Hailing from Chicago by way of Brooklyn, DJ Heather is a legend in the Chicago house music scene. She began in hip hop, but soon discovered her true voice in house music. She’s been filling dance floors from Chicago to the UK ever since. She’ll be spinning in the MixMag tent at Mamby on the Beach June 25th.
Keep your mind open.
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Will Clarke is a DJ from Bristol, England who puts down floor-shaking club beats with titles like “Booty Percolatin’.” I love how a lot of his stuff sounds like mid-1990’s rave material. He’ll be playing the Mixmag tent at Mamby on the Beach on June 24th in a midday set that I’m sure will be killer.
Keep your mind open.
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French DJ Tchami is the pioneer of music he calls “future house.” It’s not a bad description at all because he seems to mix stuff you’d hear in a disco with stuff you’d hear in the world of Tron. He’ll be closing the Mixmag tent at Mamby on the Beach on June 24th at 8:30pm.
Keep your mind open.
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Chicago’s Fancy Fux will be playing a 2:00pm set on the first day of Mamby on the Beach. They play a fun blend of house, hip hop, and dub. Their first big single, “Stripper,” is outstanding, and clips of their live sets look like a good time. They should be a fun start to the festival. Tickets are still available, by the way.
Keep your mind open.
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Chicago’s third annual Mamby on the Beach festival has released its lineup for 2017. Just some of the powerhouses scheduled are MGMT, Miike Snow, Flying Lotus, and Cut Copy.
Tickets are still available at decent prices, so don’t wait to snag some. I have a lot of bands to research before June 24th.
Keep your mind open.
Recorded live and without edits in Austin, Texas, D:Fuse’s People 2: Both Sides of the Picture is an outstanding double-album of house and ambient, chill and trance music. Disc 1 is entitled People Chilling and is nothing but chill music from D:Fuse and some of his favorite artists. Subtech’s “Piano Heaven” is a particularly good downtempo track that is still danceable. Joy’s “Timewave Zero” is over ten minutes of slow groove house that turns into an acid lounge track. Kaskade’s “Be There” has a sweet xylophone and hand percussion groove. D:Fuse plays three of his own tracks on the “Chilling” half of the album. The first is “Indecision,” on which he teams with Blueletter to bring a funky house dance mix that doesn’t get too heavy. The second is the club mix of “Everything with You,” and the third is a great chill-out version of “Blue Skies.”
Disc 2 is People Clubbing and starts with a grade fade-in on Scanners’ (featuring D:Fuse, no less) “Music Is About You.” “Is it trance? Is it house? Does it matter?” they ask. The answer: It doesn’t. Just get out there and shake your groove thing. Abraham Bam Boogie’s “Deep Satisfaction” is a sharp house mix. D:Fuse returns, along with Joy, on “House Sound of the Future.” It has a great classic rave vibe to it that takes me back to the early 1990’s and dancing in an abandoned high school gym. Liam Kennedy’s “dirtbag remix” of “Evaporate” has some sweet synth bass that kicks in about a third of the way through the tune. D:Fuse and Shane Howard’s “Wash” has even more of it. The hand percussion on Nathan Profitt’s “There Is Hope” is wicked and brings a tribal urgency to the song.
It’s a good double album. One side is good for making out, the other for dancing. One can always lead to the other, right?
Keep your mind open.
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I’d been looking for this album for a long time since hearing parts of it on a National Public Radio show that was highlighting techno and house music from Mexico made by Nortec Collective – a group of Mexican DJs and producers who often worked together. I found The Tijuana Sessions vol. 1 in a used CD bin for about three bucks last year. It was worth the wait.
Bostich’s “Polaris” gets the compilation off to a good start, mixing rapid snare beats with synth bass. Bostich has two other tracks on the album – “El Vergel” (which includes street band accordion and tuba to good effect. Yes, really.) and “Synthakon” – a fun dub track.
Fussible, Bostich’s frequent collaborator, has three tracks as well – “Casino Soul” (with fun electro bleeps and a swanky synth horn section), “Trip to Ensenada” (a great acid house track with cool reverbed synths), and “Ventilador” (his trippiest contribution to the record).
Another triple threat DJ on the record is Terrestre. He starts with “Norteno De Janeiro,” which is a great tune for late night lounging and make-out sessions in a nightclub on the Yucatan Peninsula. Second is “El Lado Oscuro De Mi Compadre,” which belongs in a Bond film or at least a cool 1960’s Euro-spy movie. Third is “Tepache Jam” – an accordion and tuba-heavy jam saluting Mexican buskers and house parties.
Plankton Man gets a double shot, first with “Elemento N.” Like Bostich’s “El Vergel,” it blends house music with traditional Mexican street music (bold horns, parade drums, and touches of Spanish style guitar) and mixes them well. His next tune is “No Liazi Jaz,” which brings in a bit of psychedelic fuzz to his house stylings.
Other DJs on the record include Panoptica, whose “And L” is a slick acid house track with trippy reverbed percussion, Clorofila (bringing us the super-loungy “Cantamar ‘72”), and Hiperboreal – whose “Tijuana for Dummies” is a good house track with no muss and no fuss. It’s just dance beats layered upon dance beats.
The Tijuana Sessions vol. 1 is a good house / lounge / dub record and well worth investigating if you’re on the hunt for such music. Just don’t take eleven years to find it like I did.
Keep your mind open.
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MR. TOPHAT FEAT. ROBYN’S “TRUST ME” EP
SET FOR JANUARY 13TH RELEASE VIA SMALLTOWN SUPERSOUND
LISTEN TO “TRUST ME”
https://youtu.be/GVpDhCnbh5U
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