by Miné Salkin | Oct 14, 2009 | interviews, news
DJ Spooky, a.k.a The Subliminal Kid, a.k.a Paul D. Miller, has always been on my mind. But that’s how he gets to you.
Paul D. Miller giving you that classic smirk. Image courtesy from rcrdlbl
Luckily for me, I’m getting a chance to interview him in the next couple of day s about his new album The Secret Song, which is largely a commentary on digital music culture.
If anyone’s interested in pitching a couple of questions to me I’d love to take them down. Alternatively, keep checking back and the real interview will be posted here rreeeeallll soooon!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCQH53Y8rkc]
by Miné Salkin | Jun 5, 2009 | live action
@ the Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver BC June 4
Crystal Castles gave a blistering electronic performance that meshed together their digital eccentricities and powerful rhythms, producing an overwhelmingly cathartic, organic flux of a dancing crowd surrendering to their wall of sound.
The duo’s name originates after a sky fortress from the Mattel toy series called She-Ra, who was the twin sister of He-Man. The ferocity of vocalist Alice Glass’ raw, borderline-animal screams came across as borderline mythical during their rendition of “Courtship Dating,” giving her supernatural qualities.
The show kicked off with an energetic, strobe-light saturated debut, as Glass slinked onstage and adopted an intimidating, huge stage presence wearing a tube skirt and black button-up top, her eyes thick with black makeup, her trademark jet black bob throbbing to the basslines. She pushed everyone to the brink of epilepsy as she picked up the strobe light, flashed it in the faces of the entire front row as she screamed overtop the myriad of Nintendo sound loops.
Multi-instrumentalist Ethan Kath showed off his versatile musicmanship by flaunting his seamless transitions from turntable to synth, with a machine-like exactness, entrenched in the shadows of the stage in his hoodie like some kind of electric Darth Vader.
The most unique thing about Crystal Castles is their talent to create heat, chaos — all the elements of a natural disaster — without burning up in it themselves. Things got a little stagnant when Glass stepped off the stage for about 10 minutes while Kath entreated the crowd to some of the instrumental montages such as “Magic Spells.” When Glass returned, she was smoking a cigarette that she then tossed into the crowd before throwing herself to surf in it.
Their experimental, new-wave style of electronic music was particularly good during their performance of “Xxzxcuzx Me,” with the image of Kath pounding demonically on his synth while Glass jumped around the stage like a raging lunatic you didn’t want to stare directly at. Crystal Castles is uniquely aggressive, confrontational, and stylish to the point of viewer anxiety: and certainly isn’t for the faint at heart.
by Miné Salkin | May 31, 2009 | live action
Commodore Ballroom
May 29, 2009
For Exclaim! Magazine
DJ extraordinaire Ryan Raddon, aka Kaskade, knows how to make people dance. The Chicago-born DJ/ producer for Ultra Records vamped up his newest full-length album The Grand, also playing a full and varied set-list touching on his entire six-album discography. In collaboration with Deadmau5, Kaskade showed an unmatched lust for life with the song “Move for Me,” which hit number one on the Billboard Dance Chart and stayed there for two weeks. Silver tinsel confetti streamed from the stage during “Devil On My Shoulder,” topping up the excitement of the well-sweaty dance floor.
Kaskade tears it up like a strobelite obsession
A godlike moment
Raddon’s style is cultivated, seasoned, and smoother than velvet. Most DJs sound great on vinyl but when push comes to shove, the live set can be difficult to deliver with the same finesse. Kaskade spins out some of the fattest, electrifying mixes, but his masterful technique of the turntables makes it seem easy through his laid-back, unaffected, and coy style. While the Commodore was built in the 1920s and is considered a testament to old-school Vancouver history, it was decked out with huge screens playing choppy-styled stills of human outlines doing mundane things, the lights and bass lines throbbing to his deep house anthems. With Kaskade smiling, spinning between the screens, it made the whole universe seem a little less unmerciful and gave it a little more meaning.
by Miné Salkin | Mar 18, 2009 | albums
Looking back to 1999, Zombie Nation’s single “Kernkraft 400” set the standard as one of the most innovative dance songs to date, maybe of all time. Luckily for us, Munich-based DJ Florian Senfter, a.k.a. John Starlight has done it again. The highly-anticipated fourth album Zombielicious is an intoxicating adventure through bass thumping, heart pounding surreal electronic dance soundscapes. If you merged the quirky weirdness of early Chemical Brothers, the rhythmic complexity of Justice, and peppered in sounds from the 1970’s, this is what you would get. The album kicks off with “Mas De Todo,” a highly energetic and almost cerebral voyage through trance-like passages that draw out the most visceral and fierce kind of dancing. The track “Get It” uses a spiky double-amped bass drum that brings to mind the cocky strut of an oversexed, urban kid who “wants it/ and gets it all the time.” The album even takes a detour into a 1970’s horror-style genre with “Supercake 53,” complete with computerized tambourines and razor-sharp synthesizers. Although Senfter samples from myriads of different sounds and styles, such as the funk-tech vibes of tracks like “Worth It pts. 1&2,” the overall sound is still strikingly organic and natural.
ZN: made to make your mouth water
You release your music on both CD and vinyl. At the end of the day, do you prefer the razor sharpness of digital music, or the warm clubby feel of analog sound?
There can be only one answer: Vinyl! My production is based on analogue hardware instruments because I want to create a warm atmosphere. I feel that this is the most pleasant sound to the human ear. Most people now enjoy music as MP3s on laptop speakers. That is the real tragedy, because producers make music that sounds good on laptop speakers now. So you get squeaky, distorted melodies instead of dynamics and bass.
On the new album, you have a song with My Robot Friend, one of the hottest electronica acts out of NYC. What was it like working with Howard Robot?
We’ve been good friends for years now. The last time I played in NYC the last time he joined me spontaneously me to perform “The Cut”, which we collaborated on for my last album Black Toys. People went crazy when he came out in his costume that was made of hundreds of LEDs and lights. He worked so hard on that costume.
Is there a difference between electronic dance music in Europe compared to the United States, or anywhere else in the world you’ve been to? I think the main difference between Europe and the US is that in Europe there is more a scene of regular electronic clubs and parties, while in the US the shows have more one off concert character. Let’s say half of the audience comes to see the specific artist, and the other half is there because they know the party is always good. (UKW Records).
by Miné Salkin | Mar 16, 2009 | albums
for EXCLAIM! Frequencies
Various Artists
Rauschgold-Alec Empire Plays Staubgold
Eat Your Heart Out Records (www.alec-empire.com)
Rauschgold, Alec Empire’s second installation of DJ mix projects, is a much like a lesson in German cultural theory. For the most part, Empire samples across the gambit of dance, dirty scratchy beats and even downtempo stuff from all over the country, quickly bringing one up to speed about how innovative and quirky the Germans can be. For example, a song by Die Welttraumforscher (loosely translated meaning “the world’s greatest researchers) called “Liebe Lilli” sounds like a awkward, but charming admonition of love. Also, “Ice Bertolt Brecht” by Schwabinggrad Ballett is an eerily haunting two and a half minute chant, titled after a famous pseudo-existentialist German playwright who wrote of absurdity and alienation. Backed by a strong base lead and something that sounds like an atom bomb about to explode, this song and many others on the album find a delicate balance between cacophony and charm. Rauschgold is an experiment in electronic distortion and psychedelia that should come with a seizure warning label.
