Category: Featured

INTERVIEW: Junkie XL (2013)

Dutch producer Tom Holkenborg, better known as Junkie XL, unleashed his first album in four years, Synthesized, recently.? A mashup of genres, styles, and production techniques, the album is actually meant to be listened to all the way through rather than as a series of singles -? a seemingly unique concept in the current hit single-focused world of EDM.? During the Amsterdam Dance Event, he premiered a lot of the songs during a sold out live performance at the Royal Concert Hall.? I interviewed him the next day about the album and his journey into movie soundtracking.

RS: I listened to the album and I love it. I like that the beginning part is like a mixtape that starts out slow and then builds up, was that what you were going for?
Junkie XL: Regarding the structure, I was going for an album that you could listen to as a whole. I know that the concept of an album is not commercial anymore and that people rarely listen to them, but I think that as an art form it?s not old and still valid.

Continue reading INTERVIEW: Junkie XL (2013)

INTERVIEW: W&W (2013)

Meeting online in 2007, the team of W&W (William van Hanegem and Wardt van der Harst) started working together and achieved quick recognition when Armin van Buuren played and signed their first production, “Mustang.”? The big room monster launched a succession of big records like “Dome,” “Our Plan,” and “MainStage,” which became the name of their record label distributed through Armada.? Rising stars on the trance scene, their recent remixes of Zedd, Dash Berlin, Cosmic Gate, and Armin van Buuren/BT are just signs that there are even bigger things to come.

DJ Ron Slomowicz: How long have the two of you been working together?
Willem van Hanegem: For about 5 years.
?
RS: How did the two of you meet?
Willem van Hanegem: We originally met through the internet, there is a program where you can chat and share music with other beginning producers and in 2007 we met in person at Trance Energy.
Wardt van der Harst: It was through a mutual friend who was there as well. ?We started hanging out and after 6 months we started working on our first track, as we got closer we started working together more.
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SONG OF THE DAY: Arcader – “Pillowtalk” EP

As the music industry prepares its descent on Austin, Texas for the annual South by Southwest festival, it seems a perfect time to highlight Arcader, one of the rising EDM talents from there. I wrote about his funky techno remix of Tyler Hampton’s ode to ADHD “The Knight” a few weeks ago, and here he returns with the Pillowtalk EP- two tracks of funky dance floor madness. The title track isn’t exactly retro, but the shuffling beat changes subtly throughout and contains many references to old school house, yet modernized with a smooth progressive feel.? The vocodered voice is a nice touch, giving a kind of ominous, robotically-structured feel to a constantly-changing track.? Bermuda doesn’t necessarily have a tropical feel to it, but it does have a rhythmic feel that sounds like a vacation track.? I could almost imagine someone singing “Break My Stride” on top of it.? It’s also one of those rare tracks at a relatively slower bpm (124) that has more energy than much faster electro tracks.? The bouncy beats and swinging shuffling groove are deceptive in the way they suck you in without you even realizing it. With a topline vocal added, Bermuda could be come one of those leftfield club records that gets big out of nowhere, like a “King of My Castle” kind of thing.

Purchase this track on Beatport.

Image Courtesy of Academik.