Brenmar and MikeQ rock the TMA-1 Carhartt Edition at Boiler Room New York

Wed, 22 May 2013 15:00:00 +0200

It’s always hard to say who or what started a musical trend, but Brenmar is definitely at the forefront of the whole fast and bouncy, bassy, potty-mouthed, ghetto-tech thing that has people doing gunfingers, bringing, airhorns and rocking goldchains at the party. Other than that, he’s an almost inconceivably dexterous selector whose combination of raunchy, 90s party bangers with crisp, cutting-edge beats creates the sort of environment where you feel like a bit of an asshole if you don’t get down, quite frankly. Check the main man Brenmar as he rocks a white towel like Evander Holyfield and the TMA-1 Carhartt like a champ.

Plugg – the Radio that lets You Put a Cork in It

Tue, 21 May 2013 16:00:00 +0200

Waze & Odyssey Rocking TMA-1s at Boiler Room Berlin

Fri, 17 May 2013 14:00:00 +0200

You never really know what you’ll get when you tune into Boiler Room. During this set there is, for example, a limber, dancing individual whose truly avant-garde moves speak of a deep and profound immersion in the relentless and uncompromising house bangers that this talented UK-based duo unleash on Berlin. Or maybe he’s just really drunk.

Review: Koreless - 'Yugen'

Fri, 17 May 2013 10:00:00 +0200

Lewis Robert's new-found musical direction is a quite radical departure his previous material, which all fell neatly in the increasingly wide slipstream created by house heads with bass music roots. For starters, one of the key suspects is missing: the beat. On "Yūgen," Roberts builds and builds, but he does so through tension and instead of pure pounding force. Of course, this only makes the EP's density all the more impressive and its title's reference to modern Japanese aesthetics all the more appropriate.

Still, there is something strange about the five tracks. All of them wear their simple yet maxed out aesthetics well, but as a listener, you wonder how to interpret Koreless' work. There is a physical component to the music, but it is the kind that keeps pushing you back in your seat rather than drawing you closer to the speaker (arguably, getting any closer to your headphones is challenging). The dissonance between the apparent subtlety and effective richness of the music is hard to adjust to, if only because nothing else quite sounds like Roberts does on this one.

That DFA Documentary is Here

Thu, 16 May 2013 13:00:00 +0200

Dunkel Radio Presents: Maskinrum Live Podcast #3

Wed, 15 May 2013 20:00:00 +0200

After having presented four of the finest electro acts Copenhagen has to offer, we decided to expand our horizon and invite over the prime of Aarhus, Jutland, for our third event on the 17th of April. Electronica wiz-kid Aebeloe and the brains behind the new label Pattern Abuse Liquido lined up their mechanics and showed us some real machine funk. All music in the video above is taken from the live recordings.

Aebeloe plays the kind of electronic music that is quite frankly impossible to put under one genre-umbrella. The Aarhus-based musician Natal Zaks is the man behind the name, who is also involved in projects like Averos, Escar and Mislyd. he is also the head of the electronic record label Farver Music. Ambient, house, trip hop, glitch, techno and 2-step is what inspires Natal, genres which are all glimpsed at in his vast creative output of electronic compositions. Despite the loose-fitting genre-pants, Aebeloes uncompromising attention to every single detail in his perfectly balanced, nostalgic sound library is what makes his music so bloody good whatever genre he makes.

https://soundcloud.com/natalzaks

Clerkd: the New App that Lets You Listen to the Sounds of Your Favorite Hood

Tue, 14 May 2013 14:00:00 +0200

Here’s how it works: The app plugs into a number of music services, like Spotify, Soundcloud, Jamendo, VK, and iTunes. Clerkd lets you follow your buddies and tastemakers such as bands, blogs, writers, the roadie from Insane Clown Posse, you get the picture.

On top of that – and this is where it gets really interesting - the map function gives you an overview of the music that's popular in the vicinity of your smartphone by assigning each genre with its own color. After selecting a location, you just press play and hey presto, you get a playlist of the music that's been played in that particular location.

Dunkel Radio Interviews Ron Morelli

Mon, 13 May 2013 15:00:00 +0200

The world’s biggest online electronic music magazine, Resident Advisor, selected L.I.E.S. [Long Island Electrical Systems] as the best label of 2012. A choice that is well deserved considering the amount of high quality records the imprint has put out in a very shot span of time.

The label is run by the skilled DJ and producer Ron Morelli, who will be playing at the Resident Advisor stage, at this year's Distortion Festival, alongside Kassem Mosse, Xosar, SvengalisGhost and DJ TLR.

New Flavour in Your Ear: Hemingway "Ace Neptune (Jokers of the Scene Remix)"

Mon, 13 May 2013 11:00:00 +0200

Kicking things off with immersive, atmospheric oldschool rave vibes and deftly placed 808 clicks, it takes a full three minutes before the shift kicks you right in your unexpecting teeth; The ‘drop’ hits and the alteration in mood is so suprising that there’s a split second where you actually wonder if you’re listening to the same track.

Too Old To Be New, Too New To Be Classic: 12 Years of DFA

Tue, 07 May 2013 10:00:00 +0200

140 - the Rhythm-based Minimalist Platform Game

Mon, 06 May 2013 16:00:00 +0200

The development team is headed by Jeppe Carlsen, known in independent game circles as the lead designer on one of 2010's most successful releases, the dark and slightly disturbing Limbo from Playdead (who's studio is right around the corner from the AIAIAI HQ).

With him on the project is his old friend from college and current colleague at Playdead, Jakob Schmid who developed the soundtrack. On the graphics end they recruited two very talented designers from outside the gaming industry Andreas Peitersen from the famed Copenhagen design studio e-Types and Niels Fyrst who spends his daytime at national broadcaster DR - my own first experience Fyrst's work was some years ago with his wonderful animated music video for Bjørn Svin's Modular Noia:

Shugo Tokumaru - 'Katachi'

Fri, 03 May 2013 16:00:00 +0200

In an overwhelmingly digital world, tangible, analogue production techniques more often than not make our sinuses tingle with rampant delight.

The combination of moving, bright colours, organic shapes and knowing that a bunch of talented nerds have spent weeks crafting a smorgasbord of visual treats is enough to make you bust out the oooohs and aaaahs.

Black Mirror

Thu, 02 May 2013 19:00:00 +0200

Translating Digital Concepts into Real World Objects

Thu, 02 May 2013 13:00:00 +0200

The first one comes by the way of France. One of the most widely used illusions in projection mapping is "the undulating square grid"i.e:

And:

The French laboratory for architecture and urbanism 'LAb[au]' recently created a permanent kinetic light installation for 'La Maison Mécatronique' in Annecy-Le-Vieux, where they decided to make this illusionary cliché into a real world object. Powered by a huge array of linear actuators pushing and pulling a set of physical tiles individually. The motion of the squares are controlled using the classic 'game of life' rules resulting in a wide ranging set of geometric patterns changing almost endlessly. To complete the piece the wall is illuminated by an array of LED rails in the primary colours (RGB) - resulting at first in a simple white surface lighting, but when the tiles move and cast their shadows the nature of the light becomes apparent in the beautiful multicoloured shadows.

Get Deep with Greg Wilson - Win 2 free entries!

Thu, 02 May 2013 12:00:00 +0200

Who is Greg Wilson? Well, he is more or less the DJ king of England, however not related to Her Majesty the Queen but still a king in his own right. Greg Wilson pioneered the UK scene during the 70s & 80s. He held a residency at La Hacienda in Manchester starting the club's first weekly dance night and was the first DJ to mix live on British television in 1983.

He is also credited for putting together the first UK re-edit and teaching Norman Cook aka Fatboy Slim the art of scratching.
From 1984-2003 he took a break from DJing but resurfaced almost 20 years later and he is now playing all over the world. He is a must see for all music lovers!

Sunday in the Garden

One of the good things about the venue is the big garden, where Sundays often turn into Mondays during the summer. I was there last week to see Erobique and it was truly amazing.

Performing on Sunday are the mysterious duo Usio, who recently released their debut album on Studio Barnhus. I don’t know much about them, but since they're from the Axel Boman stable my expectations are high.

The Capital ALIS Edition is Out Now

Wed, 01 May 2013 09:00:00 +0200

AIAIAI x ALIS
What started out as a kind of underground culture movement in Copenhagen’s infamous free-town of Christiania, quickly gained momentum and evolved into what you might call ‘The Supreme of Copenhagen’. That is, if you hadn’t yet grasped that ALIS are not really comparable to anything else out there. With an iconic, stylish clothing line, a range of celebrity-endorsed skateboards and a world-famous base in their self-made skate park placed in the heart of Christiania, the ALIS crew are a fairly unique group of people. They epitomize a lot of the things, which make Copenhagen great and we're proud to collaborate with Albert and posse for these special edition headphones.

The Capital ALIS Edition
The headphones aimed at the active urbanite became the natural choice for this particular colab as the overall design and audio engineering of the Capital has been created with three things in mind: great sound, flexibility and durability. We initially aimed the cans at the perpetually active skate/BMX/running set who need headphones that can take a beating in all types of weather. Needless to say, ALIS match that profile to a tee with their renowned skate heritage, which has seen them create sought after decks in collaboration with skateboarding legends like Nicky Guerrero.

Christine Sun Kim Explores the Physicality of Sound

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 16:00:00 +0200

It goes without saying that hearing sound is second nature to us. As we’re a company that aim to make headphones look and sound great, we’ve probably not given the deaf side of the equation a great deal of thought. Cue New York-based artist Christine Sun Kim whose mission of ‘unlearning sound etiquette’ articulates areas of the sound continuum that have, to the best of our knowledge, previously remained relatively untouched.

Growing up deaf, Kim initially didn’t pay much attention to sound. But then people imposed their sound universe on her by demanding that she stopped doing certain things, which interfered with their sound etiquette.

Interview: Giles Smith

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:00:00 +0200

Emil: Could you briefly explain how and why you got into the dance music scene?

Giles Smith: I heard house music on the radio in 1992 and that same year I went to my first rave which was more hardcore and breakbeat but I found a small house room there and gravitated towards that as it played more soulful and groovy sounds. Things like Terence Parker, Tony Humphries to UK sounds like Junior Boys Own. Why, what's not to like? It was fun, exciting and inspiring and I guess a little bit taboo too with me coming from a strict all boys school.

Giles Smith live from Panorama Bar:

secretsundaze has been running for 12 years, which is insanely long for a club night to exist. How did it all start and how do you keep it fresh? What has been the biggest challenge?

There was no grand design for secretsundaze. It was just a bunch of friends (4 of us back then) who liked music and wanted to share our love for it and party. The sunday daytime thing was almost an accident really as it was the only day that was free where we could take this loft space where we first started the party. The search to discover new exciting music is never ending when I say 'new' I mean new to me... so it could be something from the past that i haven't discovered yet as well as new stuff. It’s this search that keeps things fresh and also meeting new people coming to the party. The biggest challenge is spaces or locations. It’s got progressively harder to find cool spots for the party as London is so built up and is getting stricter. It is far less liberal than say Berlin with regards to licensing and there is far less space.

Martin Dawson and yourself seemed to have a special connection as friends but also in the studio as Two Armadillos. Can you tell me a little about your work and time with him? What were your main sources of inspiration production-wise?

Well, we met while Martin was working behind the counter at Phonica records and people kinda pushed us together saying that we should work together as Martin had great skills as an engineer and I guess I was the one with the big record collection who had very specific tastes and ideas of what I wanted to hear and make. We wrote our first track in 2007 - 6 years ago. It was clear from day one that we really connected as people - we pretty much told each other everything as we were both very open people and we had this trust and mutual respect of each other's different skill sets. We drew inspiration from many sources...of course, there were the usual Detroit and Chicago influences but I think we were really beginning to define our own sound with some of the last stuff on Golden Age Thinking like 'Ronin', which I think sounds fairly unique and not attempting to ape any particular style.

You will soon be releasing the 4th instalment of your collaboration. What can we expect?

Well its the 4th and final part of Golden Age Thinking. We have written around 13 EPs and a fair few remixes. I don't like describing my own music too much so you'll just have to check it when its out in June. There are 2 brand new tracks that we wrote in the last month of Martin's life, one peak time Detroit kinda atmospheric UR vibe 'Floating Fast', an African acid groove 'Black Dahlia' and an older unreleased chordy roller called 'Roller Skate' that we wrote maybe 3 years ago and was going down well in the few live sets that we performed together.

Do you have plans for future projects alone or with others?

Yeah I have started to do some music with another friend and well-respected producer but not gonna say too much about that for the time being.

What's your favourite decade when it comes to dance music?

I guess I would say the 90's but this is simply because it was the time I was discovering house and techno - from 92 onwards. And I really bought so much great music. But I would distance myself from this boring trend of mid 90s old school US house and say that I was buying a huge range of house and techno from across the board from very soulful stuff like Blaze to some much tougher more futuristic techno sounds. I love hiphop, jazz, funk, soul rare groove….

Ableton Push the Boundaries

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 12:00:00 +0200

Twelve years ago Ableton Live was released as a loop-based software music sequencer and digital audio workstation. Designed to be an instrument for live performances, Live was one of the first softwares for composing, recording, arranging, mixing and mastering. DJs and musicians have been using it for beatmixing, as it offers a suite of controls for beatmatching and crossfading. It was also one of the first music applications to automatically beatmatch songs.

As a Live collaboration tool, Ableton now launches Push. Push enables direct composition of beats and melodies and generally makes electronic music more palpable by putting the primary rudiments of sound design into one product the size of a laptop.

In interaction Live and the 64 velocity- and pressure-sensitive multicolored push pads gives nearly endless opportunities of play and trigger sounds, editing and combining sequences, navigating and looping – all at once. Push is like a conductors baton - a live multi-controlling instrument.

Brazzaville Teen-Ager by Michael Cera

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 10:00:00 +0200

Last week a short movie from Michael Cera appeared online. You might recognize the name from movies such as Juno, Superbad, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, or series like Arrested Development. Or perhaps as 'that awkward boy' from those movies. The short movie called Brazzaville Teen-Ager is Cera's directorial debut.

Cera, also being the main character in the short movie, once again delivers a strong awkward, yet profound scenery, in which he tries to save his estranged dad who landed in the hospital. In order to save him, he has to ask his boss for a favor. A favor that lands them singing in the studio alongside with Kelis, and features Heems (Das Racist) as one of the engineers.

Random Access Memories – The Collaborators: Panda Bear

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 18:00:00 +0200

Magnetic Putty Madness

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:00:00 +0200

It’s an interesting material, made for playing and having fun. Quite like plasticine it’s easy to shape and mold and it truly looks surreal.

Shanks FX/PBS Digital Studios are using this freaky material in a magnetic version to create what they call ”black hole sequences”. By molding the magnetic putty around metal shapes and shooting time-lapse video sequences of it, they perceive the fluid movements that occur.

A-Trak’s Spectacular Domino Extravaganza

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:00:00 +0200

NOWNESS Presents - Waterpark

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:00:00 +0200

According to NOWNESS Evan Prosofsky' film was shot over a span of three years and:’ hints at the anxiety that lays dormant behind an otherwise glossy North American leisure culture.’

Yen Sleep and Broke remix Each Other for Record Store Day

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 10:00:00 +0200

Kasper AKA Yen Sleep and his buds from Broke are no strange bedfellows. The two Copenhagen-based acts share a similar, wonderfully warped musical sensibility, which has, through fateful circumstances led them to each other and now straight into the vinyl-buying music lover’s arms. Yes, The hook-up between these kindred spirits of the forward-thinking, synthesized dance beat is a rare one-off, so get at it before it’s too late and the fat lady has...shreaked like a disintegrating cyber raven?

The delectable 12” comes in a super limited edition. Get your sonic kicks on April 25th with this tight mix of dark, uplifting dance music pressed on slab of black vinyl that contains:

A: Spleen United - Sunset to Sunset (Broke remix)

Mads Bergland and Simon Littauer AKA rising, Danish duo Broke, refer to their remix of Spleen United’s stadium-slaying monster as:’ a mix of epic trance and provincial hardstyle.’ This is, other words, not elevator music for the faint-hearted. A more apt description would probably be to call it a relentless and soaring, drum-driven inferno of bleeps and bass that come at you from every angle - a bit like those fucked up, animated dogs in Avatar.

Mezmerising Teaser for the Upcoming Opale Album

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 13:00:00 +0200

The video, which excels in its simplicity is a beautiful portrait document of a young lady. Filmed from an upfront angle, the video plays with different lighting positions,which shows how much the face appears to change. The video is directed and produced by Nacho Guzman, who states that the video is a homage to the 1964 video 'L'enfer' from Henri-Georges Clouzot:

Baauer and RL Grime Rock TMA-1s at Boiler Room SXSW

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 14:00:00 +0200

KiBiSi’s Family for Muuto Expands

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 14:00:00 +0200

You know you’re on to something when you can make a rather mundane household appliance like a juicer interesting and elegant.

According to our partners at Kibisi: ‘The wooden one-type-only material is easily recyclable and hopefully sufficiently aesthetically sustainable to be kept and passed on.’

Fragment: Introducing Beastie Respond

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 12:00:00 +0200

Labeling Beastie Respond a bass music producer wouldn’t necessarily be wrong. His allegiance does at least in part lie with drum and bass stalwarts like dBridge and the permutating sounds of Jon Convex and Boddika’s Instra:Mental Project. Then again, there are other pressing forces at play in Tobias Hjørnet Pedersen’s amalgamation of sounds. He makes no secret of his resilient, ongoing relationship with 80s music - a vibe that some would argue has been done to death many times over during the last decade.

However, this particular channeling of the sounds of the decade that cocaine, melancholy and bright-eyed electronic pop permeated more often than not brings about music that goes far beyond tired rehashing and is consequently greater than the sum of its parts. And at a time when the entire universe is crushing hard on 90s deep house, the insistent untimeliness of it all is somehow deliciously personal.

Moreover, the combination of minimal drum and bass with subtle electro-funk-isms mixed with faint echoes of The Cure and timeless house vocals creates a dense aural atmosphere that seems intensely preoccupied with the actual materiality of sound rather than the style and history that these sounds represent. It makes you wonder if the young Danish producer is in some way aiming his sonic experiments at particular centres of your brain to test the neuroscientific relationship between sound and mind.

Dunkel Radio Presents: Maskinrum Live Podcast #2

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 10:00:00 +0200

Lauge & Baba Gnohm is a duo formed in 2008 in a studio in Christiania and consists of psytrance-producer Kalle Christensen and techno-producer Henrik Laugesen. Their sound is a mixture of lounge, downtempo and psy-electronica combined with a vast knowledge of the endless possibilities inherent in the synthesizer.

Remember to put a big fat X in your calendars on the 17th of April for Maskinrum #3. We are very happy to present the raw talent of Aebeloe from Århus, who with his utterly unique and beautiful productions, which are inspired by both ambient, house, trip hop, glitch and 2-step, will be performing as our main act. Liquido is our first act, who recently released his debut album, which consists of dubby dark synths combined with minimalistic electro/hiphop beats, on his own label Pattern Abuse.