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Album of the Week: Umek ‘Responding to Dynamic’
Plenty of superstar DJs regularly enjoy what might be termed “presidential treatment"—private jets, secret passageways, massages of parts you never thought massagable—but few of them get visits from the actual president of their country.
But then, Slovenia’s Umek isn’t just any old superstar DJ. The fact that he’s ranked #39 in DJ Mag’s 2009 Top 100 DJs poll pales in comparison to his other achievements: pioneer of his country’s electronic music scene, entrepreneur, philanthropist, nurturer of new talent.
He’s done all this by keeping a few crucial values in mind: stay grounded. Stay focused. Give back to the people that have helped you along the way.
Oh, and be very, very good at what you do.
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Introducing Beatport Mobile
Beatport proudly introduces Beatport Mobile – a new way to shop Beatport while on the go.
Every DJ knows that inspiration may strike at any time. Have you ever frantically scrawled the name of a killer track on a bar napkin, only to be unable to decipher your handwriting the next morning? No more.
With Beatport Mobile, you can do just about everything you’re used to doing on Beatport, no matter where you are. From the airport to the club to the afterparty, you can browse, listen, and add music to your cart from the palm of your hand.
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Featured Chart: Nic Fanciulli
Saints & Sinners’ ‘Pushin’ Too Hard’ is rightly legendary. A massive Twilo anthem during the years of Sasha and Digweed’s residency there, it’s been updated many times since its original 1999 release—bootlegged, reworked by Saints & Sinners themselves, and remixed by the likes of Guy J and Futureshock.
Now Nic Fanciulli![[a]](http://www.beatportal.com/images/site/misc/wiki_box_a.gif)
gives it a new lease on life with a remix that’s truly something special. This isn’t the same old story of a label trying to wring a few more years out of an old track with a new round of remixes—this was Fanciulli’s idea. Judging from the results, he knew exactly what he wanted to do with it: play up the Giorgio Moroder-inspired robo-disco vibe of the original, slow it down and give it a tough, tech-house going-over.
Just out this week, the remix naturally occupies a high-ranking slot in Fanciulli’s new Beatport Top 10.
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Fatboy Slim ‘Weapon Of Choice’ remix contest
Skint Records and English DJ and record producer Norman Cook, better known as Fatboy Slim, are offering his ‘Weapon Of Choice’ track to be remixed by Beatport’s aspiring producers. ‘Weapon Of Choice’ saw success on both UK and US charts and its accompanying music video, directed by Spike Jonze and featuring Christopher Walken, received cult-like praise.
Weekend Weapons…Bassnectar
Is there a more evocative name in all of electronic dance music than Bassnectar? Lorin Ashton’s handle makes plain what we knew all along: bass is like manna from heaven, a life force, and every time he takes the stage, he invites us to drink deeply from it.
Since 2002, the Bay Area musician has been refining his brand of bass music on records for OM Records, Child’s Play, and his own Amorphous Music. But to really partake of his low-frequency communion, you’ve gotta see Bassnecar live, where he mixes together elements of hip-hop, drum & bass, breaks, dubstep, dancehall, and more into a throbbing wall of sound. It’s an adrenaline overdose with political overtones, a celebration of independence and grassroots action soundtracked by a sound that’s irreducible to any one genre.
With his new record ‘Timestretch’ just out, and about to kick off his spring tour, Lorin gave us the low-down on the cuts that his crowds are drinking up like, well, nectar from the gods—the gods of bass, that is. Read on as he explains exactly what kind of damage his Weekend Weapons can wreak.
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Feminine Pressure: Bye-Bye Boys’ Club Part 2
Last week, we launched a multi-part feature on women in electronic dance music. With a host of new talents on the rise, from house and techno to dubstep and beyond, we thought it was time to salute the women making dance clubs more equal—not to mention more fun—for everyone.
With help from the women behind We Make the Tea and the Next Girl DJ competition’s Ashley Douglas, we asked a number of women in the scene, both old hands and up-and-comers, to share their thoughts on gender and dance music.
The questions must have struck a nerve, because we got back more responses than we could print in a single sitting. Read on to see what Dinky![[l]](http://www.beatportal.com/images/site/misc/wiki_box_l.gif)
, Maayan Nidam (aka Miss Fitz), Bloody Mary, Camea, Subeena and Dasha Rush have to say about gender roles, creative vision, and the music industry. And stay tuned for insights from Chloe, Cio D’or, and more.
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Meet Burns, Deadmau5’ support DJ
Deadmau5 hand-picked 24-year-old British producer and DJ Burns to warm up for him at every show during a 30 date US tour last year. He’s also Calvin Harris’ go-to support DJ when he tours.
And yet not much was known about Burns, until recently, when his face appeared everywhere, in both high brow broadsheets like The Times, and dance bibles Mixmag and DJ Magazine. Even rock rag NME jumped on the Burns wagon.
Now big bands like the Black Eyed Peas, Wolfmother, Ladyhawke, and Franzmusik are asking for remixes, so we decided to get closer to the rising star of British electro house as his new EP ‘So Many Nights’ has just been released.
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Beatport Hits SXSW
While many of us are dreaming of Cuban coffee and packing our swim trunks in preparation for Miami’s Winter Music Conference, others have BBQ on the brain, and they’re pulling on their cowboy boots in preparation for this week’s SXSW festival, in Austin, Texas.
Now in its 24th year, SXSW is, by many measures, America’s most significant music-industry conference and live-music extravaganza. And while it tilts towards indie rock, there’s no shortage of club events going on. And where there are beats, you’ll find Beatport!
We’re hosting the Beatport Lounge from 9pm until 4am every day, beginning this Wednesday, March 17 until Saturday, March 20. We’ve partnered with LA’s Insomniac Events to bring you a four-day artist showcase featuring some of the biggest names in dance music, along with some up-and-coming talents that you’re going to be seeing a lot of in the coming months. Read on for a lineup that takes you from U.K. bass music to progressive house.
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Beatport WMC Customer Panel
This March the Beatport team will be invading Miami’s annual Winter Music Conference, and we want to meet you! Last year’s customer panel brought forth some very inspiring conversations, and was such a success that we are doing it again this year.
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Feminine Pressure: Bye-Bye Boys’ Club Part 1
It’s no secret that the world of electronic dance music can sometimes feel like a boys’ club. Only one woman, Lisa Lashes, cracked DJ Mag’s Top 100 DJs list last year, down from two in 2008. Fortunately, things aren’t quite so uneven in the underground, where artists like Ellen Allien and DJ Heather have been calling the shots since some of today’s superstar DJs were still in short pants.
The Next Girl DJ competition, which we introduced last month, aims to remedy that, providing a platform for girls and women to be noticed outside the usual networks.
With a host of new talents on the rise, from house and techno to dubstep and beyond, we thought it was time to salute the women making dance clubs more equal—not to mention more fun—for everyone. With help from the women behind We Make the Tea and Next Girl DJ’s Ashley Douglas, we asked a number of musicians, both old hands and up-and-comers, to share their thoughts on gender and dance music. The questions must have struck a nerve, because we got back more responses than we could print in a single sitting.
Read on to see what Anja Schneider, J. Phlip, Baby G (of Dance Disorder), Hannah Holland, and Kate Simko have to say on the subject, and in the coming days, we’ll be publishing more responses from Bloody Mary, Camea, Chloe, Cio D’or, Maayan Nidam (aka Miss Fitz), Dasha Rush, and more.
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Album of the Week: GonjaSufi ‘A Sufi and a Killer’
Sufism is a mystical sect within Islam, dedicated to the purification of the soul in pursuit of divinity. Stillness lies at its heart—a stillness embodied by the religion’s Whirling Dervishes, or semazens, who spin in place in trance-like worship. (If you’ve ever seen the film ‘Baraka’, you’ve seen them in action.)
The same stillness permeates the core of ‘A Sufi and a Killer’, the debut album from the San Diego-raised rapper GonjaSufi. Produced mainly by the Gaslamp Killer and Mainframe, and featuring one track by Flying Lotus, it’s a collection of hazy, psychedelic beats, mined from progressive rock and world music, that cradle Gonjasufi’s voice like a nest of moss and sticks.
GonjaSufi—aka Sumach Valentine—came up rapping with San Diego’s Masters of the Universe, but he doesn’t necessarily sound like a rapper on the record. He’s got a reedy singing voice that slips and cracks, grinding against the music like sandpaper—a bluesy, broken yawl somewhere between Jack White and a desiccated D’Angelo. But you can tell he’s a rapper from the way he uses his voice. Even in conversation, he’s performing—it’s not a showoffy thing, but a means of playing with identities, characters, putting meat on ideas, making words flesh. A surfer and a student of yoga, he channels stillness with every syllable.
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Strictly Rhythm remix contest winner announced
We’ve got a winner!
Back in December, Strictly Rhythm celebrated 20 years of label history by offering fans a chance to remix Armand Van Helden’s ‘Witch Doktor’, a classic slab of darkside house music. Now, the votes have been tallied and Strictly Rhythm have chosen their favorite from the 20 finalists.
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- Armand Van Helden - Witch Doktor
Interview: Motor City Drum Ensemble
It is February in Dublin. Danilo Plessow, a skinny white 24-year-old DJ from Stuttgart, spins vinyl to a tightly packed dancefloor in the Crawdaddy section of the Pod nightclub in Harcourt Street.
Now known as Motor City Drum Ensemble, Plessow has worked under several aliases including Hypster Wonkaz, Aphro Pzyko, and Inverse Cinematics (previously his most successful project and a joint creation with Joachim Tobias), before he launched MCDE last year.
Through a number of high profile remixes and a standout series of EPs called ‘Raw Cuts’, Motor City Drum Ensemble hit all the right notes in 2009.
Both deep house master Moodymann, and Detroit pioneer Kenny Larkin, publicly praised Plessow for taking the classic Detroit sound and turning it into something new.
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Noisia’s Full Metal Racket
We should warn you at the outset that this video is totally NSFM—not safe for mealtime, that is.
The Dutch heavyweights of drum’n’bass and electro, Noisia, test your gag reflex with their video for ‘Machine Gun’, which begins as a clever collage of abstract imagery and commences in a bloody orgy of mangled flesh and raw meat.
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Inside the mind of Wolfgang Gartner
Is there any producer with a keener eye for detail than Wolfgang Gartner? The meticulousness of the electro house producer from Austin, Texas, has made him a huge star within the genre, and helped him net eight Beatport No.1 records.
Whilst most electro house producers opt for simplicity - a big bassline and a simple house loop will do, won’t it? - Wolfgang Gartner throws layers of synths and FX into the mix, resulting in tracks that offer a multitude of build ups, bass holes, and hand-raising moments.
His latest single ‘Undertaker’ sees Wolfgang return to what he does best - microscopically precise heavy house grooves mixed with an instantly recognisable epic melody. No doubt, it will be one of the hits of Miami’s WMC 2010 in a little over two weeks.
But what don’t we know about Wolfgang Gartner? We decided to fire a series of personal questions at the producer and DJ to find out more about the man behind those killer electro house grooves (and yes, that is Wolfgang Gartner when he was a kid).
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