Archive for the insane sample libraries tag

Depeche Mode Tribute this Thursday!

Every year, we do a tribute to Depeche Mode, one of the most popular and influential electronic bands that ever was [I'd place them just under Kraftwerk]. There's hardly anything I can say about them that hasn't been said, but certainly this week we'll be playing some DM tracks that don't normally get a lot of attention, right next to plenty that do. The frustrating bit about doing these is that there's always about 5 songs that, at the end of the night, I'm kicking myself for not playing. Six hours isn't even enough time for a band who has been putting out consistently good work for 30 years.
The particularly amazing thing is how while their early stuff still holds up pretty well after all this time, they've progressed so far as to sound almost nothing like those first albums--and yet still sound like the same band. To illustrate this, I've chosen to post "Monument", from the 1982 release A Broken Frame, a new wave track so minimal it can barely be danced to, whispering of techno and covered in fantastic '80s bleepy synths. In contrast, their recent single "Wrong" is loud and in-your-face, and the synths, now joined by guitars, are darker and harsher. This version is a remix by dubstep master Caspa [who coincidentally is playing at Smartbar on the same night]. The genre-overlay is really well done, and I think it says as much about the versatility of Depeche Mode's songwriting as Caspa's production skills.
Download and dig in, we'll see you on Thursday with a whole lot more!

official website
Depeche Mode on Amazon.com

Yello: Bostich

Last night started off really slow--after all, a good portion of our crowd was at The Queen Is Dead early in the night--but by the time Arturo went on and The Handsome Devilz arrived, it was a juggernaut. While Kamar was rallying the dancers over to Neo, I got to do a long early set. One of the things I love about doing early sets at Atomic is that I get to experiment a bit and gauge reactions before I play a song to a packed floor. Will they dance if I play this? Will the regulars run up to the booth screaming about how they love it or how they'll strangle me if I ever play it again? Sometimes, I realize that I should've been playing it at 1am all along.

Such is the case with the Yello classic "Bostitch". It blows my mind that this single was released in 1979. Typical of Yello's style, it's sophisticated, dark, and avant-garde. It's very new wave, it's really tech-house, it's vaguely industrial…and no, that is not Douglas McCarthy from Nitzer Ebb singing. Actually it's Dieter Meier [himself a very interesting person], the conceptualist half of Yello, whose ideas are executed by self-claimed perfectionist Boris Blank, who reportedly has a library of over 100,000 samples he made from scratch.

Now in their 60s, Meier and Blank are still making music as Yello, and it's still just as good. Most of their current work is in soundtracks these days. Recently, they've worked with Audi and been the subject of a documentary. I hope I'm half as cool as they are when I'm their age.

"Bostich" is on their debut album Solid Pleasure.

Solid Pleasure on Amazon
Yello Official Website