"the go to label for bangin' disco house" – ttlab staff
I know what you were just thinking… “I need another social networking tool”. Well, I wasn’t thinking that, but I was impressed with the way Soundcloud looks and works – and it is far better than streaming a track from *ACK* Myspace. So we set up an account and will be rotating the tracks featured.
Check it out, follow us, send us a few tracks you are working on, etc.
Just found out Beatport is having a holiday sale up through Monday. That means most the Solid Bump back catalog you see to the right is only $.99 cents through Monday.
Buy your Mum that Laberge track she always wanted!
Wednesday – No one but geeks like hump day. Every week the SBR posse embraces our nerd soul and talks shop. Last week it was about the loudness war in music. This week it is about some of our fave 1′s and 0′s.
Last year around this time I stumbled onto a company I had never heard of called D16. They were being touted as having stellar emulations of Roland’s classic 303, 808, and 909 series. After testing them out I signed up and scored a great deal. I originally thought we would use them sparingly – but since then they have worked their way into nearly every song we have written since (wait for the acid remix we did for the next WGL single). They sound far better than samples of the boxes and are infinitely more tweakable. D16 has maintained the classic sound of each – including the massive sine boom everyone wants – as well as adding fun features that actually expand the possibilities.
Now of course TRUE music nerds like James Murphy and Juan Maclean will tell you that your music sucks because you are using emulators – and your music maybe does suck – but it would suck even if you dropped the $1000 for each physical box so… deal with it nerds.
D16 is in the holiday spirit and this year they are having another mega-sale… wait for it… 50% OFF! Considering these are already some of the best sounding and most affordable plug ins around this is a REAL DEAL. It ends on December 1st so you better get to robbing mailboxes for X-Mas cards. In fact I had just been demoing their Silverline effects collection and looks like I need to hustle up 86 euros right fast…
We were so amped on the hype that followed Laberge’s debut EP that we scrambled to do a follow up. Luckily the lads at White Girl Lust (um, okay, Clay & I) had a little something up our sleeves. We took one of Laberge’s tracks from Pleasure & Pressure and flipped it into a electro-funk stormer. We are giddy with the results and think you should be too!
If that is not enough, we also created another viral video for Laberge’s track “True Love”. This time we played up the chipmunk vocals to literally visualize a chipmunk love serenade.
Laberge misses summer and this edit proves it.
Free download @ http://www.divshare.com/download/9398853-1c9
Wednesday – it’s the nerdiest day of the week. We are going to embrace our inner geek on hump day and talk about production stuff. Maybe it will be mix down tips, maybe a piece of gear, or whatever. So without further adieu…
Last week there was a Rolling Stone article circulating on twitter amongst DJ folks about the death of high fidelity. Dance music in the last 10 years has been a serious victim of the “Loudness War” and Solid Bump has always had to find a balance. On one hand, you want your track to sound competitive in the club but the catch is that in the last few years tracks are getting compressed to such an insane point that they are becoming a block of squashed noise. Last year I bought a track from Beatport that was so compressed it was actually distorting – this was on a big label by a very respected producer. It was unplayable and really bummed me out.
So what is the loudness war? Peep this youtube to see how it applies to pop music. Loud is good. Distorted is bad. Ultimately every DJ mixer has a gain knob. In my opinion – turn it up yourself.
Everything on Solid Bump comes off vinyl and while it is already compressed in some form through mastering, we want the dynamic of the record or recording to breath… Especially on a release like Laberge’s This Feeling EP . The sound Laberge is going for needs dynamics. At the same time, a harder track like the forthcoming Funk Music Remix by White Girl Lust can push harder and still retain a dynamic feel.
As Kool Keith says, ” That shit don’t sound right, the mix down ain’t right, your vocals are too low, your fuckin’ cadence is off, your stage show is weak… Fuck you.”
We got a surprise in our daily google alerts today. XLR8R.com has a new iPhone app in conjunction with City Guide that gives the skinny on selected cities. As part of the campaign they feature a artist, have them do a video short on their hometown haunts (no pun intended), then do a podcast of local music.
The inaugural affiliated podcast features local SF future blapper Ghost on Tape and surprisingly has our old “Psycho Killer” edit on it. This edit (I won’t use the word mash up) is kinda the one that continues to haunt us. It was one of the first things ever done under the White Girl Lust moniker in 2004 and never was shared until 2007 but still seems to pop up often.
The mix is a bit different from usual SBR fare but great selections including our homie Low Limit from Lazer Sword.
This was a NYC classic. It was featured on the Larry Levan Paradise Garage comp a few years ago and while not a dancefloor stormer it is mission critical. I test you to find many other tracks so lush.
In memory of Jerry Fuchs, Pitchfork tv is highlighting this !!! in-studio set from 2008 featuring the late Brooklyn drummer. Check out the whole set at… www.pitchfork.com/tv
more about " In memory of Jerry Fuchs", posted with vodpod
In celebration of Solid Bump dropping Laberge’s debut, “This Feeling EP”, we took a minute to pick the next generation of disco house’s brain on process, funk, and kittens…
Solid Bump Records: How old are you?
Laberge: I am currently aged 22.
SBR: How did we meet?
Lbrg: It was a lonely sunday, I posted on “casual encounters on Craigslist” you replied… actually I think I added you on myspace and you sent me a message about my track.
SBR: Describe your sound. What sets it apart?
Lbrg: I like to think of my sound as warm and mellow. I like to remind people where the sound comes from, vinyl.
SBR: How does the current “Disco House” revival distinguish itself from the style of a decade ago?
Lbrg: More compression and not many people getting their music properly mastered. There are lots of dudes doing great things though – Hugo van Dyck, Get Famous, Le Pimp, Skingz and Snolan.
SBR: Vancouver has a lot of up and coming artist that seem to be similar in musical vision to you with people like U-Tern and the White Light Mix series. Is Vancouver developing a sound?
Lbrg: I don’t think Vancouver has ever had a true “sound”. If you look at the pool of talent in a city like Toronto, Vancouver never has really had much of an influence on music itself. Though there is plenty of talent in Vancouver, I have to think our best artists export themselves.
SBR: What is the process of a Laberge track? Where does it start? When is it done?
Lbrg: There isn’t so much a process as a “happening”, things usually come together over time rather then in a processed form. The idea for the EP was to create a warm, consistent sound throughout all 3 tracks.This was the project from the very start.
SBR: What attracted you to Solid Bump Records?
Lbrg: The fact that your previous releases were awesome. I bought that Chat Noir tune the day I read about it, before I had even contacted you guys.
SBR: On a certain internet music forum you have been known to post Lulz cat pictures. Give us the death blow of all Lulz cat pics.
SBR: Favorite canadian snack treat?
Lbrg: While it’s not a snack or treat, the single greatest piece of food on the earth is a Croque Madame. Make one today. Its basically a sandwich with special cheese sauce, mustard, black forest ham. you top it with more cheese sauce, and put an egg on top of it. The french are gluttons.
SBR: Give us a link to a song that you consider “one of the greatest”.
Lbrg: Absolutely one of the best funk tracks ever. Few people can come close.
