I find myself annoyed at myself that I like another Kanye West song because the guy’s such a megalomaniac. But seriously. This video pretty much rules, and the song isn’t bad, either. Sigh.

Tags: Music, video

New tunes I’ll share with you, that I am quite enjoying. Sorry about the grammar there.

• “Pretty Girls Make Mothers” by The Remote (Ambient Mix): Chilled/Sad. Get it on Beatport.com.
• “Delorean” by Flux Capacitor (Noel Sanger Remix): Straightforward cheerful trance. Get it on Beatport.com
•  ”Downtime” by Air Hustlers (Kenneth Thomas Remix): Great stuff–my type of tune. Energizing (but not overstated) progressive female vocal trance with that circa 2003 sound I like so much from Mr. Thomas. Underrated DJ in my opinion. Get it on Beatport.com. Lyza’s pick of these tracks. Quite emphatically like this one.
• “Endless Existence” by Mike Mikhjian (Soliquid Walking on Clouds Remix): Mike Mikhjian is from Detroit (which belies the genre of this track) and is only 18. This track is somewhat similar to the “Delorean” one but slightly more energetic. Slightly. Get it on AudioJelly.com. It’s not technically released yet.
• “Jupiter Calling” by Thomas Schwartz (Original Mix): Nice, straight-ahead, smile-inducing progressive house that’s getting a lot of airplay.
• “System Addict” by Plump DJs: Something totally different, a big/breaks track in the tradition of the Chemical Brothers and certain older tracks by U.N.K.L.E. Great stuff for people not into the ditziness of trance. This one’s got pretty wide distribution; you can find it on iTunes, for example.

Tags: dance, Music, progressive, trance

I hate to keep denigrating poor ol’ Mr. Corsten, who is a world-renowned trance DJ, and responsible for some things that definitely make me happy, but he continues to crack me up.

This installment: doesn’t translate well/dorkiness. He does a weekly show (which I listen to) called “Ferry Corsten’s Countdown”. Said radio show plays “jingles” or sound clips between tracks. These little slogans are a version of bemusing cheesy lame that I’d like to share with you. Right now you can go to Ferry Corsten’s Web site and vote for the “best” one. You can vote for these gems (be sure to imagine them shouted in a strong northern European accent):

• “A DJ who operates above the law ” (leading, with something like 35% of the votes)
• “Armed with vinyl he conquers the world for those who doubt his skills!”
• “On a crusade for mass hysteria by spinning the wheels of steel!”

He operates above the law? In what capacity? What exactly is he conquering, now? Granted, maybe these started out in his native Dutch? Mass hysteria? DJs still say “wheels of steel” with a straight face?

Having thus disrespected, I must say that this week’s show was pretty good.

Tags: Music, the netherlands, trance

This is the album cover for Ferry Corsten’s album “L.E.F”. For some reason it just screams Extreme Dildohead to me. Although there is a reasonably decent track on it (”Into the Dark”), I’d suggest trying to find a remix of it anyway as the album version is somewhat effete.

Tags: dance, dork, trance

I just bought Underworld’s new album, Oblivion with Bells, from iTunes, mostly on the strength of the song “Beautiful Burnout,” which I heard on the radio and was like all hells yes. Careful, though, Oblivion is unapologetically dance-centric with just a hit of dark industrial yearnings. All the better for me, but less ponderous and broad-reaching than earlier Underworld releases. So far, so good.

Tags: dance, itunes