It’s time to address the growing concern in why it’s been over a year since I last put up a mix set. In the interest of squarely placing the blame, it can be attributed primarily to laziness. I currently have two sets in the works (one that should have been released almost a year ago) and, as always, hope to have them up soon. But there are other underlying factors coming into play as well. These are not only inherent to the delay, but troublesome trends in electronic music that deserve to be addressed head-on.

The first is quality. The process of sonic craftsmanship has dwindled in electronic music, the only genre of music in history granted legitimacy without requiring an actual performance of any kind. You have limitless ability to rework, refine and experiment without requiring multiple takes, and with everything rooted in experimentalism there’s actually no limit to acceptable sound design and structure, so long as it’s coherent and well-organized. Your favorite floor barnstormer might actually be a time-corrected toilet flush coupled with your cat being picked up… with pliers. It was funny when Derrick May and Juan Atkins were doing it. The problem is, everyone else has figured this out. The application of logical extremes usually come with bleak forecasts and this was no exception. Like YouTube, on the fateful day they decided to add comments as a feature.

Genres are invariably flooded with a low signal-to-noise ratio, but it doesn’t make it any less offensive. The concept was once described to me by a friend as Lightning Strike Syndrome: When lightning strikes and an artist pioneers a new sound or approach, the masses flock to the point of impact waiting for lightning to strike again. Of course, it strikes someone elsewhere and the masses again flock to that very spot. What we actually have here is even worse: Artists feeding off the inevitable frenzy of bandwagon-hopping observers as they come rushing to witness the latest miracle. That’s not talent. That’s opportunism disguised as a Cult of Subgenre.

On the periphery, everyone understands this academically. It’s not until you review music on a regular basis or become addicted to the latest charts that you realize how much junk is really floating out there. Digital download shops have gone above and beyond the call of duty by aggregating all the trash, so we know where not to look. Granted it’s not possible to have every song in 200,000 be a revolutionary, groundbreaking piece of art — but it’s entirely possible (And should be expected) that artists push the limits of their knowledge, training, equipment and individual expression to bring us new and fresh ideas.

This is sadly lacking in a number of ways. What used to require the skill and invested time of jamming in the studio to find that perfect chemistry has been replaced by a series of formulaic builds and breakdowns, aided by out-of-the-box, widely-used sample packs in plug-and-play software kits. For an industry that grew up and sprung from rich, melody-driven sounds of 80′s-era FM synthesis and Yamaha DX7′s, today’s palettes are surprisingly insipid. There is rarely any original composition anymore, as preconstructed loops and patches do the heavy lifting, essentially leaving only arrangement and sound design to the mouse-clicking maestro.

And that leads us to our next problem: The electronic music umbrella as a whole is powered by technicians, not artists. Your classically-trained musicians represent a fraction of a percent of the industry in general, and even that’s not an actual guarantor that said musicians actually have any talent. It means they studied a lot of people who did. The remainder are programmers and geeks, Vulcans in a forum desperately in need of Scotty’s ingenuity. It’s no wonder these people turn to primes and fibonacci sequences for their cues on creativity — the inherent nature of analysis is counterintuitive to creative inspiration.

Similarly, the standard of skill has dropped to such a degree that DJs are now warp-marking their tracks to pass over that annoyance of actually having to mix two tracks together with different tempos. Today the trainwreck is poor beatmatching, tomorrow it’ll be out of key (One could argue it’s happening already). As is always the case, idiot-proofing breeds better idiots and someone will find a way to ground a set even after hitting play on the DAT and picking up a beer.

The standard of actual performance has become so low, hooks, movie samples and vocalists are picked up and arbitrarily exercised with reckless abandon. Breathy female vocalists kicked out of initial screening rounds of American Idol can suddenly become stars by setting the autotune, cranking up the vox and throwing up on the mic. Provided there’s some fresh-cut 4/4 beats and enough atmospheric reverb to wash the imperfections away, most people never know the difference and never care to find out. Vocals, as with innovative quality, are entirely optional and in fact, usually discouraged by minimalists huddling in the corner cursing any progression that threatens the high from their hallucinogens.

All said and done, it’s a whole whose sum of all parts actually results in a negative. The sad reality is that while some artists do genuinely handcraft their sounds and push the boundaries of experimentalism, they’re riding the only wave to shore. It’s never long before the hundred billion castaways looking for a trend come washing up behind them. And there are that many, because the output level in every subgenre has been pushed to its absolute maximum level of saturation.

The recent flurry of pressure to produce mixes and charts on a weekly and monthly basis have obscured the most important point of DJing in the first place: To create a unique, enjoyable, sonic collage of your favorite works. Any ding dong can stitch together two tracks at 132 bpm with friendly leads. The art comes from the era of the mixtape: The careful selection and order of tracks, the messages and emotions they convey, the joy of creating new combinations in transitions. A mix is personal, because it represents the DJ’s taste and conviction to share with others. Nick Warren’s Back to Mine was special not solely because of the fantastic tracks, but because it represented a over a decade’s worth of his favorite obscure and forgotten works. It was a 79-minute journey into time, and a view into a window we’d never known existed.

That’s the standard, and it should be upheld. Whether the frantic obsession with digital mixes ceases gradually over time or increases in intensity, my goal here will always be to contribute more signal and less noise. My mixes represent a compact, niche sound in electronic music that others may find droll and uninteresting, but if I can find more joy in hearing 14 songs together than separately in their respective, unmixed forms, then that mix is ready for prime time. Anything less would be a waste of a wait.

Chicane needs no introduction, I’m positive everyone has listened to and adores Far From the Maddening Crowds and Behind the Sun. I’m not here to reiterate those points, in fact I’m now here to plead the case 2007′s Somersault. Widely panned by critics and fans alike, it fell way short of expectations after a leak destroyed the (also detested) 2003 album Easy to Assemble. What the hell is Nick doing? We want Ibiza ambiance, not Deleri-pop! Right? Q Music hated this disc the way I hate Rob Schneider and Andy Dick, or the way Pitchfork hated Shine On by Jet. (Take a second to click that link. It’s okay, I’ll wait.) Even Virgin Media ripped it to shreds. It wasn’t pretty:

Somersault – which opens with recent Tom Jones-led single Stoned In Love – is probably best appreciated if you can associate every song on it with a wonderful emotional moment on some terrace or dancefloor in the Balearics. Without it, it strays into overproduced muzak, neatly ignoring everything exciting that’s now happening in dance music. Pilfering beats from UNKLE albums released nearly ten years ago and chopping up guitars and plaintive vocals over the top does not make for innovation.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d think these people harbored sadistic grudges against Nick Bracegirdle because of his tumultuous history with labels. That may not be entirely off-base, because UNKLE has never sounded good enough to be pilfered in the first place and these vocals are far from plaintive. Here’s the deal: On the surface Somersault is not what we expected from our favorite chillout artist of the last decade. It’s not the source material’s fault that it alienates the Ibiza trance subgenre with nowhere to go. It’s music, for crying out loud. It doesn’t need any other labels except Flippin’ Good. That’s right, anyone who insists otherwise can bite me.

Rooted in this disc first of all, are two astute rescues from the ill-fated Easy to Assemble disc: ‘Spirit’ with Jewel and the delightfully lush ‘Arizona’ — though the disgustingly-addictive ‘In Praise of the Sun’ perished in the fire. Second of all, with Bryan Adams tapped out (It was only a matter of time, right?) a new singer Jack Starks stepped up and performed on no less than five of the album’s tracks, essentially making him part of the band. It’s quite similar in dynamic to Hybrid’s addition of Adam Taylor for Morning Sci-Fi, only without the trainwreck and with the added benefit of Starks being able to hold a note without going flat. He’s actually quite good. ‘Come Tomorrow’ and ‘Nothing’ respectfully stand their ground as pop-trance harbingers, while ‘Far Away From You’ is filled with so much epicity I was able to loop it for all 40 minutes of my 4-mile run around the lake yesterday.

This isn’t rocket science. You don’t have to stuff 10⁶ layers into your tracks and be a part of the next post-rock electro-punk uber-indie hipster movement. There’s plenty of that already, and if your name isn’t Sigur Rós, Hammock or Ulrich Schnauss, you have no business tarnishing the book written by Slowdive anyway. The work on Somersault far exceeds that of its material peers on Tiesto’s Elements of Life and Armin van Buuren’s Imagine. It’s not fair to burden Chicane with the expectations of past works, but more germane to assess the work in the context of its vision and goals. In that regard, it succeeds admirably.

Someone please explain to me how I missed this… a ridiculously amazing disc full of rare and unreleased tracks that Sasha fancied back in 1998 and signed to his Excession label, the predecessor to today’s emFire. Just look at this tracklisting. It’s ridiculous. The Leftfield dub? Inexistent. The William Orbit mix? Highly sought after in its time. The royal ass-kick of goodness? Without a doubt, The Light. Do yourself a favor and track this album down with ruthless abandon. Then come back and thank me.

As the title implies, it’s been about five months since my last mix and what better way to snap out of a funk than to drop what’s probably my favorite collection of tracks since X:Coast. At 6 in the morning with extension cables in tow, I hauled all my gear down to the dock by the lake behind the house, and recorded this all as the sun came up. The neighbors were not pleased, but Tiesto’s been looking for the bloody sunrise for nearly ten years, it’s high time someone help him find it.

Running Time: 1:09:11
File Size: 158 MB @ 320 kbps

Tracklisting:

1. Abakus – Rainbow Warrior [Solstice]
2. Roman Rai – On The Skyscraper [Tribal Vision]
3. Pole Folder – Bokoto 10PM (Pole Folder & CP Mix) [Hope]
4. Ikon – Signs (Jody Wisternoff Mix) [Jalapeno]
5. Matt Rowan & Jaytech – Holding On [Red Seven]
6. Island 9 – Moody (Chris Micali Mix) [Commonwealth]
7. Chris Nemmo & Andree Eskay – Affectation (Dousk Dub Electro) [Restart]
8. 2 Bit Pie – Here I Come (Fluke Mix) [CDR]
9. Subsky – Placebo Effect [Looq]
10. Jay Lumen – Levitation [Curvve]
11. DPP – Amative Entanglement [Bonzai]

After giving ample time for Proton Radio to host through their On Demand channel, I’m clear to put this up. The show (which featured a live on-air performance by the Baggage Handlers) drew quite a few people, and on the whole feedback has been pretty positive. For what the rest is worth, enjoy!

Running Time: 1:11:48
File Size: 164 MB @ 320 kbps

Tracklisting:

1. Sian – Apparition [Dirt Crew]
2. Chab – Five (Andrea Introvigne Zero 8 Remix) [Saw]
3. Claude VonStroke – Who’s Afraid of Detroit (Tanner Ross Mix) [Dirtybird]
4. Somnus Corp – Real De Catorce (Chris Micali Remix) [Reversible]
5. Leroy Carroll – Uncommon Distractions [Metamotional]
6. Leama & Moor – Distance Between Us (Jody Wisternoff Remix) [Primal]
7. DPP – Unforseen (Monocle Dub) [Bonzai]
8. Basto – Rock With You (NUfrequency Remix Instrumental) [Ultra]
9. Snake Sedrick – Find Me (Chris Nemmo Remix) [Tilth]
10. Iman – We R U (Brisker & Magitman Mix) [Method]
11. Nimrod – My Life (16 Bit Lolitas Vocal Mix) [Maelstrom]
12. Pryda – Frankfurt [Pryda]

Yours truly will be playing a featured set on The Sound, a bi-weekly show on underground dance webcast outfit Proton Radio. We’ll be broadcasting at 3pm Eastern Time tomorrow, Friday the 26th. Special thanks goes to show host Lance Cashion of Slow Motion Music for inviting me on. You can find the link to the show here:

Proton Radio / The Sound with Lance Cashion

I’ll have some fresh new stuff to showcase from the likes of Tanner Ross, DPP, Chris Nemmo and Jody Wisternoff. Check it out, everyone!

After a nearly two month hiatus, it’s time to get back to business. Kicking off December is “Snowstorm,” a mix to match the eight inches of snow accumulated outside over the last two days. This mix came together extremely fast once the tracks were picked out (the process took only 24 hours from concept to posting), and includes work by some of my favorite artists, namely Dousk, Guy J and Jaytech.

Running Time: 1:14:50
File Size: 172 MB @ 320 kbps

Tracklisting:

1. Amberflame – Subzero (D-Pulse Remix) [Polyphonics]
2. Trentemoller – Physical Fraction [Poker Flat]
3. Guy J – Boxing Day [Proton]
4. Fedde Le Grande – Put Your Hands Up For Detroit (Claude VonStroke Remix) [CR2]
5. Miika Kuisma & Mr. A – Honey (U&K Remix) [Danceteria]
6. Elias Tzikas & D Pen – Frequency Loss [Deep]
7. Dousk – Florence (Dousk ‘Revisited’ Mix) [Klik]
8. V-Sag – Breathe [Behold]
9. Mercurio – X Cream (Chris Micali’s Sunset Mix) [Flow]
10. Dan Mangan & Danny Bonnici – Periwethel [EQ Grey]
11. Jaytech – Monkey Music [Red Seven]
12. Micah – Mnemosyne [Aurium]

In the Mac OS X world, things have been busy at MyDreamApp, the brainchild of a few elite developers. In American Idol fashion, users were encouraged to submit their ideas for their favorite application ideas. 24 finalists were selected, with progressing rounds of elimination based on open voting. The top three apps that win will actually be developed full-scale and sold for market consumption.

Of the entries, the most intriguing (and the only music-related) concept is Whistler, the brainchild of live music photographer Richard Whitelock. From his submission description:

Ever had the urge to create a song until you realized it was harder than it was worth? With Whistler, just whistle, hum or tap out your creation into music app importable form.

The idea has merit, many electronic artists in particular employ a varying number of digital sketchpads to quickly jot down ideas and Whistler would fit neatly into that toolbox. But the nature of what the program intends to do is far more ambitious at the core than imagined by Richard or the developers who selected it as a finalist, not quite realizing the potential for a full-blown white elephant.

Next up, Richard’s latest mock-up visualization of the program’s GUI and functions:

It’s hot, no doubt. To be able to tap your fingers on the desk or notebook trackpad, to whistle or hum a tune all embodied in a lightweight, easy-to-use Cocoa interface would be some of the slickest execution in modern application development. Certainly it would attract legions of new composers to the art of digital production, a veritable first-step into the black hole that swallows more free time from DAW-based musicians than any of them likely care to admit.

But therein lies the rub. Transforming raw audio in to sheet music is far easier said than done. Logic Pro offers both pitch detection and groove templates to sort out the fundamental concepts behind Whistler, but what it seeks to accomplish is leaps and bounds beyond the technical feasibility displayed in most commonly used music applications. Danny Patterson (A resident synthesis major at Berklee School of Music) correctly pointed this out.

You can do that with Max/MSP or something. There’s no way to make it a cocoa app easily. Auto chords don’t make sense. You’re in a key, and each note has a different chord associated with it (or number of chords. But even if every note has the same chord it’s not musically correct because chord tones of one chord are not chord tones of another note in that scale

Richard maintains his focus has always been on converting variable-range input into monophonic MIDI hits for sequencing, but that idea simply serves no additional purpose besides getting a glorified paint-by-numbers monophonic MIDI sequencer that you’d map to a virtual drum kit in GarageBand. Which could be fun, but not all that flexible in the grand scheme of things. However, by making a leap into polyphonic recording, Whistler would no longer be a curious surface-scratcher for beginners, but a legendary contribution to digital composition. Given Richard’s vision thus far, this would also introduce the most simplistic, easy-to-use interface of any audio application on the market.

It is seriously worth exploring the technical feasibility of converting polyphonic MIDI signals on the fly. You suddenly have a full-blown digital tuner in your hands, capable of tuning strings on any instrument from guitars to cellos, training high school trumpet players, keeping practicing singers on their notes or detecting the pitch and key of any instrument available. Such a capability masked under an intuitive and simplistic interface would be a revolutionary breakthrough.

There are a handful of programs that already do this, but they’re complicated and priced for a niche market. Max/MSP and Melodyne offer variable approaches to pitch detection in addition to built-in functions in Logic Pro and MOTU’s Digital Performer. Berklee professor/performer Neil Leonard explained how he tunes his bass clarinet with instant, real-time processing:

I use Max/MSP with Fiddle [a Max/MSP External] for pitch following. Before that, I used the IVL pitchrider and the Roland CP-40.

The technology is all here, it’s been done before. The trick is implementing it in a way that allows beginners and experts alike tap the potential offered. Additionally, you could set a key as C major for example, and round the inputted notes according to the selected scale. It’s an adventurous concept, but worth implementing as it would actually train the user to stay within a key instead of randomly bouncing around like an undisciplined, homebrew Aphex Twin.

The bottom line is, this is very doable and offers a hugely viable concept commercially if successful. And even if this application fails the contest, it’s a worthy project for an Objective C programmer to pick up and put together. The potential for utility and entertainment both are immense, and if executed properly would be established as one of the legendary few applications to revolutionize the user experience on Mac OS X.

My latest mix set is up for download.

Inspired by the latest discussions regarding remixes of pop tunes, a few friends requested a collage of them together, and so here they are. This was purely for fun, banged out in one quick run on-the-fly. The tracklisting is as follows:

1. Coldplay – Talk (Junkie XL Mix)
2. Echo & The Bunnymen – Lips Like Sugar (Way Out West Mix)
3. Imogen Heap – Hide & Seek (R3volve’s Lost & Found Mix)
4. Gorillaz – Feel Good Inc (LP’s Feelin’ Evil Mix)
5. Gwen Stefani – What You Waiting For (Toksin’s Sterilized Mix)
6. Depeche Mode – Halo (Austin Leeds & Christian J Mix)
7. New Order – Bizarre Love Triangle (Crystal Method Remix)
8. Usher – Caught Up (Sander Kleinenberg Remix)
9. New Order – Waiting For The Sirens’ Call (Planet Funk Remix)
10. Snow Patrol – Chasing Cars (Blake Jarrell & Topher Jones Mix)
11. The Killers – When You Were Young (Jacques Lu Cont Mix)

On Friday, house DJ Pete Tong dumped an exclusive gem on unsuspecting listeners during his weekly podcast: A remix by Redanka, of Snow Patrol’s Open Your Eyes. Redanka is no stranger to electro-fused indie pop, his past credence turns up works like “In A State” (unrelated to the UNKLE song of the same name), as well as remixes of Conjure One and Suicide Sports Club. What’s notable however, is that yet another pop hit has been remixed for progressive dance music consumption. This is simply the continuation of a long-running tradition that’s opened up in a big, big way in 2006.

The Rundown

Maybe it wouldn’t have been such a big deal, had it not been for Future Retro. Released by Rhino — a label with a historical penchant for creating compilation cash cows — this disc brought together a series of 14 hits from the 80′s, commissioned to today’s electronic big shots for remixes. The names included such giants as The Crystal Method, Adam Freeland, Elite Force, Static Revenger, Infusion, Bill Hamel and Way Out West. It was released in February, and tracks (such as the Method’s reworking of New Order – Bizarre Love Triangle) were littered across mix CDs and DJ sets.

It didn’t stop there. Two months later, New Order popped up on the radar again, this time with Planet Funk remixing the single “Waiting For The Sirens’ Call.” Coldplay emerged with mixes of “Talk” by Junkie XL and Jacques Lu Cont following an early bootleg version by Max Graham. Imogen Heap’s acapella brilliance of “Hide & Seek” spawned a series of bootleg mixes led by R3volve, Usher recruited the services of Sander Kleinenberg for “Caught Up,” Nine Inch Nails employed a remix contest (an increasing trend) for “Only” and the Killers again re-enlisted Lu Cont for their latest single, “When You Were Young” after the massive success of 2005′s “Mr. Brightside.” Things swing full circle to Snow Patrol, with a recent bootleg remix of “Chasing Cars” by Blake Jarrell and Topher Jones pounding through clubs.

Granted, this has been going on a while — sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Junkie XL made a worldwide splash by giving modern treatment to Elvis’ “A Little Less Conversation,” subsequently earning massive exposure in the 2002 FIFA World Cup and running up the charts to #1 in over 20 countries. But a belated attempt by Paul Oakenfold to capitalize on Elvis’ “Rubberneckin” went down in flames. Likewise, Adam Freeland’s harrowing and disingenuous bastardization of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” drew sharp criticism.

Trickle-Down

The recent focus on remixing pop tunes has reached an unprecedented level, and perhaps the pop stars themselves are partly to blame. Forward-thinking bands such as Depeche Mode and New Order have been bucking the trend since day one, while psuedo-diva Madonna enlisted dance music’s finest in an attempt to cull a relationship with the underground movement and reach out to fans that would otherwise spit on her relentlessly overwraught schlock. Other bands attempted an outright adoption of dance music, only to fall back and leave it to the professionals; as U2 did through the 90′s and leading up to 2000′s remix-laden single, “Beautiful Day.”

In a sense the unwitting marriage between pop music and EDM’s reinterpretation indicates a larger hope for both sides. The digital underground is growing bigger every year, and with the advent of online distribution seems poised to make a clean jump into pop culture spotlight. Bootlegging pop stars offers an element of familiarity for new adopters — a Coldplay fan may soon follow the rabbit trail provided by Junkie XL to discover a whole new world of breakbeat — and when done correctly turns average names into dance floor demigods, as Blake Jarrell and R3volve witnessed firsthand.

Likewise it can work in the opposite direction. Alternative band Grand National garnered a largely curious fanbase following Sasha’s spacey touch on “Talk Amongst Yourselves.” Britain-based Longview created a new legion of followers by enlisting downtempo maestro Ulrich Schnauss to produce a pair of remixes. Both bands won fledging support based on the additional exposure provided by established electronic music producers, leveraging the inquisitional nature of independent scenegoers to promote their work.

The Ableton Effect

In early 2003 the tools finally caught up. Real-time remix/performance software Ableton Live finally lifted off into full throttle, paving the way for a whole new bag of trickery and transforming the entire approach to DJing with a ground-up digital solution. The ease of use prompted early adopters Richie Hawtin and BT to create samples and loops for the specific purpose of conjuring live sets in clubs, and it wasn’t long before on-the-fly remixes followed. BT’s early Ableton sets were laced with a number of pop artists never touched by remix artists, including The Police, The Beatles and The Who. When fellow house gurus Deep Dish sardonically kicked out a mix of Eminem sampling “Nobody listens to techno,” the message was clear: Pop’s sacred cows were about to be slaughtered.

Coupled with the persistent promotion of electronic shows on college campuses, Ableton allowed a freewheeling everything-goes approach to music and offered greater accessibility to the masses. It wasn’t long before trendy crowds packed Avalon and Spundae hoping to hear their latest radio favorites, and for fans of 2005′s “Feel Good Inc.” by the Gorillaz, it was almost a complete certainty.

Today and Tomorrow

There’s no indication of the tradition slowing down. Pop music has always been the top feeder that energizes and inspires the various independent scenes: Whether it’s punk cover bands, hip hop bootlegs or jazz ensembles. And while it’s been going on for decades, it’s only within the last few years that dance music has leapt decisively on the bandwagon. Given the level of market exposure that it has already achieved, it’s no surprise that fusions between the two remain staunchly popular amongst both EDM fans and radio station dwellers alike. While the purists may run for cover amongst blippy dubs in dank nightclubs, the overwhelming electronic proletariat will likely embrace a progressive inclusion into pop music. And so long as artistic merit rises above the foray of commercial profiteering, this will remain a good thing.