Last night dubstep OG Skream, took to his twitter to find a vocalist for his new demo “Smiler.” The track, which is a venture from his typical down tempo dark dubstep vibes, bubbles over with chiming piano chords and synthesized horns to form a relaxed yet upbeat tune.
Following in the footsteps of Deadmau5, who found the vocalist for his massive track “The Veldt” earlier this year in a similar way–Skream is hoping to find the perfect vocal hook from his beloved fans. Click below the break to listen to the instrumental demo and keep an eye on Skream‘s Twitter and Facebook for the email address to send your vocal submissions.
Other long-time DJs have seen their lights dim during the dance music explosion but Tiesto’s has only gotten brighter, making him inarguably one of the most major names in dance music. He’s been the subject of tabloid fodder, released numerous hits, made history, started his own radio show, and held down a residency at Privilege Ibiza for a decade but it seems he may be dialing down a bit. During an interview with Grant Smillie at the Electronic Music Conference in Australia Tiesto revealed, “Next year I’m not sure if I can do it, because it takes a lot out of me to play there from the end of May till the end of September.” He isn’t, however, writing off the white isle in its entirety saying that he may perform a “one-off show here and there.”
He also put the kibosh on speculation surrounding his collaboration with Deadmau5 saying, “Sometimes it just doesn’t happen. We made a track, it was okay, so we didn’t release it. But we Tweeted about it, so everyone was asking when it was coming. I don’t like to say that stuff anymore.” While we would love to hear a collaboration between the two, we’d rather them not release a supbar track just for publicity.
Other topics of discussion in the lengthy interview include the modernization of dance music, his hands on approach to hiring, how producers can get their tunes heard, and much more. Check it out above.
Best of Instagram is a feature from Dancing Astronaut that showcases our favorite pictures from our favorite DJs on Instragram each week. This week, we’ve got gems from Deadmau5, Chuckie, Carl Cox, and more.
There are few artists out there who can mess around with a few synthesizers, throw the fruits of their sonic ramblings online, and garner more than 15,000 listens overnight. But when you’re Deadmau5 and you have one of the more ludicrous modular synthesizer setups of any modern electronic musician, such excursions are par for the course.
“Analog Stuff” is worth a listen for any latter-day dance music fan whose ears have been saturated with the cookie-cutter digital synth plugins that dominate today’s EDM airwaves. Not that there’s anything wrong with them, but the sheer warmth and range of sound (from shapeshifting bleeps to extraterrestrial lawnmowers) on display here are a refreshing reminder of analog’s past and future potential. Could a Kraftwerkesque analog mau5terpiece be in the cards? One can only hope.
If you did not believe in the possibility of live DJing, think again. M4SONIC, a young producer out of Australia ups the ante on the Launchpad game with his original composition “Virus” using not just one pad but TWO. M4SONIC’s motivation is a direct result of Deadmau5‘s famed ”We All Hit Play” article from back in June. Refusing to accept this as fact, he bought a Novation Launchpad the day after the article came out — or so the story goes. Regardless, this latest showing of his talent (there are a few other examples on his YouTube page) made all of our jaws drop. Check it out for yourself.
Deadmau5 has come a long way since he released “Alone With You” four years ago, but the dreamy tune still remains among my favorite mau5 releases. Many of Zimmerman’s productions have a harder edge to them and although they’re usually stellar, his chiller outputs always win me over. Once you press play on this beautiful masterpiece the repetitive “bleeps and bloops” — as he refers to them — get under your skin and live there forever. If you haven’t heard this, it’s a must listen and if you have, well, it’s still a must listen.
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Best of the Rest is a daily feature from Dancing Astronaut that recaps the most important posts of the day as well as the stuff we didn’t get to. With the rapidity that dance music news and releases come out it’s difficult for us to hit everything — we hope BOTR serves as a catch-all. Make sure to check it out at the end of each day to ensure you don’t miss anything!
Dance music’s presence in last year’s Grammy awards was undeniable, marking the first time a DJ had been nominated for the Best New Artist category. The DJs and producers who were big in our world had finally crossed over into mainstream relevance by way of Skrillex’s five nominations and three wins. This year, Skrillex received three nods, each in the categories he won last year. Diplo’s nomination for Best Producer is also an accolade that is long overdue. Only three highly-recognizable dance music artists were nominated in 2012, but this time around there’s a much healthier selection.
Click below the jump to find out who made the cut and in which categories — prepare to be surprised.
It seems as though Deadmau5 has burned his music video budget for 2012 and is looking to fans to create a masterpiece to his collaboration with Imogen Heap, “Telemiscommunications.” Joel and Imogen Heap – heapmau5 – are looking for twenty different artists to work together to bring their idea to life. The story they are looking to animate revolves around a businessman unable to communicate effectively with those the he loves. Frustrations continue to grow until the businessman receives a text asking “Did I tell you I loved you today xx.” It’s an interesting concept and right up deadmau5′s alley, he’s reached out to his fans for contributions numerous times in the past. The contest ends December 10th, so read the full rules and fire up your favorite animation studio because who wouldn’t want their video seen by heapmau5′s combined 7.5 million fans.
When Nine Inch Nails frontman, Trent Reznor, isn’t winning the Academy Award for Best Original Score for The Social Network or composing the theme song for Black Ops II, he finds time to produce seductively eerie music as How to Destroy Angels, HTDA. Alongside his wife, Mariqueen Maandig, fellow film scorer, Atticus Ross, and Nine Inch Nails graphic designer, Rob Sheridan, An Omen EP marked the second extended play from the post-industrial overachievers. Trent said of the release, “We were experimenting around with the juxtaposition of something familiar and almost folky sounding sitting in a very cold and sterile environment.” Deep. “Ice Age” is hauntingly sexy with a mandolin that makes me want to get the yule log out and make a Christmas fire of my own. To our satisfaction, Deadmau5 got his nimble little hands on the juxtaposized folk masterpiece adding an arousing array of calming bleeps and bloops. While I may not showboat around town in my Honda Civic, windows down and mid-winter, blasting this remix, I will sit quietly on a Sunday and let it bring a tear to my eye.
