My Selection of Essential Albums

So, NME have just published a list of 100 albums compiled by a jury of industry types and musicians [www.nme.com/list/albums-of-the-decade]. Some seem to thing the list is pretty accurate - but I think there are a few albums missing. Yes, this is a selection of my personal favourites from the last 9 years 10 months and 3 weeks - but I also think they are rather essential.

So, here is my list - no particular order, no number 1, just 12 albums from my collection that all deserve equal placing.

• BT - This Binary Universe
• Burial - Untrue
• Frou Frou - Details
• Grand National - Kicking The National Habit
• Jose Gonzalez - Veneer
• Quiet Village - Silent Movie
• Royksopp - Melody AM
• Sasha - Airdrawndagger
• Simian Mobile Disco - Attack Delay Sustain Release
• Thom Yorke - The Eraser
• Trentemoller - The Last Resort
• Zero 7 - Simple Things

So, that’s mine - do you have any suggestions that were [wrongfully] missed.

Martin Lucas November Chart

Loads of great deep house around at the moment - and lots of my favourite labels releasing material, Freerange, Buzzin’ Fly, Urban Torque and Compost.

1. DJ Yellow - Mindz Theme (DPlay Remix) [Freerange]
2. Sonogama - Wink Bias [Sounderground]
3. Zwicker - Dragon Fly (Soultourist Remix) [Compost]
4. Glimpse & Martin Eyerer (Jay Shepheard Remix) [Buzzin' Fly]
5. Paulo Olarte - Vivir Sonando (Garnica Remix) [Trenton]
6. Charles Webster - Together As One [Om]
7. Sebastian Davidson - Nightbird (Shur-I-Kan’s Sound of Summer Remix) [Meerkat Music]
8. M.A.D. - Brainwaves [Urban Torque]
9. Solomun - Don’t Cry [Compost]
10. Lovebirds - Operator [Om]

Martin Lucas October Chart

Put simply, 10 fantastic deep and tech house tracks found over the last months worth of record shopping, all tried and tested on the dance floor for good measure!

1. Sebastian Davidson - NightBird (Shur-I-Kan Remix)
2. Florian Kruse - Mind Games (Nils Nurnberg Remix)
3. Stel - The Burds (Kruse & Nurnberg Remix)
4. Office Gossip - Sirius A (Kruse & Nurnberg Remix)
5. Charles Webster - Together As One (Aquabassino Remix)
6. Matin - Io
7. Kollektiv Turmstrasse - Flaschenpost
8. Ribn - This Feeling
9. Paulo Olarte - Vivir Sonando (Garnica Remix)
10. MAD - Brainwaves

Yes, there is a lot of Kruse & Nurnberg in there this month, but I’ve just found them and they are very prolific - definitely worth hunting down.

Promote Your Music With SoundCloud

Promoting your music on the internet has grown up substantially since the old days of just having a website and email address. As a DJ or producer, you now have the chance to show off your output on a number of websites and social networks, but there are lots of them - so which ones do you choose, and how do you get the best out of them.

I’ll be starting off with SoundCloud with this series of posts, but will also be taking in Facebook and Twitter in future posts.

SoundCloud is basically Flickr for audio, which if you are familiar with the inner workings of Flickr then you’ll understand it all very quickly and will probably be able to sign up, start uploading and begin to get the most out of the site. If you’re not - then keep reading.

Signing up is very easy and allows you to create a profile page, adding all common bits of information like website address, age and location. You’ll also have to choose a photo to use as an avatar, as well as a user name that will form your SoundCloud address (such as SoundCloud.com/martinlucas).

Adding audio is easy - and probably one of the first things you’ll want to do. As a non pro-user (Pro accounts are priced from $99.00 to $599.00 per year) you’ll only be able to have 10 audio tracks stored on your account at anyone time - so make sure only your best tracks get on your cloud. Depending what you’re uploading (a lot of different file formats are allowed including mp3, wav, aiff, flac and more), how big the file is (there are no file size limits) and how quick your internet connection is will depend on how long the upload takes. While the upload is in progress you get the chance to fill in lots of information about the audio such as genre, keywords, description, artwork, key, bpm, and even links to where the track can be purchased if it’s been released.

Once your track has been uploaded it’s time to promote it within SoundCloud, as well as share it to the rest of the Internet. If you have a Twitter account it is definitely worth syncing up the two networks, this allows SoundCloud to tweet for you whenever you upload audio, it will also tweet when you add another users track to your favourites.

There are two main ways to get your track in front of other SoundCloud users, to either have them follow you, or to add it to a group. The first option takes time, if you want to be informed of someone’s activity on then follow them - any new uploads, or favourites they add will appear in your dashboard. Following someone doesn’t mean they will follow you back - but sometimes they do, and as you contribute more to the website, the more you’ll be discovered - and hopefully if your audio is something people like, you’ll be followed by other users.

Adding your tracks to groups is an easy way to promote your audio, but first you need to find some groups to join. Use the search box at the top of any page to find groups that compliment your music - so if you are a Deep House DJ for example, you’ll use groups such as DEEP, Deep House and Techno and maybe DJ Mixes. Adding tracks to a group is quick and easy - although some are moderated to filter out spam submissions, but even within those groups your tracks show up in the group within a day.

You can use the SoundCloud widget to promote your tracks outside of the website, you can place your track on your own website as well as embed the player on your MySpace page, there’s even a Facebook application which allows you to add selected tracks to your profile page. This is a good way of telling people outside of SoundCloud that you have an account - maybe they’re also on the site but haven’t found your profile yet.

As with all Social Networks, you only get out what you put in - and SoundCloud is no different. You’ve got to join the community to get your tracks and mixes listened to, take the time to listen to other peoples music (this isn’t hard work as there is a lot of really good music on there), if you like a track - add it to your favourites, it only takes one click. If you really like the track, tell the user by way of a comment. SoundCloud has a really nice solution for comments, timed ones - you can make a comment at a precise moment within the audio, this allows you to talk about a specific track in a mix, or for example the breakdown in a single track. You can also add non-timed comments about the whole piece.

Taking the time to join groups, listen to other users tracks, adding favourites and making comments is a great way to make yourself seen on the site - if you’re providing helpful or positive comments then there is a good chance the deed will be repaid.

Here’s 5 tips to get you started;

1. When signing up, fill in as much information as possible - don’t go over the top, but people want to know a little bit about you when visiting your profile, a blank profile isn’t the best welcome.
2. Upload only your best tracks and / or mixes.
3. Join groups and add your audio to them.
4. Promote your audio outside of SoundCloud, sync your Twitter account, add the widget to your MySpace or personal website, and add the application to your Facebook profile
5. Join the community, listen to other peoples tracks - especially those within the groups you’ve joined, add favourites and make comments to tracks you like.

Troy Carter September Chart

10 superb tracks selected by this week’s guest DJ, Troy Carter - some of which can be found in the guest mix he supplied us for the Podcast.

1. Jimpster - Just The Kind Of Girl
2. Doomwork - Lost In Memory (Aki Bergen Remix)
3. Groove Armada - Love Sweet Sound (Mark Knight & Funkagendas R.H.B Remix)
4. Onur Ozman - Erotizm (Judea Stonez Mix)
5. Will Saul - 3000AD (I:cube Dub Mix)
6. Karol XVII & MB Valence - Drooling Mouthpiece
7. Israel Perez - Mexico
8. James Talk - The Beginning (Gorge Remix)
9. One51 - Together As One (The Flute Dub)
10. Carlos Cid & Greg Bahary ft Richie Cannata - The Conversation

Free Track from Urban Torque

September 21st sees the release of the the Diogenes Club’s debut EP on Urban Torque, titled ‘Do You Know How To Feel It?’.

Following a string of wonderfully idiosyncratic and freshly skewed instrumental EPs and remixes, the Diogenes Club have now been bolstered by the addition of song-writing vocalist Paul Giles. The combination of the Club’s quirky take on ‘80s funk and synth-laden melodies and Paul’s sweetly melancholic vocals make a resounding match. The startling effect has not gone unnoticed; and Pete Tong has already made ‘Do You Know How To Feel It?’ one of his ‘Calm before the storm’ tracks on his Radio 1 show. This EP pioneers the way ahead for the reinvigorated Diogenes Club, trailblazing along a path of emotionally-charged melody-driven electronic song.

1. Come Back To Us
2. Do You Know How To Feel It?
3. The Ageless
4. Early May

The Inflatable House has been given one of the tracks - ‘The Ageless’ - as a free download, just follow the link below and enter your email address and the password to access the track.

Download Link: www.urbantorque.com/promo/
Password: free

It’s a superb EP and definitely worth tracking down - it really does have something for everyone. It will be available at all good download stores on the 21st of September.

iTunes Improvement Suggestions

I just wrote a little note to the people at Apple and iTunes with two suggestions on how to improve it’s music download store, I thought I’d share it with you.

Hello,

I have one simple request idea (I hope it’s simple anyway), and one more complicated suggestion.

First, can we please have the ability to search by record label - I am a DJ and I follow a lot of record labels, finding and buying specific tracks because they’re released on a particular label. I’d really like the ability to search for a record label, so that I can view all their releases.

Additionally, it would be great for record labels to have their own pages - like the artist pages, this is only an add on point to my suggestion - but it would be very welcome. It would help give the smaller labels that I buy music from the ability to build on their brand from within itunes - and show off their entire back catalog. Record labels are very important, especially within dance music.

Next up, the 30 second samples - these are fine for a 3 minute pop song, but for 7 / 8 minute dance music tracks, the 30 seconds that are usually provided are of no help - the majority of the time it seems to be the first 30 seconds, which is normally just beats. Now, you could say that it isn’t your fault, but this is how dance music (especially house) is structure. A 30 second sample from the middle of the track would be so much better. I don’t know if taking the preview is cropped automatically, but if it could be changed to the middle of the track, we would get a much better idea of what the track sounded like before purchasing.

Additionally, it would be great for a longer sample - Juno Download has 1 minute, Beatport has 2 minutes and DJ Download has a needle drop preview so you can listen to any part of the track in 30 second chunks, this is so helpful for DJ’s when previewing the long tracks that we usually buy. I know that there are probably some legal issues attached to the 30 second previews, but if there isn’t a restriction, then it would be so helpful to extend the previews. How about a 60 second sample for tracks over 5 minutes?

itunes is great, it’s easy to use, the price of 79p per track is very competitive when comparing it to other download sites -especially dance music focused stores like Juno Download, DJ Download and Beatport. And now that you have iTunes Plus, which gives us much better quality - iTunes my preferred download store. I just think these 2 points will help attract a lot more DJ’s to your store.

Many thanks for taking the time to read my suggestions.

So, what do you think? If you agree, then contact iTunes yourself with a similar suggestion.

Shur-I-Kan Podcast

I’ve been a fan of Shur-I-Kan’s productions for quite a while now, so it was a great to find out that he has his own podcast.

Featuring an hour of deep house mixed and introduced by Shur-I-Kan, t’s a monthly mix, usually released within the first few days of the month. He manages to squeeze in a lot of tracks into the hour, giving you previews of future releases by himself, or from his record label Dark Energy, run in conjunction with Milton Jackson, as well as the best Deep House records currently doing the rounds.

It’s well worth subscribing to, the consistency and regularity makes this podcast a rare treat from such a high profile DJ / producer. Others should definitely take note.

Shur-I-Kan podcast info and subscription details

Manuel Tur - 0201

Over the last couple of years Manuel Tur has become one of my favourite producers, his remixes and original productions always find a home in my DJ box. So, when I found out an album was in the works - I was very excited indeed.

Now, I must admit - I didn’t actually get around to buying the album until a month or so after it’s release. I know - I should probably be locked up, as this really is something very special.

Unlike many albums, this is not a collection of previous productions grouped together and forced into an album, this is 13 tracks original productions put together for release. The result is one of the best albums I’ve heard in quite some time.

The album starts off slowly, the quiet, low end strings, piano and splashes of “Patchworks” which then builds into the beats of ‘Stay’ - the album’s first of 3 vocal tracks, the vocal performed by Larissa Kapp who’s voice is very similar to Lisa Stansfield. Next up is the dubby, string laden and rather leftfield “Rubicond”, it provides the set up for one of my favourite tracks on the album “Golden Complexion” - another vocal track and with no beats it completely holds your complete attention. The middle section of the album is like a deep house set, building from dub and leftfield to more progressive cuts taking you towards the final vocal track of the album and the lead single “Will Be Mine”. This signals the end of the middle chapter, the start of the end of the album is two very downtempo tracks “A40″ and “On The Road”. They are the calm before the storm - although the storm is the uplifting and almost acid house vibe of ‘Radial’ a gorgeous summer of love record perfect for day time festivals, it’s sunshine captured in 6 minutes of blissful house music. The album ends with another beatless production “Final Later”, and a reminder of Manuel Tur’s German upbringing - sounding like kraftwork, electronic strings build and collapse, weaving themselves amongst faint noises and samples. It rounds the album off brilliantly, the whole collection made me want to press repeat and start the whole journey again.

This is a very mature debut from a producer who could still be considered to be learning his trade - at only 22, he’s managed to produce a near perfect collection of tracks that many of considerable more experience would struggle to create. It’s an album that has it’s dancefloor moments, but similar to Sasha’s “Airdrawndagger” it has been built for the home - it knows it’s place.

No More Warm Up DJ’s?

A topic that has been cropping up more and more recently on forums, and was sparked into life by Nic Fancuilli on twitter (@nicfanciulli) who out of the blue came out and asked;

“Ok this is not a rant but has the concept of the warm up dj been lost?”

It’s a very valid question, and I have to say ‘yes’. Here are my thoughts on the subject.

DJ’ing has become to many - not all, more about the performance than the actual music itself. DJ’s want to be in the spotlight, they want to have everyone on the dancefloor from the moment they put the needle on the first track, they want to play the biggest tracks at their disposal to get that reaction, I don’t think they want to hide away the music that’s going to get a positive reaction, even if it could be too early to play those particular tracks.

Learning to DJ was based around a love affair with the music, but the rise of the superstar and the international clubbing scene has created a new reason to start DJ’ing - the lifestyle, money and fame. DJ’s aren’t happy with doing a job for the night, slotting in where needed - they want to be noticed, so they can move up the chain.

I personally love DJ’ing early on in the night, getting to the bar or club when it’s empty, building up the crowd slowly. Usually I’m my own warm up DJ, as I’m playing the entire night, so I break the night into chunks of time, being the warm up DJ, as well as the one who plays throughout, and finishes.

So, is the warm up DJ a thing of the past - do DJ’s just play the music they want, without considering the DJ who is going to follow them? Maybe we could get all sociological and say that the real problem is a lack of consideration of people within our culture, people are selfish… or, are DJ’s just selfish? No longer wanting to play for the love of music and for the crowd in front of them, but for themselves and what they can gain out of it.

I believe Nic Fanciulli started as a warm up DJ in Kent, and along with former warm up DJ’s such as James Zabiella and Danny Howells, has become a headline act. So, it’s definitely possible to move up the DJ food chain, to be noticed and to become the main event. I hope this continues as DJ’s do need to start somewhere, and the good ones should shine and get the opportunity to progress - I just hope there is someone to follow in their footsteps and provide the warm up for them.

It’s a very valid point, and this is just my take on Nic’s tweet, I’d love you to disagree and list a huge list of warm up DJ’s at clubs up and down the country and around the world that are happy being the warm up act, that know their place within the musical set up and perform their job without an ego.