The world needs more dancing people

Have a look at this video. If it doesn't bring a smile to your face then your cyborg-metal-brain-and-heart can probably not compute and you should do an Arnold-in-Terminator 2-exit right now.

I personally plan to pull off a dance stunt like in the video on my last day of my job here in Norway. Then I'll be heading down to Copenhagen where you'll find me on the dance floors working these moves...

The unpredictable predictability of the hivemind

Thanks to the internetz it's so much easier getting attention nowadays, especially (and specifically) for independent artists, smaller companies, and your average Joe who happens to have a video camera (or just mobile phone) and an average knowledge of how to work a computer, all you need to put that stuff on youtube! Is it a good thing, though? Are we sacrificing quality for quantity? I don't think so. I say keep it coming, people will select what they like, despite the powerful influence of the allmighty hivemind. People have been given user-friendly tools which allows everyone a shot at getting their 15 minutes of fame. Question is, will you impress the x factor panel consisting of THE FUCKING WORLD?

Guess I'm just thinking out loud about the "virality" of internet phenomena. To prove my point I want to share a video with you, Gotye's "Somebody That I Used To know" which I think most of you must have seen by now because it has blown up on youtube getting (as I write this) over 45 millions views. When I first saw it, it had under a million views. I remember thinking "Wow, this is a fucking good song, more people should hear this". By the time I started sharing it with friends it had gotten over 2 million views and from then on it just sky rocketed. This little indie artist from Australia who had been diligently working on music for years was embraced by the internet and awarded with internet superstardom. (He definitely deserves it, fucking awesome music) 

And here's another thing (rather wordy blog post this time, shouldn't be blogging in night time), with this being a blog about house music I'm posting a rather good remix of the song that I found. It's a predictable thing in this time of electronic music that every big hit song seems to be remixed to death. When I started digging house music I thought I was tapping into some underground music scene, that I would have to attend gigs in dingy, sweaty close down factories and warehouses to "get my dose of the good stuff". But instead house music exploded all over the scene and became mainstream! Here I was thinking I was being alternative and then I'm just like any other little hipster kid, loving what is trendy. Was this just a coincidence or was my mind subconsciously following the unspoken commands of the hivemind? I wouldn't like to think so but I'm just not sure damnit! 

But what I can say is this: It doesn't matter. I like house music because I like house music. I like what I like because I like it (that makes sense, doesn't it? Again it's the middle of the night). And I know I like this (predicted) remix of Gotye's brilliant song. Hope you do too.

The day I lost a friend... acquaintance... person.

While looking at my facebook wall on the morning of my birthday, yesterday, I incidentally noticed that I've got 270 facebook friends. Now, I guess I speak for everyone when I say that most people wouldn't be able to name all of their facebook friends. A lot of them are simply acquaintances. But what I thought was really funny was that during the day my number of friends had decreased from 270 to 269. Of course I have no idea who. My "birthday" probably popped up on someone's news feed and they thought "Even.. who's Even? Oh that guy? And I'm still friends with him? Nah...". So whoever you are, distant facebook acquaintance, this track is for you.

Christmas house

I wanted to see if there actually existed christmas themed house music out there on the interwebz, perhaps some decent remixes of christmas classics. Turns out there are A LOT of utterly abominable amateur remixes of pretty much every christmas song you can't think of... (they're all on youtube, look it up if you appreciate poorly ejay-mixed techno). Instead, I'll share with you a couple of old school house tracks that at least have Christmassy titles, and one track that can be tenuously linked to winter and, thus, also Christmas *cough-farfetched-cough*.

The first two "old school" house tracks are by Le Knight Club, Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo's side project when he's not rocking the world with Daft Punk. Although they might not induce that Christmas spirit in you, they at least have Christmassy titles! 

The last track is one I heard on the radio yesterday (played by the brilliant DJ Friendly). I'm preeeeetty sure "Red man rising" has something to do with Father Christmas perhaps...? (I told you the link would be tenuous) But at least it's by someone calling themselves the Futuristic Polar Bears and that's a bit Christmassy, right? Right...? Anyway, it's an awesome track in my opinion. So with these tracks I would just like to wish everyone a very merry christmas and an awesome new year! Feliz navidad and all that. Yay!

House of the seasons

Thanks to the Hype Machine (yet again), I discovered this house duo called TWR72. What's cool about them is that they have released an EP called simply "1991" (as an homage to old school house music) consisting of three tracks dedicated to the seasons of summer, autumn, and winter (why spring is left out beats me).

I love this kind of house music. This sort of generic, monotonous, hypnotic, rhythmic music that makes you just want to close your eyes, nod you head, move onto the dance floor and forget about the world a bit. The tracks are all available from beatport if you're interested in buying them.

Summer

Autumn

Winter

Norwegian Vinter in Hollywood

As a matter of fact, Norway has got some good electronic artists as well. One diligent and highly skilled house artist who I've been following for some time now is Alexander Vinter, or Vinter in Hollywood as he calls himself. Actually, his dubstep name seems to be Savant... I'm confused now... My point is he's good!

Unfortunately, house music still gets undeservedly limited attention on the Norwegian music scene, although it is on the rise. I definitely feel Vinter in Hollywood is one of our artists that deserves more attention. Perhaps I'll blog some more later about other Norwegian house maniacs. In the meantime, though, enjoy Vinter in Hollywood's (or Savant's) remix of a song by a Norwegian band called Montée.

Flaws under black squares

Stumbled upon this gem on The Hype Machine. I guess you can't call it house music (although it's begging for a banging remix which undoubtedly will pop up on youtube before you can say "someone should make a remix of this tra... Ah, there we are") but it is a lovely little electro tune from an English band called Bastille.

I'm not usually one for electronic tracks with singing all over it, but Bastille being an indie band the lyrics are alpha and omega. And I've got to say these lyrics are quite sweet. Here's their official youtube video. Don't ask me why it's covered by hundreds of seemingly pointless black squares (it's probably one of Bastille's flaws, ey?? *ba dum tsss* Sorry...), but you can cross them out and somewhere beneath them is a video of some kind. Enjoy.