Thursday, May 24, 2012

Moombah is the new black

OK, so here's the low down on Moombahton, the new black in EDM, that's taking all the hype from dubstep these days. It's around 108-110 bpm (dubstep is around 70, progressive house around 128), so it's slower than house music but faster than dubstep. I shares the same sound library as electro and even dubstep (often called moombahcore in that respect). It's got a very seductive almost latin vibe to it, that makes you want to move and oh, girls look super hot when dancing to moombah, so it's highly club friendly and thus, every respectable DJ has a moombah section in their set today.

The legend goes, that Dave Nada, one half of Nadastrom, was mixing the Afrojack remix of Moombah by Silvio Ecomo and Chuckie mixed with a slower reggaeton track, so it all ended up around the 108/110 bpm, and people seems to respond rather well to that. Since, noted artists like Skrillex, Knife Party, Diplo and the good sir Francis Dillon, to name a few, has been putting out moombah tracks.

Dillon Francis, in particular, has been the frontrunner for the new subgenre, and was the first to get the top spot on the Beatport top 5 release chart back in February 2012. I was so lucky to see Dillon Francis at UMF in Miami back in March, and was instantly smitten both by the subgenre as such and by Mr. Dillon Francis as a performer and artist. While Fatboy Slim and Justice were playing at the main stage, in front of 100.000 strong crowd, Dillon rocked the small, almost tiny, Annie Mac stage in the far end corner, right by the water, under the palm trees, with soothing sounds of moombah making the 200 or so dedicated moombah fans move in the evening heat. I can safely say, that this set was among my personal top 3 of the UMF, competing against mega-stars like Skrillex, Avicii, Armin van Buuren and Afrojack etc..

That was why I didn't hesitate a second taking the drive from Copenhagen to Gothenburg last weekend, when I saw he was playing a nightclub up there (thank you Siavosh!). He played a very varied set, not only moombah, like in Miami, but included hit tracks from every electro subgenre and we had a blast in the back popping the bubbles and dancing the night away. We were so lucky to meet him after the show and thank him for both the shows in Miami and that great night in Gothenburg. Very nice guy, I must say, who also likes to rock the suit and tie, as he said. :)

Please find a couple of my favorite moombah tracks below and enjoy!

Angger Dimas - Kitchen (Original Mix)

Valentino Khan & Will Bailey - Rukus 

Clockwork - Hulk (Dillon Francis Remix) 

Nadastrom - i!! 


Bonus info
Kairo Kingdom, a brand spanking new electro group from Frankfurt, Germany, came out of nowhere this spring in 2012 on the Lazy Rich label Big Fish. So far they have released five tracks in different subgenres, from electro house/complextro (Crazy Rock), to glitch hop (One Two), drum n' bass/dubstep (Dead Sound), moombah (Boombox) to dirty dutch electro (Das Knarz). Each a very solid attempt in the respective subgenres. Especially One Two does it for me, I got it pretty much on repeat on the iPhone these days. They deserved a spot in this post, not only because of them jumping on the moombah-wagon and fitting the theme of this Journal, but simply because of their excellent display of versatility and the well produced music. There are the Swiss army knife of electro. They refuse to be categorized. Just like my beloved Knife Party did a year or so ago when they took my heart by storm (new EP Rage Valley out May 28th btw!). So go check them out on their Soundcloud and be the first of your friends to buy that shit afterwards!

Kairo Kingdom - One Two

Kairo Kingdom - BoomBox

Kairo Kingdom - Crazy Rock


Wednesday, May 9, 2012

May Madness

My beloved hometown of Copenhagen offered a handful of truly world class EDM artist in just 6 days. Here's a walk-through of the four concerts I attended in that insane first week of May.

 
Feed Me - Sunday April 29th

We casually walked in to the old steam driven pump station from 1858, now resurrected as a mid-size venue, when the young mau5keteer Feed Me from London played his slamming One Click Headshot from the new smaller stage on the first floor. He had obviously started early, as it was a school day the day after, so we missed the first half hour. We probably were about 200 dubstep lovers that had made it to the old water works building in central Copenhagen that Sunday evening. None the less, people were going nuts to the hard electro and dubsteppy tunes from Feed Me. I even saw people surfing the small crowd. Feed Me was clearly impressed by our late Sunday enthusiasm and twetted : "Shows like that are what DJing is all about. Copenhagen out of nowhere, it's turned into messiness".

He played a lot of his own stuff like Whiskers, One Click Headshot, Trichitillomania from his latest EP as well as his old hit Cloudburn and a lot of other good stuff including quite a few moobahton tracks, that seems to be the new black among EDM DJ's.

I wrote about Feed Me back in February where you can also check out his latest EP. Below you can enjoy his banger One Click Headshot from that EP.

Feed Me - One Click Headshot


Flux Pavilion - Sunday April 29th

While Feed Me moved to the left of the stage to enjoy a bottle of Jack D with his entourage, Flux Pavilion teared the place apart with his bass heavy UK style dubstep. People went absolutely nuts and security had to get on the stage to keep the crowd of it.

He'd also play a few moombah tracks but kept it pretty dubstep in general playing his own tracks like Hold Me Close, I Can't Stop, the Superbad track with his Circus buddy Doctor P and of course Bass Cannon the made the place crumble in bass related spasms. Flux Pavilion truly rocked the spot and was a notch over Feed Me in crowd control and performance.

Bass Cannon kill it that Sunday, see it in the video and check out some of his other great tracks below.



Flux Pavilion

Flux Pavilion and Feed Me at Pumpehuset gets 4 out of 6 stars.


Porter Robinson - Thursday May 3rd

OK, first show of the crazy first weekend of May, with young gun Porter Robinson at the place called Rust in the multicultural borough of Copenhagen called Nørrebro. Rust was originally created in the 80's as a campaign headquarter and café by some anti nuclear power activists and has later served as a nightclub and urban music venue. The place was pretty packed at the main floor and I would guess there were around 300 guests that night. The 20 year old American, now signed on the Skrillex label OWSLA, started out pretty hard and kept the tempo up playing great electro house-, some moombah- and a few dubstep tracks. The small dancefloor in front of the low and small stage was packed and security had to step in to prevent people from getting hurt in the chaos.

He played a couple of his own tracks, like Unison, as well as the Knife Party remix, both making the crowd very exited. He did a very cool set with high energy and variation and the crowd loved him, and so did I.

Porter Robinson gets 5 out of 6 stars.

Check out the video below from when he played the Unison remix by Knife Party and his latest track Language.



Porter Robinson - Language


Avicii - Friday May 4th

Around 8000 people turned up at historic Forum, the large exhibition and concert hall, that was actually blown up during the German occupation back in 1943, to see the sensation from our blue and yellow neighbors to the east. They sure had a hell of a party on the large Forum indoor floor. Warm up was from local DJ's Kongsted and the duo TooManyLeftHands. Personally I enjoyed the first half the most, where he played a handful og my favorites like Ingrosso and Alesso's Calling, In My Mind by Ivan Gough and Feenixpawl, a really nice mashup of Antidote and Greyhound by SHM and of course the neoclassic Levels mixed with that horrible Gotye song to keep it "fresh" I guess. Never the less, Avicii blew up the spot once again since WW2, with his monster hit Levels that made people scream and go absolutely insane. The VIP section turned me down quite a bit, there wasn't really anything VIP or Deluxe about it and it was filled with steroid pumped and heavily tattooed drug dealer types, that made it a bit hard to enjoy the show.

Avicii (and the sloppy production) gets 3 out of 6 stars.

I've included a video from the show and his latest unreleased collab with Nicky Romero below.



Avicii - Fuck School (feat. Nicky Romero)


Skrillex - Saturday May 5th

9000 people of all ages and subcultures had shown up, from tweens and business school graduates to parents with children and old fucks like myself. Skrillex has a broad appeal it seems. Warmup was some nice drum n' bass from Netsky but it was clear that everybody just waited to get to see the LA freakshow.

Most of his set was identical with what he played at UMF Miami in March, but there was, for me, one major difference. He played maybe five or six Knife Party tracks! He didn't in Miami, probably because Knife Party played the next day on the same stage, but it made all the difference for me as I both got to enjoy Skrillex own tracks and remixes as well as the greatest tracks from my beloved Knife Party. Of course he also played all his own stuff like Breakn' A Sweat, Devils Den, Ruffneck, First of the Year, Kill Everybody and the new Make It Bun Dem and several of his great remixes like his In for the Kill remix, the Promises remix, the Levels remix and of course the outstanding Cinema remix.

I found it one of the best concerts I've attended in Copenhagen maybe ever and would not hesitate to give it top marks, if it wasn't for the effective but somewhat aggressive security guys plowing through the crowd scouting for sinners to "arrest".

Skrillex gets 5 out of 6 stars.

Below you'll find a video of when he closed hos set playing Cinema in front of a sea of lighters and cell phones and his latest track with Damian Marley "Make It Bun Dem".



Skrillex & Damian Marley - MAKE IT BUN DEM