Hits

A Look At: De La Soul

A group that changed hip-hop in the 80's forever.

Girl Talk's All Day

All Day by Girl Talk is quite the mash-up album that you'll want to keep in your mp3 until the next album comes out.

Only The Best Chip-Tune From George and Jonathan

Chip-Tune music described as "only the best..from 5 years of work."

Elbow, Not Just An Arm Joint...

Rockers Elbow: if you don't know them, you're going to.

The REAL Tuesday Weld

An old actress lives on in the name of an original English band.

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

From The Soul

 
      De La Soul has been around for over 20 years now. Their start, out of high school in New York, was from producer DJ "Prince Paul" after hearing their smashing debut song "Plug Tunin". The three rappers go by multiple stage names, but in most of their songs refer to themselves by "Plug One," "Plug Two," and "Plug Three." These stage names are in reference to the order of the plugs their microphones were plugged into. "Plug One," Kelvin Mercer; "Plug Two," David Jude Jolicoeur; and "Plug Three," Vincent Mason; were great innovators of rap back in the 80's, showing that an upbeat attitude, clever lyricism, and quite innovative backgrounds to their raps could be as popular as other genres of rap.
      Rap at the time was hitting its start of the Gangsta/Hardcore Rap phase. Ice T , Schoolly D, and N.W.A., the best known pioneers of this hardcore rap, were making in-your-face statements about the world, "F**k the police" and drug use being some of the messages thrown through their lyrics. De La Soul had a different idea. They were the start of alternative lyricism, having a more upbeat and thoughtful message, keeping a laid-back old-school style.
     With DJ "Prince Paul" producing for them, their first album, 3 Feet High & Rising, was a pinnacle piece of hip-hop, and one of the all-time best rap albums made. De La Soul rapped about peace and harmony, about the community coming together; a stark contrast to hardcore rap at the time. The album took in funk, psychedelic, jazz, and old-school hip-hop styles. It exploded the rap community in a new direction entirely. I think most of you know already know quite a few of the songs on this album, but here was the most famous of them.
De La Soul's - "Me, Myself, and I"

     The group was a smashing success. This new alternative rap style out of New York caught on, gaining popularity and sparking many new groups: Black Sheep, A Tribe Called Quest, and even Queen Latifah (Collectively the Native Tongues Posse). This new alternative rap seemed to be almost bypassing hardcore in popularity with the start of the 90's.
    De La Soul stayed with their alternative style. Their career saw rather a slow decline after 3 Feet High & Rising. Granted, they stayed with their genre, but they did quite a few new things trying to push their sound all around. They experimented with a three part series called Art Of Intelligence: but only released 2 albums in that series. For me, one of the greatest tracks from them came out of the second release AOI: Bionix; "Trying People"
De La Soul's - "Trying People"

     Sadly to say, they have stayed pretty under the radar more recently (the exception of collaborating with The Gorillaz for the songs "Superfast Jellyfish" and "Feel Good Inc."). However, they are still a great band to fall back on. They are very original, different, and quite a good remedy for the soul, from the soul.
-Minimal FoX

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Girl Talk Mashup Mayhem

First, no samples of the artist on this blog when you can download the album for free at his website (Girl Talk's All Day album). I know you'll want a snipet to know if you'll like it, but trust me, if you've followed radio at all, can take a music joke (Having Pitbull's "Hotel Room Service" being played over the happy Depeche Mode's "I Just Can't Get Enough"), and have the time to sit down with the whole album, this album will blow the clothing off of you and leaving you sitting naked on your sofa wondering what just happened and if it can happen again.

In all seriousness though, albums like this (All Day by Girl Talk) are meant to be played all in one go, to be taken as a whole idea and not to be broken into songs. All of the samples flow seamlessly into each other, all 372 of the songs being sampled in fact. Surprisingly, you'll recognize all of these chart-hitting songs, or at least close to all of them. You'll laugh at some of the combination, be amazed at how some songs worked amazingly well together, and find yourself hitting repeat to replay through some of the 10 second mash-ups you wished were longer.

Girl Talk (originally known as Greg Gillis, hard at work in the photo above) is a remarkable mash-up artist. This album is another remarkable non-stop dance album. Not much more to say other than just get it, dance about, and then wonder how you ever survived without it.

Look forward to hearing more about this artist and keep a lookout for tour dates. If you can listen to All Day  or Feed The Animals and not at some point say, this is quite epic, let me know. Hell, give me more recommendations for Mash-Up artists you think make the world explode sonically with new ideas raised from old. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

-FoX Out

Re: Website Update

Sorry for the constantly changing design for the website. I keep finding templates to use for blogger--sometimes I think I should just use wordpress--and by the time I've happily started building this foxy website, some line of HTML becomes incompatible and instead of going through everything, I just decide to start over with a new template. I think I'd learn, but sadly no.

New news... new news... oh yes! New SoundCloud profile was easiest for uploading music. No really, it is. Free profile only gives you two hours of music, but I mix about 15 minutes of music a week, so I figure if I keep it cycling I can get all the music uploads I could ever need. That means you, the listener, either has to find a way to download all that music--again I apologize for the huge file sizes for all the music, Torq only wants to record in giant quality .wav files and I don't feel like converting them to anything less just to put it online to listen to-- or just ask for the songs and I'll send them to you in a way that's best for you.
Profile at Minimal FoX's SoundCloud.

On that same note, I'm trying out Torq 2.0.1 . Sadly, at the moment, I don't entirely recommend it. I think Tracktor pulls off the software you'd be looking for for a four turntable computer set-up. But, I still recommend Torq 1.5 for any 2 turntable software needs. I love it very much in comparison to most of the others out there, and it's served many a good live performance for me. This is just a short version of an indepth review I could give.

Still looking for new writers. It doesn't pay, but you'll get your ideas out there. Send in a sample and maybe we'll hire you. If we can get this successfully off the ground, then we'll talk salary, but for now, GSSE feels like keeping this free.

As for fans still reading, I'll try keeping a decent sleep schedule one day and it'll lead to a decent updating schedule. I have quite a few new amazing artists to share with everybody, and some groundbreaking music as well, as well as a earth-shattering studio--GSSE of course--to talk more about as well.

We have a new logo once again, thanks to one of our writers : Igloo. Please tell him thank you very, very, very much!

So, as a thank you, here's one of my most favorite chip-tone tracks:


-Minimal FoX <3's You All

Saturday, June 11, 2011

New Mix Up



Singin' At Sunshining Summer Mix

A quick mix using Torq. Had the idea in mind and had to get it down. There's some hard transitions and beat-matching messups, but overall I think the idea is at least... danceable?
Track list:
Singin' In The Rain (Mint Royale Remix)
Bonkers - Dizzee Rascal
Stickin' (Original Mix) - SonicC vs. Gifted (The Ashton Shuffle Remix)- N.A.S.A.
Blow Your Head (Wassup Wassup Crookers Remix) - Diplo feat. Rye Rye
No Turning Back - Gui Boratto
Sabali (Uproot Andi Remix) - Amadou & Mariam
Pyramid At Night (Hardwell Mix) - John Dahlback vs. Shakedown
Singin' In The Rain (Mint Royale Remix)


Singin' At Sunshining Night Mix by DJ Minimal FoX


Hope you all cat get at least a good headnod in at somepoint. Let me know what you think. Anything it reminds you of, tracks that should be included, thoughts on how your summer is going, what music are you listening to? The FoX wants to know!

-Minimal FoX

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Just for fun: Only The Best

A short post this time: I stumbled upon George and Jonathan about a month ago, and haven't stopped listening to this fun music since. They have been writing electronica music for a few years now and I absolutely love the 8-bit sound style they have going on. I love what they are doing and thought I should support their works in this blog. George and Jonathan, keep up the good work! Highlights for me were Whale, Out With My Girlfriends, Party Every Night, Toy Factor, and Kevin Don't Give Up.





-Minimal FoX

Sunday, May 22, 2011

An Old Actress Finds New Talent

  

     Claim to fame and quoted as, "... wanting to take that damn [Crazy] Frog off the charts...," Stephen Coates, (The Clerkenwell Kid), or better known as the lead mind behind, The Real Tuesday Weld, I dare to say, has no other comparison in the music world. The name comes from none other than old film actress Tuesday Weld, and the music is just as one of a kind lovely. Taking samples of early jazz music, infusing it with modern electronica beats, occasional folk sounds, and his slightly scratchy but wonderfully seductive voice, sounds very common, but the way he does it makes it stunningly unique. Take a listen to a few samples:


Over The Hillsides From "The End Of The World"


Days Of You And Me (Remix) From "Kindercore 50"


Anything But Love  From "The Return Of The Clerkenwell Kid"



     He simply has found his voice and nitche in the music world and as a remixer, his style isn't lost at all. This Beyonce remix of Crazy In Love, with the help of The Puppini Sisters, is completely his own unique "classic meets new style" that has yet to be replicated.
Crazy In Love (The Real Tuesday Weld & The Puppini Sisters Remix)


      I feel horrible taking these songs as small snippets of his very talented library of sounds. Why, you may ask? Stephen Coates is a firm believer in making a story arc for his albums. "I, Lucifer" tracks a romance story, an actual book soundtrack mind you, of Lucifer coming up to Earth and finding love. "Where Cupid Meets Psyche" and "The Return Of The Clerkenwell Kid" are both soundtracks to a love affair gone wry. Himself describing his music as having been an interpretation of "...jazz playing in the other room," something he grew up with his parents listening to, I wholeheartedly not only agree, but add it's like an entire love story set to jazz coming from the other room, and you're captivated to keep listening to find out what happens next. Not all of his songs are sample based however. The Real Tuesday Weld does have wonderful piano, guitar, clarinet, and many other instruments used at their disposal that can change the feel of the music from old jazz cover to modern folk song in almost an instant.

      Needless to say, with a vast majority of Stephen's work, love, loss, and overall sonic soundscaping of fun are recurring motifs in all of his work. I highly recommend checking out almost anything of The Real Tuesday Weld that you can.
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I Love The Rain From "Where Cupid Meets Psyche"

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-Minimal FoX

Embedded Player 2

Same as posted before, but realized the last player doesn't fully play through the entire audio files. So, same music as last time, Gold Teeth Theif Mix from DJ/ Rupture.

Part A:


Part B



Slowly working this out when other projects don't take up all of my time. I think this player is much better than the last, though not as visually enticing as a singular play button. Let me know what you think.

-Minimal FoX

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