Inside Nokia Music

Check this mad video from Netherlands Dance producers Nobody Beats The Drum – made from a few wooden blocks and just a few more photos:

Nobody Beats The Drum – Grindin’

You can see the making of it here.

Found on this blog

You can download Nobody Beats This Drum’s album ‘Beats Work’  from the Nokia Music Store - if you’ve got ‘Comes With Music’, it’s completely free!

Everyone’s favourite cut’n'paste DJ’s back with a new mix that you can download for free from the Bestival blog. With typical DJ Yoda aplomb, expect the likes of Biggie, Fleetwood Mac, Prince and more nestling snugly together like penguins on an ice floe. Think I walked past some on the way into work this morning.

Rock it: http://besti-blog.blogspot.com/2010/02/besti-mix-6-dj-yoda.html

Having skipped a beat with my finger off the pulse (a rather poor reference to the single The Beat That My Heart Skipped), I missed the opportunity to blog about this when it was still news… and then just sorta left it for fear of being last to the post, but the tune’s been invading my every waking moment, quite literally! For about a week so far without fail I’ve been singing/speaking the chorus before I can even focus my eyes beyond the foot of the bed, and the experience has been rather uplifting and motivational.

So here it is, Dan Le Sac Vs. Scroobius Pip’s first single Get Better from their forthcoming second album The Logic Of Chance, officially the first release of 2010 that I’m truly excited about.

Here’s a soundcloud with a few remixes compliments of the boys from their blog

… and since I’m on the subject, and at the slightest chance that someone reading this may never have seen it, here’s the brilliantly amusing fake X Factor audition they did… totally worth the endless hours of queuing the must have endured to pull this off, probably what helped them keep a straight face during the audition… Love Dan’s puppy-dog eye’s @1:18

Get Better is released 1st March 2010 followed by the album The Logic Of Chance on 14th March 2010. The debut album Angles (Not Angels) is available to download from The Nokia Music Store and is completely free to ‘Comes With Music’ subscribers.

Get better, get better get better get better…

THE GIG

Late last year a friend of mine convinced me to see a band called Subsource. I was planning on staying in that night and catching up with some much needed sleep. But soon as she mentioned that they were a live dance band on a similar tip to The Prodigy and better than Pendulum, I quickly ditched any ideas of relaxation a got a Taxi down to the centre of Bristol.

This was a wise choice as I wasn’t disappointed. They were a high energy group of lads with some amazing and varied songs. A good mix of genres from Breakbeat, Hip Hop, Dubstep, Punk and DnB kept the mood fresh throughout their performance.

THE BAND
The Band consists of lead singer and Double Bass player – Stuart Henshall, Vocalist – Mutanda Kimba, Borg Ng on keys and percussion, Paul Frazer on guitar and keys and Neil Shervell on Drums. They all come from very different backgrounds both musically and geographically, which is probably why they have a sound which is a hybrid of all the bass heavy electronic music we all know and love.

THE IDES
Their new single The Ides out on Doomsday recordings on Feb 22nd February is
a good In-sight to how this band operates.

The glitchy, distorted, electronic noises at the start are reminiscent to the Prodigy’s more recent material. After a short intro it kicks into a rock style chorus, backed by a big breakbeat and more of those glichy noises.
The structure of this song has been designed for the dance-floor, as the songs edges out of the breakdown it changes to a Dubstep rhythm with a chorus wobble bassline. This all supported by soaring, lush pads and arpeggiated synths, both of which have warm analogue tones of 80’s synthesis.
The Ides, when you listen closely has a complex depth that shows off the skills of all the musicians involved. But it’s still a catchy dance-floor track that will wake you out of any tired state. It worked for me.

Here’s the video for their last single The Reason available now on the Nokia Music Store

Being the only true Drum & Bass head in the Nokia Content Team I guess I feel obliged to write about it. 

Drum & Bass is a dirty word in the eyes of mainstream-loving pop fans or cool indie kids, knowing only the diluted cross-over D&B acts like Pendulum.

 So here’s my take on the music that has kept me dancing and smiling for 15 years!

I first got in dance music when I was 12 years old.  A friend, Mitchell, used to play me loads of Jungle and Hardcore tapes recorded from raves such as Helter Skelter and Dreamscape.   I wasn’t instantly grabbed as my obsession at the time was with bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam.  Grunge was quite far away musically from the fast Amen Breakbeats and Techno sounds.  But after a while, it did grab me and it hasn’t let go since.

I started collecting flyers and tape packs from local events like Breakbeat Culture, Bristol Exposure and the legendary Ruffneck Ting where DJ Ron played to a packed out crowd at the Malcolm X Centre in St Pauls back in June 94, the summer when Jungle was at its peak.

 I’ve been going to raves now for many years and it’s only been in the last year that I’ve noticed how young the people around me are.  A new generation and D&B heads are always coming onto the scene, but these days the kids don’t even know what Jungle is (or was) and have never heard of DJ Ron!  The majority of people that danced around me in those raves back in the 20^th Century have grown up, got families, good jobs, all of which require an early bed time.  But I’m still here dancing and listening to this great music! 

With this new generation ravers comes a new wave of producers. Producers are the heart of any dance music scene. The innovators that refresh the music and shock peoples ears with brand new, never-heard-before sounds.

 The last 2 years has seen an influx of producers with exceptional talent.  Making proper music that will make you dance and shock out.  Not the diluted stuff angled towards those pop lovin’ kids or the ‘Mash Up’ tosh that Annie Mac plays on Radio 1.  This is the Drum and Bass music you need to listen to.

The YouTube vids below are a small insight to what’s being played in the underground club scene at the moment. Enjoy!

System – Near Miss

Original Sin – Therapy

Rockwell – Underpass

DJ Fresh – Fantasia

Netsky – Everyday

Noisia – Deception

Here’s the Nokia/OVI Music Store link to my new playlist featuring my favourite bass heavy and head nod beats of 2009. Perfect for the walk to work, the gym or your usuall weekly drive by.

Click on the image to get your download on! [Internet Explorer only]

So we’ve had 12 months of musical hits and misses and are excited to see what the New Year brings. For the sake of closure, though, here’s a few of the team’s personal picks from 2009.

Johnners

Miike Snow – Miike Snow
Just a great sounding album, nicely produced with great rhythm and a catchy blend of styles. Every track is different. Black & Blue is a seriously great tune and one I religiously listened too for a week or so. Highly recommended.

Jay Chakravorty

Moderat – Moderat
This one’s easy. It was only ever going to be between Moderat’s eponymous record and The Dirty Projectors’ Bitte Orca. No matter what anyone else says, I think 2009 has been a fairly barren year for good albums. Anyway, the debut from Moderat, a group comprising two of Berlin’s finest electronic acts (Modeselektor and Apparat), won out. Apparat’s lush analogue synth arrangements and Modeselektor’s ridiculously well-produced beats are a perfect match, sparking off each other in unexpected and frankly astonishing ways. You know the bit in Heat where de Niro and Pacino face each other in the diner? Well, it’s like that. You’ll notice something new every time you go back to it. Flitting between ethereal beauty and thundering dance music has never sounded so effortless.

Mike Abolins

Animals In The Dark – William Elliot Whitmore
With a voice that sounds like it’s seen one smoky bar too many, William Elliot Whitmore falls into that category of artists that sound older than their years. One listen to the Americana- and country-flecked acoustic folk that is Animals In The Dark and you could be forgiven for picturing a weathered old soul; in fact, Whitmore was born in 1978. Which makes the world-weary attitude and depth in tracks such as Old Devils and Hell Or High Water all the more remarkable.

Jethro

Let The Dominoes Fall – Rancid
It may have taken 6 years to get here and, as a big Rancid fan, it didn’t disappoint. Tim Armstrong’s gritty rasping vocals mixed with ska and psychobilly-influenced punk show that Rancid are still sticking to their traditional ska punk roots. It doesn’t quite hit the level of …And Out Come The Wolves, which is still my favourite Rancid album, but Let The Dominoes fall comes a close second and is an album that has sat at the top of my playlist for most of the year.