The Future of Music Будущее музыки El futuro de la música 音樂的未來 مستقبل الموسيقى
Following the release of her feature-heavy dance-pop EP, Danger, last year, south London’s Katy B is back with a raving new tune called “What Love Is Made Of.” The underground music-loving songstress takes it back to the ‘90s dancefloor, laying her disco-style vocal arrangement over a euphoric house beat. Check it out after the jump.
Fans of Dengue Fever in Europe in South East Asia have reasons to get amped for their upcoming summer tour. The group will be performing their signature combination of 60′s Cambodian rock, psychedelic surf, and girl-group sounds adding new music to their repertoire for the first time since 2011. They’ve been working on a new EP and also recently launched a new label, Tuk Tuk Records.
Highlights of the tour include four dates in Cambodia and a private performance in the David Lynch-owned Club Silencio in Paris (and we’re curious as to whether it’s anything like the one in Mulholland Drive).
Asia
May 31: Phnom Penh, Cambodia @ FCC
June 1: Siem Reap, Cambodia @ FCC
June 5: Phnom Penh, Cambodia @ Memory International Film Heritage Festival
June 6: Phnom Penh, Cambodia @ Bophana Center
June 7: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam @ Cargo Bar at Q4
Europe
July 3: Barcelona, Spain @ Apolo
July 5: Bilbao, Spain @ Alhondigabilbao
July 7: Malmo, Sweden @ Pildammsteatern
July 9: Paris, France @ La Maroquinerie
July 10: Paris, France @ Silencio, (Private Show)
July 12: Trencin, Slovakia @ Pahoda Festival
July 14: Ulan-Ude, Buryatia @ Voice of Nomads Int. Festival
July 16: Munich, Germany @ Feierwerk Kranhalle
July 19: Berlin, Germany @ Haus der Kulturen der Welt/Water Music Festival
Last night was an historic night for New York City’s nightlife. Four DJ crews representing different cultural sounds competed in a Jamaican-style sound clash in Red Bull Music Academy’s Culture Clash 2013 at Roseland Ballroom. Each crew created massive customized speaker set-ups, dug deep into their remix and dubplate stocks, created customized dis tracks, and brought out insane guest appearances. The clash was judged on the volume of the crowd’s response after each DJ set, so a fair amount of theatrics was required in order to thrill the crowd. Every crew put their sweat and blood on the line not just for the musical genres that they represent, but the communities that they’ve helped to build around these sounds over the years. Let’s recap each crew’s performance:
It’s that time again, Iggsters and Iggettes! You have until next Friday, 11 am, USA Eastern Standard Time to vote for your favorite new artist on MTV Iggy, using the bottom poll! We’ve rounded up five amazing new artists from around the world and we want you to vote for one to be our next artist of the week. Get to know each one below and then get clicking.
Math rock is a dry, dour, all but defunct form, but groups like Ireland’s Enemies are making that desert bloom. While they are melodically and rhythmically intricate, their music feels light yet powerful, full of explosive build ups and soaring riffs. It’s sometimes light on lyrics, and those that are there can be indistinct, but even when there aren’t lyrics it’s hard to fight the feeling that the songs are all about friendship, impossibly romantic love, and beating the worst possible odds. You’d shout along, if there was a chorus.
YADi doesn’t put her Algerian heritage out in front as the main thing about her. The singer is a lot of other things other than North African: a fantastic pop songwriter, a soul music fan, an avid raver, a Londoner. But one of the things that’s so cool about YADi is that she has figured out how to consistently inject little bits of the Maghreb into her songcraft without relying on it as a gimmick.
Brothers Raul and Mexia (pronounced mex-EYE-ah) Hernández began their music careers together in 2010 when they released a song and video on YouTube about anti-immigrant discrimination called “Todos Somos Arizona” (We Are All Arizona). The song proved that las manzanas had not fallen far from the tree, as their father is bassist/vocalist Hernán Hernández of norteño legends Los Tigres del Norte. The brothers, however, do not stick to traditional music. The next generation of the family merges Mexican cumbia and ballads with hip-hop, reggaetón, house, and “American Idol” contemporary.
The other-worldly landscapes of the Australian desert are among the most beautiful in the world. Melbourne-based group Hiatus Kaiyote seem to have emerged fully formed from its burnt sienna-hued earth, bringing their folksy neo-soul along with them. Nai Palm (vocals, guitar), Paul Bender (bass, laptop), Simon Mavin (keyboard), and Perrin Moss (drums percussion sampler) capitalize on this fact in the desert-set video for “Nakamarra,” which is the perfectly encapsulates their heritage and their sound.
Rudimental scored their first number one hit single in 2012 with “Feel The Love,” which is partly thanks to the haunting, soulful vocal contribution of a young man named John Newman. The 22-year-old, who was born and raised in Yorkshire, England, was scouted by the beat-making foursome at a time when his life needed change. Now residing in London full-time, his focus on music has never been more steady. John Newman has an instantly recognizable voice, a raspy one with plenty of power and old soul, and with Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, James Blake and Adele being his main musical influences, it’s clear which road he plans on taking it down.
Congratulations, to our artist of the week, Gazelle! The New York-based alt-pop band headed by South Africa’s Xander Ferreira bound over most of the competition in our artist of the week poll, but it was a close race with Japanese rockers Josy to the finish line. In the end, it was Gazelle by nose!
Listen to “R.U.N.” the single that first caught out attention.
The fact that global bass trends cycle from one undiscovered subculture to the next (today, Chicago juke! tomorrow, moombahsoul!) isn’t a new breakthrough in popular music. Back in 1961, Chubby Checker proclaimed “Let’s twist again, like we did last summer,” trying to ride the popularity of “The Twist” for as long has he could. Way before that swingin’ hepcats went from dancing the Charleston to doing the St. Louis shag.
Edu K’s Do the Brega EP is a clever play on how quickly global bass trends become passé. Why not go all out and “do the brega” now whether it’s “hot” or not? The Brazilian producer put together a balls-out celebration of Brazilian technobrega in all of its “cheesy techno” glory. Baile funkeiros Bonde do Role are the perfect guest stars on “Dança Da Bicha Manca,” adding their quirky art school spunk to the mix:
Nicole Moudaber’s debut album, Believe, is tailor-made for techno-heads or those who have forgotten the power of the continuous groove. Fans of EDM’s modulations might not remember the time when the music listening experience wasn’t as emotionally manipulative. The roller-coaster of bass and wobble is a great outlet for aggression, but as a DJ and producer, Nicole continues that hi-hat techno tradition of getting you moving to a beat and never letting go.
Born in Nigeria, raised in Beirut, and resident of the UK, Nicole has said that she’s influenced by techno legends Danny Tenaglia, Junior Vasquez, and techno legend Carl Cox. Believe is a full-force 92 minutes of pounding four-on-the-floor that wraps you up in its unrelenting progression. Single “Take Hold” is 9 minutes of heart-pounding industrial music that drips sweat and sex.
Listen to a preview of the album, released yesterday on Drumcode. You can also take a peek at MTV Iggy’s interview with Nicole where she talks about the influence of Nigerian percussion on her attraction to the beat.
Endeguena Mulu is an up-and-coming Ethiopian producer from Addis Ababa making experimental bass music that incorporates dub, dubstep, EDM, and traditional sounds. I haven’t really heard anything like it. His compositions are artistic, danceable, and maintain a nice balance between dark/heavy and light/pop—all with an African edge. In order to understand his unique musical perspective, I asked him a few questions:
Do you have a specific way you approach incorporating Ethiopian sounds into your music?
It depends. Ethiopia is a multilingual and multi-ethnic country with over 80 different cultures living together with each culture having very diverse music forms. You can imagine the wide range of sound textures and rhythms I have to choose from to mix on my palette. We also have a very unique modal system (four main scales and very unique instruments that are not aligned to the western tempered tuning system). So, yeah, it depends on what type of music I am doing, on what my inspiration is, and on what rhythm I chose to work on when I’m doing the piece. Actually, I think it is fair to say, whether I’m using a sample or an original recording, my main ally is experimentation.
Do you feel you are a part of an African electronic/experimental-electronic community?
There is an African electronic music community out there, yes. There are a lot of great sounds coming from Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Egypt, Kenya, Zimbabwe, and from right here in Ethiopia also. I do feel like I am part of this new wave of young African musicians that are trying to find their place in the continents’ music scene. Are we interconnected enough? The answer is no in my opinion, because it is a new scene here and it’s just starting to grow. I would really love to see more collaborations coming from the continent when it comes to electronic music. For the moment I am working on my own little collaboration with a friend of mine called Mictek (AKA Mic), another electronic musician from Ethiopia. We are working on a shared EP that might grow into an album. We are teaming up with different musicians from here in Ethiopia and I am also working on my own debut EP አንድ (ande which means one) at the same time.
Check out Enduguena’s track “Autonomie 101″ below from his soundcloud page. It opens with an 8-bit melody reminiscent of a Lady Gaga banger, but after the bass drops like an lead anchor at 0:45 the song brings you along for a whole new aural journey.
