On Tuesday night, I got to see the lovely Ellie Goulding and the energetic Bag Raiders and take pictures of both of them. I’d been a fan of Bag Raiders, but their music just translated so perfectly to the live setting that I’m now 10x more of a fan than I was before. And Ellie. Oh, Ellie. Don’t know what else to say about her, except that she’s all around great, seems like one of the nicest people ever and has got a great set of gams. Whoever put this double bill together was on the money. You’ll notice the pictures below are only of Ellie, and that’s because I’m a bad photographer and came home to find all of my Bag Raiders pics in a haze of blur. Anyway, enjoy the survivors.
This post was originally going to be entitled “Ellie Goulding – Heartbeats (The Knife Cover)”, but then I decided I’d find another Ellie Goulding cover that I hadn’t heard, because I know she’s done a lot of covers and her song selection for her covers is usually pretty legit I think. I was tempted for that second song to be her recent cover of Rihanna’s “Only Girl”, but then I decided I just couldn’t do it. So then I found this one and thought it could be the real deal, and I think it is. The original tune is layer upon layer of instruments and harmonies and it’s really, really great. I just recently included it on a mix, in fact. But the best songs are the ones that can be totally stripped down and still hold up just fine.
And then there’s the original reason for the post, her cover of The Knife’s “Heartbeats” (which of course was also memorably covered by Jose Gonzales) on BBC Radio 1′s Live Lounge, which has brought us many memorable covers that we’ve posted before, like my favorite favorite, the Miike Snow cover of La Roux’s “In For The Kill“. So here’s another pretty good one. And just like the First Aid Kit cover of Fever Ray’s “When I Grow Up” (I hope y’all are OK with this gratuitous backlinking), the acoustic version really showcases just how good the song actually is. Also, just about 2 weeks until I see Ellie Goulding at Coachella, so there’s that too.
I haven’t really heard a whole lot from the Bassnectar camp since we interviewed Lorin himself last summer, but undoubtedly he’s been working hard at what he does best, namely making songs with heavy bass and then dropping bombs in a live setting night after night. But then last week he announced some new tour dates along with a brand new remix of one of our favorite remixable artists. Yes, I’m talking about the one and only, appearing at Coachella, Ellie Goulding. I’d have to imagine we’ve posted no less than 10 Ellie remixes, but they’re all so different and great that we just can’t really help it. In this case, the intro is sped way, way up as all kinds of other songs join in and build up into a starry-eyed (pun quasi intended) flurry right before the big drop. And what’s so great about the drop here is that even though it’s big, it’s not dirty at all. Because I just don’t think it’s right to throw a dirty beat over Goulding’s clean and pure voice (even though I’m sure that I posted some crazy dirty electro remix of one of her songs at some point). Either way, a great remix of a fantastic song. Can’t wait to see this gal live and in the flesh in a few months.
I’ve declared many times recently that Ellie Goulding might be one of the best artists out there to remix, because besides her original tunes being so great, just about every remix you ever hear it grade A top notch awesome. But I’m starting to believe that Groove Armada might be a close second in the very same category. Check out this otherwordly take on “I Won’t Kneel” by the Bloody Beetroots. Much like the previously featured Bloody Beetroots track “31 Seconds to Die”. What was so interesting about that track was that at first glance you might think its a dark and grim number, but in fact it is quite the opposite. In fact, I always think the Bloody Beetroots will be super heavy electronic music, like almost satanic. But I’m always pleasantly surprised when they aren’t. And I am happy about that.
As you hopefully recall, last month, we put together our first ever mixtape entitled A Blogwave Summer which was curated by 20 of our favorite music blogs, each contributing a track of their own and mixed together by none other than myself. Well, I had so much fun putting that together that I decided to do it again with a bunch of tracks of my choosing. There wasn’t really a theme at the onset, it was just a lot of mostly high energy (and, for the most part, extremely bright) tracks that I love, most of which I hadn’t heard until I started this site last May. When I gave it a listen this past weekend on a 4-hour solo drive up to Traverse City, I decided it made pretty great driving music, especially on a sunny day, and thus, Summer Drive was born.
I could have also very well called this mix dailybeatz 101, because for someone who doesn’t visit the site regularly, it’s a fantastic representation of exactly the type of music that we love here. In fact, most of these songs have been posted on this site at one point or another, so you may have heard many of them here already, but I must say there’s something to be said for the way that juxtaposition can really change the feel of a song.
Special thanks to CrystalSister whose picture I used for the mixtape artwork.
Just like last time, you can right click/save as the zip file below which includes the mix split into individual tracks as well as front and back covers. Or, you can download the full mix from the soundcloud player below (this is what I recommend as you are sure not to encounter any split second gaps between tracks which really hurt the flow) and you can save the front and back artwork from this post. Either way, I really hope you enjoy it as much as I do, and please please PLEASE let me know what you think. I apologize for naming every mixtape “summer” something, but it’s what I love, and what the music sounds like for me. Check out the track list below.
Or listen and download one continuous file from the Soundcloud player below (what I recommend) by clicking on the down arrow on the right side of the player.
Here’s a sample track from the mix that’s become one of my favorites the last few days. It’s the beautiful, flowing “We Ah Wi” by Javelin, which sounds like a breezy summer afternoon.
Another month in the books and another chance to look back at the most popular tracks from last month. And besides these great tracks below, last month was also the world premiere of our Blogwave Summer mixtape, with tracks contributed from 20 of our favorite blogs, so make sure to check it out if you haven’t already! And now, May’s most popular tracks:
Cheers to a happy June. Based on the fact that the weather just in the month of May has been better than all of last summer, I’m thinking that shouldn’t be too difficult.
Last week I posted the PHENOMENAL Monsieur Adi remix of Ellie Goulding’s “Guns and Horses”. In that remix, the verse and chorus swapped places and the song became larger than life thanks to Adi’s huge sounds. And then I got this one sent to me shortly thereafter, and it was so good in different ways that I had to put it up too. This version is the Tonka Radio Cut that can be found on the single being released on May 17. This time, the basic structure of the song is kept intact, but it’s given a great house beat and synth up the wazoo, and dare I say it’s got a hint of the French Touch sound at times that I so love (despite the fact that Tonka is German)? Is it possible that Ellie Goulding might be the best voice to remix in the history of voices to remix? I’m fairly sure that I’ve posted more Ellie Goulding remixes than anyone else, but when there are just so many good ones to go around, I don’t really have much of a choice.
Hey look! Our very first premiere! [Update: Someone else snuck it up before us, but we got the track from Adi himself! So there.] And how much more fitting could it be that it combines three things that we love so very much — Ellie Goulding, Monsiuer Adi and remixes! And this here is a good one, too. This site is no stranger to the Monsieur Adi remix and I feel like they usually start out pretty subdued and lead to a huge buildup, but this one hits a homerun right off the bat (how’s that for two baseball cliches in one sentence?). The beautiful acoustic guitar in the original is gone and instead we are treated to a futuristic beat that works in such perfect tandem with what sounds like a full string section even though the two are really polar opposites.
I think the best word I can think of to describe this sound is “fresh”. I must say, I think these are the third and fourth remixes Monsieur Adi has produced that that I’ve posted. And even though I really liked them all, I can totally see this guy growing into a pretty great under the radar producer. I guess you could say I’m naming him an official dailybeatz “Producer to Watch”.
And here’s some more evidence. Monsieur Adi has also recently released a killer throwback remix of Soul II Soul’s “Back to Life”, an absolute classic. And again he seamlessly weaves in a total classical vibe with a modern twist. I think it’s safe to say that Monsieur Adi is on fire right now.
