Lee "Scratch" Perry at Highline Ballroom (more by Greg Cristman)

Lee "Scratch" Perry has a few limited dates scheduled in the US in September, including one SATURDAY NIGHT (9/10) at BB King's with Subatomic Sound System and Jahdan Blakkamore. Tickets are still available. After NYC, the dub legend will take a few days off before hitting the west coast for three days in California in Santa Ana, Ventura, and San Francisco. Full tour schedule is below, alongside an interview and a recent demo.

The Lee Perry appearance is one of several shows scheduled as part of the Dub Invasion festival, which kicks off tonight in NYC with Adrian Sherwood featuring Brother Culture, Subatomic Sound System, and Channel U at Dominion, and will run the following week in both NYC and Boston. The fest will also feature NYC appearances from Dr. Israel at Dominion on 9/15 and two shows with Mad Professor on 9/16, one at Dubspot and a second with Twilight Circus Dub at Knitting Factory (tickets) among many others.

Full listing of Dub Invasion events in NYC, alongside tour dates, video and that demo stream below....

Continue reading "Lee 'Scratch' Perry is part of the 'Dub Invasion' going on in NYC this week"

Joy Orbison

UK producer/DJ Peter O'Grady, aka Joy Orbison, made his U.S. debut at Justin Carter & Eamon Harkin's 'Mister Saturday Night' party at 12-Turn-13 in Clinton Hill on Saturday night (4/9). Check out a video from the appearance below.

If you missed it, you have one more shot to catch O'Grady in NYC before he continues on towards Coachella. Joy Orbison plays Deep Space at Cielo with Francois K tonight (4/11). He then flies west for a pre-Coachella show in San Francisco, Coachella, and a post-Cochaella HARD LA event where he shares a bill with Pearson Sound / Ramadanman, Annie Mac, & Flinch on 4/19.

Speaking of HARD, the festival is heading to the high seas in 2012. Much like Jam Cruise (whose people are involved in this), and Bruise Cruise (whose people are not), HARD Cruise 2012 is coming. It sails from Florida in January, and that's about all the details they've released at the moment. Stay tuned for lineups, pricing, etc.

All Joy Orbison dates and stuff below...

Continue reading "Joy Orbison is here, HARD Cruise is coming soon"

words by BBG, photos by Greg Cristman

No one minded that the Moritz Von Oswald Trio had five members when it made its American debut on Saturday night at Le Poisson Rouge, part of the Unsound Festival New York and the Wordless Music series at the club. The trio is an alliance of techno and ambient disc jockeys and programmers doing what they don't do in D.J. booths or remix studios: playing instruments together in real time.

Mr. Von Oswald was surrounded by keyboards and synthesizers. Sasu Ripatti, also known as Vladislav Delay, was at a percussion kit with conga drums, bells and cymbals. Max Loderbauer, a k a N.S.I., was at his own analog synthesizer. And with them were another two renowned D.J.s: Carl Craig, a pioneer of Detroit techno, on synthesizers, and François K, a patriarch of house music, providing mixing, effects and additional sounds.

Their shared improvisation only hinted at the dance floor. It was sci-fi ambient music, with a background wash of pink noise like interstellar dust and puffy tones, pitched and unpitched, arising out of the static. The group's D.J. instincts governed the perpetually evolving structure: riffs appeared, drew responses, repeated, became foundations and eventually dissolved as new ones arrived. -[New York Times]

Moritz Von Oswald Trio were joined by DJ Eric Demby (aka Treeboy) and the LPR Orchestra, who played reimagined versions of Ravel's "Bolero" and Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" at LPR on 2/6.

Unsound rolls on today (2/9) with the experimental electronic beats of Zavoloka, NYC artist Bora Yoon, and the ambient noise of Poland's Zenial at Issue Project Room. Tickets are still available.

More pictures from the Moritz Von Oswald Trio show are below...

Continue reading "Moritz Von Oswald Trio, Carl Craig & François K played LPR (pics) & the Unsound Festival continues "

photos by Zach Dilgard

Frankie Knuckles / actual members of the crowd

"This past labor day weekend in NYC, thousands of dance and electronica music fans gathered together for the first, and hopefully annual Electric Zoo Festival on Randall's Island to celebrate Electronic Music. The festival lineup featured over 50 acts which included Steve Aoki, Busy P, Danny Tenaglia, Benny Benassi, Deadmau5, David Guetta, Markus Schulz, Tom Middleton, Kaskade, and Armin Van Burren over the course of two days....

...On the second day of the festival, house music icon DJ Frankie Knuckles alongside Andy Butler (Hercules & Love Affair) blessed the turntables with a raw and authentic classic house music set that made you feel nothing short of spiritual...

..."Music belongs to everybody," Frankie says after stepping off stage from his Electric Zoo DJ set. "Believe me, If I had the ability I would really just make it possible so that any and everybody could just show up (on the dancefloor)...a lot of times that's all you got to hold onto." To that end, it seems rather fitting that his biggest commercial hit was the ethereal and optimistic Whistle Song, which just might make him the pied piper of dance music who tries to leads the masses to a state of bliss.

Dropping next month is Frankie's Motivation Too album, which is his first compilation in six years. When asked about his own personal tactics for motivation, Frankie notes: "I normally get up early in the morning, like seven or eight o'clock. Musically I'm listening to things that are very spiritual and classical while I'm moving through the morning and getting myself together. I pretty much block out a lot of things that could possibly feed me any kind of negative energy, because my day has to be right...I figure why not get up on the right side of the bed and focus and maybe I'll get through the day and it will be alright."" [MC2D Magazine]

You saw Ryan's pictures from Sunday. More of Zach's pictures from both days of the fest (where he unfortunately missed Lindstrom, James Murphy, Al Doyle, Pat Mahoney, Busy P, DJ Medhi, Junior Boys, Holy Ghost, JDH, Dave P, Andy Butler, and others) (but did capture lots of scariness), below...

Continue reading "Electric Zoo Festival 2009 @ Randalls Island, NYC (more pics)"

DOWNLOAD: Lindstrøm - The Long Way Home (Prins Thomas edit) (MP3)

Andy Butler of Hercules and Love Affair @ Studio B (more by Ryan Muir)

Hercules and Love Affair (aka Andy Butler) is releasing a new DJ mix called Sidetracked... July 21st on Renaissance Recordings. Butler will be making DJ appearances throughout the summer, mainly in Europe. One U.S. gig will be at the July 3rd Firecracker party at the Hammerstein Ballroom (tonight). Also at the event, as mentioned by Showtrotta, will be Steve Lawler, Tiefschwarz, Victor Calderone, Damian Lazarus (live) and Audiofly. Tickets are still on sale.

Butler will be at Lollapalooza on August 8th, and he'll be making an appearance at NY's Electric Zoo Electronic Music Festival, taking place September 5th and 6th on Randall's Island. Other acts at the fest include Special Disco Version (featuring LCD Soundsystem/DFA's James Murphy & Pat Mahoney), Felix Martin & Al Doyle (of Hot Chip), Lindstrom, Frankie Knuckles, Prins Thomas, and many, many more. Above you can check out the Prins remix of Linstrom's "The Long Way Home" off the latter's Where You Go I Go Too. Tickets to the fest, including 2-day passes, are on sale now. Electric Zoo's current lineup is posted below.

Another electronic music suaree, the Brooklyn Electronic Music Festival, is on the way as well, happening August 8th at the Old American Can Factory. The fest's headliners will be Juan MacLean (live) and RJD2; full lineup is still on the way. Tickets are currently on sale.

Electric Zoo lineup with Hercules and Love Affair comp info and tour dates, below...

Continue reading "Electric Zoo on Randall's Island, BK Electronic Music Fest, Hercules and Love Affair DJ sets & CD & more..."