Music I Discovered this Winter 2017/2018
A lot of people ask me what I’m listening to, and I’ve been directed them to my Soundcloud account where I repost stuff that I like. But I thought I’d compile a little list of some stuff that stuck out for me recently. Let me know if you like it! And follow me on Soundcloud for more.
As an aside, I’m a huge Soundcloud evangelist. It’s my favorite medium to listen to music. No ads. Tons of mixes….Having to build my own mixes or select songs every few minutes is annoying and cumbersome. On Soundcloud you can follow people you like, who in turn follow people you’ll probably like. My feed is consistently good with awesome material and I’m always discovering new music.
Lately I’ve been really into some tribal, beat-y style stuff, including more middle-eastern music (possible because of my present location…) and as always some house music, a lot of times with female leads singing as it makes me feel extraordinarily present and like I’m living a passionate existence :)
Bonobo — who was nominated for a Grammy this year — is unreal. He just played in Tel Aviv and I’ve seen him numerous times in Montreal around 2009, 10, 11. He brings bunch of people on instruments and usually has a live singer. His show was amazing, and his recent DJ set in NYC was fire.
Diplo is another old favorite that I saw once at Igloofest in Montreal a number of years ago. Bonobo also just played Igloofest this year! Oy I wish I could go, what a trip. Anyway, here he has a great mix called Afrika Burn which is thankfully a bit divergent from the stuff he has been putting out a lot lately.
Tarante Groove Machine — Israeli band that I’ve seen a bunch lately and they have an awesome sound and sample Groove Armada on one of their songs, who I love. About to see them next week in the Negev desert along with this guy Nadav Dagon who is unreal. He is a one-man-show and is a drummer. He plays the drums and crafts these beats which are freakin’ unreal and hard not to dance to. Check out his new EP. This guy is going to be big. Another Israeli staple, Balkan Beat Box, reposted this remix of their song Kum Kum featuring A-Wa. If you haven’t heard A-Wa by the way, check out their famous song Habib Galbi here which is always amazing with that Middle Eastern flavor. And one more Middle Eastern style one — Souq Records shares some amazing stuff on Soundcloud and they shared this Remix from a band in Istanbul called Light in Babylon of a classic Idan Raichel song called Hinech Yafa. It’s gorgeous.
This song by Jain — Makeba — makes you move and you have to sing along. This song Sofi Tukker — Drinkee — I cannot get out of my head. Nicola Cruz also falling in this category with this song Colibria. This remix by Clozee of a song by a group called Barbatuques (a lot of drum and digeridoo!) makes anyone move their body. I heard this song and started following Clozee and they came out with this mix for the Eclipse this year…it is an hour and a half of amazing beats.
Here’s a tribal-beats style mix that’s around 2.5 hours long.
Fun mix for the winter from Big Gigantic.
Mix from one of my all-time favorites, Booka Shade. Deep house. 20 years in the biz. Unbeatably good.
Dirtwire has this song Struttin — Beats Antique who I love reposted them and I’ve been listening to a lot of their stuff since. This song makes you feel pretty badass.
Somebody just showed me this artist Anderson Paak who’s new album Malibu is unbelievable. R&B, super sexy.
Kygo was introduced to me this year and is freakin’ awesome. Perfect mix for heading into the summer. Great vibes.
Here’s a little mix from Benzi from last summer.
Wafia — Only Love. Beautiful song.
Big Wild — When I get there. I literally can’t get enough of this beat.
Sweet Arabic song Ali Farka Toure.
And there’s tons more where all that came from. Not sure if this has been the best way to share this with everyone, but it’s a work in progress. Follow me on Soundcloud. Have any music you think I would like? Anyone you think I should follow on Soundcloud? Tell me in the comments!
Thanks and love. I just lost the game.
