Afterhours.fm's four year anniversary celebration begins tonight

And boy do they have a lineup put together for this- I don't think I've ever seen a better collection of trance DJ's in one place at the same time.

In addition to live broadcasts of Aly & Fila's Rising Sun album launch party and StreamLined, a show featuring guys like Estiva and Alex M.O.R.P.H., AH.fm has rounded up 72 other DJ's to partake in the celebration that lasts until June 1.

Highlights include:

Manuel Le Saux
Temple One
Kyau & Albert
Mat Zo
Jorn Van Deynhoven
Daniel Kandi
Rank 1
Super8 & Tab
Markus Schulz
Sean Tyas
Nitrous Oxide

Oh...and I'm forgetting a couple dozen other names too. Click the flyers below for the full lineup and head to AH.fm to see when someone is broadcasting over the air.

[Image credit: Afterhours.fm]

Last album-related post of the week...I promise

Over the past week on here I've plugged upcoming albums from Aly & Fila and Solarstone, and if you've just started reading the site during this time span you might think it's just a place where I ramble on about my favorite artists and what CD's they're releasing.

So this will be my last plug of the week, but it's a good one: DJ Eco has announced on his Facebook page that he's begun work on his first artist album, which will be released in the future through Armada Music.

Solarstone's new album, release date announced

Rich Mowatt (aka Solarstone) has announced the tracklisting and release date of his third artist album, Touch Stone, scheduled for a June 28 release.

Tracklisting:

1. Is There Anyone Out There
2. Ultraviolet
3. Night Signals
4. Touchstone
5. Electric Love
6. Intravenous
7. Twisted Wing
8. Slowmotion
9. The Best Way To Make Your Dreams Come True Is To Wake Up
10. Zeitgeist
11. The Last Defeat (Part Two)
12. There's A Universe

To help promote the album, Solaris Recordings has developed several social-media related widgets that fans can use to earn "points" for getting the word out about Touch Stone on the internet. In exchange for their participation, fans can earn special prizes related to the CD (I'm assuming autographed albums and posters).

The web site also has an embedded audio player for the album that contains six tracks: the original mix of the single "Electric Love", 00.db's and Rafael Frost's remixes of the track, and remixes of the song "Slowmotion" by French Renaissance, Lowland, and Ilya Malyeuv. Music videos are also available for "Electric Love" and the original mix of "Slowmotion".

I'll admit it: "Electric Love" is one of Rich's weaker productions, but he's my favorite producer and has put out a slew of classic tracks over the years. His last album, Rain Stars Eternal was solid from start to finish, and I'm sure this one will be the same.


[Image credit: Trance.nu]

Aly & Fila's Rising Sun now available on iTunes

Aly & Fila's debut album, Rising Sun, is now available a week before it's official release date on iTunes for $7.99.

Armada has posted track previews of the album's 15 songs on their official YouTube page, and the release has also scored a positive review from the folks over at TranceFix.

On a side note, according to Billboard, iTunes now accounts for 26% of all US music sales. With this statistic and increasing sales on iTunes in the future, it'll be interesting to see if more electronic dance music artists market their music more on iTunes over places like Beatport and TrackItDown.

Weekly shows update

Once again not much to announce unless your a member of Blk|Market, which has recently listed a couple new events.

Something noteworthy though is the upcoming Unite Music Festival in Buffalo on May 28-31, featuring four days of events with performers Gareth Emery, Eddie Halliwell, Menno De Jong, Christopher Lawrence, Serge Devant, and others.

This weekend:

Friday: Love is hosting another dubstep event put on by Headhunter, Sepalcure, and Spatial. Agoria will bring Balance 016 to 50 Bowery, and Benny Benassi and Steve Aoki will play Pacha on the same night.

Does it get any better than this?

Chillbase.org, who made Lauge & Baba Gnohm's Monolith EP available free for download, is now offering a free full-length compilation album: Carving Mirages.

The album features 14 ambient and chillout tracks from independent artists of the genre, all in 320 kbit MP3 and FLAC glory:
 
01. Mythematica - Nam Bandara
02. Field Rotation - Zeitreise
03. Ambientium - The Balance
04. Reii - Bleep
05. Note - Everyday Basis
06. Fat Cat - AliensPlay
07. Atombased - Perplexed
08. AstroPilot - Tree Of The Perception
09. Alkor - One Day Above the Clouds
10. ZKA4T - History For Sale
11. bOb tracKer - UIS 555
12. Oddi - Rebirth
13. Xerxes - One-Oh-Three (Timeless Edit)
14. Hybrid Leisureland - Space Light

Although you probably have never heard of these artists before, don't let the anonymity turn you away from an absolutely fantastic album.

Standout tracks include Alkor's "One Day Above the Clouds", a dreamy chill tune carried by some low-pitched bass synths, and Hybrid Leisureland's "Space Light", an ambient journey through space with distorted transmission signals.

Click here to download, and click the player below to listen. Tracks are queued in their order of appearance on the album.



[Tracklisting/image credit: Chillbase.org, embedded player courtesy of Archive.org]

Four new DJ Eco tunes unveiled

DJ Eco has posted four new songs on his MySpace: two remixes, and two original productions:

DJ Eco pres. Pacheco - Dancing Under Streetlights
DJ Eco - People (Original Mix)
DJ Eco - People (Rafael Frost Remix)
Dereck Recay - Nebula (Eco Remix)

"People", which has been storming the Beatport Top 100 charts, carries Eco's signature sound: progressive trance with 8bit-sounding synth pitches.

My favorite of the four songs is his remix of Dereck Recay's "Nebula"- a catchy slab of melodic trance laced with subtle piano elements.

Check them out and support a local producer.

Weekly shows update

EnigmaT over at TranceAddict does a great job of compiling show dates each week, and after looking at his latest list, there's a few I forgot to include on this site.

For this entry, I'm also changing the format around a little bit to make it easier to find shows at a particular venue. So instead of randomly listing bookings, I'll compile them by club/venue.

Upcoming:

At Pacha: Mark Knight on June 5.

At Cielo: Dave Dresden on June 25.

At Love: Joris Voorn on June 11.

At Santos Party House: Afrojack on June 12.

This week:

Thursday: Alex Pierce at Cielo. 

Friday: Andy Moor, Mike Saint-Jules, Ali Mahmud, and Frank Chiarello at Pacha, David Squillace at Love, Moby at Webster Hall. 

Saturday: Sean Tyas and Simon Patterson at Webster Hall, Roger Sanchez at Santos Party House.

38 more names announced for Electric Zoo 2010

Made Event has announced 38 new DJ's to perform at this year's Electric Zoo Festival, with single day tickets going for sale starting tomorrow. Click the image to enlarge.

Electric Zoo pre-sale tickets end Monday

Made Event has once again updated the information page for Labor Day's upcoming Electric Zoo festival, this time with a notification that early bird tickets will no longer be available after Monday. However, the steep $26 in service fees charge still applies to these tickets.

On Monday at midnight, regular priced tickets for each day will be up for sale, and Made Event has hinted on the event's Facebook page that more artists will be announced as well.

Weekly shows update

Upcoming:

- Pacha has announced two notable upcoming dates: Eddie Halliwell on May 28 and Hernan Cattaneo on June 11. 

- Agoria, whose Balance 016 Mix I reviewed a month ago, will bring the album's release tour to 50 Bowery on May 21.

- Seth Troxler, Lauren Lane, and Crazy Larry will hold a show at Cielo on May 27. On July 8, James Holden will perform there. 

This week:

Thursday: Roni Size, Hellfire Machina, Code of Arms, Odi, and Morphous @ Love

Friday: Three and Pete Bones @ Love

Saturday: Kaskade will be performing at the Roseland Ballroom with Infected Mushroom

[Flyer credit: Love, Info credit: TranceAddict]

Aly & Fila's album set for May 28 release

Armada Music has announced today that Aly & Fila's debut album, Rising Sun, will be out in stores at the end of this month.

Tracklisting:

1. Medellin (vs. Activa)
2. Crowe It Will Be Ok (feat. Katherine)
3. My Mind Is With You (feat. Denise Rivera)
4. Rosaires
5. Listening (feat. Josie)
6. Menes
7. Still (feat. Sue McLaren)
8. Perfect Red (vs. Bjorn Akesson)
9. I Can Hear You (feat. Sue McLaren)
10. Without You (The Never Knowing) (vs. Philippe El Sisi feat. Senadee)
11. Paradise (feat. Tiff Lacey)
12. Khepera
13. Sandgroper
14. Breeze (feat. Jass)
15. Rising Sun

Some users on Trancefix have already compiled a list of YouTube links for some of the tracks on the disc, and things are sounding good.

But I can't get over the ridiculous album art that they decided to go with for Rising Sun. Are they trying to pull off the gangsta rap tough guy look?


[Image credit: ArmadaMusic.com]

2,000 page views!

Over the weekend this blog got its 2,000th page view. Whenever someone visits the site or clicks on content, a "page" is created in their browser. Users can record multiple page views per visit, and this number doesn't mean that 2,000 different people visited the site.

I'll admit it: I visit this blog often to fine-tune the layout or re-read some of my posts, so a bunch of these pages views come from myself. But as for the others, they come from you- the reader.

Here are some stats about the site based on the first 2,000 page views:

I've had visitors from every continent on earth, minus Antarctica. If a country or state on the maps below are green, then that means that at least one person from that location has viewed this blog.

                                         [Click images to expand]

The countries with the most visits:

1) United States (duh)
2) Canada
3) United Kingdom/Australia (tie)

The states with the most visits:

1) New York
2) New Jersey
3) California

The highest viewed posts:

1) DJ Eco interview
2) Brad Miller interview
3) Lorant Duzgun interview

Highest number of unique visitors in one day: 126 on February 25.

This site is most often viewed through: Firefox.

Through search engines, the most popular term that lands people on this blog: "electric zoo 2010 presale tickets"

The funniest search term that has landed someone on this blog: "peoples comments about waiting in line at nokia theater, nyc"

[Stats provided by Google Analytics]

Dance music finally making its way onto DJ Hero

When Activision's DJ Hero video game launched last October, its track selection was woefully short in the electronic dance music department.

But on Thursday, Activision released the Domination Pack of downloadable content for the game, which features three mashups with electronic songs from Josh Wink, Wolfgang Gartner, Darude, and Danny Byrd.

Darude's song is "Sandstorm", arguably the most overplayed dance music song in America since its release in 1999, but the inclusion of more electronic music in this game is a good sign of future things to come.

The content costs $8 on Xbox Live and Playstation Network, and $3 per song on Wii, according to Joystiq.