,” the album closer on For Lack Of, is particularly notable in how it makes ten minutes feel like no time at all in how it builds and shifts with just a few simple, powerful elements in play at a time. “Ghosts ‘n Stuff” earned Joel and vocalist Rob Swire a crossover hit, and “Raise Your Weapon” stands as an early illustration of what the North American take on dubstep would sound like in the years to come. 

Phantoms, Phantoms (2017)

Kyle Kaplan and Vinnie Pergola’s debut record is a clever mission statement for their work. Their deep house tunes are infused with pop sensibilities, placing them in company with contemporaries like Jamie xx and Disclosure as house DJs making an effort to bridge the gap between the radio airwaves and the dance floor. My favorites include “Just a Feeling” with Verite, a modody track called “Downtown,” and the utterly brilliant “Need You Closer,” a collab with Hayley Kiyoko that easily converted me into the Church of Lesbian Jesus. (Their recent work is also worth a nod as well – they’ve been building up singles to drum up interest in a new EP, including one of their best tracks to date, a driving progressive house tune called “Designs for You.”)

Justice, † (2007)

Gaspard Auge and Xavier de Rosnay’s debut record remains their best. There’s so many iconic tracks on this one: The slick vibes of “Genesis” and “Newjack,” the ever crowd-pleasing “D.A.N.C.E.,” the pumping “Phantom” and its sequel, the nu-disco sleaze of “DVNO”, and the ear-splitting delight of “Waters of Nazareth.” The record earned them a positive, if daunting, comparison to fellow French house pioneers Daft Punk, and while their work on it shares an obsession with taking diverse samples and reconfiguring them into their own image, Justice’s fascination with the macabre aesthetic of 70′s horror films and the rock ‘n roll ethos of T. Rex earned them a distinct spot in the pantheon of electronic acts with this record (as well as its followup, the different-but-still-great Audio, Video, Disco).

Feed Me - Feed Me’s Big Adventure (2011) and Calamari Tuesday (2013)

Jon Gooch was one of the earliest musicians to emerge under deadmau5′s mau5trap label, and still shines as one of its leading acts today (High Street Creeps, released earlier this year, has jams for days). While he started his career making drum ‘n bass tracks as Spor, the bulk of his work since 2009 has been under the Feed Me alias, where he’s dabbled in all manner of electronic but mostly hews close to the realm of electro house. Gooch’s experience in making complex tunes meant that Feed Me came out swinging, with tracks like “Grand Theft Ecstasy” and “Muscle Rollers” exhibiting a confidence and technical skill from the outset that most producers would kill for on their first record. By the time his first proper full length released two years later, he’d developed a consistent feel that made collaborations with indie bands (”Love Is All I Got,” with Crystal Fighters) and soulful singers (”Last Requests,” with Jenna G) feel as natural as hard-hitting bangers (”No Grip” and “Death by Robot”). Mix in a little bit of both and you get “Ophelia,” a anthemic ballad made with YADi – my favorite song from the record, and a earworm that still sticks with me six years on. Love, don’t let me drown…

and some honorable mentions!

Lazy Rich’s singles! Richard Billis is a Canadian DJ who retired from producing tunes in 2017, but for the decade or so he was releasing music, the electro house singles he released were nothing short of iconic. Songs like “Blast Off” (with Hirshee and Lizzie Curious) and “Flash” (with Hot Mouth) are energetic, breezy and danceable. There’s nothing quite like a good Lazy Rich drop; his beats hit the dance floor with the weight of a truck, and have a sonic diversity among them that would predict the electronic scene’s shift toward the dynamism of future bass. It makes me sad that we won’t get any more of them, but Billis left behind such an evergreen catalog of singles that it’s hard to be down for very long. (I used to use his remix of Zedd’s “Stars Come Out” as a theme song of sorts on an old website where you could be a DJ with your friends. The fond memories are strong with this one.)

Porter Robinson/Virtual Self – Spitfire (2011) and Virtual Self (2017) – Leave it to Porter Robinson to carve out a completely separate musical persona just to hearken back to his halcyon days as a young producer. My initial introduction to him was just after he’d emerged from the hands-up scene, while he had his eyes set on stardom through what he called “complextro,” and it was surprising to find that his work not only lived up to its genre classification but actively carved out a market for its sound, even before Porter had dropped an album. If the dubstep and house feel of Spitfire was a revelation, the DDR vibes of the Virtual Self EP are a revitalization; similar in ethos, but with an owned, Serial Experiments Lain-styled technological aesthetic. Porter does a lot of work to keep the two projects separate (even going as far as to delineate live shows between the aliases), but rather than fragmenting his work the distinction only ends up strengthening his catalog, in much the same way Jon Gooch’s work as Feed Me complements his earlier collection as Spor.

JOYRYDE’s singles and upcoming album - John Ford Jr. is an English DJ who knows what he likes: fast cars, bumping house beats, mean-muggin’ rap jams, and making tunes that blend all of the above in one way or another. His JOYRYDE project is only a few years old, emerging in 2016, but it’s very much the culmination of years of diggin’ in the crates and building a sound that blends the hip-hop influences of trap with the boogie-bounce sensibility of house. No sooner is this evident than the “parental discretion is advised” warning (and subsequent punchy opening bars) that welcomes you into “HOT DRUM,” though his other tracks (including “MAXIMUM KING” and the Rick Ross-assisted “WINDOWS”) share that kinetic energy. He’s one to watch!

Also worth your time:

Oliver’s Mechanical EP and their album Full Circle

Mord Fustang’s All Eyes On… compilations

Botnek’s singles from 2016 onward

Chris Lake’s releases with his label Black Book Records

Self Help by Walker and Royce

pretty much everything by Ellie Herring and Chrissy (Murderbot)

Fantasmas by Zavala

anything Wolfgang Gartner has made (particularly his early 2010s singles)

That’s all I got for now. If you made it this far, you’re an angel. Thanks for indulging me :)

[balarouge]

10 albums that defined Toronto music in the year 2000 - NOW Magazine

WAVELENGTH WINTER FESTIVAL featuring LAL, THE HIDDEN CAMERAS, LES MOUCHES, HAVIAH MIGHTY, YVES JARVIS, KAIA KATER and others at various venues, Thursday-Sunday (February 13-16). Free-$20, festival pass $50. wavelengthmusic.ca.

It’s impossible to overstate just how different Toronto’s musical landscape was two decades ago. It was a time when you rarely ventured west of Lee’s Palace to see a show, scenes were largely segregated along genre lines, and the closest thing the city had to an international top 40 rap hit was Barenaked Ladies’ One Week (Kardinal Offishall’s T-dot anthem Bakardi Slang wouldn’t drop until 2001, the same year Flow 93.5 debuted on local radio). But the most profound difference between then and now boils down to exposure and opportunities – or the lack thereof. 

Millennial Toronto was the undisputed epicentre of the Canadian music industry, but both its mainstream and underground ambassadors were largely disconnected from the international conversation. While well-funded CanCon staples like The Tea Party and I Mother Earth inevitably hit the glass ceiling separating them from U.S. success, independent local artists in the nascent internet era were trapped under a concrete floor.

If we can identify a turning point, the evening of February 13, 2000, is as good a marker as any. That was the night Wavelength’s weekly concert series debuted at the long-gone Ted’s Wrecking Yard on College, providing a clubhouse haven for the city’s myriad indie rock, electronic and experimental-jazz niches. Over the next few years, Wavelength’s welcoming, anything-goes atmosphere made it a key developmental stage for future city stars like Broken Social Scene and Owen Pallett en route to international record deals and critical acclaim. 

However, the well-established narrative of the city’s early-2000s indie renaissance tends to overshadow the less-celebrated artists, under-the-radar releases and microlabels that were keeping the proverbial lights on during the dark days. 

So as Wavelength celebrates its 20th anniversary this weekend – looking back with early 00s-era local faves like Pallett’s old band Les Mouches, LAL, the Hidden Cameras and Sandro Perri – let’s take our own look back at 10 key releases that defined the Y2K sound of the city. 

Mean Red Spiders: Starsandsons

This psych-rock quintet headlined the very first Wavelength, an indicator of their elevated status in the scene at the time. Their second album, Starsandsons, is a still-potent fusion of shoegaze fuzz and Krautrock thrust that immortalized the name of producer Dave Newfeld’s Cameron Street studio a good two years before his future clients, Broken Social Scene, turned it into a local landmark with their namesake clap-happy anthem, Stars And Sons, on their breakout album, You Forgot It In People. 

Peaches: self-titled EP

Long before she became a duet partner to both Yoko Ono and Christina Aguilera, former folk singer/school-teacher Merrill Nisker introduced her XXX-rated electro-rap alter-ego with this six-song tease released on defunct local indie label Teenage USA. The EP went out of print after she moved to Berlin in 2000 and signed on with Kitty-Yo and XL Records, but its tracks formed the core of her now-iconic full-length album, The Teaches Of Peaches.

LAL: Corners

On their debut album, the duo of vocalist Rosina Kazi and producer Nick Murray offered a preview of the genre-blurred, post-internet musical landscape we inhabit today, melding hip-hop, R&B, jazz, psychedelia and ambient electronica into an intoxicating future-soul fusion. Twenty years on, the couple's commitment to pushing boundaries hasn’t abated: while they’re scheduled to perform Corners in its entirety this Thursday at Sneaky Dee’s, they’re forgoing easy nostalgia for a fresh update of the record. 

The Russian Futurists: The Method Of Modern Love

When you hear Matt Hart yukking it up these days on the Indie88 morning show, it’s hard to believe The Russian Futurists founder was once Canada’s pre-eminent indie pop enigma. His debut album’s synthed-up Pet Sounds fantasias earned raves in the British press before he had even so much as played a local show. 

DJ Serious: Dim Sum

If Wavelength provided a space for Toronto’s avant-garde and indie communities to congregate, then DJ Serious’s debut album served the same function for the city’s underground hip-hop scene. His boom-bapped funk productions provided a springboard for then-rising MCs like the Brassmunk crew, Nish Rawks and D-Sisive (who – in a true Y2K time-capsule moment – laid into critics who dared compare him to Eminem). 

Do Make Say Think: Goodbye Enemy Airship The Landlord Is Dead

The Do Makes’ emotionally charged, jazz-blasted second album represented a quantum leap beyond the dubby space-rock of their 98 debut. Following the lead of their Constellation Records labelmates Godspeed You! Black Emperor, it made them the rare Toronto act to cultivate a loyal European following at the time.

Southpacific: Constance 

This dronegaze trio quietly landed in Toronto from Ottawa before the turn of the millennium, but they swiftly got a leg up on their local contemporaries by scoring a U.S. deal with New York-based Turnbuckle Records (home to underground icons like Oneida and Bailter Space). The oceanic squall of Constance helped make the decades-long wait for a new My Bloody Valentine album feel a little less long. 

Nick Holder: Underground Alternatives

House music may be synonymous with spiritual uplift, but on his fourth album, this Toronto club fixture infused his 4/4 thump with biting – and, sadly, still timely – commentary about the Black experience, delivered through Malcolm X samples and Rudy Giuliani disses (courtesy of spoken-word artist Jemeni).

Royal City: At Rush Hour The Cars

The early-2000s Toronto scene could’ve easily been nicknamed “Little Guelph,” thanks to Aaron Riches’s Royal City crew and his extended Three Gut Records family of fellow expats (like Constantines). Released around the same time a pre-fame Feist briefly joined the Royal City ranks, the creaky Will Oldham-esque serenades feel like a defiant attempt to combat big-city bustle with small-town serenity. 

The Exploders: What’s What and Who’s Who

These leather-vested freaks recorded their debut EP with Detroit’s Jim Diamond, who worked on the first two White Stripes albums. Alas, their robo-punk throttle was a touch too ahead of its time to catch the post-Stripes garage-rock wave, but guitarist “Classy” Craig Daniels is still kicking out the greasy jams with his current combo, Enchanters. 

This content was originally published here.

[ai-da-ice]

Fan Account: ai-da-ice at TOKYO SWISH

(Before I get started, I just wanted to mention that the overall concert-going experience in Japan is very different from what I’m used to in America, so I’m going to write a separate journal about how to attend concerts in Japan and what is common etiquette and behavior in live houses. This will mainly focus on the concert itself!)

Since this is Da-iCE blog, I want to focus on the Da-iCE portions of the show, but stay tuned for a later update showcasing the other groups because they were awesome and I want you all to love them, too.

In Japan, idol culture is centered of Johnny’s on one side and 48-project groups on the other. There are some outliers with mass appeal such as LDH and Hello!Project idols, but otherwise, idol groups can struggle to find their market and place in the spotlight separate from the big league idols the nation is automatically focused on through management reputation. The SWISH concert series is answer to that issue. It joins together both established and up-and-coming male/mixed gender groups, and unites the fandoms of the groups who don’t have the big league market recognition but still have a lot to offer the industry through their modern, more genre bending approach to J-pop. The event is the dream of the multi-fandom crowd, which perfectly defines me as a J-pop fan. I’m all for seeing J-pop evolve and branching out to support the new groups who give it unique color.

The venue, Tokyo Dome City Hall, was filled around 5:20 ahead of the scheduled 6:00 start, and by 5:30, the opening acts were already hitting the stage. We started off first with MADKID (MDKD), a dance and vocal unit from Tokyo which served up a powerful hip-hop performance to kick off the night. They were followed up by a-X’s (pronounced “A-Cross”), a mixed gender trainee unit from avex formed by the winners of their boys and girls dance and vocal auditions. On top of their standard group performance, they also performed a fantastic dance cover of The Weeknd’s “Rockin’”.

Next up was our “bonus opening act”. This changed depending on which location the SWISH event happened in, but TOKYO SWISH’s bonus was Yudai x Keisuke Murakami, Yudai’s former groupmate in his Fukkin Gakuen days. Usually the venue announced who was performing next via an overhead screen, but since Yudai and Keisuke were “the bonus,” they were presented in somewhat of a surprise fashion. The lights were dimmed too low to see the stage, but we could all hear Yudai’s voice in his microphone set, so everyone reacted to him immediately. The two performed an original acoustic ballad entitled “Futari dake no ai”. I really hope this song makes an appearance on Keisuke’s debut album because it was gorgeous and I want you all to hear it. Yudai and Keisuke also did the thing Sota and Yudai often do during “A WHOLE NEW WORLD” and “Boku no Kiseki”-- the intense staring at each other during the love ballad. After their performance was over, a member of the audience screamed out “YUDAI-KUN!” and Yudai responded by cutely going “Kei-chan~!”

Afterwards, the main acts quickly followed. Mixed gender avex group lol was the first performer of the night, and they were followed by my second favorite J-pop group FlowBack. Both groups really set the tone for the night, that this generation of groups isn’t about the stereotypical “cute and quirky” label J-pop usually gets from outside of observers. These groups have EDM, hip-hop, and trap influences which give them a Westernized feel, without even getting into how broad and diverse their dance skills are. Anyone who still thinks of J-pop as only “AKB48,” please point them in the direction of these groups.

Following FlowBack was Ebidan’s massively underrated but supremely infectious PrizmaX, then X4, who genuinely was X4 that day since member Shota was not there due to an injury. Here’s to hoping for his quick recovery in time for X4′s tour performance tomorrow! Next up was Tensai Bonjin, who delivered one of the night’s most diverse sets by going from comedic, pump-up hip-hop to a heart-wrenching ballad while slaying the performances of both. Next was BRIDGET, the underrated visual and dance kings of avex, and then WHITE JAM, the masterminds behind several of Da-iCE’s hit songs and the improv Kings and Queen. Gashima and Shirose chose an audience member at random, asked for her name, and came up with a totally amazing free style rap on the spot using her name as the starting theme. PrismaX’s Daiki also came back to join them on their song “OVERSIZE.”

Last up of the night was Da-iCE!! Even before they were announced on the big screen, the arena lit up with their lightsticks, which the majority of the arena seemed to have-- they were one of the biggest draws of the night by far! They came out wearing the red and black gear they’ve been sporting for their between NEXT PHASE and Tonikaku HEY! performances, as you can see below:

Their first song of the evening for Da-iCE was “NEXT PHASE,” which showcased their completely knock-out choreography at its finest. They wrote this song to replace “FIGHT BACK” as their tour opener anthem, and it does it’s job of hyping everyone up to perfection. The dance was explosive and the vocals just as dynamic as you would expect from Yudai and Sota.

To keep things energetic (and sexy), they moved right along to “Chocolate Sympathy.” Which, as they have mentioned in interviews, involves chair dancing. Yes. Chair dancing. I thought I had prepared myself, but I was not ready to witness this in person. When they call this the legendary song of their album, they are not lying.

The group did a short greeting for their MC, but naturally had a lot of charm points since they’re Da-iCE. Taiki started off by saying “I’m the leader, Taiki Kudo,” which Toru followed up with “I’m not the leader, Toru Iwaoka” and Yudai adding “I’m also not the leader, Yudai Ohno.” When it came to Sota, he was immediately trolled by the members per tradition, but brushed it off quickly to introduce himself. Hayate, naturally, received no trolling and remains the apple of the group’s eye.

Next up was my favorite performance of the night, “Koigokoro.” The music video leaves a heart-wrenching impression enough, but the in-person vocals and the way both Yudai and Sota portray them is almost physically painful in the most beautiful way. When Sota went for his high note, you could almost feel the raw agony coming from him. The dance line was also powerful during this performance, showcasing their high-flying turns during the song’s climax.

Keeping the atmosphere serious, they moved along into “TWO AS ONE,” their fan-dedicated anthem from their album. Once again, the emotions of this song carried over even stronger in person, especially thanks to the complex and interpretive choreography by the dance line. One of the point moves of the choreography involved putting their hands together in the shape of a dice, which was beautiful to see, especially since it perfectly matched the shape of their updated lightstick.

Last, they closed with their summer anthem and crowd pleaser “PARADIVE”. For this one, we were all waving our slogan towels and singing along with them, so I think this was one of the moments that best united all the many fandoms in the room. And I always thought the moment Hayate came to the center of the dance formation during the breakdown was iconic, and seeing it live just confirmed it. Everyone went wild for that part.

Of course, a concert isn’t a concert without an encore, but since there were so many groups, this one was unique. Sota, Yudai, Tensai Bonjin’s MiNE, WHITE JAM’s Shirose, and BRIDGET’s Shun, the night’s harmony masters, were selected to perform two original songs for the encore before inviting all the groups onstage again to do a final bow and take a commemorative photo. After a closing anthem from the DJ, the long concert came to a close.

SWISH was overall a exciting and energetic event which not only gives groups of varying public recognition a chance to promote themselves, but also unites the fandoms of these groups and gives them a sense of being family, much in the way that DANZEN TV does for boy group fandoms. The groups are all close to each other in real life, so to see them onstage together was a moving experience. I also think these groups are truly a new era for J-pop-- they represent a shift in genre that I think will really appeal to diverse audiences, if they are willing to give J-pop the chance it deserves. And, of course, seeing Da-iCE again was a heart pounding experience that I’m happy I had another chance to feel. They are some of the strongest live performers I have ever witnessed from their stable singing to their powerhouse dancing. Thank you, TOKYO SWISH, for giving me the chance to see them and experience the delightful lives of other fantastic contemporary performers, too!