ESKMO Signs To Ninja Tune;
Album To Be Released October 4th

*ESKMO joins Ninja Tune XX Anniversary Line Ups in New York,
Los Angeles, London, Belgium, Paris, Tokyo & More This Fall*

FREE Download Below! (MP3)
“Come Back” By ESKMO

Album To Be Released October 4th

Press Quotes:

“Sophisticated…Masterfully produced…All killer…” – Bleep

“Eskmo (is) on his own electronic plateau.” – Boomkat

Whilst Ninja Tune is hellbent on making its 20th anniversary celebrations memorable to say the least, they’re also intent on signing the artists that will keep them going another 20 years. Eskmo is one of the latest of these; a young artist deeply rooted in the resurgence of electronic music, with the vision and talent to write songs that defy genre and could only be his own. With prior recordings being released on esteemed labels Warp and Planet Mu, San Francisco based Eskmo is already being touted as one of the key artists in a new wave of creativity in electronica.

Described by Bleep.com as “Masterfully produced… sophisticated, post-Dilla hip-hop funk,” Eskmo’s music has caught the attention of Amon Tobin, who he collaborated with on a recent project entitled ‘Eskamon’. He has also toured as a live act throughout North America and Europe, and opened for both Amon and Flying Lotus. Pendulum’s Elhornet said in a recent interview: “There are good producers, then there are dudes who you never catch..and don’t even try. He’s one of those…”

This week’s Ninja Tune XX giveaway is a brand new Eskmo track entitled ‘Come Back.’ Showcasing his mastery of electronic production and trademark sound, it reveals exactly why Ninja Tune is so excited about this newest addition to their roster.

Eskmo’s brand new album will be out October 4th, 2010 on Ninja Tune. He will also be playing the Ninja Tune XX parties in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris and Brussels, and his first single, ‘Cloudlight,’ is featured on the forthcoming Ninja Tune XX compilation.

Lucent L'Amour 2010

I’m always a fan of The Do Lab.  This years Lucent L’Amour looks like it was major success.  With performances from Bassnectar, Ana Sia, Beats Antique the music line up was full of amazing talent.  I love the visual art and performers.  Check the video to see what you missed.

LUCENT L’AMOUR 2010 (LL COOL CUT) from Matthew F. Smith on Vimeo.

Beats Antique - MLK Vs MJ Mashup

MLK-MJ MASHUP – w-pied piper and BK2 – Beats Antique

Beats Antique



Download the mix: Heyoka – Marklar Promo Mix or

Stream it:

Cop the new album at Addictech.com.

Heyoka - Merklar

BlackRoc

I downloaded this album recently and have been jamming in the car for the last week.  The mix of blues riffs and Hip Hop vocals in the 70-90 BPM range offers a solid blend of styles and sounds.  BlackRoc is the collaboration of The Black Keys, Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney, providing the instrumentals and guest vocals from Mos Def, RZA, Raekwon, Pharoae Monch, Q-Tip, Jim Jones, Nikki Wray, Billy Danze and Noe.  Check out the 11 part video diary below for some in studio shenanigans.

Blood Into Wine

Tim and Eric interview Maynard

Drink with Maynard

Massive Attack - United Snakes

New Music Video – Massive Attack “United Snakes”

New music video from Massive Attack for their new single “United Snakes” off their newest release Splitting The Atom EP out now.

Massive Attack Photo Gallery:

Deadmau5 live show 2009

Deadmau5’s live shows has progressed in the last year.  He’s working on syncing his visuals via midi and a new 10lb mau5 head is in the works where he’ll be seeing his computer screen via VR glasses.  Check the video for the full details.

Pt. 2

Here’s Deadmau5’s mix from Terminal 5 in New York on November 25th.

Hotfile.com: Deadmau5_-_Live_at_Terminal_5_New_York_City-SAT-11-25-2009-TALiON.rar

uploading.com: Deadmau5_-_Live_at_Terminal_5_New_York_City-SAT-11-25-2009-TALiON.rar

Here are all the pictures from his recent set in Terminal 5 in New York.  Check the gallyer below or visit:

http://photo.rukes.com/terminal5/terminal5.html

If that wasn’t enough, here’s a production tip from Deadmau5 via Facebook.

Dec 2. – Unison

Unison is generally achieved by most VSTi’s by adding more voices of the same timbre to create a louder or more spread out sound. For example…. by hitting one note, the Synth will actually produce 2 or more voices. Many VSTi’s usually have this feature in their UI… and sometimes the control is great and all that, but sometimes you might want a little more control over that to make a sound thats more to your liking.

The problem i’ve always found with unison (especially in the low end) is that you more often than not get weird phase problems… this is just caused by a given number of voices accidently colliding into each other at some point which will phase a certain part of a sound out, resulting in some notes sounding thinner or way more present than others, even though youre mashing the same note repeatedly. I hate to say it, but youre always going to run into this problem. However one technique ive managed to live by is recording the same sequence over and over and over and over until one gets randomly spat out that i can live with after ive recorded it. Of course that worked out for me for a while.. but then i got thinking, theres gotta be a better way.

Well first we need to see where the problem even stems from… in this case, its stereo. You can totally hear the effects of a shitty unison if you monitor it in mono. Not to say we need to monitor everything in mono, but its good practice just to keep a mono insert on your master chain (just for reference from time to time). Of course, depending on the plugin or synth, Unison is usually gradually or radically spread out over the L/R channels as the number of unison voices increase. For example… a 4 voice unison bass might be panned accordingly; 1 voice panned 100% on the left and 1 voice 100% on the right… plus, 2 more voices panned 25% L and 25% R … and so on. Of course, theres also a pitch factor involved… this value is normally called “unison detune” and all that does is *slightly* detune each of the unisons voices by x amount. The reason this sounds so “lush” is because you have detuned stuff on the left and right now… giving the sound a stereo image. In fact, this is alsmot exactly what a “chorus” effect does, only a bit different.

I’ve always been a bit of an analogue nut…. ergo, alot of the synths i noodle around on are Monophonic (only capable of playing one voice at a time with no unison) So… to get a thicker sound out of them… i follow the basic principles of how a polysynth would create a unison… and hell, dont be scared to try this on a VSTi either.

Record your riff / loop… one voice / one polyphony. Now by one voice, i could be talking about any given number of Oscillators used to make up that voice, but for simplicities sake, we’ll use a pulse or whatever, doesn’t matter. Now, re-record the same thing again on a new channel and try changing the pitch by 9 cents or something (or just record a few loops of the same thing and get your scissor on). Lets go for a 4 voice unison to keep it easy…. so rinse and repeat that 2 more times

now youll have 4 channels, all mono, panned center and hopefully playing the same recording / wav / whatever… so lets get in there with the imaging. take the first 2 channels and spread em out L and R say one channel hard left, the other hard right. i dont really care. whaytever sounds good to you. then do the same to the other channels… just try to keep it balanced, otherwise your sound will be panned in a weird spot. (you can pan it wierd if thats your thing, but the key is to spread it. hopefully my leet ascii diagram might help… where 1 2 3 4 are your recorded tracks on the Left Center Right scale thing im gunna invent just now.

L –1—2—C—3—4–R

so there you go, by now you should have a bit thicker sound. And now youre probably asking, well.. why dont i just turn the unison on and use 1 track instead? well… now you have alot more control over the sound really, and since its now Wav data… and not random waveform starttimes your VSTi decided to spit out to make it “more analog sounding” you can get in there and tweak the weird notes… and by tweak, i mean nudge bits of each of the 4 tracks forward and backward in time by a teeny tiny bit (which is usually all it takes to fix a dodgy note) …. and since youre on seperate channels… now is a good time as any to get all experimental with it and maybe run some effects on some of the channels… i.e. a slight reverb on voices 2 and 3…. or strip some low end out of 1 and 4…. your plugin probably didnt support that.

anyways. hope you found that bit useful, saved my ass many a time, and definatley gave me the satisfaction that i’ve actually worked on something to make it better then using some fuckin preset.

Simian Mobile Disco Live Setup

Simian Mobile Disco explains their live setup.  Cool use of the Korg Microkontrol.  I saw these guys live at Coachella 2008 and liked the stage setup.  It very much looked like a science lab with wires and keyboards every which way.  A cool circular table that held everything in place and they sort of rotated around the table as they played.  An interesting concept can make all the difference in a super boring Live PA and an interesting to watch and listen Live PA.

Beats Antique

Check out this video of Beats Antique with Sidecar Tommy, David Satori and Zoe Jakes performing at Lightning in a Bottle and TempleSF 2008.  BEATS ANTIQUE is an oakland based group featuring ZOE JAKES, DAVID SATORI, AND SIDECAR TOMMY, which have stumbled down the rabbit hole and emerged anew on the other side. BEATS ANTIQUE forges a curious alliance between middle eastern traditions and potent west coast circus, underground hip hop, breakbeat brass band, downtempo, glitch and dubstep.

Supporting their 2nd album, COLLIDE (2008 CIA records), BEATS ANTIQUE’S DJ sets on BASSNECTAR’S “THE OTHER SIDE” tour feature their diverse sound collage as the opening act for one of the nation’s most well known DJ’s. ZOE JAKES, nominated as Zaghareet’s “Best Interpretive Artist 2007″, presents a unique take on Tribal bellydance, influenced by Art Nouveau, tango, Breakdance, and Indian classical dance. BEATS ANTIQUE has brought the paradox of electro-acoustic music into the future.

You can buy their tracks at their bandcamp site.

Here’s a video from their recent show in LA put on by The Do Lab.

THE DO LAB PRESENTS BEATS ANTIQUE 10.22.09 from Matthew F. Smith on Vimeo.