Having propelled podcasts in the primary in volume one, it’s the turn of tracks in this our next music newsletter of 2013, we picking out the producers we promote right here on our website, looking through their recent productions & picking out our highlights, while podcasts get a little look in too.
After a couple of false starts towards the end of last year, we are filled with a huge sense of relief that the clouds that hung over us in 2012are lifting, along with the braking of certain shackles that were all too often dominating our lives, we very much finding ourselves back in the writing grove and feeling great for it. So while we sit on our sofa nursing our first (hopefully only) injury of 2013, the order that has seemingly returned means that we are in action stations mode to propel the prolific track producers that gain our support right here on our website. And what a spectacular six they are, all star players on the global clubbing circuit and whose tracks & productions are, in our books, right up there with the best in the business, meaning it is with complete & utter joy that we will be sharing with you, snippets of their biog’s and discog’s and then selecting our tip top tracks with links to official download pages & video clips. But this second volume in our 2013 music newsletter series is not entirely about the towering track producers, we finding room for a couple of podcast mentions, while also propelling a new(ish) production that we have been itching to share for a few weeks now.
So let’s get down to business and to the first of our spectacular six, a man whose work we have been following for over five years now and someone we are privileged to call a great friend, Danny Verde having exploded onto the international D.J.’ing stage in 2009 after building the solid foundation that is his track recordings, the hallowed Holab Studio turf that is his home, this marvellous Milano man having been in the music making business since 1994. His early years saw him make his mark in Italy, while in track terms, his big international break was the release of “Pushin To The Top” in 2008, this pretty much opening a floodgate to remix opportunities that have since seen him work on productions for Lady Ga-Ga, Cyndi Lauper, Kelly Rowland &, most recently, The Scissor Sisters & Mariah Carey. But setting his studio work aside for a moment, Danny’s D.J.’ing strides have been pretty huge in the last three to four years, very much propelling him to the top of his game, Europe, The America’s & Australasia his prolific playing field, he having cracked the US nut a couple of years ago and hasn’t really looked back. And you just have to look at the schedule he is about to embark on, to see that Danny is a gig globetrotting giant, The Atlantis Cruise seeing him sail the Caribbean in just four days time, this followed by Mardi Gras in Sydney, then Moscow, Palm Springs, Bangkok, Paris & Dallas, while Mexico & Brazil are regular & rich playing fields for Mr Verde, his trips to the UK sadly pretty seldom, although we did manage to spend a wonderful short weekend with him in Brighton last September.
So to those tracks and if there was ever a production that shouts Danny Verde it is “Pushin To The Top”, while his other fully fledged single “Express Yourself” has, perhaps, enjoyed much more exposure both across the worlds dancefloors and on the international radio airwaves, while a third track, our favourite of the three, “Open Your Heart” is one that has dipped under the popular radar a little, not quite emulating the success of the other two, but is an equally good example of Danny’s talent for turning out a tip top track. However, it is his remix productions that have been pushed to prominence, a veritable feast of beauties in his beats batch, many holding magical memories for us, his incredible interpretation of Blake Lewis’s “Till We See The Sun” reminding us of a brilliant last trip to Berlin, while his re-work of Ellie Goulding’s “Starry Eyed” is us on our Beyond spot through & through. Then there is Lady Ga-Ga’s “You & I” which recalls the fabulous Friday we spent by Danny’s side at Muccassassina in Rome, while his nifty work on Neon Hitch’s “Fuck U Better” not only links us with racing around London’s roads, but made it safely into our top 40 track chart of 2012, beating off plenty of stiff competition others in the process. However, while Danny has amassed no less than six official remixes in the last year alone, all which you can preview via https://soundcloud.com/holabstudio, some also up on his Beatport page at http://beatport.com/artist/danny-verde/70306, if we were pushed to pick a favourite of his many marvellous mixes, it probably has to be Danny’s remix of the Pagano & Wayne G track “Trapped” featuring the vocals of Peyton, one which this incredible vocalist would, we expect, rank as an all-tile anthem, as we do.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rt7iNpotnQ[/youtube]
To the second of our spectacular six and the superb Guy Scheiman, another prolific producer that we have befriended in recent years, just three weekends ago helping him celebrate his birthday in Paris, that same weekend witnessing a truly scintillating set of his at Scream, while the memories of the terrific time we had together at Delice Dream a couple of years ago will live with us forever. But there have been opportunities missed, Guy’s part of the Hustlaball London playing package in 2011 one example, we having been laid up in hospital while just this weekend, we could have been with him in Bristol but for yet another injury. And we have to grab these chances swiftly, as his Tel Aviv base means this impressionable Israeli rarely makes trips to The U.K., while Germany, Spain & soon to be a tour of Mexico are destinations you will find the genial Guy when away from home. However, home is where Mr Scheiman is at his most productive, devoting much of his spare time to his studio sessions, while the clubbing scene in his own backyard has been familiar territory for many years, guest slots come residencies at the likes of Penguin, Supermarket, Oman 17 and Cat & Dog are all part of his playing portfolio, while his insatiable desire to carve out a career behind the decks oozes from every pour.
However, there can be no doubt that his absolute passion for amazing music runs through his veins, not a day going by without him delving deep into the bowels of Beatport & other such sources, this then flowing his creative juices & his powerful intellect pumping, tuning him into potential mix/remix projects, one after the next. Indeed, looking through Mr Scheiman’s studio work in just the last twelve months, we count a stunningly staggering twenty four track productions, a mixture of official, unofficial & bootleg releases, but a figure that is quite phenomenal when you consider Guy also holds down a full time job in sports physiotherapy. Therefore, finding a favourite is a taxing task, the choices extending to artist that include Anjulie, The Saturdays, Ciara, Ellie Goulding, Kazaky, Katy Perry, Doxi Jones, & Beyonce, while his official remix of The Scissor Sisters track “Only The Horses” probably tops this particular pile for us. But Guy also produces his own tracks too, two notable successes being “My Life” & “Ibiza Trip”, both finding favour internationally, while he has charted collaborations too, most recently with performing artist & vocalist, Peyton, the result the rapturous “Reach Out” which is, even more than The Scissor Sisters snippet, knocking on our number one Guy track door. So, with so many to choose from you can see our towering task, one which we have, once again, enjoyed being engrossed in, a terrific trip you can too take by heading to https://soundcloud.com/guyscheiman, while that top of the tree track belongs to his resplendent vocal remix of Flo Ride’s “Wild Ones” featuring the vivacious voice of Sia, one officially released on Atlantic Records, one which we share in full video glory beneath, while, to add it to your collection head to https://itunes.apple.com/album/wild-ones-guy-scheiman-vocal/id500366574?i=500366580&affId=1590916&ign-mpt=uo%3D5
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CooWEgk74Qo[/youtube]
To a podcast mention now and our attempt to draw a line under 2012 once and for all has been fabulously thwarted by Brent Nicholls who has shared his picks of the year, a brilliant blend of the genres Brent lists as “…commercial tracks, dirty tunes, old school flavours, remixes, covers, pumping & jumping…” no less than 34 tracks that make this three hour compilation one that offers something for everyone and everything for someone, download/stream options a click away at http://djbrentnicholls.com/web/2013/01/23/mmxii/.
Right back to our track producers and to Javier Medina, the next in our spectacular six, he like the two before him, despite the distance between us, having become a close companion, over three or so years this partly due to the fact that we share a fellow friendship in Leomeo Carandang. but moreover through the support we afforded him from when we started following his music making back in 2009. And while we cannot in any way take the plaudits for propelling him into the path of Alex Erfan who brought Javier across from his Barcelona base to London to star in both As One & Lovechild parties, we reckon our music features & podcast promotions helped in some way. That said, Mr Medina up until this time had made his wonderful way around Europe & across to Australia, that on top of regular residencies back home for Dboy & Devotion. However, without question, his biggest break in a long & hard working career in music, has been his marriage with Matinee, one that now sees Mr Medina as a prominent part of a world tour team that includes Taito Tikaro & J Louis, trips to Miami, New York, across Europe and also here in London have undoubtedly increased his playing profile, we making the most of the brief catch up back in the summer. And while we will be missing out on his headlining appearance for Matinee “Pervert” this coming Saturday, as we are away in Antwerp, we have no doubt he will make his magnificent mark, his influential involvement in the brand, to our mind, having contributed to s shift in musical genre & style.
However, all that said, Javier’s studio work spans his career as much and with the recent formation of Classroom Records plays a significant part in Javier’s day to day life, an independent dance music label which he formed with fellow Spaniard & D.J. Jorge Soüst, both individuals sharing the ethos of the label which they describe as one born out of “…more than 10 intense years of experience behind the desks, in which we have developed our own concept about music, beyond the ideas and limitations pre-established in each moment of our professional careers, allowing us to synchronize both biorhythms in a constantly evolutionary state…”, adding of the label’s aims which are to “…keep on exploring & experimenting, to show the world our own vision of the current clubbing scene…”. And since its birth in February and formal launch in May, Classroom Records has released five tracks, each with a variant of remixes, productions extending to Oscar De Gala’s “Mechanish” & Marc Galindo’s “Space Invaders” while both Javier & Jorge have produced one each, “Hole In My Bed” and “Gypsy Clap” while the latest is a Sebastian Manuel & Hony Dijon recording, “The Age Of Communication” doing great guns, not least that it featured on the front page of download site Beatport’s house genre section, no doubt propelling Classroom Records as a label to a wonderfully wide audience. Yet with the tracks firmly in the tech to techno bracket, with our aging tastes, they are not really our bag, while you can soak up all their splendour by heading to https://soundcloud.com/classroom-records while for our tip top Javier track we go on a nostalgic trip, finding the delightful “Nirvana Dream”, a joint production with Mr Medina’s & our Parisian pal, Leomeo.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HASkMhobAOA[/youtube]
Onto fabulous number four of our spectacular six and a fellow resident of Barcelona who too manages his own record label jointly with Nacho Chapado, the label in question being Guareber Recordings and the man of the moment, Ivan Gomez, a D.J./Producer of profound proficiency who has been treading the live set & studio boards for over fifteen years now, in that time amassing an array of club residencies & guest slots right across his home country & the whole continent. With appearances here in London for the huge LGDF Festival & at Beyond, memorable moments for us, Ivan follows a feverish schedule that still sees him continue to party in Portugal, spin in Spain & impress in Italy, while continental switches also see’s Mexico a dynamic destination for him. However, hoveringly in recent years, the studio has taken up more & more of his time, Ivan’s passion for production evident in the output which never fails to impress, while the Spanish spirit that is his every heart beat shows through in his music making magnificently, the genre blend come hopping that includes tech, progressive, tribal, minimal & underground, occasionally tinged with uplifting vocals, also mirroring in his live set performances. Add to all that, when you see the vast array of artists works he has remixed & D.J.’s he has covered, Peter Rauhofer, Offer Nissim, Mike Kelly & Pagano just four examples and labels that have carried his work including Star69, Twisted USA, Matinee Recordings, & Sorry Shoes, Mr Gomez’s considerable credentials cannot be denied, rather celebrated.
So to the Gomez studio of productions we go, first taking a quick look at a just one of many notable achievements, he having as recently as 2011, achieved a number one on the prestigious Billboard list in The States with his remix of Yoko Ono’s “Ono Move On Fast”, while heading for that outstanding output we deluded to just now, we find a Soundcloud site packed with no less than seventy two productions in the last twelve months alone, a truly phenomenal number in some ways difficult to comprehend as that means, on average, he has produced a track or podcast every five days of the year. So picking out highlights from all these is pretty mind boggling, we concentrating here in Ivan’s own tracks for the first, which include “Funkagain”, “Your Love”, “Get Well”, “The Rhythm”, the interestingly titled “Cada Die At 5am”, “La Musika”, “Somebody 2 Love” and “2 The Sky”, while “You Drive Me Crazy” definitely floats our beats boat the most. As for of the many he has remixed with Nacho Chapado (and there are a lot), Offer Nissam’s “I’m In Love” is close to the top of our list, although we head slightly further back into 2012 to fall on The Free Radicals Formation, a trio that is actually Ivan, Nacho & close friend & fellow producer, Fran Ramirez, their towering track “World” without doubt top of our tree. But with so many other’s to choose from, the Ivan Gomez world is your oyster at https://soundcloud.com/ivangomezmusic, while his Beatport page at http://beatport.com/artist/ivan-gomez/70053 is a great nitro for the uninitiated, we that fave our ours, “World”, in Fran Ramirez radical mix form, right here.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDm-bJeFQqM[/youtube]
To that track mention we have be itching to share, it coming from London producer Matt Kotchi, who has worked with fellow friends & other seasoned scene faces Rich B & Chrissy Darling, he an east end exponent, circulating clubs such as “Songs Of Praise” & “SOS”, while his latest release, “Play Our Music” is the one that gets the DM mini mention, hitting on https://soundcloud.com/matt-kootchi/matt-kootchi-ft-martin-kirley serving up a short teaser, while a search on iTunes & Beatport will find official downloads via Toolroom records.
Onwards to our fantastic fifth of six producers focuses and we find Taito Tikaro occupying a spot that is richly deserved solely on the strength of the phenomenal productions that well & truly rocked our world in 2012, a string of hits that have not only, each & every one, made it into out Y.E. top 40 chart, secured ninth with “My World”, this amidst one of the closest top ten’s in our chart history. However, virtually from nowhere in November came his huge & heavenly remix of DHP’s “Not Alone” with studio recording partner Flavio Zarza, it claiming number one spot ahead of, what was till then, an almost certainty in Rony Seikaly’s “Take Me Higher”. But we digress as there has been so much more to Taito’s year & indeed career, he a major torre de force in the Matinee package, probably their biggest resident D.J. in terms of stature and has played for the brand for close on ten years, not only playing a major role in this Spanish super clubs world tour, but, during the summer season, performs regularly at Amnesia in Ibiza, L ‘Atlàntida in Sitges, DMIX & Le Madame, as well as all the major Matinee parties in its base in Barcelona, including the massive Circuit Festival every August. But Matinee aside, the list of clubs Taito has played reads like a who’s who of clubbing, Rome’s Muccassassina Haoman 17 in Tel Aviv, The Week in Brazil, Paris’s ShowCase, Space in both Ibiza & Miami, Madrid’s Space of Sound and Space both in Ibiza & Miami, while we can never really escape his Matinee connections, global destinations he has travelled & played for the brand over the years including in New York, Miami, Las Vegas, Toronto, Paris Amsterdam and, of course here in the capital, where, in the heady days of the Matinee London between 2006 &10, he starred The Collosseum & at Cable.
But it’s his studio work that we focus on here, as his production list is substantial to say the least and the labels he has recorded for just as impressive, major ones including Spinnin Records, Tommyboy, Gusto Records, Armada Music, Juicy Music & naturally Matinee Records, Taito describing his style of sound as “…hybrid, merging different styles to create a very personal overall genre, gliding across techno, electro, progressive and deep house…”this as accurate assessment as we could make, as you only have to listen to one of his tracks having read that to realise that pinpoint assessment. In terms of his discography, it’s a question of where do we start?, the list considerable, Taito having worked with fellow Matinee resident J Louis on a number of mix & remix projects over the years, not least, “The Bodies Connection”, the massive anthems “Shine On Me”, “The Time Is Now” & “Looking For Love”, while you will notice from more than a handful of his productions, that he also works closely with vocalist Vanesa Klein, who is too part of the Matinee machine, “Addicted” just massive, while for us, “My World” wins this mini competition hands down. Other huge dancefloor hits that have received the Taito mixing magic have included “Miracle Of Love” & “Show Me Love”, the latter having been re-engineered for 2012/13 and is simply stunning, while more recently he has collaborated with fellow Spaniard Flavio Zarza on their track “Lift Me Up” as well as remixes of Florence & The Machine’s “Spectrum” along with that number one of ours, “Not Alone”. So, to pick out a favourite leaves us in a real dilemma, while you can choose your own or just soak up all of Mr Tikaro’s terrific tunes by going to https://soundcloud.com/taitotikaro or checking out his Beatport page at http://www.beatport.com/artist/taito-tikaro/14553, while having landed on “Not Alone & “My World” so many times, we thought we would rather share that re-engineered 2K13 mix of “She Loves” which we adore.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlHh4i3LO5c[/youtube]
To superb number six of our spectacular six and, in reality, the word superb hardly does this Sicilian justice as the career he has carved out for himself both behind the decks and in the recording studio is nothing short of colossal and while some of our critics have questioned our occasional stance towards Francesco Pagano’s style of sound, in the many years we have known this extravert individual, we have always admired his achievements and soaked up his scintilating sets, Plus simply by researching this piece on Pagano, affectionately called “The Italian Stallion”, we cannot help but marvel in his music, while when you glance through the global list of clubs he has played in recent years, there is no-one we know that compares, huge guest appearance highlights surely Alegria in New York, Miami’s White Party and Winter Party Festival, White Party Palm Springs, The Week in Sao Paulo, Living in Mexico City, Arq in Sydney, Circuit Festival in Barcelona, Space Of Sound and WE Party in Madrid, Space and Privilege in Ibiza. But we could go on & on really, not one corner of the globe untouched, while regular roving residencies in Europe include La Demence in Brussels, Rapido in Amsterdam, GMF in Berlin & Scream in Paris, while with Francesco considering himself as a proud Londoner, we would venture to suggest that is heart remains here. With the likes of Trade, Beyond, Matinee, SuperMartXe, A:M and even Onyx all part of his playing portfolio & magical memory moments for us, we also recollect with real fondness those heady days of Barcode Vauxhall, when he pumped & packed out the place with his phenomenal progressive performances. Plus with recent appearances for Deelooded & Room Service combined with his own club night Deviate, it seems that Pagano’s roots remain here in the capital, even if he lives out of a travelling suitcase more often than not.
However studio productions are equally as impressive, in some ways more, as not only has he mixed & remixed for music industry a-list of artists, but he records his own tracks, occasional puts them into compilations that are of very much in the true sense of the word and he even has his own record label, Deviate (hence the club night of the same name). So what of those music industry stars, well Pagano’s remixes & collaborations include The Scissor Sisters, Freemasons, De’lacy, Robin S, Kathy Brown, Peyton, Lisa Millet, & Billie Ray Martin, while he has also worked with fellow producers including Chus & Ceballos, Ralphi Rosario, Wayne G & Stewart Who?, labels supporting the long list of Pagano productions stretching to Stereo Productions, Nervous Records, MN2S, S2G Productions and biggies Kult Records & Universal. Add to that support for his recordings from industry heavyweights Carl Cox, Paul Van Dyk, Bob Sinclair, Fergie, Cevin Fisher, Danny Rampling, & Quentin Harris, early productions including “The Ride”, “Lessons In Love”, Rocking Beat” & “My Religion”, more recently his notable track achievements include “Trapped”, “Kissing The Wookie”, “Hispanicity”, “Perfect World”, “Loca” “The Reflex” &, “That Disco Fever”, while we simply love his track “My Name Is Pussy Galore”, a 007 sampler that never fails to make us smile. And as a measure of his success, not only have many of these original productions hit top ten slots of the official dance charts in the UK, USA, Germany & Italy but his latest mixed compilations “Digital Generation Vol. 2” and “Trade – The Dark Side” have both reached the number one spot on the sales chart of Beatport, this the best source for his music, a click on http://beatport.com/artist/pagano/18177/ revealing all, while we leave you in the “Perfect World” of Pagano, this Ralphi Rosari remix right up there as our Francesco fave.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEFOt88RQP8[/youtube]
So, while our last mention was planned as a podcast propulsion, after that Fran finish, it seems right and proper that we wrap up this newsletter now, the proof of the pudding that this spectacular six of ours fully deserve that support we give right here, while for us, they are the cream of the track production crop. So, here’s to Danny, Guy, Javier, Ivan, Taito & Francesco, may you all continue to wrap us in rapture with your records and continue to prove that “Music Is The Answer! (DISCO MATT)
