Recently I partnered with Michael Bordash, the founder and owner of InternetDJ.com to syndicate my music reviews on his website. What this means is, a lot more exposure for you – as an artist. As mentioned on the music reviews page, things are really taking off and I’m getting a lot of requests, so I have had to slow down a bit and be more picky with what I choose to review. That said, I encourage you all to continue to submit your awesome work, and I look forward to listening to it all.
Sonaris Music Review: Bocuma
This next installment in our music reviewing adventures comes in the form of the electronica albums Summer Pylon and Among The Free by Bocuma. Rather than do the usual thing and talk about each track or album individually, we’ll examine Bocuma’s production style and the type of sound he consistently puts out.
I’ll be honest, the first thing that really jumped out at me is the awesome cover art Bocuma chooses for his albums. I’m not certain from where this art comes, but call me jealous. I’ve always been attuned to the mix between the visual and the auditory – the imagery presented by the music, supplemented by the artwork. A good album cover and put my mind in a certain mood, and let me know what to expect. Sometimes I’m way off, but sometimes I’m spot on. With Bocuma, I definitely felt like the imagery sets up the mood for some deep, layered, mysterious music.
Bocuma’s style is very analog, which is constantly being brought back by the likes of Daft Punk. In the past, I may have overlooked the artistic value of using analog sounds and tools, because that’s not what mainstream electronic music is like, and it’s not important – I’d argue – at a club. However, over time, I’ve found that analog music gives electronic music a mature sound, as if trying to proclaim that analog musicians are “real” musicians. There is certainly some divide on what many in the industry construe as true musicianship and whether creating music with the click of a mouse is the same as tweaking knobs and pressing keys with fingers that big of a difference. But, I digress. The albums have a significant influence of 70’s analog vibes, as Bocuma describes his own music.
What Bocuma’s music does well is present an interesting, relaxing ambient experience, but with enough punch and variation to keep me from falling asleep. Most, if not all, of the tracks are fairly complex in their use of fx and layering, to present a full package of music. The final mix could be cleaner, because it often does really sound as though this was mixed down in the 70’s, without the modern, crisp feel, from which I think Bocuma’s music could benefit greatly. Melodically, I found the deep, melancholy vibes an interesting voyage. Lots of changes and variations made for an interesting listening experience.
Whether you enjoy this type of music is irrelevant, when looking at it from an objective point of view. The productions have a signature underground feel, and it’s clear that a lot of thought went into creating these personal soundscapes. Each piece carries a message created by Bocuma, capturing a piece of him and sharing it with the world.
Check out Bocuma on:
Bandcamp – http://bocuma.bandcamp.com/
Soundcloud – https://soundcloud.com/boc_uma
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/Bocuma/info
iTunes – https://itunes.apple.com/gb/artist/bocuma/id474850536
Hey, Soundcloud! An open letter – Fix yourself.
As a paying Soundcloud customer, I am unhappy. Here are what I think the problems are, and then some possible ideas for improvement, as well, so it’s not just a complaint.
The issues I have with Soundcloud:
- The comment system is terrible (needs up/downvote system like reddit)
- Bugs everywhere (problems logging in, seeing other people’s profiles)
- Notification for getting stuff in my dropbox is non-existent so I miss a lot of demos people send in
- For a long time I had problems uploading, no idea why
- No real sense of community, at all
- No rewards for good music, no competitive aspect like charts, etc…
- No real place to share ideas and have discussions as a group
- Discussion groups, like facebook, would be huge (right now I mostly communicate with labels and my music licensing group via Facebook, which I hate)
- No real way to promote music aside from tedious adding of every track to a hundred groups and not getting that many plays out of it
- Non-existent customer service/support system
- No way to grab people’s emails in case they want updates in the future
- My links (Website, FB, Tw, etc…) are not highlighted enough
- A lot of non-musicians have no idea how to use Soundcloud, and they don’t like making a profile to <3 a track or download it
- Analytics are piss poor, especially given I’m paying for it, should have Google Analytics integration at the least!
- Embedding playlists on my website is not customizeable enough in terms of how the player appears
- Barely ever works on mobile, I’ve heard this from many people
- No way to sell music via the site itself
Here are some ideas on how I feel Soundcloud could be better:
- Beatport has a near-monoploy on EDM, which is annoying because their website also sucks balls, and it’s all very nepotistic where you have to know someone, for the most part, to get any sort of promotion. People go nuts about being on the chart there, though, it’s the holy grail for EDM producers to get on the Top 100.
- Bandcamp is pretty cool, but it’s extremely limited in nearly every way, and there is no community there. Unless I have a ton of followers (which I don’t, because I don’t perform), bandcamp doesn’t really help me much.
- Work on getting ins with music licensing companies; this is how I make 90% of what I make creating music. There are lots of movie studios and ad agencies out there looking for ways to license music, and they are still having to do it in an old school way, via a middleman, or an outdated site like audiosparx. This could be a huge incentive for artists to use your site.
- Make giving away music fun for the artist (I give away almost 50% of the stuff I make, just to get my name out there); some kind of reward system for giving out free stuff would be cool, even if it’s asking a person to leave their email address in exchange for a free download, or tokens to promote my music on your site
- Have producer remix battles, where people on the site can challenge one another to a remix battle of any track on the site, (if a remix pack is available) and let other users and visitors vote for their favorite.
- Do free contests (remix competitions, etc…)
Sonaris Music Review: Bad Case of Fabulous by Junksista
I’ll be the first to admit that it’s not every day I get to review electro-c*nt-rock, in fact I’ve never even heard of it before. But, what the hell, I’ll give it a shot. This next adventure in music comes to us from the Denmark-based duo Junksista. Junksista is one part Boogu (producer) and Diana (vocalist).
“I’m naked. I’m wet. I’m hot. I’ll do ya, right here… oh yes, I am a slut.” This is just a small sample of the hypersexualized vocals you can expect to hear on this album. The vocals are complimented by a bouncy electro-pop beat with a smathering of effects, guitar riffs, and four on the floor beat. No mindblowing builds, breaks or transitions here, just raunchy vocals with heavy effecting and older-style electronic production.
The whole thing is very reminiscent of Cherry Bikini who also happen to be a duo, who I happened to “follow” back in the day on some random, long-vanished music social network. Much like Cherry Bikini, Junksista’s production relies heavily on the appeal of dirty, edgy female vocals. The type of setting in which I picture this music being played is a dimly lit Hollywood Hills pool party with skinny supermodels and seedy Hollywood types.
On a personal level, I don’t really get it, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t an audience out there for it. I feel like there is potential for this album to sound better, at least in terms of having a modern sound. This is somewhat accomplished by the many remixes on this album. For as many original tracks as there are, there are thirteen remixes, quite the bang for your buck, if you will – and a few extra mixes.
The only remix which really stood out I felt was the Pernau mix of Naked Wet Hot, which had a distinct atmosphere, some deep house elements and was mixed pretty well.
All of that said, there is a pretty good chance you’ll never hear any of this on your local radio station, but I am not one to tear down underground music. What this album is, is distincitvely anti-mainstream, anti-norm. Some of the productions are akin to something Lady Gaga might try to force some poor mainstream producer to pump out. Clearly, a lot of work went into producing this album and certainly nothing about it is lazy. There is definitely an audience for this type of music out there and I am sure they will be delighted to hear this release.
Links to buy the album:
http://www.junksista.de/cd-shop
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/bad-case-of-fabulous/id735147514
http://www.amazon.de/Bad-Case-Fabulous-Explicit-Junksista/dp/B00GBLCVBS
Links to social media pages:
www.junksista.de
www.facebook.com/junksista
www.youtube.com/junksista
www.twitter.com/junksista
Sonaris Music Review: Dance in Haze by Ebola Ape
This next review comes via the epic soundscape that is Ebola Ape’s Dance in Haze, out in all major shops on February 1st, 2014. Ebola Ape is an emerging Polish producer of “eery, nocturnal atmospheres”. He describes his work as “Music of the night. Reverbed emotions of solitude.” Original productions, using analog synths and original vocal samples.
This album is heavy, goes hard in the paint with some seriously deep, massive, gooey soundscapes. Almost immediately upon cranking my WinAmp up a notch, a heavy cloud of ambiance, trap beat, choral vocals and jungle animal sounds fills my head, in the form of the opening track, Lombok, instantly relaxing me. What an opening. Boom! This is Dance in Haze.
Lighthood is as deep as they come on this album, with dark organ sounds accentuated by reverberated female vocals and a tightly wrapped trap beat. This is the music of 2014, stuff I haven’t heard before. There is some Enya-like influence in there – a mysterious vibe.
Honest is a hard-hitting spoken word/rap/trap style track with some slick and sick vocal fx, meticulously and accurately laid out. The vocals shine through the deep atmosphere and come across as clean and crisp as it gets. Back to Uluwatu is another, similar vocal rap track – truly a unique production.
Sigh is one of my favorite tracks on the album, because not only does it use all of the elements described before, but it also introduces a melancholy melody which shines a dim light on the overall heavy production. Irian is another, similar track that really stands out, melodically.
This album took me on a true aural journey, transcending and undermining so much of what is now mainstream electronic music. Whenever I hear someone say that electronic music is going downhill, I laugh – to myself – because I get to take these secret weapons of electronic music and unleash them on the world through my reviews. This album is a stand-alone in a crowd, deep and unforgiving, mocking the cookie cutter world of mainstream electronic music with it’s sheer primal, animal rawness.
Whatever you’re into, this slow-paced – worldly- album is one you at least want to hear once, but as for me – I’ll just be over here playing it again. This is music licensing gold, so don’t be surprised if you hear this in a film or show in the foreseeable future.
Dance in Haze on Bandcamp:
http://ebolaape.bandcamp.com/album/dance-in-haze
More information about Ebola Ape and his label:
http://astralritual.net/
http://ebolaape.com/
Ebola Ape on Soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/ebola-ape
Ebola Ape on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/bol-P/313921475311015
Looking for Vocalist: EDM, House, Trance, DnB – The Search is On!
I’ve been “sort of” looking around for a vocalist to work with on an on-going basis for a while, but so far it hasn’t panned out – mostly due to their interests or schedule. I’d love to find someone in Denver, so we can sit down and work on stuff together, but this isn’t a requirement. I’ve worked with vocalists over the “net” in all of my previous projects and it usually works out ok, so I’m not opposed to that. Read more about what I’m looking for, here >>>