Hello dear readers! Like some of you guys probably know, Kyau and Albert released their 15 Years of Kyau & Albert Album today, on March 12th. Their label, Euphonics was kind enough to send me a hard copy of the album (directly from Germany) and let me send a few short interview questions to them. For the ones who don’t know who Kyau & Albert are, or if you know them but don’t know much about them, they are a DJ duo from Germany with a pretty big background in the European EDM scene (North-American as well now). Their songs play very often on Trance Around the World and other popular podcasts. Lately, they frequently play in big venues in North America like Pacha New York, Electric Zoo, WMC, EDC, etc.

I’ve already listened to the album a few times (I got it in the mail this morning) and I’ve got to say that it sounds very very good. All the songs are old or new hits from Kyau & Albert and are either remixes or official reworks (minus three song that are the originals). The remixes are by the likes of Tritonal, Arty, Cosmic Gate, Mat Zo, Stoneface & Terminal, Super8 & Tab and more. I’ve already heard a lot of the songs that are on the album before getting it, but it’s very nice to see them all in one release. This album is like hearing all good songs, but with a new sound. You should definitely check it out HERE (itunes) or HERE (Euphonics). Here is the tracklist.

1- Falling Anywhere (Sunn Jellie Remix)
2- 7Skies (Ellez Marinni Tech Mix)
3- On the Way
4- Neo Love (Dennis Sheperd Remix) ft. Marc Marberg
5- Once in a Life (Tritonal Remix)
6- Are You Fine? (Arty Remix
7- Always a Fool (2011 Rework)
8- This Love
9- Save Me (Steve Brian Remix)
10- Megashira (Ronski Speed Remix) ft. Marc Marberg
11- Painkillers (Alternative Club Mix)
12- A Night Like This
13- I Love You (Cosmic Gate Remix)
14- Be There 4 U (Mat Zo Remix)
15- Kiksu (2011 Rework)
16- Made of Sun (Stoneface & Terminal Remix)
17- Velvet Morning (Super8 & Tab Remix)

… And here is the interview with Kyau & Albert, I hope you enjoy!

Me: Hello guys! Here are a few questions that I'd like you to answer.

Me: What are your sources of inspirations when you produce a record?

Ralph Kyau: It can be everything. A great club night, a wonderful morning...

Steven Albert: Also sometimes you play around in the studio and, by mistake, you find something great.

What do you think sets Kyau & Albert apart from other trance producers/DJ?

Ralph Kyau: Hard question. Definitively that Steven sings all male vocals in our singles. That's very unique.

Me: Can we expect Kyau and Albert to come here in Montreal (Canada) in the near future? It's been a while since the last time you did!

Steven Albert: It would be great to come back, but there's nothing planned at the moment I think.

Ralph Kyau: The best thing to do would be to check out our website at www.kyauandalbert.com or go to www.facebook.com/kyauandalbertofficial to stay up to date with gigs, radio show playlists and more.

Me: Do you guys have any "rituals" you do before starting a set?

Ralph Kyau: We love to drink a beer and we love to listen to the DJ who plays before us.

Me: Besides your upcoming album 15 Years of Kyau and Albert, what can we expect to be released from Euphonic in 2012? Any surprises for us?

Steven Albert: There are new singles that are going to be released on Euphonics in the future by artists such as Stoneface & Terminal, Ronski Speed and a few more. There will be, of course, new Kyau & Albert singles, including a new collaboration with Marc Marberg.

Ralph Kyau: We just finished a remix of Ronski Speed‘s single as well.

Steven Albert: Also, there's going to be a Kyau & Albert collaboration with Paul van Dyk that will get released on Vandit this spring.

Me: I know we're a little bit early in 2012 to ask this, but which song(s) has gotten you the best crowd reaction so far this year?

Ralph Kyau: Dennis Sheperds‘ single with Talla 2XLC called 'Two Worlds' is big in our sets since January.

That song is amazing, here is the official video.

Me: What do you think about music blogs? In your opinion, are they helping or hurting artists?

Steven Albert: In my opinion, it's definitively a good source for music lovers.

Ralph Kyau: Luckily we don't get a lot of bad critics on the internet, but if it happens, it happens. As we all know, taste is a very strange thing and as an artist you cannot make it right for everybody.

Me: Thank you for your time and congratulations on 15 years of awesomeness!

WEBSITE
FACEBOOK
TWITTER

Hey everybody, my name is Marc and I'm the newest member of the Hawt team. I'm honoured to be here and I hope that you’ll enjoy what I will be posting!
Alright to start it all off I’d like to introduce you to one of my favourite labels called Lucky Me. Lucky Me records are based in Glasgow and was founded by none other than Hudson Mohawke. Lucky Me signees include a lot of artists from Montreal like Lunice, Ango and of course the legendary Jacques Greene. The best way for you guys to find out what this label is about is to listen to their sounds so here you go:

Lunice is definitely one of the best electronic hip-hop producers out there. After going to the Red Bull academy and working with Diplo he went from being a small time producer to a world renowned artist. He always keeps his stuff fresh and he's a great showman.
Ango is another Montreal-based producer who was taken under the wing of Jacques Greene and later joined the Lucky Me family. He is also signed to Jacques Greene’s label Vase. As you can see his stuff is not as poppy as Lunice's. It has more of a deep vibe, kind of like a darker kind of dance music.
To top it all off the master of this sub-bass genre, the one and only…Jacques Greene! This guy is a genius. The stuff he puts out is always original and soothing, but in an eerie way. He has recently put out an EP on his brand new label Vase and the album is according to me his best work so far.

2012 The Year of…?
Alright so on another topic, if I were to ask you guys what the most prominent type of electronic music this year (in Montreal at least) was, you’d all have answered dubstep. But was it really? Last I checked what Skrillex or Flux Pavillion produce is not dubstep. Music evolves people and so has dubstep. To find the origins of dubstep we’d have to go all the way back to London in the 00’s. Does Mala, Coki, Skream, Benga, Loefah, Digital Mystikz, Rusko or Caspa ring a bell? If you’ve never heard a track from these guys then you probably don’t know what dubstep is about. In the past year a lot of people have declared themselves fans of dubstep, but the dubstep they are referring to is not really dubstep, it’s a transformation of what used to be dubstep. The reason as to why I’m writing this is to end this confusion. And so, next time you want to talk about a tune you heard from Skrillex or Dillon Francis, the more exact terms to qualify it would be brostep or moombahcore.
Examples:

-Dubstep
-Brostep
(I hate this song so much…..)

-Moombahcore
The main difference with Moombahcore being those upbeat squeaky synth lines pulled from Moombahton.
As for 2012 I'm looking forward to see what will come up. A lot of artists like James Blake, Nicolas Jaar and Julien Mier are surfacing with a sort of post-dubstep sound kind of a more primitive sounding dub. Also I think that glitch-hop will break through this year. Glitch-Hop has been a pretty dominant genre on the west coast and I have a feeling that the winds of technology will bring the glitch-hop hype to the east coast.

Also before I finish I just wanted to leave you with this great remix of Major Lazer’s new track called Original Don. Flosstradamus does an amazing job in slowing the drop down and turning this track into a serious head bobber. This stuff is the real kind of panty dropper, none of that Trey Songz crap. Check it out:



Also while we’re on the topic you guys can expect a review of Diplo’s (one half of Major Lazer) mental, out of this world set @ Igloofest 2012 very soon.
Cheers!

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.