You might not recognize DJ Snake walking down the street, but as soon as you hear his discography, the light bulbs go off. From “Turn Down For What” to Justin Bieber’s “Let Me Love You,” the French super-producer doesn’t just make hits—he makes global smashes that dominate speakers everywhere from the Coachella mainstage to the bar-mitzvah dance floor. Watch him test his North African spice tolerance against the wings of death, while Sean Evans grills him on everything from DJ beef, to why he hates his stage name.

posted by David Miller (via firstwefeast)

Leave it to electronic music’s pioneer Paul Oakenfold, who is credited for introducing the dance music and DJ wave to Las Vegas and collecting first accomplishments including playing on The Great Wall of China and on Coachella’s main stage, to continue breaking new ground even at age 53.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Second Summer of Love, Oakenfold’s fateful trip to Ibiza that eventually birthed club and nightlife culture as we know it today. On April 11, he plans to hike then play a show at the base camp of Mount Everest at an elevation of 17,000 feet.

“The audience will probably be sitting mostly,” says Nepali DJ Ranzen Jha, who is currently accompanying Paul on the trip. “The air is so thin here, you will run out of breath quite quickly.”
Paul is said to have trained for four months leading up to the trip which began in Nepal. The show marks the first of his SoundTrek series, which aims to take music to “many of the planet’s most remote and challenging locations, at the same time raising awareness of environment matters and interacting with local cultures and charities, raising funds along the way”.

For this Mount Everest performance, Paul has also been raising funds to help survivors of the 2015 Nepal earthquake, which killed almost 9,000 and left several other thousands homeless.

posted by David Miller (via mixmag)

If you’ve ever faced the difficult decision as to what to buy your kids – or the kids of a DJ or producer friend – for a present, Harmonix has got your back thanks to its latest game: Dropmix. It’s a modern and ingenious card game, of the type that you really won’t mind playing yourself either!
Actually, it pushes the description “card game” right to its limits. The game comes as a plastic “board” with a lip on it, into which you perch your iOS or Android device to run the game’s integral app. You place smart “cards” down into slots, in order to build up pop music mashups.

The game will come with a number of cards, but Harmonix says there will be over 300 available by the time of launch (September 2017), across a variety of genres.
“There’s still a lot of info to come, and we can’t wait to share it with you. Expect to see gameplay demos on Twitch, hands-on demos at various events throughout the year, and plenty more info about the game, including new game modes and more songs that you’ll be able to mix with.

posted by David Miller (via digitaldjtips)

Gorillaz had previously announced appearances at Quebec City Summer Festival in Quebec City and Outside Lands in San Francisco, but now confirm more festival appearances at Meadows in New York City, Life Is Beautiful in Las Vegas and III Points in Miami.

The press release also sheds light on what fans can look forward to at these performances: “As always, Gorillaz will be joined onstage by a stellar lineup of featured artists—the new album offering such possibilities as Jehnny Beth (Savages), Danny Brown, Benjamin Clementine, De La Soul, D.R.A.M., Peven Everett, Anthony Hamilton, Grace Jones, Zebra Katz, Kelela, Mavis Staples, Vince Staples, Popcaan, Pusha T, Jamie Principle and Kali Uchis, among others.”

Aside from the festival gigs, Gorillaz will make stops at Red Rocks in Colorado, The Forum in Los Angeles, Fox Theater in Detroit and much more.

View Gorillaz North American tour dates below.

06/10 – Margate, UK – Demon Dayz Festival
07/08 – Chicago, IL – Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island
07/10 – Toronto, ON – Air Canada Centre
07/12 – Boston, MA – Blue Hills Bank Pavilion
07/13 – Philadelphia, PA – Festival Pier at Penn’s Landing
07/15 – Quebec City, QC – Quebec City Summer Festival
07/17 – Colombia, MD – Merriweather Post Pavilion
08/11-13 – San Francisco, CA – Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival
09/15-17 – New York, NY – The Meadows Music & Arts Festival
09/18 – Detroit, MI – Fox Theatre
09/20 – Minneapolis, MN – Roy Wilkins Auditorium
09/22 – Kansas City, MI – Sprint Center
09/24 – Las Vegas, NV – Life is Beautiful Festival
09/26 – Morrison, CO – Red Rocks Amphitheatre
09/30 – Seattle, WA – KeyArena at Seattle Center
10/05 – Los Angeles CA – The Forum
10/11 – Atlanta, GA – Infinite Energy Center
10/13-15 – Miami, FL – III Points Festival

posted by David Miller (via mixmag)

Lil Dicky just dropped an insane music video for his track “Pillow Talking” feat. Brain that spans nearly 11 minutes. Not only is the song one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard but the incredible video is somehow equally as ridiculous and cost the rapper $700,000 of his own money. Ironically he gained a ton of new fans after his “$ave Dat Money” famously video went viral for not having any budget and this new video is the exact opposite, but is absolutely brilliant and brings the track to life perfectly.

“Pillow Talking” is a track that’s essentially the dialog between Lil Dicky and a girl he’s just had a one night stand with that leads to a long pillow talk expertly paired with incredible CGI to go along with the conversation. What starts off as small talk quickly escalates to a conversation about beliefs in war, god (played by John C Reilly), dinosaurs, aliens, vegetarian and more. The epic video is one of the best music videos we’ve seen as he narrates the story accompanying the song with amazing CGI and acting that has everything from an alien invasion occurring in his bedroom to being surrounded by a dinosaur landscape. Enjoy!

Posted by David Miller (via thissongissick)

In recent years dance trio, Major Lazer have been at the forefront of bringing modern electronic music into the mainstream market, and now they are using their high profile status to kick-start a brand new collaboration with Danish lager giants TUBORG.

Major Lazer, consisting of DJ’s and record producers: Diplo, Jillionaire and Walshy Fire have teamed up with Tuborg to start up a new musical campaign ‘TUBORG OPEN’. This has the world-renowned performers teaming up with 3 different artists across the globe. They will be combining their individual music styles with Major Lazer’s unique mixture of trap, moombahton and reggae. This gives the opportunity for the chosen musicians to showcase hidden talents and reflect personal and native sounds.

The first musician chosen is Scriptonite, one of the hottest talents coming out of Russia in the Hip-Hop genre. With the native Kazakh being chosen as the first of 3 collaborations with Major Lazer, the other 2 are set to be released to the public sometime in May.

posted by David Miller (via weraveyou)

Playing around in the studio w @skrillex @poobear #US

A post shared by Jennifer Lopez (@jlo) on Mar 31, 2017 at 7:07am PDT

Turntables have been able to play digital music for a very long time. DVS has been a thing for well over a decade, and assorted turntables like Gemini’s CDT-05 and Numark’s short-lived X2 hybrid let you play digital files in a more familiar workflow. But these options depended on using a laptop or buying a dedicated unit. So when Sam Spreadborough sent me details of his final year university project called PiDVS (a name that tells you what it is), my attention was grabbed.

WHAT IS PIDVS?

It’s exactly as it sounds — essentially a Raspberry Pi based solution that brings fully standalone DVS use to turntables or CDJs. It’s based on a Pi 3 model B running Raspberry Jessie on a 1.2Ghz ARMv8 with just 1Gb RAM, with an official Raspberry 7″ touchscreen. The audio is handled by an Audio Injector sound card, and as an added benefit, there’s a Teensy processor to handle MIDI. And all of this is run via Sam’s own custom software using JUCE, XWAX timecode decoding, plus other open source solutions to fill in the gaps.

SUMMING UP

PiDVS is a fully standalone DVS solution for a turntable with networking and MIDI, but you’ll still need one per deck), that also has the planned potential to let you share music from a single USB device. It’s an amazing feat for a university project, and we’re really keen to see where this ends up — hopefully in the hands of everyone.

We wish Sam every success with PiDVS and with his degree. I’m torn about wanting him to get a job in the industry or going it alone. Talent has a tendency to be buried inside big companies and sparks of brilliance like this often end up forgotten, in a box, on a shelf, in a warehouse. Hopefully someone will see the commercial potential of PiDVS and help Sam take it further.

posted by David Miller (via djworx)

Fan favorite DJ Deville kicks off his new “Live Mix” series that will bring a new live mix to our official podcast every month. Check out his full track list after the jump! Continue reading →

After releasing her new mixtape Number 1 Angel, Charli XCX returns with producer Mura Masa on the contemplative new video for single “1 Night.” The video explores different kinds of relationships within the same apartment complex, with XCX dancing to the track in a small gymnasium.

Charli XCX has bridged the gap between her 2014 breakthrough Sucker and its impending follow-up “party album” with a pair of non-LP releases – 2016’s Vroom Vroom and Number 1 Angel – that find the singer collaborating with producers like Sophie and PC Music’s A.G. Cook.

“On my previous record, I was really annoyed at the music industry and felt like I had something to prove,” XCX recently told Rolling Stone. “After that, I didn’t feel I had anything to prove anymore. Also one of my favorite hobbies is partying, and I realized that I never actually made a party album. I never made an album that I would want to hear at a club. It was very indulgent in that sense because I just wanted to make an album that I could get fucked up to. It’s the soundtrack to my nights.”

posted by David Miller (via rollingstone)

The Six Nations is upon us. For those not in the know, it’s an annual rugby tournament featuring England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, France, and Italy. And to commemorate this event, English scratch legend Mr Switch assembled matching opponents from the other five nations to battle it out on this most excellent posse cut video.

Donning suitably stereotypical attire, Ritchie Ruftone (Scotland), DJ Koncept (Ireland), Killer Tom (Wales), Viny’ Lourd Son (France) and Mandrayq (Italy) go bar for bar in this 2 minute scratch fest. Unlike the Six Nations tournament, I’m not sure that there’s a clear winner. But as we’re told, it’s not the winning but the taking part that counts right?

posted by David Miller (via Djworx)

If you could put an original NS6, a Mixtrack Platinum, an NV, and an NS7 in a blender, to me this is what would come out the other end — a Numark smoothie that includes all the best bits to create something that pleases many different palettes.

Like the original, the new NS6II appears to be a jack of all trades. It is a regular Serato DJ controller essentially an NS7III without the heft and direct drive platters. In their place are the large capacitive touch jogs from the NVII but with big centre screens like the Mixtrack Platinum. One key difference that I don’t see as an issue is that the NS6II has inputs on channel 3 and 4 only, whereas the original had inputs on all channels. I suspect that people buy controllers to be controllers, not 4 channel mixers, so I don’t see this as a downside at all.

Like the old NS6, the new one feels like the sort of unit where anyone could walk into a DJ shop with a list of needs, and NS6II would tick most of the boxes. As I recall, I felt that the NS6 did a lot very well.

The upshot of all this merging and honing is a new lower price. I know we’re in entirely different times now, but the original was launched at $999, and sold a boatload. The new NS6II however is $799 (I checked and the original PR had the wrong price), which I expect will put it right into the NV2/DDJ-RR/Kontrol S5/Reloop Mixon 4 range. It’s going to be interesting to see the direction that people go, and if features like dual USB or centre screens will be deal breakers.

posted by David Miller (via djworx)