I had planned to create a Downbeat mix for a while. However, this mix is not your typical chill out-style mix, but something that sounds down-to-earth and alien at the same time. Based on straight HipHop grooves, it’s probably a good soundtrack to dust off your favorite smoking tool…

Nerditional information: Dadamnphreaknoizphunk used to be just a collection of Downbeat tracks by the Acid-Techno veterans Hardfloor. After two EPs that were so different from what they normally produce, they decided to separate their musical activities into these two projects. I have been a big fan of their Downbeat tracks for quite a while, and it is great to see how their original Acid-TripHop evolved over time. It started with just some TripHop beats and effected 303 sounds, but their latest album even has vocals. Love it!

Talking about TripHop, you can’t get around mentioning Massive Attack. Being (more or less) the inventors of that sound, it’s great to see that they’re still active and produce great material. However, their older releases (like the beautiful Teardrop) still sound fresh.

I got to know Dynamo Productions through their releases on Unique Records which was one of my favorite labels for quite a while. I have to admit that I lost track of their releases a while ago, but their Funky-HipHop-Breakbeat style still resonates with me.

Tracklist:

1. The Avalanches – Frontier Psychiatrist
2. Dynamo Productions – Back To Basics (Jimi Entley Sound Remix)
3. Dadamnphreaknoizphunk – Orange Crush
4. Spatnej Wliw – Den 9 (RMX Instrumental)
5. Erwin Lehn Orchestra and Stereo MCs – Color
6. Hardfloor – Dubdope
7. Röyksopp – Eple
8. Fever Ray – When I Grow Up (Version by Lissvik)
9. Massive Attack – Pray For Rain (Tim Goldsworthy Remix)
10. Dynamo Productions – Hey Yeah!
11. Kinobe – Summer In The Studio

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rizzato/2435080104/ // CC-by-nc

With 20 years of turntable experience and about 2.500 live gigs, Mike S.Kreama certainly has a story or two to tell. When I prepared for the interview with him, it wasn’t easy for me to make sense out of the long list of things he has done already.

Good thing that Mike is an open and friendly guy and helped me understand his history and his idea on good music. Let’s start with an exclusive mix from him:

“I used to play in various Funk, Ska and Reggae bands, and that still influences me as a DJ. I played drums, guitar and bass guitar, and I still like electronic music with some organic elements in it. I also have tons of oldschool HipHop and Electro vinyl at home. These are my roots.”

With these roots, it’s no wonder that DJ S.Kreama has developed a preference for Breakbeats and other funky electronic sounds. Techno has remained somewhat alien to him.

“I was interested in Techno and Goa sounds for a short time years ago, but I quickly sold all the records that I had bought from those genres. Techno is too similar to military march music to me, and my music is a kind of protest against this. Straight beats are ok sometimes, but it mustn’t be too dull and simple. I like rhythms with a little bit of shuffle in them.”

If I wanted to explain to someone how to promote yourself via social media, I would probably use DJ S.Kreama as a positive example. He does a great job of promoting himself and his buddies through various platforms such as Blip.fm, Twitter or SoundCloud.

“I wasn’t really aware of the power of social media until about a year ago. I have a friend who organizes underground parties in Miami, and he is promoting his parties mostly through social media. He explained this to me and since then, I really got the hang of it and use it a lot to promote myself and my friends or get in touch with other DJs from around the world. I get really good feedback, too. You just have to give people something that they value, that’s how you can be successful in the networks.”

Being a sound designer by education, Mike has been lucky to work on several music-related film productions. He is particularly proud of Sonic Mirror, a film about Billy Cobham.

“Billy Cobham is an awesome Jazz drummer, and it was a great pleasure to work on this movie. We really travelled around the world and traced his roots with him. He was also sampled by Massive Attack for their song “Safe From Harm“. I can’t say that I was this lucky all the time, but having had the opportunity to work with music I love means a lot to me.”

I am always looking for good music, so what could be better than good music coming to me?

Ellie from Kentucky-based Indietronic band Fair Heron sent me some of their songs to share with you, and since their stuff is cool I am happy to feature them here.

Their sound is both melodic and progressive and reminds me a bit of Fever Ray or Ninca Leece. While I would normally say that this is more for listening than for dancing, Ellie told me that their live shows are “generally pretty dancey”. So I guess that’s one more reason for promoting them: To get them to tour internationally so that I can see them live.

Here are some songs from their “Now Carla EP” for download:

Fair Heron – Digi Quilt

Fair Heron – This Is My Mogley

Fair Heron – Empathetic As A Ghost

And by the way, if you play in a band, produce electronic music are if you are a DJ and you think your style fits to what I usually feature here, just drop me a line through the contact page.

After my last lesson, I sat down with the two founders Björn Torwellen (B-T / Decksharks / Datany)  and Jeyênne (XPQ-21 / Jeyênne) and talked about how the Electronic Music School came to life.

Björn Torwellen

“The idea came to me one night when I couldn’t sleep. I had been teaching courses on Ableton Live before, but I just had this idea of a room full of audio equipment and students learning to work with that, like in a normal music school.” (Björn Torwellen)

While there is certainly no shortage of electronic music producers, one can notice a lack of quality in many productions. This is one of the reasons why the school was founded.

“Producing music has become dramatically easier and cheaper than it used to be. However, a lot of music isn’t well-produced, either on the technical or on the creative side. Apart from that, there are so many creative tools and techniques to choose from that a lot of people simply end up being confused. We want to serve as a guide in this confusion and show people what they really need and give them a good foundation for their creativity. For example, at the beginning of the first producer course, one student asked me what equipment or software he had to buy to become a good producer. When he told me what equipment he had at home, I just told him that he already had everything he needed.” (Björn Torwellen)

While the school has been getting very positive feedback so far, there are also a lot of challenges involved in running it. One of them is a lack of examples to learn from. With its aim to combine elements from music theory, audio engineering and electronic music culture, it’s hard to find something that is similar to this approach.

Jeyênne (XPQ-21)

“There are classical music schools out there, and there are courses for people who want to be professional audio engineers. Both is interesting, but that’s not what we want. When Björn called me and told me about what he wanted to, I immediately agreed to join because I felt that this was exactly the kind of combination that wasn’t there already.” (Jeyênne)

“We had to make assumptions on how to teach this, and we are changing things all the time when we feel something can be improved. For example, we learned that plain software courses for Cubase or Ableton Live are not enough. It’s not enough to just teach people how to use a certain software and there are already courses where you can learn that. We are aiming for a more holistic approach and try to teach things that you really need to produce good music. I also assumed that people would want to work with our equipment (synthesizers, mixers, MIDI controllers, …), but most people are happy to bring their laptop along and work on that.” (Björn Torwellen)

The school has just been around for a couple of months now, but it’s already growing. Apart from courses and workshops on various topics (producing, mastering, marketing, circuit bending, sound synthesis, …), Björn and Jeyênne are preparing to teach in other cities as well. Vianna, Munich, Linz and Dortmund are just some of the cities they will visit in the near future.

“We are also working on a book and several DVDs right now. We first thought that this would hurt our business, but now we actually think that this will strengthen us. Everything we teach can already be learned through books or the internet, but it’s just different to learn from a person than from a book or a computer. I think the book and the DVDs will help us to reach even more people and make our name well-known. I also hope that we will be able to build a community around the school. I hope we can stay in touch with our alumni and I’d be happy to see some activity coming from the people that we taught.” (Björn Torwellen)

“We are also preparing courses for kids and we hope to be able to reach out to other music communities. When you think of electronic music, you often only think about House and Techno, and that’s what most of current students are actually interested in. To me, it doesn’t stop here. A lot of HipHop, Pop or even Gothic/Industrial music is mostly electronic music and we would love to teach people how to do that, too.” (Jeyênne)

Here’s some music so you can see that those two guys actually know what they are talking about:

Björn Torwellen – Dekadent Disco

“We Shit Bits” , a DJ Set by Björn Torwellen

XPQ 21 – Rockin’ Silver Knight

XPQ 21 – Hey You

When I do an interview with an artist / DJ, I don’t do it like a neutral journalist. I am a music nerd, and I do care about the music and the people that I write about.

However, doing a good interview is not easy. I tried various approaches and formats over the years, and my current approach reflects what I have learned. I’ll start with explaining how interviews are typically done to contrast that with my approach.

Record & cut: Lots of work for a little bit of content

I started doing interviews at the local student radio station when I was a student myself. When we started the initiative to create our own radio station, we turned to experienced radio journalists and learned from them. The first approach that we used a lot was to take a mobile audio recorder, go to the person we wanted to interview, ask our questions and then cut out the best parts. A radio-friendly interview was not supposed to take longer than 3 minutes.

This approach works, but recording and cutting the material is very time-consuming. You often ended up working an hour or more for one minute of interview.There is also one strange effect that I noticed a lot: People often said the most interesting things when the microphone was off before and after the interview. During the interview, a lot of people just talked very unnaturally, probably because they were afraid to say something wrong.

Live-interviews: Bad for shy artists

Live interviews combined with DJ sets seemed to be a great idea to me at first. You just invited an interesting DJ / producer to your studio, let him play his music and interview him in between. This approach is a lot better as you have more time and you can easily combine a good impression of the artist’s sound and the person behind it. I used that approach for quite a while, both at the student radio station as well as in the shows that I played at various web radio stations.

For me, this works quite well if I have an artist in front of me who is comfortable with speaking into a microphone and can talk straight to the point. However, not everyone is like that. Many times, I had guest DJs that played great sets, but were just too shy to present themselves well when being interviewed. I also got the impression that some people don’t like to listen to people talking in the middle of a DJ set. Even if the talk is interesting, it still interrupts the music.

What I do today: Talk & summarize

So this is what I do to today: I meet with the DJ / artist that I want to interview. We sit down, have a few beers, talk and simply have a good time. I take notes on the side that I use later to write the article. I do ask questions, but I don’t do a formal interview, and I am definitely not neutral in the interview since I like to comment, challenge or support the words of my interview partner. I also do interviews via phone sometimes, but that just means you have to leave out the beer.

After that, I take my notes and try to identify the topics that we talked about. There are often one or two topics that I find especially interesting in retrospective, and I try to choose those topics that my interview partner either has a distinct view on or a good story to tell about. For example, Elodie & Thompson talked a lot about their experiences in Ibiza, and CJ Masou’s topic was the combination of electronic music and Jazz.

I then condense these topics into a few paragraphs and add a few quotes from the artist. These quotes are often not something that my interview partner said word by word, but mostly a condensed version of what he said. A “real” journalist would probably scoff on that, but this approach helps me to show my perspective of the person behind the music a lot better than the other approaches. I also think that I am doing the artists a favor if I don’t give them the pressure of having to speak in a radio-friendly way. So far, the feedback was very positive.

I also ask my interview partners for a photo that they are comfortable with and a DJ set or other examples of their music. I think it’s important to have the interview, the music and some pictures together since that gives you a much better impression than just a magazine article or a radio interview. However, I believe that it’s better to separate the music from the words so that they don’t interfere with each other.

To conclude this, I would like to say that doing interviews and getting to know interesting people in the process is what I enjoy most about running this website – and that’s why I keep doing it.

This mix was created in a way that is similar to how I cook: Start with a few basic ingredients. Take your time. Start adding spices. Taste. Add more spices. Repeat tasting and adding spices until taste is good.

If you like slow and dirty grooves, then you will like this!

Nerditional information: With only around 118 BPM, this mix is slower than most club music. However, I don’t think it lacks energy. It just has a different groove.

When I started selecting tracks for this mix, I remembered Westbam’s “Loud&Slow” label that he started in the late 90s. The label didn’t really live long, but I still like the idea behind this: To explore the slower grooves in electronic music and show that you don’t always have to go hard and fast to make people dance.

Maybe that idea just came a little early. Most of the tracks in this mix were released in recent years, like the awesome “Cooler Coleur” by the Crookers and Yelle. While the Crookers have become very successful producers in the last few years, probably not too many people have heard of french singer Yelle – which is a shame because she plays such a pleasant and energetic Electropop sound that you don’t have to understand the vocals which are typically in French.

paniq from Hamburg is in this mix with a great rework of the Knight Rider theme. I was a huge Knight Rider fan when I was a kid and that track reminded me of that.

By the way, he runs a project called “The Most Remarkable Album On This Entire Planet” right now in which he tries to get an album financed in advance through web-based fundraising. The donation deadline hasn’t run out yet, but paniq already collected all the money he needed to produce the album. Respect! And even more respect for releasing so much great music under a Creative Commons license!

Tracklist:

1. paniq – Psy Rider
2. Crookers feat. Yelle – Cooler Couleur (Junkie XL Remix)
3. ACDC – Back in Black (Dirty Funker Powerpack Vocal Mix)
4. Daft Punk vs. Gorillaz – 19-2000 Funk
5. Midfield General – Disco Sirens (Chicken Lips Dub)
6. Westbam meets Can – …and more
7. Plastique De Reve – Lost In The City
8. Filthy Dukes – This Rhythm
9. Munk – Back Down (Cut Copy Jackmaster Remix)
10. Drums of Death – DODFUCKSUPANESCOTTUNE

I seem to have a talent for finding DJs who are about to leave the country. After interviewing Elodie & Thompson who left for Ibiza for the summer, one of the first things that Alex B. Groove told me when I asked him for an interview:

“Sure, we can do the interview, but we have to make it soon as I am about to leave for Barranquilla in Colombia for two years.”

I hope it’s not me who’s driving good DJs out of the country…

Anyway, here’s a DJ set by Alex B. Groove that he gave me to share with you.

It’s a busy time for Alex right now. Not only is he packing all of his stuff into boxes to get them shipped to another continent, but he is also in the process of making the video for his new single “You Make Me”.

“The video is going to be awesome! There are some great people like the director Axel Schulten working on th video. We all just want the video to look perfect. Also the singer, Alison Degbe, is acting so good and let´s not forget the wonderfull styling and make up lady Baffy Schroth. I am so grateful for that, and I am very happy with the results so far. We just need a few more sunny days to film the last few scenes.”

Without friends, you are not really going anywhere in the music scene. This lesson is very important to Alex B. Groove, and while he has collected a lot of valuable contacts over the years, it is very important for him to always be friendly and down-to-earth.

“I was introduced to a professional producer at a party when I was still a teenager. We got along quite well, and I often visited him in his studio and learnt a lot from him. In the first year, I usually sat behind him in the studio. In the second year, I sat next to him. Finally, in the third year, he let me sit in front of him in the studio. That was a very important time for me. In the following years, I worked in the music business as an A&R, but this job is not good for an idealist like me. You just have to justify your decisions all the time to people who don’t really care about music. However, during those years, I got to know a lot of people that I am still in contact with today. It’s a give-and-take, but it’s important to refresh people’s memory from time to time. For example, that’s how I got to do a remix for the well-known German HipHop band Die Fantastischen Vier. We both come from the same region, we met a few times and they liked my sound.”

With such a strong network in Germany, leaving the country seems to be a big risk for his musical career. Following his girlfriend, who accepted a position as a teacher in Colombia, Alex wants to concentrate on making music and trying out new things – and he is optimistic about that.

“I know it won’t be easy there because no one knows me. However, I will have my musical equipment with me and I will continue making music. I would also love to get in contact with local musicians and see what I could do with them. Apart from House music, I have also produced quite a bit of Lounge music with my band Senator Plus, and getting an authentic latin flavor into my Lounge productions would be great.”

Update: Here is the video for “You Make Me”.

I got so much positive feedback for my recent Swing House mix that I just had to do another one. So here we swing again!

Nerditional information:

Both Sarah Vaughan tracks are on the awesome Verve Remixed Vol.3 compilation. Verve is a truly classic Jazz label that was founded in 1956(!) and is still active today, and they opened up their archives to a couple of good remixers in the last few years. If you like a good blend of electronic music and Jazz, get these compilations! Yes, I mean all of them!

Mark Knight & Funkagenda’s “The Man With The Red Face” is  - of course – a remake of Laurent Garnier’s classic. While this one was probably designed specifically for Ibiza’s dancefloors, I still like it for its dynamic and truly anthemic sound.

Oh, and did I mention that I can’t get enough of Parov Stelar’s sound?

Tracklist:

1. Danuel Tate – Pushcard
2. James Jackson – What’s That!?! (David Jones & Neuroxyde Remix)
3. Parov Stelar – Libella Swing
4. Zee Code – Everybody’s Dancing (Tanzamono Extended Mix)
5. Sarah Vaughan – Fever (Adam Freeland Remix)
6. Mark Knight & Funagenda – The Man With The Red Face
7. Caravan Palace – La Caravane
8. Oliver Twizt – Another Step
9. Parov Stelar – Starlight
10. Sarah Vaughan – Peter Gunn (Max Sedgley Remix)

Have you ever watched a fire at night? I find it totally fascinating to just look into a fire and follow my own thoughts.

I don’t know if you can follow me here, but this DJ set tries to capture a similar mood: The contrast between cold darkness and a bright fire that dances in the dark…

Nerditional Information:

The opener track “Blaue Moschee” by Die Vögel is one of those strange hits that pop up from time to time: It’s a real dancefloor burner in the clubs right now even though it sounds very strange and different to other Techno tracks. Nevertheless, I really like that trumpet sound here, and it’s rare to have that swing feel in a Techno track.

I have been following Hardfloor for years now, and I am still fascinated with their simple yet anthemic Acid productions. They just keep releasing great tracks, and they have been around for a long time already. Their other project Dadamnphreaknoizphunk is also worth listening to. While Hardfloor productions are usually straight Techno bangers, the tracks by Dadamnphreaknoizphunk are more on the Trip-Hop side.

Leschet & Wilde is a duo from Cologne that is already famous for their wild live acts. Irwin Leschet, one half of that duo, is also a resident of the regular Silberschwein-parties that has a real pig-shaped disco ball as a mascot. They also started with their own label a while ago, and the first two releases are already great examples of how you can make deep dancefloor music without being cheesy or overly abstract.

Finally, I would like to highlight the track “Zoom” by Barem. This is a great example for a netaudio release that you can even download for free . I am often impressed by how much great electronic music is available for free on the net – makes one wonder about those superstar DJs even more.

Tracklist:

1. Die Vögel – Blaue Moschee
2. Vinyl – The Weasel
3. Hardfloor – Who Took Da Box
4. Depeche Mode – Everything Counts (Oliver Huntemann Remix)
5. Barem – Zoom
6. Shane – Reaching For The Stars
7. Westbam – Die Dunkelsequenz
8. Rob Acid – On Fire
9. New Delhi FM – Cable Pollution Results
10. Leschet & Wilde – Autummatik (Heiko Voss & Geiger Remix)
11. Jamie Fisher – The Calm Before The Storm (Deluna Remix)

A broken reference on a music blog might not seem like a big deal, but this particular case is one that I find very annoying. I am talking about the video “Stylo” from the Gorillaz.

Normally, when I am looking for a video, I go to YouTube, like most people do. For me, YouTube (and other video portals) have become the true successor to MTV since they stopped concentrating on music. YouTube is usually a great source for music video from all different genres, and I often use YouTube videos as references.

However, a while ago, YouTube introduced a technology called geoblocking . Essentially, what it means is that you can or cannot view certain videos depending on the country you are accessing that video from.

Geoblocking is relatively easy to circumvent, but when I referenced that video, I didn’t want to give my readers the hassle of having to figure that out. So I looked for a different source – and finally found one on Dailymotion. This worked for a while, but apparently it was an unauthorized video upload and they removed it.

Of course, anybody wanting to see the video will certainly find it, but this shows a serious problem of video portals: You can’t use them as an archive.
You can never know if any video will be taken down for legal or business reasons. And just because something is released in one country does not mean it will ever be accessible in any other country.

I can see the business logic behind this kind of decision, since from a marketing standpoint, you might want to have full control over what is realeased when in which country.
Nevertheless, from a cultural point of view, I am strongly against this kind of technology.

Music is an important part of our culture, and the internet should be used to enable access to it, not restrict it.

Anyway, the video is still cool, so here it is again. I hope it stays there.