World Premiere: Lauren Flax feat. Sia - "You've Changed (Drlkt Freddie remix)"

Last year, "You've Changed", the bouncy house pop tune penned by Lauren Flax featuring the vocals of her friend Sia, was one of the brightest spots on the sun when it came to undeniably fun and near-perfect tracks for any mood, especially those filled with smiles. It was also one of the most remixed tracks of 2008, with the aftermath of the release seeing edits from so many rad faces (cf. Junior Sanchez, Flufftronix, Blogula, Dances With White Girls, Michael Meds, Kate Simko).

Sia, seeing as how she liked "You've Changed" so much from the heart, decided to re-record the tune for her upcoming album We Are Born, sending it out for free all over the Internet just 48 hours ago. Sia's version is a much more Nile Rodgers funk approach to the song, with expanding guitar solos and reverbed feelings throughout and Sia's vocals really up front here, because, well, it's a Sia track now and not just a "featuring Sia" cut. And naturally, now that it's been two days since the new version's release, we've got our hands on one more edit of the original to fall in love with, from locals Drlkt Freddie, who take the pop anthem out of the poppy fields and into the rubber forests, with an extended six-plus-minute runtime and a bath of revered electro notions and stuttered metronomic beats. The edit will see official light when Flax puts out the third (!) release of the single.

(mp3)    Lauren Flax feat. Sia - You've Changed (Drlkt Freddie remix)

Godspeed!

Video: Erik Hassle - "Someday (The Strokes cover)"

Erik Hassle, the well-coiffed young lad you've heard us rave about in the past, continues his onslaught of terrificness with this, an acoustic cover of the Is This It track "Someday" by The Strokes. Not much else to be said for this, because it's a pretty great clip of just Erik and another guitarist hanging out and playing the tune. His voice is well fit for the song's structure, and doing away with Julian Casablancas's vocoder-like non-emoting makes us really rethink the early catalog of the group and what it would've been like to have Julian actually "singing" the tunes. Never mind that, though, we'd actually rather listen to Hassle's voice.

(mp3)    Erik Hassle - Hurtful (Zombie Disco Squad remix)

Godspeed!

CONTESTS: Create a promo video for the 2009 Blip Festival and get a free 3-day pass

The 2009 Blip Festival, the raddest gathering of 8bit and chiptune musicians, designers and enthusiasts, takes place next month, December 17-19. Today, the organizers of the festival have gone forward with a pretty excellent idea for a contest and prize-pack, what they're calling the "Blip Your Own Adventure" video competition. Filmmakers, videographers, animators, pretty much anyone interested in entering can do so by creating their own 60-second spot.

One select winner will have their video screened at the 2009 Blip Festival, with runners-up linked on the official Blip Festival website. The grand prize winner will also receive the following exciting prizes:

01 A Blip Festival 3-Day Pass
02 1 copy of Plogue Bidule, modular audio software
03 1 copy of Plogue Chipsounds, vintage 8bit-era sound chips emulator

Post your videos to the official Blip Festival Vimeo channel: http://www.vimeo.com/groups/26883, share on Facebook, or use Twitter with the hashtag #blip09 or just include @blipfestival in your tweet.

The rules:

01 Title must begin with “The Blip Festival 2009”
02 1 minute or less
03 No offensive material (use your best judgment, obviously)
04 Must contain dates of the festival and the following keywords: The Bell House, 8bitpeoples, The Tank and blipfestival.org
05 Viral spoofs highly encouraged

Enter now, and enter often. Contest ends December 11.

(mp3)    Twilight Electric - Chewing Gum

Godspeed!

News: The Young Punx bring out teaser tunes from Mashpop & Punkstep

With a new digital EP, the split "Simple Pleasures/Like Dat" release, the gents in The Young Punx have showcased their continued evolution in purpose and sound, developing a much more prevalent punk/thrash element to their usual menacing dance formula. "Simple Pleasures" is straight up tape hiss punk, with female vocals, a dubby breakdown and elements of style completely unrelated to the club world and rather points its compass towards dive bar aesthetics and back alley goings-on. "Like Dat" is downtempo at its best, a seething drum stomp with speak-rap vocals (courtesy of Count Bass D) and as a B-side to "Pleasures", it acts as an opposite pole to the A-side's straight-thrash mentality. The crew's second LP, Mashpop & Punkstep, will see release in the near future.

(mp3)    The Young Punx - Simple Pleasures

(mp3)    The Young Punx feat. Count Bass D - Like Dat

Godspeed!

Emerging: Ellie Goulding

(photo by Camilla Treharne)

The Internet's been pretty on fire lately with coverage of this UK-based electro pop talent Ellie Goulding, and we'll go ahead and pour a little more kerosene on the blaze with our praise, albeit with some points of warning. Based on her second single, "Under The Sheets" b/w "Fighter Plane", and its handful of remixes from Neon Gold Records, a lot of hyperbole has been thrown Goulding's way, like pasta to a wall, all kinds of learned and no-talent chefs alike attempting to see what sticks.

We, for one, are infatuated with her voice and the compliment paid it by the production work of Starsmith, but only time will tell if Ellie Goulding just gets filed away with other blog-hyped stories (you know who you are) or if she's got the chops and consistency to power through it all. We're not nay-saying, mind you, but we feel a little concerned for how bright the light shining on her is right now and how quickly the bulb can burn out. We're positive she'll see a bit of crossover fame from all of the heralding happening and what with songwriters and stars like Lady Gaga sitting in wait at the forefront of the pop conscience, Ellie's already one-upped that game without the need of pretense or gimmickry. It's the voice alone and the writing that rushes out of the gates, avant visual representation or no.

(mp3)    Ellie Goulding - Under The Sheets

(mp3)    Ellie Goulding - Starry Eyed

(mp3)    Ellie Goulding - Black & Gold (Sam Sparro cover)

Godspeed!

Video: Riton & Primary 1 - "Radiates"

Proving their inability to make non-destroying epic dance anthems, Primary 1 & Riton are back again with "Radiates", a sticky, rubber ball bounce house track that permeates and penetrates the nervous systems, causing body ticks to become pronounced movement, minds to shed inhibitions and souls to catch fire. The duo don space suits and compose the piece in a chamber looking out whilst a handful of figures shake and pop out in a smoky corridor, bodies stretched and pleated and full of vigor. They're disfigured and (we think) zombies who break through the chamber wall for a space dance party. It's just how we'd imagine a trek into a corner of outer space filled with dancing zombies would be.

(mp3)    Riton & Primary 1 – Who’s There? (AC Slater/Nick Thayer/Mat Can’t remix)

Godspeed!

Live: Crystal Fighters playing NYC tonight for new "Crush" party

In a new monthly party curated by Ruthie from Famous Friends and Jen Lyon from MeanRed (two party promotion entities that never quit and never cease to amaze) called "Crush", the basement of Santos Party House is being taken over tonight by new huge thing act from Spain, Crystal Fighters. The band just this week released their new single via Kitsune, "I Love London", and they're known all over Europe for the destructive live sets and sweat-filled parties they're involved with. Joining them will be DJ sets from Elroy of France's Bisou GTI crew and Jason and Chaz from Palms Out Sounds.

Details:

Santos Party House (basement)
Doors 7pm
5 bucks at the door

(mp3)    Crystal Fighters - I Love London (Kid Cola remix)

Godspeed!

News: The Joy Formidable schedule more dates + talk debut record

(photo by Toby Hudson)

We told you guys a few months back about the upcoming tour dates for the indie pop trio that stole our hearts and blew our minds this year (top 10 of ours for sure with A Balloon Called Moaning), The Joy Formidable as they'd serve as support in Europe for The Temper Trap and select US dates for Passion Pit and you can see the full tilt schedule on the band's MySpace page now. The trio have also just released a whole handful of UK dates that they'll be playing in the spring, months from now. It's been a busy year for the crew, what with videos and singles and an EP and live album and YouTube banning one of their clips, so when they told us they're also prepping their debut full length, we got to wondering where they'd be able to even fit in that time into their rigorous schedule.

(mp3)    The Joy Formidable - Whirring

Godspeed!

World Premiere: Delphic - "This Momentary (LightsoverLA remix)"

For this remix of the track we're declaring (in November, mind you) as the track of the year, "This Momentary" from the Manchester electronic act Delphic, the guys in Phoenix-based LightsoverLA stress the song's original swirling progression, leaving the window open a lot more for the sounds to escape, like escaping warm air into the wintry night. The vocal lines are still there, mostly intact and mostly in full, which helps in nailing in further how good the track by itself, notwithstanding the remix, was. That's not to say that the remix is constructed in a way that deters the listener from the power of the original but rather softens the edges of the frame, rounding corners and reducing the sharp and jagged in lieu of a much more elliptical edit.

(mp3)    Delphic - This Momentary (LightsoverLA remix)

Godspeed!

Photos: Russ Chimes at Le Poisson Rouge on November 14

After a quick last-minute venue change, the kids from Famous Friends and Finger On The Pulse joined forces last Saturday night to bring the London, UK member of the Valerie Collective, Russ Chimes, to NYC alongside a very rad live performance from our dear friend Kap10Kurt and DJ sets by the FF crew and the FOTP twins. Kurt's show, a two-piece set-up that featured a hit-responsive light-up snare (pretty much the coolest thing we've seen in a long time, gimmickry aside), was sidetracked in the middle due to tech problems, but he was taking it in stride and VDRK got an extra fifteen minutes of DJ time to cover the tracks. When Russ came on, he immediately slayed the crowd. From top to bottom, the dancefloor was filled to the brim for his dreamy set. More and more we hear people say that he's such a force as a producer and DJ and we've been one of those people since he destroyed that Brooklyn house party long ago. The night was full of fun and dancing/sweating and a ton of our friends were there, and what's really better than that? Nothing, that's right, nothing. Also, we played Super Mario Brothers (the original NES version homies) backstage with Chris from Zambri and a few girls from Holland of all places, which in and of itself was worth it's weight in gold bars. We mean the video game, not the Holland girls, duh.

(mp3)    Russ Chimes - Afterburner

Godspeed!