Thursday, March 28, 2013

Miami Music Week Top 10

Miami Music Week 2013 is now well over and now is the time for a little follow up on the mega trends and jet streams of EDM as of today.

This year, MMW was dominated by the current trend in progressive house with epic multi layered buildups and huge minimalistic drops heavily influenced by the hardstyle genre. Five out of ten on this list fits that description. Last year, it was more melodic and vocal tracks that dominated the sets. A single trap track made the list to honor the current EDM fad (no DJ set without a 10 minute trap segment these days) along with the recent big room superhit from Nicky Romero and Avicii, the remix of the melancholic Lana Del Rey track by local Miami boy Cedric Gervais and a very high placement for our young Danish producer Mikkas for his remix of Rewind by Emma Hewitt that gained massive support by the likes of Knife Party (the track is now an integral part of their set - I saw them three times the last 10 days) as well as from Hardwell, Thomas Gold and many others.

So here it is, my perception of the current trends as displayed in Miami at several parties and at UMF by numerous DJs (I saw over 60 acts during 7 days in Miami!).


1. Chuckie, Junxterjack - Make Some Noise (Original Mix)

2. Bingo Players - Rattle (Original Mix)


3. Tony Romera - Pandor (Original Mix)


4. Emma Hewitt - Rewind (Mikkas remix)


5. Showtek, Justin Prime - Cannonball (Original Mix)


6. Quintino, Sandro Silva - Epic (Original Mix)


7. Benny Benassi - Satisfaction (RL Grime remix)


8. Basto - Stormchaser (Original Mix)


9. Nicky Romero, Avicii - I Could Be The One (Original Mix)


10. Lana Del Rey - Summertime Sadness (Cedric Gervais remix)



Thursday, March 7, 2013

Run the trap!

In the wake of the latest Internet craze "Harlem Shake", it's due time for some perspective on this whole trap thing. I mean, even my mom knows about Harlem Shake and subsequently have heard Baauer, my favorite Trap artist, before it went "Gangnam Style" on the Internet. I still love him, and he has a lot more to offer than stupid 30 second videos with teens acting normal and the really "crazy".

Long story short on trap. It started out many years ago in the deep south of US as a hip hop sub genre, but lately it has made it's way into the electronic realm, filling out the gap between hip hop and EDM, with Baauer, Grandtheft, Flosstradamus and UZ as it's main front runners. It's slower than moombah, about the same tempo as dubstep, dominated by lots of voice samples and it's very bass heavy, as the well known bass boom sound of the old Roland TR-808 drum machine is in it's core DNA.

In all the latest DJ sets I've heard recently, including Nicky Romero and Zedd, it seems obligatory to have a trap segment of 10-15 minutes, just like a year ago with Moombah. Trap seems to be the new black in bass music - let's see if it sticks!

Hardwell - Spaceman (Carnage Festival Trap Remix)

Flosstradamus - Rollup (Baauer Remix)

Alex Metric - Rave Weapon (UZ Remix)

B⚠NNED 2 by Flosstradamus