I’ve got little to nothing going on in my life and I still always wait until the last possible second to write these weekly updates. In a feeble attempt to fight procrastination, posts will come on Thursdays, before 5PM ET. So there’s that. Also, Summer is ending and the awe-inspiring seasonal experience known to all as Autumn is here for a few months. Why is Fall the best time of the year? Apart from the obvious (NFL, foliage, new TV, Movember) this is the period where festivals have passed. In others words, the anthemic mainstream crap is replaced by more artistic efforts. Oh and I’m going to assume, what with the single comment that was left on the last post, that you guys don’t know how to leave one. It’s real simple: click where it says ‘0 comments’ right below the title and it should take you straight to the form (you can also click the post title and scroll to the bottom of the page). That being said, please join me on this week’s journey through EDM.

     I’ve always been a little critical of the following adage: “Good things come in threes.” After all, regular three-leaf clovers ain’t lucky, the Redskins’ three RBs annihilate fantasy football, NBC fired Dan Harmon after the 3rd season of Community and the digit itself birthed the most overused, annoying, gag-inducing emoticon that exists today: ‘<3.’ However, this skepticism is easily turned around by a recent 3-person collaboration on Armada’s Armind imprint.

     What do you get when you cross a seasoned veteran, a burgeoning youngster and an enchanting vocalist? An instant classic, that’s what. Comfortably sitting atop Beatport’s trance chart is “Must Be the Love,” a collaborative effort between Arty, Nadia Ali and BT. It’s always fun to pick out which part of a collaboration comes from whom, but in this track, those distinctions are quite blurred. The soothing piano loops, the strings and xylophone in the breakdown and the indescribably epic lead all seem to be hybrids of Arty, Ali and BT’s styles. These sort of team efforts are always the best; instead of each member bringing forward their usual tendencies, a whole new style is born. Whether you’re a producer, an EDM fan, a casual listener or a genuine newcomer, this track is a must-have.

Arty, Nadia Ali & BT – Must Be the Love (Original Mix)
Released on September 17th on Armind
Beatport

     The number of times I collectively listen to, think about and write about Eric Prydz and his friends’ music is so substantial that I’m pretty sure it borders on obsession. That’s saying something, considering my currently school-less mind is as empty and needy as a slutty orifice, utterly open to any sort of pseudo-phallus necessary to fill the void. What have I used to please my figurative schmegina, you ask? Look no further than Jeremy Olander’s first release on Cr2 records.

     Featured in his Creamfields set that I posted a couple of weeks back, “Rorschach” and “The Rose Law” are some of the best progressive tunes to come out in a while. Rorschach is named after the character from the Watchmen (I asked Olander) which frankly makes me like Jeremy even more. The Rose Law is a mystery to me, but if you google it, you get a big law firm in Arkansas. I’m lazy and I have to leave for work, that’s how I’m describing these ones. Don’t let my silence fool you; they be goood.

Jeremy Olander – Rorschach / The Rose Law
Released on September 17th on Cr2 Records
Beatport

     On almost every occasion, when I fall hard for a track, I need to temper how much I listen to it, lest I start to hate it instead. During the infamous Super8 & Tab interview that we never actually posted to the blog, we asked the Finnish duo if they ever got tired of hearing their songs over and over again. “Tell me about it,” was the answer we got, without the guys missing a beat. It’s too bad they don’t play progressive, because I’d love to see how long they’d keep this one in their sets.

     I’ve been constantly listening to Guy J’s PM mix of Gill Norris’ “Forme” for a little over two weeks and I’m still in love with it. It’s one of those tracks that you trick yourself into thinking you’ve heard before because of the original’s widespread acceptance as a classic and its presence on James Holden’s famous Balance 005 mix compilation. Guy J’s 2012 interpretation of the tune is really more of a updating than a remix; the lasting elements are almost identical to those on Gill Norris’ masterpiece. The modern spin the percussion receives and the companion the melody is introduced with both do their job of giving the PM mix more of a club feel. Guy J does a heads-up job of keeping the original’s lead synth and melody intact, as this is the heart of the song. The bassline is also slightly tweaked, as it becomes something a little smoother, less prominent and less in line with the mains, thus pushing the track’s eerie demeanor to the next level. For fear of over-selling and/or misrepresenting this fantastic piece of music, I’ll stop describing and simply let you have a listen.

Gill Norris – Forme (Guy J PM Mix)
Released on August 24th on Subtract Music
Beatport – iTunes

     Another gig-packed couple of weeks upcoming in Montreal. Tonight, both Underworld and the Telus Theater are booked for AutoÉrotique and Cazzette, respectively. Friday night belongs to our city’s elite clubs; Stereo hosts Subb-an and Circus welcomes Max Graham and Protoculture. Prolific German DJ/producer Thomas Gold is here on Saturday, as he spins a set at New City Gas, after which Montreal’s own Mr. Jean Louis takes over our favorite Afterhours club. Next week’s notable events all take place on Saturday. French keytarist Joachim Garraud’s solo show at New CIty Gas is followed by Chus & Ceballos’ return to Stereo and Etienne Ozborne’s set at Circus. Have a great weekend!

It’s been a real, real long time since my last post but I guess that just means I have a lot of music to share. There have been a lot of awesome albums released during that time, I’m thinking mainly of Armin’s Universal Religion and Gareth’s Sound of Garuda compilations, W&W’s Impact and Camo and Krooked’s Cross the Line. If you haven’t checked them out yet, I highly recommend them especially if you’ve got some extra time over the holidays.

I’ll start it off with an awesome Red Hot Chilli Peppers remix that was probably one of my favourite tracks from Electric Zoo this summer and finally got released this past month. This song has been remixed so many times but I think this is the only one that does it justice really. It’s definitely a huge crowd pleaser and anywhere it gets played the crowd always gets in and starts singing.

So both Arty and Mat Zo have had monster years and so to cap it off they released a new single together in December called Mozart. I personally love it but it seems to have divided fans since many just wanted Rebound pt. II and it wasn’t necessarily as trancey as they wanted. Well fuck it, haters gonna hate, the track is crazy (although the video is utterly horrible).

Alright, so if you like drum & bass, you’ve probably already listened to the Camo & Krooked album (I’m REALLY late on this one but it’s so good I had to talk about it) and if not you’re missing out. I didn’t know much about them before, other than their Sweet Shop Remix, so the album was a great surprise. My favourite track is, without a doubt, Run Riot which just pumped me up every morning and probably caused the nice people at St-Hyacinthe to think I was crazy.

This second track started off as a great remix to Deadmau5’ Raise Your Weapon before he vetoed the release because he didn’t like it. Oh well, since they had just sampled the vocals, they pretty much said “Fuck that Shit!”, put new vocals and released it as its own track.Camo

Finally, I just had a few mashups to share with you guys. They are a lot more “poppy” then what I usually listen to but I am a huge sucker for good mashups. I recommend you check out these two guys’ site since they put up all their tracks for free downloads and they have quite a few gems.

E.T. Feels Starry Eyed (3LAU Remash) by 3LAU
Kap Slap - AA - One Rolling Love (Club Mix) by Kap Slap

I can’t say I like every part of the tracks (especially not that 3 second Flo Rida interlude), but they managed to use many songs I didn’t really like to make one I did so I believe that deserves some respect. So anyways, you can check out their soundclouds with the description of their tracks here: 3LAU & Kap Slap.

In the spirit of being cool, I’ve decided to start off the post the way Gareth started his podcast a few weeks back with a crushing track by Dada Life.

White Noise Red Meat – Dada Life

I Will be the Same (feat. Emma Hewitt ) – Gareth Emery

                        Snapping Alligator Turtle is without a doubt the badass animal of the day, i mean, look at him, it’s like if the Hulk, Batman and a tank fused into one being then got turned into an animal.

Next remix is from John O’Callaghan and, for what he lacks in hair, he makes up for in skill. Check out the original to, it’s massive.

Melt to the Ocean (John O’Callaghan Remix) – Cosmic Gate                  How fucking wonderful it is to see a big ball of fire… melt to the ocean

Gotta love all these Cosmic Gate remixes being released with their Back 2 the Future album release. Speaking of Cosmic Gate, they recently announced their presence at Bal en Blanc in April. I could hardly be more excited for this event (except if Afrojack and/or Ferry got announced obviously). We are currently looking at Above & Beyond, Tiësto, Ben Gold, Cosmic Gate.. oh and did I forget Markus Schulz? That’s right! Markus Schulz! Missing a couple of people in the Main room (house room), my bet is on Deadmau5 being booked.

Alright so next main event is lining up to be Paul van Dyk in a couple of  weeks. However, I understand that he isn’t super well known to most of you so I’ll try to post a couple of his songs in the near future. For now, this is something i found on the Armada list that kept me from listening in class today.

10 in 01 (Paul van Dyk Club Mix) – Members of Mayday

Few remixes including a really chill one of a trance classic by Mt. Eden, only reason that i found it is because of some hater on YouTube that referenced it as being shit… Thank you closed minded trance fans that say that trance isn’t good anymore and nothing is good nowadays anyways! But let us not get carried away, there’s also a great Schossow remix and a Oliver Smith remix that eclipses the original (that’s right, the original was NOT that good).

Zara (Oliver Smith Remix) - Arty

The Greater Good (Marcus Schossow Remix) – Judge Jules

Saltwater (Mt. Eden Remix) – Chicane

One last thing, although we hate the place with a passion (see Justin’s past epic rant) we are going to try and go see Ingrosso on February 6th at Muzique as a Superbowl afterparty if anyone is interested. Also we wouldn’t want to miss Muzique getting “fucked in the pussy”…

After two intense nights of raving and completely screwing with my biological clock,  I gotta say I’m kind of happy i got two  very relaxed days. It allowed me to try and catch up on all the songs i heard over the weekend. Turns out I’m probably gonna need over a week.  Aight so as you know on NYE Fred and I went to Red-Lite to see Cosmic Gate & Avicii. Problem is we, or anyone else for that matter had no clue that Avicii’s set started at 5am, so we got there at 11 and got to see all the resident djs play, mostly, they sucked. At least we got it better then Toronto, cops cancelled Avicii’s set, suckers. Anyways once Avicii showed up it was sick, living up to my expectations from Electric Zoo. It’s incredible to think that he hasn’t been djing for very long and he’s this good. I mean come on, even i look older than this guy, ok maybe not but its close… Here are some highlights of his set:

Swede Dreams – Avicii (I tried to find this song after hearing at Electric Zoo and gave up shortly after, then it got released or something)

Drowning (Avicii’s Unnamed Mix) – Armin Van Buuren

…loved the original, love the remix.

Jailbait Insomnia (Avicii Mashup) – Avicii vs. Faithless

Ah, the cryptic Maxi Jazz lyrics are classic, just classic. And finally my favourite Avicii song of all time:

My Feelings For You – Avicii & Sebastian Drums

Hopefully Fred will be able to put in a video he took of the best 8mins or so of the set.

Aight, so when he was done, Cosmic Gate came on but unfortunately the crowded sucked some serious balls (stupid Laval), and Fred forced me to leave early. Their set was sick but I think people were too tired to enjoy. Funny side story: The next night at Circus, Nic Chagall (1/2 of Cosmic Gate) was hanging out at Circus with all the other world superstar djs there and at some point, Jon (from Circuit 12) crossed him in the bathroom and cam to get me. So obviously, as anyone else would have done i  presume, i started running towards where he was, totally bowling over some girl in the process. In my defence, she should not have been between me and Nic Chagall.  Anyways so we get to him and wait awkwardly while he finishes his conversation with some other dude and then we start talking and I apologized for Red-Lite sucking balls and he agreed with me. Anyways, we talked a bit more and it turns out he’s fucking nice and he’s now my new idol. But back to the music now here are  some tracks they played:

Back to Earth (Arty Remix) – Cosmic Gate

(Really sick track, I love the Jochen Miller Remix as well)

This Light Between Us (Dabruck & Klein Remix) – Armin Van Buuren

(This picture really does not do him justice… he usually wears a hat.)

Alright so that was just night number one. On the second night we were blessed to see Marcus Schossow and Simon Patterson (and meet Nic Chagall, aka Jesus).

Schossow was not at all what I expected, in a good way. He actually gave the best set of the weekend. He’s a bit chubby for a dj (see picture here), I found that pretty funny too. When he came on i actually thought he was a sound technician or something, shame on me really.

 

The Emergency (Marcus Schossow Remix) – Bt & Andrew Bayer

Love Comes Again (Bart Claessen Remix) – Tiësto feat. BT

You’re Not Alone (ATB Remix) – Olive (this track has the most majestic vocals)

Simon Patterson came on later, and just like Schossow it was complete energy the whole time. I mean, when you open your set with some Marcel Woods, it’s a good sign of things to come.

Tomorrow – Marcel Woods (one of my favourite tracks at the moment)

Without You – Dogzilla

So before I end this incredibly long post by my standards, fairly short by Justin’s though, I would just like to share with everyone that GARETH EMERY IS BACK IN MONTREAL FEBRUARY 25TH AT CICRUS AFTERHOURS!!! Thats right mofos (20$)!!!

We also have a crazy January/ February with Ronski Speed, Wippenberg, Benni Benassi and Gareth at Circus and Paul Van Dyk at Theatre Telus. In March we got Marco V at Circus also. Man i love that place. And don’t forget Bal en Blanc in April with Tiësto and Above and Beyond already confirmed.

For those of you in University, good luck going back to school and for those of you in Cegep, fuck you.