Editor's ABC's : The Arkell's, BT, and Cage The Elephant

     I've been hearing some complaints lately, many echoed by myself, I put the word "Daily" in the title back when I had the time to post daily, and for not keeping my promise I apologize. As my apology I present to you oh mighty viewer an idea I may or may not have stolen from one of my fellow publishers, every Friday (time permitting) we'll go through my itunes Library alphabetically and pick an artist that has yet to be featured here as well as recapping the ones that have been. Hold me to it audience, three artists every Friday starting now.

      First off lets go through the artists that have already been featured here on the beats, A-Trak, Abandon All Ships, AC Slater, Ace Reporter, Akron/Family, Al Bizzare, All's Quiet, Armed With Crayons, Asking Alexandria, Attack! Attack!, Audiodax and Azedia.

     Now lets introduce my pick for our premier A-Z series, The Arkells. Hailing from Hamilton, Ontario, The Arkells are quite possibly the best example of Canadian talent, their debut album Jackson Square is one of my all time favorite rock albums and the CD has barely survived all the times its been tracked around the country with me.

   

     Again lets take a trip back in time and link you to all the posts with artists starting with B. BadBadNotGood, Baptized In Blood, Bart B More, Bassjackers, Beheading Machine, Big Chocolate, Blackmill, and Butcher Blades/.

     Unless you've been hiding under the proverbial rock then you've heard of BT, a widely known Grammy nominated electronic producer and composer. I first took notice after hearing a remix of his song Forget Me, then I took a trip over to itunes and purchased his album These Hopeful Machines. BT redefines electronic music, mixing in rock and orchestral themes, and I was hooked at first listen.

     These links are getting tedious, but our previously featured artists are Carridale, Chiddy Bang, Chris Webby, Chrome Sparks, City Delivered, City Lights, Com Truise, Commissioner, and Cyberoptics Dubstep.

     I think we're definately getting into my top 5 favorite artists. Cage The Elephant, there is not a day that could not be improved by their amazing sound or lifted by the shear amount of feeling put into their songs. I was first drawn to them after hearing their song Ain't No Rest For The Wicked on the radio one day, then further when it appeared as the opening track in the game Borderland. Their Self Titled debut album Cage The Elephant is a masterpiece of alternative rock and a battlefield of poetic liscence. This is a must buy, I command it!

     After all those links I'm not sure the hour I spent was worth it, but if you liked todays post give me some feedback on our Facebook page, and please support the artists.

Hipster Humpday 2 : BadBadNotGood + 3 Great Alternative Songs

     Welcome to our second official Hipster Humpday. You're here because you feel that todays music just doesn't quite live up to your standards, and thats good cause it shouldn't. Gone are all the great names from yesteryear and they took the talent with them, or so we thought. Here to instill a new found purpos in your ipod, is BadBadNotGood, a three piece jazz band from Toronto. Also known as the "Odd Trio" these guys met at Humber College and bonded over some very soulful music, jamming all improv like to many a hip hop song. Wait hip hop? Yup their first album you'll be surprised to hear is a mixtape of hip hop put to jazz. Their new album BBNG is available at their bandcamp for the great price of free and is chock full of top notch jazz with the heart of hip hop. I myself rarely listen to jazz but BBNG had me driftin off all day and I can't say I didn't want to go.

     I figured I should make some of the Wednesday articles the same format as Tuesday, so stick around for three amazing tracks that have been floating me this week. Miami Horror, Reptar and Handsome Furs.

Miami Horror - Holidays Ft. Alan Palomo

(Right click, save as, to download)

Reptar - Stuck In My Id

(Right click, save as, to download)

Handsome Furs - Repatriated

(Right click, save as, to download)

     Thanks again for stopping in, hopefully I've shown you some of the amazing talent that's hiding just around the corner these days. If you like it or not, head on over to our Facbook page to stay updated about this and our other blog and to just be a better person. Also big ups to Gabe for letting me know about BBNG and a huge thanks to the publishers of the Burning Ear for not having me killed for stealing so much music.

Toxic Tuesday 22 : Bass From Above + 3 Great Electronic Tracks

     Last Thursday marked the release of a long awaited treat. A thirty three track compilation album presented by Subsynthesis, a bass oriented blog which I was attracted to by the first volume last March. The awesome part about the albums is that all proceeds go to charity, and its already raised over a thousand dollars for Japan. I'm completely amazed by the sheer amount of top notch artists featured, Protohype, Love & Light, Nit Grit, Slim Thugz, Project Aspect, and more. This is the real deal, Bass From Above, name your price and start the dubsteppah!

     If you can stuff anymore electro into that head of yours you'll want to hit the tracks below, three tracks that have been floating around my playlists this week.

Calvin Harris - Flashback (Millions Like Us Remix)

(Click to download)

3LAU - Dubsex

(Click to download)

Bart B More, Drop The Lime and AC Slater - The Bass

(Right click, save as, to download)

     Thanks for tuning in for another post and apologies for the lack of a post yesterday. Please take the time to check out Subsynthesis and the Bass From Above volumes, and please if you can donate as all proceeds go to a great cause. Click on the links above for amazing music and other great sites to search, please (I implore you) take three seconds and click like on our Facebook page (seriously three seconds). Hope everyone had a great Tuesday and stay tuned for more.

September 2011 Playlist

September 2011 Playlist Track Listing (Download)

1. You Make Me -- Cobra Starship (feat. Sabi)

2. Fade Into Darkness (Vocal Edit) --Avicii

3. Do You Wanna Dance (Henry Blank vs. Way & Beyond Remix) --Dj Zkydriver

4. Forever (Hook N Sling Mix) --Wolfgang Gartner (feat Will.I.Am)

5. Save The Edge Of Glory (Djs From Mars Club Remix) -- Swedish House Mafia Vs. Lady Gaga

6. Someone Like You (Jonathan Gering Remix) -- Adele

7. Beautiful People (Phuckheads Remix) -- Chris Brown and Benny Benassi

8. Good Life (Robert DWNTWN Remix) -- OneRepublic

9. On the Floor (Salt & Fire Remix) -JLO

10. Dirty Dancer (Remix) (ft. Lil Wayne, Usher & Nayer) -- Enrique Iglesias

I Know its been forever since I've posted but since school started I have had more than my share of work to do. Its a challenge to keep up with AP Calculus, AP English, & AP Biology while making these playlists. Thankfully though I had some time this weekend.

Rainy Day Tunes: Joel Strauss

I finally managed to post something on time. I'm doing this in lieu of doing my readings and organizing my time as I should, but hey, sometimes you need a break.

This past Saturday (I can't believe that's almost a week ago now...), I went to a small concert nearby. First up was the young man that I am writing about for you today. He's a student at the university I attend, and just a little earlier this evening I could hear him in a room a floor down and across the hall from mine singing and playing his guitar, which is always a nice atmospheric touch to my studying.

Joel Strauss is what I would call a unique artist. He is not so "outgoing" and "sociable" as one may assume a musician would be, but neither he is reserved and quiet. I think it's quite a great balance actually. On top of it all, he's a genuinely nice person and an amazing artist (I mean musically...I have never seen any other art form from him, so I wouldn't count it out, but that's not my focus, haha). I was blown away by his lyrics and his sound when I heard him live, and I feel honoured to be at a school with such a talented person.

I had C. listen to some of the songs last night, and I really liked the way that he described the first song, "Beyond my Flesh and Bone." He said, "It has a nice feeling to it...melancholy but hopeful." I think that's the way that a lot of his songs come across. Some of them are very catchy, and often keep my mind captive for hours on end.

I do not have a current video for you to listen to straight from this page, so I decided to just leave it out altogether, rather than using an outdated video, but if you go to his Bandcamp site, then you can listen to all of the tracks on this album and if you like it enough or just feel so inclined, you can purchase the album there as well. Purchase it. Listen to it. Love it! I think it's worth it. So common! Support the artist this time, please! :)

Joel's Bandcamp
Joel's Facebook

Thanks for the support everyone! Keep on checking in here for more great music! Remember you can check us out on Facebook too!

Ciao,

K.

Hardcore Humpday 12 : Dreamshade and Beheading Machine

     Melodic death metal, not your everyday topic starter, but damn its amazing. Apparently Dreamshade are actually the first band from Switzerland to take a chance with this genre and actually get it right.

Dreamshade - What Silence Hides

     This is some of the most melodic and emotive music to ever grace my ears and yes I realize how crazy that sounds. With expert vocals changing from growling to screaming at a moments notice, extremely complicated drum patterns and guitar solo's, What Silence Hides is an album to be feared and respected and an amazing start from this relatively young band.     

     You may remember last Monday I briefly mentioned Beheading Machine, a mechanical deathmetal band from Poland. Having only started playing in 2008 the band has come a long way. This is definitely the other end of the deathmetal spectrum with insanely heavy riffs and blastbeats over growling vocal line, this is no pussy metal. Alas the only sad part is that this band is unsigned, so help out in anyway you can.

BEHEADING MACHINE - THE PSALM OF TRIPPING GOD [PROMO UPGRADE 2011] by SUBSTEP INFRABASS

     Well thats all I have to say for today, its my day off so I think I'll just waste a few hours playing Dead Island and writing some rough drafts of a couple reviews I have planned for my other page. If you are part of a band or are looking for a band and are from Ontario, Canada check out my buddies Facebook page here and stay update with our page here.

Toxic Tuesday 21 : Phutureprimitive + 3 Great Electronic Tracks

     So about a week ago I was cruising Glitchdrop and happened across a track by Phutureprimitive. At first I was not only attracted by the clever manipulation of P's and H's but the amazing cover art, but when I was told that I would have to pay for the album I was pretty bummed. My epic quest to locate a free version of Kinetic took me across the boiling deserts of the interwebz to a site called Transmission Seed, and that's where I found it.

Phutureprimitive - Kinetik

     One would have problems attempting to classify Rain's style with this album, maybe psydub, or melodic dubstep, but for now we'll just stick with electronic. 

     This is a ten track masterpiece of emotion and electronica with sounds stretching the limits of your perception and melodies floating across bass so deep you might lose a fender or two off your Sunfire. This album is for fans of electronic, or dubstep, or anyone curious as to what real music should sound like. Grab it up or w'll find you.     

     For the second part of todays post I thought we'd try a little change in format, after the amazing album above we have three random electronic tracks that have been buzzing around the internet and my skull this week. By Stephen Walking, Monarchy and Supervision respectively, no descriptions just downloads and preview vids, enjoy.

Stephen Walking - King Of The Road

Monarchy - Gold In The Fire

SuperVision - Arcane

     Hope you enjoyed todays post, let me know if you like the new Tuesday format at our facebook page here. Also I'm getting a new design tomorrow so t-shirts will be available soon!

K's Special #3: Frightened Rabbit

Alright, I forgot to post again last week since that was the day that classes started for me (sorry again...), so I believe I now owe two more "special" posts. Today will be just one of them, since I know C will not be posting until later this evening.

A couple nights ago, my friend was super stressed out about problems with her computer so she brought her guitar down into the dining room and was playing and singing some songs. Then she started singing this song by Frightened Rabbit that I love quite dearly, but I had forgotten about. I figure that this is as good a reason as any to post this band for you. I spent this morning downloading one of their albums, and I figured since I have the download, it was a perfect choice.

Frightened Rabbit is a Scottish band that I think has quite a unique sound, and it works very well for them.

 Download: The Midnight Organ Fight

I'm sure not everybody will enjoy this as much as I do, but I hope you will at least give it a listen.

Thank you again for all of your support, and sorry for our (specifically my...) lack of posts lately. I'll keep trying to make it up to you!

Ciao!

K.

K's Special #2: Mike Campbell

For my second "Special Post," I have decided to bring to you an artist that I went to school with not so long ago. I wouldn't say that we were close, or even really "friends" but we were nice enough to each other, and I respect him greatly as a musician. He composes all his own music, writes all his own lyrics, and while his YouTube channel doesn't have all that much on it, I still find it a joy when I rediscover it. I recently came back to it when Mike posted his new song on his wall on Facebook, and I got quite excited and decided that it would be a good thing to share with the world at large.

This post is going to be a little different...I think. I am going to start by warning you now that there are no downloads, so if you like it, just head on over to ListenToYouTube and download the songs for yourself (If he had them on Itunes or something I would direct you there, but that is not an option at this point). Also, I am just going to post everything on his channel, direct you there, and leave you with that. I'm not going to write a whole lot about any of them, maybe a little blurb, maybe not.

Mike's latest song.

Instrumental, and amazing.

 

I'll write a little something about this one. Two of the 3 members (so excluding Mike) are a year younger than I am and we went to the same elementary school together. When I first heard this song at school this year I was actually quite blown away. The main vocals are done by Kellam, and I am honoured to have known these young men in any respect. Hearing this in person kind of tops the recorded version just based on the energy shown, but I still like it and I hope you do too!

The first video uploaded to his channel.

So that's all for this morning, folks! I'm sorry for the weird format, but I figured it was time to switch it up a little for you, since my whole life has just been tossed in a box and jumbled around a bit. Why not share the experience? I believe that you'll be seeing a post from MrFlawedLogic sometime later this evening I think (Hardcore Humpday, anyone?) and it should be great! Thank you so much for your support and views, and I hope we haven't disappointed you and that I am at least beginning to make up for my absence from posting... Take care!

Ciao!

K.

Toxic Tuesday 20 : Solar Fields and Pyramid

     Welcome to the twentieth edition of Toxic Tuesday, I've got something a little different for you today. Magnus Birgersson, a.k.a. Solar Fields, is a swedish electronic musician. Since he was a teenager he has been playing piano, drums, percussion, and keyboard in several bands, but in 2001 he launched Solar Fields. Solar Fields to me is a musical hallucinogenic, you might as well make this stuff illegal. I mean theres trance music, then theres ambient, but when you combine the two you get  something truly unique.

Solar Fields - Movement 

     Last night when I was roaming around the web looking for an album by Phutureprimitive (we'll save that for later) I stumbled onto Transmission Seed,  wordpress site with a tonne of unique electronic music. I pillaged as much as my computer would let me and spent most of today completely zoned. I was at the eye doctor today and they hit me with three sets of eye drops, which made my eyes burn and diluted my pupils so much everyone I tried buying sunglasses off of thought I was tripping acid. So while my eyes felt like they would fall out of my skull I found my self concentrating on music (before my headphones shitted out), lets just say I had some amazing day dreams. I encourage everyone to download this album, maybe it will help you sleep, maybe it will power you down the highway, whatever the use you won't be the same ever again.

     You may remember way back when, I mean nineteen editions ago, our first Toxic Tuesday, we had an amazing track from french electronic artist Pyramid. Well this last week, celebrating 1000 likes on his Facebook page he released a ten track masterpiece for free.

Pyramid - Lost In Space

     Big thanks to Musigh for catching it, and many others. I thought at one point I had Pyramid figured out, his last album was to me "stereotypically french" don't ask me to explain that, it just sounded like a lot of french electronic. With the release of Lost In Space my classification has been shattered along with any concerns I had for my hard drive space, this is a must download. The entire album is a masterful mixture of synth-pop, bass, DnB beats, and a little french for colour. Grab it up and please consider giving this talented artist some money over at his Bandcamp.

     Hope you enjoyed the twentieth edition, its a big occasion for me and I know todays artists did it justice. Please consider supporting the musicians and blogs I pilfer, as well as following the blog with Google, or liking our Facebook page. 

K's Special #1: Vampire Weekend

Here I am, after a VERY long absence from this blog. I am really quite sorry for not posting in so long. My life just got so busy between work and trying to get caught up with everybody before I let for school, and getting ready to leave for school...I just simply did not have time. That being said, I've missed at least three weeks, or even more, so I owe this blog and all you viewers quite a few "special" posts. This is the first, and there will be more to come, plus my usual post on Thursday sometime.

For this special post today, I have an indie band from New York City to present to you.
Vampire Weekend has been around for a few years now, and can sometimes be heard floating around on the radio...that is, on a good day. A very good day indeed.


You may be wondering about the name of the band. Even if you weren't, I'll give you a little bit of background.  All the members of the band met while attending Columbia University. One of the members created a short film titled 'Vampire Weekend' and this is where their name came from. The creator of the title believed that the imagery of the vampires would draw in a crowd that would otherwise not choose to listen to this music, and I have little doubt that he was right about that (thanks to Vampire Diaries, Twilight and the like...). From there they self-produced their first album while working full-time -- an impressive feat.

There is just something about this band that gets to me, but maybe that's just my simple romanticism kicking in. I find that their feel is very East Coast, and I really appreciate that now that I'm living in New Brunswick. The song that really got me interested in Vampire Weekend was Walcott. I was sitting in a car with a good friend of mine on our way to work and this song came on from one of her CDs. We declared that it was a song we could both master on the piano (though I highly doubt that now...). Not only is it catchy, but it also talk about Cape Cod, which is about 7 hours from where I'm residing now. I've done my research. This places just a little bit of sentimental attachment on this song for me, but I really do like it for more reasons than just because it talks about the East...

Download: Walcott

Now, I am not coming into this with a lot of links for you. My school's network has a lot of file sharing sites blocked, but I've done what I can. The other link I can give to you with a clean conscience, is Horchata. I've only listened to it once, but it is off of one of the albums, and Vampire Weekend has put it up on their website for free downloading purposes (smart move Vampire Weekend!). I'll post the song, and the link, and it's all yours!

Download: Horchata

 So that's all I have for my post today, but as always, feel free to search around on the web for yourself, or just run to ListenToYouTube and download as much of their music as you would like. I hope today's post has been satisfactory, and at least starts to make up for my slacking of the last few weeks.
Take care all, and I'll be back!

Ciao,
K.

Metalstep Monday 3 : Substep Infrabass and Dead By April

     I love Mondays, well holiday Mondays, they give me time to locate amazing music and not rush about posting, and what a post we have today.

     Introducing Substep Infrabass, lets break it down for you. You start at electronic, then mix in some bass and drop the tempo to get dubstep, the you throw in some eerie noises and the possibility of a metal band and voila! Deathstep.

Substep Infrabass - Rooted In Immense Brutality EP 

     I've been sitting on this experimental future-bass artist for some time. On dubfuckingstep they classify it as deathstep, but its a whole other variety of said mind blowing genre. Its not really as apparent as the last few artists we've had, there aren't any screaming guitars or wailing demon lyricists, no mind bending blast beats, but a hell of a lot of bass, and thats all that matters. This is next level basstronics and even though it doesn't fit in your standard template of metal you just might find yourself swingin that hair around and punching people you don't know. It gets even better when you mix that sound with Beheading Machine, a Polish mechanical death metal band, yeah wrap that around your little skull. Hit Substep's Soundcloud for a free four track album with Beheading Machine and more dark ambient deathstep than you could fit in a stocking.

     Now that we've scraped the sludge of my frontal lobe we can crank the volume, amp the tempo and introduce our next band. Dead By April, a four piece... get this, trancecore band from Gothenburg, Sweden. 

Dead By April - Dead By April

Dead By April - Incomparable

     I was cruising pop-to-core this morning around five and was instantly drawn in by those words, metalcore/trancecore. I couldn't help but be curious about what trancecore could possibly sound like. In reality this band is along the lines of Abandon All Ships and Attack! Attack!, combining upbeat pop sensibilities with metal riffs and a healthy dose of screaming. But its when the synths kick in and the vocalist calms his gift that the trance section really kicks in. Just writing this I can feel my mind floating a bit, my sleepless night headache is fading and there's a smile on my face. Any music that can do that should be patented and sold to the masses. So grab those albums above, the password is pop-to-core.blogspot.com, yes I stole it but damn who wouldn't share this amazing band. Support the artist and support the blogs I pilfer and have a great holiday Monday!

     Hope you enjoyed the post today, Metalstep Mondays are a real treat to research and write cause they don't happen every week, its an occassion and I think it should stay that way. So please support the artists, even if you like thier facebook pages, or download their tracks. Speaking of facebook, like the blogs page here so you can make me happy, come on, you know you want to.