It’s early May. The economy? Well…still kind of in a funk. You’ve been feeling a bit down lately. Friends losing their jobs. You are a bit unsure yourself of where this is all headed. But the news of the last few days is looking up. The craziness is stabilizing. The banks are bad, but not as bad as we thought. The automakers are valiantly fighting to stay relevant. People are saving, not spending. The bottom is here. The only way is up, or so we hope.

With that in mind, the summer dance music scene will be kicking in a few weeks. Surely, you’ll be able to lose yourself in happy state of dance to the pulsating rhythms that will cleanse your soul of all this drama we’ve been going through. Can’t wait, you say? Now you don’t have to. You can simply download this most excellent mix compilation, One More Tune, from the legendary, Tom Middleton, and be awash in blissful melodies that will heal your heart and soak your mind.

Tom says this phenomenal double disc set includes, “…my hand picked collection of past, present and future end of the night anthems. Some will be familiar, others more underground, yet all truly memorable, rich in harmony and emotion.”

Our fav track is on Disc One: Budai + Vic “All Night Long.” Of course, there are so many others that will leave you wanting more. There’s Mustafa Feat. Elisangela “Dom Demais” (Audiowhores Remix), Akabu “Phuturebound” (Shur-i-kan Remix), The Orange Lights track, “A Few Good Days” (Tom Middleton Deep Dub), and who can forget the Derrick May classic, “Strings Of Life” (Tom Middleton Remodel).

We highly recommend One More Tune. And you thought you were going to have to dig through last year’s stuff for that trip to the beach in a few weeks, ha! Now that you have One More Tune, don’t bother. This compilation will keep you blissfully happy while you stretch your body in the sand and soak in the rays of summer sunshine.

• Download – Tom Middeton – One More Tne (‘91) Mix
• E- Flyer – Track List and Audio Preview
• Video Interview
• Listen to first 20 minutes of Disc One – Mixed
• Download Tom Middleton – One More Tune screensaver and IM icons
• Download the Continuous Mix version of One More Tune  from 
• Download the Album Version of One More Tune from

They’re from Australia and have been around a few years, but I’d never heard of Sneaky Sound System, until that is, I caught a friend’s post on Facebook for the music video “I Love It.” I was instantly struck by lead singer Miss Connie’s (Connie Mitchell) sultry, evocative and playful vocals. The group’s sound is similar to Duran Duran with a tiny twist of Dee Lite that is long lasting and timeless. “I Love It” is an instant classic.

Little did we know, Sneaky Sound System have achieved double platinum status in Australia, achieving four number one singles and two ARIA Awards. I am absolutely enthralled with this band and am amazed no one has picked them up here stateside. They did recently play a New York date in March, then headed to the Winter Music Conference for a little networking. I’d love to see what happens with this group and hope they something happens for them here. I think they’re genius!

You can learn more about Sneaky Sound System on their web site.

Enjoy the music, share your voice.

Launched in December of 1996 at the beginning of Web 1.0, Netmix.com was the first mix show Web site to feature the world’s most influential electronic dance and hip-hop DJs, in the mix. The company’s founder, Tony Zeoli (DJ Tony Z.) retired the mix show format in 2003 and relaunched as a DJ culture, music and technology blog.

We are looking for people from all over the world, passionate in the dance and DJ culture  to contribute their thoughts, photographs, and videos over the next 365 days, with the goal of remaking Netmix into one of the top DJ culture destination on the Internet. 

You will be given a user name and password to the site and you’ll be asked to contribute at least once a week on topics such as these:

• Artist, Music, Event Reviews
• DJ and Production Products and Technology
• Internet sites that serve the DJ culture community
• Web, mobile product development best practices for the DJ community
• Review of Internet radio stations and DJ mix shows online and off, which is important…we don’t want to forget about offline too!
• Videos and photos from nightlife establishments and parties around the world
• Coverage of music conferences
• Podcast interviews and/or music downloads and possibly Netmix Online Radio, which can be developed over time.

What kind of music:

Netmix is foremost a DJ culture environment. House, Trance, Techno, Drum n Bass, Hip-Hop, Electronica, Downtempo, Acid Jazz are all formats we embrace. Bring on some French, Indian, Japanese or Brazilian hip-hop…world beat is something we also want to cover. Anything that tows the line between dance and rock is fine too. We generally lean new, but if you want to post 100 YouTube videos of classic house and hip-hop tracks on a page, it’s your world.

Requirements:

You should have excellent written and communication skills, social networking and be good with technology, as you’ll be posting content from your iPhone, manipulating photos and editing video footage. You might want to know a little HTML and CSS. 

Incentives: 

Whether you are looking for college credit or jump starting your career, writing for the blog would be a unique type of writing sample that you would have to add to your portfolio- that in which you can show future employers for internships, jobs, etc. With social media on the rise, employers will find it fascinating and impressive you have contributed to a blog in the past. 

Currently, the site generates incremental revenue, but not enough to pay anyone just yet. 

This is your chance to get in on the ground floor and help grow Netmix into an internationally respected brand. Here you can learn to advertise and affiliate valuable relationships to last your entire career. 

Please send your resume with brief introduction, links to all your relevant social profiles, a writing sample and links to any images or video you’ve shot in the past 3 to 6 months at events around the world.

Send to jobs [at] netmix.com

No phone calls. Allow two weeks for a response. We will get back to everyone.

Cary Brothers

Of all the artists we’ve been pitched over the years, it’s so nice to wake up to an email from a manager or publicist who brings us music that instantly warms our hearts, touches our souls and awakens our spirit.

A week or so ago, the Brooklyn-based booking and management company, The Ascot Club, forwarded a release asking us if we could write about an artist on their roster, Cary Brothers. Admittedly, I was reluctant to act upon the request, probably because I was faced with another 1.5 drive from my home in Westchester to my day job on Long Island. Brothers also isn’t an electronic music artist; he’s a singer-songwriter.

Why are we writing about singer-songwriters? Well…we’re jumping on the S&S bandwagon, for one. Just kidding! Nah…we just though this music was pretty cool. He’s also tied to dance music in more ways than one, which we’ll explain in a minute.

It also probably helped that the name of the management company is The Ascot Club. And the name of the person who emailed me is Inge. I thought, “hey, that’s pretty unique!,” picturing a bunch of guys walking around an old English Tudor manor with white, Silk ascots wrapped under smoking jackets–pipes in hand. Inge…well, I let my mind wander on that one. I remembered the email said The Ascot Club is located in Brooklyn, which is a pretty far cry from the English countryside, for sure. Dream over…right. Time to move on.

“Ride,” is a gorgeous, powerful, yet moody single from Cary Brothers debut album (released last year), Who You Are. On this track, Brothers sweet, emotion-laced vocal asks a love interest if faith, compassion and understanding would bring them back together. Brothers vocals, layed alongside a lush guitar and slight, rhythmic electronic beats asks, “Would you take my hand tonight? If I told you the reasons why. Would you leave your life and ride? And ride.”

On a side note, the world’s number one DJ/Producer, Tiesto, gave “Ride” the remix treatment. It’s an enhancement of the original that perfectly keeps the underlying moodiness intact, while adding a Spanish-style guitar and kick-drum that brings a sense of urgency to the song. Of course, like all anthemic Trance productions, you’ll find the obligatory breakdowns with broad synth patterns structured such that it should move any dancefloor.

With a new album coming out, it doesn’t make much sense to review Cory’s current set of tracks. You can take a listen for yourself on his MySpace.

What Ascot Club wants you to know is that Brothers has two, upcoming performances in New York and L.A. And, they are:

• March 3rd New York, NY @ Le Poisson Rouge (w/ Luke Temple and Callers)
• March 5th Hollywood, CA @ Troubadour (w/ Buddy)

Le Poisson Rouge tickets – on sale 1/16/09:
http://lepoissonrouge.inticketing.com/evinfo.php?eventid=30470&sid=

Troubadour tickets – on sale 1/16/09:
http://www.troubadour.com/eventdetail.php?id=1090

Run…don’t walk to see Cary Brothers. You’ll be glad you did.

Check out his video blog below:

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you know it’s serious when Diddy starts complaining about something. Anyone who keeps up-to-date with Diddy’s video blogs on YouTube knows what I am talking about. On his 12th video blog, Diddy begins to complain that gas prices are too high and he can no longer fly his private jet.

Aww, Diddy! I completely sympathize with your situation. If I couldn’t fly my private jet, I would get a camera, complain and put it on YouTube too. [lol]

But in all seriousness folks, you never know; maybe gas prices will start to decrease. I mean c’mon! What isn’t possible through the power of Diddy?

Didn’t you see the Burger King commercial?

-Jacklyn Mendoza | J.FRESH

Every day, I get out of bed thinking that when I become an Internet media and entertainment mogul, I’ll be rolling in this 6-cylinder, V-12 beauty that starts at $124,100. So, keep on clicking those Google Ads and maybe one day you’ll see me in pulling up in front of Nobu in one of these. Click, click, click! I hear those pennies adding up.

On August 19, elodieO is set to release “Stubborn,” her first full length EP from her self-titled record label. The set is available for pre-release at iTunes. Take a listen to elodieO’s sound, a mix of 60’s Nico-esque pop with 90’s golden era trip-hop and down-tempo on her MySpace page.

On “Crazy,” elodieO delivers a halting, sensual vocal over a chunky down-tempo beats, backed by lush electro sounding synths played softly throughout the track. Perfect chill-out music for a candle lit, romantic encounter.

The original version of “Le Mer” has a break-beat flow, with elodieO’s sweet, soft, French language vocals distributed across the tracks hook, building a sense of urgency and even a bit of despair.

Since we don’t speak French here at Netmix and we don’t have a sexy, French translator hanging around the office, we can’t really tell you what she’s saying. You’ll have to interpret it all yourself. With French being the language of love, it shouldn’t be that hard.

Even if you can’t translate, don’t run out to purchase that Rosetta Stone language kit from your local mall just yet. The sounds are smooth and easy on the ears. So much so, that we’re fairly confident it won’t much matter if you’ve playing it on your bedroom iPod dock. Better yet, you can head down to Nublu for elodieO’s show on July 26th. Maybe you’ll hook up with someone there who will translate for you in exchange for a $2 beer.

For DJs, remixes are available from Doublestandart, Zeb The Spy of Cairo and Aaron Johnston of the Brazillian Girls.

Thanks for Caitlin Jones of Two Ships That Pass for passing (of course, no pun intended here) along the Zeb remix of “Le Mer.” Click on the play icon below to listen.

elodieO \”Le Mer\” (Zeb Remix)

So, you’re probably asking: who is elodieO? Well, according to Caitlin, her publicist, elodieO is Parisian by birth. She’s been a “staple of the New York City LES/Nublu electro scene that nurtured Kudu and The Brazilian Girls.”

If you’re not familiar with Nublu, it’s a tiny, hole-in-the-wall space in the East Village, which is becoming the defacto launch pad for many of today’s eclectic New York electro artists. The space consists of a bar on one side of the room and a banquet on the other side. There’s no stage. People simply make a semi-circle just wide enough to fit the bands equipment. It’s a pretty raw experience, which is what makes it seeing artists there so appealing.

On this EP, elodiO composed and arranged all the music with the exception of two re-arranged songs by Serge Gainsbourg and The Cure.  Aaron and Jesse of the Brazilian Girls have a hand in the project as well.

We hope you enjoy! Au revoir!

This is one hot house record for the summer. We’re especially digging the Stripped Mix, but you’ll find something here that suits your tastes. The “Born To Funk Hyped Dub” has a nice swing to it with Danil’s vocals uses sparingly throughout. You’re going to need it if you want to remix the track live with the “Born To Funk Vocal,” which is also available.

Sasha Alazy’s dub treatment of the record keeps the flavor of the original while turning out a bit more of an uptempo sound to bridge the gap from club to mix show radio.

This release is available on Beatport.com, Traxxsource.com, Stompy.com and Xpressbeats.com

Take Me feat. Danil – Original Mix

Take Me feat. Danil – Born To Funk Hyped Dub

Take Me feat. Danil – Born To Funk Vocal Remix

Take Me feat. Danil – Inst. Mix

Take Me feat. Danil – Sasha Alazy Remix

Take Me feat. Danil – Stripped Mix

Artist : D:Fuse & Hiratzka
Release “Breathe In”
Remixer: Fine Taste
Label: Currve
Catalog: CR041
Release Date: June-18-2008
Genre: Progressive House, Tech House, Chill Out
Format: Digital

Review: Fine Taste remix is repetitive and simple. Not a floor filler by any means. Something to get the crowd warmed up. Neil Colo’s Tech House remix has a lot of structured complexity with dark overtones. If you’re into the darker side of Tech House, this one’s a sure bet. The downtempo, chill out album version is included with the EP download.

Artist: Killfish
Release: Tatooman EP
Label: Jetlag Digital
Catalog: JED002
Release Date: July-04-2008
Genre: Progressive House
Format: Digital

Review: Out of the gate, Jetlag Digital put out a couple of nice tracks. These two are fairly forgettable. They don’t go anywhere or do anything exciting. Simply just filler tracks. “Grinder Cool” has a bit of an electro house flavor to it. A vocal sample drifts in and out, but there’s no reason to really care. The breakdown is fairly simple. Nothing we haven’t seen before. The modulation of the synth warps around as it comes out of the breakdown, but it doesn’t capture the big room, epic transformation you’d expect out of a long breakdown and build up. “The Fisher” is another filler track that I might play in the beginning of the night, but definitely not peak hour. These guys need to go back to the drawing board and take it a notch higher. The label is out of Spain. This sound may do well there, we don’t know, but we don’t expect them to break any records in the U.S. with this release.

Artist: Terry Williams
Release: San Francisco
Label: Lad Publishing & Recordings
Catalog: LADAL08041
Release Date: June-18-2008
Genre: Tech House
Format: Digital

Review: We’re digging this thick track with synth stabs that sound like urgent horns placed evenly along throughout. A nice twangy bass line carries the groove. This track is good for putting that skip in your step when you’re on the floor, grooving to it. If this is the sound of underground San Francisco, then we’re looking forward to hearing it played out the next time we visit. The Natalino Nunes remix takes it a bit darker, but that means it loses a bit of its cheery flavor. So, we’ll stick with the original here.

Artist: Incognito
Release: Tales From The Beach (Album)
Label: Heads Up International
Catalog: HUCD 3141
Release Date: June-24-2008
Genre: Jazz
Format: Digital

Review: Just when you were looking for a smooth, soulful jazz album from Incognito, here it is. The band has returned with lush, gorgeous music and vocals you’d expect from such a legendary group. Incognito fans will be satiated with all that’s great about this group. DJs have three house tracks to pick from, “Love, Joy, Understanding”, “Freedom To Love”, and “Feel The Pressure.” All three are perfect for a Lil Louie Vega set. We’re thinking someone from Giant Step has already called him for a remix.

Head to Giant Step to listen to the DJ Sampler.

Beatportal.com, the daily blog journal run by the folks at Beatport.com, where kind enough to run my latest Netmix Global House Podcast in the Community feed section. You can check out the posting here.

Many companies are now looking to users to generate content for their blogs. Hiring bloggers is an expensive proposition against revenues. If you’re traffic doesn’t cover the cost of the hosting and content production, then it’s smart to look to the user community to develop content for a web site. We may be doing that ourselves very soon!

On another note, we’re moving away from Podpress for Wordpress as a Podcasting plug-in. It seems the developer is no longer supporting the application since 2007. As far as we can tell, Podpress has become extremely problematic, conflicting with more recent plug-ins, to the point that it breaks the plug-in repository in your Wordpress admin. We found the new Podcasting plug-in. When used in conjunction with a Feedburner_Feedsmith plug-in, we think it works quite nicely.

Podcasting supports iTunes, but it does not have links to the other podcasting web site featured through Podpress. It also does not host a download link with its player, nor does its player show the number of downloads. A bit disappointing, yes, but do I really need to tell people how many podcasts have been downloaded? Or, is that just a bit of ego on my part? I’ll go with the ego and forgo displaying the number for now. As long as I know what it is and that number is in overall subscriptions, I’m going to say that’s more important to Netmix growth over the long term.

That being said, my workaround was to simple. I added a text link under the Podcasting player provided by Feedburner to allow anyone to subscribe to my podcast feed. That way, it will ping users who have subscribed to the podcast with updates, in the same way that Podpress functions.

In a nutshell, I think we’ll be better off for the time being. Feedburner is quite a powerful way to organize and distribute feeds. For Netmix, that’s another great analytics tool, which compliments our Google Analtyics and GetClicky accounts.

If you’ve stumbled across this post, Netmix Media is the parent of Netmix.com. The company consults to media & entertainment organizations on web strategy, including blog and site development, rich media application development, Internet marketing and promotion and a host of other services. Contact Netmix Media if you need help with your web site or blog.

NY Times Video: Hmong Hip Hop

Who knew Minnesota was bringing the noize? Rapper Tou Saiko Lee, has been blending hip hop with ancient tradition to keep the Hmong culture alive. The Hmong people, originally from Laos, came to America to escape Communist persecution in the 60’s and 70’s. Many settled in the Minneapolis area, which has come to support the largest Hmong population in the United States.

The New York Times interviews Tou Saiko Lee, bringing what’s best about America, our immigrant culture and how that culture breeds new art forms. Lee bridges hip hop culture with his Laotian roots, including music and spoken word he’s created, which includes chants from his grandmother, who performs with an oral form of Hmong verbal poetry.

Lee’s convergence of American culture with Laotian history brings to mind the pioneering efforts of Eric B. and Rakim, who sampled Ofrah Haza’s “Im Nin’Alu for their rap hit, “Paid In Full.” The track bridged the beautiful sounds of Israeli music with New York’s gritty, urban experience. Im Nin’Alu was also sampled in M/A/R/R/S, “Pump Up The Volume,” a huge house record at the time. I can’t say for sure, but both classics were released by the long defunct 4th & Broadway record label, which I’m going to guess licensed the sample and used it on both recordings.

The point is, Hip Hop has transcended its roots in from the Bronx and streets of L.A. to become a global sound adopted reworked by oppressed societies who are struggling just as African-Americans who created the format have experienced. When other cultures embrace hip hop and merge the street sounds with their own oral history’s, amazing things ensue. For example, Bhangra, a traditional folk music of India, has merged with Hip Hop and that convergence has since emerged as a powerful musical force with a huge Indian following in New York City, led by the genre’s leading DJ, Rekha. And, disaffected Senegalese youth from France embraced Hip Hop to voice their issues, launching the divergent careers of rappers MC Solaar and Assassin.

Netmix gives props to Tou Saiko Lee for bridging Hmong culture and hip hop. The tradition of using Hip Hop to fuse the past with the present educates young people around the world that we can’t forget about our past, because our past will always be tied to our future. Combining history with music they can related to, innovators like Lee believe that their efforts will spur thought or action for others who follow to embrace and continue the message of those less fortunate. We have to keep the spotlight on the tragedies of our times.

This just popped up on my radar. I’ve never heard of the label, and to tell you the truth, I don’t remember how this link came to me. I’ve been looking in my Gmail Inbox and can’t seem to remember who sent it to me or where it came from. Hmm? Interesting.

Regardless, this lablel out of Hungary is hot. Check out the label on MySpace at http://www.myspace.com/glackaudio or their web site at
GlackAudio.com.

Tracks are available at Beatport, BeatsDigital, JunoDownload, Additech, Trackitdown, Wasabeat, and Release Records.

I’m loving ICR “I’m The Edge Of Your Coin” and “Lack Of Tomorrow.” Check out these two tracks from Flack.su: “Dazzle,” which is just gorgeous, and Sigma 957. Will be downloading these for my next Netmix mix set. This label is super hot. Whoever sent it to me…THANK YOU!

Brett Cleaver, label owner/manager over at D&B upstart, Offshore Recordings sent this message over to Offshore Recordings Facebook group members. He’s put up some new snippets of the following tracks, which can be heard at http://www.myspace.com/offshorerecordings.

Check out these hot clips:

OSR020
Sileni “Black Rocket” / Hi-Lar “Back On Trip (LXC Remix)”

OSR021
Martsman “Klikoucha” / “Disharmonic Anti-Anthem”

OSRLTD003
Graphic ft. Beans “I Am Metal (Starkey Rmx)” / Darkstar “Lilyliver (Starkey Rmx)”

Visit Bleep.com to get the tracks at http://www.bleep.com/?label=Offshore

Last night I searched the term “DJ” on Twitter and returned approximately 350 pages of profiles containing the term. I ended up adding about 150 or so new follows to my Twitter profile. One of them was Hyline, a DJ, radio presenter and A&R Manager at Jetlag Digital, an all-digital progressive house label based in Germany.

They’ve got a great roster of global progressive house DJs, including the legendary Trance producer/DJ, Taucher (Germany), as well as Killfish (Spain), Facundo Romano (Argentina), Nacho Casco (Argentina), Federico Manachesi (Argentina) and Tobia Hoppe from Germany).

Taucher and Hyline host a radio show on FriskyRadio.com every 4th Thursday.

Shane – The Arrival is the first EP release from Jetlag Digital, with mixes from Killfish and Facundo Romano.

The Original and Extended mixes are house driven with a haunting female vocal that has a bit of a romantic middle eastern twist to it. Killfish brightens the levels a bit with a progressive mix and Facundo Romano takes it frighteningly deep and dark, for a late night sounds that is sure to send chills up any clubbers spine. A nice first EP from Jetlag, who associate their music with the sounds of global travel–sans the name, Jetlag. Check it out at Jetlagdigital.com.

Track Listing:

Shane – The Arrival (Original Mix)
Shane – The Arrival (Extended Mix)
Shane – The Arrival (Killfish Remix)
Shane – The Arrival (Facundo Romano Remix)

In this video interview with Portfolio Magazine, Korean music executive Jin-Young Park discusses broadband penetration in South Korea and how that has affected music sales and what he believes is the death of the album as we know it. He sees a future in singles sales and the band as a brand, it’s name plastered over phone cards, devices, merchandise and a host of other marketable products.

What may be great for the pop-star isn’t as appealing to musicians who are cautious about selling out. The jury is still out on how those artists are going to survive in a music business that could ultimately be even more damaged by aligning itself with corporations than actually being about the music and the fan first. If music fans are willing to accept the double-edged trade off, then take the check and cash it.