POST BY JUSTIN (He wasn't able to post it from his account for some reason).

My couple of months away from EDM blogging saw 3 artists call off their Montreal appearances, free tickets thrown away, multiple trips to BeachClub and an unfortunate bout of food poisoning, ultimately leading to a 4th and 5th cancellation. Although the end of May/beginning of June was supposed to be rife with international DJs, Andy Moor, Axwell and Ferry Corsten were unable to grace us with their talents. Regardless, we had other events to focus on, like the 100th episode of Tytanium Sessions. On the 1-year anniversary of the 105th edition of Gareth Emery’s podcast, Sean Tyas set camp at Circus Afterhours for the 100th episode of his. Even though none of us are big fans of his weekly show, there was no way we were going to pass up a St-Jean-Baptiste celebration with Raneem, Arnej, Simon Patterson and Sean himself.

Raneem got the show started with a set full of IDs. The live Afterhours.FM broadcast only began one hour into his performance, so he naturally kept most of his own productions for the last 2 hours. He played his popular remix of Emvy’s “Strut,” as well as “Out of Nowhere” and his mashup of CIrez D’s “On Off” and Darude’s “Sandstorm,” which is always a crowd pleaser. After re-listening to his set, it has become clear how much Raneem’s grown this year. Nobody at The Hawt had ever heard of him until Gareth Emery’s February show and our respect for his musical prowess hasn’t stopped gaining since. Here’s the last 2 hours of his set from the night.

Filesonic – Megaupload

Arnej followed our favorite Circus resident with the best 90 minutes of the night. His darker take on Trance was ever so present as he entertained the crowd with tracks by Dakota, Jacob van Hage and a few from Coldharbour Recordings. The highlight of the night came when he played his new 8 Wonders tune, “X.” The song features a somewhat elaborate melody, all the while keeping the bass-heavy dark presence which he holds dear. As if that wasn’t enough, he followed his original with Chris Schweizer’s bootleg mix of “Zombie Nation.” When he turned down the music, only to hear the entire club singing along, it was obvious that he had stolen the show. Here’s “X,” along with his set.

Arnej pres. 8 Wonders – X (Original Mix)

Released on July 18th on Arnej Music

Filesonic – Megaupload

Arnej was followed by the evening’s headliner, Sean Tyas. I’d seen him at Circus before and I recall having had an absolute blast. True to his form, Tyas turned the bass up as high as possible and consequently, no one could quite hear the melody or any other parts of any of the songs he played. I’m not sure what it sounded like in the DJ booth, but we were only able to recognize the tunes we actually knew. Amongst the incomprehension, we were able to make out Funkagenda’s “What The Fuck,” Eric Prydz’s remix of Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus” and Tyas’ “Banshee.” Only after listening to the recording afterwards was I able to properly appreciate it. And even then, it wasn’t anything special. All together, it was a somewhat disappointing performance by Tyas, as he was easily overshadowed by the impressive squad he invited to play alongside him. Here’s his set from the night.

Filesonic – Megaupload

Simon Patterson was the next to play. He nearly employed the same tactic as Tyas, but cleverly turned down the bass ever so slightly. His set was characterized by unpredictable drops, lengthy breakdowns and lots of his own tracks. I was disappointed to see him neglect his label’s latest release, Nick Callaghan and Will Atkinson’s 2011 remix of his classic, “F16.” In fact, he played Night Vision’s only other 2 releases in Des McMahon’s remix of Wayde Rafnel and Dave Correa’s “Derailed” and Patterson’s own “Latika.” He ended his solo time with “For The Most Part,” his collaboration with Sean Tyas which fit nicely in what was to come. Here’s his entire set from Circus.

Filesonic – Megaupload

In the final moments of the Afterhours.FM live braodcast, Patterson and Tyas played back to back, as in one song after the other. This is when they played their more recognizable tracks, like Dogzilla’s “Without Me” and Tyas’ remixes of Tiësto’s “Suburban Train” and Gareth Emery’s “Sanctuary." Here’s their back to back set.

Filesonic – Megaupload

Thanks to our buddy Samson at montreal-nightclubs.com for the download links. Check his website for all the tracklists from Tytanium Sessions 100.

The holiday weekend continued on Sunday at BeachClub. Pointe-Calumet hosted Sander van Doorn and hundreds of Montrealers eager for a taste of the amazement he displayed at Bal en Blanc. Playground had built a special stage for Armin during his recent visit, but for some reason, Sander was not given the same luxury. Albeit a little crowded, the dancefloor was nonetheless spacious and easily encompassed the horde of day ravers. Here’s what the scene looked like from the DJ booth:

As you can imagine, the area was laden with more than a few over-makeuped, silicone engineered “hotties” grinding their shirtless He-Men and the HGH/steroid abuse problems that came with them, shades of La Folie. I can only speak for myself, but while I’m not a fan of the fake tit, I don’t mind having a few graze my body while I dance. I might be split on the whole Guido culture, but I’m definitely not on Sander van Doorn.

The Dutch producer settled in just as we arrived and opened with the obvious track of summer 2011, Alesso’s remix of “Pressure.” The next hours were spent bobbing and weaving in between genres, going from House to Trance, Electro to the rare Techno track and so on. Sander took the opportunity to drop many tracks from the newest in his Dusk Till Doorn compilation series, which contains lots of new material from Spinnin’s sub-labels. From Wall Recordings, he played Afrojack’s “Doing It RIght” and “Prutataaa,” a collaboration with DJ R3hab, Erick Strong’s “Italian” from Reset Records and Ummet Ozcan’s “Transcend” from Liquid Recordings. However good “Transcend” may be, it was greatly overshadowed by his latest dubbed “Reboot.” The tune reveals a different, more tech-trance side to Ozcan, a variety he’d been lacking for a long time. It’s on the Dusk Till Doorn compilation, but will get a proper release on the 1st of August.

Ummet Ozcan – Reboot (Original Mix)

Released on August 1st on Doorn Records

Since he was so brilliant at Bal en Blanc, his set at BeachClub may have been slightly disappointing to some, considering he also chose to play a variety of genres instead of sticking to the strict Trance makeup his performances used to employ. He ended his show with Eric Prydz’s fantastic remix of Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus,” a tune made for live performances currently being played out by loads of DJs, the original mix of “Daddyrock,” even though the Arty remix had just been released, and Sander’s remix of The Killers’ “Spaceman.” He also managed to squeak in his new tune, “Timezone,” which features the vocals of Frederick, but it lacks the power and energy needed for a song to be played live. Regardless, although Sander’s performance paled in comparison to the white party’s, it was a memorable one that displayed his love for all genres of EDM and his willingness to open the minds of the numerous House enthusiasts.

Raneem was on closing duties and since we had missed most of his opening set at Circus on Thursday, we decided to stick around to check out our favorite resident DJ. There’s a few things we learned: first off, looks like Raneem shaves his pits. Just sayin’. Second, Raneem is as popular, maybe even more so, than Sander van Doorn is in Montreal. If you’re a member of the Montreal Trance Scene group on Facebook, you know exactly what I’m talking about. There was a ridiculous amount of praise for him with lots of people saying that he had ousted the Dutchman. Thirdly, his new track, which he happened to premier at the event, is absolutely genius. It’s called “Free Fall,” its just been signed to Leon Bolier’s Streamlined and it might be even better than “Out Of Nowhere.” Here’s a video of Raneem at BeachClub mixing Mark Sherry’s “Phantasmic” into his own “Free Fall.”

Raneem – Free Fall (Original Mix)

Released on ??? on Streamlined

Check out Ramy Bargz’s YouTube channel for nearly all of Raneem’s set from BeachClub.

So it seems as though Ferry Corsten at La Folie is cancelled, but we do still have Sean Tyas at Circus on Thursday and Sander van Doorn at Beach Club on Sunday to look forward to. I must say I’m disappointed in La Folie since they already cancelled Axwell earlier this month and now Ferry isn’t looking good.

There has been a ton of great releases in the past months and the one that stands out is without a doubt Kiss From the Past by Allure (a.k.a. Tiësto). Upon seeing the album title, I was hoping for some old school Tiësto from the days of Elements of Life but I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of this album. One of my favourite tracks is Show Me The Way that features the vocals of JES but I must also recommend the track On the Wire in which he rekindles with vocalist Christian Burns.

Show Me The Way (feat. JES) - Allure

This next song also has a great vocalist in Susana (probably one of the best all time where it comes to trance in my opinion) and Alexander Popov really delivers on the remix. I heard it first on Myon & Shane54’s podcast and fell in love with it almost immediately. For some reason, this song got me wondering if there were any trance songs with more than one vocalist. Imagine how epic a collaboration between Justine Suissa and Susana could be! If you have any good ones, please share them in the comments below, I’m a complete sucker for some vocal trance (or house, whatever you’ve got).

Fall in Deep (feat. Julian Vincent) [Alexander Popov Remix] - Susana 

Alesso has really exploded onto the scene this summer and at 18 years old you can really expect him to keep on getting better. His remix of Nadia Ali has been dominating the charts and is my favourite house track of the summer so far. He does go a bit overboard with the chopping sound but I don’t mind it that much.

Pressure (Alesso Remix) – Nadia Ali, Starkillers & Alex Kenji

I’m usually not that big of a fan of the dubstep songs Gareth Emery plays to end his podcast but last week’s was very decent and here’s a great remix of it that holds its own alongside the original.

Louder (feat. Sian Evans) [Drumsound & Bassline Smith Remix] – Dj Fresh

This next track cannot be released fast enough, although bootlegs often don’t get that privilege. It played on TATW a few episodes back and its simplicity struck me. Hopefully not another brilliant track that never sees the light of day.

On The Move (Bart Claessen Bootleg) - Barthezz

If you like mashups, chances are you’ll like this next track. Heatbeat (who will be playing at Circus in August alongside Jochen Miller) samples no less then 7 tracks for this monster bootleg. Check out the description of the video for the listing.

Megabootleg 500 - Heatbeat

So, in light of Gareth Emery’s massive upcoming Northern Lights Concert at Theatre Telus, here is my favourite remix of Into the Light by none other than remixer extraordinaire Alex M.O.R.P.H.

Into the Light (feat. Mark Frisch) [Alex M.O.R.P.H. Remix] – Gareth Emery

And finally, probably one of the tunes of the summer. It has been remixed by a so many artists so far from Soundprank to born again duo Gabriel & Dresden (Josh Gabriel is actually part of Andain). However, none of them seem to come close to Myon & Shane54’s Summer of Love mix. While I’m on the subject, I would like to recommend their podcasts to you guys. It’s a weekly, one hour episode that features a lot of exclusives including many of their signature mashups that you will not find anywhere else.

Promises (Myon & Shane54’s Summer of Love Mix) - Andain

I know, I’m such a slacker and like every time I post, I have news and then music! But this time I don’t need a wall of text to explain.

I’ve decided that it was time for Hawtmusik to sell t-shirts, because, let’s face it, we’re awesome. The plan for the first t-shirt is to write HAWTMUSIK DOT COM in the back, but we didn’t make our choice yet for what will be written in the front. We have a few ideas, but it’d be great if you guys sent us ideas by email to thehawt@hotmail.com or simply in the comments section beee-lowww. Also, I’m still unsure if we’ll go for the cheap-ass t-shirts that would be around 16$ or for the reasonable ones that would be around 25$. Obviously this doesn’t include shipping or any other fee, but I won’t be charging more than what it actually costs. Also, the cheap ass t-shirt can only be white, while the other one can be any color, but it will most likely be black. Whatever, tell me what you think.

Music time! Do you remember the Chris Lake interview we got last December? We were super busy with all kinds of things and we just had enough time to post the interview and go back to whatever we were busy with, but while that happened, I was still receiving emails from great producers that deserve to be blogged about.

I was very interested with this new-ish label based in Salmo, British Columbia, that releases very uncommon music (and that has an awesome website with sick images!). It’s called King Deluxe (http://kingdeluxe.ca). But before I go on, I must say something: these days, we only hear about 3 types of music in the EDM scene. If you’re a normal hipster (by normal I mean poser as fuck), you’ll probably be hearing about dubstep a lot, if you’re someone that just began listening to EDM, you’ll probably be hearing about House music all the time and if you’re someone like us at the hawt (awesome), you’ll be hearing about Trance as well as the other genres mentioned above. This label does not release any common derivatives of any of them and that’s what makes it awesome.

The first artists I listened to in the label was Fancy Mike. It’s reallyyyy hard to describe his style, because I don’t hear stuff like this very often, but I think the label did a great job explaining what you’ll hear if you click the play button: “His sound consists of lo-fi, synth-based instrumental music, backed by analog-driven technology and tape hiss. He likes to maintain a style that is heavily reminiscent of filmic scores, French electro, 70s disco music, 80s synth-pop and current-day keygen music.”

What I really like about Fancy Mike is the fact it’s different from the rest of my music library and when I’m sick of hearing the same tracks over and over again, I play his album and relax. Sound explains this feeling better than words, so here we go (downloads below):

Check out the full album here and buy it for 5$ here. If you really enjoy his stuff, go listen to his newest release (that I didn’t have time to listen to that much though) right HERE. Here are two of his tracks for free, I hope it’s okay with the label! 

Fancy Mike – Lazer Opera

Fancy Mike – Hipster Crack

If you want more of that type of music, go check the label’s website HERE and go check Aleph, that is also very good, HERE. Aleph’s music sounds a little like Fancy Mike’s, but it seems quicker and less “insanely-chill”. There are other artists signed with the label too, but I didn’t have time to listen enough to them to criticize their music!

Egyptians invented acid, in my opinion. (Photo by me @ Le Louvre, Paris, France)

Ellis is supposed to be posting some “normal-er” music soon, so I’ll let him take care of that, but before I finish my post, here is some new dubstep n’ shit from my boys in Chicago, Keith Kabz and DJ Solo. They always release nice stuff, so you guys should check their soundclouds by clicking on their name (especially if you like dubstep)! Their new stuff is really nice and innovative!

This songs makes you want to buy a sub for your car, but it aint dubstep, it’s the whitest rap you can find on the web! But it’s good, so… respect.

Seriously, what the fuck, this is good!

Dirty shit is dirty.

Here’s a mix by Kabz, legendary as usual!

And one of DnB! What?!

Enjoy your week people! And don’t forget to come to Ferry Corsten on the 23rd @ La Folie and to Sander Van Doorn @ Beachclub on the 26th! And also, comment on the t-shirts! Thanks!