Dynamite, the Nobel Prize, Vikings, Minecraft, the Pirate Bay, the Millennium Trilogy, Swedish meatballs, and of course, Swedish women. These are only a few elements that make Sweden awesome, music being the important one missing from this short list. Here are a few old tracks from Swedish producers that I’ve been avidly listening to these past few weeks:

Faithless ft. Cass Fox – Music Matters (Axwell Remix)

     Originally released on Sony BMG back in 2007, re-released alongside Rollo & Sister Bliss, Peter Heller and Mark Knight remixes on Toolroom in 2010. I have a soft spot for anything remotely Faithless.

Dada Life – We Meow, You Roar (Original Mix)

     Also from 2007, back when Dada Life wasn’t popular enough to occupy both faces of a vinyl. The A-side of this record is a Rob Mooney track with “We Meow, You Roar” taking the B-side. Sidenote: Dada Life recently announced their new studio album, “Rules of Dada.” Pre-order it here.

Carl B – Social Suicide (Original Mix)

     Profuse records gave life to this old-school big room trance track back in 2006, only Carl’s second release to date. This guy is quite inspiring to young producers, because he was able to break into the dance music scene without any prior music education whatsoever.

Axwell & Sebastian Ingrosso – Together (Original Mix)

     The first release on the now famous Axtone record label, Axwell and Ingrosso’s 2005 collaboration was and is an amazing one. It was subsequently featured on many house compilations, including the soundtrack/compilation to SHM’s documentary, “Take One.”

Eric Prydz – Slammin’ (Extended Mix)

     One of my favorite tracks of all-time is this Eric Prydz classic. Is came out on Feel the Rhythm in 2003 and it was one of the gems that propelled him into the house music spotlight. It still sounds amazing today. Sidenote: He recently did an edit of Adrian Lux’s “Teenage Crime” that I can’t get enough of.

     This Friday, Armin van Buuren and Jochen Miller play a sold-out show at New City Gas which continues into the early hours of Saturday morning, as Miller heads over to Circus Afterhours. On Saturday, you can catch Etienne Ozborne at Circus after you’ve gone to see Sultan & Ned Sheperd play at New City Gas. Sunday is a big one, as the Palais des Congres plays host to another installement of the annual Black & Blue festival. You can also go check out Felix Da Housecat at La Mouche on Sunday. A week later, on Saturday October 13th, it’s Tommy Trash’s turn to play New City Gas and Mr. Jean Louis spins another set at Circus Afterhours. Enjoy your weekend!

Summer is a great season; plenty of quality shows, new releases, sundresses, great weather and… more sundresses. Obviously if this was the Playboy website I would be talking exclusively of sundresses (on or off), but this is an EDM blog so I’ll be talking more about the latest shows and releases we’ve got to see and listen.

First of all, we went to see Gareth Emery at Telus Theater AND Circus Afterhours on July 22nd and I must say, it was great. There’s something that Gareth has that other DJs don’t and I can’t really tell what it is, but one thing I know is that he makes people go crazy (me included).

Telus Theater (Northern Lights Concert): As expected, he played a similar set to the one he played at ASOT500 last April. He obviously played the so-called “ASOT 500 Remix” of Into the Light and the KNAS Insomnia mashup on top of other great tracks. There was also a few live performance with Mark Frisch, Roxanne Emery and Lucy Saunders. Something worth mentioning: Gareth played the piano while his sister sang Too Dark Tonight and he was great. Mark Frisch was the best live performance in my opinion, but all of them were good. The only “bad” thing we’ve noticed was that Lucy Saunders cannot dance, at all. She would clap her hands and not move at all, but hey, she still sang really well. Overall, it was an incredible set and my favourite from Gareth until now. The atmosphere was great, the sound was almost perfect (not too loud and good quality) and the lighting was crazy (especially the laser). It was a little bit hot in there and the fact you can’t refill water bottles kind of sucks, but it was only from 12 to 3, so we weren’t really tired yet and could endure the lack of water.

Circus Afterhours (Regular Set): The afterparty was at Circus Afterhours and Gareth played a 2 hour set that finished around 7-7:30 (I can’t remember exactly). Since he played all of his best tracks at Telus, it wasn’t as good (in my opinion) as the concert before, but it was still above average in term of quality. It really felt like an afterhour instead of a normal set: there was less energy in the crowd and such, but I still enjoyed my time there as well. We caught Blake Jarell’s last 45 minutes and I think he was really good. My favourite track from him was his mashup of Heart Is King vs. Losing My Religion, even though I really don’t like the original of Heart is King (the vocals make it that much better, yes).

I don’t remember if Gareth played his new collaboration with Ben Gold at Telus Theater (or Circus), but one thing I know is that it’s awesome and that I have a 128kbps version for you guys! Make sure you buy it on September 5th when it gets released; I’ve set an alarm on my phone to make sure I don’t forget. I’m not kidding. I really like the mix of Gareth’s “way of doing songs” with Ben Gold’s synths and personal touch. Hear the awesomeness for yourself:

Gareth Emery & Ben Gold – Flash

Let’s change of music genre a little (a lot) and talk about Moombahton/Moombahcore. This genre is a mix of reggaeton and dubstep/weird car engine noises. I thought it would be horrible at first, but after giving it a listen, I must admit that it’s really good and innovative. Here is a song (harder moombahcore than usual) and a mix from Diplo that’s really great and that is not 100% moombahcore, but it’s really worth listening too.

Datsik – Firepower (Munchi Moombahcore Remix)

MDWWR #67 Diplo's Moombahton 2k11 Mix by diplomaddecent

That is all for now! Don’t forget to buy your tickets for Michael Woods, Mat Zo and Jochen Miller that are going to play at Beachclub on the 13th and Jochen Miller and Heatbeat at Circus Afterhours (right after Beachclub).

So it seems like I haven’t posted anything in a while. My bad. This is my first post since going legal so I haven’t acquired super embedding skills yet but hopefully they will come. Let us begin with the music.

Been holding onto this song since TATW 350 and it’s just beautiful. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been released yet but patience, the date seems to be set at May 2nd. Hopefully this rip will satisfy you till then.

Superman – Mat Zo

Funny story, playing Xbox a few weeks back when Justin, Wei and I came across a team composed of Matan Zohar, Artem Soloviev and Synapse Dynamics, aka Mat Zo, Arty and some other dude who named himself after a track. There’s no telling if it was really them, the only guy talking was the third guy. We beat them the first time… then they took to kicking the living shit out of us. My piece of advice: Do not fuck with them.

Up next is a brand new track from Axwell who’s back in Montreal on June 3rd. Here’s hoping we get a taste of this live.

Heart is King – Axwell

You probably heard of Above & Beyond’s great single Sun & Moon that was released recently. Well, some geniuses had the awesome idea to make a dubstep remix of it, a badass remix.

Sun & Moon (The Others Remix) – Above & Beyond feat. Richard Bedford

Next, here’s something I picked up at Paul van Dyk a few weeks back. He actually mixed the shit out of it but it isn’t an official remix. But still, here’s a pretty decent mix of the track.

Sunday (Seamus Haji Club Mix) – The Hurts

And finally, here’s something absolutely massive that was introduced to us via Gareth Emery’s Podcast and that I’ve had the pleasure of hearing twice live in concert.

So, I usually end my posts with upcoming shows but Justin did a good job of listing them out, so I thought I’d mention Taco Bell is having a free taco week from April 7th to 13. HELLZ YEAH!

School’s out for a month. So here’s my chance to publicly apologize to Ellis for his beastly undertaking of the blog for the last 3 weeks or so with a few posts of my own. While the rest of the guys are currently still incapacitated by the demands of finals, allow me to lay down my thoughts on some interesting happenings around our city, as well as some awesome tracks.

A while back, I talked to you guys about a Swedish House Mafia documentary called “Take One”. I just finished watching the movie and it has got me so pumped for dancing, drinking and flat-out house peppered with some dominating basslines. The film is just awesome. I may be speaking with some heavy bias, but it basically tells the story of Axwell, Ingrosso and Angello from the Winter Music Festival in 2009 to the one in 2010 and their ascension to the throne of house supremacy. What’s not to love? It gives the audience a more personal look at the three, and clearly shows that Axwell is the most successful, Ingrosso is a lot more talented than you would think and Steve Angello is a badass. And a f***ing asshole. He owns a Ferrari, Range Rovers, Audis, Porsches (yes, those are all plural) and most likely lots of other gadgets and he did not choose to show in the flick. He uses the Swedish language barrier to talk behind people’s backs, insulting them constantly. Although this is somewhat entertaining, it gives him the flair of a closet douchebag.

Speaking of Steve Angello, as Ellis mentioned in one of his previous posts, the Swede was in Montreal on November 19th. Idiot that I am, I had not bought my fellow writer a ticket to the show, like he so often does for me, and this caused some confusion. To make a long story short, scalpers were scarce and consequently, so was Ellis, who headed to 1234 to see Ashley Wallbridge. Pretty good trade-off, wouldn't you say? In fact, there were 4 elite DJs in Montreal on that night: Angello, Wallbridge, Sean Tyas and tech master Richie Hawtin.

The Telus Theater was, needless to say, filled to the brim with hungry, party-starved Montrealers looking to let loose. And they didn’t waste any time. Within the first minutes of screams and fist-pumps, a few girls had already climbed onto their friends shoulders and taken their shirts off. This fleshy gesture was ignored by most, as all eyes were locked on Angello as he proceeded to mix “One” with “Destination Unknown” and “We Are Your Friends” with his newest track, “Rave N’ Roll”. The show hit a climax when he unleashed a mix of “Bromance” and “Dynamik”. That’s when I lost it. If you’ve ever been to a live show, I’m sure you’ve experienced the following: you’re jumping up and down in a sea of strangers and your ears realize that what they hear is perfect. That solitary bead of sweat runs down your face, you close your eyes, a chill travels through your entire body, you become unaware of your fellow partisans stepping on your footwear, your extremities tremble uncontrollably, your arms shoot into the air, the room slows down and the only thing audible is the sound of the DJ. You don’t hear the music, you experience, feel it. Angello followed with the songs you expect to hear at his shows, such as “KNAS”, “Leave the World Behind”, “Tivoli”, etc. The show was great, more than worth the 30$. Here’s his latest along with my favorite from the night and an older one that I can guarantee was the motivation behind Afrojack’s “Pacha on Acid”.

Steve Angello – Rave 'n’ Roll (Original Mix)

Tim Berg & Michael Woods – Bromance Dynamik (Axwell Mashup)

Steve Angello – Teasing Mr Charlie (Original Mix)

The night did not end there. I met up with Ellis and we headed over to Circus Afterhours to see Sean Tyas. I had not heard much from him other than his “Sanctuary” remix. I was expecting some calm, melodic trance and was surprised when he started. He pumped out track after track of powerful, rugged bass coupled with enchanting melodies. Saying it was the most energetic trance I've ever experienced is an understatement. The harmony of high BPMs, loud bass, and swift melody made for an excellent close to an excellent night. Here’s a remix of a Tiësto classic that was a highlight of his set.

Tiësto – Suburban Train (Sean Tyas Dirty Mix)

Time for an anecdote. Anyone listen to Trance Around the World? Above & Beyond are podcast masters and the 350th edition of their prestigious radio show took place at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles, California. The trio ran a contest for the special occasion in which participants had to share their interesting ways of listening to the show. I entered the competition, saying I would attach a souped up megaphone to the roof of my car and drive around downtown while blaring the music for all to hear. I was chosen as one of the finalists. Problem is, at the time of this post, I was sitting at home listening to the podcast while writing. Yup, I lied to Above & Beyond. The winner receives some professional audio gear and and gets to meet the DJs. I wonder what I’ll say if I win… The set list for their Palladium show was Boom Jinx, Jaytech, Cosmic Gate, Above & Beyond and Super8 & Tab; if you haven’t yet, this is as good a time as ever to subscribe to the podcast.

Lets end with some more tracks. This first song is by a duo I have never heard of, which boggles my mind since this tune is so good.

Matisse & Sadko – Hi Scandinavia! (Original Mix)

Next, here are 2 more mashups from Armin. The first one was shown to me by Ellis and only furthers proof of his great taste in music. You might recognize both songs from the second tune. “The Great Escape” was featured in a Gareth Emery mashup that was previously posted on the blog and “Right Back” is the second track in Ferry Corsten’s Bal en Blanc set that Fred posted a while back.

Armin van Buuren vs. Jochen Miller – In & Out of Connection (Armin van Buuren Mashup)

Rank 1 & Jochen Miller vs. Yuri Kane – The Right Escape (Armin van Buuren Mashup)

Afrojack has been sustaining Wall Recordings on his own. The Dutch house prodigy has released track after track that all have been received by the public with open arms. His tunes have completely overshadowed those of his label mates. Here is his latest.

Afrojack – Replica (Original Mix)

I posted Noisia’s “Alpha Centauri” a while back and I am proud to say that it is one of my most downloaded songs. Recently, Datsik and Excision released a great remix of the tune, replacing the drum & bass with a genuine dubstep feel.

Noisia – Alpha Centauri (Excision & Datsik Remix)

Some things to look forward to:

- Fred has been in touch with Chris Lake and The Hawt will soon get an exclusive interview with the English DJ as well as a detailed review of his great set at La Mouche.

- The writers will be teaming up to browse the full scope of 2010’s releases to decide which tracks stand atop as the best of this past year.

- A well-deserved Ellis rest.

We’d been talking about it for weeks now and finally, last weekend, we went to New York for the Electric Zoo festival that took place on Saturday and Sunday. I know its a bit late, one week that is, but i got lazy. Just to put you guys in context, it was from 11am to 11pm on both days, with four stages and (usually) all of them jam packed and it was non-stop craziness. The weekend started on a great foot when Justin decided to bet with me that we could not get from Montreal to New York on one tank of gas. It took some insanely good driving on my part, some drafting behind trucks for extended periods of time and putting the car on neutral while going downhill but at the end, with the tank empty and Justin begging me to exit and put gas before we ran out, we made it safely to the hotel. But anyways, enough laughing at Justin for the time being and here’s a list of the Djs we saw and a couple of their tracks.

 Day 1

Glenn Morisson

First Dj of the weekend and he was pretty good. Got to give him credit, although the crowd was pretty at the start because it just opened, the guy was having fun nonetheless.

Contact (Deadmau5 Remix) – Glenn Morrison

Gareth Emery

It was only our second set of the day but it was without a doubt one of the best of the whole festival.

The Island Part 1 (Dawn) – Pendulum

On a Metropolis Day (Myon & Shane 54 Mashup) – Gareth Emery vs Oceanlab (REPOST)

He’s probably my favourite producer at the moment and it can only get better with his new album upcoming. Don’t forget to check out his single Sanctuary from Justin’s last post.

Markus Schulz

It was my second time seeing him although the first time was cut short by boring friends at Bal en Blanc and i must say there is a reason he is  in the Top Ten of Dj Mag. 

Rain – Markus Schulz (REPOST)

Perception (feat. Justine Suissa) – Markus Schulz (REPOST)

Mainstage – W&W (REPOST)

Yeah yeah, a lot of reposting but they’re sick tracks, trust me. Once I get the live set I promise to make the most of it.

Fake Blood

I was pussy last time he dropped by Montreal and to be honest it’s a shame I missed him

Stuck on Repeat (Fake Blood Remix) – Little Boots

Rusko

Anyone order a bass Panini?

Lick the Lizard – Reso & Rusko (sorry for guys talking, its the only version of the song that I know of).

Massive. Played a lot of reworks of his classics, so much fun. Actually got to fight until I got to the front and it was worth all the fighting.

Benny Benassi

What to say about Benny? Probably the only disappointing set on the weekend. In his defence, there were technical difficulties during his set but when he came to drop Spaceship (his track of the summer) he got on to the table and pumped up the crowd just to mix out of it. Disrespectful. Table mounting should not be used except for awesome drops.

Spaceship (feat. Kelis & Apl de Ap) – Benny Benassi

Don’t like his sound usually but this track is addictive.

Axwell

Ok so I never really listened to Axwell before and lord was I wrong. Here’s one of my favourite tracks of the moment.

Teenage Crime (Axwell & Henrick B Remode) – Adrian Lux

Alright so basically we have no choice but to repost this but this song song was played 7 times : Dirty South, Markus Schulz, Axwell (twice), Armin and I’ve forgotten all the rest because seriously everyone played it, EVERYONE.

One – Swedish House Mafia (REPOST)

Oh by the way, here’s Justin going crazy:

Day 2

D. Ramirez

The first Dj really worth mentioning and probably the only one who has a haircut that can rival with Rusko’s, which one is worst I really can’t decide.

System (Deadmau5 Remix) – D. Ramirez & Mark Knight

Cosmic Gate

Yeah we went to see them again, and like usual they were beasts.

Not Enough Time (feat. Emma Hewitt) – Cosmic Gate

Man On the Run (Nic Chagall Remix) – Dash Berlin

Avicii

Pleasantly surprised by his set, unfortunately I didn’t stay the whole time because there was a great vegan restaurant and I was hungry. 

New New (Avicii Remix) –Bob Sinclar

And obviously he played Bromance and the crowd went absolutely nuts.

Bromance (Avicii Remix) – Tim Berg (REPOST)

Above and Beyond

They probably had the bet set of the weekend. They just had so much fun and were incredible. At some point Paavo would write messages to the crowd on his Mac, energy was just insane.

This track is my favourite at the moment, its off of Super8 & Tab’s new album and there’s a couple of remixes but here’s my personal favourite.

Empire (Kyau & Albert Remix) – Super8 & Tab

Sander Van Doorn

Just like Bal en Blanc he was totally awesome. At some points, these two guys were going to leave but i convinced them to stay because they should not miss out and they thanked me after, that’s right.

Hymn 2.0 – Sander van Doorn pres. Purple Haze

Major Lazer / Diplo

So Diplo tried to slip a fast one past everyone. As you probably know, he is part of Major Lazer. Well turns out, the guy we saw at Osheaga and Electric Zoo was only him and we saw him later again as Diplo the next day. Pretty baller.

Wolfgang Gartner

Probably one of the most entertaining Djs there, his set was just sick. Really. Three turntables, one mixboard and a lot of awesomeness.

Conscindo – Wolfgang Gartner & Mark Knight (REPOST)

Armin Van Buuren

What so say, what to say? Nothing much other than it was crazy. The crowd was completely insane and there’s a reason why he’s # 1 in the world. It definitely was not the best set of the weekend, but the ambiance was totally different from all the others (Oh and he knows how to do a succesfull table mount).

Mirage – Armin van Buuren

So that was basically our awesome weekend, if i had to get two lessons out of it they would probably to never trust Justin with directions and also never to lock him out of a hotel room when he’s only in his boxers and a towel, turns out he gets really pissed…

Well then: New shtuff. Like what? Jakwob. Yes, this dubstep DJ that got featured on BBC Radio 1 a couple times but no one knows about him yet. I already posted a song from him that is really amazing (Starry Eyed). So if you didn't listen to it yet, do it now because it's pretty much an awesome song, really. Download it Here. Jakwob remixed some artists and made their songs better (at least in my opinion he did). So here are three songs.

The first one (Everyday from Killa Kela) is a well known one, because it has been on Hypem charts for 2 weeks at least... Every DJ remixed it. I would call it a "chill" song, because it's not some big head banging track where you just want to go nuts and run everywhere yelling to the world how much that song is effed up "mang", but it's a pretty awesome track still.

The second one (The Fear - Lilly Allen) wasn't too popular yet (the remix that is) but it's my personal favorite. It's a little more "head banging" while still staying a calm song. You can easily recognize Jakwob's style in there (soft and then the heavy bassline starts). I love it.

And the third one is a remixed version of M.I.A. 's Pull up the Poo. I don't LOVE it but I still enjoy listening to it. I never really adored M.I.A. anyways. It's sounds more like some classic dubstep to be honnest, but still is groovy.

Killa Kela - Everyday (Jakwob Remix)

Lilly Allen - The Fear (Jakwob Remix)

M.I.A. - Pull up the Poo (Jakwob Remix)

Alright so enough with Jakwob and his amazing dubstep.


Some call him the "American Version of Justice", I think he's awesome, but not like Justice yet. Here is Richie Beretta. He released his new track Nitefist not too long ago and it's pretty amazing and very groovy: you'll like it. Then there is his Let it Rock remix that I like, still extremely groovy. You'll recognize some kind of Justice style in his tracks, but more in the drum set he uses. The hi-hat sometimes sounds like Justice's. What I like in his tracks is the fact they are well made and complete. The synth is nice and usually is the "good" one, the one you would like to hear for that kind of song. May your ears have fun:

Richie Beretta - Nitefist

Kevin Rudolf - Let It Rock (Richie Beretta mix)


I'll now present Loot and Plunder, from south Australia. Yes, Australia, not Africa. The "band" is composed of 2 DJs and guess what they make... MASHUPS! They are kind of like Super Mash Bros but more electro-based. I have two mashups for you guys that you should enjoy. It's the kind of music that makes you want to bang your head everywhere and go nuts (if you have monster speakers). They like good music: they like Crookers. Good.

Axwell & Splack Pack - I Found You (Loot & Plunder feat Hank Edit)

Crookers & Ying Yang Twins - Ain't Looking For A Bush (Junior & Second Letter's Party Banga)


Then there is a remixed version of The Sounds - No One Sleeps When I'm Awake, by Vikings. Like many DJs seem to do now, it sounds like MSTRKRFT at some point, but hey, MSTRKRFT is good so who cares. It has the same synth (similar) but a different drumset so it's still good and... almost unique. I like it.

The Sounds - No One Sleeps When Im Awake (VIKING remix)


My soft song of the day was remixed by Mike Snow, that is on fire these days, with his 25000000 remixes on all the blogs. This track is calm and enjoyable to listen at; don't play it a t a club though because people will leave. Hah. I like it.

Vampire Weekend - The Kids Don't Stand A Chance (Mike Snow Remix)