Robert Babicz – SYSTEMATIC SESSIONS MIX by robbabicz
Cologne, Germany’s Robert Babicz, a well-respected producer with a musical career spanning 2 decades. Babicz blends techno and house music like an avant-garde artists blends concepts & color. Melodic & Organic Techno, Thrusting Basslines, Babiczstyle
Notable Tracks: Dark Flower, Sin, Remote Kiss, Folger Remix
Latest Album: Immortal Changes
ALX-T – Death At The Science Fair by Visao Media
Experimental dark + dreamy tech.
Our first remixer, ‘Body Trip’, Luigi Rocca (Marshall) hits #1 on Beatport with Filtered(Hotfingers). We were first drawn to Marshall’s clean and hard tech beats on myspace(remember those days) on Italo Business, Stereo Seven Plus, 303Lovers now the red hot label, Hotfingers. Props to Marshall for his continued quality beats and contribution to underground music.
Alright “Perculator” dance fans, the Chicago artist, Green Velvet (Cajmere) has some new club heat and has joined up with Kid Sister – “Everybody Wants” and Santiago & Bushido – “Turn It Up”. Notable tracks are “The Percolator”, “La La Land” “Shake & Pop.” “For nearly two decade, Curtis Jones has been one of dance music’s most commanding and intriguing personas.”_URB. Enjoy this jackin, one-hour mix for URB: Interview!
Tracklist:
1. Green Velvet ft. Santiago & Bushido – “Turn It Up”
2. Wolfgang Gartner – “Flashback”
3. Crazy P – “Stop Space Return (Jamie Jones & Simon Baker Remix)”
4. Size – “Koebel ((Nihad Tule Remix)”
5. Afrojack – “Polkadots”
6. Phil Kieran – “Wasps Under a Toy Boat”
7. Salvotor Freda & Volta – “Tiramisu”
8. Audion – “It’s Full Of Blinding Light”
9. Johnny D – “Point Of No Return”
10. Tim Deluxe – “Storm In A Teacup”
11. Felix Cartal- “Salty Lake”
12. Cirez D – “On Off”
13. Green Velvet – “Fake & Phoney
14. Neil Landstrumm – “Navario Suaro”
15. Green Velvet ft. Kid Sister – “Everybody Wants”
16. Pizeta ft. Reagadelica – “Klezmer”
Green Velvet: URB Mix 2010
[audio:http://www.visaomedia.com/audio/Green_Velvet_URB_Mix_2010_visao.mp3]
Green Velvet – Shake and Pop (Cold Blank Remix) by Cold Blank
In February Hot Chip will release their anticipated new album, One Life Stand. They have announced their 2010 tour dates starting in the UK.
Also a special treat for Hot Chip fans:
One Life Stand remix by Joris Voorn
Hot Chip – One Life Stand (Joris Voorn Dusty Flower remix)
Also the Carl Craig PCP Remix
One Life Stand Tracklist:
01 Thieves in the Night
02 Hand Me Down Your Love
03 I Feel Better
04 One Life Stand
05 Brothers
06 Slush
07 Alley Cats
08 We Have Love
09 Keep Quiet
10 Take It In
We Love… Ibiza 2009 Episode 14 – Part 1 featuring Hot Chip.
Aeroplane Dec ’09 Chart Mix featuring highlight tracks: Hot Chip: “One Life Stand”, Flight Facilities : “Crave You”, The Swiss: “Bubble Bath”, James Yull: “No Surpsrise” (Bostro Pesopeo Remix), Junkie XL: “Heart Of Darkness”
[audio:http://www.visaomedia.com/audio/Aeroplane_December_2009_Chart_Mix.mp3]
In the early 90’s while searching for vinyl in San Francisco’s record stores we found a record called the “Da San Tranzdisco EP by Funky Tribalists (DJ EFX & DJ Digit)”. This record introduced a sound, a passion, a movement, quite frankly a lot things that still remain. One particular artist from the San Francisco house scene deserves more credit and recognition for his underground involvement than noted, DJ EFX (Raul Recinos). DJ EFX is responsible for many tribal latin funk house tracks that has had a direct influence on fans & artists alike. We’ll keep this simple, as Raul would like it for now. We are sure there is more to be said about his history and all the tracks he’s touched. This is the real Tribal Mofo, DJ EFX (Much Respect!).
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We usually ask a range of questions specific to each artist, at times we feel as a media site, what are we really sharing? Is it new? Are we contributing to music that will be quality and timeless?….. catching up with Raul Recinos(DJ EFX), finding his tracks and getting more info is pretty tricky.
DJ EFX: “To be honest, I do not have a Top 5 picks, I feel that globally we are all guilty of musical incest, since we are all copying from each other without offering something new. I was listening to some underground tunes from the 90´s and everything today sounds exactly like back then. The machines or may I say, the samples of those machines are still being used in the same fashion. House music of today is not as fun or refreshing, it does not inspire a new sound, I feel it does not release anything but repetition from the past.” 
“I am lost and don´t want to be found, I will reappear when the frequencies progress. That´s all that i have to say”. ConMuchoAmor, Raul, DJ EFX, The Original Funk
DJ EFX – Latin Tribal Mix (30min)
[audio:http://www.visaomedia.com/audio/DJ_EFX_Latin_Tribal.mp3]
Notable tracks: Los Kings Del Mambo, Move 2 Da Musik, Is It Like My Dil-doe?, Tribal As A Mofo, Groove To Me
Labels: N-Fusion, Strictly Rhythm, Tommy Boy, Aqua Boogie, Underground Construction, Nasty-Mix
Midnight Society is comprised of the New York based production team, Curtis Atchison and Erik Elias. Their sound is an exact fit to the name “Drum Nation”. The tribal sound in house music has been a favorite of ours over the years. Midnight Society’s productions truly represent the sound of the New York club scene, fashionable elite body movers and shakers. Enjoy!
MS: “Together, we have been a DJ/Producer team for nearly 10 years with over 20 years in DJ experience. In the studio, Erik and I have produced more than 80 different releases that stretch over 30 record labels across the globe. These records include appearances on nearly 150 original tracks & remixes currently on Beatport, several Billboard charting records and/or remixes, including a number one, two top fives and many other top 10 & 20 singles, plus numerous appearances on commercially released CD compilations mixed by DJs such as:
• Carl Cox (F.A.C.T. Australia II, DJ Face Off w/ DJ Simi – DJ Magazine Compilation UK)
• Peter Rauhofer (This Is Roxy Vol. 3)
• Tom Stephan (Warming Up, Firin’ Off – Ministry CD Compilation UK)
• DJ Escape (The Circuit Party Volume 8.)
• Jesse Garcia (Best of Stealth 2007)
• Chus & Ceballos, Joubin (Blended Sound 002)
We also own and operate our own record label called SoundGroove Records which represents close to 100 different national & international dance music acts (DJs, Producers, Remixers, Vocalists, etc). As DJs, we have played in various bars & clubs all over the world, including a number of high profile events in Montréal (Divers/Cite and Black & Blue), Brazil (New Year’s Eve – 2008 / Rio De Janeiro, Gay Pride – 2008 / Florianopolis) and Mexico City (Gay Pride). We currently hold a quarterly residency in Miami Beach for our own label sponsored event called Drum Nation, and have held weekly residencies in New York at G Lounge and Alibi. Our sound focuses primarily on House Music and can accommodate any style party or dance floor, from more deeper after-hour grooves, to big room anthem and everything in between.”
MS: Inspirations – We both get our initial inspirations from the same places and same eras of House music. We were both major fans of the old Twilo, Sound Factory & Factory Bar eras. You had Frankie Knuckles bringing you a lush and soulful sound that wasn’t afraid to get a little rough on the edges. Then you had Junior Vasquez working the futuristic Wild Pitch sound from DJ Pierre, old school Armand Van Helden tracks, as well as big room vocals with his definitive Sound Factory remixes. Then there was Danny Tenaglia with his seemingly magical way to blend classics and future sounds together. He could go from a beautiful deep house vocal to a club shaking techno groove and somehow have it make sense. Many of the big New York, Chicago & UK producers in the early to mid 90s helped us build a foundation or our own production styles.
We’re probably most known more for our tribal sound. I love percussion and basslines more than anything on a record, and Erik really gets into the grooves as well. But we also like to branch out into tech house, deep and progressive house as well. On a production level, Erik tends to go harder and dubby while I tend to get a little dreamy & proggy. In the end, we manage to fuse our ideas together for one final project that works.
Drum Nation – Miami (aka The Fetish Ball) at Twist (11-13-2009) by Midnight Society
Five favorite Releases / Remixes:
1. DJ Duke – Blow Your Whistle (The 2009 Remixes) – SoundGroove Records
This was one of my favorite records when I first started going out to clubs and was a big hit in New York when it first dropped. I managed to find DJ Duke through a network website, asked him about doing some remixes and he agreed. I wanted to make sure the single had its signature grooves, such as the recognizable bassline and vocal samples, and update it just enough to make it sound more modern. It’s almost impossible to improve on a classic like this, but I think we did a pretty good job. Junior Vasquez helped me get the buzz started by playing our mix at his birthday party at Pacha. Then, Tom Stephan really kicked it up with his A+ remix, as well as Manny Ward & Lorant who also took the track into deeper, darker territories.
2. In-Grid – Shock (Loop 128 Records)
This record almost didn’t make it to the public! This remix was originally done for a label in New York, but they dropped it. I gave this out to a few friends, including DJ Petzi from Portugal who just did a record with us on Magna Recordings and was starting his own label. He went through the process to get the licensing and released this mix as an exclusive along with one of our other unreleased singles. The original was more on the trance tip, but the vocal could literally go in so many different directions. We managed to take the vocal and really strip it down to a minimal, tribal groove with just enough synth to pick the track up when necessary.
3. Cybernatrikx – Dirty Pleasures (SFP)
This one goes back to my earliest days in producing when I was living in New Jersey. I think every producer needs to have at least one gratuitous moaning track, and this became ours. A slow, but steady beat & bassline full with a lot of pitched up (or down) spoken word samples from various films that we will not discuss right now. The studio sessions were as crazy and as silly as the record, which eventually lead us to the belief that every record could be that much better with a dirty girl in the background.
4. D-Lav, Shlavens & Craig Mitchell – Noises (SoundGroove / Bimotor DJ)
This needs to be said before I even go further about this song… Craig Mitchell is a genius! When he played me this record the first time, I literally begged him to remix it. Under his alias of Oliver Twisted, he does some of the most amazing spoken word stuff for house records and I was psyched when we were able to pick this one up for our label. Craig, along with his partners delivered a hot package of teched-out house mixes, and we went to town with a well deserved big room tribal version. The remix cast was a basic who’s who of some of the hottest underground talent at that time. Cytric, DJ Petzi, Evolved, Rick Corbo, Holosound… And we recently had new remixes done earlier this year from Edson Pride, DJ PirrA and Andy Notalez. Plus we have two bootleg versions that will never see the light of day. One was created by DJ Paulo that I still like to blend in with our own mix, and a version we will simply called the “Dancefloor Techno Bootleg”. Everyone who was at the WMC that year when we dropped it knows what we’re talking about. Just like the record says… You can’t stop the noises!
5. Brain Candy – Midnight Society presents The Tone Depth EP (Nervous Dog)
To limit myself to just 5 records is hard, because there’s so many others I leave out. I have so many stories I can tell with almost every record we ever did. We could easily talk about “Space Jam” with Alan T, which is one of our most successful records to date, or talk about “Party People” by Altar & Jeanie Tracy which got us our first number one single on Billboard. Dawn Tallman, Tracy Young & Ceevox, the list goes on and on. But I think this is the most important one to me because it’s my very first official song on wax. It also ties back to when I met Erik the first time since it was at his DJ competition where I met Kevin Williams of Nervous Records and gave him the demo. This was one of the first records I ever produced nearly 10 years ago; a straight up tribal banger of a tune, full of drum samples and peak hour energy, and your usual sci-fi sample slammed right in the middle. I created it right before a gig I had in Boston at the now defunct Axis in ‘99 just so I could have something of mine to play for the first time in a big room. I think every producer remembers the first time they get signed. When I got the call about this being picked up for print on Nervous Dog I was literally speechless. Then to see the record on print with the names on it.
And to top it off, it was the first time I ever heard Danny Tenaglia play one of our records. I think Erik and I were on the dance floor screaming at the top of our lungs for throughout the duration of the song… Or at least I was mentally. Alan T bounced by us with his megaphone grooving to it, and then to have Danny announce who did it after it was done! It’s something I’ll never forget as long as I live.
I wanted to dig up original works by Hajime Sorayama. Sorayama is well known for his 80’s airbrush “Sexy Robots”. I found a tribute series to Hajime Sorayama by Sakke Soini, a talented graphic artist in retro futurism.
Wasserman – W.I.R
[audio:http://www.visaomedia.com/audio/Wasserman_W.I.R..mp3]
It’s been a while since we’ve checked on what Mr. Doob aka Ricardo Cabello(Designer+Developer) has been up to, he’s the creator of that nifty lil pattern changing SWF graphic in the right column. Of course, some RADexperimental audio projects. His latest is “3D Interpolation of a Waveforms“. Looks like a bit of Python coding and scaling of 3D boxes on an axis while reading a waveform.
This would be a great plug-in for a VJing application to read multiple tracks, while morphing the 3D box’s styles with foreground and background effects. Great ambient track to use in this experiment, which is below.
Growing UP, you put your best foot forward into this world, over the years you come full circle. Only a couple people manage to live a young fast paced life, keeping to their guns, fighting through it all and then finding themselves in a great place still progressing at what you love. Meet Robert Ferguson aka Fergie, the man behind a slammin’ hard hitting label known as Excentric Musik. DJing at age 14, Fergie became a well-known driving force in the UK scene in 2000 with a 5-year slot on BBC’s Radio 1. With numerous charted tracks, countless press, great GLOBAL DJ support and an off-shoot label ‘Rekluse’, Fergie and friends are bringing an onslaught of new + RAW energetic sound.
Visao: You have been getting a lot of support and requests to work on tracks for some of the industries heaviest hitters. Can you explain your process doing a remix vs. your original tracks?
Fergie: Yes, it’s been wicked that the music has been getting the support from everyone, so I’m very happy. I was never into the production side before, I was always DJing and I really enjoyed that side. When I left djing for BBC’s Radio 1, I wanted to take a step back and look at the way I was doing things. I wanted a change, so I decided to enroll in music production courses at the SAE college in Glasgow, where I got the opportunity to look at Reason and Ableton, it was good to get a bit more of an insight into the technology side of things. I have been working with Dave Robertson(Reset Robot) for the past 3 or 4 years, and he uses Reason, so it was good for me to get a bit of a knowledge of what was going on. Going into the studio has been the best. I feel the music I had been playing for the past 6 or 7 years, excited me to jump into the studio and get things started. It was the next natural step for me, to get in there and put some of my ideas down.
With remixes, I always like to keep as much as possible of the original parts, as I feel it is important to keep the original artists work visible. I see a remix as my interpretation of what I would do with all their parts to give it my particular twist. With regards to original music, we go into the studio and go through different sounds and pull it together. We don’t use pre-made loops, we just sort of jam away and see what happens. I always keep it to the harder end of things, as that’s were I’m at right now. If something isn’t really working after 20 or 30 mins I scrap it and just get something else going.
Visao: Speaking of remixes, you remixed the monumental classic track, Positive Education by Slam released in 1993. Pretty young for you, what’s your thought on the classic and what it meant for music at that time in the UK?
FERGIE: Yes, this was one of the first records I stole. I was about 12 or 13. I remember it well. I always found it hard to mix, that was probably because it didn’t go with the other music I was buying. Even though it didn’t go with my other music, it was a MUST play record, it just had every thing and was different at the same time. The remix, came about when Slam asked me to play at their Club Nite in Glasgow (Pressure). I asked the Slam, if I could have the parts to do a special one off mix just for my set at Pressure, when I finished the mix and sent it to them they got back to me and decided they wanted to release it. So, it was an unbelievable moment for me really. I think it would have been much more difficult to do the remix if they had asked me for a remix. I was making something just for my set, just for me, there was no pressure. I made a record that I thought would work well in my set, so of course, getting it then released was a big thing for me indeed!
Visao: What’s you current setup for gigs?
Fergie: Well, for the past 3 odd years, I have been using Serato, then Traktor Scratch then Traktor Scratch Pro with two midi controllers (Faderfox), but for the past few months I have gone back to CDs. I just wanted to go away from it for a while, and I have to say that I’ve been enjoying just taking my CDs to the clubs and getting straight on there with no messing about in the DJ booth setting this and that up. Traktor, is an amazing piece of kit, I’m not saying I wont go back there but for now I’m back, DJing like the cavemen used to, it seems! How times have changed, when I first started my first decks were Cloud 9, all in one, DJ console with 2 belt driven decks and the only pitch control you had was 33 & 45. I used to jam a bit of my cigarette packet in-between the pitch in-order to get a slight variation, not that it made much difference as my mixing, well to be honest there probably wasn’t much mixing then, Ha!
Visao: Looks like you guys have some stuff cooking at Excentric & Rekluse. Reset Robot, Mr. Henry Von and you, what are you guys up to?
Fergie: Well, yes. I’m very happy the way Excentric has been received through the music, the club nites and the agency. We have a few new guys on there from Erphun (LA), Laura Heath (Nottingham), Hans Bouffmyhre (Scotland) and Psycatron (Belfast) everything is going well, these guys are releasing some awesome music, so yeah, all is good on that front. Check out myspace.com/excentricartists
With regards to Henry Von, I have started Rekluse with him so yeah we do it between us really got some exciting ne stuff coming up there and also Henry is about to mix the 1st anniversary comp so keep an eye out for that he has also got some new remixes coming out on Excentric in a few weeks. Dave ( Reset Robot ) is a genius he has had some great music out over the past while and next up on Excentric its a colab he has done with Christian Smith its called Elixer it comes with remixes from Henry Von and Gary Beck its quite a big club banger… I’ve been hammering it out for the past few months.
Visao: What are the biggest obstacles and rewards with managing labels and releases?
FERGIE: In this day and age, it’s quite easy to get a label sorted to be honest, there are so many outlets for it and it’s very easy once you’re in the swing of things to get every thing uploaded and do the promo, we use FATT DROP to get it out to the djs. We still do vinyl also, which I’m happy about as I just think its important to give people the option how long that will last, I don’t know as the demand isn’t what it used to be but we will press on with it any way.
Visao: How is your current night going, The Pod?
FERGIE: The Pod ( tripod ) is in Dublin, we will be doing “Shine” in Belfast and events in Matter in London next year, so there will be lots going on. It’s great to get everyone from the agency on board and also some bigger guests, it’s just a good party with all your friends and great chance to hook up with everyone.
Visao: What are you thoughts on Soundcloud? Beatport? Future of digital distribution?
FERGIE: I think these are all great and yes we get lots of music sent from people from Soundcloud, unsigned stuff for Excentric and Rekluse so yeah I think its very important to have all these sites. I think were going through the best time with all the new software whether you want to use it or not its exciting to see that things are being pushed to the max and that the possibilities are endless…. the way people from all over the world can get access to great music no matter where you are is just mind-blowing!
Visao: We first heard your “Reset Robot – Softie remix” in King Unique’s Transitions mix, early this year and has become, like many for us, one of our favorite tracks. What are your thoughts about a remix, should it retain certain % of the original or be open to go anywhere?
FERGIE: Yeah as I said earlier I think its important to keep a certain part of the original in there but also to put your twist on it. With the Softie remix we used all the original parts but added an arpeggiated sound through it just to twist it up a bit and we also changed the bpm a little
Visao: Can you give us a production tip of the month?
FERGIE: Production tip.. um for me, we have been rinsing the Thor in Reason its a semi modular synth we get some crazy stuff out of that.
Visao: Any artist(s) that has consistently inspired you with either their works or what they stand for?
FERGIE: I think like many of djs and producers the Leftfield album Leftisam is a true classic and never seems dated, or you never get tired of listening to it, its true perfection from the first trak to the last.
In terms of new djs/producers, as I said before Reset Robot is the nuts and has some awesome music nearly ready to drop on sci + tec. I think Alan Fitzpatrick has been making some incredible music check out his new EP on Drumcode, and of course Mr. H.
Fergie – Excentric Sessions Mix
[audio:http://www.visaomedia.com/audio/Fergie – Excentric Sessions July 2009.mp3]
