The Weekly Froth! With Midnight Magic, Flight Facilities and Try To Find Me

Midnight Magic

By Stef Siepel

The weekly froth! A weekly take on six tracks, most of which have recently popped up somewhere in the blogosphere. Bit of a mixed bag with a slight leaning towards house, disco, and remixes, but generally just anything that for some reason tickled the writer’s fancy.

Track of the week: ‘Heat’ by Midnight Magic

So if you call your track ‘Heat’ I am expecting a sultry disco affair that sizzles the fuck out of here. Good combination of bass and horns, so classic this. Midnight Magic consists of some former Hercules and Love Affair members and a girl with a good set of lungs on her, so they know how to funk the place up. As some readers may know I love Jacques Renault, and his remix of Midnight Magic’s song ‘Beam Me Up’ was absolutely amazing. This song, I don’t know what to say except it ticks all my boxes. Disco vibe, bass, good diva-ish vocals, horns; it’s just got it going on. Love that it changes it up a bit around 4:20 or so, because otherwise you get in trouble with too long a running time, but this sidesteps that nicely. I’m not a fan of botching up vocals like they do near the end though, there must be more respectful ways to get some variety going. Personally instead of that I would’ve let her belt it out over just the bass or just the horns or something, and then go full throttle one more time. Nitpicking, nitpicking, I know, this is a great track. And did you know you can download the EP for free (as in, legally)? Now that’s a worthwhile way to pass five otherwise dreadfully dull minutes, no? … Continue Reading

Competition: The Write Stuff

Fancy honing your skills as a music journalist? Step right up, this is the competition for you!

Aspiring jazz and music writers looking to grow their skills are invited to apply to this year’s series of The Write Stuff, the new writers initiative that is held during the London Jazz Festival in November 2011. … Continue Reading

Interview: Fantasy Rainbow

Interview by Louise Coles

In his short recording career, Fantasy Rainbow (a.k.a. one man act Oliver Catt) has already drawn complimentary comparisons to the likes of Deerhunter, No Age and Wavves. His restless, mischievious lo-fi experimental tendencies belies a pop nous with a youthful vigour. The sunny, hazy melodic tone of his records are filled with a bittersweet pang of a young age coming to an end. Here Oliver chats to us about youth, new beginnings, and his choice of mayonnaise over ketchup… … Continue Reading

The Weekly Froth! With Mr Intl, Glasser and Cassius

Mr Intl

The weekly froth! A weekly take on six tracks, most of which have recently popped up somewhere in the blogosphere. Bit of a mixed bag with a slight leaning towards house, disco, and remixes, but generally just anything that for some reason tickled the writer’s fancy.

Track of the week: ‘Give it to Me’ by Mr. Intl

Andy Butler (aka he of Hercules and Love Affair) and Jason Kendig dish out some late house on Butler’s new label. The sound in the beginning seems quite stark, quite hard. I was actually surprised when suddenly these deep, soulful vocals came in. Very clear start as well. The instruments for the first 30 seconds are very distinguishable. After that this typical house sound comes in that you hear on all these compilations and stuff. I love when the vocals go “give it to me / give it to you”. Now, it might not be the lyrical statement of the year, but on a dance floor with all the cute kids, a thing like that should funk the place up. Just after three minutes the bass gets going, which sounds a bit softer than what could be heard at the start, which is a nice change of pace. Not sure about those sounds at about 4:30, which my ear connotes more with zombies mauling something or other than whatever it is supposed to be. Other than that, you know, just a stellar execution of a house tune. Something you can drop on the dance floor with ease and it works. Not the most innovative thing in the world, but good execution and giving all the DJs something new that simply gets people going is vital as well. … Continue Reading

VIDEO: A chat with Example, backstage at The Big Chill

We caught up with Example at The Big Chill Festival backstage – he was nearly exactly midway through his run of festivals. Here’s what happened…

Here is a full review of The Big Chill , if you’re into that sort of thing.

… Continue Reading

VIDEO: Muso’s Guide vs. Ghostpoet – the Coventry quiz

We caught up with the excellent Ghostpoet at The Big Chill Festival in beautiful Eastnor Deer Park. It was momentous, and split into two momentous parts: the first comprised a Serious Interview, and the second was a quiz on Coventry (where Ghostpoet recorded his debut album). See how much he knew (and if he won the prize – yes there was a prize!) just here. Look, here:

Here is a full review of The Big Chill , if you’re into that sort of thing.

… Continue Reading

The Weekly Froth! With The Babel Orchestra, 40 Thieves and Feist

The Babel Orchestra

By Stef Siepel

The weekly froth! A weekly take on six tracks, most of which have recently popped up somewhere in the blogosphere. Bit of a mixed bag with a slight leaning towards house, disco, and remixes, but generally just anything that for some reason tickled the writer’s fancy.

Track of the week: ‘Babelicious’ by The Babel Orchestra

This one sure rolls through nicely I would say. It’s a completely instrumental track that starts with a simple beat. Obviously, that is expanded upon as the song progresses. The first sound that comes in after the beat forms a good core in combination with the beat itself, and together they propel this song forward. Naturally, sometimes it deviates from it for a few moments, but like any good song in this genre it always comes back to that golden basis. This is a fairly new band, but one of them is responsible for the Lullabies in the Dark project with Vito de Luca (also known as the remaining guy from Aeroplane). Releases from Lullabies in the Dark were done by the Permanent Vacation label, which includes artists like Wolfram, Kathy Diamond, 40 Thieves, Sally Shapiro, John Talabot, and they’ve also released stuff by Ilya Santana, Azari & III, Tensnake, etcetera. And that is also kind of the aesthetic that clings to this track. Really good one this, and I believe it is their first “original” song, so there’s something to look forward to. … Continue Reading

Interview: EDM on collaborations, influences and Night People

EDM

By Charlotte Gay

EDM – the band formerly known as Early Day Miners – release their new album Night People on September 5th on Western Vinyl in the UK and Europe. As they geared up to release a record that has seen not just a name change, but also seemingly a change in approach to the way they write and record their music, the band answered a series of questions from us via email. … Continue Reading

A bit chat with Dave Hyde

By Paul Brown

For a few months now, I’ve been excitedly looking forward to Slow Down, the debut album from Hyde and Beast, the North East super-group of sorts, comprised of Futureheads drummer Dave Hyde and former Golden Virgins member Neil Bassett. The record came out on August 15th, and as Dave tells us, has been a long time in the making: “We’ve known each other for twelve years or something, and we’ve been pretty good friends for a while, but a few years ago I was really busy with the Futureheads and kind of lost contact. We were doing our own things for ages, and then a few years ago, he was running a studio in Sunderland, and it seemed pretty perfect ‘cos I just lived round the corner from it!, We never intended to do an album at all, it was just that I’d had these few songs for years and years that I just wanted to get down.” … Continue Reading

The Weekly Froth – with 78 Edits, Joe Goddard and Cut Copy

Joe Goddard

By Stef Siepel

The weekly froth! A weekly take on six tracks, most of which have recently popped up somewhere in the blogosphere. Bit of a mixed bag with a slight leaning towards house, disco, and remixes, but generally just anything that for some reason tickled the writer’s fancy.

Track of the week: ‘Let Me Down Easy’ by 78 Edits

Pure disco this one. Starts old school disco with the instrumentals, and then after a minute it gets going with a few horns to announce the coming of the vocals and the slow bass groove. “Let me down easy / you say your love for me is gone”, she sings. Very composed in the beginning, but slowly she is going to let the emotions free and she goes all out. This is so pure, so nice. She really owns this song, with she being Bettye Lavette. The original is kind of more Motown soul mixed with a country vibe. So what they of 78 Edits do very well is giving it a disco bass and beat to make it suitable for the dancefloor. But it never, ever tries to outshine Bettye, as it is almost an ode to her vocals. Smooth, emotional vocal disco, and on the slow paced side of what you can do on the dancefloor (Between 100 and 110 bpm I reckon). Mighty fine edit this one. … Continue Reading