Normally when an artist returns for a followup album, that album does one of two things: It either picks up where the debut album left off and sounds exactly the way you expected it to, or it branches off in an entirely new direction, and draws on a completely new set of influences. MSTRKRFT’s Fist of God sounded nothing like The Looks, both Simian Mobile Disco’s Temporary Pleasure and Boys Noize’s Power sounded more or less the same as Attack Decay Sustain Release and Oi Oi Oi respectively. Keep in mind, though, this applies only normally.

Skream’s followup to his 2005 self titled debut was released just shy of a week ago, and without even hearing it, I think we should all be able to agree that this Bristol-based producer is just about the farthest from normal one can get. Would you have thought to do what he did to La Roux’s “In For the Kill” vocal? Neither would I.

Had he been in compliance with the above pattern, there are two things we could have expected from Outside the Box. The first would have been twelve tracks of wobbling, abrasive, disgusting computer noise, and the second would have been something similar to the deep, minimalistic dub of Skream!, but like I mentioned, Skream didn’t get where he is today by simply meeting listeners’ expectations. After all, though it may never have occurred until now, one can assume the album is called Outside the Box for a reason.

To say the least Outside the Box surprised me. But I’m not going to say the least. I’m go to go all the way, and say that Outside the Box is the most innovative thing to come to the dubstep world since Fabric Live 37. Not only does Skream manage to cater to fans of both his heavy grime and his deeper, truer dub styles, but he simultaneously brings aboard an entirely new sound, perfectly crafted to nestle up close to the other two. What sound might that be? I’ve heard funky, I’ve heard poppy, and I’ve certainly heard 90′s ravey, but personally, I think it’s all that and more.

What do you think?

Skream – Perforated

Skream – How Real Ft. Freckles

Skream – Reflections

You just put a quarter in one of those Zoltar fortune-telling machines, and I’m about to pull the last five years of your life out of thin air. The year is 2005, and if the 2010 version of you were to travel back in time and inform old you that in five years you’d be listening to music that’s made almost entirely on a computer, the ghost of Christmas past would likely be heading home with broken nose. You are a firm believer that all good music is centered around a guitar in some way shape or form. That’s not to say that you’re morally opposed to synthesizers in a band’s lineup, but electronics can only compliment guitars and drums, not replace them altogether. Your collection of music includes a couple of electronic musicians here and there, though to be fair, most of them are the ones that are talented enough to prevent you from ever considering how their music is made.

You may permit the occasional M83, The Album Leaf, or perhaps you’re younger than that and are more keen on the untamable shrieking of the Blood Brothers. But mostly you’re attracted to bands like Bloc Party, Midnight Juggernauts, and VHS or Beta. Bands that are rather talented and trick you into forgetting they’re electronic at all. Long story short: while you may be able to pull it off on rare occasions, the majority of the time you wouldn’t be caught dead listening to anything more than The Faint for fear of being associated with (shudder) techno.

Then 2006 comes around and suddenly Daft Punk is okay. What’s the deal with that? They’re completely electronic, and there’s no getting around it, but for some reason, everyone you know has their discography, and it is not cool to make fun of them for it, nor is it cool for you to point out the fact that Homework was released in 1999. Nope, you’re supposed to eat your words and act like all three albums were released that very year. So what do you do? You accept it for what it is: Daft Punk = cool. Infected Mushroom = still not cool. Titanic theme song techno remix = definitely not cool. You’ve officially added all of Daft Punk’s albums to your collection. Other than that, not much has changed. You’re still wearing your hair like the dude from AFI (a haircut that would later make it’s way into the electronic music scene in the form of DJ Paparazzi), and you still can’t tell me what a four on the floor beat is. But here’s where the line really starts to blur.

Late 2006- Early 2007: The year your one friend who happened to know about the Hype Machine at the time discovered __________ (insert either MSTRKRFT or Justice in the blank). Now, this kid was always a little strange with his music taste, so when he hands you one of his two earbuds and plays you (Easy Love / Waters of Nazareth), you’re reluctant at first. That is, you know it sounds good, and you know it’s fresh, but at the same time, you’ve spent years defining yourself as one of those guys that respects music too much to sink down to the level of electronica, and you’re not about to just up and say you like it. You decide that “sounds interesting” is the appropriate response, and you put it on the back burner, intending to forget about it. But it haunts you. Every time you finish an album and consider the ever present “what should I listen to next?” enigma, your mind jumps to that “The Looks/Cross” torrent you downloaded a week ago. Is it the right time? Are you feeling confident enough in your musical masculinity? Eventually you cave, and you give them album a once over to get it out of your system–except your plans change, and somehow, it makes it into your daily rotation, and before you know it you’re listening to an entirely electronic album just as much as you listen to everything else. What’s going on? You’re not allowed to like this. You try even harder to convince yourself that you don’t like it, but it’s impossibly clear that you do, and there’s nothing you’re going to be able to do to change it. This feels even worse than that time you got caught telling your shampoo bottle to “Move bitch, get out da way.” The stone cold realization hits you: You’re going to have to change scenes, because (and trust me, there’s definitely no pun intended here) the “scenesters” just aren’t going to accept the person you’ve become.

Before you know it, your Misfits shirts have gone out the window, and you’ve replaced them with graphic tees depicting mostly naked women. (And it’s okay because the look is “artsy” and “in good taste.”) You’ve discovered house music, and with each new album you acquire your pants become a little bit more colorful. (I’d say they got tighter too, but that wouldn’t be fair to those who had already maxed out the slim cap by stringing dental floss through their leggings.) Suddenly, you find your music collection is growing as though it had invested in Google. By the time another year has gone by, not only has your music collection doubled in size, but you also find that listening to Avenged Sevenfold just doesn’t seem appropriate anymore. Even further, you now find yourself slightly repulsed by those who haven’t managed to follow the same path you did, and you’re constantly asking yourself how they can be satisfied listening to the monotonous drone of same-sounding guitars, when there’s a world of unlimited potential for sound into which they haven’t even considered wandering. However, the one thing you don’t consider, and likely still haven’t considered even now as were moving through 2010, is the impact that your transition into the hipster scene has had on your perception of music in general.

So Now What?

So here we are now. We’ve arrived in the present, and are now faced with a new set of rules. Give me an artist, and I’ll give you a number between 1 and 10, indicating how acceptable it is for a member of the hipster scene to listen to them/him/her (1 being completely unacceptable).

Daft Punk: 10
Slipknot: 1
Laidback Luke: 10
Sigur Ros: 9
Green Day: 3
Oasis: 7 (They’re not electronic, but they’re one of those bands that is, for some reason, accepted as remixable.)
Massive Attack: 7 (Electronic, but not so hipster-y. Minus three.)
Royksopp: 9
Paul Van Dyk/Oakenfold: 5 (Electronic but dated; better left for outsiders and the uninformed.)
Rusko: 9 (So-called purists would likely protest)
The Bloody Beetroots: 8 (Used to be a ten, but they’ve since been rejected by the mainstream opposition.)
The Yeah Yeah Yeah’s: 8 (For the same reason as Oasis. though to be fair, remixes are more acceptable than originals.)

I could go on, but I’m sure you get the idea. The big picture themes are nothing more than:

A) Electronic dance music is always okay, unless it’s trance, drum ‘n’ bass, or was produced before 2006.
B) Rock is sometimes okay, depending on what the people in the band look like, and how remixable their material is.
C) Classics are allowed, assuming you either remix the tunes, or use them tastefully.
D) Metal, and all it’s derivatives, is never allowed, unless you make it with synthesizers and call it dubstep.
E) Dubstep is okay, unless it sounds too much like metal.
F) Punk is okay if it incorporates some kind of electronic component.
G) Hip-hop is treated like a controlled substance. It essentially boils down to circumstance, and depends on how far-removed from electronic dance music it is. Artist intelligence is also a contributing factor.
H) Classical is okay, as long as you listen with confidence.
I) Most everything else is neither acceptable nor unacceptable, but if you get too into any of it, it’s just weird.

So that’s how it works. By reading this blog, you’re defining yourself as a hipster, and as such, your music of choice is not, in fact, music of choice at all. It’s chosen for you. And just like so many of us were missing out on electronic music when we were busy convincing ourselves that it wasn’t okay, who’s to say we aren’t still missing out on a world of fantastic music by allowing our hard drive’s to be brain washed by the momentum of expectations? I won’t stand for it!

Today, for the sake of liking good music for good music, we’re bending all the rules and listening to all the tunes we technically shouldn’t touch with a ten-foot poking stick. And who knows, maybe tomorrow, we’ll still be doing it.

Spor – Aztec
[It's Drum N Bass, and I don't care]

Me Gusta – Megadrive
[It's Hip-Hop, and I don't care]

Flux Pavilion – Got 2 Know
[It's trancy, and I don't care]

Rusko – Da Cali Anthem
[It's both massively mainstream and poorly produced, and I don't care]

The Beatles are known to a rather large portion of people as one of, if not the greatest band in history, and this is likely due, in large part, to the near legendary status the band has achieved through the extended amount of time they’ve spent in the limelight, the worldwide, simultaneous acceptance of their music, and to the stories that have thusly been passed down through several generations (although as of this month, the stories will very likely cease to be passed on, and will hereby be replaced by “Rock Band,” and quite naturally, an entire generation of children shouting, “Hey wait! How did those guys know Rock Band songs before the game was even invented?”). But let us, for the sake of this point, pretend that the Beatles had started their revolutionary work in 2009, rather than in the 60′s. If their music had been able to spread across the world in a matter of only a couple minutes, rather than several years, would they have made such a substantial impact? Or would would the constant music stimulation from blogs and instant media sources allow them to fall out of the mainstream just as easily as they came into it?

Either way, there’s no denying the fact that today’s music industry moves very fast. I recall a time only a few years back when dj’s who chose to drop an electro track at a party would quickly find themselves either spinning for an empty house, or would be continuously bombarded by the infamous, “Can you play something I can dance to?” request. And yet here we are today, listening to MSTRKRFT‘s Heartbreaker on mainstream radio and watching Will.I.Am morph into Zuper Blahq. That means that it took only three years for electro to go from completely unheard of to full on mainstream, and I’m convinced that this is, whether or not we want to accept it, the way of the future.

So what, you might ask, got me thinking about all this hypothetical junk? Strangely enough, it wasn’t the Beatles, and it wasn’t electro; It was dubstep. In thinking about this emerging genre, it is impossible to ignore the plethora of ties that it has to the electro world (and no, not it terms of sound, but rather of progression). Electro started out completely underground, and then gathered attention by including hip hop verses and associating itself with the mainstream hiphop world, and in an astonishing parallel, dubstep started out as a peculiar British phenomenon that struggled to fill even the smallest of venues, and has since gathered considerably more attention by associating itself with the electro world.

So what does this mean? Has today’s music industry really changed the way music itself evolves? It it still possible for a single artist to remain at the forefront of the industry for more than a couple years? How far will dubstep go? Will it follow the same evolutionary path that electro did?

Here are a couple of pieces to get your mind thinking electro/dubstep hybrid. And naturally, should they provoke any interesting ideas, feel free to share.

TC – Where’s My Money (Caspa Remix – Jack Beats Re-Edit)

Udachi – Jellyroll

Indeed, over several years, this little disco genre grew out of it’s status as an underrepresented and disrespected fad and began to earn itself a name, each day garnering a wealth of newfound believers. And the best part about it was the fact that everyone who chose to participate was able to build off of something someone before him had already done, and to keep us all moving forward. Boys Noize‘s debut album, for example, taught the world that a loss of bit depth is not necessarily a loss of quality; Oi Oi Oi was full of beautifully destroyed, and often times disgusting sounds that, when combined with an appropriate beat, came together seamlessly. And it certainly was not just Alex doing the work. For a while, it seemed like every new album release was a revolution in itself, and that dance music itself had become untamable.

Unfortunately, this “booming prosperity” (if I may) seems to have changed as of late. And while I’ve heard from many different people on many occasions that, “everything has been done, and it’s all just boring now,” this isn’t what I mean in the slightest. Rather, it seems that all the artists that we’ve grown fond of over the years have continued to provide a steady stream of great quality, creative compositions, but that they’ve somehow lost the ability to build off of and be influenced by other artists, and have become stuck making music in the exact same vein as all of their past work. To put it concisely, it’s almost as if the creativity and originality is still working strong, but that we’ve lost our compass, and with it, our sense of musical direction. Thus, for the last several months, we’ve been stuck wandering in circles like a line of ants with a stick strewn across its path. Sure, the music still sounds great, but where is it–and where are we–going as a collective?

If anyone feels compelled to share thoughts, ideas, or even music, I’m confident that the rest of us would welcome your ideas with open arms.

Fake Blood – Think I Like It

Felix Da Housecat – Kickdrum

Boys Noize – Kontact Me (Removed as per request)

Boys Noize – Gax (Removed as per request)

Boys Noize – Nerve (Removed as per request)

Now this scale is one that composers and producers try with all their might to fit in to, largely due to the fact that each point on the scale has its own respective crowd (or if you will, “scene”) which it corresponds to, and that making music to please a certain “scene” is a surefire way to pull a hit out of the hat. As such, this electronic world with which we associate ourselves is full of remixes and collaborations who’s authors’ styles balance each other nicely, and cause the final result to rest neatly within the scale of acceptance.

Let’s say the scale is a pretty boring one, and goes from 1 to 10. That puts a few of the most eminent acts at the moment (to name a very small number of them) at:

• Kid Sister: 5
• Rusko: 8
• Dj Mehdi: 5
• Boys Noize: 9
• Miike Snow: 3
• Royksopp: 4
• MSTRKRFT: 8
• Soulwax: 7
• Simian Mobile Disco: 7
• The Bloody Beetroots: 9
• Tiga: 6

Now, when these guys decide to remix each other or work together, they usually tend to be pretty complimentary styles. Let’s take a look:

Simian Mobile Disco & Kid Sister – Pro Nails
Heavier electronic combined with milder, peppier hip hop
Result: 6

Boys Noize and Tiga – Move My Body
Tiga track with a solid beat, given the Boys Noize treating yields a pretty heavy mix.
Result: 9

Rusko & Kid Sister – Pro Nails
Kid Sister earns some wild dubstep bass.
Result: A grimy 7

Miike Snow & DJ Mehdi – Burial
Mehdi’s househop links up with a mellow pop tune.
Result:4

I suppose you probably get the idea by now. The results are usually within reason; That is, two differing styles and melded together to yield a new tune that falls somewhere else within reason on the scale. I must however, encourage a large amount of weight to be placed on the word “usually”, for due to an event not dissimilar to what I expect the apocalypse to feel like, the laws of reason and logic by which I had previously lived my life were beaten (and in particular, kicked) into nonexistence.

What happened you ask? I suppose you could say curiosity got the best of the cat; That is, the disco world finally grew tired of the predictable results of combining two different points on the scale, and decided to see what would happen not only when two very similar parts were combined, but pushing insanity even further, to see what would happen when two artists, both of whom are nearly bursting off the top end of the scale already, combine their power. The result:

The Proxy (nearly a perfect ten himself) & The Bloody Beetroots

The Proxy & The Bloody Beetroots

Never before in my life have I encountered the kind of anger and abrasive noise. Naturally, the track entitled “Who Are You” (though I would have deemed it more appropriate to call it “What Are You”) cannot be contained within the boundaries of our precious scale, but seeing as the track is so deafening so as to pose the potential risk of opening a rift in the space time continuum, to analyze just how far off the end it travels would be reckless foolishness.

Get your ear plugs ready.

Proxy – Who are You (The Bloody Beetroots Remix)

SMASH YOUR STEREO | Who Are You (The Bloody Beetroots Remix) – Proxy from WeHeartHouse on Vimeo.

Well, Canadian remix kings MSTRKRFT have decided that Lil Wayne deserves to be heard at 130 beats per minute. Okay, okay: this is technically a remix of a Keri Hilson song featuring Lil Wayne.  Still, the song gives us a full verse from the rapper and only a loop from the female singer. MSTRKRFT seems like they’re on a mission to prove that every genre (hell, every song) can be made danceable.  Just turn up the tempo, add some drums/guitars and bam!– another banger. They’ve already conquered the rock remix; now they’ve moved on to rap.

But I must say I’m dissapointed with their latest effort. It’s conservative and ordinary; there’s really nothing new or exciting here. Save for the Lil Wayne vocals, it could be any other MSTRKRFT song. Is their formula getting stale? It’s hard to say. I loved their latest album, Fist of God, but I think I’m in the minority. I read some pretty terrible reviews. I think their sound is just very hit or miss. Unfortunately, this new track just doesn’t do it.

I’m interested to hear what our readers have to say about the song below.  Love it? Hate it? Let us know in the comments section.

Keri Hilson feat. Lil Wayne – Turnin’ Me On (MSTRKRFT Remix)

such is life…

It’s almost scary to see the things that pass as good artistic work nowadays. And that’s not to say that talented disco producers do not exist (because they most certainly do), but rather that the combined efforts of The Hype Machine‘s popular chart (which ranks tracks based simply on the number of little red hearts our tone deaf generation has chosen to donate to tracks chosen by an unfiltered and largely ulteriorly motivated crowd of bloggers), and the onslaught of half assed, Justice/Boys Noize/MSTRKRFT inspired, production duo’s (or perhaps quintets? Have we seen that yet?) have led to the watering down of the quality of output of music over the last several years, the image of which is summarized perfectly in the words of Remix Mag‘s Kylee Swenson:

“[...]I started to get into what [Tolle] said about the human ego and how it sabotages our happiness. How true. Celebrity is everything. Fame and money are the big prizes in life. So much so that we find ourselves wasting time obsessing over promoting ourselves rather than actually making music and improving our songwriting, playing and production skills. Fifteen years ago, none of this viral-promotions stuff mattered. No one spent an hour Googling themselves and getting depressed when they realized that they weren’t more famous today than yesterday. Seriously, what are we doing?”

-Remix, October 2008 (Click here for full article)

Essentially what I’m getting at is that the world of electronic, do-it-yourself music has all but taken the mystery and magic out of a good lot of the indy scene. Producers are much more heavily set on forcing their individual releases upon the world in hopes that they might see airplay by an artist who has several well done albums under their belt, rather than creating an album of their own, and because of this, the notion of a unique and cohesive album coming from a small, indy artist has become something uncommon enough to weep for.

I and I

Alchemist Records producer(s), I and I, is exactly that artist. That is, their work has the depth of thought that allows it to expand beyond the confines of the “ten minute sensation.” Not only does the Oklahoma based group refuse to conform to “The Book of Electronic Music Standards and Practices” within each of its individual tracks (which frequently consist of sounds and melodies that are simultaneously beautiful and unheard of), but they also boast their massive artistic prowess through their having completed a nine track album (White Noise/Black Music) that knots all their ideas together to form a collective world of their own. Said concisely, White Noise/Black Music makes it easy to fall into I and I‘s realm of harmony that drips Doppler Effect all over its complimentarily poppy rhythms and distant vocals, however, I’ll advise you venture into this one which a good amount of free time available; Finding your way back to real life is not so easy.

I and I – Venus

I and I – The Top

I and I – Thought Counts

Unfortunately for us (and mind you, when I say us, I’m referring to us tasteful folk to whom disco expands beyond the confines of a mere genre), the bedroom producers of the world took an extraordinarily long time to catch on to the lack of a market for this kind of work, and so for nearly the entirety of last year, all but a select few have been flooding the net with their obnoxious 4 bar pitch bends and nearly drowning our ears in an onslaught of overplayed sound.

With all this in mind, one must admit it seems a task of epic proportions to be able to create something derived from this same style, and at the same time keep it interesting and new within its small corner of a sub-genre. In fact, being the skeptic that I am, if you’d asked me a few weeks ago, there’s a good chance I would have dismissed it as impossible, however, this new wave digital underground of ours never fails to prove me wrong.

Motor

Despite the fact that their entire single (appropriately titled “Death Rave”) consists of nothing more than a series of escalations and drops, Dim Mak‘s newly signed artist, Motor (and no, as far as I know, there is no connection between the artist and the aforementioned Sebastian track), has ripped a whole new meaning into the word “banger.” I can’t possibly explain where on earth the sounds they’re getting come from; perhaps their strange location (half Paris, half New York City), brought forth a sort of convoluted set of influences. Or perhaps they’ve just got a thing for making hipsters feel compelled to rip their hair out in a confused state of ecstasy. Either way, they’ve challenged the devil and accomplished the impossible, and their music is the evidence. Brace yourself: Death Rave brings a whole new meaning to the word “disgusting.”

Motor – Death Rave

Watch for the release of their record “Metal Machine” this Tuesday on Dim Mak Records.

At the risk of forever being labeled as a complete fool, I’m going to be 100% honest and say that prior to the release of Felix Cartal‘s Skeleton EP, my expectations for the Canadian boy could barely be lifted off the ground. I’m not quite sure why, however, I feel it’s safe to say that my insensitive assumption could not have been entirely my fault; Up until quite recently, his tour fliers have depicted him as “opener material” by consistently placing him second to artists like MSTRKFT, Steve Aoki, and LA Riots, a spot that would likely have otherwise been filled by Them Jeans or Dan Oh and the like. Not that I have anything against the guys; It’s just that they’ve all been supporting each other as remix artists for such an extensive amount of time, that it has become unusual to regard any of them as an actual recording artist, capable of releasing a fully fledged and independent album.

Needless to say, every one of my assumptions was shattered and surpassed on levels that I didn’t even have a clue existed. Not only has the young wrecka created an EP that embraces and fully displays the sounds of modern dance music, but he’s also made the art of innovation stylish once again. That is, where I expected to hear a collection of four songs that all resembled his (and everyone else’s) past work, I was startled to experience the charitable use of complex rhythms, character of sound ranging from his trademarked banger synth to lighter, poppier noises not dissimilar to that of Simian Mobile Disco, and elegant eight bar chord progressions that work hard to draw every last piece of energy possible out of those 24 bits. Long story short, it took Felix less than a minute to establish himself in my mind as far more than just a Reason remixer. Skeleton EP is wonderful. Felix is wonderful. Dancing is wonderful. Group hug.

Felix Cartal – Redheads

Considering the poor boy put so much time and energy into this EP, I can’t bring myself to post more than a single song. If you’ve fallen as deeply in love as I have, spend the four dollars to grab a copy, and of course, don’t forget to make your way out to Cinespace tonight for the Dim Mak Tuesdays “Skeleton” Release Party!

That’s not to say that we should feel the need to make an attempt to enjoy music that our ears have already warned us not to listen to, but rather that though there’s more than a subtle difference between the those out to see MSTRKRFT and those more inclined to watch RJD2 juggle his beats, there’s very little difference between our bodies’ natural desire to dance (regardless of what to), and the undefinable high that comes from being a part of the music that moves you. (Except in the case of those glow stick kids. That’s a scene I’ll never quite understand.) Truth? Truth.

Once this point has been addressed, the ridiculousness of it all becomes blatantly apparent; Why should we form cliques? Why should record labels, most of which are designed to represent a small group of similar artists rather than a larger, more encompassing motif, be the sole deciders in the formation and representation of musical groups? They shouldn’t; We should be united over the aspects of music that al genres share.

DBM Labs

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Jonathan Cham, the man in charge of the Los Angeles based electronic music (and yes, that includes everything from the dirtiest electro to the chillest hip hop) apparel company, DBM Labs, and having been a fan of his mission statement for quite some time (one that is aimed largely at stitching together the above mentioned severance), I felt compelled to seek an interview. When asked to explain his company, Jon had a lot to say:

“When i first got into music, I liked everything dance, from, house to hip hop to trance,
so to me, there never really was a “genre” that I tried to be part of.
Whereas lot of clothing companies try to hit on a particular genre, DBM Labs is focused on the artist themselves, whether it’s hip hop, house, dance, electro, or whatever.
We take elements of art from different genres in our designs, sort of like how a producer might incorporate different genres of music into their productions, and in doing so, we’re hoping to build a community that really doesn’t exist right now.”

We had a long talk, but it basically all boiled down to us agreeing upon the fact that as long as these collections of sub cultures remain divided (and a lot of the time, strongly disliking each other), we’re missing out on a world of potential that could be derived from the unification of differing ideas and approaches. Considering DBM could vary well be teaching you lessons in dance floor methodology at some point in the near future (as well as the fact that a good 60% of the world we know revolves around who has the cool t-shirts first), you might want to check out DBM’s site, and get yourself straightened out.

Though I can type out a thousand words (and probably have) in an effort to convince you, the disco fanatics, of my obnoxious perspective, I can be fairly confident that anyone motivated enough to reach this blog is a firm believer in the fact that a simple mp3 speaks considerably better English than I. I shall therefor, abstain from boring you any further…

Classixx

Here’s a weird phenomenon: Some particularly talented artist takes the initiative to pioneer his own, innovative and original sound, and ends up producing a track that’s exciting in a fashion that most producers had never before imagined. As a result, The Hype Machine becomes littered with strange artists with names like Telephone Sally, or some other contradictory and punny phrase, who seem to take pride in the fact that they are quite good at making exact replicas of that song. Are they original? No. Are they boring? Yes. What can we do? We can listen to Classixx instead.

While there are, indeed, more than a few producers who break away from this obnoxious pattern, it’s a rare occasion that one manages to do it with the style and grace (and not to mention with the inclusion of a multitude of exotic influences that avoid the exclusion of any single genre) as Classixx. Their sweeping reverb (which is in no way trancy) accompanied with heavy, yet appropriate, beats and almost jazzy synth melodies embody a part of music that really, has not been enveloped before. In fact, it almost begs the question, “Do you like bass?”

Classixx – I’ll Get You feat. Jeppe (Royal Rumble edit) (Removed by request)

Classixx Cold Act Ill