PARTOFME

Is it wrong to make you love me?
Is it wrong to make you stay?
It breaks my heart to see you watching.

About once or twice a year I absolutely freak out over a new band. I listen to their every song on continual repeat (we're talking like 20 plays per song per day), and lament their obscurity to anyone who will listen. NO CEREMONY/// is one such a band. The Manchester trio craft the most perfect electrically-inclined music, and I hope they become the biggest group in the world. They excel in a specific brand of dark, driving pop: it's kind of dancey, kind of proggy (full disclosure: I love prog), and filled with a sense of urgency marked by growling crescendos and an always perfectly-timed drop. The use of two vocalists (of different genders) helps ensure that nothing sounds too "samey," though if every song in the world sounded like FEELSOLOW it would probably be an okay thing.

NO CEREMONY/// just released their debut album in England. You can't yet get it in the US but you can stream it here. If you're in Europe, you also have the chance to see them live. I missed them at this year's SXSW due to an unfortunate traffic situation, so someone please go and report back how awesome it was. As for the rest of you, have a couple teasers and welcome to your new obsession.

FEELSOLOW - NO CEREMONY///



You know I don't normally do YouTube streams but this is their new single and you need to hear it.

HURTLOVE - NO CEREMONY///

Raise Your Weapon (Madeon Remix)

I used to have so many rules for this blog about what I 'could' and 'could not' post. The longer it's been around (technically we had our year anniversary the other day though I really only consider it about 6 months old), and the more I do this whole 'running a music blog' thing, the more I find myself adopting a "whateva whateva, I'll do what I want" attitude. For example, bangers. Perhaps better known as Bang0rz. I used to have a strict no-banger policy. But you know what? Bangers can be awesome. In fact they can be life-changing. (That is, if you're on enough ecstasy.) And recently, I've been pressing 'repeat' on my fair share. So here's me saying "fuck it;" rules were made to be broken.

Raise Your Weapon (Madeon Remix) - Deadmau5


I've had this on repeat for the past week. I used to be really into Deadmau5, but then abandoned my prog roots for disco leanings. Now I'm being entranced back via the exciting remix work of Madeon, a 16 (maybe 17 now?) year-old wunderkind from France, who has been absolutely blowing up every song he's put his froggy fingers to over the past six months. This is especially thrilling because his sound and style remind me a LOT of Phonat, an Italian and perhaps one of the worlds greatest (and most underrated) house producers. They share a unique ability to craft house music that is progressive without being obnoxious, with a penchant for choppy, glitching treble and stomping bass. After flying under the radar for the past year, Phonat recently released a remix of Skrillex's Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites. I was hoping it would be the thing to prove me wrong about Skrillex, but unfortunately the piece fell exceptionally flat. It seems then that Madeon is now doing Phonat better than Phonat himself.
Oh well, at least one of them is.

If you don't have the Madeon remix of Deadmau5' Raise Your Weapon yet (it was all over the internet so you might), be sure to get it now, and check out one of Phonat's older (also banging) masterpieces, Set Me Free.

Set Me Free (Extended Mix) - Phonat