The Music Tank

I don’t know if it’s the surprisingly hot weather or the fact that my dear Habs squad is preparing itself for golfing season, but I’ve been drawn towards the intoxicating sounds of electronic music lately. After a long winter of partying around Habs games, you kind of feel the need to throw on a classic outdoors BBQ party. While this might still be a few weeks away for some of you, I couldn’t resist to at least scope for some music that would fit the situation.

In comes Sammy Bananas. This Brooklynite DJ has been making his moves towards the dance floor for a minute. Tagged along by Certified Max, they form Certified Bananas. Sammy has lately been linked to the Fool’s Gold label started notably by A-Trak aka World DMC Champion hailing from Montreal aka Kanye West’s DJ until recently aka the Jay-Z & Mary J Blige Tour musical director. Back to Bananas.

I’ve come across his mixes through the Fool’s Gold Blog and a link to his MySpace page. Now the sounds of Sammy Bananas are somewhat of a mix of House/Electro mashed up with some heavy Rap tunes and savvy Pop jams. The best example of those mixes is probably “The Stepper” which, you might have guessed it, uses the vocals of Ini Kamoze’s “Here comes the Hotstepper”. A definite win/win situation for your party. You can check more of Sammy Bananas songs over at his MySpace and cop his 12″ High Top Fades EP.

On a more electronica basis, Toronto has been producing some of the most sought after producers, I’m talking here of the DJ-producers duo of ALP + JFK: MSTRKRFT (pronounced Masterkraft). Their rise on the european scene has been huge lately and I guess the North American crowd of hipsters already have been on board fopr a minute. One of their hits, released last fall, is a collaboration with Queens rapper Noreaga aka N.O.R.E. titled “Bounce”. You can check that jam, available for download, over at their RCRDLBL page. MSTRKRFT have also blessed us with a lot of remixes of differents artists, from Chromeo to Wolfmother to Death From Above 1979. Check out www.MSTRKRFT.com

As long as I’m on the subject of Electronic music, I thought I’d post up the video for Justice’s latest single “Stress”. The video is indeed stress[ful] as it depicts the life of kids in “Les cités Parisiennes”. Not Safe for Work, be aware!