You Should Stay With Me

Last night was an odd night. I believe now that I was already getting sick because I woke up not feeling well and that feeling has deepened all day. I hope I'm okay because this is not following the usual trajectory of a cold or flu. I need to get in better health ASAP. God is really weighing this heavily on my heart. Anywho, while up unable to sleep last night, I found this amazing tech house gem by British DJ and producer Chris Lake with vocals by his wife Gita. It is titled "Stay With Me". It possesses an catchy beat and yet a haunting and longing quality and with very sexy and sexual lyrics. The backstory to this song is rather cool and deserves reading about HERE along with the lyrics which are mostly correct.

Kaleida is Killing Me

Last year while house-sitting for my friend Dennis Judd, I watched his premium TV and saw this movie called John Wick 2 which movie franchise was just below my radar. I probably at some point saw or heard mention of it but nothing registered and my interest was nil. I ended up watching this movie in rapt attention and was hooked. I have since watched the first installment, to wit John Wick, and own them both on disc. In a week's time from tonight John Wick 3 comes out in theaters. I already have plans to watch it the evening of May 20th with a friend. What I love about these movies is actor Keanu Reeves' realism as the eponymous in his gun play and martial arts which was developed through exhaustive dedication to training and practice on his part, not relying on stunt doubles. Also, I am struck by the visually-stunning stylism of the indoor sets and outdoor set pieces and club scenes and highly-stylized violence which at times almost possesses a certain beauty despite it's almost kabuki-like predictability at times.

Below is a good audio version of my favorite song from the movie franchise (and undoubtedly the most memorable song from the franchise) which is "Think" by British electropop band Kaleida in their first hit and from their first album. The song immediately grabbed my attention the first time I heard it during a sequence in John Wick 2 in which he cuts a swath of death through a night club filled with henchmen adversaries). The editors sequenced the beats of the song with kills by Wick with the implication being the singer is speaking the words as John Wick's late wife speaking to him as he greaves for her. Below this player are the lyrics and below that is another player featuring the song played in sequence with movie as it appears in the movie but with the song audio enhanced relative to how it sounded in the movie for easier listening here.

Go ahead, take me down now.

Give me what you don't know

Go ahead, take me all down now.

Get this, get this into your game.

You got me in a heading drop

I never wanna come off

You got me with your beat of love

I never wanna come out.

Think of me, I'll never break your heart.

Think of me, you're always in the dark.

I hate your love, your love, your love.

Think of me, you're never in the dark.

Now that I'm making this all up

Let me let me let me into your know.

You got me in your open hand

I never wanna come back

How do we let you never found?

You know it's gonna come out.

Think of me, I'll never break your heart.

Think of me, you're always in the dark.

I hate your love, your love, your love.

Think of me, you're never in the dark.

Think of me, I'll never break your heart.

Think of me, you're always in the dark.

I hate your love, your love, your love.

Think of me, you're never in the dark.

Think of me, I'll never break your heart.

Think of me, you're always in the dark.

I hate your love, your love, your love.

Think of me, you're never in the dark.

Bidding Auf Wiedersehen

God it has been a long time since I shared any of my favorite music in this space! This haunting yet uplifting progressive house track "Auf Wiedersehen" by up & coming Zimbabwean progressive house master Alex Humberstone a.k.a. "Alex H." This music gives me hope for the future of electronica generally despite its growing commerical success and mainstream popularity as well as validates my shift of musical homes from progressive trance music to progressive house music.

Picture of the Day - Crystal Gayle

Tonight at the event I worked I had the distinct privilege of watching Crystal Gayle and her sister Petty Sue perform at a private birthday party of a prominent local person.
Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

A Great Last Breath

Two minutes into this 2014 modern progressive house gem by Polish deejay Matt Eray (Mateusz Szadziun) and Russian-Canadian Serei Kanev entitled "The Last Breath" comes alive.

This Is Inside Of Me

For the past few months I've been listening to this amazing trance track by Russian trance-master Arty a.k.a. Artem Stoliarov in collaboration with fellow Russian trance producer Misha Kitone a.k.a. Mikhail Kitavin. I'm making an exception to my Russia boycott when it comes to music which necessarily ought to transcend geopolitics. "Inside of Me" is a 2009 progressive trance masterpiece which will give you goosebumps if you listen to it when in the right mood, preferably nocturnally with your sound system cranked up. Over the past several months I've discovered some rather amazing trance tracks from several years ago which escaped my notice at the time as well as several new tracks from Arty in his Alpha 9 side project, the latter of which have my restored my near-term faith in the sub-genre. 

Trance Is Back In Higher Place

I have not shared music here in quite some time. To kick off my return to doing so, I'm reconnecting with my trance roots by sharing the stunning progressive trance gem "Higher Place" released last May by Russian progressive trance and progressive house master producer Artem Stoliarov a.k.a. Arty under the auspices of his long-abandoned/newly-resumed Alpha 9 alias/side project. There is a point in this track where it is impossible for me to not get chills. Can you guess at which point that is? In recent years I have come to fear that trance music was wholly passé now. I feared that there was no more new beauty and quality left in the sub-genre by artists producing the new stuff as it has become mostly saturated with commercialism and imitation. Arty has generated several progressive trance gems, last year into this year, not one whole month done. I intend to share some of them here with you in the coming weeks. Crank up your sound system and enjoy!

No Trace Is No Slouch

Late last year, while exploring Youtube for new electronica gems, I chanced upon this phenomenal Middle Eastern-steeped deep house track entitled "No Trace" by Brooklyn-based Bedouin. It was the second track in an equally remarkable deep house mix entitled "Cafe De Anatolia (Deep House Selection 4)" which in turn was compiled by Cafe De Anatolia. This makes for great chill-out background music as well as is best listened to nocturnally.

Snowflakes Is No Snowflake

Yesterday, quite by accident, I found this most aurally sumptuous, haunting, dreamy and atmospheric track that is an amazing example of apparently yet another subgenre of electronica that has heretofore never appeared on this blog until now, to wit, bass & drums. It is titled "Snowflakes" and was released in 2011 by Teutonic husband & wife dynamic duo Rawtekk. Youtube deejay Suicide Sheep, one of my all-time faves, posted it on his channel accompanied by scenes from the 2007 anime film 5 Centimeters Per Second to which is not in any way related and yet strangely fits well with.

Flies Better Than A Pterodactyl

Last night at Schooners Wharf Restaurant & Bar near the end of their annual July 4th party, employee Kat acting as their in-house deejay played this tune which got the whole house dancing like no other track played all night. I was infected by it myself but managed to avoid dancing except inside my mind. I had to know what this track was called and by whom so I ascended to the second story and tracked down Kat who was on the roof which by this point acted as stage for Kat deejaying and periodic go-go dancing. I learned from her assistant who was playing it off his iPhone that it was "Flight Of The Pterodactyl" by Dirtybird BBQ-co-founder Christian Martin & Iranian-American producer Ardalan, this being the first sampling ever on this blog of yet another subgenre of electronica called "tech-house." I may need to check out more techno-house this summer and see how many more tracks of this quality can be found. A better audio sampling of this track can be heard HERE.

Terrible Beauty in Slow-Mo

My current musical obsession is the piece below from the soundtrack of a new dystopian sci-fi fave of mine which I re-watched a few nights ago and has become my latest cult favorite movie, to wit, Dredd. This second go-around watching it, was in super 4K HD. Not only did I notice how much more of a great movie it is the second time around but the sound and video quality were stunning at times, none more so than when this music is playing when people are using the fictional futuristic drug Slo-Mo which makes the user experience time at 1/100th of reality in a very hazy dreamy euphoria. The movie is set in an environmentally and socially post-apocalyptic dystopian future where life is rough for the urban-bound denizens of the super-cities where the survivors try to eke out a soul-crushing existence, many of them in "tower blocks", 200-story apartment tenements designed to house many thousands of people. This movie centers around a conflict in a tower block named "Peach Trees". To see this Paul Leonard-Morgan-created haunting atmospheric ambient musical score played to scenes from the movie in which it is played go HERE.

My Favorite Humorously Oddball 80s Music Videos

Several weeks ago I started a very popular thread on my Facebook wall regarding quirky or even bad music and/or music videos. At another time I'll share the best of the worst from that collaborative thread but here I am sharing my favorite funny/quirky/oddball music/music videos with an emphasis on the 1980s.
*NOTE: Weird Al Yankovic songs do not count as they would dominate any such list if allowed.... he was and is amazing and I will later do a Top Ten favorite songs/music videos by him.


Thomas Dolby - She Blinded Me With Science from Mad Hatter on Vimeo.

Boys Don't Cry - "I Want To Be A Cowboy"


"Taco - Puttin' On The Ritz"

Murray Head - "One Night In Bangkok

Men Without Hats - "Safety Dance"

Falco - "Rock Me Amadeus"

Devo - "Whip It"

Billy Crystal - "You Look Marvelous"

Rick James - "Superfreak"

Frank & Moon Unit Zappa - "Valley Girl"

Extraordinary Ordinary World

I first heard the 2000 Aurora trance cover of Duran Duran's 1993 rock gem "Ordinary World" featuring the haunting vocals of the incomparable Naimee Coleman in one of the many electronica mix compilation CDs I picked up in the early 2000s, many of which feature this original track featured above or the Above & Beyond progressive trance remix of it featured below, both of which are utterly amazing and take me back to the Golden Age of trance in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I had the privilege of discovering this genre of electronica in early 2001 in a now-defunct Wherehouse in Atascadero as I previously shared HERE.

Not-So-Innocente

This 2001 trance classic "Mr. Sams' The Space Between Us Remix" of Delerium's "Innocente" featuring the haunting vocals of Leigh Nash of Sixpence None the Richer fame  was one of my early favorites when I began listening to trance in 2001. I found trance incredibly therapeutic to what ailed me at the time. I found this rare track on the amazing Delerium remix collection Odyssey: The Remix Collection, the same year. Back in 2012 I shared the Tiesto version of this song HERE.

Criminally Good Vibes

I have not shared new music in this space in quite a number of weeks. I'm breaking that drought in grand fashion. I discovered this 2009 progressive house remix of Italian electonica duo Criminal Vibes' 2009 track "Caribe" remixed by Italian deejay Matteo Marini. It keeps growing on me to the point I am now currently obsessed with it. And yes, that unusual instrument you hear being used is an actual mandolin in an actual progressive house track... who knew that could work so well?!
Note: the image in the video is Natural Bridges State Beach near Santa Cruz, CA. 

My Sweet Surrender

Today I rediscovered this trance gem while listening to parts of the mix tape Party Time: 2002 Continuous Mix by DJ Escape which parts I had not listened to in years. This cd was released in 2001 and thus the music contained therein is from 2000 or earlier, or in other words, the golden age of trance before it got over-commercialized and raves became less and less a thing. In this track which is a remix of Sarah McLachlan's 1998 hit single "Sweet Surrender", Tiesto or rather his ghost producers DJ Dennis and H.W. Mallon created trance magic for the relatively short but magical time they collaborated. Ignore the prologue and start listening to the magic at about the 1:38 mark and turn up the speakers.

I Really Choose To Be Free

Yesterday, the 2000 trance track "Be Free" by Trance Cowboys came to my mind fairly out of thin air. I only know of it because it is featured in Taucher's 2000 live concert recording Live @ Webster Hall New York City which I purchased only a few years after it was released. Upon thinking of this I realized I needed to listen to it again and I also realized it was a repetition (for emphasis) of the liberation them God has been communicating to me lately as it pertains to both myself and my best friend. I say "repetition" because recently I unexpectedly encountered another track titled "Be Free" which God used to communicate to me the same message which I shared HERE. The above version of "Be Free" starts at 19:11 and ends at about the 23:52 mark.
*NOTE: there is another trance track on this recording which I have shared before on this blog HERE which track I consider the theme (or one of the themes) musical scores to my life titled "Winter Love" which starts at about the 28-minute mark.

It's My &#%!@?! Party (And I'll Cry If I Want To)

This week was my Easter Vacation and today was my birthday and both have sucked dogs' bollocks. Leslie Gore's 1963 hit "It's My Party" is my anthem today.

Lynda's Song, Too

On September 6, 2013, I posted HERE that I considered Depeche Mode's 2005 hit "Precious" to be the theme song of my friend Erin's life. While that is still true to me, it is also now equally true to me that this is also the theme song to the life of my best friend Lynda as well. The song was written by band member Martin Gore (not the singer, but rather the guy at far left of the three band members reclining in the video). It refers to his children by ex-wife lingerie designer and model Suzanne Boisvert-Gore and the harm he fears has happened to them from the split. There are also a few references to what happened to the marriage which led to the divorce. It is a beautifully sad song and many parts of it are open to reinterpretation towards applying to other types of sad scenarios in life. Lynda and Erin have more in common that I ever conceived previous to today. Here are the lyrics:

Precious and fragile things
Need special handling
My God what have we done to you
We always tried to share
The tenderest of care
Now look what we have put you through

Things get damaged
Things get broken
I thought we'd manage
But words left unspoken
Left us so brittle
There was so little left to give

Angels with silver wings
Shouldn't know suffering
I wish I could take the pain for you
If God has a master plan
That only He understands
I hope it's your eyes He's seeing through

Things get damaged
Things get broken
I thought we'd manage
But words left unspoken
Left us so brittle
There was so little left to give

I pray you learn to trust
Have faith in both of us
And keep room in your hearts for two

Things get damaged
Things get broken
I thought we'd manage
But words left unspoken
Left us so brittle
There was so little left to give

Lyrics courtesy of AZLyrics.com

Auralphilic Aquaphobic

I recently changed my music selection in my car's cd changer, placing some older 2000s electronica stuff. An early surprise has been the 2005 compilation cd Perfect Remixes Vol. 3 featuring DJ Tiesto remixes. One of the surprises rediscoveries has been this fine specimen of late 1990s trance, to wit, "Aquaphonic" remixed by Tiesto and DJ Jim in 1998. This is a longer version than even the one featured in my cd but it is great stuff, probably best suited to listening to at night or while driving over distance. I recommend skipping the first 1:08 and get to the real heart of the track which has an atmospheric and moody and haunting quality to go with a good trance beat which alternatingly builds tension and breaks down with a drop or two. Note: the background image is by George Grie and entitled "Final Frontier Voyager" (2005) and is an example of Neosurrealism.