An intense musical ten minutes of AWESOMENESS.

Follow this link: http://chriscunningham.com/

Be a supercool DJ or summit.

Now this is cool. A Soundcloud DJ player from Musikame. Not explored it properly yet but looks like could be fun.

Been around since July but I think still in the beta stage, it’s esentially lets you “DJ” tracks from your browser (flash needed).

Funcitonality includes a looper, a pitch slider and an FX pad. You cue up tracks from a central browser, which displays the waveform. It crossfades between tracks automatically, though you can play with this too. Other funcitonality includes a looper, a pitch slider and an FX pad.

My few attempts have so been entertaining, though I end up distorting the tracks so much they sound pretty far removed from the original. I think this might be my Christmas project…

http://soundcloud.musikame.com/

Schweeeettt list of Podcasts, plagiarised horrendously

Below is a really lovely commentary from @tombrookspolloc on his favourite podcasts of the year, featuring some absolute belters. This is lifted direct as I think he writes it really nicely - do check out his blog here: http://tombrookspollock.wordpress.com

2010: Top 10 Podcasts To Go Running To

Posted on December 22, 2010 by tombrookspollock

“Here’s a list of my favourite podcasts of the year, involving dance music, mostly. (Solely).

This is admittedly a partial selection – it’s biased towards stuff I go running to.

Adrenaline + house music, eh. Brilliant. Who’d have thought it? Though it completely ruins your critical faculties by making more or less everything over 100BPM sound amazing.

1. Sepalcure – XLR8R

In a year when London - mostly because of Night Slugs - was indisputably the capital of bass music, the North American take on the form was in many ways more appealing.

While tune’s like Girl Unit’s ‘Wut’ had a delicious, euphoric feel, they were also sickly-sweet, cartoony … and tended to cloy the pallet.

Across the pond, Egyptrixx (a Night Slugs artist, of course) thrillingly combined jump-up with deep techno, while Brooklyn duo Sepalcure (Machinedrum and Praveen Sharma) explored chopped-up RnB vocals like only Yanks can … (the debt to Todd Edwards is obvious).

And any mix that introduces you not only to (Montreal’s) Jacques Greene, but also to Balam Acab, has got to be pretty special in my book.

2. Bottin – The Right Knobs – PIG Radio

This mix, is by contrast, unapologetically European.

It opens with an unimprovably gorgeous disco beat, topped off with a sexy French girl sweetly swinging – as I said to a friend while we were driving round the Umbrian hills during the long, hot days of summer, “What’s not to like?”

Said opening track turned out to be Venice-based Bottin’s ‘Sage Oil’, since bought on 200-limited red vinyl. I am still not sure if it’s a re-edit, but I hardly care.

The mix then spans the Euro-disco pantheon, including an unbelievable Italo record at track 3 … proving once and for all how beautiful the sub-genre can be when used sparingly.

3. Gadi Mizrahi & Greg Paulus – Just One Night in Tokyo – Wolf & Lamb

One piece of 90s furniture that dance music has been trying to forget is the coffee table.

But hang on – this mix contains trumpets, jazz-bar keys, sophisto-pretension … and is fucking AMAZING.

This live mix by Just One Night - aka Gadi from WnL and Greg from No Regular Play - conjures what being in Tokyo is like better than Bill Murray in a lift ever could. Probably. Not that I’ve ever been or anything.

4. Soul Clap – Beats in Space

This is what (unidentified one half of) Boston house duo Soul Clap said about this mix:

“These are mostly songs we opened with in New York.

“It’s all this vinyl we’ve been picking up, all New York songs … We wanted to play the New York songs in New York, and obviously vinyl is something that’s very important to us.

“I think recently a lot of DJs have been moving away from playing vinyl – which I totally respect. However, I think it’s important to keep vinyl alive and it’s kind of being forgotten with all the digital music … and there’s nothing like playing records that fit a city, that are from that city that are from that city

“For us these records are the spirit of New York. And for us, that’s very special.”

If you’re unsure as to where ‘Policy of Truth’ fits into this credo, what the hell … this mix is even better for its presence.

Boston house duo Soul Clap were blowing up this year for their dirty, bumpy house tunes. But this mix, of housy pop songs from the late 80s and early 90s, trumped even their lovely RA Podcast.

Apparently they’ve checked into a holiday home in Miami for the winter with Wolf & Lamb …

5. LV – Fact Magazine

There’s really no need to add anything to this paragraph, from the Fact site:

Last Christmas, [LV]’s Gervase took an extended trip to his birthplace South Africa, immersing himself in the house music scene there and collaborating with people like Spoek Mathambo and Okmalumkoolkat, who features on LV’s new single and their most well received to date, ‘Boomslang’. For more about Gerv’s trip, we’d point you to this interview with Blackdown, where he talks in detail about the local music and culture.

No need to add anything, that is, apart from the fact that this mix is totally irresistible, in the same way that South African house music often is … fast, rhythmically interesting, sonically RUDE. And undoubtedly the best use of this sort of thing in a mix that I went running to since Matias Aguayo’s RA podcast last year.

6. Tri-Angle Records – Fact Magazine

The best round-up so far of the early releases of the year’s most interesting new label, New York/London-based Tri-Angle … with added RnB accapellas.

Run by Robin Carolan of XXJFG fame, the label is at the vanguard of that whole slowed down, sleazy movement that I am trying desperately not to call witch house. Or ghoststep.

7. The Golden Filter – Dummy

Dummy Mag did a nice line in mixes this year, with efforts worth checking from Weatherall, Laurel Halo, Rainbow Arabia, Sampha, Appleblim and Bodyhammer.

But this one, from Dummy’s house band, New Yorkers The Golden Filter, is arguably the most complete (/one best to go running to).

Dreamy, synth-led indie and house is the order of the day. And still fat. No idea what the tracks are, mind, though some do seem awfully familiar.

8. Deadboy – Fact Mag

This would be further up the list, much further up, if it wasn’t for the passage of time meaning I haven’t listened to this for months.

But when I did first hear it, it was a revelation, seeming to sum up all that was new and exciting in dance music, while borrowing heavily from its past.

Most people in their twenties are old enough to remember when garage was an embarrassing chart monstrosity. But garage, and then speed garage, could be really exciting – rhythmical, sexy … unmistakably urban.

I had been shamefully slow on the uptake for Deadboy’s 2009 single on Well Rounded, ‘U Cheated’, which is on this mix. All Deadboy’s tunes turned out to be top-notch, and there’s a fair few here.

9. Space Dimension Controller - Resident Advisor

Could have been his Fact mix, but I played it to death too early in the year.

SDC aka Jack Hamill, 20, from Belfast, is not trying to reinvent house music, he is just very good at making it. As this mix makes clear, he also owns some very nice house records by other people.

10. The Blessings (Luckyme) – Allez-Allez

The Blessings, of Glasgow dance label Luckyme, delivered the year’s most madcap dance mix.

An opening triumverate of Lil’ Wayne, Jacques Greene, and a tune seemingly written to accompany the BBC2 series Coast so infuriated my mate John, it automatically had to be included.

Post-Run

Ben Pistor – Morning Mix – Disco Bloodbath

Who’d have thought DBB liked Richard Hawley? In a world of surprising musical collabos and madcap inter-genre jams, such a combination hardly seems radical. Not exactly N-Dubz feat Mr Hudson, is it?

This mix, a late entry, is amazing: not overly obscure - despite DBB’s well-known tendency to rediscover long-lost disco gems - but just lovely, downtempo and warm all the same.

“CONTENDERS READY!”

It’s a Twitter vs. Facebook straight stat fight.

In the battle of brands it looks like Twitter would get to the top of the Travelator first 67% of people saying they would purchase a specific brand they follow, vs. only 51% of Facebook users. Potenitally because the largest group of Twitter users are slightly older than FB users and so have more expendable income? Though total income levels are higher in total for Facebook users. Is brand engagement deeper on Twitter than Facebook? I’d like to know some more about this given the immense amount of investment brands are spending on social media without an always obvious return.

I’m tempted to end this post with some kind of terrible “another one bites the dust” reference, but I shall refrain. Gladiators out.

(Source: passinginterest.posterous.com)