On this, the day of my birthday, Axwell has decided to reveal his first sign of life of this year. The track is also the first track of Axtone, who is said to be a lot more active with releases this year. Last year, the beloved label was a bit low on the frequency of new stuff, which made it seem a little bit irrelevant on my top 10 labels. In fact, Axtone is my favorite House label at the moment. It's quality control is otherworldly and it's artist even better! But the most important reason I like this label so much, is probably because of Ax. His touch is very noticeable in the organisation and presentation and no cost and effort is spared to make it the best around.
No surprise that I was well excited to see Axwell actually release something again from himself since his legendary single "Heart Is King". "In My Mind" is a single by Australian duo, Ivan Gough and Feenixpawl, who make their single release on the label with quite a bang. Axwell's mix is already speculated to be the biggest hit of the year and the buzz around it may just make that come true.
I will be honest with you, I didn't like this track at all at first. I seemed as if the track was simply following the happy House bandwagon, instead of making it's own trend like many Axtone releases tent to do in the past. I must have had played the teaser video, of which the new design by comix is superb by the way, ten times in a row. I simply did not know what to do with this track. It was semi-happy, and almost too easy to be liked. I couldn't stop playing this track because I really couldn't make my mind up. The vocals by Georgi Kay are absolutely brilliant, and the breakdown that accompanies it makes them even better. It sure has original features, but at the same time feels like a bandwagon track.
For days, I kept questioning it with good and bad sides until I got sick of it. So for a few days, when I was Axtone free, I suddenly got the urge to listen to it. I caught myself listening to it from 0:00 to it's last beat. After that, I would put something else on until I got the urge again.This repeated itself a couple of times until it hit me. This track is simply deliciously appealing. It's so insanely well put together and smooth that I just can't turn it down. It does follow certain trend, surely, but instead of copying them it improves them with tenfold. It's impossible not to like this. It's by far the track of my birthday.
The only dilemma I have now is the amount of points I should give Axwell. Since he is my favorite artist at the moment, it wouldn't be strange to think that he was mainly the reason I liked it so much. His touch is heard throughout the track. I have to wait for the original I guess.
Update:
As I'm writing this, this mix has grown to me even more! I keep returning to it at least once or twice a week. The original has been released and I have to say that Axwell did a pretty amazing job improving it. The orginal is way more rough and lacks the smoothness of the Axwell mix which makes me like it so much in the first place. The track itself is almost identical to the the mix in it's form though. I guess it's safe to say that Ivan, Feenixpawl and Axwell completed each other in this release. 50/50 would be the logical mathematical result. Once thing less to worry about!
So it has come to this, my 20th birthday. Time sure seems to go fast when you are trying to remember it, but in reality 20 years is a eternity. It's odd non the less, knowing I'm on one fourth of my life. After 80, things will start to go downhill pretty fast judging from my family line. Not sure where I stand and if I've accomplished anything in my time here on earth. I've been occupied mostly with music and music only, but I somehow never got around playing something of my own. I really feel like if there is going to be time to learn an instrument or a production program, it's got to be now. I'm nearing my best year, 21, and it's time to actually accomplish something. I feel like I halve one year to prepare and relax somewhat before the hardest part of my life kicks off.
Time to get busy.
But no reason to let this exciting day go to waste because of this somewhat negative lookback. No time for worries or future planning, birthday's are all about celebrating the positive sides of the life I currently am living. There are plenty of things to be grateful for at the moment, and it's important to focus on that. Because when you focus on the negative aspects of your surroundings, the good things tend to blur and be forgotten!
There is really not much going on this week. I'm 7 days away for my birthday and the week before a birthday usually consist of anticipation. So I guess "nothing" would summarize this week pretty well.
Adrian Lux is an artist that I truly lost all connection too. I once considered myself to be an upcoming fanboy of the innovative Swedish sounds of this once so unique producer. His singles, remixes and "Vanity Fair" Mixtapes kept me busy every time I felt a tad down.
His single "Teenage Crime" on my favorite House label Axtone, was the track that got me interested in the first place. Lune her voice is something I've never heard before in any vocal track. Till this day, I'm still trying to find new music from her, but it has been hard. When the remixes were equally superb, I just had to check out his other work.
I stumbled upon various EP's that brought me even more joy! If both the present and the past are excellent, there's reason enough to be excited for the future. As I moved through the tracks, I unfortunately appeared to be deadly mistaken.
His recent singles (Boy, Alive, Fire) and remixes completely misfired in my opinion. His new Electro-ish, "in your face" kinda sound is far from appealing to me. The man choose to release an album this year, titled after himself. The tracks followed his recent image change and the album will not be for me unfortunately. I really miss his soft and gentle works that made him so good in the first place. Axtone favorite, "Teenage Crime" was his most recent golden production, but as I said earlier, the past bares incredible tracks aswell. One of those tracks was "Strawberry". This track captured sister summer like only a few tracks can. Enjoy.
Ever since Anjunabeats Volume 9, there has been one track one my mind these last couple of weeks. That track is called "Bloom" by Norin & Rad. I never heard of this duo before, but when I saw the hovering elevators on the preview video of 9 I instantly felt in love with their track.
The name "Bloom" is quite fitting, since the track itself keeps growing and growing as it progresses. Imagine an Anjuna-seed, slowly developing into an enormous tree, that just keeps growing and growing. The soothing synth together with the subtle piano in the breakdown is begging to be heard in the peace and calm mid summer breeze. The whispering voice is led by solidly sweeping synths that carries the track only to be dropped inevitably into one of the best climaxes of Anjunabeats this year.
The world is officially in a new ban. Sopa/Pipa is on it's way to choke hold the internet with it's firm hands of law. It's too long to type here but this guy below me explains it pretty solid:
To say things short: The American Government and the big brand companies are trying to extent their reach even further than they already have. I have a lot of respect for the justifiable income for Artist in general, but these laws do a lot more than just that. Megaupload for instance, has been taken down bluntly and her owners arrested. It almost creates some kind of World war II image. That image of war isn't completely random, since these are in fact the early stages of a big cyber war.
These first steps against infringement and pirating (or how they call it, because it's really much more that SOPA/PIPA will do) reminded me of a not so old, but very classic dnb track called "Pirate Bay". The track is from 2010, but I know that I will be listening to it for a very long time to come. Netsky really did an incredible job here and I look forward to new stuff from him. Untill then, I still have this gem:
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