Udachi, brightest talent in ages

We were getting used to music not being able to spark an exciting scene anymore.
With notable exceptions like Mew, rock music has become more and more derivative and predictable, but even dance music has been suffering from an abuse of samples and has sounded just safe in the recent years.
But now, from New York, comes a new scene kicking the ass of dance music and waking up music in general.
It just sounds as innovative as acid house, and as exciting as punk. It's dance music you can pogo at, it's just that powerful and fresh. They call it Fidget house, but it's being called many other names, like "dirty house", or "electro house". I prefer Fidget because it's just a new term which doesn't just mix two other terms.
At first it sounds like the DJs have been inspired by Mr Oizo and his 90s ad hit Flat Beat, you know, that video with Flat Eric, the yellow puppet in the office, but of course it's just more than that. Drawing from the fringes of rave, gabba, techno, hip hop, breakbeat, electro and dubstep, Fidget house looks forward and creates a new world of heavy bass, fast rhythm, sharp sounds and simple but not stupid tunes.
Apparently the first true hit came from Italian duo Crookers, when they remixed Kid Cudi's Day N Nite.
But the best label right now pushing the best Fidget is based in Brooklyn and it's called Party Like Us, which is owned by AC Slater, one of the best DJs of the scene.
But there's an artist really standing out, miles above everyone else. It's an Ukranian immigrant called Greg Pesochin, best known as Udachi.
Be it his own music, or remixes for other artists and bands (which are always far better than the original versions), he always makes innovative, powerful, funny, inventive and emotional stuff, the biggest genius to emerge in this century by far.
The best track to start with is his club hit Smoke Rings (released with Jubilee), which is the video I've embedded, because it's really accessible and exciting, since featuring dubstep elements and female vocals.
I've discovered this music thanks to Faulty Kru's DJ sets in my town and just noticed the best stuff they're playing is all made by Udachi.
There are other talents around the world, like the mighty Jokers Of The Scene from Canada or Rico Tubbs from Finland, but let's get back to Brooklyn and let's learn more about Udachi's story reading this interview.
He also has another project called Boltan, which does even heavier stuff, like Braindead.
Udachi has a profile on SoundCloud where you can download loads of free MP3 files, I especially recommend his remix for Body Part(y) by Paragraph or for the nu gaze hit We Own The Sky by M83 (there are just no barriers for a Fidget DJ), or his whole DJ set at the Infatuation in San Francisco.
Other great tracks you must hear are Paypur (again released with Jubilee and more purely Fidget than Smoke Rings) or his storming remix of Hype, joint effort by Dre Skull and JuiceBoxx.
After releasing on labels like Trouble And Bass (Jellyroll) and Nightshifters (Smoke Rings), Udachi has just released a single on Party Like Us, my favourite version of P-Funk Skank is the remix by French DJ Costello, who returns the favour to Udachi for his excellent remix of Bitchy Skills (don't click on the 123music.net link on the page, it's spam).
Some of Udachi's music is available on iTunes, but you find more tracks on the specialized Beatport.
Definitely a scene to rave about!

The Best Of 2009 (and Merry Christmas)

01 BAD LIEUTENANT 
Never Cry Another Tear
 
02 MASSIMO VOLUME
Bologna Nov. 2008 

03 PREFAB SPROUT
Let's Change The World With Music 

04 Marlene Kuntz - Best Of 

05 Elio E Le Storie Tese - Gattini (deluxe edition)

06 Diaframma - Difficile Da Trovare

07 Pet Shop Boys - Yes

08 Section 25 - Nature + Degree

09 Mew - No More Stories Are Told Today

10 Egle Sommacal - Tanto Non Arriva

» READ MORE - leggi il resto »

Snow storm in Parma, 18 Dec 09

Full gallery on Facebook (66 pics)

4AD sampler streaming here and for free download.

This is a really interesting compilation, it's amazing given that British label 4AD went through the most of this decade almost unnoticed, pushing the wrong emerging bands (with the notable exception of Blonde Redhead) and getting mentioned only for the odd Pixies compilation.
If there's still some irritating stuff, like the kitch retro of Camera Obscura, the most of the bands (some Americans, some English) bring a refreshing sound and are worth investigating: Atlas Sound is the solo project of Deerhunter's Alex Cox, both play a unique take on psychedelic noise, Tune-Yards's fragmented mix of melody and rhythm sounds really original, M Ward's ethereal ballad seems inspired by Bowie's Low and Future Of The Left play an excellent revision of At The Drive In.
Best of the bunch are The Big Pink, which blend perfectly baggy and shoegazing, and St. Vincent which confirms Annie Clark as a genius as inventive as Bjork with an eclectic and emotional song.
The rest of the playlist is pretty average contemporary indie folk, or post folk, but discovering six interesting bands out of 12 is good enough.

Sunset mist

Exit Calm - Always A Way (live)

I've made this video for this astonishingly intense live performance of a truly emotional song.
Exit Calm are an English emerging band, all four members are extremely talented and I think this is the best showcase for their talent. They are the best band to emerge from England in this decade.
The first single, the wonderful Higher Learning, is sold out but you can still find the video here on YouTube, and you may want to check the video of the second single, the brilliant We're On Our Own, before purchasing it on iTunes.
Check http://www.exitcalm.net for links to their (really active and interesting) forum and their MySpace, which links itself to other MySpace profiles created by Spanish, American and Japanese fans, featuring many streaming tracks.

New Blogger editor

Some might not be aware that Blogger has a new, much improved post editor which is not yet active by default.
Better link and image handling, vertical editor resizing and a button for expandable post summaries (no need to code anymore) are reasons good enough to switch to the new editor.
Enabling the new editor is easy, read An Overview Of The New Post Editor on the Blogger Guide to learn how to switch and all the new features, but after you have enabled it you must also read the article Creating 'After The Jump' Summaries because you have to adjust a couple of settings, as customizing the Read More link text, especially if you write in another language, and updating the code of your template once to make the summary feature work if you're using a customized third-party template or if you changed the code anyway.

Bad Lieutenant - Never Cry Another Tear

The best way to purchase this album is to order the limited edition digipack CD with two bonus tracks from Townsend Records, and then download yet another bonus track from iTunes.
Bad Lieutenant are not, as it first seemed, New Order minus Hook, but Bernard Sumner with Phil Cunningham (who replaced Gillian Gilbert in New Order in this century) and Jake Evans from Rambo And Leroy.
Steve Morris appears on just a few tracks. He's even in the Sink Or Swim video, though the drums were apparently played by Jack Mitchell.

» READ MORE - leggi il resto »

Bad Lieutenant's debut with two bonus tracks for pre-order. Streaming video and single

The forthcoming debut album by Bad Lieutenant (the new band founded by former New Order leader Bernard Sumner), Never Cry Another Tear (released on the band's own Triple Echo label), is available for pre-order on Townsend Records in a variety of editions.
The limited edition digipack features two bonus tracks and when you order it you can immediately download Dynamo, the wonderful B side to the single Sink Or Swim, which is already available on iTunes in England.
Here we have the streaming video, single and B side:

YouTube - aneworderfan new channel design

http://htxt.it/ZNop YouTube - aneworderfan I love the new channel design, much better user experience...