All I Need does something I love to see in house, the gradual reveal. Grey Area, Desiree & Michael, start the track with the vocals chopped short, but lay out the full chorus line gradually towards the end. You won’t appreciate it until you listen a few times through, but eventually your mind will start to fill in the chopped up parts in anticipation for the full thing. Makes for a fun dance (in ya head).
One of the first times I heard the term “four on the floor” was in a favorite documentary of mine on house music, but I didn’t get the meaning right at first. Initially I thought it meant the type of laid back house for relaxing – or really for fuckin. Think of it in sexual terms. However, it actually means a consistent drum bass on the fourth beat, which is one of disco and more so house’s key ingredients.
To honor my creative thinking in what four on the floor meant, I give you a playlist of sexy house music. Plus it’s got a lot of what the original definition meant, that consistent drum beat.
What is this ‘the feels’ thing going around this past year? It sounds like a middle school kissing disease. But if someone were to give me good feels, it would sound like FEELS The Anthem. Fitting.
I don’t know what style we’re gonna end up calling this kinda music, I guess they’re going with future bass, but it sure is the future for the two best things to do with music, dance & fuck.
I’ve been to a handful of music festivals this year, but rarely did I dance. A lot of the house & techno at these festivals were more for raving than dancing and I prefer the midtempo soul anyway. Something you find in a lot of hip-hop and trap these days.
This playlist is all about what I love dancing to most right now and if you really love to dance you will too. I guess most of this would fall under trap music, but like every other style it seems ruined by mainstream.
It may sound funny at first, but this is what the future of dance music sounds like. It’ll at least be up there with house. I’m tellin ya!
[soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/181361428" params="color=000000&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false" width="100%" height="20" iframe="true" /]
This has the most hypnotically pleasing sound I’ve ever heard. I’m just gonna cut that clip out, put it on repeat and use it as white noise when I’m sleeping. Just kidding (I’ll try it once).
I don’t think I’ve ever heard it before, but I’m sure I’ll be hearing it again. Wait until you get to the drop of dontloveme’s Dunes and you’ll hear it too. Let me know if you’ve heard something similar before.
See it on our next future glam fucks.
The music at most edm festivals mostly miss, but sometimes ya find a hit. Unfortunately that hit wasn’t the music this year at Beyond, but the visuals.
I met with a visual supervisor from the Mad Hatter’s stage and he let me check out what he does at a live set. Let’s just say there’s not much glamour in his performance, but the performance he puts on was breathtaking. Not for the epileptic though. It seems the visualsm from the lights to the costumes and exhibits are evolving quicker than the music at these festivals.
I’m not much for the harder, bass driven music that’s still popular today, if you couldn’t tell yet. So like every year before it I put together a playlist that I’d love to see live (mixed right). The first year I did this was general high bpm dance tracks, but the second year I went specifically for the bass. This year was the best of bass since we started Silence six years ago. It may not be defining what I love now and probably won’t for many years, but it did have its place and may once again. It’s all about soul right now (and has always been).
Symbiosis Gathering and festivals like it are an experience everyone should involve themselves in at least a few times in life, especially for the type that aren’t already going. Symbiosis brought together electronic music and other activities for mind growth & body. I went for the music, but I got more out of everything else.
People are picky in what music they’ll listen to, especially me, but other activities for growth are much more universally appreciated. That is, if you’re open to learning. I got a chance to listen to a few panels while dodging the daily scorching heat and every one of ’em gave me at least a little new perspective.
One particular speaker comes to mind was Shylah’s talk on natural birth. She took all of three minutes to flip me from ‘seems like an option some people should look into’ to ‘your child’s birth is pretty much one of the most important moments in your life (and theirs) and of course we’re getting it wrong, like always.’ She went off on a few other like-minded tangents that felt more rooted in emotion than actual urgency, but her zest towards it all was refreshing.
As much as the panels and music were worth the adventure out to Oakdale where the festival was held, all of the brief interactions were what made it so memorable, most memorably my missed connection [see below].
I sent a friend Zhu’s Automatic yesterday. She seemed to like it.
It didn’t show the artist & title though, so she wanted to know who it was, but I thought why not keep it a mystery. That’s what Zhu would do. Hopefully she reads this post and gets her answer.
Automatic is the start to Zhu’s next project, Genesis Series. It’s just as mysterious as his first, but that whole no-persona persona seems like a gimmick compared to the sounds he’s creating. Automatic is a small progression from his earlier work, but it’s still a hit meant for mainstream. Or ideally for mass consumption. Just not as redefining as his first EP, Nightday.
The string work at the start and the deep toned piano three verses in were definitely a step up in sound. He makes sounds out of instruments with clarity I’ve never heard before. The high hat trap at the end was a nice touch, along with the sax solo, but that could have been hinted at towards the beginning. Would have tied it all together better.
AlunaGeorge’s vocals fit into Zhu’s sound almost better than Zhu himself, but his ghostly vocals make for a good backdrop. Wonder what other collaborations are in store for Zhu’s Genesis Series. I’m sure it’ll be top talent.
Back in high school a friend of mine invited me to a show at First Avenue in Minneapolis where Prince recorded Purple Rain. One of the side stages was playing all house music and when I stepped in I thought, I am the only white dude here, except one other guy we’ll get to in a second.
I’ve been to clubs in London, San Francisco, Tel Aviv, where ever, but I never saw anything like this. Guys were thrusting their pelvises into women. Women were thrusting women. Men thrusting walls and anything else they could their hands and waists on. It seemed like a comic over embellishment. Some were thrusting so hard they knocked the other person over.
The other white dude I was just talking about thrusted a girl so hard she fell off the stage. When she got back up she thought I was the guy and started bitching me out, but quickly realized I wasn’t him.
Doing some digging on the Symbiosis website and social, I noticed that Madelyn Grant had liked their Facebook page – she’s featured on Emancipator’s latest single, Seven Seas. So instantly I thought, Madelyn might be there too! I asked her, she’s not :(
She’s one of the main reasons I keep this thing around, so I gotta at least try to get her out here and play live with Emancipator at Symbiosis. I think it would be their first time playing live together, at least I’m pretty sure it would be. And who cares! She needs to be there!
So what do we gotta do to make this happen? Mind you, I’m well unaware of the logistics of getting her out here. Or if she’s even available. And I’m probably just being selfish and no one wants it that bad. But they should! And I have to try and so do you if you feel so inclined.