On Trance/House Music

April 17, 2007 | Filed Under Music, Website | 2 Comments 

Most people know I like a good electronica mix (and that I mix my own music too). I don’t like much of the weak techno that came out the 80s, or the regurgitated stuff you hear on some pop FM station on the weekend (which is what most people think of when they hear about electronica). We’re talking real trance music and house music that LA and NYC are known for…stuff Europe packs clubs with. Usually the mixdown is cut to vinyl. Turntables and all that. I think that Eric Jordan is a true traditionalist and I have many of his sets from Neverrain. Great stuff.

But I really like a lot of melodic sets too. Case in point: Kyau & Albert. In fact, some of the visitors to this website will no doubt come simply because it is one of the names of one of K&A’s very first hit mixes. Some further details FYI:

This website name was not inspired by Kyau and Albert’s Made of Sun mix. But I do think the song is amazing and is always on heavy rotation on every playlist in my iPod. But alas, the site name primarily comes from other sources.

In any case, I like some of the remixes out there of Made of Sun by K&A, and I’ve included a clip you can hear right here, if you’d like: ENJOY. It is definately a favorite.

Back to the music. I don’t like every one of K&A mixes though, as some of them lean WAY too much into the “pop” sound and those I don’t like at all…(Whenever any electronica mix has mundane beats and the lyrics are boring or the artist is only going for a hook in the song it is bad news…it reminds me of something like Eiffel 65…blech). But I do like when K&A cuts stuff like Outside, Velvet Morning, etc. There’s a fine line though. Usually those sounds are full of industrial/robotic filters and the futurist/melodic style is probably the best type of house music I like. Stuff like Delerium’s After All mix (feat. Jael), Aven’s Making Me Fall, etc. are good examples of how to walk that line.

Incidentally, in three days, K&A is scheduled to perform live in Taipei. That would be cool (minus the bar scene, of course…I don’t do the club thing anymore, unless it’s outside and junkie free) seeing how the only electronica I had the opportunity of hearing while in Taiwan was when we were in Jingme, at a shop in a night market. I even asked the shop owner what mix it was, and he burned me a copy of the CD he was playing over his system. It was really funny stuff, but I liked how copycat it was with 80s techno. That’s my only experience with the Taipei electronica scene. Asia has a ways to go before the music is uniquely their own in that department. Japan is propably the leader there, but some of the stuff I heard in Taiwan wasn’t bad.

In case you’re wondering, I learned and used Pro Tools for a while at school, but have since fallen for Apple’s (no surprise there)Logic. Even Garageband is a good conceptual tool I use to lay something down but Logic Express/Logic Pro is definately the way to go.