Monday 30 March 2009

Mixcloud


Offering a service long over-due, Mixcloud is a new venture aiming to be THE place online for DJs to host, share and promote mixes. Annoyed with the ubiquitous "MegaRapidFileUpload" file sharing services that are currently used by DJs, Cambridge grads Nico Perez and Nikhil Shah set up the site.

"DJs are natural promoters", says founder Nikhil Shah. "They want their mixes heard by as many people as possible. Yet the tools they currently use are broken in 3 ways: 1. They have no metadata so they don't rank on Google; 2. They're "sender to receiver" so they only get discovered by people who know the link, and 3. They're too dispersed so there's no easy way to navigate this world of content".

Whilst becoming the definitive place for mixes online is no small challenge, they have some serious weight behind them. A world-class development team (including Mat Clayton, one of the UK's top social application developers) join former bigwigs from Warner Music and Ministry of Sound,and they have a grant to work with Queen Mary University's renowned Centre for Digital Music.

So far it seems the interface - a trendy mix of bold, busy and readable design - will sit very easily with a community raised on Hypem and innovative design/fashion blogs. And it has already attracted mixes from the likes of Plimsouls and Lejazz, lending the much needed weight of credibility. Time will tell if the big guns make it their roost, thus sealing its place in the collective blog consiousness, but for now things look promising.



http://www.mixcloud.com


Friday 20 March 2009

Yes yes yes.

Yes. I know it's an advert, but this must be the product of some of the best creative minds around. Taking the ideas of cutting-edge multi-media live performance, and making them into something as wonderfully populist as this, they have done soemthing really radical. And it's the sort of video you could happily watch ten times in a row, and be amazed every time. Brilliant. It was made by this guy: http://rupertsanders.com and these guys: http://www.droga5.com/

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Sunday 8 March 2009

The Middle Ones



Anna and Grace, from Norwich and Manchester respectively, make colourful, twee pop-folk. Their music suggests images of best mates on rainy afternoon expeditions through the quiet corners of a ramshackle antique-thrift store.

Drops pitches a beautiful, criss-crossing vocal duet, sparkling with poppy tenderness, against simple guitar, slightly out of tune, and enthusiastic egg-shaking. Listening to the singing, there's no dout they were smiling throughout the recording of the song, and fair play, they have reason to. This recoding is lofi, but it's hard to imagine it presented any other way. Hard not to love this.


The Middle Ones - Drops



http://www.myspace.com/themiddleones





Slight change of pace - without a doubt go to http://ppelectro.blogspot.com/ and download

Foreign Beggars - Hit That Gash (DJ Prime Cuts' Itchy Naaan Re-rub)

Ridiculous name, ridiculous bass.

Which is included in my latest mixtape:



RockandShockTheNation Mixtape - George Wigzell

Foreign Beggars - Hit That Gash (DJ Prime Cuts' Itchy Naaan Re-rub)
Dead Prez - Hip Hop (Diplo Remix)
Zombie Nation - Forza
Kelevra, Nathan Boon - Like To Freak Remix
Wu Tang Clan - Da Mystery of Chessboxin' (A Capella)
Player Player - Lonely
Armand Van Helden - Shake That Ass feat Team Facelift (Mowgli Remix)
Whitetown - Your Woman
Hostage - Shake It
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Heads Will Roll/ Joe Smooth - Promised Land Mass D Beats
Elite Force - Here Come The Flow (Heavy Feet Remix)
Nadastrom - Pussy
Mark Stent - Waiting (The Bulgarian Remix)
Daniel Haaksman - Who's Afraid of Rio feat. MC Jennifer/ Modeselektor - The Black Block
Tiga - Mind Dimension (The Bloody Beetroots Remix)

Finally check out my housemate Shelley's lovely new blog, about living in Hackney, amogst other things: http://streethawker.wordpress.com/