It's the Supersound

Happy Wednesday! I have a wealth of great news for you today including articles, videos, and music. Please read on after the jump to see what’s happening in the electronic music world.

 

Skrillex, Caspa, 12th Planet Perform At CYP2 Party In L.A.

 

Deadmau5, Rihanna to perform at Grammy-week benefit gig

Deadmau5, Rihanna, Calvin Harris and Sebastian Ingrosso of Swedish House Mafia have teamed for a special one-off benefit show at the House of Blues on Grammy night.

Roc Nation and the Three Six Zero Group are partnering for the Feb. 12 charity show, which also includes Scottish House music DJ-producer Chris Lake and electronic producer Michael Woods. Rihanna is also slated to hit the Grammy stage with Coldplay earlier that night.

Proceeds for the show will go to the Children’s Orthopaedic Center and the Mark Taper–Johnny Mercer Artists Program at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. 

Tickets will set you back $1,000 (it’s for a good cause!) and go on sale Tuesday at 5 p.m. via Live Nation.

(via LA Times)

 

Swedish House Mafia join the pop ranks on will.i.am’s album

(via PRNewswire)

 

Brainfeeder Drops Free Compilation

After claiming the top slot of the Label category in Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide Awards, Los Angeles beat guru Flying Lotus and his Brainfeeder imprint have shared a sampler of free tunes from its growing roster of artists. The 12-track compilation includes music from Lapalux, Martyn, Samiyam, Tokimonsta, The Gaslamp Killer, Teebs, Matthewdavid, Mono/Poly, and more, and can be downloaded at no cost, here.

(via XLR8R)

 

Orbital Announces UK Festivals

 

Visionquest headline the Last Resort in Miami

Liaison Artists, Embrace, Safe and Beatsme have teamed up for an all day party in Miami called The Last Resort.

The event should fill at least part of the Sunday School-shaped hole in this year’s schedule. Taking place on the final Sunday of WMC, it will host DJs and live acts all day and night at Villa 221, a multi-purpose venue in downtown Miami. More than a dozen names have been confirmed, including Maya Jane Coles, Soul Clap, Magda, Maceo Plex and DJ Three. Visionquest and Wolf + Lamb are on the bill as well, along with some of the newer artists that have appeared on their labels: PillowTalk, Footprintz and Aquarius Heaven, all playing live. Lee Curtiss will play live too. The whole things runs from 7:00 AM until well past sundown.

Tickets to The Last Resort are available here on RA.

 

Kaskade + Skylar Grey at Marquee This Saturday

Skylar Grey will be joining Kaskade this Saturday at Marquee to celebrate the release of their new single “Room for Happiness”!!! http://bitly.com/KaskadeTix

(via Facebook)

 

Crystal Castles: Third Album (Finally) In The Works

Good news, fellow Crystal Castles fans—the gloomy electronic duo are reportedly preparing to begin work on their next studio album, their first since 2010′s fantastic self-titled album. (Not to be confused with, you know, their 2008 eponymous debut. I’m not a betting man by nature, but I’d say it’s safe to presume that their next album could potentially be titled Crystal Castles… possibly maybe.)

In a new interview with the NME, producer/multi-instrumentalist Ethan Kath reveals that he and singer Alice Glass are headed to Croatia this next month to begin work on the next batch of songs. “We never do meaningless,” he boasts. “Every song we write is bleak. We don’t want anything else.” (via Pitchfork)

Sounds like the Crystal Castles I remember, all right.

Kath promises the untitled (it’s definitely gonna be called Crystal Castles though, you wait and see) album will drop “sometime” this summer. Start smearing mascara all over your face now.

(via Ology)

 

Rave Promoters’ Alleged Under-the-Table Cash Payments to Union Hands at L.A. Coliseum Probed by FBI — Source

The FBI is looking into allegations that millions of dollars in under-the-table cash payments were made by rave promoters and other exhibitors to union hands working events at the troubled L.A. Coliseumand its sister venue, the Sports Arena.

FBI agents in recent weeks have contacted rave organizers as part of its investigation, the Weekly learned today.

This comes as the Los Angeles Times reported that …

… U.S. Department of Labor was investigating the alleged cash payoffs.

The Weekly broke the story that as much as $2.5 million in cash — sans taxes and benefits — had been paid to International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) stagehands at the L.A. Coliseum and Sports Arena in recent years. We filed California Public Information Act requests regarding the matter last year.

The under-the-table remittance reports inspired the publicly run Coliseum to pile on new accusations to a civil lawsuit against its former top managers and the rave promoters, who allegedly engaged in a conspiracy of side payments and benefits that enriched them at the taxpayers’ expense.

One source, however, alleged to us that the alleged cash payments to union hands, which the Times says was done via $100 bills in suitcases, was a shakedown of exhibitors by a union boss.

Others, however, have painted the union as a victim, noting that benefits and tax liabilities have been lost if these allegations are true. City Controller Wendy Greuel told us previously that “IATSE clearly followed the rules on so many levels.”

Deanne Amaden, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Labor, told the Weekly that …

… this is one of these situations where we can neither confirm nor deny we’re doing an investigation.

The Times says the payments were for stagehands who worked …

… rave concerts, Cinco de Mayo performances, a mixed martial arts production and a Lakers NBA championship celebration, among other Coliseum bookings.

(via LA Weekly)

 

Fenech-Soler – Demons (Minnesota Remix)

Minnesota has been one of my favorite dubstep producers for some time now and it’s to no surprise that he’s killing it, as always. Check out this new remix he put out for free last night.

 

Tōks

Our good friend 12th Planet has teamed up with Scion A/V in 2012 for a free EP being released in two short days as well as a 28-date headlining tour throughout all of February and early March. The EP, The End Is Near, is inundated with collaborations from some of the tops in American Dubstep right now, including Flinch, Skrillex, Kill The Noise, Antiserum, and SPL, but today we get to premiere 12th Planet’s only solo original track on the EP, ‘Jailbreak.’ Not too heavy. Not too light. Perfectly melodic. Mr. John Dadzie can’t be stopped! Free download and tour dates below.

12th Planet – The End Is Near EP presented by Scion A/V
1) 12th Planet & Flinch – The End Is Near Pt. 1
2) 12th Planet, Skrillex & Kill The Noise – Burst ft. GMCFOSHO
3) 12th Planet & SPL – Ratchet Strap
4) 12th Planet & Antiserum – Ghost
5) 12th Planet – Jailbreak

Tour Dates:
Feb 2 Miami, FL @ Grand Central
Feb 3 Ft. Lauderdale, FL @ Revolution
Feb 4 Athens, GA @ Bad Manor
Feb 5 Atlanta, GA @ Masquerade
Feb 7 Virginia Beach, VA @ Peabodys
Feb 8 Washington, DC @ District
Feb 9 Baltimore, MD @ Soundstage
Feb 10 New York, NY @ Webster Hall
Feb 11 Philadelphia, PA @ TLA
Feb 12 Hartford, CT @ Webster Theater
Feb 13 Boston, MA @ Middle East
Feb 14 Montreal, Canada @ Le Belmont
Feb 15 Toronto, Canada @ Wrongbar
Feb 16 Chicago, IL @ Bottom Lounge
Feb 17 Detroit, MI @ Magic Stick
Feb 18 St. Louis, MO @ 2720 Cherokee
Feb 19 Nashville, TN @ Club Mai
Feb 20 New Orleans, LA @ Ampersand
Feb 21 Dallas, TX @ Trees
Feb 22 Oklahoma City, OK @ Kamp
Feb 23 Albuquerque, NM @ Sunshine Theater
Feb 24 Phoenix, AZ @ Madison Events Center
Feb 25 Las Vegas, NV @ Hard Rock
Feb 28 Orange County, CA @ Dubtroit
Feb 29 Los Angeles, CA @ Music Box
March 1 San Francisco, CA @ Mighty
March 2 Portland, OR @ Roseland
March 3 Eugene, OR @ Wow Hall

__________________

♥ jonahberry

Hey folks… Happy 2012! We are on our winter break. But we will be back before you know it. Until then we will leave you with some of our fav interviews from 2011.

Dec 26th the interview show with Skrillex

Jan 2nd the interview show with Leif Vollebekk

Jan 9th the interview show with Nü Sensae

Jan 16th the interview show with 12th Planet

Jan 23rd the interview show with Mother Mother

Jan 30th the interview show with Kim Churchill

Feb 6th the interview show with Hot Panda

Also here are some tracks to enjoy. :)

M83 “Midnight City” (My fav track from 2011)

TB1 “Showertime” (The first original track from a MTL-based remixer)

by Jonno Seidler (One A Day)

I’m not going to be the first or last person to tell you that dubstep was at once the most horrific and interesting thing to crawl to the top of the dance music heap in 2011. Of course, the roots of the movement go way back to British garage and 2-step and have been kicking around for longer than most Stoney Roads readers have had email addresses but for the sake of the argument let’s isolate the apex, or the dangerous prepice, if you will, of the sound and how it influenced foreign markets, particularly America and Australia. There’s something very weird about the cross-disciplinary and socially varied appeal of this genre in the last two years, something which may have to do with how we use our two feet when confronted with recorded music blaring out of a speaker.

Ignoring the very able and svelte immigrants from African nations, most regions of South America and, to an extent, Mediterranean Europe, the basic truth for anyone who isn’t deluding themselves is that Australians (and white Americans) can’t dance. It’s a quality about us that is as reliable as our suntans and surfboards and the further we move on from the 1950s, when everyone was taught how to swing, jive and jitterbug, the worse it gets. One thing had to give in these situations, particularly once black music – funk, soul, hip-hop, rap – started becoming popular to make everyone stop looking bad. And historically, it’s been the sound that has changed before the legs and the hips. When we couldn’t hack Motown, God gave us disco. It’s the fountain of youth from which most dance music drinks and everything from 4/4 bass drums to rigid slap bass comes from there. All of these things are much easier to groove to when you’re a white person. The time is marked out for you. There’s a strong emphasis on repetition. The sections don’t really vary that much. And perhaps most importantly, nothing swings.

When I was in highschool trying to illegally get myself entry into clubs as a teenager, every single one of them was playing serious, no-frills hip-hop. But once we got inside the only thing that became patently obvious was that nobody except the black kids had any idea what they were doing. Americans rectified this problem very simply, by dancing like they were having sex with each other. It really doesn’t require much innovation to stick your body to a girl’s body and simply shimmy up and down her torso without ever letting go. Go to any d-floor in any college town and you’ll be hearing hip-hop but you won’t be seeing the dancing associated with it. Australians went the other way; we booted hip-hop out of the clubs (until it was repackaged in the mid-’00s) and replaced it with techno, house and whatever else allowed us to shuffle from right to left or dance on the spot. Nobody had to be Michael Jackson. Everyone was saved.

Now, how does this all relate to the last 12 months of dubstep? Apparently even grooving to a 4/4 beat (and let’s be honest, busting out to LMFAO is like reading a picture book with phonetic spelling) has become too difficult for the current generation of Australians, and with that statement I particularly focus on Australian men. The terrible endpoint that is ‘bro-step’ (Skrillex, 12th Planet) isn’t called that by accident. If there’s one thing that’s more enjoyable and requires even less brain power than shuffling, it’s moshing. Go to any festival over the summer and you’ll see swathes of kids piling into each other like they’re at an Incubus concert in 1998.

Dubstep, like most musical movements, was created as a reaction to what people inherently want, even if you may maintain that you personally don’t. It’s harder, louder and more offensive that most other forms of dance music – save for that trance your stoned neighbour plays at 4am on a Thursday – and rather than encouraging the typical form of presentation and display that performing arts like dance enable men to do it lumps them all into a mass of testosterone and shoots them straight towards the nearest tattoo parlour. Sociologists have pointed out that even before popular music, the men who danced better took home the best women. Instead, we’ve regressed right back to the beginning, where the dude with the biggest club knocks her out and drags her back to the cave for another round of Caspar tunes.

So what’s next? Given that we’ve already lost most of the tempo, harmony, lyrics and tonality typically associated with popular music, where dance goes in 2012 is anyone’s guess. My money’s on industrial noise with advertising slogans shouted overhead.

See you in the club. With your club.

Tomorrow night, Orange County gets an extra large dose of loud with a DJ pairing thats sure to make even the strollers at Disneyland feel the boom. Dim Mak chief Steve Aoki heads back to the Grove of Anaheim, this time accompanied by LA bass aficionado 12th Planet and massively supported canuck Autoerotique. Both Aoki and 12th planet fresh off international tours will be truely bringing it home as they join forces in southern California to destroy this Thanksgiving weekend. Joining the madness will be newly found Into The AM residents LBCK and DirtyRock.

Why should you care? GDD will be in the house with Dim Mak (live) + Media Contender bringing you exclusive photos and live footage of the event, so that even if you can’t get to the show, you can have your own personal festival while fist pumping in your jammy jams. Plus, who else is gonna bring you more proof of aspiring Dirt babes with our branding stuck all over them?

MORE INFO HERE

I hope you all had an excellent Thanksgiving and I hope your food comas have subsided after a night’s rest. Today’s news spans from trance to dubstep with Above & Beyond, Jesse Rose, Depeche Mode, 12th Planet, and Flux Pavilion. As always, catch the full GDD™ Morning Update after the jump.

Above & Beyond warn against “Very weak imitations” in dance music

As far as dance music success stories go, Above & Beyond’s career is a standout. With a string of artist albums, an ever-growing Anjunabeats empire and tireless world tours, their superstar status has been hard-earned. In an interview with Mixmag this week, Jono Grant has drawn on the trio’s experience to send a sagely message to aspiring producers (and established ones, too). The bottom line being: don’t shamelessly ape the formula of David Guetta, Swedish House Mafia and co.

“I’ve noticed that many smaller producers are seemingly feeling a bit lost in where to go with their direction, and are perhaps seeing artists like having mainstream commercial success and saying, ‘I want a piece of that!’,” muses Grant in the interview. “They are then diverting from their chosen flight path and heading towards that, which is of course fine if it’s where they genuinely want to be, as some do. But for a lot of producers, they dilute what they are about because they are not David Guetta and don’t do what he does best. That’s not experimenting in my eyes, it’s panic!”

He then goes on to single out a particular example that’s likely to resonate with Beatport-trawling ITMers.

“For example, over the last two years I’ve noticed Beatport has been littered with tracks trying to directly mimic the riff from Swedish House Mafia’s One, including some of the bigger names,” Grant continues. “Now the instrumental of One was a great groundbreaking track when it came out, but it just feels very weak, perhaps even cynical, for so many producers to try and copy this, and in 95-percent of cases creating very weak imitations. In the process of doing something like this you dilute your own identity.

“Dance music has always been about borrowing ideas, but at the same time it’s also been about moving the sound forward. I’ve always felt the key is to draw influences from multiple sources in order to make something fresh sounding. Fair enough if you take influences from the SHM, but throw something new in there.”

This weekend is set to be a big one for Above & Beyond, with the 400th episode of its Trance Around The World radio show. Naturally, there’s a mammoth party planned – Beirut is the lucky destination – accompanied by an eight-hour broadcast. The headliners will be joined by Jaytech, Mat Zo, Kyau & Albert and Gareth Emery, so fans will want to settle in.

(via inthemix)

 

Jesse Rose’s ‘Made For The Night’ Documentary

Mixmag recently took a trip to LA to catch up with fidget house originator turned global house superstar Jesse Rose. Find out what we got up to with Jesse right here and check out his brand new documentary, Made For The Night, above. It gives further insight into the life and work of one of the best DJs in the game right now.

(via Mixmag)

 

Depeche Mode Co-Founders Martin Gore and Vince Clarke Reunite After 30 Years

Depeche Mode co-founders Martin Gore and Vince Clarke have announced that they are working on music together for the first time since Clarke quit the band in 1981. (Clarke would go on to make synth-pop history with Erasure and Yazoo/Yaz.) The two have joined together to form a techno act called VCMG.

Gore said in a press release, “Out of the blue I got an e-mail from Vince just saying, ‘I’m interested in making a techno album. Are you interested in collaborating?’ This was maybe a year ago. He said, ‘No pressure, no deadlines,’ so I said, ‘OK,’ and that’s what we’ve been doing the last six month.”

VCMG will release a yet-untitled album early next year, which has already been recorded. In the meantime, they’ll put out a series of EPs, beginning with a 5-track collection called Spock. That’ll be out on December 13 through Mute, and includes four remixes of the title track.

Spock:

01 Spock (Album version)
02 Spock (Edit Select remix)
03 Spock (Regis remix)
04 Spock (DVS1 Voyage Home remix)
05 Spock (XOQ remix)

(via Pitchfork)

 

DJ/producer 12th Planet picks five seminal dubstep tunes