When things are falling apart there’s nothing better than to find yourself with a catchy hook. And if you listen to the original, Charli XCX samples Gold Panda’s You — and that my friends, is as catchy as it gets.
Josh has done it again, a nu disco remix that stays true to the meaning behind the lyrics yet injects the original with a bassline with its own personality and the usual Goldroom tune flavour. The bridge and its synth chord progression with the kicks and snares is something that gives the remix some breath of fresh air, a balearic air of sorts — for moments at least. We await the official release of this remix that’s forthcoming on Asylum Records on February 10, until then find a promo copy after the jump. Enjoy your afternoon with this one.
Greetings from the beautiful state of California! Los Angeles has been my place of destination for the past week and I have to say, having lived on the east coast my entire life, this place is magical and filled with sunshining possibilities. The soundtrack for this trip has been eclectic to say the least, but this song has crossed my path at just the perfect time. With love and familiarity, we are introduced to this remix/mash-up in bouncy synth fashion and I could not be happier.
I’m feeling this track in the sun. It’s in headphones, the weather is perfect, and a drive is on the horizon. Wait for the drop and you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find an anthem that makes you feel like the young sassy dancing rebellious teenager that you are at heart. Run upstairs, slam the door, put this on the speakers and let that bass penetrate the floor so that your parents know that you’re serious with your rebellion. That’s what this feels like.
Enjoy this track while you let your young at heart emotions get the best of you.
Good Lord, I must confess I’m entirely rapt with this thrilling track. The beat is steady and unrelenting, and the vocals are expansively angelic. Sweetness Alive is exactly the kind of track that brought me to EMPT in the first place. It’s that deliciously tropical pop sound, infectious and invigorating. You might just find it creeping into your twitching muscles, spreading to your shoulders and ultimately lifting your hands in inescapable celebration.
Set us free
We’re driving through the city of light into the night
And we’re looking for a way to get high until we find
Sweetness alive, the diamond light
The luxury of you and paradise
Sweetness alive, the diamond light
The luxury of having you by my side
We swept this town away
It’s in your eyes today
We swept this town away
It’s in your eyes today.”
Can’t you just picture it? Sunlight streaming, warming a weary day. Goldroom, or Josh Legg of L.A., expertly crafts the exotic atmosphere for bright synths and sweeping sensations. His mixes are consistently refreshing and emotionally restorative. His collaboration with the Saint Lou Lou twins of Sweden/Australia. Their vocals soar beautifully over the synthed landscape below. Space age bachelor pad music, indeed.
Let’s get this out of the way; I like to believe I’m a smart, clever, intuitive person; someone who can read into figurative language and see symbols for what they are in context, but this video completely threw my sense of relative intelligence off the first time I saw it. It’s like Sophia Coppola’sVirgin Suicides meets Stanley Kubrick’sEyes Wide Shut house orgy. A menage of pastel colors and pretty, shut-in, seemingly inexperienced, potentially brainwashed girls combined with the premature sounding vocals of ALPINE make for something totally other-worldly, slightly unnerving, yet completely addictive.
It’s okay to feel the rings on my hand, my love, my enemy
Smokin’ on, fiery heart, smokin’ on, nobody’s here
Far words.”
The song itself is made of a total of 19 words. Their repeated phrases above combine into a hypnotic melody of sound that L.A.’s Josh Legg of Goldroom spins into a futuristic tribal dance. Where the original track takes on a more ethereal approach to the composition, Goldroom’s approach is honest dance. Keyboards bounce over a sharp drum and marimba while ALPINE’s vocals are mixed and overlaid on top of one another creating a sound that jives through your whole body. The airy sound of the original is kept and lends itself to the space-age vibe this track gives off.
Maybe it’s just me, but I imagine that if some extraterrestrials were to come chill on earth, they’d be playing this song. It’s opiate effect on the body would have us moving and easy targets if they decided to invade and all that. Although now that I think about it, I wouldn’t mind getting abducted by aliens who played tracks as good as this – at the very least I’d be surrounded by quality tunes.
As for now? This is a brainwash worth having wherever you are in your day.
If you haven’t noticed by now EMPT is in a new era. Some have noticed the new direction and expressed concern but in my mind if you’re not getting better you’re getting worse. Sometimes you have to be a little disruptive to move forward and break your comfort zone which may be keeping you stuck in a certain place or patten. Think of a company like RIM, what they were doing in their glory days was awesome, they innovated the smartphone yet they rested on their laurels and never disrupted their own patterns. Instead they let another company come along and do it for them. Steve Jobs always said it’s better to cannibalise your own products with something newer and better than let your competition do it for you, I couldn’t agree more.
That said, we’ve destroyed our old ways to rebuild something brand new and now we’re giving you more music than ever, more variety and more perspective yet it’s all still within the taste and style of the EMPT you know and love. We’ve got an all-star team of writers, Ryan Radler bringing nothing but mixtape greatness, Mollie keeping things going and oh did I forget to mention we still have Steph Lund’s beloved Le Miel du Mois on our roster…
Let’s take it to the basics, you in the midst of greatness,
My Martin was a Maison rock Margielas with no laces…” – VSVP Rocky
So here we are another Monday, another installment of LMDM and it’s fantastic – tell me something new. As usual Steph covers the full spectrum constantly taking us to and fro bittersweet love, desperation, lust, hope, dance, chill out, summer times, good times, you name it. I can’t stress this enough, do not let your microwave listening habits interfere with experiencing this tape. Every single song was selected and sequenced a certain way for your listening pleasure so do yourself a favor, press play and let take on the LMDM experience, you won’t regret it. Enjoy.
Diamonds, pearls, they feel alright. when i see you standing there, the evening sun upon your hair. covered up with garden dirt. with just one glance you tear my skirt.”
For years when it came to EMPT I’ve been a one man band man. For those of you not familiar with the term coined by contemporary painter, producer, rapper Kasseem Dean aka Swizz Beatz, that basically means that from top to bottom I’ve running the show. Of course all credit due to Steph and the beloved LMDM series and Ryan Radler’s anti-winter/summer series, both which have become ultimate delineation of what Space Age Bachelor Pad Music is about, but when it came to running the show it all started and ended with yours truly. Recently however, things have changed and with my new fancy role as Creative Director there’s no way I would be able to keep this up. That’s where Mollie, the new EMPT operations boss comes in. If you’ve noticed the new increase in output lately she’s the reason why and compared to my sporadic post when I feel like it style of operation, it’s a welcome change. It’s great to see this site take on some new legs and run faster than it ever has and for that we’re all grateful. That said, looks like we’re ready to usher in a new era for EMPT and there are many reasons to be excited.
One of those reasons is the topic of todays conversation, S u m m e r : anti-winter 2d! Yet another inspired concoction of music from sir Ryan Radler. The tape starts off with with Keljet’s lights out remix of Coldplay’s UFO and then masterfully builds to an intermission provided by Quincy’s Summer In The City. I wish I was a better writer so I could tap into all my musical knowledge, experience traveling the world and living amongst different cultures so I could accurately express how wonderful it is when Ryan brings together these worlds, times and styles so effortlessly. Don’t get it twisted my friends, you can’t get this anywhere else. Music can be so many things, one day you might feel like Skrillex’s Kill Everybody because you love how aggressive, fast and exiting it makes life feel. Another day you’re bumping Hello Nasty or Doggy Style as loud as possible because it’s flat out fresh, that’s how you want to feel and…
Nothing sounds quite like an EIGHT-OH-EIGHT!” – Beastie Boys (Super Disco Breakin’)
The music Ryan puts together can be described as a lot of things but to me it’s mostly just beautiful. When I want to feel ethereal and put life in a the right perspective that’s where I’m going. Every one of these tapes has been nothing but good vibes and somehow this guy only gets better and better. Press play, kick back and you’ll see what I mean, enjoy.
S U M M E R : a n t i – w i n t e r 2 d
COLDPLAY – UFO (Keljet’s Hawaiian Remix)
MIIKE SNOW – The Wave
THE TURTLES – Happy Together (Todd Terje aka Wade Nichols Edit)
ALAN HAWKSHAW & SI BEGG – Spaced out Sportsgirl
DAVE GOLD & GORDON REES – Like Summer
BLACKBIRD BLACKBIRD – Modern Disbelief
QUINCY JONES – Summer In The City
RÜFÜS – Paris Collides (Dante Nou Remix)
EDDA MAGNASON – Jona (Vidderna Remix) (Niva Remix)
WALTER SOBCEK – Hollywood Cries (Video Mix)
DITT INRE – Månljus (Saknad)
PERSEUES – Russian Girlfriends
WILDCAT! WILDCAT! – Mr. Quiche (The Dirty Tees Official Remix)
Born out of Los Angeles synthpop trio NightWaves, Goldroom is Josh Legg’s solo effort and production alias. An amalgamation of dreamy synths, emotive vocals, and tropical disco grooves, Goldroom paints the soundscape of summertime in Los Angeles.”
Josh Legg definitely does an incredible job of capturing the LA vibe, chill, seductive, with a flow that makes you feel like your part of the defining moment in some movie. I have been in LA for the past couple weeks working on my own album project and I definitely see how lethargic the LA vibe can make you. I haven’t fallen into the trap yet, I think it takes a little longer then a couple weeks but this track couldn’t sum up the vibe of LA better for me. Its kind of got this 80’s/90’s plot music going on, like 16 Candles, The Breakfast Club, that build up, that defining moment I was just talking about. This is the kind of music I want everyday in my life, and Australian Native Chela with her soft effortless vocals, really gives this track that dreamy LA vibe that so many of us crave and yet afraid of at the same time.
I think summer has officially started and the weekend is quickly approaching as it does in the summer time, so press play and don’t give a thought to where your mind goes…
t w e n t y o n e songs of Le Miel du Mois! What the f%*k is a Monday blues?
Steph is back with this installment of LMDM and it’s another wonderfully eclectic blend of everything you didn’t even know you loved. Stephs all-embracing approach to music is one of the reasons why LMDM has been and continues to be one of the most interesting mix tapes on any side of the globe. I don’t know about you but I get bored quick fast listening to the same music or style over and over. Musical monogamy is not a concept I can get behind. Our minds are capable of processing anything we throw at it so to limit yourself to just one style of expression or one type of artist is a crime of the highest order. Thankfully, once a month Steph delivers like that perfect lover everyone dreams of – unpredictable, surprising, interesting, risky and totally in tune with your wants and desires at the moment without you having to say a word. Gotta love it.
I have listened to Youth Lagoon on repeat more times than you should really repeat anything in one hour/day/week/month. Same for The Drums, who are playing in New York this Sunday if you are in NY, go. Other monthly obsessions include the sun and no-reason car rides so I can listen to whatever I’m listening to (probably Youth Lagoon) longer before having to go inside. And here we go…
I love the beginning of this track, the beat and progression of the beat immediately caught my attention. For me personally if the beginning of a song, the first 30 sec doesn’t capture me I go to the next, kind of the same thing with reading a book, the first 30 pages are important. When Niki’s voice came in I was captured, she has such a different sound that is sweet, but not too sweet and seductive.
Oh my heart is like an eagle, I love to fall from the sky It’s so beautiful, I see right through the water’s edge And I love your hands, I let them lead me into the cage So tender but your body was warm, and so frail, But your eyes like mine, the color of ice”
You can’t keep me down, I am done, I am furious Fear the lioness paint her face black and golden“
The lyrics are like nature singing to you. I did a lot of research at NYU about Greek poetry and Sappho is a poet who writes similarly to the lyrics in this song. I love using nature to describe life and emotions because if you think about it our emotions feed off of nature. In this track I thought maybe she was talking about a lover at first but I think its much deeper then that, I think its about your feelings and emotions and not letting them over come you and keep you down, you always have to keep pushing forward..
Really take a listen to the words in this one and maybe you’ll come up with a different idea of its meaning…Enjoy!
