Pretty Lights just dropped their new EP, Making Up A Changing Mind, on their website, www.prettylightsmusic.com.  As always, it’s free.  As always, it’s dope.  Here’s my favorite so far:

Pretty Lights – Total Fascination

Since I’m super excited about my drum and bass set at the bar, I’m gonna give you some drum and bass.  I don’t think this track is going to make it into my set, but you wouldn’t want me to give away any more of my surprises anyway, would you?  I’ve previously posted a remix of Calvin Harris’s track Flashback, but that was the Eric Prydz house remix.  Here’s Goldie’s drum and bass take on the track.  If this gets you moving, you’ll love my set on Saturday.

Calvin Harris – Flashback (Goldie Remix).mp3

If you’ve followed my music blog(s) for any length of time, you’re no doubt familiar with my love of anything related to Imogen Heap’s track, Hide & Seek.  Well, here’s another one I swiped from Chicago’s always-on-point Dani Deahl.  Once upon a time, this track used to be Hide & Seek.  Then, the Tape Deck Bros chopped it, cut it, sliced it, reordered it, rebuilt it, and threw a house beat on it.  Without the title, I wouldn’t have recognized it until it got to the breakdown.  They did it well, made it into a real house track with a filtered vocal sample, buildups, the whole deal.

Tape Deck Bros – Hide And Seek (Fuk Tha OC Remix).mp3

I also found another really sweet remix of Fireflies by Owl City.  I know, a lot of folks think this is way too cheese to get any love.  And honestly I can’t really argue that because the reason I dig the track is that it’s kind of me and my girl’s song.  But whatever, this edit is dubsteppy and melodic and gorgeous and sounds exactly like something I would create if I were a producer.

Owl City – Fireflies (Marlow Remix).mp3

All you Bjork fans out there, I’m guessing you’ll want to stick your fingers in your ears.   Fortunately for me, I have no real feelings one way or another about Bjork, and that allowed me not to have any preconceived notions about what a Bjork drum and bass remix ought to sound like, or whether such a thing should even exist at all.  So when I heard this a couple days ago on DI.FM, I immediately stopped what I was doing and tracked that sucka down.  Dig:

Bjork – All Is Full Of Love (Chris.Su Remix).mp3

And while we’re on the subject of Drum and Bass remixes, here’s one I heard a couple nights ago while I was listening to Annie Mac dropping the latest dance music on BBC 1.  This is a Tiesto remix by my favorite Drum and Bass remixer, High Contrast.  It’s both melodic and grimy, moving and dirty, and it gets my ass moving.  Track is called Kaleidoscope.

Tiesto feat Jonsi – Kaleidoscope (High Contrast Remix).mp3

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BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

I’ll be hosting the afterparty at my place!  For directions, text/dm/e-mail me or otherwise get in touch, or just show up to Horizonz and follow everybody else.  The afterparty is BYOB, so be prepared for that.  See you then!

A few days ago I overheard my buddy Jared say something along these lines: “Kesha? Really? Is this what music is coming to? Awful.”  I assume he’s referring to her single, “Tik Tok”.

I mean, in one sense, I can completely see where he’s coming from.  There’s nothing particularly original or groundbreaking about her single; nothing musically interesting or complex.  Sure, she’s following the trend of pop music sounding ever so slightly more electronic (which I submit can only be a good thing), and her voice and music are somewhat reminiscent of Rihanna who, while mainstream now, was a bit of a new sound when she first emerged, but Ke$ha’s not inventing any new ideas here.  Led Zeppelin she ain’t.  Also bear in mind that Jared dates a classical musician and has wildly varied tastes in music, so his exposure and deep interest in music goes far beyond the mindless drivel of corporate pop.  It stands to reason that Ke$ha would fall below his musical standards, and there’s not a thing wrong with that.

But when he said that, I felt an unexpected and completely irrational twinge of defensiveness.  Because in spite of itself and in spite of myself, I love this track.  Thinking more about this, I was reminded of something my homeboy DJ CraveOne (JUNGLE RECON REPRAZENT) told me that he once heard from a party DJ, and the basic theme of it was basically, “you’re thinking about it the wrong way.”

The argument was that this type of music isn’t intended to be complex or groundbreaking or fascinating.  It’s not a piece you’re going to study in your musical theory courses.  That’s not what this is about.

This is about getting down.  This is about a track that’s fun to sing, a beat that’s fun and easy to dance to, and a song with words that are easy to remember so you can sing along when you’re staggering out the door of the club at 2AM.  This is a style of music that’s intended to get in your head and stay there.  This is the music you nod your head to when there’s no music to be heard, because it’s playing in your head.  When this song drops at the club, girls jump up to dance because they heard it on the radio in the car on the way to work one day, and when they did, they thought, “if I were at the club I would totally dance to this.”  (And everyone knows that when the girls jump up and dance, all the guys mindlessly follow.)  So by that measure, I’d have to say that in spite of being mindless pop drivel, this is a damn good song because it’s been playing in my head nonstop for about two months, and I still don’t hate it.

Here’s the Fred Falke Radio remix, which has found its way into regular rotation in my more mainstream gigs.

Kesha – Tik Tok (Fred Falke Radio remix).mp3

is a band I could stand to hear more from.  I mean, what’s not to love? Their roots are in the midwest (the Oklahoma City area, to be specific), they have a great electroclash sound, they cover 80s songs in fine fashion… I’m a fan.

I first heard of them around 2005 or so, when their first popular single Le Disko was getting a lot of air play:

Shiny Toy Guns – Le Disko.mp3

They’ve also done a couple fantastic 80s covers, one of which you probably heard in a Lincoln MKZ commercial.

Shiny Toy Guns – Major Tom.mp3

And here’s their rework of the Blue Oyster Cult classic, Burnin’ For You, which was used in another Lincoln commercial, this time for the MKS.

Shiny Toy Guns – Burnin For You.mp3

Oh, and I almost forgot their rendition of Puttin’ on the Ritz:

Shiny Toy Guns – Ritz.mp3