Latest Disco Posts

[TMN EXCLUSIVE] EDX Interview

Posted by Clayton Warwick - August 13, 2013

EDX
Live My Life (Extended Vocal Mix)

It’s not everyday that you get to sit down with a producer who’s had a long and storied career as EDX. It’s not everyday that you get to see a DJ of this magnitude at your local club. It’s not everyday that you get to talk about your favorite country with an international star.

Fortunately for this blogger, that day came a few weeks back at Beta Nightclub, with a sit down conversation from EDM journeyman, EDX. Check out what he had to say about his favorite venues, collaborators, and cured meats from Italy.

TMN: I’m sitting here with EDX at Beta Nightclub, which was recently ranked the best nightclub in America by Rolling Stone magazine. How does it feel to be back?

EDX: Actually, it’s always something very special to be back in Denver, Colorado. Beta was one of the first clubs I ever played in the US, a couple of years back, so it’s always kind of special. I’m super pumped and excited to be back again.

TMN: While Beta is a great spot to play, you’ve played all over the world. Miami, LA, Vegas, Sao Paolo, Rio de Janeiro, Sydney….well, you get the idea. What are some of your favorite venues and festivals that you’ve played?

EDX: I’ve played nearly every festival in the US, and a lot in Europe as well, Australia some…so there’s a lot of favorites. Last year I played Freedom Festival in the Philippines, Manilla, which was very good. I played around Carinvale in Brazil, I was absolutely impressed by the amazing set up and the amazing crowd, a lot of music lovers. There’s also a lot of clubs all over the world.

I don’t want to pick out one. I think at the end of the day, everywhere where you can find people that love your music, it’s one of your favorite clubs in the world. So, there’s so many!

TMN: Aside from playing some of the best venues in the world, you’ve also had the pleasure of working with some of the biggest names in music. One of the most intriguing listed in your bio is Kool and the Gang. We can’t seem to find any information out there on it though, do you care to fill us in?

EDX: Whoa! This goes back more than a decade. There was a couple of remixes under the EDX brand back in the 90’s. I think it was one I did for Kool and the Gang featuring Lauren Hill, which the track was called…I don’t remember. I have to go back and look. I remember it was an amazing vocal oriented track, we were able to pitch it up to 126, and this was like in ’98. Something like that. It was funny because we released it under EDX at first, we released it under the brand B2B, which was my project with another artist from Switzerland.

It was very well welcomed because it was very funky house which matched with Lauren Hills vocals and the happy vibe of Kool and the Gang’s music. It was a very interesting album. I’m still very proud of that. I’m still trying to find out the title though…haha. I can text the title to you.

TMN: Out of the lengthy list of people that you’ve collaborated with, who was the most interesting to work with?

EDX: Whew! There’s so many different aspects to what is interesting and what isn’t. Actually, I really like to work with vocals. I try to build some new vibe around vocals, especially when they have a special meaning. So, it’s really hard to say which one is a favorite. I was definitely really happy to work with dance vocalist Nadia Ali, who was always one of my favorite singers, and still is. But, I wouldn’t say there’s other vocal performers that I didn’t like as much.

Definitely, Sam Obernick, Tamra Keenan, Hadley…but it’s very hard to pick one out because every one was like very interesting to work with. There was always a very different process with each individual artist. I don’t want to pick any particular one.

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[TMN PREMIERE] Sterling Silver – End Up Like This (Motion Picture Actress Remix)

Posted by Clayton Warwick - August 9, 2013

Sterling Silver
End Up Like This (Motion Picture Actress Remix)

Soundcloud

With a voice like this, it’s no wonder we’re hearing stunning remixes. Australian singer and producer Sterling Silver’s debut single is something to marvel at. The atmospheric vocals lightly caress the groovy disco instrumentals creating something that’s easily danceable, yet equally enjoyable through a set of headphones in bed.

While we love a great dancy disco tune, it’s always nice to have some ambient downtempo to relax to. Remixer Motion Picture Actress has dialed this tune back with some smooth low humming basslines and rapid snare hits. The subtle rolling nature of the tune compliments perfectly with the heavily treated repetitious vocal samples from the original creating a wonderfully melodic beauty that begs you to take a step back and take it all in.

[TMN PREMIERE] Gossip Culture – Waiting (feat. Quincy McCrary)

Posted by Clayton Warwick - August 6, 2013

Gossip Culture
Waiting (feat. Quincy McCrary)

Soundcloud

Gossip Culture is on a quest for funk steeped in neon signs & heartbreak, and he’s well on his way with this release. Ryan Sheridan started Gossip Culture back in 2011 as a means for experimenting recording gear with dance beats. His influences are evident, heavily steeped in Motown soul from his extensive vinyl collection. His style has a classic sound influenced in chilled out disco that makes you want to throw on a pair of Wayfarers and hit the town.

Today’s release comes way from his new EP, Strictly Speaking, which is due out in October of this year. For this particular track, Ryan brought in vocalist Quincy McCrary, who also collaborated with Mayer Hawthorne recently. The end result is groovy summer time vibe dialed up with a funky bassline, Motown style guitar riffs, and subdued trumpeting. It’s sexy, warm, and is the perfect combination of new style production and classic sounds.

[TMN Exclusive Interview] Digital Farm Animals Sits Down WIth The Music Ninja

Posted by Matthew Bloss - August 5, 2013

Digital Farm Animals
Adore You Feat. Ofei

Soundcloud

Part of the driving force behind The Music Ninja is the ability to discover and break artists before most other mainstream music publications have a chance. While literally boatloads of music are unloaded upon the TMN offices every day, it is more than a treat when a piece of music stops its listener firmly in their tracks. Such was the case with London based, multi-faceted and uber-talented producer Digital Farm Animals. A few weeks back we had the opportunity to debut DFA’s new single “Adore You” along with his lush brand of electronicism; which employs instrumentation elements from 80’s Nu-Wave and Synth-Pop, to House and Future to good old fashioned Pop structuring. We had the chance to sit down and shoot the… stuff with DFA, talking about everything from future releases, what a live Digital Farm Animals show will look like, to Hanson’s “MMMBop” and Haagen-Dazs. Read the full transcript of our lovely time together below.

The Music Ninja: A lot of people have been referring to Digital Farm Animals as a “they”, “group” or “band” when in reality, you’re just a single producer, can you set the record straight and give us the rundown as to how you began producing, and how you were led to your artist name?

Digital Farm Animals: Ha…Well I get asked this quite a lot and yeah Digital Farm Animals is just me when it comes to writing and producing music. But there’s also a DJ / live programmer who is part of DFA when we perform . So I guess it’s okay to keep calling us ‘they’? Confused yet?!

As it happens the main reason I got into producing music is because the DJ in Digital Farm Animals handed me a copy of FL Studio when I was about 12… I just became obsessed with it.

TMN: On that note; as a relatively new artist without libraries of published music, are your live shows right now mainly DJ sets, or is there a complete live setup? If so, what kind of equipment do you play on?

DFA: We’ve played at some really cool gigs over the last year which have been DJ sets. It’s a huge buzz when you drop a big track and you feel the energy from the dance-floor but we’d always planned for something much bigger and more creative and it feels like the right time now to start working towards that. It’s an ongoing creative process and we don’t know how it will end up exactly but what we do know is that it will involve pigs, lots of pigs.

As for equipment, we’ve been using Ableton packed with a load of synths, samples and drum racks alongside NI’s Maschine, a Midi Fighter, iPads and an Akai MPK49. We’re also going to bring live vocals into the mix.

TMN: You have a new EP coming our way on August 26 and just dropped another single “Adore You”, which we assume is also a part of said EP. Can you tell us a little about what the process has been like for recording Bugged Out? Have you collaborated with anyone, or has it been mostly a solo effort?

DFA: Yeah, “Adore You” is the first track from Bugged Out. Its actually been a bit of a strange one. I went away last year for about 4 months and spent quite a bit of time in Australia —where I produced most of the EP and a bunch of other tracks. The scene over there is amazing…they are really ahead of the game when it comes to synth driven music and I definitely gained a lot of influence. When I got back I was on the case to find the right singer for each track and we just got really lucky. Working with Ofei was awesome – he’s a really talented guy and we just threw out loads ideas in the studio, almost like a jamming session, and then went with what felt best. It’s been really great fun working with real musicians too – I’m a big advocate of combining electronic music with live elements. There are two more tracks to come, both with features from UK artists.

TMN: There is not a ton of information about your music out there in the blogosphere. Can you enlighten The Music Ninja readers on any impending releases from Digital Farm Animals scheduled besides Bugged Out, and the easiest place to listen to Digital Farm Animals music?

DFA: This will be the first official thing from Digital Farm Animals but there are a bunch of tracks we’ve put online over the last year or so. We actually did a track called ‘Home’ quite a while back that was basically just us mucking around with some pretty dark /2-steppy sounds and it got quite a big buzz. We then got approached by an artist from the states called Khat – who did his own edit of that track called ‘Homeless’ and that got a really great response. It massively opened my eyes to the power of the Internet and collaborations.

Musically we’re in a very different place now – I think all that was a great part of our learning process but our sound has really evolved, and im sure it will continue to do so. I’m just really enjoying experimenting in this synth-pop/80’s kind of space. As for other releases at the moment…I’m working on the follow up EP now and also have another really exciting collaboration that will go out as a single following that EP.

The best place to listen to our music is on Soundcloud. (Check it out here!)

TMN: Digital Farm Animals’ sound seems to draw on a number of varying influences from Radiohead to Nicolas Jaar to more poppy electronic like the Future Classic sounds coming out of Australia. What was your musical background and upbringing which led to the creation of such sonically textured music?

DFA: I’ve been really fortunate to have grown up listening to a really diverse selection of music – and most of that was originally not out of choice. My father has always been a massive music lover and was into a lot of progressive music, electronic/synth music and generally just abstract, alternative stuff- so I grew up listening to a lot of bands like Porcupine Tree, Genesis, Pink Floyd on the one hand, but then also guys like Art Of Noise, Duran Duran and a lot of Depeche Mode’s earlier stuff. As I started to discover more music for myself I got really into electronic music & there are just too many influential artists to mention really. I would definitely say guys like Thom Yorke, Four-tet, Fly-lo have really inspired me. Recently i’ve been revisiting a load of old 80’s records.

I think one of the hardest things for me has been trying to find my own sound. I’ve spent lots of different periods of my life trying to re-create music from all of those genre’s mentioned above, but I think that’s also been one of the most beneficial things for me as a producer. I think now its about reaching into all of those different sounds and putting them together in new ways.

TMN: What label will you be releasing on, or do you think for now DFA will be a self released project?

DFA: At the moment it’s planned to be self released.

TMN: Alright, let’s change the pace up a little bit. What is one song or record that you love, but are perhaps embarrassed to share with other people?

DFA: That’s easy: Hanson – “MMMBOP”

TMN: What are three things in your life that you simply cannot live without right now?

DFA:

1. Haagen-Dazs Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream

2. My Razor – I can grow a beard in like 2 hours.

3. Iphone Voice Recorder.

TMN: If your music was one Digital Farm Animal, what would it be and why?

DFA: A gigantic electric Wild male hog – I like my pigs big and manly. 😉

TMN: Well, thank you for taking some time to chat with us. We can’t wait to see what the future holds for Digital Farm Animals.

Big thanks for having us! Appreciated.

[NEW] Justin Timberlake – Take Back The Night

Posted by Baseer Ahmad - July 12, 2013

Justin Timberlake
Take Back The Night

Stream Only

The sequel to Justin Timberlake‘s The 20/20 Experience is set to arrive on September 30th, and today we finally have the first taste of what’s to come. While many of us still have the first album in rotation, it’s no secret that we’re eager to see what JT has in store for us this fall. “Take Back The Night” features a sound that’s unmistakably Timberlake, picking up where he last left off on March’s The 20/20 Experience. Just like JT led the revolution to reclaim “SexyBack” in 2006, he’s again leading another revival, this time hoping to rekindle magic on the dance floor with this lush, disco-tinged pop tune. Check out the single below, and see how it compares to the last album’s lead single, “Suit & Tie.” If you like it enough, make sure to grab yourself a copy on iTunes.

Disco
Soul

[Synth-Wave] Digital Farm Animals – Adore You feat. Ofei

Posted by Matthew Bloss - July 11, 2013

Digital Farm Animals
Adore You Feat. Ofei

Soundcloud

It really is such a pleasure witnessing so many styles of electronic music begin to receive their due credit, other than the typical Top-40 electro and dubstep that has been responsible for the coining of umbrella term “EDM” to the droves of mainstream buyers in the last three years. London’s Digital Farm Animals is the latest producer in a long line of somewhat overlooked burgeoning talents to come across our office speakers here at TMN, and with electronic intonations that owe a little love to artists like Four Tet & Nicolas Jaar to TEED and SBTRKT it was pretty easy to feature him along with single “Adore You” featuring pop singer/songwriter Ofei. “Adore You” fuses Ofei’s superlative vocal reverberations with a melody sounding as if it came straight off of M83’s timeless Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming, with a touch of some sensible but left-field pop. The tune comes as DFA’s first sampling of music from a forthcoming EP, Bugged Out, which drops on August 26. Check it out above, and drift into that dreamy slice of Thursday night a little early.

[Electro] Fryars – Cool Like Me

Posted by Baseer Ahmad - July 11, 2013

Fryars
Cool Like Me

Buy

With sweltering hot temperatures reaching record highs in some areas of the country, it’s important for us to have a way to stay cool amidst this recent heat wave. From across the pond, in comes UK producer Fryars to the rescue. The 22-year-old Londoner swaps the forlorn, lo-fi sound of previous singles like “Love So Cold” for something a bit on the groovier side this go around. The sonic shift may be shocking to some fans, but we welcome the change with open arms. Chill out to the epic disco-influenced ditty above, and stay tuned for more from Fryars, whose full length project, Power, is due for release some time later this year.