GESAFFELSTEIN - PURSUIT (New Video)

Electronic music is not exactly known for great music videos. There are your classics with large budgets and top notch production \such as The Prodigy videos back in the day. Today's big budget videos come from mainstream favorites such as Skrillex and Deadmau5, and those are cheesy to say the least. Don't get me wrong there are tons of great, clever videos out there featuring electronic artists, but the production value always seems to be second. This doesn't come as a surprise because music videos have never been a big part of dance music culture.

Enter "Pursuit" the latest video from French techno god Gesaffestein. I've liked his videos in the past. "Viol" featuring project Ghostrider was badass to the max. The production was simple and effective. No glitz and glam, just dark and grungy like the music it represented. "Pursuit" ups the glitz and glam several times over, but still maintains the dark overtones of the music. The production value is spectacular which is comes as a surprise considering Gesaffestein is well known, but by no means mainstream electronic music. I'm glad to see he has the budget to make such a standout video.

First impression of the video was "that was awesome, but I have no idea what just happened". After several watches patterns start to emerge, and you'll see a timeline of events unfolding. What you're seeing is the rise and fall of a dynasty under one roof. Or, a dictatorship might be more fitting. You see the story begin in a elaborate Victorian style house, and then progresses to a massive warehouse (I presume it was destroyed and the warehouse was built). Or the warehouse could be representative of the country or civilization in control. From there we see the peak of control (the statue) and war associated with it. Then comes the decline. Social experiments gone wrong. People turning on each other, and the weapons they once controlled are used to kill their own. Self destruction. The end of a dynasty. 

Tiga - Trust Your Body + Remixes

One of my favorite batch of remixes in a long time. The John Roman remix is one of my favorite tracks this year. A must have. So, so good! I would discuss it more, but Tiga puts it best as always. Pick up the full EP here, after checking it out below.

"With this song, I wanted to get my music into some of the darker clubs, the kind where you see obese Goth kids drinking Red Bull out of goblets and somebody's uncle wearing one of those weird studded strap things. I want to say harness, but nothing's holding this guy back when my song comes on," says Tiga from what we can only presume is the least out-of-touch location imaginable. Definitely nowhere near a drawbridge.

The remixers had full license to go even darker, far past anything Tiga's family-friendly idea of himself would allow. Danny Daze takes things into the beyond-afterhours hours, when normal debauchery gives way to things like identity theft and marriages of convenience. The dub version is a silent tribute to these victims of circumstance and poor life decisions. Meanwhile, John Roman imagines a deeper-voiced Tiga from the other side of the tracks, who knows how to sneak into the acid warehouse for half-price. Finally, joeFarr amps it up into pleather-dreaded techno territory, with a Matrix-friendly BPM and surprisingly subtle atmospherics.

"When I tell you to trust something, you have to trust that I fully trust in what I'm saying," adds Tiga. "Otherwise, we're just two solitary souls trying to make sense of the moonlight, and that's not the kind of nighttime world I want to spend my nights in."

Disclosure - Settle Pre-Order

UK funky pop phenomena Disclosure are finally releasing their much anticipated album Settle on June 3. If you're located in (or willing to travel to) London you're automatically entered to win tickets to a secret launch party on the big day. Check out their site to order the album on CD or vinyl, or a special edition screenprint with album. 

Luckily for us, Disclosure has been releasing full streams of some of the upcoming songs on the album including two in the last week. "When A Fire Starts To Burn" uses an insanely catchy vocal loop and tosses some funky disclosure bass lines on top. "F For You" has a similar feel, but strays away from samples and uses those two angelic boy's voices.  

A few other songs on the album have already been released as singles over the last year including "White Noise" and "Latch". Preview the latest two below and prepare for an onslaught of Disclosure singles hitting the clubs in the next few weeks.

Steve Aoki & Angger Dimas ft My Name is Kay - Singularity (New Video)

Dim Mak's leader joined forces with Indonesian producer Angger Dimas and My Name is Kay for a new series of music videos beginning with "Singularity". The video features renowned futurist and Google Director of Engineering Ray Kurzweil, which was a unique and pleasant surprise. The video begins with Kurzweil naming off several predictions relating to humans integrating technology into their bodies and genetics. Pretty exciting stuff. The track itself is a typical Aoki styled electro banger, but the video is pretty cool. It's the first video in a series so it has a bit of a cliff hanger ending, but it'll be exciting to see where this goes especially with the high production value surrounding it. 

Cake Eater - Horn & Ivory (Original Mix) FREE DL

DTB homeboy Cake Eater just released a free track for ya'll, and it's no hum drum giveaway. The track is a beast. Elephants would hunt lions while listening. Watch out for this. 

Jericho A.D. - Crater EP

I've never heard of Jericho A.D. before, but I feel like the Crater EP will definitely be putting them on people's radar more. There are some awesome remixes from DTB favorites Ostblockschlampen and The Oddword as well. You can find the remixes and original tracks right now on Beatport, released by OMGITM. 

SXSW & WMC: The Festival Ironman Pt 1

Midway through 2012 I decided I was going to the 2013 Winter Music Conference. I had recently experienced my first SXSW, and from what I understood WMC was basically the SXSW of electronic music. And SXSW was awesome.

I wanted to surround myself with electronic music fans with sophisticated taste, not wannabe raver kids getting stoked about the new Datsik single. Because of this I opted not to go the Ultra route, and stick with the club and hotel parties around South Beach. While SXSW does get a fair amount of electronic acts, the choices pale in comparison to WMC’s mighty roster. The thought of having hundreds top notch DJ acts playing every day in South Beach had me all giddy with excitement. I booked my flight, purchased an official WMC badge, and crossed my fingers that some sort of lodging would work itself out.

Jump forward to 2013 and the last week of February. Queue everyone in Austin starting to freak out about SXSW planning.

SXSW requires more legwork than any other festival I’ve been to. I was lucky enough to have a platinum badge which grants priority access to tons of official SXSW parties. But, there are still countless of unofficial where a badge doesn’t matter. That’s where the research really begins. We’re talking thesis level research.

SXSW is all about networking. If you don’t network beforehand you’re guaranteed to miss out on a show you’d sell your dignity for.

To stay up to date I joined several Facebook groups that posting new events as they were discovered. Mass texts between friends would go out when the high stakes RSVP events such as Fader Fort were released. I joined countless email lists, perused Austin event sites HalfPastNow and Do512, and dug through twitter feeds for new updates. By the time SXSW arrived my brain felt fried and I looked like I had a brutal hangover, yet I hadn’t enjoyed a complimentary cocktail yet.

With such a ridiculous amount of prep work that was going into planning my SXSW experience I didn’t have much time to plan for WMC. Luckily, WMC doesn’t require as much planning because there are very few free with RSVP shows. Plus, I was flying solo for WMC so I didn’t have an obligation to any events.

While almost every single SXSW show is free, everything in Miami costs money. A lot of money.

I could use $50 bills as toilet paper throughout SXSW, and still spend less than what I did during WMC. If you can’t accept that you’re going to blow a fat wad of cash when partying in South Beach you better be prepared to watch events from behind a fence.

On my first day in Miami I went to a hotel party at 3pm that was completely dead and ordered two vodka sodas in plastic cups for $32. The credit card minimum was $50. This is after playing admission which ranged from $40 to $150.

I may have shed some tears as I signed my credit card receipt the first day, but once I came to terms with the fact I would continue going into debt for a slight buzz I had a much better time. On the bright side because everything was crazy expensive shows didn’t sell out until the last minute and the lines weren’t bad. This is a huge contrast to SXSW where people stand for hours in a half mile line. Even if the show had free drinks (which a lot do), you have to choose which battles are worth it at SXSW.

So, the stages have been set. I’m ready to throw myself face first into the foray of these festival behemoths.

Stay tuned for the full details of my SXSW experience to be published next, followed by WMC and a comparison between the two.  

WMC Miami 2013

Immediately following SXSW, Masaris hopped on a plane and flew to Miami for the 2013 Winter Music Conference. Running on fumes, vitamins, and expensive cocktails he captured some of the best shows on the beach. From a surprise Boys Noize appearance at Hard Miami, to the 1605 showcase at Mokai, this years WMC was just as much fun as it was a test of endurance. Full writeup and comparison to SXSW to some! In the meantime enjoy the pics.