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Thursday Throwback – April 28, 2011

Here’s one I totally forgot about until recently: Esthero feat. Danny Saber – “Song For Holly”. From the Go soundtrack circa 1999.

I was obsessed with a bunch of female trip-hoppy/downtempo stuff around this period – Sneaker Pimps, Morcheeba and of course Esthero (for some reason I never got into Portishead though). I think we need to see a resurgence of this kind of stuff – I miss it.

I haven’t really been following Esthero since her initial releases around the turn of the century. She’s still just as talented, but I think she needs to go back to working with less mainstream artists to really capture my attention again. Snug, maybe? 😉

Interesting side note: I think this is maybe the second vocal track I’ve posted for Throwback, which which goes to show how little vocal music I actually listen to! Either I’m really picky about vocals, just don’t care about them, or both.

Thursday Throwback – April 21, 2011

Okay here’s another one for the geeks.

As much as I hate (but secretly love) to say this, music from the 90s art/demo scene was a strong influence when I was first starting out. I spent at least a couple years listening to and aspiring to write stuff in this vein. Who knows how many horrendously cheesey tracks I wrote in the process. The funny thing is that this stuff sounded pretty damn cool at the time 😉

Luckily that’s all in the past now, but there are a few things I took away from this period of nerdy musical history: depth, intensity, emotion. With few exceptions the vast majority of music I write has at least a couple of these traits, and it’s a commonality in a lot of music I’m drawn to.

Anyways, without further ado, here’s the throwback. First presented at Assembly 1993 it’s Second Reality by Future Crew. With music by Purple Motion and Skaven.

ECMA 2011 showcases

Two opportunities to catch yours truly at the ECMAs this year:

Thursday April 14th/Friday morning @ 1:00 AM (Snug)

I’ll be playing some solo electronic stuff in the ECMA Member’s Lounge, located in The Club at the Delta Charlottetown (18 Queen Street).

Playing alongside me that evening are Marko Simmonds, The Arka Teks, DJ KonfliKt and Coyote.

Friday April 15th @ 5:00 PM (The WAX)

My indie pop/rock band The WAX will be playing on the Discovery stage, located at Murphy’s Community Center (200 Richmond Street – 2-3 blocks from The Delta).

Also playing on the stage that day are Kristina Trites, Jason MacDonald, Katherine Moller, Back Pocket Material, The Disengagement, The Repercussionists, Big Deal, North Lakes, The Belle Comedians, Remedy, The Company, 7 Mile Stare, Arrows in the Air, Craig Mercer & The Will Be Gones and Milks & Rectangles.

Thursday Throwback – April 7, 2011

Here’s something for those of you who, like me, have video games to thank for the outstanding social prowess they developed during their childhood. Those whose third and unofficial parent was Shigeru Miyamoto. Those who still follow all the major Nintendo franchises like a religion, despite being in their 30s…

Anyway, if this doesn’t bring back memories of staying up half the night playing video games I really don’t know what will.

I’ve always been a bit of a video game music geek. I guess because I’m a music geek. And a video game geek. Or just a geek in general. But also, I’m drawn to it because it can be like anything and everything, or like nothing.

Often it’s plain and simple and just sets a mood. Other times it’s a dozen or so genres mashed up into a sonic Frankenstein. Other times it’s so gloriously cheesy it makes your eye balls ooze rainbow juice and head sprout kitten fur.

On ocassion I’ve had some of my own music likened to this particular piece… I guess it’s obvious that this stuff has rubbed off on me (in case naming several of my tracks after video games wasn’t obvious enough!)

Thursday Throwback – March 31, 2011

A word of warning: if you’ve come here for drum & bass or electronic music you might want to turn back today. If, however, you were a teenager during the 90s then you might enjoy this, and it might bring back some fond memories.

This is a series about my musical history after all, and believe it or not there was a point where I didn’t know about or listen to drum & bass 🙂 Starting today I’m going to be digging further and deeper into the depths of the Snug musical history vault, starting with something from the Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Drum album, circa 1993.

As far as “albums” go I’d have to say this one has the most meaning for me. I guess because I did a lot of “growing up” during this period of my life, with this album basically serving as the soundtrack. As cliche as I’m sure this sounds, no matter what drama or B.S. was going on in my life at the time this album seemed to make it go away. Reading the comments on YouTube I can see I was not alone!

The album as a whole is what captivated me, so it was hard to pick just one song to represent it, but I feel this one captures the the essence, emotion and overall range.

New track: Capital Wasteland

Here’s a little something I’ve been working on as of late. Going forward I’m going to try to post all new stuff here with a little blurb and ideally a pretty (or in this case not so pretty) picture to accompany it.

This track draws from a whole whack of different things I’ve been listening to/playing lately, from heavy drum & bass (Quadrant, Fourward) to chill half-time/drumsteppy stuff (Command Strange, Blue Motion, Consequence), and even a certain video game I’ve been playing a lot of (see if you can guess which one 😉

If you enjoy please support my music by spreading the word and sharing this link.

Thursday Throwback – Mar 24, 2011

Sorry for the lateness in posting this up, but lots of things on the go right now (only 3 weeks to go till the ECMAs!)

Gonna keep on the late 90s drum & bass path this week with a classic track from Optical entitled “Bounce”, circa 1998. This track would have been in rotation right around the time I was getting seriously into drum & bass. I had it on a mix tape ripped from the radio (actually, I think it was Karl Haze‘s Futurhythm show 😉 which I’m sure has quite bit of mileage.

As you can hear, and as we would go on to hear more of in his collaborations with Ed Rush, he’s s able to move effortlessly between creepy and funky. And how can you not love the drop at ~3:30.

Enjoy!

P.S. watch for more original Snug stuff soon. Hoping to go on a writing/polishing/posting spree in the next few weeks as I have a huge backlog of tracks that are like 90-odd percent complete)

Thursday Throwback – March 17, 2011

For this St. Patrick’s day throwback I wanted to give you something green, but unfortunately this was all I could come up with, so as you can imagine I had to formulate a back-up plan.

Instead I bring to you a track by the classic production duo (now trio) Blu Mar Ten. This is probably the first track I heard by these guys (at least knowingly – a lot of their earlier stuff would have been featured in atmospheric mixes of the mid to late nineties).

This track has always stuck with me in some way shape or form, and I can hear myself drawing inspiration from it even today. What really got me is the synth line that runs through most of the track. I’d not heard anything like that in a drum & bass track at that time, and it’s still not all that common place. I love it though. Enjoy!

Thursday Throwback – March 10, 2011

Since I’m in Ottawa this week I figured it would only be fitting to feature a throwback by a local producer, so I’ve picked a track by my long-time friend and music colleague Dent. I’ve always appreciated and respected what this guy does, especially the way he plays with harmony like a cat playing with a ball of yarn. You’ll see what I mean:

Dent and I have actually collaborated a few times, and I’ve done some remixes of his stuff as well (check my remix of Rock on Time Travel). I would say we definitely need to collaborate more, we just gotta find a workflow that works for both of us.

If you like what you hear you can find lots more on his website