Nixwax proudly present NIX004 from Joonipah! Check out previews of the tracks and grab the fantastic, high quality and free download “Going Round My Head” below.
This will be a limited press, vinyl only release on beautiful colour wax. Keep your eyes peeled for more release info - coming soon!
Here’s the chart we did at for Soho’s Phonica Records recently. It features a bunch of our favourite releases from the shop recently. Get them while they’re stocked…
We’ve nearly run out of minutes, so we’re going to have to start clearing out some old content to bring in the new!
So - here’s your last chance to grab OJsmooth’s excellent mix he did for us at the end of last year to celebrate our first release, NIX001.
Get it! Got it? Good.
http://soundcloud.com/nixwax/ojsmooth-mix
If you’ve not heard of Be-At TV, it’s a live music stream which runs from a variety of locations much like your much loved Nixwax Sunday Ustream. They provided excellent coverage of Winter Music Conference and Ralph and I were lucky enough to see Brendon Moeller and Steve Rachmad at one of their live recordings in London.
Tonight they have a special set from our fellow Kentish Man, Kevin Griffiths who is the head of Tsuba Recordings. We have endless love for everything that Tsuba put out and you can spend the next 7 hours (before the event goes live at 5pm) checking out all their recent output.
Watch the stream here and you can also check out their amazing back catalogue of recordings.
This one is from a while back, but it’s still a banger. Deep percussive house music, yeah buddy.
It’s a free download from our man Alec Function. Anyone who can guess where the sample is from wins a whole bunch of Nixwax Stickers - the clue is in the picture!
Answers on a postcard or to nixwaxmusic@gmail.com
Ralph
If you’re around and about London this weekend and not sure what to go to then why not hit the Mudlove Bank Holiday Party with Luca C and Wildkats.
It’s this Saturday night at Westbourne Studios which is 5 minutes from Notting Hill Station. If you’ve not seen either of the names on the bill before then click the links above to check out their stuff and also listen to Mudlove’s Exclusive Mix from Luca C…
… if you do know who they are, then you know why you need to go!
What’s a fownload? It tenuous alliteration, that’s what. The important thing here is that Chocky is giving away a full quality fab freebie from his soundcloud page that I highly recommend you go and grab immediately. Or just click the buttons below, where you can also listen to it. Enjoy!
I’d also strongly re-recommend his release on Disconnected (DSCNTD002), which you can listen to here.
The EP starts with Can I Mither You (The Cassette Mix). It’s a seriously classy bit of house music that builds into a pretty pumping groove with all the wonderful grainy-ness of the cassette tape. This deliberate destruction of quality to get that vintage feel of a recording seems to be a popular option for record labels at the moment, but I think this is one of the best examples of the use of that effect.
The rest of the EP is really nice to listen to, and Down With Idris is an awesome headphone experience. Nixwax are always hungry for ear candy in tracks - those little clicks and beeps you don’t really pay much attention to but make the soundscape of the track so much richer and more vibrant - and these tracks come with plenty. Big shout to Chocky, keep up the good work!
Ralph
BEHR’s debut release, the Camino EP is now available to buy. Check out full length versions below via youtube
BUY IT NOW ON PHONICA or BUY IT NOW ON DECKS.DE
A1 - Camino
B1 - Blank Sheets
B2 - Monaco
Available at all good record stores!
A new night, label, brand or whatever is always hard work. It’s also something we at Nixwax know an awful lot about. The Boots & Cats boys approached me a few months ago with the proposal of a new night in a brand new club called 7even, in their fair home city of Coventry. Now I’ve spent a decent amount of time in Coventry and I’ve seen a few nights come and go, so I knew exactly what the boys were up against.
This month the residents, Ryan Winters and me, were joined by the two young whipper-snappers that make up Bondax and I must say they didn’t disappoint. After a pleasing warm up selection of disco funk and house jams these boys stepped in and smashed it. By the end of the set, the crowd were eating out of the palms of their hands.
Last up was señor Winters, who like me, showed up just in the nick of time. With an entirely different style to the previous two but still smashed it to pieces. If you haven’t heard of this dude, I urge to to check him out soon, he’s definitely on the rise in a big way. Everyone I managed to speak to seemed to be having a great night and the atmosphere in the club was excellent, with everyone inside knowing exactly who they’d come to see.
So in short, you all need to come to the next Boots & Cats (feat. ARTK), which is on the 18th May. I’ll even be there too!
Rob
Although we couldn’t sit down for a chat with the Behr lads due to the locational (is that a word?) constraints of our first European representatives, we sent them a few questions to peruse and answer at their leisure. Learn a bit about Elliot & Stephan for the first time here and especially have a read of their story about how they came to write music together; it’s a bit of a mad one!
What are your names and where do you come from?
We are Stephan and Elliot. We are both from Germany and right now we are both living in Munich.
How did you meet?
We were attending the same school around 2002. We were and still are classical taught drummers and back then we formed a little percussive jazz ensemble. Both of us played drums in a wide range of music genres ranging from Jazz to Hip-Hop, from Drum n Bass to Metalcore. We really tried everything. We used to play a lot of pure percussive shows around our home cities back then, but in 2005 our paths separated and we haven’t seen each other for about six years.
So how come that you guys are back together producing music?
In 2005 we ended on really bad terms. Out of the great experience of making music together and playing gigs, some kind of rivalry was created between each other, which lead to huge fights and 5 years of not talking to each other. About 10 Months ago we found each other online and started talking again, after both of us matured in his individual way. We realized that all this fighting and all this jealousy wasn’t worth anything.
After 2005 each one of us took different twists and turns in his education and of course also in terms of music. Luckily both of us started producing music, Stephan was more into Drum n Bass and Afro American rhythms and I was more into Hip-Hop and Jazz Stuff. We both can’t remember what made us try to produce electronic music; maybe it was just because of our background as drummers and the fascination for repetitive and complex vibes. 10 Months ago we realized that we should work together.
For some reason we got along just fine, we had a lot to talk about and a lot of different experiences to share. So we tried out different ways of working together online, because we were living in different cities back then and the first Track that we produce was called Love & Happiness, which can be downloaded from our Soundcloud Page. That was the point when we decided that this is not just a project that this is going to be a serious band.
How do you make your tracks and who does what in particular?
We use Ableton Live as software and several midi controllers like the Korg Pad Kontrol and the Akai MPK 49. Who does what is not defined really. We just start making beats and patterns and as soon as one of us gets stuck with an idea that we consider having potential we send it over to the other person and continue working on it. You can maybe call that Ping-Pong technique .
Your music shows influences from lots of different genres. Why do you think that is and where do you draw your inspiration from?
We both have been playing instruments for such a long time that we are very open to everything that has groove or interesting melodies. Beats and grooves are so important for many genres, which is why we are so open to everything. We love percussions, which can be heard in several of our productions. We just listen to a lot of music and we try out a lot of things. We sample a lot of our sounds and try to do crazy things with all types of sounds. Therefore it often happens that sounds and licks just happen accidently.
What first inspired you to first sit down and start writing electronic music, and when did that happen?
Puuhh, no idea what drew us to productions, but maybe it was the idea of adding sounds to our drumming and it all progressed from there. That was maybe 5 years ago, but back then we weren’t serious about producing electronic music, we were just playing around with crappy software and samplers. It really started about two years ago for each of us individually and it further progressed when Stephan and I talked again after so many years of separation. That was a real turning point for both of us when we realized that we could use all that we have been learning in all our instrument lessons to produce electronic music. That was about a year ago.
Who would you describe as your greatest influences?
Stephan: AKA AKA, Hanne & Lore, Pan Pot, Stephan Bodzin, Super Flu, Alle Farben
Elliot: Daniel Bortz, Maja Jane Coles, Nicolas Jaar, Tube&Berger
But honestly there are just to many great artists out there. We try to listen to a lot of stuff from Jazz to Hip-Hop, Rock, whatever, just everything that touches us. It doesn’t really matter what kind of genre. But the people mentioned above probably are the most influential ones for our music and us.
Do you have any plans for BEHR in a live context?
Yeah absolutely, we will work on our live set in the upcoming six months and we will try to start playing live as soon as possible. We can’t wait to play live for the first time together as BEHR. Probably that is going to be around April, when we are ready to play live. We can’t wait!!!
If you were to put on a night then, whom would you book?
22:00-23:30 Nicolas Jaar (great start for a great night)
23:30-02:00 Alle Farben (increase the temperature)
02:00-04:30 Pan Pot (hitting the the first peak)
04:30-06:30 Gaiser (Killing it)
06:30-15:30 Ricardo Villalobos (celebrates the sunset with you)
Perfect night!
Who is your best tip for 2012?
That’s a tough one. Probably it’s going to be Daniel Bortz, Daniel Dexter and Oliver Koletzki with his new Album; at least his new video looks and sounds massive.
And of course BEHR! Check out their imminently forthcoming 12” on NIXWAX. Full length videos of the tracks will be on youtube soon, but for now check the previews and grab the free download to accompany the release.
Ralph
