ROKTRONIK

More developments in the world of Daft–

Last year, we first mentioned that the electronic duo had been commissioned to compose the entire soundtrack for Disney’s upcoming sequel to the Tron series. We’ve been eagerly waiting for news and at last, based upon a listing from Amazon.com, Walt Disney Records is slated to release Daft Punk’s Tron: Legacy album on November 23rd of this year!

Again, nothing official has been released directly via the Daft Punk camp but we’re sensing that there to be some big announcements on the near horizon…

phives

Unless your name is Helen Keller or have been living under a rock for the past two decades, surely you’re aware of the French electronic music tag team known as Daft Punk.

Despite a period of lull and quiet since their most recent tour-of-epic-proportions titled, Alive 2007, there has been a recent surge of buzz surrounding Daft Punk’s involvement with the upcoming rendition of Disney’s cult-classic, Tron (Tron: Legacy to premiere 12/17/2010). One particular rumor that we, along with everyone else and their mothers, have been actively and eagerly tracking is a potential Daft Punk World Tour in conjunction with the Tron: Legacy movie and the 24 tracks they were commissioned to compose for the score.

While the details we’ve come across regarding this tour have yet to be confirmed by Daft Punk officially, the leaked tour dates seem fairly legit considering that the movie has been in post-production since February of this year. That said, check out the unofficial-official 2010 Daft Punk World Tour dates below!

In addition, we came across a ticket link for one of the shows at Heineken Music Hall’s website that happens to be in accordance with the rumored location/date (August 1st in Amsterdam)–so that’s got to account for something, right? Regardless, you’d be silly not to put ‘em back on your radars…they’re definitely touring either this year or next so no matter what, it looks as though we’re in for a very Daft treat in the near future

JULY
30 — Le Zenith, Paris, France

AUGUST
1 — Heineken Music Hall, Amsterdam, Netherlands
3 — Allianz-Arena, Munich, Germany
5 — The O2, Dublin, Ireland
7 — Parc Des Sports, Nice, France
15 — Yankee Stadium, New York, NY
22 — Sydney Football Stadium, Sydney, Australia
28 — Olympic Park Stadium, Melbourne, Australia

SEPTEMBER
3 — Wembley Arena, London, UK
6 — City of Manchester Stadium, Manchester, UK

…and with that, we’ll leave you with a great Hell-Ektrik remix of Daft Punk’s, Digital Love.

phives

To ease into our WMC Recap series, we’d like to feature an artist who we honestly never thought twice about before but has recently forced us into a double-take after her performance down in Miami this year. Her name is Kelis. Yes, she’s the bossy milkshake song chick. Surprised? Yeah, we were too especially considering the fact that she’s an R&B singer/songwriter and her 2 most popular songs have absolutely no place in the WMC environment. However, just as many musical genres are gravitating towards the realm of electro, it really doesn’t seem too far-fetched to have R&B vocals placed over house and/or electro. And that’s exactly what Kelis has done. For the most part, we cringe at the very thought of such crossovers but we’re not ashamed to say that after checking out a few of her new electro-songs, we’re proudly claiming that Kelis is legit and is sure to be a huge player in the scene moving forward. Having recently dropped an instant club favorite titled, Acapella (produced by David Guetta), she has since been remixed by a plethora of big name DJs and about to release a CD titled, Flesh Tone on May 17th of this year (UK release). With the aid and collaboration of big names such as Boys Noize, will.i.am, David Guetta, Benny Benassi, Free School, DJ Switch, Burnz, and DJ Ammo, her new upcoming album is sure to be a successful foray into the dance/house/electronica style. Take a sneak peak at a few Flesh Tone songs from her performance at WMC below and let us know if you agree with our claim this new CD will be on par with Guetta’s One Love…wait for the drop at 2:50

And since we’re feeling extra generous, we’re gonna include a copy of her new mixtape featuring snippets of 5 new songs off of Flesh Tone: Acapella (already a hit), 22nd Century (meh…just another club fav), 4th of July (awesome), Home (dope), and Scream (sick).

DJ Replay presents Kelis: Flesh Tone Mixtape [right click, save as...]

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Track List for – Kelis: Flesh Tone Mixtape

1. Handful (intro)

2. No Security (Crookers vs. Bart Bmore)

3. Acapella (David Guetta vs. Benny Benassi)

4. Bossy (Switch vs. Alan Braxe and Fred Falke)

5. 4th of July (Flesh Tone Album Snippet)

6. Grey Goose (Free School feat. Apl d ap vs. Stardust)

7. Milkshake (Mighty Fools vs. Major Lazer)

8. Get Along with You (Laidback Luke vs. Mstrkrft (Goldenchyld Blend))

9. Home (Flesh Tone Album Snippet)

10. Caught Out There (Eric Prydz Blend)

11. Scream (Flesh Tone Album Snippet)

12. Lil Star (Linus Loves Remix)

13. 22nd Century (Flesh Tone Album Snippet)

We’re finally starting to see why her milkshake does what it does…

As is the case with many artists and performers today, they tend to sell out once they hit it big and rise to the top. It may be that they have succumbed to the temptations of major mainstream revenue, or perhaps they just feel that there’s no reason to screw up a good thing. Whatever the reason(s) may be, these musicians have opted to settle for their single working formula thereby ceasing to push boundaries and experiment with new forms of artistic expression. Who’s to say that a trance DJ can’t cross over to the dubstep universe? Or why should a drummer from the 80s being ridiculed for entering the electronic/DJ realm?

Life is the constant pursuit of knowledge, experiences and happiness. As such, individuals should strive to quench an insatiable thirst for learning new things, meeting different people, undergoing foreign sensations, and expanding limitless horizons.  One such musician who epitomizes all these aspects is a man by the name of Joel Zimmerman, also known as Deadmau5. We’ve been following him for quite some time now and only recently have we fully come to appreciate his endeavors and true dedication to creative progression. Constantly pushing the envelope, Joel is now making his foray into dubstep production. What’s more is that following a vast array of responses on forums to his new musical endeavor (both good and bad), he simply responds with, ”I’m just fucking around and practicing guys…you gotta switch it up every once and a while to keep sharp.” We rest our case.

Have a listen to Joel’s “Dub5tepthingie” below and check out the most recent works-in-progress on his Suncloud page: fuckmylife.

Dub5tepthingie4 by fuckmylife

Also, during our research-induced insomnia, we discovered a handful of other interesting (and bad-ass) tidbits on the Mau5:

• Deadmau5 performed at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver on February 19, 2010 during the live medal presentations for men’s luge doubles and women’s 15-km individual and men’s 20-km individual biathalon. His track “Moar Ghosts N’ Stuff” was aired on national TV when it was played over loudspeakers during Hannah Kearney’s gold-medal run in women’s moguls.
• Joel also put on a free Olympic performance at LiveCity Yaletown that drew over 20,000 attendees to an 8,000-person venue. People began waiting in line at 11am and even after they reached capacity at 5:30pm (show was at 9:30pm), thousands of fans stayed and turned the entire outside area into a raging dance party. [full story here]
• Currently under design and production is a brand-new, state-of-the-art Mau5head weighing about 10lbs and possibly featuring a shoulder harness. Inside the head, there’s to be a video system installed displaying all of his audio monitors, essentially making the entire thing into a giant set of virtual reality glasses…and also thus preventing him from seeing anything outside of the head in the process.  This should be interesting.
• Unlike many other DJs that only use turntables and software-loaded laptops, Joel performs with a variable cornucopia of music hardware including: 2 MacBook Pros, custom-built shuttle PCs, Pioneer DJM-800,  Xone:4D, Monome 256, JazzMutant Lemur, Percussa AudioCubes and ton of other effect controllers. All these components allow him to perform live and insert unique sequences within each set.
• In December 2007, Marcus Schossow, Maor Levi and Dj Eco created a project named, Deadrat6, to rip on Deadmau5 for having similar sounding tracks. Their spoof song titled, “Very Exactly,” was actually played by Armin Van Buuren on “A State of Trance 330.” Later on, Deadmau5 refused to perform at a club in Oslo if Marcus Schossow was allowed to play afterward. This led to Schossow being denied entry and made the night a solo Deadmau5 event.
• Back in ’08, Deadmau5 joined forces with Mötley Crüe drummer, Tommy Lee (who now produces electronic music and DJs), DJ Aero, and Steve Duda under the name of, “WTF?” to produce a handful of tracks such as, “Chicken,” “You Can’t Afford This,” “Redic,” and “CEBA55555.”  Oh, and Joel briefly toured with Tommy Lee and DJ Aero for their Electro Mayhem Tour too…

• Finally here are a couple of videos from last year–one of Joel gettin’ tatted up with Tommy Lee and model Chanel Benton in London and the other of him dropping “Strobe” at SPACE in Ibiza (wait until 4:15!):

That’s all for now…PEA5E!

Hey Everybody…after an action-packed 4 weeks, we’re finally back from the ROKTRONIK World Tour!

From BPM Festival, to Sundance, to Gasparilla, we’ve had the honor of meeting some incredible people who have introduced us to many new tastes of music as well as fed our insatiable appetites for what we’ve come to know and love. We want to thank everyone for their hospitality and kindness…and of course all of you for your patience during our month-long “electro-vision quest.”

So without further fluff…here are your BEATS!!

Dada Life – Let’s Get Bleeped Tonight (12inch Edit)

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Chelley – Took The Night (Alvaro Mix)

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Green Velvet – Shake and Pop (Cold Blank Remix)

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Dave Darell & Hardy Hard – Silver Surfer (Dub Mix)

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Tocadisco ft. Nadia Ali – Better Run (Afrojack Remix)

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Dirtyloud – Trash House Music

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