Carl Craig's Demon Days hits NYC

The 2008 Demon Days — a series of electronic music events that take place in key North American cities — will kick off with special New York City quarterly residency launch party at Cielo on Thursday, February 14th (yup, that's Valentine's Day).

Planet E label head Carl Craig is on the bill alogside New York-based DJ Gamall.

Quote: Carl Craig

We need to gain a historical respect for electronic music. Classical has had that for hundreds of years. I love all styles of music, but I don't find that electronic has the same type of timelessness.

— Detroit-based producer Carl Craig tells Billboard.

It's all in the mix for techno producer Craig [Reuters/Billboard]

Reminder: Basic Channel 12-inches now available as MP3/WAV

Just a quick reminder to all of you Basic Channel fans that all BC 12-inches are now available in digital download format (MP3/WAV) from Beatport.

Robert Hood mixes Fabric 39

Legendary Detroit techno DJ and producer Robert Hood has mixed the latest installment in acclaimed Fabric compilation series.

Out in March, Fabric 39 contains a whopping 32 tracks, including exclusive edits and additional samples, featuring cuts from the likes of Monobox, Joris Voorn, Pacou, Marco Lenzi, Jeff Mills and many others.

Hood explains:

This mix has to be about the club. I'd like it to be dancefloor orientated and to take the listener on a trip. Any project I do, I like to read like a book. I like it to tell a story, you know? Not to just be random songs or tracks. I t has to have continuity to take you on a ride. It should have a concept and be able to translate and read as such. The DJ mix will be enhanced with live elements added to the mix. The live elements are just tracks or patterns, rhythm patterns that will be exclusive to the CD.

Read more >

Linkage: February 4, 2008

- Fox News is reporting that U2 is thinking about ending its relationship with their label Universal Music Group. Will they go the Radiohead way? Well.. judging by recent comments made by the band's manager, they don't seem to like technology and innovation very much.

- Inthemix.com.au has a short interview with DJ and producer Steffen Berkhahn, a.k.a. Dixon.

- P2P Blog is reporting that Benn Jordan, a.k.a. The Flashbulb, has uploaded copies of his newest album Soundtrack To A Vacant Life to What.cd, The Pirate Bay and other torrent trackers in order to bypass the ineffective means of traditional music distribution.

- iPods and other portable MP3 players are unlikely to interfere with heart pacemakers, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration researcher reported last week. According to Reuters, the FDA's tests of a variety of iPods showed they did not produce enough of an electromagnetic field to interfere with the devices.

Quote: Larry Heard

I spent more than 99 cents on records before I was eleven years old so it's lame of people to say they like music and then, in the same breath, say that it has no value. That means you don't like music; you like getting stuff free. If you had to pay for it you wouldn't make the sacrifice. You like it enough to get it on the download but you don't like it enough to pay for it. You're in a different category from me because I feel it does have a value. And the person and label and individuals involved that put some effort into it, they want and need to try to make something back to continue on.

— Legendary house producer/DJ Larry Heard talks to RA about music and everything in between.

Larry Heard: Soul survivor [Resident Advisor]

U2's manager: It is time for ISPs to be real partners

U2's manager Paul McGuinness addressed the music industry with a rather pathetic speech at MIDEM's first International Manager Summit this week. McGuinness believes ISPs (Internet service providers) are largerly responsible for the decline in music sales and should start filtering p2p traffic and take responsibility for the content their customers are downloading and files they share.

Oh boy. Here we go again!

Today, there's a bigger issue and it's about the whole relationship between the music and the technology business. Network operators, in particular, have for too long had a free ride on music — on our clients' content. It's time for a new approach — time for ISPs to start taking responsibility for the content they've profited from for years.

It's amazing to see and read about those ultra-rich music moguls who think they are too poor, hurt and don't get their fair share. Give me a break! I've said many times before that the problem itself isn't that people do not want to pay for music anymore — the reason why record sales are falling year after year is that there simply isn't demand for crappy music. It is THAT simple.

Read more >

Download: Luciano - BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix, 2008-01-26

Chilean minimal techno DJ, producer and Cadenza label honcho Lucien Nicolet, a.k.a. Luciano, provides this week's Essential Mix on UK's BBC Radio 1.

This mix is long overdue, however, I don't like when artists use their two hour slot just to showcase material from their own label(s). Someone with as much resources as Luciano has could do much better...

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Reminder: Mumbling, hell yeah

I'm still not getting the buzz and hype around Kabale Und Liebe & Daniel Sanchez's last year's minimal anthem "Mumbling Yeah". But people seem to like it, so do fellow bloggers, DJs and music press. Fair enough. Anyway, I checked the Top 50 tracks for December 2007 over at Resident Advisor today and, rather surprisingly, "Mumbling Yeah" ranked at No. 21:

But then as I scroll down I noticed there's a surprise at No. 40:

Mumbling, hell yeah.

Sleeveface Pool

Sleeveface is a Flickr photo pool featuring more than 750 examples of random 12" vinyl sleeves submitted by members from all over the globe. Awesome! Check out more sleeves and other links here.

Sleeveface [Flickr, via Boing Boing]