DjOriented

Whatever you call Mount Kimbie’s music—post-dubstep, folky future garage, warm-fuzzy-wave—they’re bringing it to North America this month on a tour hitting nine major cities, coast-to-coast.

In keeping with their unorthodox aesthetic, the duo’s live show isn’t your average exercise in tapping at the space bar. They incorporate guitars, live percussion, on-the-fly sampling, and even vocals, lending a welcome dose of spontaneity to their immersive, hazily psychedelic tunes.

Check out their acclaimed debut album, ‘Crooks & Lovers’, and see the full tour schedule after the jump.

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Beatportal presents a new series in which we take an in-depth look at a particular country or city, interviewing veteran musicians, rising stars, and record labels to find out what makes their scene special. To coincide we are releasing a compilation of French musical delicacies to download for free. Our first track is courtesy of our featured artists Cassius.

The duo’s members, Philippe Zdar and Boom Bass, established themselves in the early ’90s as La Funk Mob, one of the few French acts on the legendary Mo’ Wax label; Zdar is also his known for his role in Motorbass, one of the seminal French house acts.

Cassius broke out in a big way with their millennial album ‘1999′, a classic example of French house that sounds just as relevant 11 years later. They took it slow in the late ’00s, but they returned last year with ‘Youth, Speed, Trouble, ‘Cigarettes’, and this year, their re-released single ‘99′ (remixed by Tim Green and Reset!) has helped them find a whole new generation of fans.

Read on for Philippe Zdar’s thoughts on what the scene was like in the old days, what went wrong with the “French Touch”, and which French producers are setting Paris on fire these days.

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Every one of Beatport’s staff is a vital element within the company’s existence, a cog that drives the machine that drives the industry. And at Beatport we know that our staff members are more than pistons and prongs, they are multicoloured rainbows that shine out above the musical community at large, raining down multitudes of techno, house and the occasional heavy metal record.

Yes this week, we introduce to you one of the most enigmatic and hard working DJs within the Berlin office, Dave Heugel. Those within Europe will probably be already aware of Dave, a familiar face within the Robert Johnson and Tresor clubs of Germany, Dave has been spinning techno and house for many years now.

About to embark as a producer Dave recalls to us his tales listening to Slayer, how he acquired the name ‘Dave The Rave’ and how he’s manages to see through the clothes of his fellow employees for so long without anyone of us catching on.

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Has Hyperdub—otherwise known as dubstep’s loyal opposition, bass music’s most uncompromising label, the scene’s tortured conscience—gone pop?

Well, not exactly, but they have produced an honest-to-goodness video for King Midas Sound’s ‘Lost’. And it’s everything you’d hope for, really: ominous, unsettling, impressionistic, a dub noir excursion into the psychogeography of the city at night. It’s a perfect fit for the duo’s low-end bleariness.

Get the track along with the rest of their great, self-titled album here.

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From the basements to the big tents, there’s something for everyone this week. Mauro Picotto, Marc Romboy & Blake Baxter, Hugo, Nick Curly, Azari & III, Christian Smith, Sander Kleinenberg, and Tim Berg are just a few names releasing big, big tracks this week. Read on for the full selection!

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Tribal allegiances aside, hip-hop and electronic dance music are deeply, inextricably connected—entwined like the double helix of a strand of DNA.

They emerged in parallel: back in the ’70s, disco DJs like Walter Gibbons were digging into the breaks of funk and disco records as the same time as hip-hop originators like DJ Kool Herc.

Kraftwerk, who laid the foundations of what would become Detroit techno, also sowed their seeds in hip-hop’s soil, thanks to Afrika Bambaataa, who sampled the German techno-pop act for 1982’s ‘Planet Rock’. Electro, freestyle, Miami bass, ghetto tech—all of them are products of a dynamically tangled lineage.

Breakbeat hardcore, drum & bass, and grime never would have existed without the influence of hip-hop. Even Autechre were B-boys before they were programmer boffins, a history that comes through again and again in IDM.

Surely we don’t need to remind you of hip-house—it may have flamed out quickly, but it did give the world ‘I’ll House You’. That’s a more enduring legacy than most flash-in-the-pan genres can claim.

And in the past few years, hip-hop has been learning from dance music again, from crunk’s trance-inspired synthesizer stabs to the Kid Cudi/Crookers connection. Increasingly, big-name, big-budget hip-hop acts are turning to producers like David Guetta, Boys Noize, Switch, and Rusko to provide them with fat beats and club cred.

Inspired by this perennial tug-of-war, we’ve selected 60 of our favorite tracks that illustrate the exchange of ideas between hip-hop, house, electro, jungle, dubstep, and more. No matter what style of music you play, we’re betting you’ll find something here for your sets: we’ve gathered tracks from the past 25 years or more, and from a huge array of labels—from Delicious Vinyl to Desolat, from DJ International to International Deejay Gigolos, Ninja Tune to Crosstown Rebels.

Listen to all 60 tracks in the players below, and explore more by clicking on the section headlines to view the charts on Beatport.com.

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When the KLF’s Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond wrote The Manual: How to Have a Number One the Easy Way, surely even they didn’t think it could be this easy, but the evidence speaks for itself: just watch the video above for a step-by-step guide to how the hook from Steve Angello’s ‘KNAS’ was written.

Of course, there’s a lot more to having a number one hit than just writing the thing. As Beatport COO Matthew Adell explained in Becoming ‘One’: Anatomy of a #1 hit, you need distribution, fans, and a copious amount of hype.

Watch this video on Beatportal

When the KLF’s Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond wrote The Manual: How to Have a Number One the Easy Way, surely even they didn’t think it could be this easy, but the evidence speaks for itself: just watch the video above for a step-by-step guide to how the hook from Steve Angello’s ‘KNAS’ was written.

Of course, there’s a lot more to having a number one hit than just writing the thing. As Beatport COO Matthew Adell explained in Becoming ‘One’: Anatomy of a #1 hit, you need distribution, fans, and a copious amount of hype.

Watch this video on Beatportal

Twenty years ago, Richie Hawtin and John Acquaviva planted the seeds of a legend when they started up Plus 8 Records. Long before Minus, Plus 8 defined a new sound in American techno, paving the way for some of the most significant developments in the ’90s and ’00s.

We continue celebrating the label’s 20th anniversary with more tributes from friends and fans of the label. Today, Loco Dice, Cassius‘ Philippe Zdar, Optimo’s JD Twitch, and Alan Fitzpatrick share their favorite tunes and memories. Which Plus 8 classic sounds equally devastating at 33 or 45? Read on to find out.

And don’t forget: from now through August 26, 2010, get 20% off the entire Plus 8 Records catalog. Click here for the coupon code and instructions on how to use it.

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Copenhagen’s Culture Box venue presents the third installment of its Culture Dox series of video interviews. In the hot seat this time are Berlin’s Dapayk (aka Dapayk Solo, Marek Bois, Dapayk & Padberg) and Marcel Knopf, known for their role in the labels Mo’s Ferry, Rrygular, Fenou, and Clap Your Hands.

Check out what they have to say about mixing techno, minimal, house, broken beats, and more into a “museum of sound”, and explore the labels’ catalogues after the jump.

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