We’re starting to break our remix playlists into genres. Our first was relaxing hip hop remixes and now we’ve got soulful R&B, and some just soulful (we did have a tropical remix list in between).
The list of soul started off as general relaxing remixes, but it was pretty much all some sort of soul so we trimmed it down to that. Apparently I only like hip hop and soul now.
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.
I was talking to my coworkers about the music in my Late Night Jazz list. While it’s definitely not the music of the early turn of last century, it still gives me that feeling of jazz for the evening, unconventional as it may be. It’s all covered in electronic sounds and that’s where our opinions stray.
Same goes with our funk-infused playlist, The Funk Shall Be Within You. It may go off into electro at times, but the feeling of funk is strong throughout and I don’t think any word could describe it better, especially electronic. Other than nufunk or any other made up offshoot, but that’s a whole other debate.
Our electro funk from last year grew so much we decided to break it up & section it into a few playlists. First up comes from the groovier side.
I wanted to call this Groovewit hits, but Lauren talked me out of it. Generally speaking it lies in the mid-range of electro music with heavy synth influence and a whole lotta funky bass.
Let us know how well the songs flowed together for you.
It’s important to us.
GRiZ has been reppin this Colorado-based style of electronic well recently. I talked earlier about Pretty Lights’ new track, ‘Around the Block,’ and it’s continuing the movement PL helped start, but GRiZ seems to be the man pushing it forward. With a much heavier style of bass, ‘Gettin Live’ is taking hip-hop samples and mixing that full sound electro in fresher than I’ve heard in sometime.
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I thought I heard something about a Big Gigantic // GRiZ collaboration. Weren’t they callin themselves Big Griz or Grizantics or some shit like that Whatever they’re goin by, their first single is one step up for this power-house duo. ‘Power’ is an anthem of a song with an electro-funky, industrious style. But the best part of all, that Gigantic of a sax solo, I gotta thing for the brass.
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Whats up with electro producers throwin in so many sax solos nowadays… cause I looove it. Like I’ve said time & again (it’s even getting old to me), there’s nothing that sounds better with electro music than that saxy sex (or however you say it). But unlike most electro/sax combos, this one’s fatty as f**k, in bass that is.
‘Smash the Funk’ is bass typical of that Pretty Lights sound – hip-hop sampled, electro-bass music – and it’s still mighty fresh to me… especially when you get sax involved.
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When I first saw this marked as ‘electro soul,’ I was like noooooo. See, I’m trying to come up with a name for the new style emerging in R&B [ex: The Weeknd, Frank Ocean] because I’m doing an article on ’em all, but there’s no good name for it, yet. So I thought ‘electro soul’ might do it just fine, but I also had a feeling it was already being used in the electro scene.
Well, I guess I’m gonna have to start looking for a better alternative, but in the meantime enjoy this “electro soul” that sports vocals from ‘Evil Ways’ by Santana, a 2Pac verse thrown in there and one smoooooth beat.
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GRiZ gets groovy bass in this Kanye “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” remix. Even better, we get more of a taste from his superb sax playin. I think I’ve overstated how much I love a little brass in my electronic. Only real issue I have with this some of the high squealin dubstep, though I don’t know how I’d make it much better.
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I’ve been checking out Griz’s work on a few different blogs and the consensus is clear, this has Pretty Lights Music written all over it – and his newly released track says it all.
“Wheres the Love” samples those classic lines from “Ain’t No Love In The Heart of the City,” and electrofies ’em with lazer bass & glitch crunk (now I’m just putting words together). But where it gets even more PL worthy is in the industrial grimed-out dubstep. It sounds a hell of a lot like Pretty Lights’ latest dubstep track, “I Know the Truth,” but a more sample-based, electro stricken redux.
I don’t know what those PL people are thinking for their next signed artist, but GRiZ definitely fits the bill. + The icing on the cake, he plays the sax! I gotta hear this!
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