Pretty Lights - Lost And Found

This fella has drifted quite a ways from the trippy soulful grooves that got him big in the first place, lately opting for big-sounding electro dub. I really wasn't a fan of his last album, which is disappointing because I loved his older stuff. I guess we all have to evolve in our own ways and obviously somebody is really digging his new stuff, but I just ain't feelin' it. This is actually a b-side from the new album, and for me it's better than most (if not all) of the a-sides.

Helios - First Dream Called Ocean

It's Tuesday, it's late, we need some chill-out beats. This is the Stray remix of a great track by Keith Kenniff, a prolific ambient producer and musician extraordinaire. I highly recommend checking out all his stuff, especially if you're into thinking music.

FKA Twigs - Two Weeks

...and this is just crazy. Great track, awesome video. I had no idea who she was until I saw it, now I've got the album and I'm ready to give it a listen. Love the production, a kind of dub mix that sounds a bit like a couple tracks I've got on the go. Dig the vocal mix too, though the lyrics are definitely PG-13. Earmuffs!

Addison Groove - Abandon

This is actually a Tony Williams (aka Headhunter) production, but it's Josefina who provides the lovely vocals. A nice chilled out grooooove...

Broods - Four Walls

So my vacation was nice, thanks for asking. Sorry for leaving that part out of my last post. I'm sure you understand. Lately Mondays have been all about metal, but it's cooler since my last post was pretty heavy, let's change it up today. How about ladies night? By that I mean some talented ladies doin' some sweet sainging. Here's Georgia Nott, one half of yet more talent from New Zealand. 

Tool - Right In Two

Since we've been talking about Mr. Carey, it seems criminal not to post a song by his real band. Upon closer inspection, it's been four years since I posted a video by them, and eight since they released an album. Coincidence? Completely. 

This is not an official video, since they hardly ever put those out, it's a fan-made one using footage from "The Gloaming", a pretty cool animated short worth watching. Man I hope their next album comes out one day. These guys are unquestionably one of the greatest bands on the planet in the history of all time ever. In the universe. Happy now, metalheads?

The Residents - Hello Skinny

Objection, Your Honor, Primus and The Residents aren't metal bands.

True enough, but nobody declared this an official Metal Monday anyway, and it's dark and dreary and twisted and loosely connected, so I'll allow it.

If you're into Primus you may recall an eerie cover of this song on the re-issue of Frizzle Fry, and in fact the vocals on this original, released in 1978, sound even more eerily just like Les Claypool, only it isn't. It's as if the song were always intended to be written for a man yet to perform it, and a band not yet created. Bizarre, creepy, and wonderful. 

Primus - Over The Electric Grapevine

What do you do when you're the world's greatest bass player and you need a stand-in for your world class drummer on your upcoming tour? Why, you get the world's greatest drummer, of course. What a silly question. Haha. 

Of course these opinions are subjective, but if you were to ask most aficionados, the names Les Claypool and Danny Carey would, at the very least, be in the conversation as the best on their respective weapons of choice. Herb isn't far behind Mr. Carey in my books, but this is like a present to all those drummer geeks who always wondered "what if?" I envy all who get to witness this guaranteed awesomeness.

The Saturday Beat

Time to revive the old bonus beats again, but slightly different. I used to embed the YouTube links and then minimize the player but it doesn't really work now with the new code so I'll just switch to Soundcloud links instead. Probably for the best anyway.

A bangin' track that's a couple years old but still rock solid. Classic Green Velvet techno groove combined with the Harvard BASS. Yessir.

Funky bumpin' house track with that lick of motown. Classy.

Deep, dark, and delicious. Late night tech house for the moonlight.

Bouncy poolside summer groove. Lovin' this one.

Some nice phat mainline groove action. Really smooth remix.

Bryan Raydio - Into The Deep EP

So it's done. Finally. At last. This one has proved a major roadblock, but I'm through it. Now onto more, and much, much sooner. While it's been a good two years since I put out my last EP, it's actually been about four years since the very first incarnations of these tracks took shape. They've gone through countless edits and I was just never satisfied with them. After chipping away I'm finally where I can say I've had enough.

Production, mixing, and mastering was all done by me, mostly in FL Studio using various VSTs both native and external. The songs themselves are kind of a progressive-techno-IDM mix, I'm never really sure how to describe my stuff in terms of genre unless it's clear-cut. Definitely a darker feel to these ones, pretty intense, which isn't necessarily a reflection of my mood these days, it's just how the songs came out. Hopefully they don't scare anyone away!

I'd like to think I've made a few advances technically since the last release. Hopefully these tracks have a cleaner sound to them. I was pretty meticulous in the mixing stage and spent a lot of time making sure everything was EQ'd properly and in phase. That's not to say it will be perfect, because for all I know on some speakers they could sound crap, but after testing on my studio monitors, various headphones and ear buds, and the car stereo, they sound ok on my end at least. Do let me know if there are glaring errors.

One thing I did differently in the mastering stage this time was I left some air in the final cut. Those in the production business will have seen and heard countless tracks that are blasted and squashed and maximised to death. Some refer to it as the loudness war. I'm very conscious of it and after making a couple different versions, I much preferred to leave the volume down and leave the original dynamics. So at the final limiting stage I only compressed the peaks by maybe 1-1.5 db at the most, most of the time it wasn't compressing at all. If you have no idea what any of that means, don't worry about it. It just means you might have to turn up the volume a little bit if you want it real loud. 

Now that these buggers are out of the way there will be more, and soon. I put out six EP's in 2012, I expect to have at least two or three more out this year. I'm going to leave this here for a couple days. Click on the album cover below to get to the download page. I'll get back to posting on Saturday.

Red Fang - The Meadows

Brand new video! Done and done.

Iced Earth - A Question Of Heaven

I'm actually pretty shocked that I've never posted any of these guys before. Not that I listen to them every day or anything even close, but they're a pretty awesome metal band. 

Killswitch Engage - The End Of Heartache

I was going to post my own stuff, but it'll have to wait until tomorrow. I'll fall back on some metal, since it's Monday. This is actually three songs all in one go. These guys have a new singer, but he ain't Howard Jones. Behold his greatness.

1 - The End Of Heartache

2 - Take This Oath

3 - Numbered Days

United Steel Workers Of Montreal - Place St. Henri

Wooo, what a rush. Let's slow things down and slide into the evening with this fantastic outfit from Montreal. Haven't heard anything new or seen them live in a couple years, but I hope they're still going strong.

Steve N Seagulls - The Trooper

Can't go wrong with a bluegrass cover of Iron Maiden, amiright?

Old Man Luedecke - Kingdom Come

It's a lazy Sunday so that sounds like a good excuse to post some relaxing acoustic stuff. Starting with some bluegrass from this cheery fella from Nova Scotia. 

London Elektricity - All Hell Is Breaking Loose

This is a track from 2008 with a new video. Farking brilliant.

Todd Terje - Spiral

I post a fair bit of this fella, but it's only because he's awesome.

The Subs - Concorde

I'm a bit tuckered out from a long day in the sun so I thought I'd post some chillaxo music, but then I thought no, I'm going to suck it up and rock some dance beats. Git 'er done.

Here Come The Mummies - Chaperone

I like to call this genre mummy funk.