I am always looking for good music, so what could be better than good music coming to me?

Ellie from Kentucky-based Indietronic band Fair Heron sent me some of their songs to share with you, and since their stuff is cool I am happy to feature them here.

Their sound is both melodic and progressive and reminds me a bit of Fever Ray or Ninca Leece. While I would normally say that this is more for listening than for dancing, Ellie told me that their live shows are “generally pretty dancey”. So I guess that’s one more reason for promoting them: To get them to tour internationally so that I can see them live.

Here are some songs from their “Now Carla EP” for download:

Fair Heron – Digi Quilt

Fair Heron – This Is My Mogley

Fair Heron – Empathetic As A Ghost

And by the way, if you play in a band, produce electronic music are if you are a DJ and you think your style fits to what I usually feature here, just drop me a line through the contact page.

This mix was created in a way that is similar to how I cook: Start with a few basic ingredients. Take your time. Start adding spices. Taste. Add more spices. Repeat tasting and adding spices until taste is good.

If you like slow and dirty grooves, then you will like this!

Nerditional information: With only around 118 BPM, this mix is slower than most club music. However, I don’t think it lacks energy. It just has a different groove.

When I started selecting tracks for this mix, I remembered Westbam’s “Loud&Slow” label that he started in the late 90s. The label didn’t really live long, but I still like the idea behind this: To explore the slower grooves in electronic music and show that you don’t always have to go hard and fast to make people dance.

Maybe that idea just came a little early. Most of the tracks in this mix were released in recent years, like the awesome “Cooler Coleur” by the Crookers and Yelle. While the Crookers have become very successful producers in the last few years, probably not too many people have heard of french singer Yelle – which is a shame because she plays such a pleasant and energetic Electropop sound that you don’t have to understand the vocals which are typically in French.

paniq from Hamburg is in this mix with a great rework of the Knight Rider theme. I was a huge Knight Rider fan when I was a kid and that track reminded me of that.

By the way, he runs a project called “The Most Remarkable Album On This Entire Planet” right now in which he tries to get an album financed in advance through web-based fundraising. The donation deadline hasn’t run out yet, but paniq already collected all the money he needed to produce the album. Respect! And even more respect for releasing so much great music under a Creative Commons license!

Tracklist:

1. paniq – Psy Rider
2. Crookers feat. Yelle – Cooler Couleur (Junkie XL Remix)
3. ACDC – Back in Black (Dirty Funker Powerpack Vocal Mix)
4. Daft Punk vs. Gorillaz – 19-2000 Funk
5. Midfield General – Disco Sirens (Chicken Lips Dub)
6. Westbam meets Can – …and more
7. Plastique De Reve – Lost In The City
8. Filthy Dukes – This Rhythm
9. Munk – Back Down (Cut Copy Jackmaster Remix)
10. Drums of Death – DODFUCKSUPANESCOTTUNE

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/prakhar/3811338041/ // CC-by-nc

Have you ever watched a fire at night? I find it totally fascinating to just look into a fire and follow my own thoughts.

I don’t know if you can follow me here, but this DJ set tries to capture a similar mood: The contrast between cold darkness and a bright fire that dances in the dark…

Nerditional Information:

The opener track “Blaue Moschee” by Die Vögel is one of those strange hits that pop up from time to time: It’s a real dancefloor burner in the clubs right now even though it sounds very strange and different to other Techno tracks. Nevertheless, I really like that trumpet sound here, and it’s rare to have that swing feel in a Techno track.

I have been following Hardfloor for years now, and I am still fascinated with their simple yet anthemic Acid productions. They just keep releasing great tracks, and they have been around for a long time already. Their other project Dadamnphreaknoizphunk is also worth listening to. While Hardfloor productions are usually straight Techno bangers, the tracks by Dadamnphreaknoizphunk are more on the Trip-Hop side.

Leschet & Wilde is a duo from Cologne that is already famous for their wild live acts. Irwin Leschet, one half of that duo, is also a resident of the regular Silberschwein-parties that has a real pig-shaped disco ball as a mascot. They also started with their own label a while ago, and the first two releases are already great examples of how you can make deep dancefloor music without being cheesy or overly abstract.

Finally, I would like to highlight the track “Zoom” by Barem. This is a great example for a netaudio release that you can even download for free . I am often impressed by how much great electronic music is available for free on the net – makes one wonder about those superstar DJs even more.

Tracklist:

1. Die Vögel – Blaue Moschee
2. Vinyl – The Weasel
3. Hardfloor – Who Took Da Box
4. Depeche Mode – Everything Counts (Oliver Huntemann Remix)
5. Barem – Zoom
6. Shane – Reaching For The Stars
7. Westbam – Die Dunkelsequenz
8. Rob Acid – On Fire
9. New Delhi FM – Cable Pollution Results
10. Leschet & Wilde – Autummatik (Heiko Voss & Geiger Remix)
11. Jamie Fisher – The Calm Before The Storm (Deluna Remix)

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jnicholl81/ // CC-by-nc

What would it be like to eat a spicy curry in space? I don’t know, but this spicy Minimal mix might feel somewhat similar.

I am not a big fan of Minimal Techno, but there are some tracks that I really like. It’s not my preferred kind of music for partying, but there’s something about its spacey abstractness that can make it interesting for listening. This is also pretty much the sound that I consider typical for many clubs and bars here in Cologne.

Tracklist:

1. Xenia Beliayeva – You Better
2. Audion – Mouth to Mouth
3. Gui Boratto – Patrick Zigon (Remix)
4. The Stain – Battle of the Quarks
5. Home Criminals – Noise
6. John Tejada – Asanebo
7. Voodeux – Just A Spoonful
8. Marquez Ill – Ill is Ill
9. Matt John – Hypercube 10 a

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cinefil_/3041198788/ / CC-by-nc-nd

I recently heard DJ Sven Mergener at one of his Resolution Lounge events, and his melodic Techno sound clearly stood out from what you usually hear in bars and clubs around here. I asked him if he’d be willing to do a feature for Sweet Headache, and he said yes!

First of all, he gave me a DJ set to share with you:

Tracklist:

1. Paul Kalkbrenner -  Steinbeisser (Wighnomy Brothers Remix)
2. Coma – Brown – Dogtown
3. Sarah Goldfarb – 200 (Breaking down remix)
4. Chordian – The End is Night
5. Bukaddor & Fishbeck – Riffpunk
6. Chordian – Closed Eyes – Soniculture
7. Paul Kalkbrenner – Torted
8. m2 – 01.01-00.07.30h
9. Gui Boratto & Martin Eyrer – The Island
10. Gui Boratto – No Turning Back
11. Robert Babicz – Astor
12. Rodriguez jr. – Lila
13. white label
14. Matt K. & boy toy – Kultur

I also asked him to do a real interview, so a few weeks later, we meet at his studio in an old industrial building.

“The purpose of this studio is to kick my own ass.” Sven explains.
“I am serious about music, and I have my goals, so I rented this studio. I just needed a place for my music.”

What struck me about Sven’s sound was that it is very melodic, but still has a strong beat. He tells me that what matters most in a track is “Deepness” by which he means “a sound that comes from below and slowly builds up. Melodies are very important, too. Just rhythm isn’t enough.”

Being a trained event technician by education, Sven certainly knows a thing or two about sound. A great soundsystem is something he describes as necessary to “become one with the music” and to truly enjoy a party.This is also one of the things he misses at most parties:

“Many event organizers just don’t try hard enough when it comes to sound. For my Resolution parties, I definitely want to raise the bar here. I just know how a good sound system is supposed to sound like. For example, the system in Berlin’s Berghain club is fantastic!”

After mentioning the Berlin club scene, it is not surprising that he names Paul Kalkbrenner as one of his favorite artists right now. Paul Kalkbrenner has been getting a lot of attention lately by being the lead actor in the movie “Berlin Calling” where he plays a DJ struggling with his drug problem and a series of other issues. However, Sven Mergener does not attribute the current hype around the movie for naming Paul Kalkbrenner:“He is just a very good musician, and I have known and loved his music years before the movie came out. It’s kinda strange that he gets so much attention lately, but in a way, this is also a good thing since it promotes some very good music.”

For the near future, Sven has two main goals: Apart from establishing his Resolution parties as regular events, he is also eager to be a producing artist, not just a DJ. “I definitely want to have my first release out in the next year. What I absolutely want to use is lots of analogue synthesizers. Digital technology is fine for recording and controlling purposes, but there is something about the warm sound of analogue synthesizers that digital technology just can’t reproduce. Analogue sound is not that polished, and that’s just what I like.”

It’s not only the synthesizers where he scoffs at digital technology. When it comes to DJing, he is strongly convinced of vinyl records being supreme to digital DJ tools. “DJ software just makes it too easy. You don’t need to know how to mix, and many DJs actually don’t really know how to mix any more. For me, this would take the whole fun out of DJing.”

If you would like to hear Sven Mergener live, there will be a chance next Saturday.
His Resolution party will be at Feb.27, 9 pm at the Kolbhalle in Cologne:

Lineup:

• Tandem
• Dirk Middeldorf
• Sven Mergener
• O’Jansen
• Thomas Lachmann
• Sersch&Sanei
• Solanace
• Plus an “Anarcho-Burlesque Show by the Pepperellas“

Sven also hosts regular Resolution Lounge events in the Stadt Venlo.

Fotos by Birgit Schiffer // www.pfirsichfarben.de

Inspired by a hilarious video (see above), I wanted to create a mix that showed some Techno cliché. Obviously, I disagree with the statements in the video, but I certainly know what he means. Don’t we all?

However, if you take this mix without any irony, you can still enjoy it as a solid Tech-House mix.

Tracklist:

Nerditional Information: The Techno Viking is an internet phenomenon that grew from a video of a long-haired guy who was filmed dancing on a techno parade. I don’t really know how the original video got popular, but you can find dozens of references and mashups on that – including the video shown above.

There are a couple of older tracks in this mix, including Yoshimotos 2006 hit “Do What U Do” and one of the gazillion remixes of Daft Punk’s “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger”. I included it because I think Deadmau5 is a great producer and remixer and he always manages to put something special and non-obvious into a remix.

The track “Social Anxiety” is a release from Jetlag Digital, one of my 2009 favories . I hesitated for a minute if I should really include this here: To me, this track has a somewhat different atmosphere and less Techno cliché than the other tracks, but it still is a great, straight and deep dance track.

Oh, and check out Swen Weber! I only know a few of his productions, but all of those rock.