"A little bit of this and that!"
They've added Kevin Aviance to the CircuitASIA event that's being held in Bangkok this coming spring. This party could turn out to be a whole lot of fun. . My favorite new non-dance musical act just released their debut album. I can't recommend highly enough Blue Merle's CD on Island Records called Burning In The Sun. .. Fireball seemed to be an overall success with generally good reports about the music and the DJs. Interestingly enough, it is DJ Warren Gluck, the 30 year veteran, who seems to be garnering the highest accolades for his stellar direction of the musical landscape during Sunday's Tea Dance at Excalibur. . It's a Friday night East Coast invasion over at Hydrate during the month of March with Boston DJ Joe Bermudez on the 11th, followed by New Yorkers Alex Lauterstein on the 18th and DeMarko on the 25th.
DJ joe Bermudez
Music Music and More Music
Full-Length CDs --
The annual Fireball benefit CD produced by Centaur is out and this year it was the VIP Flame Party DJ, Paulo, who was responsible for the mixing. Party Groove: Fireball Volume 3 is a top-notch effort that truly represents Paulo's abilities in the DJ booth. As he does live, with this mixed compilation CD he weaves dark, sexy tribal beats - the best of which is Paulo's own "Oh Yeah" - around solid vocal tracks. And by vocals I'm not talking about quickie remixes of weak voiced pop stars. I mean by true dance divas who can really sing like Jocelyn Brown and Loleatta Holloway do on "A Better World," the fifth track of this CD. Congrats to Paulo and Centaur!
Party Groove:Fireball 3
The machine that is American Idol just keeps on chugging away: the fourth season is in a full swing and the winner from the third season is out with a full-length album that's tracking well and having an impact on more than just the pop charts. Free Yourself by Fantasia (J Records) is a testament to the fact that despite winning a competition to find the next great pop music star, this daughter of the South is going to stick to her guns by showcasing her unique voice across of range of musical genres. Be it with R&B/soul tracks, commercial pop singles, or even standards from the American songbook, Fantasia attacks each offering on Free Yourself with assured determination and a sense of ownership that you'd expect from a seasoned veteran, not from a newcomer to the largest of musical stages. Many predicted great things for this winner of Idol 3. With a start like this, Fantasia is well on her way to proving them right.
Fantasia : free Yourself
Singles --
For the second time in this article I bring up Loleatta Holloway's name as there are new remixes to her classic "Stand Up." Live Element has re-worked the original with some modern touches and a bit more of a darker chug to it that builds nicely to the break-out point where Ms. Holloway, too too happy to be with the man that she has, exclaims to the listener to "Stand up. Tell everybody I got him!" The Hott 22 remix is an interesting full-bodied general house mix infused with an incessant piano. Finally, there's the jazzy Audiowhores Bootleg Edit and its dominating bass line for those who are looking for more of a deeper house vibe.
Proving again why they are one of the most interesting record labels around, Saw Recordings is offering up "Like This" by Matty Heilbronn. Yes, it seems strange that someone like Heilbronn would show up on Saw, but that's what I mean by this label being the so damn interesting. On "Like This" Heilbronn presents a hybrid of tech house and progressive infused with a bouncy and soulful bongo percussive line. For those of us looking for blurred lines of demarcation in our dance music, this is s prime offering.
As for tracks you're likely to hear on a weekend night during peak hours, Star 69 has enlisted Inaya Day to re-make Vanity 6's "Nasty Girl." All of the mixes have a strong electro feel to them with the Peter Rauhofer Sleaze mix nicely blending in tribal beats for a wicked dance floor cut that's plenty nasty for boyz and girlz alike.
Chicagoan Suzanne Palmer is back in our consciousness with "Home", also out on Star 69. Both the Beat Hustlerz and Offer Nissim have mixes of this track, which in my opinion is even better Palmer's big hiot last year: "Luv 2 Luv."
Tommy Boy has finally released the two big Friburn & Urik singles "I Need You" and "Show It" - which appeared on several compilations late last year. I think the former is the better of the two, by just a little bit, but you can expect to hear both of these late at night when the DJ is whipsawing the dance floor through a tribal beat orgasm.
Finally, the IT group at the moment within the GLBT community, Scissor Sisters, is out with remixes of "Filthy Gorgeous." While the 12 inch remix is most likely to get club play as the DJ mines their electro fare, the other mixes are more interesting and exciting. The Paper Faces mixes have a smoother, groovier feel to them and the Martini Brothers Mix is a tremendous tech house effort which I will surely incorporate into the sets for my more sophisticated audiences.
