Tag: music

[EDM Origins: Trance House] [Throwbacks] // [Hard Trance / House] Future Breeze – Second Chance // [Ambient Trance/House] Michelle Williams – We Break the Dawn (Karmatronic Remix)

This EDM Origins post focuses on some of the early trance and progressive house sounds responsible for today’s EDM with a sick remix of Michelle Williams by Karmatronic


[Hard House/Anthem Trance]
Future Breeze – Second Life (Club Mix)

For Our EDM Origins of today we have two very influential and treasured songs from my music library. Both released during the forefront of EDM’s emergence into American culture during the ripe year of 2008. Our first selection “Second Life (Club Mix” by Future Breeze is a highly slept on, heavy bass-synth trance track I happened to stumble across on iTunes one day.

[Spoiler:] For the young and restless skip ahead to the 3:01 mark for the epic drop. The song continually builds over futuristic synths that were likely foundations for the Future House and Synth House we have today. After a nice little intro the music cuts. Slowly but surely a tiny synth chord begins, growing louder, until the epic drop that rides out for the rest of song. Trance lovers will not be disappointed.

 

[Ambient Trance/House]
Michelle Williams – We Break the Dawn (Karmatronic Video Remix)

Next up, how can we forget Karmatronic’s magnificent remix of Michelle Williams “We Break the Dawn”. Turning the song into a groovy, downtempo and danceable house track. This remix stands out to me today the same way it did when I purchased it solely off its 30 sec. preview back in 2008. It’s one of a growing minority of older songs I still keep in 8000+ library. I guess it’s the overall natural feel of the melodies blending into something smooth and harmonic without losing the original’s identity. A welcome change from a time awash with similar “remixes” of pop music and Top-40 hits that populated dance charts throughout the early to mid-2000s.

This remix is a great song for riding, relaxing, getting things done, or just to find your own little groovy moment in it.

Cheers.

[Future Bass House / Funk:] Autolaser & Father Dude – About Face // [Future Ambient Chill:] Calvin Harris & Disciples – How Deep is Your Love? (Liva K Remix)

Check out two absolutely jammin’ Future House/Bass cuts fresh off the musical cutting block…!


[Future Bass / Funk House]
Autolater & Father Dude – About Face

Don’t about face
we’re 25,000 miles away
that’s my distance from you…

[Future Ambient Chill]
Calvin Harris & Disciples – How Deep is Your Love? (Liva K Remix)

How deep is your love?
Is it like the ocean?
Pull me closer…
How deep is your love?
Is it like Nirvana?
Hit me harder…
how deep is your love

New Future House, Bass & Ambient Music:

We’ve got two atmospherically deep future tunes for you in this post, delving deeper into one of EDM’s fastest-growing, widely appreciated genre subsets: Future House. Our first comes to us from Autolaser & Father Dude in their Future Bass tune “About Face” admirably combining elements of funk and house music. The progression of synths blend smoothly creating a wavy line of synth chords in the instrumental breaks, very reminiscent of one of Future House’s pioneers, Minnesota.

The second a deep ambient-house track complete with calming melodic rhythms and synths, female vocals, chants through a vocoder (“so tell me how deep is your love can it go deeper”), and entrancing saxophone riffs. “How Deep is Your Love (Liva K Remix)” originally by Calvin Harris & Disciples gets some majestic remix treatment from Liva K. This remix channels sounds of the ocean and a very Latin House vibe with the perfect amount of ambience.

Liva K is a popular name among the house circuit with several hit tracks and remixes including a remix of fellow house vocalist, Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good”.

[DJ Mixes] New iLLUMiИUS Mixes ft. Major Lazer, Fetty Wap, Wiz Khalifa

New iLLUMiИUS mixes feature Fetty Wap, Major Lazer & sick remixes of Drake, Wiz.


[Club EDM, Dance & Trap DJ Mix]
Syncopation Vol. 1

[Hip-Hop/Rap DJ Mix]
Put In Werk 2015

Fresh for your listening ears are two brand mixes I’ve recorded in the past few months that I had laying around and finally got around to finishing/cleaning up. “Syncopation” and “Put In Werk” are “preview” mixes of series to come further down the pipeline, with the former being newer and featuring club style EDM.

The latter, a mix of solely hip-hop and rap music, with a little ‘chill trap’ for added flavor. “Put In Werk” is heavy with Fetty Wap appearances and is capped off by one of the sickest Drake remixes I’ve ever heard (Ain’t No Tellin’ remixed by stwo).

For now, you can download these mixes (and many others!) for FREE straight from my Soundcloud.

-Enjoy
iLLUMiИUS

[Future Chill] Selena Gomez – Good For You (feat. A$AP Rocky) [Anevo Remix] // [UK Future House] Ad3l3 (Adele) – H3llo (Pegassi Remix)

We’ve got more chill, futu-house for your listening pleasure, including sick remixes of Adele & Selena Gomez featuring A$AP Rocky.


[Future Chill / Ambient]
Selena Gomez – GFY (Anevo Remix) [ft. A$AP Rocky]

Check out this incredibly chill, irresistibly cool remix of Selena Gomez & A$AP Rocky’s “Good For You” from Swedish EDM artist and producer Anevo.

[Future House]
Adele – Hello (Pegassi Remix)

[Ambient Chill]
Adele – Hello (Anevo Remix)

Next up, two great remixes of Adele’s “H3llo” the first a Future House take from British EDM producer Pegassi, the other a much more ambient-chill version again from producer Anevo.

 

 

[Alt. Indie Rock] Alt-J (∆)- Something Good


[Alt. Indie Rock] Alt-J (∆) – Something Good (as featured in Life is Strange)


[Music Video “Something Good”]

Get high, hit the floor.
Before you go…

Matador, estocada
you’re my blood sport.

This alternative indie-rock song is perfect for chilling out and hits you right in the feels. Whether you just happened across the song by chance or were like me, and heard it on the highly popular, play-as-you-go, “Choose Your Adventure” style video game, Life is Strange, Alt-J (∆)‘s calming soft-spoken, yet powerfully moving “Something Good” is a great song for these upcoming colder months. With relaxing guitar chords and keyboard arpeggios the abstract, and also very concrete lyrics create a warming, joyful ambiance.

Appearing in the game as the typical Pacific-Northwestern alternative-rock cut your main character, Max, just be chillin’ to. Its delivery (at the start of a brand new day the song plays as an “alarm” to wake you up) comes at a perfect time in the game’s story arch and really draws you into as the misfit archetypal high-school senior just trying to fit in.

Life is Strange is a downloadable video-game available on Xbox One, PS4, PC, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. The game revolves around an angsty 18-year-old teenager named Max, who has moved to Oregon to attend a private art-school for photographers. A place where her interactions with her teachers, peers, parents and others are determined by your choices alone. Decisions made during the games dialogues have lasting effects down the line; like whether you make fun of the class bully or help her during her bad day, or leave a window open to save a bird’s life or simply lament the sight of its dead body.

The twist which takes this beyond a game of storytelling and essentially a visual virtual graphic novel is the fact that Max learns one fateful day, when an off-kilter jock brandishes a gun in the school bathroom and shoots one of Max’s friends, that with the thrust of her hand and enough effort she can reverse time.

After the shooting Max awakens in class, about 10 minutes before she first walked into the bathroom and watched a student get shot. All the conversations, from the teacher’s lecture on Daguerreo-type photography, to class bully Veronica’s verbal jabs at Max play out exactly the same way as during the game’s intro with Max realizing she’s not dreaming. From there on out Max is faced with situations typical of young adult life; going to parties with the popular kids, rekindling a relationship with her stoner best-friend and the like, but with major ramifications and consequences for seemingly benign decisions.

Life is Strange is a refreshing breath of air in what technically could be called a role-playing or Adventure game, but pulls it off in a way never fully explored before in a video game. The result is like playing a movie or a TV show that you have control over, or if you’re real old-school, exactly like the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books except the book is presented in 3D graphics right in front of you. So far I’m loving it.

Revisiting: [Ambient Chill / Future Lounge:] Cyril Hahn – Last (feat. Joel Ford)


Source: [Ambient Chill / Future Lounge:] Cyril Hahn – Last (feat. Joel Ford)

Props/shoutout to Majestic Casual for this find, check them out for more eclectic, future-oriented EDM
[FUTURE AMBIENT CHILL / LOUNGE:]
Last (feat. Joel Ford) – Cyril Hahn

Check out this refreshingly chilled-out single from electronic artist Cyril Hahn “Last” featuring Joel Ford. Soft-house chords and melty-echoing vocals cascade into a funky backbeat and groovy lounge rhythm. The simple, repeating vocals add to the ambient chill vibe creating soundscapes of night-beaches, late night Ibiza chill-room sessions or put simply, a “just drift-away zone.”

Check out more from Cyril Hahn on his Soundcloud and download “Last” for free:
Cyril Hahn Soundcloud

More from Majestic Casual:

Youtube

[Throwback: Emotive Hip-Hop] Best of Joe Budden: Sidetracked // Other Deep, “Emo” Rappers – Cudi, Cinos, Charles Hamilton

Joe Budden’s “Sidetracked” is one of today’s throwback posts to emotive hip-hop, featuring a sick sample of Coldplay’s “Lost”


[Emotive Hip-Hop Throwback:] Joe Budden – Sidetracked // More deep-emotive hip-hop at end of this post:

[Coldplay “Lost” sample:]

Just because I’m losin’
Doesn’t mean I’m lost,
Doesn’t mean I’ll stop
Doesn’t mean I will cross…

From The Dope Chronicles (Feb 2015)

Song: Sidetracked |
Album: Halfway House |
Year: 2009

“I’ve lost so many relationships, is it, just because I don’t relate to shit?”

Source: Best of Joe Budden v.2: #28 Sidetracked

Joe battles with an inner issue in this song. Is there something deeper in this song that what’s on the surface? Maybe. To me, it seems like his old friend depression is the cause behind his lack of focus and flip-flop of things.

At times he’s pumped, he’s motivated, he’s ready to hit the studio but then there’s days where he doesn’t want to do that. He sees it as pointless. It’s a waste of time.

This throwback post recalls one of Joe Budden‘s “unreleased” tracks from his 2009 mixtape Halfway House, an EP many speculate, Budden wrote while depressed. As someone who has dealt with bouts of the ailment myself I can relate in parts of his “Sidetracked” song [Sometimes I wanna make music/sometimes I feel it’s just useless…] a deep recollection of the darker side to fame over hip-hop beats (and a sick Coldplay sample).

In general, I try to avoid depressing music but there are times when it feels right to me (especially during the colder months). Sometimes the raps can hit close to home and stir emotions, at other times (to me) these songs may be sonically great, or have a sick beat/sample but the depressing lyrics turn the would-be banger into a “pity-party” that I probably wouldn’t play around other people at least not for cranking round the city or getting ready to hit the club. I feel neutral as this music certainly has it’s place; some of Kid Cudi’s greatest tracks are fairly sad. But, Cudi balances it pretty well.

This mixtape of Budden’s, a lot of Charles Hamilton’s music, almost all of Cinos‘ songs I’ve heard (apart from Rain Zone) and even some from Lil B squarely fit this bill. How do you feel about songs that are sad?

Other Good Sad and Emotive Rap Highlights:

Kid Cudi – Going to the Ceremony


Charles Hamilton – Happy Ending
https://www.youtube.com/bP4yaxRVIjg

Cinos – Lighthouse Zone


Cinos – Rain Zone (not emotive, but just damn good)

Cage – Blood Boy