Monthly Archives: February 2010

Woody’s Roundup

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There are just too many fantastic candidates for Track For The Day out there at the moment, I find I want to write something about every song that comes my way. 2010 is already proving itself to be one of those bumper years of creativity where monumental and long-awaited projects come to fruition.These are tracks that were recent runners-up, and have been giving me a lot of enjoyment in the headphones ever since.

New Young Pony Club – Chaos (Rory Phillips Remix)
Idiotproof – Gorilla (Zombie Disco Squad Remix)
MSTRKRFT – Heartbreaker, feat John Legend (Wolfgang Gartner Remix)
Groove Armada – Paper Romance (Classixx Remix)
Gorillaz – Stylo (Alex Metric remix)
Jamie Anderson – Vietjam

Or get them all in one tasty zipped-up nugget here.

Out on Monday:

The album that’s been doing it for me this week is the excellent Tourist History from Two Door Cinema Club, on Kitsuné from 1st March. I can happily listen to the whole thing two or three times in a row. Here’s my favourite track (although there are so many greats to choose from this changes day-to-day), What You Know.

MAY68: ‘Relentlessly tight rhythms, infectious melodies and a shit load of cowbells…’

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MAY68 are from Manchester. They are on this year’s ‘ones to watch’ lists. They’re finishing up a UK tour and have just bagged air time on Nick Grimshaw’s Radio 1 show. Their ideal festival slot would be sunset on the Park stage at Glastonbury and when they aren’t gigging, remixing or DJing themselves you can find them partying at at Manchester nights Now Wave, Contort Yourself and Sex with Robots.

So, if all this sounds like your cup of tea, read on as Jonny from the band has spoken to us about their amazing UK tour dates including the opening FAC251, Manchester’s latest attack on the UK music scene and what’s in store for MAY68…

In the immortal words of Cilla Black, who are you and where do you come from?
We are… Camille  (Drums / Vox)  from  Paris, Jude (Vocals) from Sheffield, Owen (Bass) from Runcorn, Matt (Keys / Percussion) from Frodsham and Jonny (Guitar / Keys) from Bradford.

Just scrolling through your website gives you a feel of the excitement and hype surrounding the band. Recently, there have been gigs with The Whip, Delphic, We Have Band, The Sunshine Underground, and at one of our favourite nights in London – Kill Em All, as well as Manchester’s famous In the City Music Conference. Have you got any highlights from that impressive list of shows?
It’s been a fast paced few months, we’ve had a great year playing live all over the UK with loads of great bands, the ones that stick out in our minds have got to be our gigs with The Juan Maclean at The Deaf Institute, The Drums at Night and Day for this year’s In The City, and playing at King Tut’s in Glasgow on the recent tour. In all our (small) touring experience no one’s been quite as welcoming and fun as the Glaswegians, we were first on but they still tore the place apart. That’s definitely been the pinnacle of the year.

Amongst those gigs was one of the opening gigs for Number One Charles Street, now known as Fac251, which was famed for being the home and head quarters of the Manchester’s iconic Factory Records. Can you tell us how you think Fac251 holds up as a live music venue? And a bit about what must have been quite a special date in your calendar?
Fac251 seems to have torn everyone into two camps. There’s people who are still mad for it and people who seem to really detest its very existence. We found our experience at Factory to be a good one. We we’re treated very, very well, other promoters could learn a thing or two from them (VIP treatment all night…)! We played in between Lonelady and The Whip both of which were fantastic, there was a real buzz in the crowd, the line up was perfect for an opening party and got everyone in the mood. The venue itself is great for live bands, it had a lot of money spent on it but they seem to have put it into the right things, it looks great and the sound is amazing. They’ve not sterilised the soul out of it which could have easily been done.

It was a special date for us and we were honoured to be asked to play at the opening weekend, but in terms of talking about Factory’s legacy and its supposed return, it’s not and never will be the Hacienda. The city is far more cosmopolitan now, it’s been diluted, where once there was only the Hacienda to experience new music there are now hundreds of venues and thus a whole lot of crap doing the rounds. It’s going to take something more than a new club opening to put Manchester back on the musical map. (Luckily there’s a shed load of great bands around to do that!)


On a theme here, there’s bound to be intrigue surrounding what is being hailed as the next Manchester music boom, and MAY68 are likely to be caught up in the speculation. Do you think this boom exists or is it just a coincidence?
There’s definitely a boom now but its more a case of people waking up and taking notice of what’s going on in Manchester. Its kind of like Manchester has been harbouring these bands for the last year and now its setting them loose on the rest of the world and it’s only now with a few big breakthrough acts such as Delphic and Hurts that people are looking to see what’s going on. There are some great bands around at the moment and we are definitely caught up in the speculation of the next Manchester explosion, I reckon people are starting to get quite excited about how the bands develop and breakthrough in the public eye. There’s a lot of potential but people need to give it a chance.

How’s everyone feeling about getting on to so many ‘ones to watch’ lists?
We’re enjoying the attention! It’s all based on work we’ve been doing last year which is great because we think that personally we’ve developed a lot as a band the new material should continue to make some waves. I guess the pressure is hoping that people feel that the hype is justified…

If you could give everyone one track to listen to now which sums up what MAY68 are all about – which one would it be?
It would have to be our debut single My Ways out on Hit Club and Silver Music Machine (shameless plug) but we chose that to be our debut for that very reason. It sums up completely what we’re about at the moment. If you want a listen you can stream it at our Soundcloud or Myspace. If you like what you hear and fancy a copy it’s out on the 15th of March and is available at Puregroove / iTunes / Beatport.

Finally, can you sum up what 2010 holds for the band?
Well we’ve recorded singles 2 & 3 already. We keep demoing new tracks for the album and lending our hand to remixing tracks by our friends. We’ve got a whole lot of musical output up our sleeves that we’re itching to put out for everyone, then we’ll be carrying on with our live adventure across the UK and hopefully further afield before the years out! Keep watching we’ve got a lot more in waiting!

You can still catch MAY68 in both Manchester and London - we have it on good authority from the band that “you can expect relentlessly tight rhythms, infectious melodies and a shit load of cowbells, all the makings of an explosive party!” So go and check them out:

27th Feb @ Proud Gallery, Camden with French Horn Rebellion
10th March @ Deaf Institute, Manchester with Errors
13th March @ 93 Feet East, Shoreditch, with Ezra Bang & Larry Tee
27th March @ Retro Bar Manchester SINGLE LAUNCH PARTY!

My Ways is available to buy from 15th March on Hit Club (limited 7” pre-order here) and Silver Music Machine (digital – itunes link here)

Grab your download of The Duke is Dead (Demo) here and the MAY68 February mixtape here.

What Kind Of Breeze Do You Blow?

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With a remix back catalogue that looks like the who’s who of 2009 (Memory Tapes, The XX, Delphic, Phoenix, Lake Heartbeat), What Kind Of Breeze Do You Blow? are preparing for big things in 2010. After the recent release of their first EP, Love of Luxury, Swedish band Montauk are up next with a What Kind Of Breeze Do You Blow? rework of their debut single dropping on their own label, Brilliantine, in the not too distant future… There’s also word of a new live show set to hit state-side this summer.

So, with all this in the pipeline, one half of What Kind Of Breeze Do You Blow? spoke to us about music, the new record label, Toronto, live shows, Hot Chip, Tronik Youth and the future… As if that wasn’t enough, at the end of the interview there’s even an exclusive free download of their first single Love of Luxury for you, from them, to check out what they are all about for yourselves!

Who are What Kind of Breeze do you Blow? and how did you get into music/production?
Well, there’s two of us. We’d both been working on little personal projects of our own for years – one of us purely electronic, and the other purely acoustic, and we realized that we’d never really been able to actually finish anything ever. So, together, we brought in what we felt was really important and compelling about music and found out that we felt exactly the same. At the time we were living in the same small New England city, but we’re transitioning to Toronto now and beginning to involve more people, so things will be changing a lot over the next several months.

What’s in the name?
It’s really wondrous! I’m not sure we ever really intended it to be the name of anything, but it was a phrase that’s really fun to say, particularly outside when you’re having a lot of fun, and it just worked it’s way into our consciousness enough for it to be the first thing in mind when we were looking to make our project official. I love it now because it’s so unmistakably ours, though I always have to take a deep breath and maybe roll my eyes a little whenever I meet anyone in person and they ask what the name of my band is. Still getting used to it.

You mentioned you had a label Brilliantine which I believe launched late 2009. Can you tell us a bit about it and what’s in store for the future of Brilliantine?
Brilliantine was formed with Faisal Jehan of Ohh! Crapp.. and Nightmagnets as a vehicle for us to make known a lot of the great music we encounter, which I guess is pretty standard as far as new labels go. As we work long distance, though, and it’s just the two of us, we really rely more on the strength of the music we love and the clarity of our identities coming through in everything we do.

Ideally, there’s no set pattern to the music that would show up on a Brilliantine release, but it will never be something we don’t absolutely love enough to put many, many hearts next to in an email or a blog post. We’ve also got loads of amazing friends who do amazing remixes, and now we’ve got a vehicle to get them to loads of people. Incidentally, it made a lot of sense to get the label started by releasing the first What Kind of Breeze Do You Blow? single, as it was sort of raring to go out of the gate and needed a home.

We’ve got the Montauk single coming up next month which is just an amazing track which in a perfect world should just take over everything this summer (we’ll see) and we’ve worked hard putting together a really compelling remix pack to go with it. Coming in the next few months we have the debut single from a lo-fi pop sleeper from Boston called Sweet Track, a pack of What Kind of Breeze Do You Blow? remixes and a second single, and a complete and utter pop smash from someone a lot of people know…

You’ve remixed some of our favourite artists of 2009 from all over the world, including 2 of the UK’s most sought-after new bands; The XX and Delphic. How does What Kind of Breeze Do You Blow? go about choosing the tracks to work their magic on? Are they just all your favourites?
They are. We just try to take what it is we love about a track and make it bigger, and experiment with ideas we’re working into the tracks we make for ourselves.

As well as remixing some hot new acts from the UK, you’ve also been remixed yourselves by London’s Tronik Youth on your own track Love of Luxury. So, we wondered, what does What Kind of Breeze Do You Blow? make of the UK music scene right now? Are you fans of the DJs and producers coming out of it?
Being from North America, we tend to think of things as either From Here or From There, so a lot of the great acts we love and work with exist in this very liberated, varied scene that crosses country borders from Sweden to the UK to Belgium – though there really is a strong core right now in the UK with Tronik Youth and The C90s and Alex Egan’s Astronomer project… I feel like all centred around a love of much of the same things.

Can you tell us a little bit about the music scene in Toronto and any exciting new talent over there?
Well, only one of us is currently there, and it’s only been a few months, so like any scene there’s a period of acclimation. What I’ve seen so far has been very encouraging, though, and there are a number of venues (Wrongbar, for example) that can put on a consistent schedule of compelling shows. I’m really excited about Parallels - I think they’re going to get very big, very fast.

What are What Kind of Breeze Do You Blow? hoping for in 2010? Anyone you’d love to work with? What can we get excited about?
Everything. We want everything. We’ve got a couple new singles in varying stages of completion, an album nearly half done that’s evolving to a really interesting, unexpected place and we’re working hard to put together a live show that we can be really happy with by this summer. Maybe some Brilliantine shows outside of North America sometime later in the year, and a series of DJ nights in Toronto is in the works as well.

We’ve got remixes on the next couple of Brilliantine releases, a very, very loud edit of the next Hot Chip single, a remix for Tronik Youth and a few surprises as well.

Finally, who is on your ‘ones to watch’ list for 2010?
Well, Montauk, honestly. Holiday is a huge track, and there’s a lot more where that came from. I’m also very, very excited for the Ted & Francis album, and it’s inexplicable how they’re flying so far below the radar still.

It seems we’re at the next stage of really good, timely acts finally crystallizing their remixes/shows/culture into albums – it happened in 2006 with bands like Justice and Digitalism and Simian Mobile Disco, and it’s happening this year with Aeroplane, and Holy Ghost! and Ted & Francis. It’s going to be an exciting year.

Thanks What Kind Of Breeze Do You Blow? for taking the time to talk to us and especially for this download of their single Love of Luxury:

Love of Luxury (Original mix)
Love of Luxury – Tronik Youth penthouse mix

If you haven’t heard it yet, you can pick up the remix package for free here too which includes all the artists mentioned:
What Kind Of Breeze Do You Blow? The Remixes

Do The Dada

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“We are Dada Life.

Destroy dance music and have fun. Don’t look back in the past. Always go forward. Don’t think too much. Always follow the money.

Do the Dada.

The result? Big tunes, no frills.”

I think I’m slightly frightened of them in these pictures, but here are Swedish duo Stefan Engblom & Olle Corneér, who are Dada Life, and have been heavy on the European dance scene since their first record on Mylo’s label Breastfed in 2006, touring with Tiësto and the big boys ever since.

Two things I love about them are:
1. Their ‘Guerilla Farts’ website, where they allow free downloads of their edits for their live shows, which must be pretty spectacular as they include all-time-greats such as Boys Noize – Lava Lava.
2. Another example of a share-and-share-alike mentality; their sample and remix packages, all up on their website, along with Top 10 fan remix charts. They simply say “We know that you can do it too. Maybe even better.” We like it.

Here are some very nice examples of their work:
Dada Life – Happy Hands and Happy Feet
Dada Life January Mix 2010, described by the duo as “raw chicken with extra whipped cream. Go lick it!”

They’ve also remixed the excellent Mvsevm – French Jeans; the first release from Discobelle Records.
Mvsevm – French Jeans (Dada Life Remix)

Their album Do The Dada is out The Hours records, and there are LOADS more mixes on their Fairtilizer page.


Photos by: Martin Adolfsson

Lee Mortimer + Foamo = Superman!

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We’re always excited by a collaboration, especially with two people whose storming filthy-dirty sets we’ve had the great pleasure of sweatily shaking up the front row to. Lee Mortimer and the lovely Kye Gibbon AKA Foamo have worked together on Superman, the follow-up to last year’s It’s Going Down.

The launch party on 13th March at The Rhythm Factory in East London is free to everyone who dresses up as Superman or Superwoman, and Lee Mortimer, when interviewed on Kissy Sell Out’s show last night, mentioned that he might donning a cape for the evening too…

Superman is being released on Lee Mortimer’s Wearhouse Music

Lee Mortimer & Foamo – Superman
Lee Mortimer & Foamo – It’s Going Down

What ever happened to Tom Vek?

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Tom Vek - a great talent of 2005, released his debut album We Have Sound on Tummy Touch Records and achieved a series of great live shows and a remix by the likes of Digitalism… but what happened next?

I have been thinking about this for a while now. I must admit readers of Drowned in Sound were concerned by his disappearance way before I was (back in 2007), which prompted discussion on the site about one-album-wonders and vanishing artists.

In fact, Tom Vek’s very own fan-forum have been pursuing their quest for new material for the past few years to little or no avail. One response was simply along the lines of  ‘the last album took 3 years to make, so don’t expect anything soon…’ A quick email asking if Tom is indeed ‘working on a new album’ to his (perhaps quite exasperated) management company this week prompted quite simply, the response “that is correct”.

So, none the wiser and in an attempt to rekindle a certain love for Vek, this post recaps some of his best bits with a vague hope (allied with the resurgence of electro-rock partnerships) that he might resurface with his somewhat individual, often spoken and almost monotonic voice, and actually present us with some fresh material.

If You Want, C-C (You set the fire in me),  On The Road,  If I Had Changed My Mind, That Can Be Arranged [zip]

It seems like the Filthy Dukes haven’t given up either. They resurrected Nothing but Green Lights in their Kill Em All 6th Birthday mix just a few months ago…

Kill Em All 6th Birthday Mix by Filthy Dukes

DJ MEHDI + RITON = CARTE BLANCHE

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DJ Mehdi’s reminded us on his blog about his forthcoming collboration with the lovely Henry Smithson, AKA Riton. Their first EP is being released by Ed Banger in May, and is going to be called Black Billionnaires (unconfirmed at the moment).

There’s an official Carte Blanche tour planned, and here are the dates. If there was ever an excuse to pop over the Channel…

07-May FABRIC (LONDON, UK)
07 May 2010 Fabric, London
08 May 2010 Rebel Viscount, Birmingham
11 May 2010 L-Ektrika, Akab, Rome
12 May 2010 Hive, Zurich
13 May 2010 Lux Fragil, Lisbon
14 May 2010 Low Club, Discoteca Pirandelo, Madrid
15 May 2010 Lolita Room, Barcelona
20 May 2010 The Social Club, Paris
21 May 2010 Anarchic, Khal, Brussels
22 May 2010 Petrol, Antwerp

Track for the Day

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When I first heard this song I was getting off a tube on a freezing London evening. I ran home and called as many people as I could think of and told them to download it immediately. Then I put it on the stereo, loud, and sat still and listened for the entire 8 minutes, giving it the concentration it deserves. An intense, emotional masterpiece of layering. Amazing band and great work on the remix from Gui Boratto. Please please please download it now.

Massive Attack + Hope Sandoval - Paradise Circus (Gui Boratto remix)

“A record label, a family, and a mission.”

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Emily and I are often like two sides of an ever-shiny coin. We both love EVERYTHING, but we always choose a slightly different element to champion, and from a slightly different angle. We were very excited to find out that our two current favourites are actually best friends, who collaborate on a record label and many of their productions. You can see on the tracklists for the next two mixes how much they use and rework each other’s records.

They are Mowgli and Solo, and Solo is signed to Mowgli’s DeadFish Audio label, along with other favourites of mine, the Round Table Knights. They describe themselves as “Family, because all the artists in the roster are true friends, share the same taste in music and live this business in the same passionate way.” Yeah! It must be a pretty nice place to work.

Solo – Midget House Mix February 2010
Mowgli – DeadFish Podcast Niovember 2009

They’ve joined forces officially on this remix of Elite Force:
Elite Force – No Turning Back (Mowgli and Solo Remix)

Here’s them partying with Brodinski:

The next one to watch from the same camp is Camel, whose Zig Zag EP is out on DeadFish now.

Camel – Nu Decade Session Mix , Discobelle, January 2010.