Nick Warren and Jody Wisternoff each have solo careers, and they collaborate together under the name Way Out West and produce progressive house music.
My first encounter with Way Out West was due to Tiesto’s inclusion of a remix of the song Mindcircus on In Search of Sunrise 3. I thoroughly enjoyed the remix (although I have to give more credit to the remixers, Gabriel & Dresden, than to Nick and Jody for that particular track). Although I didn’t much care for the orignal recorded version of Mindcircus, I bought Way Out West’s second album, Intensify, anyways.
Intensify as an album sounded different from what I would have expected from Nick Warren, and I really enjoyed it. Up to that point, I really wasn’t familiar with Jody’s work. In any event, I listened to Intensify at least once per week for the first few months I had it, usually while studying or doing homework in university.
Their next two albums, Don’t Look Now and We Love Machine, are also good, and somehow feel different than either of their solo efforts. I still listen to all 3 of these albums with some frequency.
I have yet to track down their original self-titled release, and I think I’ll skip the We Love Machine remixes to be honest.
Basement Jaxx is a house music act from the UK, and they exploded onto the North American scene in the late nineties. While I’m not really a fan of their newer stuff, I thoroughly enjoy their first 3 albums. Those are full of fun, dancey house music.
The reason I first checked out Basement Jaxx was that I read an interview back in 1998 of another EDM producer (I don’t even recall who it was now), and the response to the interview question of “so who are you listening to lately” included Basement Jaxx.
Thus I purchased Remedy, which is probably still my favorite Basement Jaxx album if I had to pick one.
Rooty had a bit more of an edge to it, but was still a lot of fun. There were a few duds on the album, and they went a bit too far with “Get Me Off” which could have been fun in the same way that Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer” is fun, had it been better executed.
Kish Kash was heading further into hit-or-miss territory for me, and subsequent Basement Jaxx albums haven’t interested me enough to actually justify the purchase cost.
A brief list of tracks that still make me want to get up and dance, even a decade later (albums in parentheses):
I’ve been writing up electronic music artists on another web site for a while now, and thought I should start doing the same here. I’m going to take the posts from the other site, adapt them somewhat, and post them here.
So this is the first in what will probably become a series of posts about electronic music artists. I’ve been a fan of electronic music for a long time, and It seems the genre is neglected by many, and with the trend today of pop music edging into dance music edging into electronic music, many people are missing the depth that electronic music has to offer. Yes, there’s more to it than the latest LMFAO single or Lady Gaga remix.
BT (also known as Brian Transeau) is an American-born electronic artist, but his background might surprise you. He’s classically trained, and so has a very critical ear. He time-corrects samples with an uncompromising exactness, and he does things with sound on a near-genetic level that nobody else does, which gives his music a very distinctive signature sound.
He started out doing what we would call experimental trance and techno. So experimental that at the time, he couldn’t find an audience in North America and thus he moved to Europe where he was discovered (in a sense) by well-known DJ and producer Sasha. And the rest is history.
His more recent work still contains a lot of trance music, but his style often incorporates other non-electronic instruments as well, leading to a sound closer to rock or metal in some cases and classical in others. He has composed and performed movie soundtracks as well, which was always one of his career goals. Notably, his soundtrack for Monster is at once stark, depressing, beautiful, and delightful. Even in his diversions from his usual sound (notably This Binary Universe) he’s brilliant in a way that can’t be described unless you give him a listen.
My first introduction to BT was when I special-ordered ESCM in 1998 after hearing Flaming June on the Digital Empire compilation. The diversity of sounds on ESCM made me realize there was a lot more to him than just trance music, and I became a fan pretty quickly. I think my only real regret at this point is I have never seen BT perform live, something I hope to rectify in the future.
If you’ve never listened to BT, you should really check him out. As a “starter” album I would suggest either These Hopeful Machines or Emotional Technology.
My favorite BT tracks (albums), in no particular order aside from being grouped by album:
After a mostly uneventful flight to Chicago on Saturday, I’ve been fairly busy sightseeing and catching up with friends.
Saturday was mostly just spent getting settled and getting my bearings. I had a good seared tuna sandwich for supper in Andersonville before heading down to Lakeview. I decided to skip Market Days and do a bit of wandering down Clark and Broadway instead.
Sunday morning I met a friend at the Metra station downtown and we ended up having lunch at a pub whose name I can’t recall. I do remember the veal was really tasty and that I tried a local craft beer of some sort that was also tasty. From there we headed to Lakeview to take in Market Days. My general impression was that it was a larger and somewhat more fun version of the Lilac Festival in Calgary. Lots of people but because the street is reasonably broad, it never felt crowded the way Calgary street festivals always seem to.
It was fun, but only for so long, and afterwards we did a bit of shopping on Broadway and Clark streets. Specifically, I wanted to hit a couple of record stores. I managed to pick up the following:
Brian Eno / David Byrne: My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (original 1981 release)
LCD Soundsystem: This is Happening
And a couple of misc 7″ singles.
We also went out for supper at a Persian restaurant that was every bit as good as Atlas in Calgary, although no saffron ice cream for dessert.
Posted in Music, Technology at 11:13 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
I grew up mostly in the digital age of music. I owned a few cassettes as a kid, but never more than a handful, and then I got my first CD player. My first ever CD purchase was U2′s album Zooropa which I acquired sometime around late 1993, and it was all digital from that point forward. Nowadays I own several hundred CDs and also have purchased a reasonable amount of digital downloads via iTunes, Beatport, Puretracks, and some directly from artists like Pretty Lights, Nine Inch Nails, and Bassnectar.
But before the CD, and before the cassette, there was the LP. And it reigned supreme for a very long time before it was supplanted by digital formats. DJs still spin vinyl to this day, even when the source material is digital, thanks to the magic of time-coded vinyl and the software it interfaces with.
Analogue vinyl is beginning to finally show its age, though; production of the venerable Technics SL-1200 turntable was discontinued in 2010. There are still other turntables on the market, but the workhorse turntable DJs have loved for several decades is no longer being manufactured.
For numerous reasons, I recently decided to purchase a turntable. And since the Technics is no more, why not own a piece of history as well? I found a used Technics SL-1200MK5 on Kijiji for a reasonable price, and bought it. In addition to being a beautiful, high-quality turntable, it’s engineered well enough to last me the rest of my life. Based on the serial number, it rolled out of the factory in February 2010, so it’s about as new as possible (the MK5 ended its run in April 2010). I also picked up a new cartridge for it (an Ortofon 2M Blue), although the Shure M44-7 I bought with it is certainly no slouch and may come in handy when I run into vinyl that hasn’t been well-cared-for.
To celebrate, I bought 2 used albums from one of the record stores in my neighbourhood: Fables of the Reconstruction by R.E.M. and Exit Planet Dust by the Chemical Brothers. I had heard both before, but didn’t own either, so figured this was a good time.
I also now have custody of all of my parents’ (mostly my dad’s) old vinyl which is quite exciting. There are definitely a number of gems in the collection, although I’ll be a while even just cataloging the 200+ albums let alone listening to all of them. It’s a fascinating way to learn about your parents; some of the albums I knew were there, and head heard as a child, but there are some I don’t ever remember hearing and yet they’re in there.
This is a new adventure, and in a way it’s a window into the past and my parents’ history, so it’s especially cool. When the weather worsens (and it inevitably will), I’ll have something else to keep me busy.
Posted in Music at 9:41 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
It’s probably my own fault for having set my own expectations too high, but seeing Nero live last Saturday at Flames Central was… meh. At least the main act was.
First off, a rant. I paid to see Nero perform, not 1/2 of Nero perform. WTF.
OK, enough of that. When it was all said and done I thought the opening acts all outshone Nero, with the possible exception of Gnarcotics, although I was at least able to dance and enjoy their set without hundreds of sweaty EDM kiddies bashing into me every 30 seconds. I had to flee to the balcony for Nero, and although I enjoyed it more from up there, it still felt like a lacklustre performance.
And to top it all off, I suffered a hat malfunction. I was theoretically debuting the new light blue version of my glowing cowboy hat, which decided to die on me at about 10:30. I can fix the issue, but I spent the rest of the evening with a severe lack of glow. Sigh. The yellow hat is still OK, as is another hat I have yet to wear publicly.
I am getting excited about Chromeo though. It’s at the same venue as Nero was, but I’m hoping the crowd isn’t full of the same people who were at Nero. Ick.
Not long after the first discs arrived in the mail from Amazon, the second shipment came as well, bringing the soulful sounds of Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings. Sharon totally rocked my world at Sasquatch, and while the recordings don’t quite capture the live experience, they are nevertheless quite enjoyable.
I picked up 100 Days 100 Nights and I Learned the Hard Way, and I enjoy them both about equally thus far. I don’t really have any other soul music in my collection, but she fits in quite well with any number of jazz divas of yore, so she’s got a permanent spot in the iTunes rotation. It still amazes me that I found so many great artists I’d never really heard before at Sasquatch. I’m already looking forward to Coachella 2012; who knows who I will discover there.
Part of why I enjoy going to music festivals is that I get to check out artists I would likely never otherwise listen to. Sasquatch 2011 was no exception, and there were 5 sets I saw that prompted album purchases.
The first batch of shiny plastic-coated aluminum discs arrived yesterday, hand-packed by those Tall Brazilian Women.
I’ve listened to all of these once through, and I’m quite pleased with all of them:
Chromeo / Business Casual. I had a great time dancing at Chromeo’s show at Sasquatch, and the album brings back that memory very vividly. The music doesn’t take itself very seriously, which is a good thing for electro-pop in general. Overall a pretty solid album, and one that will probably get a lot of airtime both at home and in the car. It’s probably a little too distracting for work though.
Local Natives / Gorilla Manor. This one is more indie / rock than usual for me, and while I enjoy it, they were more fun live than the album would suggest. It’s still enjoyable, but a little offbeat for my taste. Perhaps it will grow on me (it wouldn’t surprise me).
Fitz and the Tantrums / Pickin’ Up the Pieces. This is a great album and it does a good job of capturing their sound and mood. Of the three albums I mentioned here, this one transports me back to the front of the stage at Sasquatch the fastest. Moneygrabber is incredibly catchy, and it’s hard not to bop along.
There’s more on the way as well from 2 other artists.
Now that I’ve had a week to reflect on the experiences I had in the Seattle area and at Sasquatch, there are definitely moments that I know I will never forget from the trip.
If you asked a bunch of random Sasquatch-goers what the most memorable events were for them, you’d find quite a few who had Bassnectar‘s set on their list. I was pretty excited before the set, and I had an inkling of what was coming, but even so I was completely unprepared.
Bassnectar opened with Teleport Massive, and something truly magical happened at the first bass drop.
This is the best video I’ve found so far (no, I didn’t take the video) of the start of his set. If you look you’ll see me off to the right from time to time (I’m wearing the glowing yellow cowboy hat).
Literally thousands of glow sticks were thrown during the hour-long set, with I’d guess about 50% of them during the span of that video. It was indescribable.
And I know there were thousands of glow sticks because I brought 1,000 on my own, and in the area around me I saw another 6,000 or so between a number of different people. Of course, we were all handing them out prior to the start of the set to anyone who wanted them. Sheer madness. And I can’t possibly forget being there.
By the final day of the festival, my body was already showing signs that I was pushing limits and needed to slow down a bit, so Monday was a little more relaxed than the previous days. There was a lot of water, a lot of sunblock, and several hours of just relaxing and lying in the shade. Oh, and music, of course. For me, the day started out with
Old 97′s
Which I had problems getting into, but really they weren’t that bad. Despite being quite tired physically, I downed some more water and headed into the fray for
Chromeo
Which was far and away the sexiest dance party of the entire weekend. Such a blast, and a good way to get energized for the rest of the day. The inflatables were fun too. For the next while there wasn’t a lot that interested me so I caught my first and only comedy act of the weekend,
The Scott Aukerman & Paul F. Tompkins Show
which was the Worst. Comedy. Act. Ever. Guided by Voices would have been infinitely more fun. But It was a good excuse to lie in the shade for an hour and rest before
Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings
Which were the most surprising act of the weekend for me, and my favorite “never heard them before” artist. Sharon is a total diva, and she knows exactly what she’s doing on stage. At one point, a guy managed to slip over the barrier and start to climb the stage. Security pulled him down, but Sharon told them to let him go, and he got up on stage. She totally rocked out with the guy who was clearly having the time of his life. Such an awesome performer. I’ve never really given soul / funk much of a thought until now. Stand up and take notice, ladies and gentlemen. This is how it’s done.
Rodrigo y Gabriela
Were another act I hadn’t really heard much about, but I knew I had to see them. It was just 2 people and 2 acoustic guitars, but they managed such a display of musical prowess that I was once again blown away. They reminded me somewhat of Jesse Cook, and that’s not a bad thing at all. I think I danced for about 1/2 of their set up on the hill which probably made me look pretty silly, but I was definitely enjoying myself. Which is maybe part of why
Skrillex
was such a huge disappoinment (second only to the Flaming Lips). I enjoy his recorded music, but he just isn’t very good live. Lots of people in the dance tent were having a good time, but I quite honestly wasn’t. Maybe it’s because I was surrounded by sweaty, smelly kids who were obviously extremely high and dancing like they were being attacked by a pack of rabid wolves. Skrillex’ poor performance live coupled with the crowd completely ruined it. I gave it 20 minutes before heading back to the hill for
The Decemberists
Who I enjoyed immensely. I did not however stick around to see
Wilco
as a storm was rolling in and I was completely exhausted. I simply left, and slept hard.
Jeremiah Wittevrongel lives in Calgary, Canada. Though he works as a software developer and loves what he does,
this blog isn't about that. It's about the rest of his life, which tends to revolve around music, board gaming, hiking, travelling, and cooking.
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