A quick glimpse at chillwave.

Chillwave is a trend of electronic music that hit the streets hard around this time last year.  The aim of chillwave is making chill music, to state the obvious.  Chillwave artists are usually solo projects that sound like they were dug up from an 80’s time capsule.  What is interesting about chillwave is that there are plenty of unique spins on the same genre.  Here are four tracks from the most popular chillwavers out right now.

1.  Memory Tapes - Bicycle 

Memory Tapes (previously named Memory Cassette, and Weird Tapes, not even lying) despite having a obsession with cassette tapes, has a very clean, collaged sound, carefully layering his sounds into a tight mix.  This song is most fit for a 80’s dancefloor.

2.  Washed Out - Feel It All Around

Washed Out spends extra time living up to his name by making his sound and image appear as if they were “washed out” in production.  His sound is more expansive and hazy.

3.  Neon Indian - Terminally Chill

I think Neon Indian (formely known as VEGA) most accurately fits the concept of chillwave.  He’s not overproduced like Memory Tapes or underproduced like Washed Out, he gets it “just right.”

4.  Toro y Moi - Talamak

Toro y Moi injects a bit of soul and funk into an otherwise “white washed” chillwave sound.

Click here to find more chillwave artists and to listen to chillwave radio.

- Ryan

Show Review: HARD Summer Tour @ 9:30 Club, DC

The HARD Summer Tour is a dance tour that hit just 10 dates around the US and 2 in Canada.  With Crystal Castles from Toronto headlining, they were backed up by UK DJs Rusko and Sinden, and Destructo, a DJ born in Washington, DC. 

Sinden and Destructo, pictured above respectively, played “the warmup shit” of the night.  Their basic setups were the same, a laptop and a bunch of boards to mess with the sounds.  The beats sounded fresh and consistent for most of their sets.  Me and Trey stayed on the balcony for the early part of the show.  But actually getting down into the crowd lets the energy of the music and everyone dancing take hold of you.

You might not ever appreciate bass until you hear it pouring out of the monitors of a dance show like this. The whirring bass of dubstep is just something that has to be witnessed live.  It was enough to distort the sound quality on every video that I tried to take during Rusko’s set (well, it’s probably that way for every digital camera not dedicated to HD audio).  It was enough to even vibrate the hair on your skin.

Crystal Castles took down that long rectangular projector screen in the first picture, and it was nice to see them less guarded than their DJ openers.  Lead singer Alice Glass brings the energy of punk rock to an electronic dance setting and it works perfectly.  She crowd surfed basically all night as they played most of their hits from both of their same titled, self-titled albums. 

Dance shows are fun to get into as long as you don’t stand around stiff the whole time and miss the objective to why you came to a dance show in the first place. 

- Ryan

WI†CH HOUSE

A while ago I ran a spread on an underground genre called chillwave.  Even more underground is the electronic music trend of witch house.   Think of witch house as if chillwave were hipster Halloween party music (so if you needed a soundtrack for this weekend, I’ve done the work for you).  With some unpronounceable names and an overdose on the witch theme, I can’t even tell if “witch house” artists take themselves seriously. Still, it’s interesting to follow a musical trend from the moment that it pops up – most of these artists don’t have any legit albums and burn their music on CD-Rs. 

Musically, they all sound like ghostly versions of Crystal Castles, except the production is more bass heavy, sort of like hip-hop beats.  This makes sense because most witch house artists come from Houston, which is best known for the rap scene there.  Often they’ll throw in pitched up or slowed down vocals to create the “witch” effect.    I know, it sounds like I’m making all this shit up, but it’s true:

White Ring

White Ring - Roses by majorrager

///▲▲▲\\ (pronounced VOID)

///▲▲▲\\ - Beta Tape Warp by majorrager

Balam Acab

Balam Acab - See Birds (Moon) by subraw

Salem – Redlights

Salem- Redlights by Iron Tuna

oOoOO

OOoOO - BurnoutEyess by oh-Oo!

- Ryan

I’m assuming you’ve already heard this, but just in case;

http://soundcloud.com/djpdex/colours-in-sound-mixtape

submitted by sierracorso

No, I haven’t heard it.  Admittedly not much of a drum and bass fan…that guy from Motion City Soundtrack said it best in “The Future Freaks Me Out.” 

Now if this were a DUBSTEP mix, we might have been more appreciative.  Haha.  But continue to send us stuff Sierra.  One day, I swear we’re gonna have a breakthrough.  - Ryan