Futurists

I lived in Ireland for a while, working at a large bank in Dublin. It took me about an hour to walk to work every day, and an hour to walk back afterwards (for those who know the city, I lived in Terenure, Dublin 6W, while working in Ballsbridge and Donnybrook, Dublin 4). The results of this were twofold; one, I got into pretty good shape walking a good two hours every day (in a suit no less), and two, I listened to a heck of a lot of different music during my walks.

of all the mixes I listened to during that time, perhaps the most memorable were two dancehall mixes spun by an Irish DJ called Droid, of Droid + Slug, a pair of DJs normally known for spinning old skool, jungle, dubstep, etc. I think these dancehall mixes may have been a bit out of the ordinary for this pair.

I’d already been into dancehall to some extent, having previously attended several Dub Island Soundsystem jams here in Charleston, SC. Droid’s mixes took this to a new level, however, if only due to the sheer amount of time I spent walking around Dublin while listening to them.

the mixes are called Droid Inna Dancehall Volume 1 – Basement Bashment and Droid Inna Dancehall Volume 2 – Alternate Roots (free downloads of zip files of the music can be found down the page, as well as track listings and explanations of what Droid was up to).

perhaps the most interesting thing about the first mix is that it leads off with a track by µ-Ziq (heavy electronica) and mixes with a bagpipe riddim (dancehall). The mix is strictly dancehall after that. In Droid’s own words it doesn’t quite work, but it certainly does add interest to the mix, and I doubt such a pairing of these widely different genres has been attempted before.

Futurists – melodic trance sample 01 (C2-C4) (download here).

Futurists – melodic trance sample 01 example (download here).

in the spirit of sharing, I’ve uploaded a melodic trance sample for you to use in your productions, if you can find a use for it. I made it by modifying a sound from the Waldorf Blofeld; for example, I completely chopped the release off the envelope, changed the shape of the oscillators, randomized the LFO, and so on. I didn’t, however, use any software to filter or compress it in any way.

the sample comprises two full octaves, starting at C2 and hitting every note between that and C4. In order to use it you’ll have to cut it up using Ableton Live, or Pro Tools, or whatever you use. You can also cut off the delay from the sample if you don’t want that plucky ringing sound in your song. I’ve also added an example of what the sample might sound like if you gave it a melody at 135 BPM.

let me know if there are any other samples you might want me to cook up, and I’ll be glad to give it a shot.

a few posts back I mentioned my old friend Brian Neckel from Detroit (now living in Louisville), with whom I occasionally collaborate on some music (I’m still waiting for that up-tempo Bobbins Remix by the way). I thought now might be a good time to offer up a link to one of his mixes!

so here it is, a minimal techno mix called MNML 502. You’ll note there is a free download link on the page, so snag it and stick it in your rotation!

a couple of posts ago I made an offhand reference to Ishkur’s Guide to Electronic Music. I suppose this is a “re-link” but it’s definitely worth pointing out; Ishkur’s Guide is a valiant attempt to make sense of how electronic music has evolved through the past decades, and what the “electronic music map” looks like today.

it should also be mentioned that Kenneth John Taylor, the lone gunman behind the site (and a Canadian I might add, as indicated by the site’s wiki page), is pretty opinionated about certain forms of electronic music (for example, check out what he has to say about Dutch Trance), but his colorful musings only serve to add to the charm of this site. I recommend finding a good chunk of free time and spending a couple of hours clicking your way through this very colorful history of electronic music.

lately I’ve been jamming to some excellent old school house mixes, mixed by DJ Scott Miller, on the Classic House Mixes podcast site. As the site promises, they feature “over 25 deep, soulful, vocal, gospel, classic to fresh quality house music mixes and podcasts”. This is all fine and good, but what it amounts to to me is a journey back to the year 1989, when house music was huge in Chicago and, among other places, Toronto (where I grew up).

I think the mixes are pretty good, though truthfully I was never (and am still not) as into “soulful, vocal house” as I was into the more dance-ready, club-oriented tunes generated by such producers as Steve “Silk” Hurley, Todd Terry Project, Royal House, and so on. Nonetheless, these mixes are definitely worth a listen, and will bring back some excellent memories, if you have them, of one of my favorite eras of music.

P.S. Because I get a lot of searches for this quote, I thought I’d mention here that “What we’re gonna do right here is go back” was featured in the 1988 house music hit Weekend by the Todd Terry Project. The original sample, however, comes from the 1972 song Troglodyte (Cave Man) by the Jimmy Castor Bunch.

P.P.S. For more classic, vocal, acid and hip house, check out this more recent post.

Futurists – Clatter (November 30, 2009) (download here).

well okay, maybe it took a bit longer than two minutes. But, I did crank this song out in a single day.

yesterday afternoon I headed to the local Barnes & Noble, got myself a venti coffee (1/3 caffeine, 2/3 decaf), sat down in the café, put on my headphones (Sony MDR-7506 for the curious) and started cranking out this tune. While I was working I must admit I frequently checked the Carolina/Clemson game on ESPN, but it didn’t slow me down too much. I got most of the song done there; the rest I finished after dinner. I put a few finishing touches on it just now.

I was going for a dark, pounding club tune with a relentlessly driving beat, which is pretty much what I ended up with. I asked my good friend Brian, a DJ and producer from Detroit, to help me classify it, and was surprised when he said “Techno” – there are so gosh darn many different varieties of techno out there these days that I suppose I expected it to be something fancier – but he’s right, it’s pretty much techno. Granted, after he said that, he did add, “with Electro influences”!

so here it is. It may not be Freedom Rock, but… turn it up!

Futurists – Globules (Acid Remix) (November 28, 2009) (download here).

here’s an acid trance remix of Globules, a melodic trance song I created a while back.  When I say acid trance, I’m hearkening back to the glory days of trance – not the sweeping, epic trance of today, but that of the early 90s, during which a style of music developed that some would consider ‘true trance’.

it’s been a lot of fun remixing a trance song into an acid song, and challenging, too.  My sequence is littered with “stuff I tried” – lots of high-pass filter sweeps, side-chain compression, bleeps and bloops, cymbal crashes, etc, that currently have their channels off because they just didn’t work.  In the end, the song is quite minimal, with some mixing it up with the sample from Alan Shepard’s moonwalk, a few instruments carefully placed here and there, and a driving beat that I’ve attempted to use to lull listeners into the so-called trance.

that being said, there’s work I could do to make this remix better.  The beginning and ending are not particularly strong – I’ve done this to make the song easier for a DJ to mix with other songs, but the ending certainly doesn’t stand on its own very well.  Nonetheless, it’s time to shelve this one for a while, to get back to finishing some of the other tracks I’ve been working on.

I have neglected to mention why I named the songs I’ve made so far on this site, the names I’ve given them.

Globules is a space-themed song, complete with an audio sample of Alan Shepard’s moonwalk from over forty years ago.  I named this song after Bok globules, dense clouds of dust and gas that are some of the coldest objects in the universe.  I’m big on astronomy, and thought the name rather fitting.

Bobbins, of course, are spindles, often holding yarn, wire or film.  However, Bobbins is also a British term that indicates that something is junk (though I guess the British would call it “rubbish”).  When I first started creating Bobbins I didn’t find it that good, and named it as such.  It progressed from that point, but I kept the name.  There is also a character from the Oz books named Betsy Bobbin, for whom I did not name the song, but she comes up when you do a wiki search, that’s got to count for something.

one place I make sure to visit from time to time is New Mixes, a site hosting a variety of DJ mixes of different electronic genres.  Lately they’ve been having some difficulties keeping links to their mixes active (as of this writing, only the most recent of mixes are downloadable – but they’re great).  I’ve had the Nature One 2009 mixes on repeat at work since they arrived on the site last August.  At any rate, highly recommended.

Soundlord – Mindwipe (1999) (download here).

Mindwipe is one of the first songs I ever made, back in 1999 or so, as soundlord. The intro is too long, and the quality is pretty poor, but I still think I’m going to have a hard time topping the last two minutes of the song (starting at about 3:16). Crank it and see what you think.

one of my future projects is to turn that final two minutes into a full song. It’s trancy (perhaps somewhat ahead of its time considering I made it in the late 90s) and has some killer arpeggios. If I can remix the song to get rid of the first three minutes and keep the good stuff, that might be a win!