Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah

So my Dad tells me that K.D. Lang sang this song at the opening of the Olympics last week. K.D. doesn't like to use caps in her name. I don't like that she's stealing Kraft Dinner's initials. Can't say I'm a fan of her, but I do happen to be a big fan of the song. It was originally written by Leonard Cohen, who for me is a better poet than a singer, and has since been covered by lots of people. Tonella used to do a nice job of it a ways back. She's coming back east soon, by the way, you should definitely check her out.

I digress. The greatest rendition, for me, of this song, has always been the one that I happened to hear first. I saw this on MuchMusic many a moon ago and thought "wowzers" for two reasons. Firstly it was the first time I'd ever heard the late Jeff Buckley in action, and second it was the first time I'd heard this amazing song. It took me a little while to find the right version, but now here it is in its entirety. Enjoy.

Brilliant.

War - Galaxy

I've changed my mind. Next week is going to be Canadian Hip Hop week. Can't limit it just to Toronto, there's too much coolness happening elsewhere, and I figured it'd be more fun to post some lesser known tunes than the usual suspects.

In other news, it's Friday. This calls for funk. I originally wanted to post M1's 2001 classic "Electronic Funk", but I can't find a video link anywhere, although there's a half-decent remix of it here. In its place I'm going old school, waaaay back to 1977. Funkin' it up with this crazy home-made video that actually kind of suits the tune. You want funk, you got it.

Funkin' awesome.

Mumford & Sons - Little Lion Man

I've got a whole bushel full of great hip hop tunes, especially Canadian ones, that I want to post but this isn't a hip hop blog, and it's Toronto Hip Hop week starting on Monday here, so I figure I'd better not oversaturate the airways.

It's Feels Good Thursday again tonight at the Capital, only this time there's a catch. It's extra special. It's a masquerade party! I may or may not attend on account of my busted ears, but Johnston is spinning tonight, Gordon Gets Lost is playing, and there will be people with funny masks on. How could it not be a good time?

This is a great little folky number from Mumford & Sons, who hail fom London, England. I don't know much about them except that they're pretty fun to listen to. I must give credit, once again, to Jenna for this find, who apparently found these guys via Jeremy McLaughlin. He's got his own stuff goin' on, click on his name and give it a listen. If you like the stuff below, chances are you might like his stuff too.

Good work lads.

Rascalz - Top Of The World

I've got an annoying ear infection right now, which is setting my production schedule back for a couple days (hopefully!), but it gave me a chance to pause and consider, amongst all this Canadian pride at the Olympics, how many people realise how many great Canadian artists are out there. This is particularly apparent to me in the hip-hop genre. For whatever reason I just feel that our guys pump out some mad tunes that I like moreso than most of the American stuff.

Of course this is a terrible generalisation and there are great hip-hop artists all over the world, but I'm just trying to use this as a segue into the fact that next week is going to be Toronto Hip-Hop week. Each day I'll post a different kick-ass tune from some of the badass acts out of my home town, the ol' 416. Until then, I leave you with this classic west coast flavour from the Rascalz, probably Vancouver's greatest hip-hop export.

Decepticons.

Coheed & Cambria - In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth: 3

I stand corrected. As much as Bonnaroo looks awesome, Coachella looks even better. Could it be that I'm actually completely out of touch with the goings-on of the massive summer festivals? Could there yet be ever better ones to venture to? The plot thickens.

One of the main reasons that I think the Coachella has a better lineup is that besides having many of the great acts signed up for Bonnaroo, it also has some other bands that I absolutely love. First and foremost has to be Coheed & Cambria. Probably my favourite band right now, and I can just imagine being in the audience and seeing the kind of mayhem I've posted below. This is probably the greatest intro to a music DVD I've ever seen. Actually I can't really imagine being there. That's why I need to see it in person.

Mind-blowing DVD. By the way they have a new track out for anyone interested...

Michael Franti & Spearhead - Oh My God

Oh My God! I have to go to Bonnaroo. This is my mission. There are many like it, but this one is mine. The lineup for this year's festival is probably the single greatest collection of un-freakin-believable talent I have ever seen. Amongst the ridiculousness is one of the great underrated acts in the world, and the title of the track I've chosen is highly appropriate. Say no more.

Any and all donations towards purchase of a ticket will be graciously accepted.

Massive Attack - Paradise Circus

The year is 1998. Bill Clinton is loving his intern. Coincidentally, Viagra makes its first appearance in the market. Russia's economy collapses. Deutsche Bank buys Bankers Trust. Charlton Heston becomes president of the NRA, Jesse Ventura is elected Governer of Minnesota, and Hugo Chavez rises to power in Venezuela. James Cameron's Titanic wins a record 11 Academy Awards. Amidst the chaos, British trip-hop collective Massive Attack release their album "Mezzanine", the album of the year, and one of the best albums of the decade. The world gasps in awe.

The year is 2010. Barack Obama is loving his Marlboros. Greece's economy, and probably America's too, is on the brink of collapse. Haiti is crippled by an earthquake. Teddy Pendergrass and J.D. Salinger pass on to another realm. Gordon Lightfoot decides to stick around a little longer. James Cameron's Avatar is poised to dance with Oscar again. Amidst the chaos, Massive Attack rises from the darkness to release their first album in seven years, "Heligoland", the album of the year to date, and by default the best album of the decade. The world gasps in awe.

Wow.

Bryan Raydio - Red Shoes Demo

Well I've been spending far too much time in front of the computer lately, but for good reason. I'm working on some exciting new tracks, and one of them is now mostly done. Not finished yet, but it's worth a listen to. It's called Red Shoes, and I'm planning on writing some lyrics and putting a few samples in it, but for the meantime you can check out the Dub Mix (i.e. sans words) on the Myspace page. It's a downtempo groove, not like the mostly house/techno stuff I've had up until now. Check it out, and keep watching this space, because I should have a couple more new ones for ya in the next day or two.

Moderat - Rusty Nails

These guys are pretty cool. It's a collaborative effort between Modeselektor and Apparat, though it sounds more like the latter than the former to me. It's kind of an experimental progressive trip hip thing with breakbeat elements. Ya, I dunno. Crazy German music. But it's cool. I like it. I like the video too. Check it out.

More mad pumping Modeselektor.

Ozric Tentacles - Fractal Eternal Wheel

Friday is for fractals. Not usually, but just for today. As you may have gathered I'm a fan of psychedelic music. I enjoy the exploration of sound and pushing the boundaries of what can be mixed and mashed and spun together. It's like an auditory extension of life, exploring and experimenting and pushing the limits of what's possible in human achievement. These guys formed in the mid 80's and it's possible that I might have never heard of them had Leo not told me about them. Thankfully he did, and I remembered them, and I discovered how cool and crazy they were, and I suppose still are.

Whoa.

Dan Mangan - Basket

A friend of mine recently commented that she hadn't heard a lot of great west coast music lately, at least not compared to the amount of great stuff coming out of the east these days. This, of course, is largely due to the fact that we are here living in the east, and not the west, but just the same, it has been somewhat noticeable. One guy who certainly sticks out from the left coast, though, is Vancouver's Dan Mangan. I must give Jenna credit for this find some months ago, and since then he's toured out east and has garnered quite a reputation as an honest performer. There's something to be said about music that seems to emanate from the soul. A great performer can often make a mediocre song sound good. Mr. Dan doesn't have to worry too much about this, though, because his songs are already pretty darn good. This live performance sold me on him, it might sell you too.

I also recommend this one.

Bryan Raydio - Deep House Mix

Says it all really...

Another mix. I wasn't that happy with the last one so I wanted to get another one done quickly. This is a mix I've been meaning to do for a while. Music is all about creating moods and moving thought patterns and some of my favourite music is deep house. It mixes funk, soul, jazz, with a smooth Chicago house ambiance that just creates a cool, sexy groove, the kind you'd find at a chillin' lounge, or a martini bar, or maybe a late night afterhours establishment.

This particular mix takes us through some latin inspired percussion, into a deep tech house feel, and throws in a couple progressive elements. It's not perfect, but it's a much tighter mix. SoundCloud again provides some nice streaming below.

Artist: Bryan Raydio

Title: Deep House Mix

Label: Independent/Unsigned

Format: 320kbps MP3

Released: 17 February 2010

Genre: Deep / Tech House

Length: 60:53

TRACKLIST:

01. Safri Duo - Baya Baya

02. Jimpster - Dangly Panther

03. Elastic Sound - Moscow After Autumn Rain [Ricky Ryan Edit]

04. Iz & Diz - Mouth [Brad Peep's Remix For Friends]

05. Nivek Tsoy - Feeling Lose

06. Nicolas Jaar - El Bandido

07. Alex Flitsch & Audiofly - Long Way To Go

08. Mell Tierra - Watcha Doing? [Firebeatz Remix]

09. Hideo Kobayashi - Hanabi

10. Cesar Marveille & Pablo Cahn-Speyer - Tribute

11. Tuccillo - Jazzy Thing

12. Proff & Mango - 5th In Blue [Mango Mix]

13. Booka Shade - Sweet Lies [Patrice Baumel Remix]

DOWNLOAD - new links coming soon...

United Steel Workers Of Montreal - Émile Bertrand

The United Steel Workers Of Montreal are at the Capital this Saturday night. In case you haven't seen 'em, I highly recommend attending. If you're into folk, bluegrass, Tom Waits, or just real good live music, you won't regret taking the time to check these guys out. Lots of energy, and great music. These guys always draw a big crowd, so be sure to get there early! This is one of their slower songs but it's still a goodie.

Gosh, that's swell.

Alan Braxe & Fred Falke - Rubicon

Fred Falke was the man behind that last remix, and he along with fellow Frenchmen Alan Braxe have combined to make some sweet tunes, with this proving to be a pretty big hit. So-called "French House" is in vogue these days, the term is used to describe the heavily filtered disco house style popularised by others like Daft Punk, Cassius, and most recently Louis La Roche. I'm a big fan, and you hear some of that in my "future samplers" tracks.

This particular tune doesn't have any lyrics at all in it, and it's a bit up-tempo for classic house, but it's still distinctly French and full of cheesy 80's synth brilliance. Not the most inspiring of videos either, but hey, you can't expect those crazy Frenchmen to get everything right...

More please.

The Whitest Boy Alive - Golden Cage

The last track in my little house mix below is a remix of this song. It's a pretty awesome remix, but the original is just as awesome, in a different, groovy kinda way. It features the eclectic genius of Erlend Øye as lead singer. If you think you've heard him before, you might have. He's also fronted the Kings Of Convenience and done some tracks with Röyksopp, all of which are recommended listening. He's also from Norway. What's with these crazy Scandinavian singers? They have a real smooth, unique sound to them. Some groovy stuff indeed. Anyway check it out, it's a pretty cool video too, if you're into optical illusions.

Here's another little goodie for ya.

Bryan Raydio - Vocal House Mix

I've been working on a few new tracks but in the meantime I thought I'd put a couple "live" mixes up here for fun. This is the first one, it's kind of a club-style vocal house mix. Not classic vocal house, more progressive, but vocals nonetheless. This is probably about as far mainstream as I like to go.

I mixed this on two Gemini MPX-40 cd players using an American Audio Q-D5 MKII mixer. The cd players aren't very good. The pitch control has a 0.1% minimum, so for longish house mixes you really have to ride the pitch bend or jog wheel to keep it steady. To make matters worse, these players have all kinds of problems keeping the beat steady when you change the pitch, particularly with the keylock on. To put this in perspective the Pioneer CDJ-1000's (and the 400's for that matter) have a 0.02% pitch resolution and are bang on. Oh well, you get what you paid for I guess. Scratching is possible on these things, but the cue point slips, again making things pretty difficult. The mixer is pretty basic but it has full kills on the EQs and the faders are pretty smooth.

Anyway the mix isn't perfect, but I have other stuff I want to move on to so I'm posting it anyway. There's a slight skip in the breakdown in the Rustler track because my computer skipped for some reason, and there's a couple choppy transitions I would change in the future, but it's not too too bad. Mostly just a fun mix of some cool clubby tunes and some neat remixes of old classics you may not have heard before. Also a shameless plug of my own track right in the middle.

*NOTE* - I received a DMCA complaint about this post. I have no idea what they were complaining about, and when I responded asking for clarification, I got no reply. Since I can't be bothered to 'fight' for the contents of this post, I've instead removed the vocal house mix from the post, and also from Soundcloud. It wasn't that flash anyway. I'll leave the tracklist below, and if you're really interested in hearing it message me and I'll send it to you.

Artist: Bryan Raydio

Title: Vocal House Mix

Label: Independent/Unsigned

Format: 320kbps MP3

Released: 11 February 2010

Genre: Vocal / Progressive House

Length: 58:37

TRACKLIST:

01. Chromeo - Needy Girl [Lifelike Remix]

02. Glamrock Brothers - Long Train Runnin' [Xadis Remix]

03. Armand van Helden - The Funk Phenomena [Starkillers Remix]

04. Deadmau5 - Dr. Funkenstein

05. Michael Jackson - Billie Jean [Steve Murano Mark Of Respect Mix]

06. Jefferson Airplane - Somebody To Love [Yeap! Remix]

07. Eurythmics - Sweet Dreams [Kriss-One Remix]

08. Rustler - Around The World

09. Bryan Raydio - Ain't Nobody

10. Green Velvet & Kid Sister - Everybody Wants

11. Will Bailey & Hot Mouth - Underwear Funk

12. The Sound Diggers - Dance Like This

13. Duck Sauce - Anyway

14. Bob Sinclar - Peace Song [David Tort Together Remix]

15. The Whitest Boy Alive - Golden Cage [Fred Falke Remix]

Jónsi - Go Do

Well if you haven't heard of Sigur Rós you're missing out on some pretty awesome music. They're from Iceland, which I gather is a pretty awesome place. I haven't been there yet but it's on my list of things to do. Jónsi Birgisson is the lead singer and a pretty out there dude. He's now releasing his first album "Go" this coming April, and is coming on tour to North America too. I would imagine the show would be pretty mind-blowing, if you're into ethereal epic style music. This is the first single, great song, crazy vid.

Check out this awesome Sigur Rós song.

Jean Claude Ades & Vincent Thomas - Shingaling

It's Feels Good Thursday, and tonight Soundsyster is playing down at the Capital. I remember hearing her stuff for the first time a few years back at the Afterdark here in town, and then seeing her at various other events. She generally plays pretty upbeat funky or minimal house and it's always fun to groove to. I first heard this song in one of her sets and it definitely got my head boppin.

Catchy little ditty ain't it?

Mastodon - Sleeping Giant

Well I'm on a bit of a metal kick since Monday, and here's one of my favourite recent-ish metal videos. Mastodon! What a band name. If that doesn't say "kick ass sound crushing metal mayhem monstrosity music" in one gigantic word, I don't know what does. Although I suppose Slayer wasn't bad either... but I digress.

Awesome!

Sepultura - Ratamahatta

I went to Metal Monday last night, and unfortunately I missed Manlord and We, The Undersigned, but I did catch Iron Giant. Awesome stuff, great show. Metal fans tend to be badly stereotyped because they wear black and spikey stuff and have lots of tattoos and piercings. I find them to be some of the nicest people around, very soft spoken and of good humour. It seems to me that it's better to get your emotion out at a show or at home listening to some kickass tunes than taking it out on your fellow drivers on the highway, or the guy down at Tim Horton's.

Anyway I could never really classify myself as a metalhead per se, but I do have a lot of time for some really awesome LOUD! music. Really it's metal and industrial that got me into the electronic genre in the first place. In 1996 Sepultura came out with "Roots" that was an awesome follow up to earlier efforts and the last album to feature epic vocalist Max Cavalera. My favourite track is this one, which happened to have a sweet stop-motion Tool-esque video that I remember catching on Muchmusic. Oh, can you imagine? A metal video on Much? Thems were the days...

Need more loud angry awesomeness? Try this one.

Die Antwoord - Enter The Ninja

Monday! A fresh week calls for a fresh track. For me, it doesn't get any "fresher" than this badass killa out of South Africa. Mad props to Johnston for this one, no idea where he finds this stuff but all I can say is daaaaaamn! These guys probably have one hit wonder written all over them, but I don't care. This tune rocks, the video rocks, and their website is pretty sweet too. Check it out boyyyyyy. Hahaha.

Madness in a taxi? Sure, why not.

Dirty Vegas - Days Go By

It was Indie Pop night last night at The Capital, featuring DJ Bones. Indie is in these days. Can't say I'm a huge fan, but there's a few sweet tunes to be found in amongst the dross. Indie fans tend to dress kinda silly. A little like me on crazy nights, but possibly even more silly. One guy thought it would be cool to bring his own ghettoblaster and rock his own tunes. He wasn't cool enough to get in the bar. He did remind me of this sweet video though. The guy in this video is much cooler. He would have got in the bar.

There's a sweet acoustic version of this song here.

Izza Kizza - Ooh La La

I have no idea who this guy is and had never heard of him until yesterday, but my man Travioli showed me this video and it was mad awesome. Coolest video I've seen since Gnarls Barkley showed up in town. Anyway you can check out his official website here. Can't wait to hear more of this guy.

Superfly.

Cazals - Somebody, Somewhere

I was at the first Feels Good Thursday event last night, and Mizz Maxine was spinning. She threw on some pretty badass tracks, the highlight for me being Lifelike's "Sequencer". Stunning track, and it reminded me of my favourite Lifelike remix, which I also first heard from one of Maxine's earlier Evolve sets. The video is just a little Planet Earth montage, but the song is so awesome I thought I'd throw it on anyway.

Check out more Mizz Maxine sets here.

Beck - Cellphone's Dead

Lee was playing this down at the bar the other night and it reminded me how awesome Beck is. Not that I'd ever really forgotten, but sometimes things that are really awesome get lost in the shuffle a bit and need some reinvestigating. Kinda like people. I'm looking into them soon. By the way, is it just me or is Ian MacDougall (aka Tom Fun) making a cameo appearance in this one?

Groove to another choice Beck joint here.

Tom Fun Orchestra - Throw Me To The Rats

Who ever said everything on here has to be electronic? Hmm... nobody I guess... ok so let's try this...

FUN! Tom Fun. Tom Fun Orchestra! These guys are from lovely Cape Breton and they always put on a great show. I happened to find a couple vids online and here is one of them. They're a little nutty and I dig 'em. Think more upbeat folky Tom Waits.

Rats.

Bryan Raydio - Future Releases Sampler Tracks

Aloha!

No, I'm not in Hawaii. I just wish I was. It's like -25 outside. Seriously. It was almost plus 5 like two days ago. Global warming? Try climate change Mr. Gore. Get a clue bucko.

Good news! I've revamped my Myspace page and I'm now on Twitter! I've uploaded 90 second previews of all of my released tracks on Myspace. Apologies for the crappy quality of the Myspace player, but it'll give you a half-decent idea of what my stuff sounds like. I'm hoping to figure out Soundcloud soon so I can post previews on the blog, but until then, Myspace it is.

Also, I've uploaded two 5-minute sampler tracks of Future Releases, featuring short snippets of some of the new tracks I'm working on. Much of the stuff I've put on here so far has been kinda dark techno-ish stuff, but that's not the only thing I'm interested in producing. The sampler tracks show off some different vibes.

Anyway check out the Myspace page for previews, and if you want high quality versions of the sampler tracks, see below:

FUTURE RELEASES SAMPLER 1 - new links coming soon...

FUTURE RELEASES SAMPLER 2 - new links coming soon...

Washed Out - Feel It All Around

This once-a-day awesome video posting is trickier than I thought. So maybe I won't post one every day... but I'll try. Anyway let's start off the month with something truly awesome. If you somehow haven't seen this one yet, please scroll down and press play. You can thank me later.

For more awesomeness check out Chase Heavener's videos here.