Tag Archives: breaks

Mixes Of The Weekend By Tektite, Tim The Enchanter & Illexxandra!

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One of my very favorite party groups here in NYC, Vitamin B, has decided to bust out a bunch of mixes to get you through August. They’re planning something huge for their anniversary this fall, and decided to tide our breaks-related thirst over. Tektite is flying high off his Stanton Sessions set (found here) and has just dropped a new mix on The Armory, a funky West coast podcast that keeps it quality when it comes to eclectic beats, breaks and bass.

Tim The Enchanter has put together a minor Public Service Announcement for all you kids out in radio land that may not be too familiar with Breaks as a genre. His mix, from the Essential Breaks radio show has a bunch of new stuff in addition to some classics that you may have heard a DJ at one of the smaller stages at EDM fests play while you were getting a drink. Trust that there’s a lot of good in this genre and put it into yo face. I say that a lot, but it’s true quite often 😉

Ms. illexxandra has blessed us with a VIP recreation of her Transformus 2014 set. There’s a bunch of twerk, breaks, house, future bass and soulful bounce in this hour. Is Soulful Bounce a genre yet? If not, she’s making it happen. This is some of the funkiest mixing you’ve heard. Can’t wait to see her again when she gets back from the Playa.

Enjoy the weekend and take it easy!

Midnight Music: Vadim Zhukov – Moscow Night [Trance & Breaks]

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Gotta give it up to r/Trance, as they’re responsible for introducing me to this Russian hotness. I didn’t know you could combine Breaks & Trance, but it seems if you live in Russia, you totally can. Vadim Zhukov did this like a decade ago, but it’s still jaw-droppingly good. The build that picks up at 3:30 and pushes all the way past 5ish min is pure, classic & hard trance. This old school vibe is something you can’t hear in any Trance on either side of the pond these days. Check out the r/Trance link to listen to the rest of the CD because this dude is freaking talented, and it’s totally not something you’d expect to ever work. I hope Alexander Popox and other Russian trance artists get a listen to this, because 138 trance + breaks would be amazing. Can’t wait to see what those Eastern European kids are going to come up with next!

A Minor Ode to Breaks/Breakbeat.

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(After watching the UMF Live Stream this weekend, I was surprised at the severe homogeneity of music spun on the main stage. So in the spirit of underdog advocacy, I’m going to start writing about the less commercially popular genres of electronica that may never be classified as “EDM, bro.” I decided to start our journey with Breaks, or Breakbeat.)

I’ve listened to a tremendous amount of breaks in my life, but it’s not always on my daily rotation. I tend to listen to breaks in peaks and valleys, listening to only it for weeks, then going months without a single track. I was playing jazz trumpet at the time and the syncopation & irregular spacing of the beats instantly drew me in. I couldn’t find too much of it back in the Wild West days of Napster, Audiogalaxy & Kazaa, so the closest thing I could find to real breaks way back in the day was Weapon of Choice by Fatboy Slim.

The combination of the jumping bass, rambling beat, Walken being awesome and the broken sounds became an instant classic for me and a large portion of the US listening public if I recall correctly. This spiraled  into a love affair with the DJ Icey.

I later got into Stanton Warriors, who recently took NYC by storm. But, the artist I’ve always gotten the most out of, is Krafty Kuts. Krafty kreates melodies that mash dozens of tracks a together over an hour, and is one of my undisputed masters of breaks. The vibe is undeniable, and check out his Summer 2013 mix in case you don’t agree with me (below).

It’s intensely difficult to find this kind of music in NYC, which is predominantly a House, Hip Hop & Electro town. Which brings me to some people I care about very much, Vitamin B.

unnamedThese guys have been holding it down when it comes to breaks for years now, and there’s an authenticity here that can’t be matched anywhere else in the city. They’ve been in a few different spaces recently, but they’re settling in one of the premiere new spots in Brooklyn. That being The Paper Box. They’ve been nailing it with the talent coming in, with Mafia Kiss showing up on Friday. This guy did the very first Armory Podcast for my west coast readers, and is generally awesome breaks DJ. There’s a fluidity to his transitions that seem to maintain your energy & momentum as he flows through samples & tracks.

If you’re a long-time reader, you know I’ve sung the praises of these guys before, but now that I’ve gotten a slightly wider audience, I wanted to echo my sentiment again that THIS IS SOMETHING TO GO TO. Tektite, Tim & TAFCABI continue to be resident beat jedis, and this is a no muss, no fuss event. Show up in dancing shoes, go early for hoopy hour until 11:30 so you’re done with it by the time I get there, and enjoy yourself. This is Terry Gotham, see you on the dance floor this Friday.

 

Hometown Fire: tektite

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In this installment of Hometown Fire, I wanted to give a shout out to one of Brooklyn’s finest, tektite. This guy is one of the hardest working heads in the breaks business and is responsible for the longest running monthly breaks event in NYC. Vitamin B is a fantastic party that has been growing in size for years. He, Tim the Enchanter & Barney Iller bring in some of the quality talent from all around, with Tektite also spinning in parties all over the city. Check out this mix from over the summer that he did. There’s a smooth competency to match his ridiculously potent beats, transitions and fantastic track selection.

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DJ Ayesha Adamo Drops EDM-Related Knowledge

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http://www.alternet.org/culture/cant-tell-difference-between-witch-house-and-nu-disco-welcome-electronic-dance-music-101

For many of our electronica-related neophytes, the sheer volume of genres is mind-boggling. Whether you’ve spent years hitting up parties or if this is your first weekend out of doors, it’s easy to have no idea what you’re listening to. Thankfully, there are amazingly talented DJs who are here to help. Ayesha Adamo is a multi-talented beat Goddess who I’ve had the pleasure of working with a few times in the past and has been cleverly picked up by Alternet to create a run-down of the 11 most popular genres that are happening right now. House, Techno, Breaks, Dubstep, Nu Disco/Indie Dance, Electro (House), Prog House, Trance, Tech House, Trip-Hop & Witch House. I’m not sure the last one should be on the list but I’ll give it to her because she knows her shit.

Check it out, and the next time some fool is all “zomg wut r dubstepz?” you can just forward them this and get back to listening to your psy-trap-core compilations. Check out more of her cool stuff right here:

http://www.ayeshaadamo.com/
http://twitter.com/ayeshaadamo/
(Image property of Ayesha Adamo)

 

Big Booty Breaks at Vitamin B

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I finished my beer by the 8ft tall Christmas Tree at the bar down the street from the L train and ducked back into the chilly air, pushing past a few yupsters smoking American Spirits below the ironic red, neon sign that says BAR above the door to a place that sells artisanal cheeses and microbrews. It was that time of the month again, Vitamin B was back, and it was time for my fix of epic breaks.

I arrived on the early side because the guest opener, DJ Orange Krush was someone I definitely did not want to miss. A dj, designer & all around excellent human being, I first encountered her particular flavor of shake your booty, funky house & breaks on the Boom Boat, the Disorient day boat party, a day that is not to be missed if you are down with sick music with a cool mix of burners (just try to ignore the volume of bad “I’m on a boat” jokes made). She was rocking out the dance floor early on in the day and the crowd was eating it up. Tonight was no different. I arrived to see the sparsely populated dance floor swell. I give far more credit to DJs that make dance floors happen as opposed to just maintaining them. To get people out of their shells is much more difficult when they think they’re alone, so the music has to be that much better. And it was. The influences ran the gamut from Latin, to hip hop, tinges of chip, dashes of tech and this underlying bassline that just could not be ignored.

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