The Daily Telegraph is renowned as the voice of right wing England so it’s the least likely place in the world to find good dance music content. Or so I thought.
One of their music bloggers Dancesaurus has done a great job of defining exactly what progressive house actually is, producing a decent showcase mix and even giving comparisons between trance remixes and progressive house remixes of particular tracks. Loving his work.
The mix itself is pretty decent, and if you were to ask me to pull out 12 tunes to illustrate progressive house as a genre then I’d choose something similar.
After a hiatus in blogging due to, frankly not hearing any good records. A holiday has been the perfect excuse to download and listen to lots of mixes so I now have a load of tunes to write about.
First off is this corker featured on lots of mixes from Caro is significantly cooler, more cross-over and versatile than my fragile 30 something brain could ever understand. She seems to be up there in the Paris house scene, which while never being Zeitgeist has always been a world to watch.
Soldiers is a very versatile track that’ll do well from the dancefloors of Ibiza and Cannes to the student unions of Preston. In the modern dance music game it seems to me that versatility is the name of the game. For a track to truly dominate it needs to work at a range of BPMs. Soldiers is no exception. My first listens keep drawing me back to the Ben Watt remix as the most useful for a DJ wishing to mix things up, though I’m not sure it’s my favourite mix.
Hybrid Dreaming Your Dreams is my favourite progressive breaks track and arguably my favourite dance track. I played Dreaming your Dreams at my wedding, have DJ’d it a hundred times and spent two years tracking down a copy on Vinyl.
Then came a wilderness time. Hybrid put out a couple of albums Morning Sci-Fi and I Choose Noise, and yes they had their moments, but nothing came close to the rip-roaring amazingness of Wider Angle. Then it all changed. They’ve come back to their centre; bollock clenching orchestral amazingness. The Disappear Here album is the only thing I’ve actually got excited about for ages breaks wise. I think Disappear Here is going to be the best track on the album, but Break My Soul is very very good, if a little cinematic for my liking. However what it is, is a masterclass in dance music production. It’s completely flawless, big – live orchestra, excellent and haunting vocals.
God I’m excited about this album.
#
Just to whet your whistle a bit further, here’s a preview of the City Of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra doing their thing for Disappear Here.
ALBUM SAMPLER – it just gets better, it’s produced better than the average MOS album!
Nyce has been getting DJ support from all the big names in progressive house; Jody Wisternoff, Nick Warren etc. and I think it’s going to be one of the biggest progressive house tracks of the summer. Massive Electro beats deliver a really strong bass bin shaking rhythm while a catchy distinctive synth riff takes care of the top end and the two together deliver great contrast. This track will fly!
Dirty South and Mark Knight are pretty big names in house so you know you’ve got a corker of a track on your hands, and Stepover doesn’t disappoint. On the slightly housier end of progressive this heavily influenced tech tune is a real builder.
A solid build with great chunky bass gives way to an epically progressive breakdown with a great filtered synth vocal combo building up really nicely. It’s a record I fully expect to be an Ibiza anthem, not least because of it’s flexibility on any dancefloor from bar to club. I’ve linked to a non-official version on Youtube as the official toolroom one, has some twat telling us off about piracy throughout the tune.
Privilege by Estiva has been doing the rounds for a while getting play from people like Markus Schultz and AVB, and it’s the main track on the recently released Friends & Enemies EP. It’s REALLY good. Trackitdown categorises the track as progressive trance, which while I don’t agree with the term, can see where they’re coming from. A nice chunky but still melodic bass gives out to an amazing epic breakdown, with strong sub bass and synth stabs. Proper spine chilling stuff. The break gives way to an un-hurried and melodic end section of the track, which to be honest is a little bit slow. This part of the track does feel a bit trance-slowed-down. I’d still buy it though.
JVA Autobahn is currently on limited release on Beatport to be released generally next week. It’s a totally amazing progressive house track. The word Autobahn had me shuddering at the thought of shitty Kraftwerk remixes, but no fear, this is ace. JVD is a Dutch chap apparently and Autobahn has been getting quite a lot of northern european DJ support.
I can only find the radio edit on Youtube so here’s samples on the Big and Dirty sit. From the samples I think that the PM mix is the one to download.
I like Ali Wilson, and normally I hate ‘tribal’ trance tracks involving ethnic sounds. But Pandora is an exception to my normally strict rule that anything tribal is shit. This is actually rather good.
On a more general blog note, I’m going to reduce my word count and increase my post rate, we’ll see how it goes.
It’s very very rare that a label releases a track with a commercially viable vocal version and a dancefloor friendly dub where both are actually reasonable tracks. You tend to get one or t’other. However in this case hats off to the people at Anjunabeats as they seem to have pulled it off reasonably well.
In terms of the commerically viable version I think that both the original and the Rank 1 version do the job nicely. I particularly like the snappy orchestrals in the Original. But I’m not here to write about tracks which chart or I’d have far more traffic and no soul.
The track which really gets me moist is the Ian Flux and Thomas Blofeld Dub mix. When I first heard this track the breakdown really reminds of Nitrous Oxide Morning Light, no shocks there they are on the same label. The Ian Flux and Thomas Bloefold mix has a dirty and driving bassline, which gives away to an amazingly euphoric and orchestral break, which starts with a plucked guitar sound gradually adding the orchestrals and effects before a slight pause wallops you into a big old arms-in-the-air break. My only slight criticism is the added crowd noise in the background at the end of the break. I think this record will elicit its own noise without having to sample it!
I’ve also just noticed that this the first time I’ve blogged a track before it’s three months old. Go me.
Tomcraft’s original was just the right side of cheesy and as a result has been a firm staple on the festival, club and horrid club-bar circuit for years so I’ve often wondered how a re-work of this track would end up. Actually I’m rather pleasantly surprised by both the Niels Van Gough and the Adam K & Soha’s Shadow remix
The former is a more proggy outing with a well filtered use of the vocal with an excellent bassline a minimal breakdown and is a really driving track
On balance I think the Adam K & Soha’s Shadow Remix has it for me, and I think this’ll be the one that gets the airplay. It’s a muchwarmer and more upbeat track suited to a mid-set prog or house set and would probably lift the bloody lid of a party. I’m a particular fan of the break in this track which builds to a wicked crescendo, in fact it keeps building for nearly two whole minutes.