Khensy, just signed to Soul Candi Records, comes with an impressive list of credentials - having previously worked with artists such as QB Smith, DJ Kent, Kid Fonque, Rocco and Charles Webster. The Soul Candi team are ecstatic to have her join the family, and label Manager Allan Nicoll has said “Soul Candi has been following Khensy's work for many years now - every DJ and producer I know would love to collaborate with her. We are very excited and proud to be working with her in releasing her solo album in 2015".

Listen to some of her tracks and collaborations here. 

As well as the new album, rumour has it that new and exciting collaborations are fast underway. She has already been spotted in a studio session with the groundbreaking Producer ‘Cuebur’, lending vocals to one of his newest productions.

Mum’s the word on what to expect from the album, but we do expect great things from her. Soul Candi keeps surprising the industry with the “namedrop worthy” artists they’ve been signing to the label, and Khensy is among them. 2015 promises some surprises and fireworks across the scene.

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Apollonia
Tour à Tour
Apollonia

8.5/10

There’s no denying Apollonia have stamped their authority on the house music scene this year. From my own experience of Apollonia in 2014, their headline set at the Amnesia Opening Party was one of the stand-out sets of the Ibiza season and a further encounter with the Gallic trio, in a glorious 8-hour takeover at DC-10 this summer, was arguably even better. With all this momentum propelling the threesome heads first into the upper echelons of dance music and as the band of Parisians ride the crest of a tidal wave of popularity and acclaim, the timing of Shonky, Dan Ghenacia and Dyed Soundorom’s first album together makes perfect sense.

Piecing together their collective experience of DJing, they’ve managed to develop a distinct sound between them, one which manifests itself so strikingly when the three are behind the decks.Combining classic house tropes with infectious and hypnotic groove, a smooth French touch and tonnes of style the trio’s sets are unique, something which has translated into the creation of ‘Tour à Tour’.

At this stage, we know a lot about Apollonia as DJs, but not so much about the trio producing music together. Save for ‘Trinidad’ and ‘Visa Americain’, we haven’t had the chance to experience the way Apollonia’s discernible chemistry translates to the studio, prior to the release of ‘Tour à Tour’. The trio often talk of how they feel as if they become one artist when they play together and similarly, in this LP, we have a true musical exploration of the idea of Apollonia, not as three separate producers, but as one super-producer.

The first thing to strike me about the album is how dance floor friendly it sounds. It essentially sounds like a part of one of their DJ sets, but where many house albums seem to fall, as they get stuck into a monotonous rhythm of dance floor bangers, the flourishes, nuances and subtleties of ‘Tour à Tour’ deliver enough layers of interest to maintain strong appeal throughout.

The opening track, ‘June’, features a robust chunky bass line and a sturdy rhythm, peppered with bleeps and whirring synths. ‘Piano’ introduces a warm blanket of deep tones, whilst ‘The Benshee’ also employs velvety pads and ‘Un Vrai Portugais’, possibly the most dance floor focused track on the record, combines a rollicking bass line with skipping percussion and idiosyncratic sounds adding more splashes of colour.

The reliance on steady 4/4 grooves throughout a full album’s worth of material may have alarm bells ringing for some, but its Apollonia’s mastery of the groove and wealth of playful idiosyncrasy that keep the album full of life and bubbling with an undercurrent of energy.

The weird nature of the sounds throughout the LP adds a huge amount of character and the more you listen to the tracks, the more subtle layers you find – whether it’s the quirky beeps and fuzzy lead melody of ‘Mouche Tse Tse’ propelling things forward, or the manic rambling vocals of ‘Sona’, with its sprinkles of sound and the chugging groove.

For me, the stand-out track comes in the form of album closer ‘Haight Street’. The track melds a grainy and jittering drumbeat with elegant pads, echoing vocals and the sound of sirens to create a rich and textured soundscape, conjuring a wealth of imagery of dusk-time metropolises.

The overall mood of ‘Tour à Tour’ is subtle, sounding very much like the more subdued sections of their sets – characterised by tripped out sounds and all-enveloping deep moods, yet a steady and groovy focus on rhythm.

The album does what countless house LPs fail to manage, by producing a collection of house music that feels like it would be just as comfortable in the comfort of our own homes, as it would on the sweaty dark dance floors of nightclubs around the globe. ‘Tour à Tour’ is a formidable foray into the tricky art of the dance LP.

You can buy the album here:

iTunes:http://geni.us/ApolloniaTourATour

Amazon:http://geni.us/TourATourAMZ

Check out the video for The Benshee: 

http://youtu.be/XDl4LUIc810

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By now you've probably heard that Paris Hilton is now earning up to $1 million per DJ gig, which she revealed to the New York Post last week. Whilst the news was unsurprising, it's still rather mind boggling when you stop to think about how little time Paris has actually spent as a 'professional' DJ. Paris says she's "worked hard" to receive that kind of sum, but Joel Zimmerman, aka Deadmau5, doesn't seem to agree.

The frequently outspoken producer has taken to his tumblr page to vent his thoughts on the matter, comparing Paris' career as a DJ to his love for F1 racing. In short, Zimmerman believes that just because he has an interest in the motor sport, that doesn't by any stretch of the imagination make him a professional.

"Most drivers i know, have invested their ENTIRE lives to their careers. Just like many musicians have. So, dont you think it would be a tad insulting to the professionals and fans of the driving world if i just showed up one day… dated a driver, then hopped on the circuit the following week just coz i can?", he writes. "I never in a million years would have the balls to encroach on their scene and consider myself a professional.. enter their marketplace, and profit. Thats just insulting as fuck." [sic]

Continuing to tell it like it is, Zimmerman then drives his point home:

“Please, get the fuck back in your go kart. No need to prove that you found someone stupid enough to consider paying you a million dollars for something the world knows you aren’t… because here’s what you actually are to everyone who knows better.. ticket sales. nothing more.”

Obviously getting wind of Deadmau5' post, Paris then replied to Joel via her Twitter:

Hey you guys...get a room!

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French DJ supergroup Apollonia have taken the reigns of this week's Essential Mix with a groovy two hours of dancefloor-focused house.

2014 has been a breakthrough year for the crew comprised of Shonky, Dan Ghenacia and Dyed Soundorom. Along with their residencies at Amnesia and DC-10 in Ibiza, the trio began their world tour which kicked off in North America back in July. They also dropped their debut album 'Tour à Tour' just last week (read our review here).

For their debut Essential Mix the fellas have pulled together tracks from the likes of Traumprinz, John Tejada, and cuts from their album. Enjoy!

Apollonia - BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix 2014-10-25 by Core News Uploads on Mixcloud

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With the recent revelation that Paris Hilton"earns" $1 million for a DJ set, it's more evident than ever that you don't necessarily need talent to succeed in dance music. The vocal opposition to the Hilton-type DJs has hit back with one of its biggest statements yet, a video game titled "Ghosts'NDJs."

There have been a lot of attempts to curb the propagation of performers who masquerade as DJs. Since there’s nothing that can truly be done in the real world, Dr. Kucho! did the next best thing… He made a video game which features various parodies of big names. Paris Hilton is Paris Sheraton, David Guetta is Devil Guetta, Pitbull is PitBullshit, Pauly D is Pauly Douchebag, and Steve Aoki is Steve Sushi.

Watch a preview of the game below.

The weapons for combat are musical supports such as vinyls, CDRom, pen drives and tapes you can throw to spread some justice around and when you kill a DJ they bleed out $100 bills! There are four levels of difficulty, Bedroom DJ, DJ that plays at Miami or Ibiza for free, DJ that doesn’t need to do P.R. for a living and DJ that actually makes music A.K.A. producer. 

Our favorite villain is PitBullshit there's nothing scarier than the voice and the sophisticated lyrics of the songs of this creature. Hit him before is close enough to you and sing, or you will lose control and run away from him!

And the world discovered Ghosts'NDJs after Deadmau5 pledged his support for the video game. Legend. 

I just backed Ghosts ’n DJs: EDM retro arcade lampoon. on @Kickstarterhttp://t.co/VeVFa8oLy8@DrKucho

yup, i literrally pissed myself when i saw the ingame. RT @0_Vidalll: @deadmau5 lol it's paris and the dude right ? pic.twitter.com/7b33houMED

If you want, there’s a Windows, Mac, and Linux demo of Ghosts‘NDJs available on its Kickstarter page. A copy of the game is available for the $15 backing tier and up.

Via Your EDM 

Pledge at Kickstarter

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Looking to boogie off some of that Christmas ham on Boxing Day to some sweet house music? ivy Pool has you covered with a banging party headlined by none other than the masked enigma of house music, Claptone.

Presented by Robbie Lowe, Swerve & Dance I said, this Boxing Day soiree will take over both ivy Pool and the Change Room (aka The Engine Room for some dark rave-caving) with a slew of local DJs in support including Spice's Murat Kilic, SASH head honcho Matt Weir, and local legends Phil Smart (headlining the Engine Room) and Robbie Lowe.

The goodness kicks off at 1pm on Boxing Day and goes through till the wee hours. Second release tickets are on sale now $55+BF (BUY HERE).

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Apple iTunes look towards dominating online music streaming and their first casualty is one of their own, Beats Music. Music sales at Apples iTunes store has fallen 13 per cent to 14 per cent world-wide since the last year. The Wall Street Journal reported the growing availability of cheap music—from free videos and streams to $10-a-month unlimited subscription plans is sapping demand for digital downloads at the world’s biggest seller of music, Apple Inc.

The paper adds Apple, which dominates the paid music download market, is responding with plans to launch a "revamped" version of the Beats Music subscription service that's a part of iTunes. The plummeting download numbers help illustrate why Apple bought the $US10-a-month subscription streaming service Beats Music earlier this year, as part of its $US3 billion acquisition that included headphone maker Beats Electronics.

So rather than pour investment into Beats Music, which only had 250,000 people signed up for paid subscriptions as of May, it will roll streaming into iTunes, which has 800 million users and 400 million credit cards on file.

The publication responsible for breaking the story is Tech Chrunch which reported that Apple will shut down Beats Music App and roll it into iTunes. With download sales decreasing and streaming coming up quick, Apple needed to get serious about streaming before Spotify, Google Music, and Deezer got a bigger lead. The fact that the new iPhones did not come pre-installed with Beats Music, while several other Apple apps came loaded on the 6 and 6 Plus, was a red flag. There was also nothing said about Beats Music during the Apple Watch reveal, even though the service’s radio and fire-and-forget playlists could work well on a wearable.

Apple doesn’t have to make money on music. It’s just a loss leader for or way to entice sales of its high-margin iPhones, iPads, MacBooks, and iMacs. That, combined with its industry clout, means when it relaunches iTunes with streaming, it may be able to negotiate a much cheaper subscription rate, such as $5 a month rather than the $10 Spotify charges. Considering Apple’s penchant for simple, unified brands, and how it despises fragmentation, shutting down Beats Music makes a lot of sense. Running a second music service in parallel with iTunes that forces people to learn a whole new interface might have confused customers. Beats Music’s growth has likely been hampered by its late start compared to competitors like Spotify, Rdio, Google Music, and Pandora.

Though its strategy was to differentiate itself through curated playlists and mood-based radio, those failed to capture the attention of mainstream listeners. Thanks to seven-day free trials and multi-month demos through AT&T, 5 million people had tried Beats by May, but only 250,000 had signed up for a paid subscription.That’s pretty small compared to the 10 million paid subscribers and 40 million total listeners on Spotify, and 76.4 million active listeners on Pandora. Yet stacked up against the iTunes userbase, Beats Music is just a drop in the bucket for Apple. 

A cheap price, a massive built-in user base, and Apple hardware as a vector for distribution could make an iTunes streaming service tough to compete with.

Read the full story at Tech Crunch

Via The Wall Street Journal

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The Stereosonic news keeps on rolling in. Last week the festival added L.A. newcomer ZHU to the lineup, today they've revealed which artists from the mammoth lineup will be playing which days in each city.

So if you've been planning to buy a one day ticket but have been waiting to decide on which day is for you, now the festival has you covered.

Check out the full lineups for each day in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane below.

SYDNEY

ADELAIDE

BRISBANE

MELBOURNE

PERTH

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Back in August, Diplo revealed that a Major Lazer cartoon is being developed. Billboard reported, "He’s [Diplo's] working on new music with everyone from Ty Dolla Sign to Lorde and has 30 tracks in progress for the third Major Lazer album, which will launch in 2015 with a Major Lazer cartoon on Fox about a Rasta superhero. Its soundtrack will include new collaborations with Cat Power and Riff Raff."

Details surrounding the 2015 animated series are beginning to come together as Fox’s Animation Domination has unveiled the show’s opening. Characters set in stone include Major Lazer, General Rubbish, President Whitehall, Penny and Blkmrkt. Watch the preview below! 

A sneak preview of the cartoon will be shown on FXX at 12am on Monday, October 27th. Major Lazer created a Facebook Event so you can receive a reminder.  

Read the full Diplo interview on Billboard. 

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Before there was Zef, before there were masks and flashing lights, there was Max Normal (and later Max Normal.TV). Two musical devils, DJ Totally Rad – aka Ninja (now frontman of Die Antwoord) – and Dj Fuck – now Sibot – were a masterly pair making superb rhythms and sounds. Now years later, the kids have grown up (or dumbed down?) and Daddy and Daddy have their own big-man jobs as front-men for two of South Africa’s most skilled, attention seeking (and getting) acts. But word in the Boerewors-curtain ‘burbs is that a new sinister plan is being plotted.

The Max Normal group had a very strong following when they were around, and not all of those fans approved of what Ninja did later with Die Antwoord – which included contentious content, vulgar language, sexual, racial and really anything-ial lyrics and visuals. The original Max Normal had a very sharp edge but not the “angle” Die Antwoord does (although some of that vibe definitely started in between, during the development of Max Normal TV such as in the words of "Eat Me").

Die Antwoord caused a stir in South Africa and abroad in both a positive and negative sense, with the positive attention and new leagues of fans far outweighing any protests. They are seen by most as a powerful group who simply express a culture (Afrikaans middle class) which has been long ignored.

Sibot is one of the most widely recognised names in electronic music in South Africa, known by name across most genre circles. He is an incredibly skilled musician with a frightening flair for rhythm and his live shows are somewhat legendary.

Intagram clips are teasing us: 

Fuck me

A video posted by Sibot (@sibot_) on Oct 10, 2014 at 6:19pm PDT

DJ FUCK iz sooooo funnnny😂😂😂

A video posted by NINJA (@rotgot23) on Oct 10, 2014 at 2:29pm PDT

We look forward to the next episode from the devilish duo.

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Dance music’s most talked about super group, Jack U, took over BBC Radio One for two hours last night to drop a breakneck collection of unreleased material. The resulting mix puts their live performances to shame, flaunting a shifty showcase of IDs from both artist’s wild catalogs as well as the duo’s 2Chainz collaboration “Febreze,” “Jungle Bae,” and “Beat Steady Knockin.”

A bass-heavy, dub-influenced, trip into Diplo and Skrillex’s dancehall and reggae influences — paired with trap touches and a barrage of hip hop sample-work — Jack U’s Diplo and Friends Takeover will shake off those Monday cobwebs. Click play below to listen to the BBC Radio One mix.

Via Dancing Astronaut

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The first part of the Upon You Records Diary Compilation has been released, with the tracks selected by Berlin-based DJ and producer, Gunnar Stiller. 

The compilation features an array of house and techno tracks from the likes of Alex Niggemann, Daniel Stefanik, Emerson Todd and Gunnar Stiller himself.

The release features Gunnar Stiller's new track, 'Snowcone'.

The second part of the compilation will be released on 17th November. 

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Another Party will bring Ibadan boss Jerome Sydenham, as well as bonafide house music legends Kerri Chandler and Joe Claussell to Pulse London on Friday 5th December, for the popular London promoters’ final event of the 2014.

Another Party have hosted the likes of Moodymann, Mathew Jonson and The Martinez Brothers in recent times.

Pulse London’s cavernous 2,000 capacity space will also see a surprise special guest joining the three legends behind the decks and there will be a second room hosted by Love Vinyl with James Manero and Stuart Patterson.

Listen to Jerome Sydenham on Pulse Radio.

2015's edition of legendary UK dance festival, Global Gathering, has been cancelled, organisers have announced. The festival, which has been running in Stratford-upon-Avon every year since 2001, will take a year's break for the first time since its inception. 

A statement from the organisers read: 

“After 13 years of delivering one of the UK’s most successful electronic dance music events, the promoters of the GlobalGathering UK festival have decided that the festival will take a break in 2015 in order for all elements of the show to be reviewed ensuring GG remains at the heart of the UK dance market.”

“This will not affect any of the GG club shows in the UK or international GG events. Thanks to all of our loyal fans for your continued support, please check the website for further updates.” (via FACT)

2014 saw the likes of Jamie Jones, Maya Jane Coles, Dixon and The Prodigy appearing.

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For the 18th episode of Be for the Podcast, Anton Pieete delivers an elaborate and exclusive set; an imposing session of conceptual techno with classic tints and tremendous environmental sounds.

In these 60 minutes Anton Pieete masterfully contrasts sonic layers; this set is all about intense basslines featuring techno music combined with atmospheric sounds, both insane and placid at the same time. The set unfolds warmly with twists in structure in which a breathing tension and a penetrating groove are the protagonists, while the body moves all on its own. This November, Be for the Podcast proudly displays large-scale underground techno sounds. Enjoy! 

Listen to B4 on Pulse Radio.

After initial mega acts Bombay Bicycle Club and Captain Hook were announced for Synergy 2014, the full lineup has now been released, a lineup which promises to make Synergy vie to be king of SA outdoor music festivals.

The festival is known for being a mix of live rock band acts and electronic acts. This year electronic acts dominate the lineup (watch the clip below from halfway - it turns from live to electronic). 

Check out our summer calendar of outdoor events around the country here. 

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London’s event series, The Hydra, have revealed the line-ups for three parties as part of their New Year’s celebrations.

New Year’s Eve will see Bugged Out return to Studio Spaces E1 for the final part of the 20th anniversary celebrations from 10pm until 6am. A typically big line-up will see Erol Alkan, Daniel Avery, Ghost Culture, Morgan Hammer and Brendan Long. There will also be two more special guests to be added to the line-up.

Eat Your Own Ears deliver an exciting New Year’s Day sunrise session, from 6am until 2pm, which will be sound-tracked by Four Tet and Caribou (under his Daphni alias) playing back-to-back for eight hours.

Finally, the Electric Minds showcase will take to Studio Space E1 for 12 hours, from 10pm until 10am, with Dixon, John Talabot, Levon Vincent, Move D, John Roberts live, Christian Loffler live and Dolan Bergin.

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Following 2013's successful inaugural event, the music industry's only 5-a-side football comp Musica Copa is back, returning to Marrickville’s KIKOFF centre at Fraser Park on Friday December 5th.

This year the tournament has upped the ante by moving to a more crowd-friendly Friday evening format and expanding to 16 teams in total, who will all be vying to take out the Championship Trophy and snap up $12,000 in prize money for their chosen charity. Last year saw dance label Sweat It Out take home the trophy. The team to beat this year? Well it's gotta be yours truly, Pulse Radio, right!?

A slew of Sydney's finest DJs and producers will be competing in the tournament this December including Bag Raiders, Motez, Touch Sensitive, Kilter, Emoh Instead of What So Not, Yolanda Be Cool and many more. The soundtrack for the day will be provided by a "festival-sized DJ line-up" to be revealed closer to the event.

Musica Copa organisers are also offering the chance for two lucky winners to hang out with the stars, joining in for a full day of behind the scenes footy, music and beers, plus some amazing merchandise, festival tickets, headphones and more. To enter, head here.

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