Tuesday Clouds

Beginning to think there might be some shenanigans going on when it comes to my semi-regular soundcloud dumps. Whenever I plan one out and set a day for posting it, it always buckets down outside. Not that it's too much of an issue like, because I can always count on my soundcloud feed to brighten things up, starting with another one from Smoothie Tunes. I've re-writtten this bit about 4 times as the track progresses, it's like a meeting of smooth A:xus meets 2-step garage and then, not content with that throws in some MIDI sounding sax towards the end.



Next is yet another hip hop instrumental (I know shock horror). Slightly different from my usual hip hop instrumental love affairs this time though, go beyond the piano and yu're treated to some lovely electronic organ style sounds that I'm pretty sure I've heard on some of the unreleased or early version of Gorillaz's Plastic Beach.



And more smooth electronics to play us out. It's not long before the heavy electro stuff comes in, all backed up by some extra funky sounding synth too. Think some parts of the mix might be mastered a bit loud in all honesty, but it almost gets that Los Angeles FlyLo compression going on and really there's bigger problems than that when it comes to production isn't there? Just watch your speakers/headphones around 1:32 or so :).



-Claude Van Foxbat

Return Of The Soundcloud Roundup

Been a long time since I pulled one of these, and now that Soundcloud only offers previews for a lot of stuff you might see a lot more of it in future. Regardless here's one from my feed that caught my ear, there's always a gap in my library for more A:xus-esque hosue numbers that are home to some slightly downbeat lyrical content despite the upbeat backing.



It should be no secret by now that I'm a sucker for instrumental hip hop stuff and slow jams. Chalk it up to early exposure to Adult Swim, which is actually relevant here with the cover being The Big O and all. Regardless, this one ticks all my boxes for that, with maybe just a smidgen of bonus Vapourwave in there too.



Me and Adam were talking a while back about how HudMo is never going to bless us with another LP like Butter, and that got me a lil nostalgic for that ever changing genre that wavers between ridiculous names like aquacrunk and #beats. Lucky there's enough floating around to scratch that itch a little, my mind would have melted had FlyLo been putting samples like this in Los Angeles.



-Cluade Van Foxbat

Soundcloud Roundup 9

That time of the week again, kicking things off right away with a cover of one of my favourite Modeselektor tracks. It most certainly does it justice, and it's especially nice to hear Modeselektor's unique breed of electronic transfer well into other styles. And I'd be lying if I said I wasn't totally in love with the pitch bends on the intro.



Next is another track I saw thanks to a cheeky reblog and oh my, where do I begin. So many touchstones to reference; shades of UNKLE, Apparat, Trentemøller, a smidgen of Post-Rock and perhaps some fragments of The Knife too, all wrapped up in a killer bassline. I'm loving the builds in intensity thoroughout. Definitely going to keep my eye on these two for future coverage.



And finally yet another piece from Celadon City. He teased not too long ago that he'd got an auto-tune setup working and I've been waiting on the results ever since. The vocals make a nice addition to the usual feel good vibes of CC's output, albeit with a more downbeat lyrical angle. There's still a lot of room to experiment and improve, but I'll always support people tweaking and otherwise fiddling with vocals.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Post-Spooky Soundcloud Roundup

And back to our regularly scheduled programming we go. It's only fitting that hot off the heels of me retelling the story of my love for synthpop and electroclash I get this one sent to me. It's always nice to see people who have their visual style locked down for one, and for two they seem to have found the manual on how to tick my electronic boxes. Very interesting to see the similarities to old school synthpop hearing them so close together, as well as the more modern comparisons I could draw to Au Revoir Simone, Ladytron, La Roux, Goldfrapp and the like



Former writer Joe has also made it onto my list once again, his latest Netlabel project just had it's first birthday, and to celebrate he put together a lovely compilation EP that I think sums up the whole sound they're going for pretty well. Unfortunately I'd posted most of the tracks included so instead of posting the full player, have this super cute bite sized sample instead.



My man Celadon remains a powerhouse, how he comes out with so many different tunes in a small time frame to such a high standard eludes me. I was originally going to post more of his more recent ambient efforts but It was a bit of a 180 in sound given the last two, so instead, have this compilation piece that I somehow missed. It's a lot more in common with what I've posted of his before, but this time featuring a lovely chiptune-y style in addition to the usual playful tones.



-Claude Van Foxbat

Areyoulistening

Sorry to leave you all hanging the last couple of days, I've been busy working on university stuff and the super secret mix (which broke the hour mark today!) that I'm saving for something very special coming soon!

Here's a neat thing I found the other day, it's a site that plays police radio chatter over ambient tunes streamed from soundcloud. I was skeptical at first but you know what? 80% of the time it actually sounds pretty good depending on the soundcloud tune, but that's what the skip button is for! check it out for yourself over at youarelistening.to

We've Got Transients,
-Claude Van Foxbat

Todd Edwards

It's been awhile since any of us have posted any Todd Edwards, and let me tell ya, it's been worth the silence.

Todd has been posting on Facebook about a download site he is working on where you would be able to access his tracks and purchase them. TO tide us over til the actual debut of the site, he has promised that every Tuesday he will upload his unreleased remixes to his Soundcloud for free download.

The first Tuesday was this week, and his Soundcloud yields many Edwards jewels. I recommend you check it out! I'd post some up, but I've had difficulty with downloading from Soundcloud, so none of the files made it. Check it out! Maybe next Tuesday will see a high quality MP3 of his elusive DVNO mix!

I guess that's all for now. I'll get some of my summer jams up in the next couple days. :)
Boba