Exclusive 011: Phonon Records by Mandarinebeats.Com on Mixcloud

11th exclusive mixtape for Mandarinebeats blog, came from Phonon records France, one of the leading electro house 12″ labels in Europe. This mixtape faces the Phonon style fully. From classic electro house tunes to dirty electro bangers.

Phonon records interesting for us as a home label of Dick Lorentz – duo performing live shows from synth’s and drum machines, and duo who made a remix for our Gon Kontora label first release and moreover we are working on Hard Day ep with them. More information about DL and their release will be in future in their interview for MB.

And a couple of links:
Phonon Soundcloud
Phonon Myspace
Phonon Facebook

And now news from Volatile! Our friends Ziga and Jonas are preparing to be released at Mako Records! Before the Submission EP at our Gon Kontora!

This tracks were secret before now exept Rataliation. They weren’t played anywhere in podcast and shows in the internet, only at Volatile parties. So it’s really good, and one of the best releases at Mako Records.

Enjoy!

Nautilus EP by Volatile

Exclusive 010: The Mould by Mandarinebeats.Com on Mixcloud

A new exclusive guestmix for Mandrinebeats blog! The Mould! A young artist from well known Mako records, who already have 2 releases on it: Mad Soldier Takes a Rifle and Karma ep’s.

In this mix you will hear his Karma ep tunes, his unreleased remix on The W – Victim and also exclusive preview of Polymorphic remix on track Volatile – Submission, which will be released at our Gon Kontora label in two-three months.

Moreover this mixtape is an extra hot blend of dubstep,  techno, electro and break beat. Which will make you dance!

Have a joy!

The Mould Socials: Facebook, Myspace.

Look At Me подводит итоги года и предлагает выбрать лучший отечественный дебютный релиз 2011 года и наш выбор “Canicool – Canicool LP.

В финал со своим дебютным альбом Canicool – Canicool попали два ярых нео ковбоя, футуро-хулигана, свег-мэйстера и просто отличные парни Миша “Can” и Саня “Cool”.

Голосуем здесь

This is a free ep in support of new mastering and mixing company Outape from Ukraine. One of the remixes made by our label resident Nikita “The Other Side”. And made on very high level! Also there are remixes from Kievbass resident Koloah, and Ftct and original from Dubdelight.

I can not miss the quality of mastering

Download the hole release.

Dubdelight – You & Remixes (EP) by Outape

Before this release i knew Dismantle only like a man who did a blend of electro-house and dubstep. It is beyond believe but his tunes been released at Wheel & Deal Records and Biscuit Factory Records.

But now Dismantle appears with a good and strong oldschool sound of Jungle. Serious, bassy, groovy and nice! This release gets a complete confirmation on MB blog!

Buy release at Juno, Boomkat, Redeye, Chemical.

Terrain Records official website.

Terrain Records Facebook.

Dismantle socials: Soundcloud, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter.

Mandarinebeats.com exclusive 009: Thunderbird Juicebox by Mandarinebeats.Com on Mixcloud

 Hello there! Today on Mandarine Beats blog, a great day. Finally finished an interview with a Bmore rocker Jared Fite a.k.a. Thunderbird Juicebox! A man who have an outstanding support from people all over the world and America, who do not stops on one genre and blends all that he love in one “Melting pot” like a country he is living in.

Thunderbird Juicebox is a Baltimore’s purveyor of all things bassy and uptempo.

I’m very fortunate to have parents who are musically knowledgeable. For as long as I can remember, I was exposed to everything from jazz to blues to psychedelic to new wave, etc.

Travelling abroad is one of, if not my main pursuit. Musical career aside, I’m studying linguistics in college, hoping to pick up as many languages as possible so that I can fully experience the rest of the world.

Russia has always been a place of intrigue for me, in terms of culture. I’m embarrassed to admit that I can’t name many Russian producers beyond Mako Records’ lineup off the top of my head; not because I don’t listen, but mainly because I rarely notice the nationality of a producer. It isn’t something I avoid intentionally, I just focus on the origin of the music.

I’ve always had a strong affinity for Juke, you can definitely expect a lot more of that style from me in the near future.

I’ve produced Hip Hop tracks for a wide range of artists, from West Coast cats like KOLA VI, Royal-T and 2-Face (CA), to East Coast dudes like Tabi Bonney (DC), Verse (Baltimore), etc.

I have some evidence of genre-dabbling in my recent catalog, but the bulk of my work in those areas is still on its way. I’ve been studying styles like Dirty Dutch, Dubstep, Hard Electro, Baile Funk, Cumbia, and moombahton, and they’re being applied to many of my upcoming collaborations. I just always want to make sure that whatever I’m releasing displays a knowledge of the genre as much as a distinctly TBJB vibe.

My frequent free releases are just my way of adapting to the current music scene/market. I do plenty of production work for other artists that are sold/promoted/played by those artists only. Those are the situations where my production is more focused, there’s a particular sound I’m asked to create and I do it precisely. That’s cash in hand for tracks that are made to be marketable.

Then there are the tracks I have released through labels. Trenchant, Sounds of Sumo, and Moveltraxx have all released my originals and remixes through all of the major sources (Itunes/Beatport/Juno/etc) and that material has been heavily supported. The Bugout EP (on Trenchant) is on vinyl as well. When folks buy those releases, they’re letting me know that my personal style is just as marketable as whatever’s mainstream at the moment.

The tracks that I’m throwing out are songs that I feel like making. I’m not making them to target a specific market. I’m not trying to sell them. I just take familiar sounds, apply what I know, and turn it into something that gets me bouncing. But what gets me bouncing generally does well in the club, and releasing it for free puts it in a lot more clubs. People have told me that my material has dominated their DJ sets, that 45 straight minutes of my songs got dropped at a nightclub overseas, etc. That’s the icing on the cake. I’ve had some of my remixes officially picked up. I don’t think that would have happened if I was trying to sell those tracks unofficially.

Having said that, I’ll add that my soundcloud page is almost at its limit. I’ve got maybe one more track that I can upload, then who knows what I’ll do. I may extend my account, delete older tracks to make room for new ones, start releasing songs on bandcamp at a pay-what-you-want rate, or do a total 180 and make all of these freeloaders ante up. I think I like my freeloaders too much to cut them off, though.

My live sets involve a laptop and midi controllers instead of turntables, so I feel that my performances should go beyond simply mixing. I apply many of the techniques I use in production and remixing to my shows. So, in a way, focusing on production helps to improve what I do live, even if I’m not actively looking for opportunities. I take gigs when they’re offered to me, but I’ve never really found myself seeking them out. However, by the time this article is posted I’ll have had 2 releases picked up this summer, and several more coming out later this year. I plan on having plenty of reasons to celebrate the rest of 2011 and beyond, and I intend to do that by bringing my live sets back to the clubs in full force.

During my teenage years I was into very heavy music like doom metal/thrash/punk/hardcore, etc. I imagine that when I put down the guitar and picked up the sampler, it was probably a welcome change for them. They never really complained, though, and have always been supportive (even when I was just making loud noises).

My guitar experience started when I was in high school. I played in a bunch of punk/thrash/metal bands; all very heavy, discordant music. I actually got my start in production by recording and mashing up metal riffs, and layering them over different kinds of beats. If I’m ever able to recover my hard drive from 2005-2007, I’d love to let people hear how bizarre my first songs were. It was like orchestral metal mixed with DnB. I still record guitar progressions for some of my work, and my old Sunn0))) beta amps are still put to use when I want to add a special kind of dirtiness to my basslines.

Whenever I hear somebody breaking down Baltimore Club music to somebody who isn’t familiar, it’s always the usual formulaic description… around 130bpm, layered 808 kick in an 8/4 pattern, slap on a version of the “Think” or “Sing Sing” breaks, chop/loop vocals, and add horns/synth to taste.

Yeah, that’s the formula that you hear in the majority of Bmore tracks. You can flip any style of music using that formula and make it bang. But how distinguishable will it be from the bmore tracks anybody else is putting out?

The trick is making a sound that is unmistakably yours. A lot of that comes from building your own sample library. The bmore kits you can find online are a good start, but I prefer to resample/detune/mangle those break loops to get an additional intimacy out of the sound. Go through all of your favorite songs, and find your favorite parts of those songs. Take out or record any isolated moments in the tracks (individual drum hits, vocal solos, breakdowns, a few bars of really dumb lyrics, etc) and save them. Load them up into a sampler or sequencer, tweak it up, and build something new with it. With enough practice, you’ll be able to produce sounds that people will recognize, but won’t be able to easily identify.

Look at the legends and heavy hitters of the genre. You hear Blaqstarr’s club catalog, with the eerie melodies and trippy modified garage breaks? There’s nobody else doing it quite like that, but his tracks are undisputed club classics. Say Wut’s wonky pitch-tuned vocal cuts have been imitated but never quite duplicated. You hear Rod Lee’s grimy vinyl cuts, no mistaking who it is. The Dew Doo Kids, KW Griff, Scottie B, and DJ Technics all have their own takes on the basic formula that make the songs distinctly theirs. The Brick Bandits up in Jersey have a faster, more frenetic take on the formula that’s just as established as what I hear locally. DJ Sega holds down a variation of the sound in Philly. There’s a huge catalog stacking up from the Bmore Original crew, dudes like James Nasty, DJ Booman, Murder Mark, Benny Stixx, Jon Kwest… all of those dudes are taking new sounds and styles and reimagining them through the sounds of Baltimore Club. All of these folks continue to be an influence, and are the reason why this genre stays live and relevant.

I can not ignore the fact of  Jareds living in Baltimore City. One of the style-cities of the world, like Bristol and Detroit for example. I think it is very intresting for people to know about life in such kind of cities. To know about atmosphere and life in them. How, how did the people make them to be “style city”.

But i decided to ask Jared not about “the city” but about an opportunity of a city to become famous in a single style of music. And here are Jareds thoughts about my question.

“The ability of a certain city or region to establish a style as its own is definitely more difficult now, mostly because of the internet’s domination of the culture/industry.

All of the “style cities” i know were coined prior to the turn of the millenium. Music was still sold primarily on hard copies such as CDs, and as a result the sound stayed in the local area where its sold.

Look at a genre that’s been established since music distribution went digital. We’ll use Moombahton as an example. Dave Nada coined the genre in DC, but because of the online buzz, it instantly took off as a global sound. Most of the influence for this style of music has come from all over the world.

It isn’t necessarily just a matter of globalized promotion, though. Because of the internet, producers and artists are being influenced by styles of music they may never have been exposed to. Prior to this, a sound would stay in a region and be developed/refined until it caught enough hype for radio play, or a nod from a mainstream act. DJs used to be limited to the vinyl in their crates, then the CDs they could get ahold of. Now a DJ can surf a handful of blogs for 10 minutes and assemble a “digital crate” of hot songs from around the world. It actually requires effort to be obscure right now.

That’s not to say that genres like Baltimore Club are totally original and free from outside influences. The pioneers of this style were influenced by a mix of miami bass, UK breaks and detroit/chicago house. However, the development of the sound was much more gradual, in part because these influences were not as easily accessible (and because production/sampling hadn’t been made cheap and simple by programs like fruityloops/reason/live)

So, is it possible to for a city to invent and claim a new style of music as its own? Absolutely. I think it takes a special sense of unity within the local scene to stand behind and develop a style, though, especially when there are eager young producers behind computers all over the world that are ready to add their twist to the next big sound.”

And in the end the sweetiest moment of the post. Free and exclusive tracks from Thunderbird Juicebox for a Mandarine Beats blog.

And by the way, in the mixtape you can find three remixes from TBJB on Volatile tunes, that will be released at Gon Kontora label in the nearest future!

Nas Dorovye!

Thunderbird Juicebox – Roll It Up by Thunderbird Juicebox

Thunderbird Juicebox – Check It by Thunderbird Juicebox

Thunderbird Juicebox – The Hardest by Thunderbird Juicebox

And now some links!

TBJB Facebook, Soundcloud, Bandcamp, Twitter

A new ravey dubstep tunes from Matt-U on consistently excellent label Subway Music.

Matt-U – Straightened Up EP by Subway Music Group

A huge Christmas give away from my big Friends Volatile! At this moment Ziga and Jonas, preparing four releases, one for Mako Records and three for our label Gon Kontora! Our label have Submission, From Beyond and Ignition tunes, which are already remixed by Polymorphic, The W, Thunderbird Juicebox, Blackmass Plastics, Genetix, Dick Lorentz, Infracid, Sunko, Roby Howler and Crim.

Merry Christmas people!

Volatile – Checkmate by Volatile