A couple years ago I was introduced to a sub genre of electronic called trance, I had all but forgotten about it until my new roommate decided to start experimenting and now I remember why I now hate it. For one the potential of the music remains largely untapped, all of the tracks you here have the same BPM and not one artist decided that maybe having hundreds of songs with the same beat would decrease the shelf life of any actual fresh tunes. On top of that the name is unfortunately ironic, good luck falling into a trance while listening to it unless you're pounding back LSD like a champ.
So I introduce to you my replacement to trance, chillstep, which as it so happens is scientifically proven to relax you to a trance like state, and the sheer amount of variety and skill is immense across this genre. My first real foray into chillstep was Azedia, then I moved to Vital and from there, Owsey.
Owsey, real name Owen Ferguson, is an electronic producer from Northern Ireland, and is quite possibly the best chillstep producer I've ever heard, at least in the top three. Although he doesn't have an album, all of his free downloads are arrayed in a convenient manner on his soundcloud. I recommend starting with his Skinny Love remix then moving slowly into his original tracks, from there well, life is a mystery, and that can't be portrayed in a better way than music.
So I was going to review one of the new EP's by french producer Pyramid today but that may have to wait indefinitely as I'm not sure how I got it without paying three euros, short term memory isn't my forte. So in continuation lets take a look at the Walking Televisions EP from Pittsburgh producer Mr Fijiwiji. No joke this guy is 16 years old, which blows my mind, and yes I say that every time but seriously why can't I have some crazy hidden talent like maybe the ability to share music with the world... oh wait. Those two links above will take you to the mediafire of his album and the bandpage app on his Facebook so that's six tracks of pure musical bliss ranging from borderline drum and bass to chillstep and glitchy electronica. Fun for the whole family, grab it up and spread the word.
So again while you have the time to read all this take a second to support the artists or at least spread the word to someone with money and please take a second to like our Facebook page here, bigger numbers mean maybe a justification of all the time I spend researching and draining the colleges bandwidth.
Its a serious shame that I waited till halfway through the week to write this post, but in all truthfulness my intake of music over the last couple days has increased exponentially. Just yesterday I downloaded over sixty single tracks not including an hour mini mix by Rameses B and three albums, by Sabrepulse, Pyramid and Day One (no links, you'll hear them soon enough). Its gotten so bad I've started deleting podcasts on the biggest ipod money can buy. All that being said lets get stuck in.
As may of you will know I've been following Omar LinX since A Cold Welcome was fresh and if you feel the need to hear his first two albums follow the link here. His brand new album Victor again lays down some of the best beats to cross my firewalls in a very long time, and yes the whole album features Zed's Dead, seriously try to make this sound more appealing. Once you get into it you're going to have a hard time not loving it, sure its only seven tracks long but thats half an hour of brutal dubstep backed by masterful vocals and the flow of the century. Come for the rap stay for the old school samples and more wubs than you can shake your stick at.
Alright time for something a little closer to the heart, I have a little affair going on with anything from the UK like Kings of the City. Nationality aside I have nothing but kind words and respect for these chaps, I mean its not everyday that you just up and find six other people that agree to make music together, its even more uncommon that you'll stay together for five tapes and then make all of them free. Yeah free you read that right if you head on over to their bandcamp you can get their Covers EP, No Rules to the Game EP and the Listen to the Old Man EP, not to mention singles for I Try and Darkness featuring Klashnekoff. That's 31 tracks, over two hours of
boundary pushing tunes. When I say boundary pushing I mean no two tracks are the same, discounting the Covers EP cause that's too easy, but there original tracks are an eclectic mix of indie, rock, rap, hip hop, grime and dubstep, none of it less than top notch. So if you have the hard drive space grab it all up for the price of your email address, tell them I sent you.
Once again pardon me for my lack of a schedule, if you feel benevolent then please support the artists, and spread the word, and take a second to like our Facebook page here.
So about a week or two ago I did something that really stretched my musical tastes I stumbled onto the February Music Alliance Pact article on The Guardian's website. Now don't get me wrong I've been listening to music from all over the world for longer than I should admit but ever only a couple artists, a couple genres, nothing like this. I guess I lived in ignorance of the fact that all the changes in musical taste and style were happening all over the world. The Music Alliance Pact really opened my eyes a little bit more to the vast array of gems hidden all over the world, and made finding them a whole lot easier.
So MAP is made up of 34 blogs around the world basically doing their best to connect us all in the universal language, music. I'm actually a little embarrassed I didn't know about this earlier, and I cannot endorse this more, to be a part of something that literally connects the world is amazing, and even though our blog here is minuscule I still manage to get most of my views from beyond North America, its an awesome feeling. Before we go too far here I'd like to hit you with the link to the zip file containing 36 tracks from aspiring artists all over the globe. Getting back into it here, I'm not entirely sure how long this has been going on but it looks like a monthly affair and I think I would like to do a little more research and maybe do a little update post every month even if its just to keep myself in the loop. Now I really don't want to take traffic away from the actual members of this group so I won't link any of the artists here but the original article is here, so if you would like to preview any of the tracks, or hear a little about the artist please visit it, I would also recommend clicking on the artist link next to each track, from what I've seen they're usually links to more of the artists work. So I'll put a couple videos up below for a preview, please take a minute or too to expand your horizons and really there's something here for everyone, every genre is explored and every track excels in its own arena, so give it a go, tell them I sent you.
As you can hear these two tracks are in english from Norway and Canada respectively, not only could I not find videos for some of the other tracks I wanted to link blogger's Youtube search decided to crap out so I had to embed the files, which is why they are off to the left hand side, my fault completely. So please take the time to download the zip and feel free to visit us on Facebook here.
