First off I'd just like to say happy new year everyone! 2008 was awesome, but get your rest on early this year because '09 will be a storm. Here's saying adios to the faux and waddup to what's next.

Now I gave some end-of-the-year shoutouts on my blog, but they're more than deserving to be addressed here. Here is a portion of my 'Best of '08,' for the entire thang just go here.

Favorite Commercial Appearances of '08
03. Cool Kids - Black Mags for Rhapsody on TiVo
02. Dan Deacon - Pink Batman for Crayola
01. Spank Rock - Bump for Wishbone Salad Dressing

Favorite Label/Collective/People
05. 8bitpeoples
04. Paw Tracks
03. Plan-It-X
02. Marriage
01. anticon.

Favorite NY Venues
05. The Bell House
04. Glasslands
03. Todd P & Interns & Friends Affiliated Venues
02. The Cake Shop (downstairs)
01. (le) Poisson Rouge

Couple of the Year
02. Devendra Banhart and Natalie Portman (RIP to that)
01. Joanna Newsom and Andy Samberg

Some Favorite Albums
15. Fuck Buttons - Street Horrrsing
14. Andrew Jackson Jihad - Only God Can Judge Me
13. Rafter - Sex, Death, Cassette
12. Ponytail - Ice Cream Spiritual
11. Department of Eagles - In Ear Park
10. TV on the Radio - Dear Science,
09. Hot Chip - Made In The Dark
08. Dosh - Wolves and Wishes
07. Lucky Dragons - Dream Island Laughing Language
06. Okay - Huggable Dust
05. The Octopus Project - Hello, Avalanche
04. Animal Collective - Water Curses EP
03. Deerhunter - Microcastle
02. Tobacco - Fucked Up Friends
01. Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs ha, just kidding
01. Why? - Alopecia

To ring in the New Year, Ninjasonik has given us the gift of a brand spankin' new remix they've done of Sinden. The track is produced by DJ Teenwolf of Ninjasonik and Rufio from The Death Set. Enjoy!

Ninjasonik - Hardcore Art School Girls (via Ninjasonik's zShare account)

Happy New Year to all of you ladies, gentlemen and whatever else out there, I'm still enjoying the wonderful dirt, mud and -0 degrees of europe and central france in particular. Shit is so trill out here when it comes to alcohol and other fun things. No more small talk, my dude DISRUPTION has been bombing the illegal remix/dancefloor blogangster scene for a minute (I talked about him a couple of times on here) and he hails from sunny Oxnard, California (the same place that brought you hip-hop heads Madlib and his whole crew/family) which is a hour north of L.A. at the end of the S.F.Valley. He's been in the Briefcase Rockers/B.E.A.R. family for a few and dropped a savage nite mix for all of you to ingest substances and riot to. The shit is uptempo and even has some old techno on it, for all of you who dealt with dance music pre-blog/pre-2006. Oh yeah, go to the briefcase rockers download page and grab some freebies, we got you....

DISRUPTION-Midnight Express Mix

Mad Decent Xmas: Angels with Filthy Souls from Mad Decent on Vimeo.

Hey everyone i just wanted to share my latest remix with you guys. this on is definitely on more of a club / dance floor type vibe than some of my more indie remix type stuff, i just thought i would mix it up a bit on this one. Any way it's a remix of my new friend Fukkk Offf's tune Rave Is King

LE CASTLE VANIA on Myspace

LE CASTLE VANIA on Twitter

FUKKK OFFF on Myspace

Fukkk Offf - Rave Is King (Le Castle Vania Remix)

I’ve got an exciting announcement to make! IHEARTCOMIX has signed FUTURECOP! for their debut release in NORTH AMERICA! This will be a 3 song, digital EP entitled ‘The Unicorn & The Lost City Of Alvograth’ and will be a partnership for the rest of the world with SOUTHERN FRIED RECORDS! I’m so stoked about this signing as I’ve been a fan of FUTURECOP! for sometime now. You may remember them as the final track of the IHEARTCOMIX/SCION MIXTAPE and from several posts on this very blog.

FUTURECOP! make sweet 80’s sounding instrumental jams that harken back to a more innocent time of Unicorns, D & D and princesses with hightops. FUTURECOP! are more that sweet jams, though, they are a powerful force. Their visual aesthetic and creative savvy have established them as true visionaries. They are part of what feels like a whole new movement of artists that seem to be embracing the sound, along with Valarie, Anoraak and Miami Horror.

Track List:

1. Tonight's Hero
2. As Seen On TV
3. N.A.S.A.

The EP, entitled ‘The Unicorn & The Lost City Of Alvograth’ will be available EXCLUSIVELY ON BEATPORT ON XMAS DAY!!

It will be available everywhere else on JAN 27th.

Here are 2 FREE tracks to wet your appetite:

FUTURECOP! - EYES LIKE THE OCEAN

FUTURECOP! vs. CIARA - FAST FORWARD / 1-2 STEP

FUTURECOP! JAN US TOUR DATES:

1/23 – New York @ The Mercuty Lounge
1/24 – Los Angeles @ The Echo

Our boys, DESIGNER DRUGS, have mad a very special XMAS gift for all of you. It's their take on a XMAS classic, but may not be in the way you would expect from them. It's dark and kind of makes XMAS feel a little sexy.

In other DESIGNER DRUGS news, there's some really amazing remixes on the way of their debut singles 'ZOMBIES!' and 'Back Up In This'. Both originals are still available HERE.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

DESIGNER DRUGS - X-MAS FUN TIME

**BONUS**

Here a couple of my other fave X-MAS remixes!!

ALVIN & THE CHIPMUNKS - A VERY 'BMORE' CHRISTMAS

TOMB CREW - JINGLE HELLS BELLS BMORE STOOPID REMIX

HAR MAR SUPERSTAR made a Holiday gift...

 

 

We're teaming up again with GIANT MAXIMUS this year for NEW YEAR'S EVE to throw possibly the largest NYE celebration LOS ANGELES has ever seen!! Not only are we on board, but the folks behind HARD and DANCE have joined up as well. THIS will be the ultimate blowout.

Lined up this year are MOBY, PAUL OAKENFOLD, DIRTY SOUTH, BENNI BENASSI, MICKEY AVALON, FRANKI CHAN, TITTSWORTH, DESRUCTO, PAPARAZZI, ANDRE LEGACY, BEARDO, DIRTY NASTY and MARK FARINA. Plus all the extra excitement GIANT always brings with the carnival rides, games, after parties, massive visuals and more.

Wanna come for a discount? IHEARTCOMIX has the hook-up. Just click HERE and type in the discount code 'IHEARTCOMIX'.

After everything that has happened are the boys from Paris still cool? You bet they are.

I had a chance to speak to one of the men who has been at the forefront and a member of the ED BANGER team which has helped bring so much change and inspiration to music over the last couple of years. His name is DJ MEHDI and he has a new release 'Pocket Piano' which was just released. Here we get to sit down and talk about the story behind the track, the history of the man and his thoughts on the OBAMA election...

IHEARTCOMIX: TELL US ABOUT YOUR LATEST RELEASE, POCKET PIANO. WHAT ARE THE ORIGINS AND INSPIRATION FOR THE SONG? PRODUCTION TECHNIQUE?

MEHDI: I first programed this instrumental, without the piano loop, for a James Pants remix I was doing for Stones Throw. But it was slightly off-key, and I asked James if he would re-sing to make it right. James Pants already had his head in his new album and never could find the time to do it-this was during the first Justice US tour in October 2007.

In a Los Angeles hotel room, couple of hours before the Henry Fonda show, I let So-Me and Gaspard hear the beat and So-Me completely freaked out on me when I told him this wasn't going to be on Ed Banger: he commanded me to finish it quick and let it be my own new single. Now you know we can't refuse him (almost) anything!

So, back in Paris, I started to think about it in a different way: i had a good beat, but no theme, no hook, and no vocals. That's where my main musical collaborator BOGUE comes in the picture. He first played the bassline, which was simple and effective. I chopped it up and arranged it in half an hour while he was randomly playing some chords on my Rhodes electric piano. When he hazardly stumbled upon the chord progression that you now know, i understood that we had what we lacked so far and flipped out: we recorded it straight up, only on the electric piano.

Now begins the longest mixing session of my life: I loved it but I just couldn't get the sound right for some reason. I called a lot of engineer or producer friends to help me out, Zdar from Cassius most notably, who is the best sound engineer in France. We mixed it like, 2 or 3 times, but we were never satisfied. I gave up on the track and forgot about it for 3 months.

January 2008, and comes your yearly email for the Ed Banger annual compilation. Dropping by the office to let Busy Pedro and Amandine hear what I had in stock, they revived my enthusiasm for that track, telling me it was one of their all-time favourite of mine. Now I had to finish it, no doubt.

At that time, some of us Ed artists started to dig in 70's and 80's french popular music, to find inspiration and chord progressions to rip-off. Apart from Serge Gainsbourg, the biggest french songwriter of the era was this awesome guy called Michel Berger, an amazing piano player, of all things. Listening to his tunes 'Il jouait du piano debout' or 'La groupie du pianiste', I get the idea that the electric sound of the Rhodes might not be the perfect thing for this track and I went back to my friend Bogue to change it to a regular straight piano sound. It felt so natural, and now you know the rest is history...

For the record, some of my friends strongly advised that I get a vocal for the song so I tried a few things, including a show-stopping vocal performance by Mapei that you will perhaps hear one day...

IHC: WHAT IS YOUR HISTORY, WHERE DID YOUR NAME COME FROM AND WHAT IS YOUR HISTORY WITH ED BANGER?

MEHDI: My real name is Mehdi Faveris-Essadi. DJ Mehdi isn't a nickname, it's just DJ my name, and I often thought about changing it. I started as a Hip-Hop DJ for my old band Ideal J in 1990, released two albums in 96 and 99 with them. I was also doing a lot of production for other french bands, including MC Solaar which is the only one that had crossed the borders unfortunately.

I met Busy P, the Cassius guys, and the whole Daft crew in 1997, and immediately felt connected to them musically. I remixed and traveled with them a million times, they definitely got me into the music I'm making now. I recorded an album in 2001 for Virgin Records, with Pedro being my manager. It wasn't an outstanding success but it definitely put me on the map and made my old Hip-Hop audience understand how I was trying new things and going somewhere else. In 2003, Pedro founded Ed Banger Records, and when he came across the 'We Are Your Friends' song, he asked me to do a B-side for it-that's how I got on Ed Banger. If you have the first and second press of that record, you'll see 'Anything is possible' by ESPION on the B-side: that was one of my alias back then.

IHC: TELL US ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCE THESE LAST COUPLE YEARS. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THIS CURRENT MOVEMENT OF MUSIC AND YOUR PLACE IN IT?

MEHDI: I have the time of my life, I enjoy every moment of it, and I work hard to make it last.

IHC: HOW HAS THE MUSIC SCENE IN PARIS CHANGED? AS AN ARTIST WITH A WIDE DIVERSITY OF INFLUENCES, DO YOU FEEL A KINSHIP WITH YOUR FELLOW FRENCH ARTISTS?

MEHDI: Paris is like that: wide variety of influences. It's old and new. It's Hip-hop and Techno. It's rich and trendy and poor and not-trendy at all. It's the city of fashion and the city of ghetto riots. It made me who I am and I love it.

IHC: WHAT HAVE BEEN YOUR HIGHLIGHTS OF 2008?

MEHDI: Looking forward to Dec 31st, then it would have been nothing but a come up ride.

IHC: AS A FRENCHMAN WHO SPENDS A LOT OF TIME IN THE US, WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS ON THE ELECTION OF OBAMA, IF ANY?

MEHDI: I felt concerned and happy about the US election, no doubt. But I am a french citizen, I don't vote in America, and I observed it as an american thing first; i was mainly happy because the totality of my American friends were hoping on him to win. I happened to be in Brooklyn on November 4th and I am glad to have witnessed that moment.

IHC: IS THERE MORE TO MEHDI THAN THE MAN AND HIS MUSIC?

MEHDI: I'm a family man first, raising my son with my wife is definitely my main involvement. Other than that, it's all Sex, Food, Beats and Blues.

IHC: WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON NOW? ANY EXCITING PROJECTS COMING UP? WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR YOU?

MEHDI: Working with Mapei on her first amazing album and with Spank Rock on some crazy, crazy new songs. More remixing and touring, no doubt. And maybe sparking a new album for 2010, after the Uffie and Sebastian 2009 Ed Banger jump-off...

Big thanks to MEHDI for the interview. Be sure to pick up his new single 'Pocket Piano' out now on ED BANGER RECORDS w remixes by BRODINSKI and JOAKIM. DJ MEHDI
"POCKET PIANO" EP
OUT NOW!

including remixes by JOAKIM and BRODINSKI

 

Available on Beatport, Beatsource
& USA, UK, Japan, Germany, France, and the rest of Europe

www.myspace.com/djmehdi

Ah geez, sometimes it'd hard to express just how much I love HOLLYWOOD HOLT. It's hard to contain the excitement I have for his eventual album and how pumped I am every time i get to see him kill it live.

So, you can imagine how stoked I was when the man himself slid over 2 EXCLUSIVE remixes of his latest single 'Hollywood' to post on IHEARTCOMIX!

SAMMY BANANAS and WILLY JOY come out swinging on the their renditions of HOLLYWOOD's track. SAMMY especially does my favorite production of his yet, showing a real maturity in his remix and exploring the range that Bmore influenced club can really have. WILLY JOY's laid back remix also does the song significant justice by adding heavy bass and yet retaining a slick 'cool'.

Wanna buy the original? GO HERE.
HOLLYWOOD HOLT - HOLLYWOOD (SAMMY BANANAS REMIX)

HOLLYWOOD HOLT - HOLLYWOOD (WILLY JOY REMIX)