Alesso is one of few artists who had the opportunity to perform live in 2020 thanks to Ultra Music Festival’s Taiwan edition. The “Going Dumb” disperser gave his listeners a lot to look forward at the end of a difficult 2020 thanks to the set, which was livestreamed in real-time on November 14. But, before Alesso’s Ultra Taiwan stint would come his commensurately notable 2019 set at the brand’s flagship—Ultra Miami. The performance took the PROGRESSOVOLUME 1 conceptualist to the Virginia Key-relocated event’s main stage, where his set served as a beacon during a year of change for the festival, typically anchored in Bayfront Park.
The high-ranking Alesso appearance remains a highlight of his live catalog, and it’s precisely where Dancing Astronaut is heading as we kickstart our second straight week of Good Morning Mixes commemorating what would have been UMF’s 2021 installment. Follow our road to Ultra here.
Featured image: Rukes
Tags: alesso, miami music week, Ultra 2021 Good Morning Mix Series, Ultra Music Festival, Ultra Music Festival Taiwan
With his debut release on Get Together KALM links up with Poppy Baskcomb to give us ‘Empty’, an infectious deep groover. Coming off the back of strong radio support including R1 & Kiss FM from his last record & sync’s in Love Island, KALM is back.
Showcasing his production ability, KALM delivers a dark atmospheric number that captures you from the moment it starts all the way to the dark underlying synths at the end. Paired with a haunting vocal from Poppy Baskcomb this is a true banger to get the year started off. Watch out for KALM in 2021 as this marks the start of a busy year.
Beabadoobee is set to release a new track with The 1975‘s Matty Healy and George Daniel this week.
Titled ‘Last Day On Earth’, the track appears to be the first preview of a new EP the artists have made together.
Back in January, Healy teased new collaborations with both Bea and Charli XCX. The Charli link-up landed this month in the form of ‘Spinning’, a collaboration between the pair and No Rome, and the music with Beabadoobee now appears to be on its way.
Revealing that ‘Last Day On Earth’ was coming out this week in a post on Instagram sharing its artwork, Healy said he was “very humbled to have been given the opportunity to make this record”.
Teasing the new EP as early as last September in an interview with Apple Music, Bea said: “It’s not big, it’s just something cute to come after the album. Basically, we did some songs for after the album … It was honestly one of my favourite experiences ever, and was such a wholesome time, watching Reddit videos in the evenings and making music during the day.
“It’s not a lot. It’s just a small, little EP. But I guess for now, everyone has to wait for the album to come out before they hear that. But I don’t want to set aside for all the music that’s coming out. Because I feel like this is the most me I’ve ever – I say that with every EP I’ve released – this is the most ‘me’ I’ve ever sounded.”
Beabadoobee released her debut album ‘Fake It Flowers’ via Dirty Hit last year. A five-star NME review of the album said it signalled “the sound of a modern guitar great in bloom,” adding: “The leap from bedroom-dweller to teenage riot instigator has been a swift and fruitful one, and what could be considered derivative is genuine in every sense.
“Circumstance might dictate that bedroom songwriting is back on the cards for Bea as the slow crawl to the return of live shows continues, but there’s a rock-solid foundation for the years to come.”
Seoul Community Radio has just released a new online game in support of their city’s nightlife.
Titled onit.life, they’ve delivered on their plans to “fuse electronic music culture with the limitlessness of online gaming” with the new experience. The platform will be used to host curated in-game events, the first of which has been dubbed “A Decade of Seoul Parties 2010-2020” and explores the nightlife from the last decade in the capital city. On the game’s YouTube channel, they shared a very short look at the online experience.
In the video, you can see the player move through an indoor exhibit featuring artwork and videos from past shows. It then concludes with the player stepping outside into a psychedelic, otherworldly realm with giant pairs of legs walking in the distance and what appears to be a huge dome.
On the onit.life website, developers detail what’s in store for those who log into the game. They explain that the music comes from a number of Seoul-based producers and that the visual exhibits inside are powered by Korean photographers.
Content inside the world comes from six well-known Korean subculture photographers (Stillm45, Hansy, Kaipaparazzi, Hyunkeem, Chosen1 and Sung1) and is soundtracked by a compilation from 15 Seoul producers to give a full immersive experience a localized feel. Veteran Seoul artist DJ Conan will also provide a flagship mix to go with the launch soundtracking a decade behind various Korean club decks.
Those who don’t have a gaming PC or game console are in luck as the game can be played entirely in your Internet browser. Their website also mentions a mobile version of the game, but at the time of writing, it has not yet been released.
In celebration of the launch of the game, Seoul Community Radio went live to demo onit.life over the weekend in VR and hosted performances from PianWooo, DJ T.T.EKONA, SKOPE, HYUNHEE, ROMderful, and more. You can watch the entire five-hour livestream below.
Seoul Community Radio’s onit.life online game is out now. You can play the game for yourself and donate to their cause on the radio station’s website.
Festival stages might seem like a distant memory for most of us. But not for long. Especially if R3hab, Timmy Trumpet and W&W have anything to say about it. In an absolutely epic collision of big room progressive house, these three main stage icons have crafted the certifiable festival anthem — as soon as they start happening again. Opening with haunting vocals and W&W’s progressive melodies, “Distant Memory” lulls the listener into a relaxed state before Timmy Trumpet and R3hab up the ante with cinematic synths, a driving bass line, and a goosebumps-inducing drop. Like all truly great big room progressive bangers, the trio excel in creating a contrast between the larger than life vocals and an overly intensified drop — it’s classic anthem energy that takes us back to simpler times. If you miss festival stages as much as we do, then you’ll love this one.
Sometimes, a track just takes you by storm and leaves you wondering what just happened a couple of minutes later. Poylow and Britt Lari’s collaboration ‘Nightmare’ does just that.
With a banging slap house beat and catchy vocals, it’s over before you know it and makes you press play all over again. The French producer and Peruvian (LA-based) singer deliver us a high quality, high-paced dance tune ready for club floors and radios alike!
KISS‘ Paul Stanley has said he doesn’t “really see a reason” for the rock icons to deliver any new music before they finally call it a day when their farewell tour comes to an end.
The band’s last album came in 2012’s ‘Monster’, but new music has failed to materialise since then.
Instead, Stanley is focusing on releasing the debut album from his ‘Soul Station’ side-project, and says it is unlikely that KISS fans will hear anything from the band before their ‘End Of The Road’ tour comes to a close.
“I don’t really see a reason for it, to be quite honest. For the most part, when classic bands put out new albums, they’re looked at and listened to and thrown away because they don’t have the gravitas, they don’t have the age that comes with something being a time capsule or being attached to a certain period of your life,” he told USA Today.
“I’m not alone in that. When you see any classic bands on TV or if there’s a concert video, turn off the sound and I’ll tell you every time they’re playing a new song because the audience sits down.
Kiss. CREDIT: Kevin Winter/Getty Images
“So it’s odd to me that people always want you to do a new album, but then they go, ‘That’s great. Now play your hits.’ So honestly, at this point, there isn’t a real reward in it. There’s much more of a reward in changing lanes — I’m still going forward.”
He added: “But in terms of recording more KISS material, I kind of go, ‘Why?’ I thought ‘Modern Day Delilah’ or ‘Hell Or Hallelujah’ were as good as anything I’ve written and as good as anything we recorded, but understandably, it’s like new wine. It just hasn’t aged. So I’d rather not try to roll a stone up the hill.”
Stanley’s comments come after his bandmate, Gene Simmons, previously admitted that he was not “incentivised” to release new music.
“The idea that you work your ass off and then someone with freckles on their face decides they want to download your music and file share — that’s not what I work for,” he said.
Elsewhere, Simmons was recently criticised for accusing young fans of being the culprits for “the death of rock”.
Alice Cooper hit back shortly after, arguing that “Kids are learning hard rock right now”.
The history of electronic music, as deep and rich as it is, hasn’t necessarily been catalogued in a concrete way. Most of the information is highly decentralized, with fans relying on seemingly random op-eds, interviews, or picture books if they wanted to take a look back at the “olden days” of club culture and dance music.
A new website and app presented via Google Arts & Culture uses over 13,000 photos and videos, as well as augmented reality, 3D scans, and more to attempt to bring together the information a little more cohesively.
Called ‘Music, Makers & Machines,’ fans can go back through decades of media to discover the origins of dubstep, the rise of grime, old rave flyers, the influence of black artists in the culture, and more.
Watch the trailer below, and view online here or through the Google Arts & Culture app for iOS and Android.
G-house aficionado BIJOU has been on his grind for the past year. After releasing his Diamond City album and over a dozen singles, the Phoenix-based DJ has returned to Night Bass for his 3-track 187 Proof EP. Providing classic boisterous and groovy G-house beats, the EP is equal parts fun and raucous.
BIJOU kicks things off with a danceable track called “Big Racks.” The lively beat consists of a driving bassline, powerful claps, and the swagged-out vocals of Buffalo rapper Elcamino. Next, J. Sirus joins BIJOU for “Zodiac,” which features a saturated bassline, bouncy hi hats, and smooth bars courtesy of the Sacramento hip-hop artist. Rounding out the EP is the ferocious “Liquid Swords,” which combines a thumping bass, stabbing synths, and rhythmic glitches and effects.
If running his own Do Not Duplicate Recordings label and online teaching school HMWRK Academy wasn’t enough, BIJOU announced at the start of 2021 that he plans on releasing at least 10 more songs this year.
Stay tuned for more form BIJOU, and listen to his 187 Proof EP here.
KSHMR, known offstage as Niles Hollowell-Dhar, has finally released his debut album, Harmonica Andromeda. The 14-track LP is the producer’s first project since his 2017 EP, Materia.
Hollowell-Dhar’s journey through music has been an experience like no other. As one-half of the hip-hop duo The Cataracs, KSHMR got his first taste of international success in 2010 with “Like A G6,” which hit No. 1 twice on the Billboard Hot 100. In 2013, the producer infamously became responsible for one of the most popular bigroom house songs of all time when leaked contracts credited him as a co-writer and co-producer for DVBBS and Borgeous’ “Tsunami.” The news eventually led him to leave the ghost production circuit and start the KSHMR project in 2014.
Since then, he’s made his presence felt in dance music with monumental hits such as “Scare Me,” “My Best Life,” “JAMMU,” and “Secrets,” as well as through the recent launch of Dharma Studio and his Dreamz side project. KSHMR announced his debut LP in January and released two singles from the album, “The World We Left Behind” featuring KARRA and “Around The World” with NOUMENN in the lead-up to the album. KSHMR said of the undertaking,
“The creation of Harmonica Andromeda made me fall in love with music all over again–there’s a journey in every song. It’s the most creative music I’ve ever made and the most challenging, filled with sharp turns and surprises. I hope the world loves it as much as I do.”
Harmonica Andromeda dives into KSHMR’s deep-rooted Indian heritage, with the harmonica, guitar, and flute serving as the album’s core instrumental elements. In a recent tweet, KSHMR postulated that his latest body of work may be “one of the best electronic albums of all time.” Fans will have judge for themselves whether this is true or not, but regardless, they should, at a minimum, appreciate his implementation of multicultural facets and instrumentation within modern dance music, as visualized on Harmonica Andromeda.
Stream Harmonica Andromeda below.
Featured image: Percept Live
Tags: album, Harmonica Andromeda, Jake Reese, KARRA, KSHMR
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