Dialogue Incorporated

Dialogue Incorporated | Radio Show #25 | 2011 in Review

2012-02-09T14:14:00.000-08:00

Dialogue Incorporated | Cult of New

Dialogue Incorporated radio #25

Compiled and mixed by Mister Joshua

Letter from the editor

CULT OF NEW

An electronic music response to cultural stagnation

Bobo \ bõ-bõ \ n

- a member of a social class of well-to-do professionals who espouse bohemian values and lead bourgeois lives.

Raver \ rãver \ n

- a person who talks wildly or incoherently.

- a person who goes to a gathering centered on listening to and dancing to electronic music, as played by a set of live DJs.

Another 12 months have passed. The war in Iraq came to a close. Osama Bin Laden was killed. So was Lord Valdemort. And, according to a number of articles that came out toward 2011’s end, our culture did relatively few things to propel itself forward, break ground or otherwise innovate. It makes me think of Lady Gaga’s riffing on the Madonna formula, of which Q-Tip’s immortal words echo in my brain: “The way that Bobby Brown is just amping like Michael.”

In the January 2012 issue of Vanity Fair—with the Gagz gracing its cover—the author and journalist Kurt Anderson laid out the concise argument that never before has artistic culture gone so long without reinventing itself. In his article “You Say You Want a Devolution,” Anderson asks readers to look back on the feathery flair of the hippie-dippie ‘60s and compare it to the bubbly Technicolor pop of the ‘80s. And then compare that with the relatively stagnant two decades that followed.

Indeed, today’s style isn’t defined so much by anything new as it is by its mild (if any) updates on styles past—Ray Bans, Chucks and Heritage Collections rule. Cars look pretty much the same, architecture hasn’t done anything revelatory and music, he argues, hasn’t either.

Another article, this one in the New York Times, tackles a slightly different issue, but makes some points that go a long way to explain this phenomenon (if you can even call it that). Wiliam Deresiewicz writes in “Generation Sell” that the post Gen X generation has ruled for longer than is customary. Pointing to the political and culture environment of decades past, each had its own distinct generation, be it the beatniks the hippies or the punks. But the hipsters, who are the closest approximation of the current cultural movement, what stance do they have with respect to the world?

In Deresiewicz’s view it’s to market themselves. We’re a generation of marketers and with that comes the desire to please broad constituencies. We can’t be shaking up our art, our culture and our music too much if that means it’s going to alienate potential customers now can we?These days hipsters aren’t even fringe. You can buy the look and the attitude from your nearest Urban Outfitters or American Apparel. Don’t worry, they’re often found within a block of each other. To borrow another cultural buzzword, the hipsters of a decade ago are just today’s bobos. They had to grow up and get a job but they’ve held onto and their status as liberals, their skinny jeans and their tattoos (not much of a choice there).

So, moving back to Anderson’s argument, instead of trying to get the hipster cool kids to adopt something new, our cultural creators look backward to harness a sense of nostalgia. At least this way we can rest assured that its cool. We aren’t repeating February 2nd, but we’re still living in a cultural Groundhog Day (sadly, that clever tidbit is his, not mine).

In marinating on this, and thinking, this can’t possibly be 100% true, I’ve found comfort in knowing that it is, in fact, not true with regard to the always fringe underground of electronic music. Even as it ramps up in popularity and the Skrillexs and David Guettas of the world turn on increasingly younger audiences to music that has traditionally been the fodder of drinking age technophiles and ecstasy poppers, they’re turning these kids on to something completely new.

Sure electronic music has been around for decades; since before this cultural stalemate took hold. But this music has built upon itself over the years in the same manner that those looping bars of drums and bass and synths add to themselves layer by layer on your favorite house track. Electronic music looks back, but in doing so, it propels itself forward, never wanting to be a strict retread of what came before. Disco begot house, house begot techno, the two played side by side until they birthed tech-house. On another track, hip-hop begot breaks, which begot drum ‘n’ bass, which has, years later, brought us full tilt into dubstep.

Recently I saw a tweet from street-artist-turned-brand-ambassador Shephard Fairey bemoaning the fact that we have no decent emerging artists because they’ve been snatched up by ad firms and their creative departments. If this is true, we can at least take solace that nightly, when the lights go down and the volume on the world’s mixers goes up, a new generation is taking hold and they’re not afraid of something new. In fact, they’re camped out in front of those speaker stacks precisely because they crave it.

—Joshua P. Ferguson

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MUSIC | Dialogue Incorporated #25

Well, if you made it this far, you'll be pleased to know that the ranting is over and it's all just music from here on out. In fact, it's a fairly timely (for us at least) 2012 in Review mix session featuring work from our favorite artists and labels of the year. Since we thoroughly exhausted our year end lists, each track is linked to where it fits in to that wrap-up—with the exception of our favorite rock tracks, which we forgot to chart. Here they are now:

5) Cults Cults – Columbia

4) Austra Beat and Pulse – Domino

3) Friendly Fires Pala – XL

2) Florence and the Machine Ceremonials – Universal

1) Feist Metals – Polydor

Listen | Download | Enjoy

Dialogue Incorporated #25 by Dialogueinc on Mixcloud

Tracklisting:

Nicolas Jaar "Balance Her in Between Your Eyes" – Circus Company

Washed Out "Before" – Sub Pop

Apparat "Black Water" – Mute

Feist "Bittersweet Melody" – Polydor

James Blake and Bon Iver "Fall Creek Boys Choir" – Universal

Jamie Woon "Night Air" – Polydor

SBTRKT "Right Thing to Do" – Young Turk

Jacques Greene "Another Girl" – LuckyMe

araabMUZIK "Streetz Tonight" – Duke Productions

Chris Brown "Look at Me Now" – Jive

Friendly Fires "Hawaiian Air" – XL

Austra "Lose It" – Domino

Florence and the Machine "No Light No Light" (Spector remix) – Universal

Kuedo "Truth Flood" – Planet Mu

Katy B "Lights On" – Universal

Mosca "Done Me Wrong" – Numbers

Benoit and Sergio "Principles" – DFA

The Rapture "How Deep Is Your Love" – DFA

Drake and Rihanna "Take Care" – Cash Money

Jamie xx and Gil Scott-Heron "I'll Take Care of You" – XL

My Favorite Robot "Forest Fires" – Visionquest

Soul Clap "Lonely C" – !K7

Art Department "I C U" – Crosstown Rebels

Cut Copy "Need You Now" – Modular

Todd Terje "Snooze 4 Luv" – Running Back

Robag Wruhme "Ende" – Pampa

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Article | Trends for 2012 | On to the Next One

2012-02-06T10:49:00.000-08:00

On to the Next One

Chicago trendsetters look forward to 2012.

by Joshua P. Ferguson

Originally published in Time Out Chicago magazine | 12.28.11

TOC | 2012 Trends

Given what dance music did in 2011, it is with quite a bit of excitement that we turn our eyes and ears to 2012 and what club sounds might have in store for us in the next 12, well 11, months. To help narrow our focus, we gathered three nightlife professionals (including our own) and asked them to tell us what they think the next year might bring.

GO DEEP
“It’s kind of the like the modern deeper sound, I don’t know if you can call it deep house, but it’s just deeper music—the Crosstown Rebels stuff, Hot Natured, Visionquest, Maceo Plex—I think it’s going to continue to get even bigger. They are reaching out to a larger audience now and the music is becoming more popular with people that weren’t listening to that music. It’s a little bit more accessible than techno and other genres. Not that I’m saying that techno is going to go anywhere; these guys just blew up. There are a lot of kids that are getting deeper into this genre of music and you’ll be surprised by the number of artists that are going to come out of nowhere."

— Dino Gardiakos, Music Director for Chicago's Spy Bar

STEPPIN' OUT
“2011 was the year that dubstep really broke huge. So for 2012, there’s going to be this rush of pop stars and labels desperately seeking legitimacy with the youth market because the explosion of this music has completely caught them off guard. Because of the mainstream popularity, there’s a big splinter of former dubstep fans that are into a new term called ‘future bass.’ It sort of refers to these strains of say, U.K. funky, or ‘is it dubstep or is it techno,’ and then there’s also the post-dubstep. I’m hoping this is going to fill out some of the gaps with more sophisticated electronic music that we haven’t seen for a while.”

— Chris Widman, host of Abstract Science on WLUW 88.7 fm and one half of Quadratic

HAVE FAITH
“You can rock out and fist pump to dubstep and electro but for most of that music, I find that it doesn’t speak to your soul. With the way things have gone in our country, I think people are going to get away from that superficiality and look for something with more substance. People are asking for more, and I’m seeing people really coming out and supporting quality. The state of the Chicago club scene is very much where DJs are just jukeboxes with a pulse. In 2012, we’re going to see people having more faith in the DJ and just letting them do their thing. A lot more people DJ-wise taking a stance and trying to educate people.”

— Zebo, DJ, producer and label owner

I DO (a.k.a. our own two cents)
Now that dance music—be it 4/4, bass or out of leftfield—has come into it’s own, more artists are going to be looking to this realm for producers. We’ve already seen chart toppers like Beyonce, Chris Brown and Kanye come calling, sampling electronic producers like dancehall duo Major Lazer and dubstepper Flux Pavillion or, in Dutch house prodigy Afrojack’s case, tapping them directly. This is only going to expand. From the big budget studio dons like araabMUZIK producing for Busta Rhymes to underground sensation Clams Casino making beats for ASAP Rocky, these two worlds are going to settle into a happy marriage in 2012.

Review | Aeroplane | In Flight Entertainment

2012-02-02T14:39:00.000-08:00

Aeroplane

IN FLIGHT ENTERTAINMENT

Eskimo Records

house \haus \ n + cos•mic \ käz-mik \ adj + i•tal•o \ i-tal-õ \ adj

Aeroplane has come a long way since its oddball self-titled debut EP surfaced on Belgian Balearic-disco-dance label Eskimo Records. What was once a duo releasing blissful left-field grooves that defied easy categorization is now, five years later, a trustworthy, one-man brand. Helmed by Italian-born Belgian Vito De Luca, Aeroplane is a consistent source of dance-floor-certified, modern, pop-disco burners—whether through original productions or, most notably, through his remixes and monthly online DJ mixes.

The latter, which regularly garner upwards of 30,000 listens per mix, have cemented De Luca as an artist-breaking DJ on par with the radio jocks of old. Up-and-comers flood his in-box with pleas for their as-yet-to-be-heard, hot-off-the-hard-drive productions to get a spin on the series, which he’s dubbed In Flight Entertainment. Capitalizing on the popularity of the series and the clout it’s given him, the dance-inducing pilot has boiled down the essence of his mixes on this official mix-CD of the same name.

The sounds here, all of which are exclusive to the mix and being heard for the first time, are pure jet-set house—beginning with pristine cocktail sipping pre-party grooves and ending at the height of a Ital-disco-fueled Ibiza dance party. What’s most noteworthy here is how much better this mix captures the Aeroplane aesthetic than his album, We Can’t Fly, did last year. His album seemingly failed to deliver the same potent grooves of his remixes, or even his earlier productions with former partner Stephen Fasano.

In Flight Entertainment achieves the exact opposite effect. Whether it’s the sunset grooves of the fittingly named Poolside that start things up, the international flair of Herr Styler’s “It Will Never Be the Same Again,” which can only be described as house music from the Orient, or even De Luca’s own original contribution, “Save Me Now”—which is formulaic yet infectious—this mix is exactly how I would hope 90 minutes of Aeroplane would sound.

He finds room for it all. The bubbling disco bass and those signature mirror-ball strings comes courtesy of Drop Out Orchestra’s “It Will Never Be the Same Again,” Italo’s arpeggiated stutter and digital chatter from RipTide’s “Sophie.” There’s even a taste of the electro funk of Parisian masters Daft Punk on James Curd’s “Let’s Burn It All.” As Moonlight Matters sets us down for a smooth landing at the mix’s end, our journey has made one thing crystal clear: It’s as a DJ that Aeroplane truly soars.

—Joshua P. Ferguson

Aeroplane and his copilot for the night, Kid Color, touch down at Chicago's Smart Bar this Friday 02.03.12.

Aeroplane - In Flight Entertainment (compilation) by eskimorecordings

Article | Push Beats

2012-01-30T10:19:00.000-08:00

Beat Down

Push Beats makes sense of its elusive leftfield grooves

by Joshua P. Ferguson

Originally published in Time Out Chicago magazine | 12.07.11

TOC | Push Beats

What kind of music do you make? For the six guys behind Push Beats, it’s a hard question to answer. “Aw, fuck that question,” says Zain Khan, 24, the experimental beat crew’s youngest member. “Beats,” he continues, engaging himself in a hypothetical conversation. “‘What kind of beats?’ I don’t know dude. Let’s not have this conversation.” Khan, who records as “Zainghis,” is seated alongside producers-in-arms Adam “Abyss” Bowsman (the Push Beats founder), Jack “Doc Ill” Hill, Raj “Raj Mahal” Malosh, Brandon “Illiac” Murphy and Marcos “Cos” Rivera during a recent installment of their weekly Tuesday party at LOKaL Lounge in Chicago's Wicker Park to help dissect the music they make and the scene they navigate. Here’s what they had to say.

Sound Off

“All of us have come from an appreciation of hip-hop and how the producer has moved into the forefront, even more than the MC,” says Malosh, 35, the group’s senior producer. “The experimental element that’s woven into the beats is what we all gel on.”

Starting in the ’90s, hip-hop producers like Madlib and labels like Ninja Tune started removing rappers from the equation to let the music do the talking and this so called experimental hip-hop scene has been snowballing ever since. Currently the movement is strongest on the West Coast, where young producers flock to Flying Lotus and his Brainfeeder label. The Push guys also single out strong Midwest talents like Michigan sound tinkerers Samiyam and Shigeto.

The music incorporates hip-hop’s boom bap, but it quickly branches out from there with 8-bit video game melodies, dusty soul loops, the clatter of experimental glitch music and the fat low end wobble of drum ’n’ bass and dubstep. “Any genre you can think of has had an impact on it,” Malosh continues. “That comes from sample culture. It just kinda grew and the producers took it a lot further.”

Come Together

Each member points to music-hosting site Soundcloud as an essential tool in propelling the movement. Whether separate or in tandem, the guys are constantly uploading the fruits of late-night recording sessions to their individual pages. The portal is also how they discover most new artists.

“You find stuff you probably otherwise wouldn’t ever find—people from Budapest or Russia,” says Bowsman. “Most of them are bedroom producers just like us.” On the local level, Push prides itself on finding these talents. “The whole focus on the night initially is A) being more experimental, B) live performance and C) really bringing the people out in the city who already do this shit in their bedrooms whose names we don’t know and we want to know because they’re making incredible shit,” says Murphy.

Continue Reading

Catch the Push Beats crew weekly on Tuesdays at LOKaL Lounge in Chicago.

And here's a sampling of each member's sound—with download where available.

Abyss:

Kelly Rowland - Motivation ft. Lil Wayne (Abyss riding a whale shark RMX) by Abyss

Cos:

Cos and Stevie Wonder - Uptight (Everything's Alright) by CŌS

Doc Ill:

Doc iLL - mybaps by Push Beats

Raj Mahal:

Catchin feelins by Raj Mahal

Zainghis Khan:

masMas by Zainghis

http://soundcloud.com/pushbeats

DJ Mix | Efdemin

2012-01-26T13:26:00.000-08:00

DJ Mix | Efdemin for Fabric London

To be honest, the night this mix was promoting has come and gone. So much for the timeliness of the internet. Human error has succeeded yet again. big whoop. One thing that is not time sensitive is German tech-house producer Efdemin's music, or in this case, his record collection. It's been almost a year since we reviewed his last output for the Dial label, Chicago, so it's always nice to get a refresher on this sonic architect's modernist sound.

Plus, t's gray outside, and the bumps, clicks, moody melodies and minimal grooves on display here are treating us just right. We thought you might think the same. Enjoy. Sorry there's no tracklisting.

http://soundcloud.com/efdemin

Shuffle | Florence + Matthew + Mayer + More

2012-01-23T09:45:00.000-08:00

Shuffle | New Sounds from Our Inbox

by Joshua P. Ferguson

Florence + the Machine "No Light, No Light" (Spector Ryan Gosling remix)

In the rush leading up to 2012, what with all the different year-end lists we attempted to tackle, the rock side of things somehow got lost. One such artist from that realm that we'd hoped to spend some blog time praising was U.K. siren Florence Welch, who, along with her Machine, released a proper gothic pop stunner in Ceremonials. Here, one of the stand outs from that record received the remix treatment from fellow countrymen Spector, who twist it ever so slightly into a booming, mildly glitchy musical storm fit for the remix's namesake, Ryan Gosling, but specifically his turn as the nameless stuntman hero in Drive.

Download: Florence + the Machine "No Light, No Light" (Spector Ryan Gosling remix) | 160 mp3

Florence and the Machine - No Light, No Light (Spector Ryan Gosling Remix) by thebluewalrus

Matthew Dear "In the Middle (I Met You There)"

Looking ahead, pop-technoist Matthew Dear's impending LP is one of our most anticipated this year. Dropping his Headcage EP last week, Dear gave us a taste of what to expect—further adventures in his patented, avant-garde, roiling electronic pop. This cut, the highlight of the EP is the first to feature a voice other than Dear's and we're obsessed with results. Slinking along with a beat made partially from sampled vocals, the Drums' Jonny Pierce makes a perfect stand-in with his nasally drawl. Dear's productions are no longer ideally suited for the dance floor, but we guarantee you'll bump this on your headphones for days to come.

Download: Matthew Dear "In the Middle (I Met You There)" | 320 mp3

Matthew Dear - In The Middle I Met You There by Pretty Much Amazing

Mayer Hawthorne "You Got the Makings of a Lover" (PillowTalk edit)

Our favorite modern-day, retro-cool crooner Mayer Hawthorne gets an extended edit from rising Gotham City boogie revivalists PillowTalk and the results are simply stunning. A two-minute slow build to the honey-ooze of the original's horns and strings is just the kind of musical foreplay we like. And the subtle house thump underpinning gives Hawthorne just the bump needed to be a perfect fit for sexier dance floors.

Download: Mayer Hawthorne "You Got the Makings of a Lover" (PillowTalk edit) | AIFF

Mayer Hawthorne vs PillowTalk - The Makings of A Lover 'Edit' (Feat. The Festivals) by PillowTalk Music

The Weeknd "Same Old Song" Paper Diamond remix
Injecting this update with a little bass, Colorado highlight of the Pretty Lights label stable, Paper Diamond tweeks out the lo-fi soul of the Weeknd's "Same Old Song." We've really tried to get on the Weeknd bandwagon and until this remix, we just kept falling off. The guy can sing, there's no doubt, but where his voice wins and his productions do too, there's something about his songwriting that we find no better than your average throw-away radio single. We want to like it, but then the smoke clears and we don't like what we see in mirror, or something. Thankfully, that's not the case on this exceptional turn.

Download: The Weeknd "Same Old Song" Paper Diamond remix | 256 mp3

Same Old Song by The Weeknd (Paper Diamond Remix) by Dubstep.net

Interview | Pearson Sound

2012-01-19T14:51:00.000-08:00

Interview | Pearson Sound

U.K. bass music upsetter talks passé dubstep, raving in America and the dizzying London music scene.

by Joshua P. Ferguson

Originally published on the Time Out Chicago blog

TOC | Pearson Sound

Signal, a new night dedicated to emerging trends in the world of bass music at acclaimed Chicago club Smart Bar, is laying down its second installment this Thursday (tonight) with a set from U.K. bass-music maverick Pearson Sound, whom you might know from his more dubstep-centric days as Ramadanman. Somewhat famously quoted for saying there's only so much you can at 140bpm, the producer and DJ has pulled away from the tempo—and the prevailing sound that goes with it—to carve new paths in U.K. bass music.

We chatted with Pearson Sound, a.k.a. David Kennedy, at length via Skype about his thoughts on these new trends bubbling in his home and the meteoric rise in the dubstep sound across the pond, here in America.

For the last few years, Thursday nights at Smart Bar have been dedicated to dubstep, but 2012 is seeing a move to the more progressive side of bass music. So you make a perfect fit for the night. It seems that “dubstep” as a catchall phrase doesn’t really sum up what you do anymore.
Yeah, that hasn’t really been the case for about three years. I still play some, but it's just what the word represents is quite different now. Inevitably what I’ve been playing has changed and my tastes have changed and what I make has changed. So those are all reasons why, if people see me this week, it’ll be very different to what I was playing six years ago.

Is that part of what brought about the name change from Ramadanman to Pearson Sound?
Yeah, that’s part of it. The way the music has changed has also changed the way its perceived, and also maybe partly it’s a more serious name. I always felt that my older name was a bit more gimmicky.

You also play around with some old-school, Chicago house sounds as Maurice Donovan. Based on what you’re doing with that music, are you keen on coming here?
It’s funny. From what I understand, a lot of the music made in Detroit and Chicago often isn’t appreciated as much in the cities themselves as it is in, well, especially Europe I guess. I don’t know if that’s the case in Chicago, but it seems in Detroit that the actual Detroit legends don’t seem to be quite as loved as if they were to come play in London or Berlin or whatever. I don’t really know the musical history of Chicago that much, but part of the reason that I’m excited to come is that I’ve always had quite a lot of messages over the last few years from people in Chicago who have wanted me to come, and I just haven’t been able to sort the date on previous occasions.

Most overseas DJs and producers do still hold those two cities to this reverence and are very excited to come because of the musical history, but your point is one that most of them don’t realize. The hometown love can be a little lacking.
I guess it’s like if you came to London and went to Croydon and expected to look around and see record shops everywhere and bump into Skream. It’s not really going to happen. People get a slightly idealized image or a city. I guess Chicago and Detroit are very mythologized in Europe, and it’s important not to be sucked in by that.

Speaking about the music you’ve been making lately, has there been anything that’s spurred on a move to more garage influences or the use of 4/4 rhythms and sounds?
I’ve actually been making house and techno stuff for a lot longer than any dubstep kind of music, so it’s not really a new experimentation. It’s more just over the past three or four years, the way the music has shifted and the emergence of things like U.K. funky mean that the tempos have changed, and especially U.K. funky, it opened up a lot of possibilities for people and slowed down the music a lot. Not for myself, but for quite a few people, they didn’t really know about house music, and it’s maybe a dirty word and they didn’t really explore it. Since U.K. funky came along, it made people realize that it’s not all Head Kandy commercial, that there’s some good stuff as well.

Obviously over here, we’re not completely up to speed with what’s going on in the U.K.
I think there’s always going to be a time lag, but it seems to be a lot shorter in America than in other places. There seems to be a good dialogue between the U.S. and the U.K.

What has the audience response been deejaying in the States over the past year or so?
It’s been really good, actually. The way I’m presented and the kind of nights I play, I don’t really get into situations where people turn up and expect me to be playing new Skrillex tunes. That doesn’t really happen in America, which is a good thing obviously. The way the music’s changed and the kinds of parties that I’ve been playing, I can get booked by, like, I did a party in San Francisco recently with some of the Dirty Bird guys and I played Deep Space with François K the other week, but then I can go play a really dubsteppy party in somewhere like Denver or whatever and still have it go well. That’s something that I’m thankful for. I don’t get dubstep kids coming and being disappointed at what I’m playing.

Continue reading

Pearson Sound joins Chicago DJs Sparkletone, Whoa-B, Bizzies and Jake Guidry for Signal at Smart Bar tonight. 10pm.>

www.smartbarchicago.com

Dancing on Film | LCD Soundsystem + The Chemical Brothers

2012-01-12T16:39:00.000-08:00

Dancing on Film

LCD Soundsystem and the Chemical Brothers

release movies of live shows

by Joshua P. Ferguson

By now, news of LCD Soundsystem's Shut Up and Play the Hits documentary and its imminent release isn't a groundbreaking story for most of you. That's the type of news bit that sends every music blogger on the interweb into a frenzy to beat competitors at the twitter race. At the same time, the film is something worth getting excited about, and besides, I have LCD Soundsystem lyrics tattooed on my arm, no joke. Therefore I couldn't not get in on the conversation.

The film mixes footage of poetic frontman James Murphy in the day leading up to the band's farewell show, the show itself, and, in a stroke of Sophia Coppola-esque style, the come down on the day after. As Murphy so eloquently put it, "look around you, you're surrounded, it won't get any better." I see the words on my forearm daily, but they could also be the tagline for the band, it's final show and, assuming it's any good, the film.

See the preview—with narration from Chuck Klosterman—for yourself, so that you too can 1) Be envious of the fact that you weren't there in person and 2) Get amped at the opportunity to live out the experience in glorious hyper-reality.

It certainly hasn't gotten the press that LCD has in the social media flutter of the last 24 hours, but it's also worth noting that prolific U.K. dance act The Chemical Brothers are also releasing a film that documents its mind-numbing live show.

Entitled Don't Think, the film captures the big beat duo's performance at Japan's Fujirock festival in front of 50,000 ecstatic fans. Directed by the Chem's longtime visual collaborator and brother-from-another-mother Adam Smith, it's a 20-camera-heavy full-on view into an electronic live show to beat all live shows. I witnessed it first hand two summers ago here in Chicago and can honestly say I've never seen anything as visually impressive since.

The movie is being treated as a concert event, airing one night only in select theaters around the U.S. on Wednesday February 1 at 7:30pm local time. Check Fathom Events for info.

Year in Review | Top Singles 5 – 1

2012-01-09T10:37:00.000-08:00

Year in Review | Top Singles of 2011

------------

5 to 1

by Joshua P. Ferguson

We did it! Hope that it made for unexpected and enjoyable listening.

5) Modeselektor "Green Light Go" – Monkeytown

You've got to give it to Modeselektor, it's one of the only acts around that's unafraid to freely cross from hip-hop to techno to dubstep and back, and do it successfully (for the most part). We didn't love every track from the Berlin duo's 2011 LP, but this off-kilter urgent and delicate indie-bass album cut makes us swoon.

Modeselektor - Green light go (with PVT)

4) Jamie Woon "Night Air" – Polydor

Even though this track technically surfaced as a single in 2010, Woon's 2011 album release let's us feel comfortable with it's inclusion here. That, and this whispy midtempo ballad from U.K. post-dubstep crooner Woon is so moving it cracked our top five for the year.

Night Air by woon

3) The Rapture "How Deep is Your Love" – DFA

The flagship LCD Soundsystem may have set sail for the last time, but the revival of this indie-dance progenitors more than filled the void this year. The band may have undergone some line-up changes and made good on their spiritually-oriented name this time around, but if that's what it took to put them at the top their game, then so be it. While "Sail Away" is our personal fave, it was this track that had the most impact this year. With it's hallelujah piano and hands in the air chorus, it's easy to hear why.

The Rapture - How Deep Is Your Love by DFA Records

2) Todd Terje "Ragysh" – Running Back

Hearing this marathon un-categorizable anthem under the May sun courtesy of Sven Vath at this Year's Detroit Movement Festival was a musical highlight for us. Thousands of people went nuts to it and I guarantee more than one was thinking, 'what the hells is this bad ass madness?' We want to call it acid, but it's not really. It's housey techno sure, but that low-end synth melody and those bouncey drums don't fit neatly into any mold either. Simply put, this leftfield stomper was unlike anything released in 2011 and proves why Todd Terje is one of the most exciting figures in dance music today.

Todd Terje - Ragysh

1) Benoit and Sergio "Principles" – DFA

This D.C. duo ruled our digi-crates this year. From "Walk and Talk" which we charted lower on the list to their winding, techy turn "Let Me Count the Ways" for Ghostly's Spectral imprint, this sugary stunner, Benoit and Sergio's output—which seemingly sprung from nowhere—fueled our rekindled love of all things deep house. It's not possible to drop this cut for a dance floor and not have someone come up imploring you for its name. If "Walk and Talk" was Benoit and Sergio's equivalent of waifish model hot, then "Principles" is the Kim Kardashian of their ouvre, and we like it curvy.

Benoit and Sergio - Principles by DFA Records

Year in Review | Top Singles 10 – 6

2012-01-05T11:39:00.000-08:00

Year in Review | Top Singles of 2011

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10 to 6

by Joshua P. Ferguson

The show must go on. We fully intend to be done with this before the concept of 'the new year' gets too stale...

10) Mark E "Call Me" (Dixon edit) – Merck

Deep house has always been central to Dialogue Inc's love of dance music, and no one does deep better than Innervisions frontman Dixon. Not to discount Mark E's role in this monster from the depths, but this edit from Dixon and its inclusion on his Robert Johnson mix makes it part of his DNA in our minds. Regardless, it's a beauty.

Call Me (Dixon Edit)- Mark E

9) Art Department "Vampire Nightclub" – Crosstown Rebels

If you tried to explain why this song rules so hard, people will laugh at you. Vampire Nightclub? First thing that comes to mind is that ridiculous scene from Blade with a dance floor being bathed in blood sprayed from the sprinkler system. But this here meditative track truly does deserve the ketamine house descriptor—burning long and deep with Seth Troxler's throaty whispers. "I like to watch your body get down," indeed.

Art Department - Vampire Nightclub feat Seth Troxler by Crosstown Rebels

8) Rusko "Every Day" – Mad Decent

It's that time of year again, when we praise dubstep titan Rusko's annual unstoppable anthem. 2011's entry is "Every Day," the baddest true school bass monster to come growling out of festival speakers this summer. With just enough pop appeal to get the girls giddy, it was a highlight of his set at North Coast Music Festival in Chicago over Labor Day weekend and so many months later, that shit still bangs hard.

7) Chris Brown + Twista + Busta Rhymes + Lil Wayne "Look At Me Now" – Jive

Speaking of Mad Decent, who knew Diplo teaming up with Dutch house star Afrojack would result in a heater of this magnitude? No one likes Chris Brown—except maybe girls under the age of 16—but goddamn this song is absurdly good, undeniably our hip-hop song of 2011. Busta? Leggo. This guy hasn't sounded this good since "Scenario." Nuff said.

Chris Brown - Look at Me Now feat. Busta Rhymes and Lil Wayne

6) James Blake "The Wilhelm Scream" – Columbia
Honestly, we don't know that we can say any more about James Blake. Between our work at Time Out Chicago and here at Dialogue Inc we've praised this post-dubstep wonder enough. He deserved it all, but people are beginning to think we have a man crush. That said, this song still makes our heart beat faster.

Year in Review | Top Singles 15 – 11

2012-01-02T10:22:00.000-08:00

Year in Review | Top Singles of 2011

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15 to 11

by Joshua P. Ferguson

We know what you're thinking. Here we are, officially into 2012 and Dialogue Incorporated is still over there doing top lists for 2011. Well, the short answer is we're just not done summing up our last 12 months. The long answer was very eloquently outlined in yesterday's New York Times magazine. Basically, this is a cultural conversation that we look forward to having every year and, conversation being so important to us, we're going to keep it going till we're done.

So, with that, our singles picks No.'s 15 through 11.

15) SBTRKT "Something Goes Right" – Young Turks

We've already written a lot about SBTRKT this year, from our interview with him to the inclusion of his self-titled debut in our Top Albums list. So, it should go without saying that we couldn't get by without picking a top track as well. While we loved the tribal-masked hotsteppers big hit "Wildfire," it was this album cut that truly won us over.

SBTRKT - Something Goes Right (feat. Sampha)

14) Cut Copy "Sun God" – Modular

It's been an undeniably praise-worthy year for these Aussie disco rockers. Between Zonoscope and four Chicago appearances in 2011, they were a clear town favorite. And while they had numerous singles to pick from, it was this unexpected 15-minute long, slow-burning acid monster that stood out from the pack.

Cut Copy - Sun God by modularpeople

13) Benoit + Sergio "Walk and Talk" – Visionquest

Releasing records for DFA, Ghostly International and Visionquest this year, the D.C. duo known as Benoit and Sergio enthralled the dance scene with anthem after anthem. This ode to a girl stuck in a k hole, was one of its best.

Walk And Talk by benoitandsergio

12) Adele "Rolling in the Deep" (Jamie xx shuffle) – XL Recordings

In the New York Times rationale, this song (well, the original) would be a shoo-in for the No. 9 or No. 2 slot, depending on how much this gut-wrenching torch song captured your heart this year. We too fretted over where to place it. Here it is, nuff said. Jamie xx had his biggest year yet and this was the remix that put him squarely in the greater public's consciousness. It's easy to hear why.

Adele - Rolling In The Deep (Jamie xx Shuffle)

11) Jamie xx + Gil Scott-Heron "I'll Take Care of You" – XL Recordings

Drake "Take Care" – Cash Money

Did we mention that 2011 was a big year for Jamie xx? Not only did this wunderkind oversee the final recording session from American singer-songwriter legend Gil Scott-Heron, but progressive rap crooner Drake (who also took a liking to SBTRKT this year) sampled the crap out of this, the pinnacle moment from the Gil/Jamie collabo. In the end, both have their moments and we couldn't stop listening to either.

Jamie xx + GIl Scott-Heron "I'll Take Care of You"

Drake "Take Care"

Year in Review | Top Singles 20 – 16

2011-12-30T15:36:00.000-08:00

Year in Review | Top Singles of 2011

---------------

20 to 16

by Joshua P. Ferguson

The countdown continues...

20) Katy B "Lights On" – Columbia/Rinse
It's a headline straight out of TMZ and I've been beating it to death, but 2011 was the year that teenie bop nightmare Justin Beiber announced he'd be incorporating dubstep into his future "musical" endeavors. So yes, dubstep has gone pop. But not like Katy B. The British ingenue is the only authentic dubstep pop star and this end-of-the-night anthem shows Ms. B at her best.

Katy B - Lights On (f/ Ms Dynamite) by Big Ad

19) Burial "NYC" – Hyperdub

This whole post-dubstep brouhaha wouldn't exist without the cloudy concoctions of minimal dubstep mystery man Burial. His murky music has reached such heights that his spacious sounds have even come wafting down from our upstairs neighbor's flat. There was no full length from this master of spare soul—which gives us something to look forward to in 2012—but "NYC"'s static gallop and R'n'B wail was more than enough to tide us over.

Burial - NYC by Salsoulrecords

18) Bryan Farry "Alphaville" (Todd Terje remix) – Vinyl Factory
We only discovered Vinyl Factory this year, and while pricey, the UK pressing plant/imprint has breathed new life into the world of wax. With gorgeous artwork that is stripped away to reveal even more stunning music, this is the place to go for the collector. And while we were thoroughly impressed with releases by Massive Attack and Florence and the Machine, it's this remix from Mr. Roxy Music and Nordic remix master Todd Terje that gets our heartbeat up every time we work its poppy parlor piano into our DJ sets.

Alphaville - (Todd Terje Remix) by BryanFerry

17) araabMUZIK "Streetz Tonight" – Duke Productions

If only all hip-hop beats could sound like those on MPC whiz araabMUZIK's debut Electronic Dream. But then again, these dance-music-sampling head nodders sound better without the MC. Case in point: "Streetz Tonight," a banger that bounces from half time to double time and back. All it needed was a Kaskade sample to be one of the most infectious things we discovered this year.

Araab Muzik Streetz Tonight by araabMUZIK

16) Virgo Four "It's a Crime" (Caribou remix) – Rush Hour

Leave it to Rush Hour to cultivate and rerelease some of the best that Chicago house has to offer. And leave it to Caribou to take this long lost gem from duo Virgo Four and turn it into a sprawling acid-laden workout. Classic dance tracks are finally getting their due some 20 years later, and when they get updated like "It's a Crime" was, it only adds to the awe.

Virgo Four - Its A Crime (Caribou Mix) by Caribouband

Year in Review | 2011 Top Singles 25 – 21

2011-12-26T15:56:00.000-08:00

Year in Review | Top Singles of 2011

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25 to 21

by Joshua P. Ferguson

The food coma from yesterday's Christmas day feast may still be weighing some of us down, but Dialogue Inc. is ready to serve up some more meat—at least in terms of our 2011 year in review round-ups. We've nailed down our top albums and our favorite DJ mixes, so without further ado, we give you the first batch of our top singles of the year.

25) Midland "Bring Joy" – Aus Music

One of the best things to happen to bass music over the course of the last 12 months was its move to embrace varied tempos. This movement didn't necessarily start this year, but it certainly excelled and this one from the U.K. newcomer Midland was amongst our favorites.

Midland - Bring Joy EP - Forthcoming More Music by Midland

24) Maceo Plex "Can't Leave You" – Crosstown Rebels

The label that led Resident Advisor's best of the year had a big impact on the Dialogue Inc world as well. From Art Department's stunning debut to the slew of singles from artists like Maceo Plex, Crosstown Rebels dominated the world of house music. The sense of infatuation that "Can't Leave You" embodies is one that we shared for the label itself, and for this song in particular.

Maceo Plex - Can't Leave You by Crosstown Rebels

23) Jacques Greene "Another Girl" – Lucky Me

To combat the massive uptick in aggressive, mosh-worthy dubstep with the sexy slo-mo shuffle of "Another Girl" was a masterstroke. Like spotting the one person at the bar you've been looking for all night, this song established Greene as a one to watch.

ANOTHER GIRL by Jacques Greene

22) Austra "Beat and the Pulse" – Domino Recordings

Given dance's permeation into all facets of music, a credible indie-act that dabbles with beats is far preferable to anything Will.i.am is doing. While the Rapture and Cut Copy dominated this year, synthy Toronto quintet Austra deserves the award for best newcomer, fueled in part, by this single.

BEAT AND THE PULSE by AUSTRA

21) Mosca " Done Me Wrong" – Numbers

"Future bass" as a new genre tag is one that we're having trouble stomaching. But whatever the preferred nomenclature becomes, Mosca's 2-step revival "Done Me Wrong" for the Numbers label whisks us back to the days of MJ Cole, Artful Dodger and Craig David without sounding like a nostalgic rehash itself. The track comes complete with a rewind, but it may still be worth adding one of your own.

Done Me Wrong by DeejayMosca

Year in Review | Top DJ Mixes of 2011

2011-12-23T10:18:00.000-08:00

Year in Review | Top DJ Mixes of 2011

by Joshua P. Ferguson

Doing this same post last year, we made a comment about how for certain DJ types out there, the mix may hold more significance than an artist full length. We felt it was true then and we haven't change our views this year. The five mixes below, representing our favorite listens of 2011, all fared as well in the heavy rotation as the albums we charted in our Top Electronic Albums post. Here they are in all their hand-crafted, expertly-mixed glory.

5) Visionquest Fabric 61 (Fabric London)

For a group of artists as prolific as Visionquest was this year, no format served them better than the mix. Sure, they all produce on their own and more than one of the tracks from their fledgling label sent dance floors into a frenzy in 201, but the best way to distill Visionquest's year into a single entity is to put a spin on theirs, the 61st installment of Fabric's mix series. Deep, dark and steeped in the quartet's Detroit roots, it also playfully exudes their eccentric personalities and ability to think outside the box—just as the releases on their label and their live sets do.

4) Four Tet Fabriclive 59 (Fabric London)

Snatching up two out of five of our top DJ mixes of the year, clearly the storied London club had a good year across its Fabric and Fabriclive mixes. Flipping to the more progressively, leftfield-oriented side of the coin, Four Tet delivered a monster of a mix across the 26 tracks of his Fabriclive mix—many of which are kept short and sweet at under two minutes. Ebbing and flowing through apocalyptic 2-step, distant broken beats, minimally shuffling soundscapes and any other burgeoning electronic genre you're tempted to put a 'post' in front of, Four Tet defies all notions of what's current. Instead, he gives a glimpse into the future of this music, as only visionary tastemaker can.

3) Robag Wruhme Wuppdeckmischmampflow (Kompakt)

As he did on his artist album this year, the nature-loving, salt and pepper-haired microhouse savant Robag Wruhme perfectly captured his aesthetic on this beautiful mix. Dubbed 'home-listening techno' in Pitchfork's review, this timeless collection of 14 tracks is clearly dance music for twilights, dawns, nature walks and snowy days (like today actually). The tracks aren't all new, but it doesn't matter. They're not even all techno, strictly speaking; the beefed-up, Burial-like chug of Moderat's "Rusty Nails" sits snuggly next to tracks by Chateau Flight, Ricardo Villalobos and WhoMadeWho. Songs flow in and out, disappearing for minutes at a time, only to resurface tracks later. This is a mix by a master collagist, and one that you don't find everyday. With Wruhme at the controls, the mix takes on new forms: here it is not only linear, but circular. And that is the brilliant bottom line.

2) Wolf + Lamb vs Soul Clap DJ-KiCKS (!K7)

Another crew of visionary selectors who don't take themselves too seriously, the Boston-meets-New-York-dueling-duo's duo of Soul Clap and Wolf + Lamb came close to having our mix of the year with this defiantly slo-mo batch of boogie, upbeat R&B and midtempo house. During Detroit's Movement festival this year, a friend asked, if I were to live my life at one tempo what would it be? I said 110bpm. My answer was largely fueled by having this mix on repeat. Sexy, pitched down and ripe for dancing, this contribution to the masterful DJ-KiCKS series helped usher in a new era of deep house and it's obvious how much fun this pair of twosomes had while doing it.

1) Dixon Live at Robert Johnson (Live at Robert Johnson)

The grand finale of this live mix series ends on a soaringly high note. Only Innervision's head honcho can make a mix this potent and begin it with 20 minutes of ambient dreamscapes. It's worth the wait. When that first beat drops and rolls into 40 minutes of the deepest house around, it proves why Dixon is one of the only artists on the scene who can be prolific without doing any of his own original productions. The man gives honor to the artform here. While the rest of the world catches on to deejaying and thinks an iTunes folder and autosync means they can get a club night, Dixon proves that only years of experience playing the best clubs of the world leads to a finished product this stunning and impeccable.

Year in Review | Top Electronic Albums 2011

2011-12-21T08:33:00.000-08:00

Year in Review | Top Electronic Albums of 2011

by Joshua P. Ferguson

It's upon us yet again. The end of the year. Which means every blog on the World Wide Web sets out to rank and file its top insert-category-here and compile them in an endless succession of lists. It's still one of my favorite times of the year. I always look forward to the overwhelming onslaught of confirmations and discoveries as I compare and contrast what others knew and loved with my own year-end best.

This year, charting my course through albums proved more difficult than usual. While my headphones were perpetually glued to my ears, DJ mixes and individual tracks ruled. That said, here are the top ten exceptions.

10) Washed Out Within and Without (Sub Pop)
2011 dedicated too much talk to chillwave. It seemed to rise in favor and fall back out of it just as fast. And yet, Washed Out's indie-chill debut stood out in the conversation as infinitely listenable, breezy and without pretense.

9) Kuedo Severant (Planet Mu)

As the year saw the rise of dubstep's aggressive, populist side, it also saw many of its one-time supporters venture into new, challenging, weird and artsy territory. Kuedo, who as part of Vex'd has always dwelled in the genre's nether regions, achieved something truly special with this solo debut: He fine-tuned it for the space age, ditching all remnants of dubstep in favor of bass music with a sci-fi sheen.

8) SBTRKT SBTRKT (Young Turk)

The mysterious, soulful, masked bass-music craftsman SBTRKT's debut was yet another example of what bass music can do when it's not getting frat boys to mosh. In this U.K. producer's hands, it flutters, twinkles and bumps with a lot of class.

7) Cut Copy Zonoscope (Modular)

The dons of indie-disco from Down Under, Cut Copy won me over with "Take Me Over." Then the rest of this latest studio LP revealed the emotive "Need You Now" and slow-burning acid masterpiece "Sun God." This record absolutely deserved the Grammy nod it garnered.

6) Robag Wruhme Thora Vukk (Pampa)

This year, I came around to the nuance and potential beauty of techno. German maverick Wruhme is a master of the form, skirting the line between machine music's minimalism and microhouse's obsession with chopping and screwing found sounds. Like Matthew Herbert before him, Wruhme works vibrating cell phones, rain and a knock at the door into a sublime musical tapestry.

5) Art Department The Drawing Board (Crosstown Rebels)

Leaders in another trend I couldn't get enough of this year—the resurgence of quality, deep house—Art Department released a debut that took a while to grow on me. The Toronto duo's big hit "Without You" just doesn't do it. But the slo-mo gothic groover "Vampire Nightclub" and the beautifully melancholy set closer "I C U" make up for that in spades.

4) Nicolas Jaar Space is Only Noise (Circus Company)

While journalists like me split hairs about what electronic music takes to be deemed this or that genre, young gun Nic Jaar quietly released an understated arsenal of incategorizable awesomeness. Glitchy, spacey, soulful, Jaar worked it all in, and yet descriptors fail to fully capture his intricate soundscapes.

3) Apparat The Devil's Walk (Mute Records)

Speaking of genre defiance, Apparat is one of those producers who prides himself in versatility, and yet his catalog is all pointing in one direction—toward capturing the essence of pop music in moody electronics. With his latest, he achieved that.

2) The Rapture In the Grace of Your Love (DFA Records)
This group of dance rockers has had serious ups and downs. 2011 was a definite up. With infectious hits like the critically adored "How Deep is Your Love" and my personal fave "Sail Away," this record served as a spiritual awakening and proves that The Rapture are here to stay.

1) James Blake James Blake (Universal)

An early entry into this year's best-of list, Blake has basically had the entirety of 2011 to rise to the top. Of course this means that some are probably sick of hearing about him already. Press fatigue aside, the virtuoso introduced the world to bass music's possibilities with his achey soul and captivating live performances. If nothing else, he served as the antithesis to Skrillex, and people should thank him for that.

Dialogue Incorporated | Radio Show #24

2011-12-08T13:00:00.001-08:00

Dialogue Incorporated | It's Our Party

Dialogue Incorporated Radio #24

Compiled and mixed by Mister Joshua

Letter from the editor

Constantly fighting for unique content on a blog can seem a bit of a fool's errand after a while. That coveted PR e-mail with an "exclusive download" lands in your inbox and before you can refresh twitter, all the major online music outlets have created identical posts in a race to be the first one to market. Forget having something meaningful to say, just get it up, get it out, tweet, tweet, tweet.

We have no delusions of grandeur here at Dialogue Inc. Until we get a staff of 20—that'll happen, we swear!—there will be no competing with the Stereogums and Pitchforks of this World Wide Web. Where we hope to differentiate ourselves is by writing something worthy of reading (no, we're not saying these other sites don't have posts worthy of reading. Don't even go there). In our ideal www, we'd be doing both—quick posts with fresh content in real time and insightful editorials—but given our man power, we focus on the latter. We're called Dialogue Incorporated after all, to be at a loss for words would be pretty lame.

Since our last post round-up we've added a lot of great content: interviews with larger than life DJs like deadmau5, new music from Escort and Nicolas Jaar and reviews of admired efforts from acts like the Field and Visionquest. Adding even more dynamics to our content we like to include our Dialogue Inc "Radio Show" podcasts that set our content to music, because, after all that's the main focus of our site. Sometimes this can prove to be tricky because we inevitably fall to DJ mode when we set out to make these mixes—Friendly Fires and Four Tet don't always play nice when seated side by side on a mix.

So this time, while we did strive to tie our latest podcast picks to our written content, we let the mix prevail. And we couldn't be happier with results. We managed to squeeze in hip-hop, leftfield beats, moombahton, indie rock, soul, house, techno and dubstep, and it all gelled really nicely. Where the audio and visual (i.e. blog post) content overlap, we've laid that out for you below. Otherwise, click on the link to stream (or head to our Mixcloud page), download, share and listen to the fullest. We're really proud of this one.

—Joshua P. Ferguson

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MUSIC | Dialogue Incorporated #24 - It's Our Party

Listen | Download | Enjoy

Dialogue Incorporated #24 by Dialogueinc on Mixcloud

Tracklisting:

Amon Tobin “Wooden Toy” – Ninja Tune

Kuedo “Salt Lake Cuts” – Planet Mu

Toddla T “Streets So Warm” – Ninja Tune

Jay-Z and Kanye West “No Church in the Wild” – Roc-A-Fella

Shoes “Warp Afrobeat remix #1” – CD-R

The Field “Looping State of Mind” – Kompakt

Digitalism “Miami Showdown” – V2

Florence and the Machine “Shake it Off” – Island Universal

Paul Weller “ Starlite” (D-Pulse remix) – Island

Dillon Francis “Beautician 2.0” – Mad Decent

Bryan Ferry “Alphaville” (Todd Terje remix) – The Vinyl Factory

Austra “Beat and Pulse” (Still Going remix) – Domino

Peter and the Magician “Twist” – Kitsuné

Agoria “Panta Rei” (Balearic remix) – Infiné

Lucky Paul “Thought We Were Alone” (Gadi Mizrahi and Eli Gold remix) – Wolf + Lamb

Mark E “Call Me” (Dixon edit) – Merk

Maceo Plex “Can’t Leave You” – Crosstown Rebels

Benoit + Sergio “Let Me Count the Ways” – Spectral Sounds

Gui Boratto “This is Not the End” – Kompakt

The Rapture “Sail Away” – DFA

Mayer Hawthorne “A Long Time” – Universal

Glass Candy “Warm in the Winter” – Italians Do It Better

Midnight Magic “Drop Me a Line” (Holy Ghost! remix) – Permanent Vacation

Lord Skywave + Nautiluss “Blue Monday” – Hemlock

Dinky “Time to Lose It” – Visionquest

Virgo Four “It’s a Crime” (Caribou remix) – Rush Hour

Four Tet “Locked” – Text

Modeselektor “Green Light Go” – Monkeytown

SBTRKT “Hold On” – Young Turks

Kahn “Illy” – Sucker Punch

Active Child “Playing House” – Vagrant

Apparat “Song of Los” – Mute

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WORDS | Dialogue Incorporated #24 - It's Our Party

"As an artist, you don’t take credit for the raw materials, it’s just the way you build it and reposition it and form it into something that’s of your own mind. I’m just trying to make a synthetic version of the world that I can manipulate more freely.” — Amon Tobin

"Kuedo takes a page from the Vangelis songbook for his solo debut, Severant. Heading into Blade Runner territory, his experimental dubstep pairs eerie, celestial synthesizers with a Moroder-style bass line and skittish beats on “Salt Lake Cuts.” It’s bass music gone sci-fi, a snapshot of a promising future."— Joshua P. Ferguson on Kuedo's "Salt Lake Cuts"

"Toddla feels destined to break free of the underground—and his backbeat trappings—and these opening tracks give him the right momentum. Ultimately, though, he settles back into what he knows best and gets carried away with the pipe cleaner while he’s at it." — Joshua P. Ferguson on Toddla T's Watch Me Dance

"Willner’s looping bliss burns long and slow across all seven tracks on Looping State of Mind. Muted-beat pistons still chug inside a musical frame airbrushed with a synth-based pop sheen. On his previous output, this gave his tracks a vaguely trance-like drive... Willner has traded in on this latest. Now he’s cruising along with the top back, opting for breezy Balearic textures and more leisurely tempos..." — Joshua P. Ferguson on the Field's Looping State of Mind

“We love to do stuff that is unexpected or surprising for people, breaking with clichés. People expect certain things from us and when we do stuff like this on the new album people might be surprised from it, but that’s exactly how we want it.” — Digitalism's Jence Moelle

"A bit like a more electronic Florence and the Machine, Austra mixes '80s moodiness, potent indie-dance beats and swelling, emotional and yet danceable melodies into a soothing brew that'll get you drunk and moving like too much 18-year-old scotch." — Joshua P. Ferguson on Austra

"I couldn't help but wonder if frontman Luke Jenner—or lost member Matt Safer—lies in bed at night asking himself if the Rapture might have been LCD Soundsystem had things worked out differently... But, if it took all of their ups and downs for the Rapture to turn out sounding this good, than these boys should rest assured that things worked out for the best in the end." — Joshua P. Ferguson reviewing the Rapture live

“It’s not strictly following a certain genre or sound or trying to carve a whole new niche in dance music where a lot of it’s been done already,” — Ryan Crossom on the Visionquest label

"I remember when Marshall made ‘Move Your Body.' My producer at the time, when he heard it, he said, ‘That record really sucks. Everything in the world is wrong with that record.’ ” —Screamin' Rachael Cain of Trax Records

"It’s not stated explicitly, but the monkey is Modeselektor’s spirit animal. Its mischievousness pervades just about everything the duo does. Self-described maximalists, Berliners Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian Szary are keen to play around with sound. Monkeytown, their third LP, switches gears like a high-performance racer blazing down the Autobahn." — Joshua P. Ferguson on Modeselektor's Monkeytown

“Electronic music is about creating make-believe worlds with all these crazy synths, weird switches and everything else. It’s not really about the reality of sitting in front of an acoustic instrument and playing it with emotion and soul.” — SBTRKT

"His early work clicked, rattled and hissed a lot. Over the years, and especially here, he’s filed down glitch’s harsher edges, softening things with guitars, strings, marimbas and thoughtful lyrics. The common thread is Apparat’s ability to combine lush textures and complex melodies to produce richly emotional music that transcends any genre tag."

— Joshua P. Ferguson on Apparat's The Devil's Walk

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Dialogue Incorporated is now part of the Blogosphere. Check us out at: www.dialogueinc.com

You can also stream our mixes at Samurai.fm:

www.samurai.fm/dialogueinc

Direct download to our latest podcast available here:

Dialogue Incorporated Radio #23 - mp3 stream

www.twitter.com/dialogueinc

DIALOGUE INCORPORATED IS ALSO AVAILABLE ON MIXCLOUD

Click here to subscribe:

Dialogue Inc | Mixcloud

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Review | Visionquest - Fabric 61 + Article | Visionquest | Rite of Passage

2011-12-05T11:05:00.001-08:00

Visionquest

FABRIC 61

Fabric London

house \haus \ n + tech•no\tek-nõ\ n

I managed to ruffle a feather or two earlier this year when, reviewing Art Department's The Drawing Board LP, I claimed that deep house was back. One reader felt that deep house had never gone away and that my statement was an overdramatic way of crafting a story where, he or she felt there was none. While yes, it is utterly false to claim that there were no deep house records made between, say, 2006 and last January, I still contend that the quality and the popularity of the music suffered a huge dip during that rough time frame, and thanks to acts like Detroit-to-Berlin deep tech foursome Visionquest (and, of course, Art Department, who I was praising at the time) this particular realm of dance music has surged back to it's previous heights, and, possibly, then some.

It's those highs that Visionquest shares with us on its contribution the Fabric mix series. Members Ryan Crosson, Lee Curtiss, Shaun Reeves and Seth Troxler are all producers and DJs who enjoy careers on their own, helping fill out the tapestry of acts on labels like Crosstown Rebels, Hot Creations, Ghostly International and elsewhere—labels that are leading the charge of this new breed of deep house music. Their sound is poppy at times—but in a new wave way, techy, mesmerizing and understatedly playful. And on this mix they present a dark, unified and yet incredibly diverse, well, vision.

Warming atmospherics and the mantra "just relax man" set the mood as the massage of the tide on STL's "Portside Waves" washes the quartet's deep bounce to the shores of our inner ear. Whereas deep house's previous incarnations gravitated towards a body and soul style sexiness—all soulful vocals, warm rhodes and jazzy lightness—these boys claim closer allegiance to the Motor City, preferring machine-driven textures, cosmic flourishes and literal space references that surface on Soul Center's "HAL 2010," Seuil's "In the Moon" and Green Velvet's "Abduction."

But the main goal here is to showcase the Visionquest sound—not of the members, but of their label. Tracks like the stand out "Forest Fires" by My Favorite Robot and work by Footprintz and Tale of Us, which hold up the tail end of the mix, have all found a home on the label, a diverse imprint dedicated to all manner of leftfield dance sounds. And where that mission isn't realized in tracks directly from the crew's label, it is in the expansive mixture that sees cuts from label's like Compost and Tru Thoughts side by side with the likes of Transmat and Perlon.

These four dudes have a sly sense of humor and when I spoke with them this summer about the roots of "Visionquest" they joked about drug trips in the woods and Matthew Modine. Nonetheless, they are on a mission to dissolve boundaries and take this music new places, and with Fabric 61 they assure that all of us get to come along. I for one, am enjoying the ride.

—Joshua P. Ferguson

Take a Visionquest with fabric 61 from Fabric London on Vimeo.

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Rite of Passage

Visionquest came out of the Michigan wilderness and into its own.

by Joshua P. Ferguson

originally published in Time Out Chicago magazine | 08.24.11

TOC | Visionquest

After the North and South Poles, Es Vedra, a rock formation off the coast of Ibiza, is supposedly the most magnetic point in the world. Some say it was the home of the sirens from Homer’s epic The Odyssey, and locals claim it’s the tip of the sunken city of Atlantis. It’s also within view of Visionquest’s condo, where the Detroit foursome has been soaking up the rock’s mystical properties—and partying its ass off at a string of high-profile gigs.

Seth Troxler, the group’s youngest member at 26, is only having a laugh when he points out Es Vedra’s magical appeal, and yet it seems like the perfect setting to reach this group of friends that gravitated together over a desire to do something different with dance music.

“Like-mindedness was what really drew us together,” Troxler says of the gang of four, which also includes Ryan Crosson and Shaun Reeves, both 30, and Lee Curtiss, 33. Speaking via Skype prior to their appearance at Spy Bar on Friday 26, Troxler continues, “We were really into a certain sound coming from Europe, having all spent some time over there and coming back and forth. We just became best friends.”

Though the members have healthy DJ and production careers of their own, which divide them between Europe and the States, Visionquest as a whole is entirely Detroit-bred and quickly establishing itself as the next hottest thing to come rolling out of the Motor City. It is the latest fruits of a dance-music family tree that includes the Belleville Three, Matthew Dear and, especially, Richie Hawtin, whom they all cite as a central influence.

Though the kinship they feel to their forebears is strong, the music is all their own. Whether through remixes or the tracks it has been releasing on its label of the same name, Visionquest is working dance floors with an eclectic formula that includes deep house, techy flourishes, sexy pop and a willingness to embrace the left field. “It’s not strictly following a certain genre or sound or trying to carve a whole new niche in dance music where a lot of it’s been done already,” Crosson says.

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Visionquest gets Chicago tripping on Friday Dec 16 @ The Mid.

Here's a taster:

Visionquest (Lee Curtiss, Ryan Crosson and Shaun Reeves) - Beats In Space

www.vquest.tv

Article | SBTRKT | Do the Math

2011-12-01T09:58:00.001-08:00

Do the Math

Bass plus soul minus face equals SBTRKT

by Joshua P. Ferguson

Originally published in Time Out Chicago magazine | 11.02.11

TOC | SBTRKT

“I don’t think the face you’re born with has to be the face you perform with,” says SBTRKT, summing up his music philosophy— which involves wearing a handcrafted modern twist on a tribal mask to maintain anonymity. Born Aaron Jerome, he’s the latest producer to emerge from the U.K. post-dubstep scene amid a flurry of worldwide press and publicity, and he’s done so by taking a back seat to his music.

Here in the U.S., where his sound—rooted in bass-heavy dubstep, but taken in fresh directions—is still a somewhat foreign concept, he’s often compared to post-dubstep poster child James Blake. But aside from their initial inspirations, there’s very little to connect their sounds. “James seems much more into folk and traditional gospel, whereas I’m much more into my electronic and strictly U.K.-based genres,” Jerome says over Skype from his London flat on a rare day off from his ongoing world tour. “We come from different schools of thinking.”

While a hefty low-end does serve as a common denominator between the two, Jerome’s music as SBTRKT deploys more quintessentially British urban sounds. Pulling from dubstep, 2-step and U.K. funky, and injected with heavy doses of soul, his self-titled debut is an effervescent brew made from the oohs and aahs of layer upon layer of synths, the boom-clack-boom-boom-clack of syncopated percussion and the steady twinkling of cosmic atmospherics.

“Electronic music is about creating make-believe worlds with all these crazy synths, weird switches and everything else,” the masked musician says. “It’s not really about the reality of sitting in front of an acoustic instrument and playing it with emotion and soul.”

This idea of existing in a fantasy land helps explain Jerome’s use of the tribal mask. “Near the outset, there was this idea of when I create music it was just about putting music out and not having to promote myself to make the music be heard. I thought the easiest way there was keeping some anonymity,” Jerome explains. “I think my favorite artists are people that have whole visions of everything. They’re people that seem to have a larger persona than just the music they create, and it all seems to fit together and intertwine.”

SBTRKT ESSENTIAL MIX by sbtrkt

Article | Digitalism | Balancing Act + mp3

2011-11-28T09:19:00.001-08:00

Balancing Act

Digitalism's hybrid electro staves off boredom.

by Joshua P. Ferguson

Originally published in Time Out Chicago magazine | 08.10.11

TOC | Digitalism

Last year, as HARD, the annual electronic variety show from L.A., picked up and took its party on the road, we spoke talked to organizer Gary Richards about his goals for the festival. “I’ve been trying to break electronic music in the United States since I first heard it, and I’m not going to stop,” he said. What a difference a year can make. The barrage of beats and bass lines has won over American ears in the past 12 months, and dance music is more popular than ever—A theme we've explored heavily over the past year.

If Richards had concerns about the success of his tour last August, he set his mind at ease when HARD returned this year to nearly sell out Chicago's Congress theater during the summer. The headliner was German dance-rock act Digitalism, who we spoke to then and are sharing with you now—in advance of the duo's show at the Metro in Chicago tonight.

With its brilliant sophomore album, I Love You, Dude, racking up rave reviews, Digitalism’s mix of distorted guitars, grinding electro beats and pop hooks is a pitch-perfect sound of now . And the pair shares Richards’s philosophy of offering diversity amid the onslaught of thumps and wobbles.

Video chatting from Hamburg on Skype, the talkative Jence Moelle explains Digitalism’s development with an anecdote from his and Ismail Tüfekçi’s early days hanging out at record stores. “We’d take time to listen to each new vinyl of the week,” he says. “You get kind of bored after a while. All the customers—many DJs of course—they all bought the same stuff, always dependent on what the big names had in their playlist from the last weekend.” Going the opposite route, Moelle, 29, and Tüfekçi, 32, diversified, adding indie, breakbeat, electroclash and whatever else they were feeling into their techno sets.

“We don’t really like what you’d call monoculture or monogamy,” Moelle explains jokingly. “It’s just not exciting for us. We like to combine lots of styles. At one end is definitely guitar music and the other is somehow electronic, and there’s lots of stuff in between as well.”

I Love You, Dude plays out like a musical testament to their various musical tastes. It begins with the Daft Punk–ian cosmic electro of “Stratosphere” before launching into infectious lead single “2 Hearts,” which sounds like the electronic sister composition to Phoenix’s “1901.” Elsewhere, their punk side rears its head on “Reeperbahn,” with bouncing rock bass and Moelle’s distorted screeches. The album is so strong precisely because of this range of styles.

DOWNLOAD:

Digitalism "Circles" Dillon Francis remix | 192 mp3

Article | New Fall Singles | Buddy System

2011-11-24T11:31:00.001-08:00

Buddy System

Pair up fall's hottest tracks and the trends behind them.

by Joshua P. Ferguson

Originally published in Time Out Chicago magazine | 11.09.11

TOC | Buddy System

Electronic music doesn’t sit still for long. This fall is no exception. So that neither you nor the season’s heaters get lost in the shuffle, we match up a handful of promising releases that turn up the bass, switch up the tempo, ramp up the sci-fi quotient, plug in a guitar or two and, together, capture the latest movements in electronic music.

Kuedo “Salt Lake Cuts” (Planet Mu) + Martyn “Masks” (Brainfeeder)

When Justin Bieber announces he’s working dubstep into his new record, it’s time to move on. That’s exactly what Kuedo and Dutch techstep innovator Martyn have been doing. Vex’d member Kuedo takes a page from the Vangelis songbook for his solo debut, Severant. Heading into Blade Runner territory, his experimental dubstep pairs eerie, celestial synthesizers with a Moroder-style bass line and skittish beats on “Salt Lake Cuts.” It’s bass music gone sci-fi, a snapshot of a promising future.

Kuedo - Salt Lake Cuts (Snippet) by hhvmag

Similarly, Martyn continues to blaze a trail that pushes bass music into unexpected places on Ghost People. With its mechanical stomp and gritty keys, lead single “Masks” owes more to Detroit than it does dubstep, but there’s still a synergy between the two. It’s a hybrid banger that boasts as much innovation as the latest Toyota Prius.

martyn masks original mix by mar4ell01

Major Lazer “Original Don” (Mad Decent) + Dillon Francis “Beautician 2.0” (Mad Decent)

If there’s any one camp that’s really expanding the boundaries of urban electronic music, it’s Diplo’s Mad Decent label. His latest release as zombie-killing cartoon commando Major Lazer sounds as if it were written for a Jamaican marching band until it morphs into a schizophrenic breaks banger with blaring horns, sirens, record scratches and a “run the track” call to arms. If ever there was a follow-up to “Pon Di Floor,” this is it.

Major Lazer featuring The Partysquad – Original Don by Hypetrak

A relative newcomer, Dillon Francis may have descended from the hills surrounding L.A. to win over his dinosaur-loving label boss with his dubstep and electro prowess, but it’s his recent forays into the midtempo reggaeton-dancehall-electro amalgam moombahton that are going to make this guy a star. With its ravey synth stabs and infectious melody, his latest, “Beautician 2.0,” is pristine, next-generation booty music.

Dillon Francis - Beautician 2.0 by DILLONFRANCIS

Chromatics “Kill for Love” (Italians Do It Better) + Bryan Ferry “Alphaville” Todd Terje remix (Virgin)

Birthing the next dance subgenre isn’t always the key to success, or even to freshening up your sound. Johnny Jewel has been rekindling his love of moody ’80s dance rock for years, recording as Desire, Glass Candy and here, as Chromatics. The band scored major airtime on the retro-lovely film Drive, and it has followed that up with “Kill for Love” a pitch-perfect throwback to acid wash, new wave and teen angst.

CHROMATICS / KILL FOR LOVE by ITALIANS DO IT BETTER

You won’t see Bryan Ferry, the same glam and new wave icon behind Roxy Music, working dubstep into his repertoire. But that doesn’t mean he’s out of step with the dance beat. For last year’s Olympia, he enlisted help from Groove Armada and Scissor Sisters, and over the course of this year he’s released a string of remixes. The standout comes from quirky Nordic talent Todd Terje, who stretches “Alphaville” with xylophone, parlor piano and Balearic bounce. There’s no pretense here. This is house music to the core, but it doesn’t sound like anything we’ve heard in years.

Alphaville - (Todd Terje Remix) by BryanFerry

Review | The Field | Looping State of Mind + mp3

2011-11-22T10:26:00.001-08:00

The Field
LOOPING STATE OF MIND
Kompakt Records

chill•out \ chil-aût \ vb + tech•no \tek-nõ\ n

Originally published in Time Out Chicago magazine.

In Axel Willner’s world, repetition is a very good thing. He started hypnotizing fans with his ambient techno meditations as the Field on 2007’s From Here We Go Sublime, which even landed in Pitchfork’s top albums of the 2000s. From then on, he’s embraced techno’s simplistic formula of a few moving parts, expertly arranged and then left to shine, relatively unaltered for marathon runs stretching well over the five-minute mark.

In that sense, nothing’s changed here. Willner’s looping bliss burns long and slow across all seven tracks on Looping State of Mind. Muted-beat pistons still chug inside a musical frame airbrushed with a synth-based pop sheen. On his previous output, this gave his tracks a vaguely trance-like drive. That model carried him through 2009’s Yesterday and Today, but with mixed results. Instead of opting for another tune-up, Willner has traded in on this latest. Now he’s cruising along with the top back, opting for breezy Balearic textures and more leisurely tempos, as he has on “Burned Out.”

Set opener “Is this Power” also reflects these years on the road, literally. A touring schedule that has seen Willner sharing the stage with acts like !!! and LCD Soundsystem has left its mark. Live bass pops and rolling drum fills provide more prominent examples of the indie cred he’s always enjoyed. It’s as if the more traditional songwriting structure of punk-funkers the Rapture were stripped down to its bare elements, sampled, looped and built back up with the Field’s expert keys and deep atmospherics.

The title track offers the most succinct example of Willner’s sonic shift. It still charges forth with his signature euphoria, but in less of a hurry. Bursts of bass repeat over the chatter of guitars and the rattle and click of a Plastikman-style techno beat. Before, it seemed as if Willner was expressly trying to find a perfect synergy of techno and indie-pop. Here, he’s no longer trying.

—Joshua P. Ferguson

DOWNLOAD: The Field "Then It's White" | 256 mp3

The Field - Then It's White by Kompakt

Shuffle | Austra + BBF + Escort + Lindstrom + Jaar + Scuba

2011-11-16T13:39:00.001-08:00

Shuffle | New Music from our Inbox

Nicolas Jaar "Don't Break My Love" – Clown and Sunset

This year has been a major one for Brooklyn soundscapist Nicolas Jaar. If nothing else he's gained major fans over here at Dialogue Inc. We had nothing but good things to say about his Space is Only Noise LP for Circus Company and the kind words we have for his unique blend of IDM, slow burning house and brooding downtempo only continue on this latest EP. Clicking along with smooth Rhodes chords, skittish minimal beats and wordless vocal hums, "Don't Break My Love" is great because it works as a stand alone track, whereas many of the cuts from Space Is worked best in the context of the album listen. Just wait till the meat of the song kicks in at around the five minute mark. It takes a while to get there, but when it does, you'll be hard pressed to say you're not a fan.

DOWNLOAD: Nicolas Jaar "Don't Break My Love" b/w "Why Don't You Save Me" | 320 mp3s

NICOLAS JAAR / Don't break my love EP by Clown and Sunset

Brandt Brauer Frick "Pretend" Soul Clap remix – !K7

It's with minor reluctance that we post up this remix of German organic techno creators Brandt Brauer Frick. Not because we have a single bad thing to say about their classically-minded, orchestral dance compositions, but rather because we did an interview with them this past March and never got it posted to our site. Thankfully, you can read our conversation with drummer Daniel Brandt over at Time Out Chicago. Amazingly, this prodigious trio has already churned out a sophomore LP and enlisted our favorite sexy house duo from Boston, Soul Clap (pictured), to work their magic on it. The result is a deep, pulsing affair, perfect for early evenings and late nights. No surprise there.

DOWNLOAD: Brandt Brauer Frick "Pretend" Soul Clap remix | 320 mp3 (courtesy of XLR8R)

Escort "Makeover" – Escort Records

Even if you missed the hilarious mash-up of the intro to the Muppets and Escort's "All Through the Night," there's a good chance you've caught wind of the 17-piece Gotham City disco orchestra Escort. Their full-length has been a long time coming, so there was a twinge of disappointment when we heard "Cameleon Chameleon" a few weeks back. Basically, the four-plus years that have passed since the band debuted had left them sounding a bit cheesy and even more dated. Or so we thought. The group has thoroughly redeemed themselves with this poppy, '80s-tinged throwback that resounds with the same potency that make artists like Madonna or Rihanna so potent. "Makeover" sounds fresher than either of those two acts, but the comparison is a legit one. We think you'll agree.

DOWNLOAD: Escort "Makeover" | 256 mp3

Lindstrøm "De Javu" – Smalltown Supersound
Norwegian cosmonaut Lindstrøm has a habit of making songs that never end. His 2008 LP, Where You Go I Go Too, consisted of three songs, the shortest clocking in at more than 10 minutes, the longest at just under half an hour. Then he topped that with an epic interpretation of "Little Drummer Boy" that stretched on for near 45 minutes. While this teaser track from his impending album Six Cups of Rebel doesn't have the same stargazing aloofness of some of his other long-winded numbers, it still starts as if the needle were dropped in the middle of the record and ends as abruptly. This might sound critical—and sure, 45 minute space disco odysseys aren't for everyone—but we love Lindstrøm at two minutes a clip or at two hours, and this latest hints that he's funking things up and injecting some energy back into his output. "De Javu" sounds like Earth, Wind and Fire riffing with Weather Report in '70s Brazil. We don't know exactly what this means for the rest of the album.

DOWNLOAD: Lindstrøm "De Javu" | 192 mp3

Lindstrom - De Javu by smalltownsupersound

Austra "Spellwork" Baron Von Luxxury's Space Cathedral remix – CD-R

Since we got our hands on Toronto trio Austra's Feel It Break we've been in love. A bit like a more electronic Florence and the Machine, Austra mixes '80s moodiness, potent indie-dance beats and swelling, emotional and yet danceable melodies into a soothing brew that'll get you drunk and moving like too much 18-year-old scotch. Our personal favorite is "Lose It," but we received this great sweeping electro-disco remix from quirky L.A. producer Baron Von Luxxury with the thumbs up for reposting, so here it goes.

DOWNLOAD: Austra "Spellwork" Baron Von Luxxury's Space Cathedral remix | 256 mp3

SCUBA "M.A.R.S." Machinedrum remix – !K7

Last but not least, we thought we'd let you down easy with a frantic finale in the form of Machinedrum's remix of SCUBA's "M.A.R.S.," the tech-step producer's original contribution to his recent DJ-KiCKs mix. Somehow understated and manic at the same time, it pulses with synth stabs and a quietly chattering beat, building up over time to lift your ears up in a driving sonic crescendo. As one half of Hotflush act Sepalcure, Machinedrum has been making waves all over 2011 so we couldn't resist getting in on the conversation.

DOWNLOAD: SCUBA "M.A.R.S." Machinedrum remix | 320 mp3

Article | Trax Records | Playing House

2011-11-14T10:49:00.001-08:00

Playing House

Trax Records looks back on its 25 year history.

by Joshua P. Ferguson

Originally published in Time Out Chicago magazine | 10.12.11

TOC | Trax Records

It has many names: acid, boompity, jacking, but in the end, it’s all house music. And house began with Chicago’s Trax Records. Evolving on the storied dance floors of South Side clubs like the Warehouse and the Muzic Box in the early ’80s, house music came into being as DJs like Frankie Knuckles and Ron Hardy were amplifying the rhythms and low end of disco and upbeat soul with stripped-down beats-and-bass backing tracks.

Recognizing the music’s potency, youthful scenesters like Jesse Saunders, Vince Lawrence and Rachael Cain gave those minimalist tracks their own voice, seeking out a pressing plant, Musical Products, and its owner, Larry Sherman, to help release them.

Chatting from the dimly lit room four of CRC Studios, where many of Trax’s hits were recorded, Cain, the “Blondie on a beatbox budget” better known as Screamin’ Rachael, has remained a central figure in the label. “We recorded a couple songs, ‘Fantasy’ being the first,” she says. “I’ll never forget when I heard it on the radio because this friend of mine had said, ‘There’s this new record, it sounds really cool, and this chick has this unique style.’ It came on the radio when we were together and I went, ‘That’s my record!’ ”

It was 1986 and those minimal four-four beats hadn’t yet been dubbed house, but this trio (with financial backing from Sherman) had started releasing the “Chicago sound” through Trax. Soon, artists like Adonis, DJ Pierre and Marshall Jefferson were signing their groundbreaking work to the label.

Last month, the label commemorated its legacy with Trax Records: The 25th Anniversary Collection, a two-disc set that includes more than a dozen hidden gems from its catalog and a documentary covering Trax’s early days, the sound’s explosion overseas, and the hope of Cain, the label and its artists that Chicago will get proper recognition for birthing house music.

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Jorge Cruz, the label's creative director, commissioned Hercules & Love Affair's Kim Ann Foxman to do a DJ 'mixtape' featuring selections from the 25th Anniversary comp. He's kindly given that out at a free stream and download, which you can grab below:

<p>&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://monamiejorgetapes.bandcamp.com/track/the-25th-anniversary-album-mixtape"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;The 25th Anniversary Album Mixtape by Kim Ann Foxman&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;</p>

DOWNLOAD: The 25th Anniversary Album Mixtape

Here is more info on the full release: traxrecords.bandcamp.com/album/trax-records-the-25th-anniversary-album

Review | Toddla T | Watch Me Dance + mp3s

2011-11-10T13:09:00.001-08:00

Toddla T
WATCH ME DANCE
Ninja • Tune

dub \ dub \ n + pop \päp\n

Originally published in Time Out Chicago magazine | 09.21.11

Stateside, the average teen’s obsession with reggae begins and ends with Bob Marley’s Legend. Across the pond, sound-system culture is so prevalent that no one thinks twice about a fresh-faced youth from Sheffield making potent Jamaican music. Toddla T has been doing exactly that since age 14.

His 2009 debut, Skanky Skanky, was grimey, reverberating with sub bass and perfect for clubs like London’s Fabric. It gave Toddla his identity. Now 26 and signed to Ninja Tune, the producer and DJ is back with a new batch of blue-eyed dancehall beats, this time aiming for the Billboard charts.

Polished but still filtered through the THC haze of a Kingston studio, Watch Me Dance sparks up with the title track, a disco-dance-rock romp featuring the inimitable flow of Roots Manuva. Bleeding into the ’90s house piano and rolling breaks bounce of “Take It Back,” Toddla feels destined to break free of the underground—and his backbeat trappings—and these opening tracks give him the right momentum.

Ultimately, though, he settles back into what he knows best and gets carried away with the pipe cleaner while he’s at it. Running the gamut of reggae styles, the LP boasts the easygoing bashment soul of “Cherry Picking,”which could easily find airtime next to Nicki Minaj, and the smoldering dancehall-step of “Streets So Warm,” a shoo-in for a Major Lazer DJ set. But while the X-rated swagger of “Body Good,” the conscious reggae of “How Beautiful It Would Be” and the lover’s rock of “Lovely Girl” sparkle in production quality, they lack a discernible Toddla T stamp. Like Diplo and Switch, the dubwise youth excels at making the rough urban sound of Jamaica hip and palatable, but too often here, palatable steals the show.

—Joshua P. Ferguson

DOWNLOAD:

Interview | deadmau5

2011-11-07T08:51:00.000-08:00

Interview | deadmau5

Dance music's biggest star takes off the mask

Originally published in Time Out Chicago magazine | 08.03.11

by Joshua P. Ferguson

Frequenters to this site know that the mega-club world occupied by masked electro sensation deadmau5 isn't really our preferred coverage. With the producer's oversized mau5 ears and track record of selling out every venue he enters, the toronto electro kingpin doesn't exactly need the press. That said, we were given the opportunity to interview him for Time Out magazine in advance of his Lollapalooza appearance. He's just wrapped up the remainder of the tour he began in Chicago this summer and he's got a new tune climbing the iTunes club charts, so we thought we'd share a bit of our chat with the musical rodent, just in case you didn't catch it the first go-around.

TOC | deadmau5

“How much does your head weigh?” asks Joel Zimmerman, mockingly throwing me the question he gets asked all too often. It's the end of our conversation and he's done talkinb about himself. When Zimmerman dons his much talked about mau5head, as he did for thousands of screaming ravers at Lollapalooza back in Auguest—and on the subsequent Meowington's Hax tour which he just wrapped up—he becomes deadmau5, the biggest dance act since Tiësto. Without the cartoonish rodent head, the tatted-up, nail-biting chain smoker looks more like the computer proframmer he once was rather than the club-music rockstar he is now. The 30-year-old is a frantic ball of energy when we reach him by phone in his Toronto studio. He’s knee-deep in all the gadgetry that became the laser-light show for his fall tour, and we’re dying to hear about that, and more.

On being a gearhead

Talking with Zimmerman, it’s easy to tell that the techno-toys trump the techno itself. Has be been a dance music fan since an early age? No. “I’ve been converted. I grew up a little metalhead; Slayer, Megadeth, Metallica, that kind of shit. I was a bandwagon jumper. If everybody in high school listened to it, so did I.” More so than the classic rave-informed tech-electro he makes, it’s the futuristic spectacle of the performance—and the requisite gear—that fuels Zimmerman. “I’m just a little artsy-fartsy computer dude,” Zimmerman says. “It’s not an alter ego. It’s not, now it’s time for crazy time, put on a mouse head—adventure! I’m the same guy in and out of it.”

On the evolution of the mau5head

“Oh wow, if I had a nickel for every time I had to tell this fucking story,” Zimmerman mumbles. His most recognizable attribute, its worth one more telling. The mau5head has seen seemingly endless permutations: red with bugged-out white eyes, solid black with a glowing mouth, chrome. Most recently it’s become a glorified LED screen with pixilated lights for its eyes and mouth. “It was a 3D model years and years before it was anything else,” he explains. Then a friend convinced him to turn it into a mask. “I wore it out for my first official deadmau5 gig, and everyone was looking at me like, what the fuck? It was a combination of that, the big brand identity, and the music, that pushed it all forward. It was so tongue-in-cheek, it’s like no fucking prisoners. Fuck it, if I do this, I do this. If I fail, I’ll go 3D model my head off till I’m old and gray and still sitting behind a desk. I’m happy either way. Now I can’t take the fucking thing off.”

On the Disney rumors

In May, spoof conspiracy-theory blog tropiganda.com ran a story claiming that Disney bought the trademark to deadmau5. “Dude that is such bullshit,” Zimmerman bellows. “Disney fell asleep at the fucking wheel when I trademarked my shit. I have a thing with a big grin and mouse ears. If you blacked it out, everybody would be like, oh, Mickey. Someone over at Disney was taking a nap.” The only interaction deadmau5 has actually had with Mickey is a gig in Orlando. “I’m thinking that I’m gonna go into the dressing room and the door is gonna slam shut and Goofy and fucking Minnie are gonna come out and I’m going to get a beat down.” He came home bruise free.

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