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February 2015

18 posts

Track of the Weekend #124: Florence & The Machine - "What Kind Of Man" (Nicolas Jaar Remix)

Ah, what good the sun can do! After hiding behind rain clouds all week, dampening our moods in the wake of the official departure of our beloved Dr. Joly, the sun is a-blazing on this Friday. And it’s pizza day. Fuck yeah. 

Around the corner is March, and that means spring will soon be in the air. But before we enjoy the budding flowers and warmer breezes, winter is not over. It’s not done yet, which is exactly what can be said about the most popular track on Whyd this week, Nicolas Jaar's epic remix of Florence & The Machine's “What Kind Of Man.” For more than 12 minutes the song bounces from Florence’s voice to deep house echoes to the classic mix of odd percussion sounds that has come to characterize Mr. Jaar’s prolific career. It’s a veritable banger of a track from someone so used to exploring the quieter parts of our musical mind. 

Thanks to Maxime M for getting it to us first! 

Feb 27, 2015
#music #track of the weekend #maxime m #nicolar jaar #florence and the machine #what kind of man #epic #popular music #hot tracks
EP Review: Edyth - "BARE I"

As the global music revolution powers forward participants are popping up in the most unlikely places. It’s not everyday that we hear about artists from Sudan, but today is one of those days, a chance to relish in the unusual, from the talented artist Edyth, who just released his first EP, “BARE I,” out now on FAKE MUSIC.   

Released: February 24, 2015

Genres: Trip hop, UK House

Tracks: 5

Who would like this EP?

Fans of Bonobo’s organic beats, and people who like Nightmares on Wax’s samples.

Our thoughts:

It’s hard to construct an atmosphere with an EP, which are usually too short to implant a lasting sense of provenance. Edyth, through a smart use of intratrack layering, has achieved a sense of unity. His samples could’ve come straight out of an abandoned hangar in London’s Far East End. The first track, “Crystxls,” which feels the most complete out of the five tracks on the album, is something that could be played at get togethers around the world. We hope it will! 

Listen to “Bare” by Edyth

Feb 26, 2015
#music #ep review #edyth #sudan #trip hop #uk house #fake music #crystxls #bonobo #nightmare on wax
Playlist of Reference: Blues

Our Playlist of Reference series has seen a wide range of music, and today we’re excited to add to that by tackling one of the oldest genres of music: Blues. Before Electro Swing, before Rock n Roll, before Jazz, there was the Blues, the picked and strummed guitars, the sadness, the beauty of a raspy voice. The simplicity of the sound. Today’s playlist is curated by Milenko, and as usual, let’s get the story behind this amazing playlist. 

When did you start listening to Blues? 

Since an early age, I was listening to Jazz artists like Duke Ellington, Ray Brown, Count Basie, Herb Ellis, Oscar Peterson, Miles Davis, etc. As my father was a Jazz listener, I think my ears were trained to this genre from the beginning. During adolescence I switched to more Blues Rock artists like Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, The Doors, AC/DC, etc. Then the teenage rebel years, with some Blues-inspired Heavy Rock.  

Today, while I still listen to Jazz and Blues Rock, I found myself having a preference for Slow and Traditional Blues with people like B.B. King, Eric Clapton, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Robert Johnson, John Mayer, Eric Clapton, Joe Bonamassa, ZZ Top, Stevie Ray Vaughan, etc. (There are too many to list!)

Did you ever have a moment when you felt like Blues started speaking to you? 

Every time, that’s the main effect of Blues. When you listen to a Blues song, it’s not about the technique (Blues scales are quite simple), it’s all about the phrasing, it’s about the way the artist is telling a story with his instrument. Each Blues track is about storytelling. That’s probably why you have so many standard tunes interpreted by so many players, and they are all unique masterpieces. For example, take a song like “Born Under a Bad Sign”, do a simple search on Whyd, and listen to the different version of Albert king, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Cream, Warren Haynes, etc.  They all tell the same story with variations in the phrasing, that’s how the Blues speaks to you.

What are some example situations when you would listen to this playlist yourself? 

I listen to this playlist at work essentially. In fact, the main goal of this playlist is to act as a central repository for all the Blues songs I discover while watching movies, listening to concerts, radio etc. When I find something interesting, I just want to share it with other people hoping they will enjoy it as much as I do. 

If you had to choose just one track from this playlist, which one would be your favorite?  

B.B. King - Blues Boys Tune (From B.B. King - Live at Montreux 1993) And because, like in Blues, you don’t have to follow the rules as long as it works and sounds great … My second “just one” would be: Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood - Voodoo Chile

Thanks Milenko! 

Feb 25, 2015
#music #playlist of reference #blues #b b king #eric clapton #steve winwood #voodoo chile #cream #stevie ray vaughan #milenko #brussels #belgium
Thank You For Everything Adrien

Being in a start up is like being in a family. In our case a band of brothers united by the common desire to make the internet work for us, fusing it with music in a way that no one had done before. There is adversity, there is achievement, and there are emotions, emotions that we all share together. Just like in a family, losing a family member means sadness. The sadness of knowing that they won’t be there when you arrive in the morning, adding events to their multiple Gmail calendars. The sadness of having one fewer mouth on pizza day. The sadness of knowing that they won’t be back. 

Oui mon p’tit gars, c’est comme ça

Today marks the official departure of one of the strands of the DNA of Whyd. The developer responsible for coding and building nearly everything we enjoy today. The rocker responsible for some epic jamming. The friend responsible for endless laughter, mouth trumpeting, and GIFs. The man responsible for the care taken towards each of his teammates and every visitor that came through Whyd. Dr. Adrien Joly is leaving us for the next chapter in his life and career. 

Oui mon p’tit gars, c’est comme ça

Adrien was here from the very beginning, coding remotely in cafés and in Whyd’s first incubator. He ventured with Gilles, Jie, and Loick to San Francisco to alternate sleeping in a one bedroom apartment in Chinatown for three months while the young team soaked in the charged atmosphere of California’s legendary tech mecca. 

He expertly directed the team through a few pivots before the mission became music, and it was here that Adrien truly excelled. He had already hacked together multiple music apps, like his location-based Foursquare app “Hear I Am” that he built with Loick, and “GigFM,” for creating playlists from upcoming concerts. Whyd was a natural extension of his passions. One that kept him working with us for over four years. 

Oui mon p’tit gars, c’est comme ça

As the team expanded both in terms of numbers and in terms of geography, Adrien led the development and release of our 5-star iOS app. He tutored interns. He kept an impossible number of moving parts aligned to ensure that music lovers could listen on Whyd. And, perhaps most importantly, he tempered the team’s expectations to protect the functioning of Whyd - to keep it from becoming too complicated, from becoming too heavy to stay afloat. There could have been no replacement for that potent combination of ability, intelligence, and demeanor. Something that is so perfectly summed up in his classic phrase, said with acceptance that some things are not to be changed, but with the hope that there will be another, better option: “Oui mon p’tit gars, c’est comme ça.”

Adrien is moving to the next challenges that he will face, as he navigates his career helping dreams become reality through technology. We have absolutely no doubt that he will be successful in every problem and opportunity he comes across. We believe that few people on this planet have his methodical ability to break apart obstacles into manageable pieces, then take out each of those pieces with precision. And we will be jealous of each and every person that gets to work with him. 

Oui mon p’tit gars, c’est comme ça

Never stop jamming, man. 

Feb 24, 20158 notes
#adrien joly
Whyd Presents: Austrian Singer-Songwriter James Hersey

All photos courtesy James Hersey’s Facebook Page

Hello James! How did your classical upbringing influence the music you make today?

Hi! I really didn’t like being forced to play by notation, but maybe some elements of discipline and focus filtered through from those times.

Walk us through the beginning of your songwriting. Where did your first inspirations come from?

In the beginning I covered a lot of stuff and copied everybody’s style, teaching myself to write songs on the side. Now I work a lot on my own stuff and look for cool covers to learn on the side.

Tell us about your upcoming, debut album “Clarity.” How long have you been working on it and who else played an instrumental role in making it a reality?

I worked towards “Clarity” for about one and a half years, though a couple of the songs are older than that. I guess the album wouldn’t exist at all without my manager Gonzalo at Manta Ray, my engineer Thomas at Puresound Recordings, and the entire team at Lichtdicht Records.

Who should listen to your new album? Fans of which other artists?

People with open ears and open minds! I think that fans of Coldplay, Foster The People, Phoenix, John Mayer, and The Police will dig it.

Where will you be playing live this year?

Germany, Austria, France, Canada, and the US!

Feb 23, 2015
#interview #whyd presents #james hersey #new artist #lichtdicht records #austria #songwriter #singer #clarity #new album
Track of the Weekend #123: Sufjan Stevens - "No Shade In The Shadow Of The Cross"

We’ve been busy hooking some new things up this week here at the Whyd studio. There are lots of screwdrivers laying among bits of wire. Something truly awesome is coming, and we can’t wait to tell you about it…

But it is also the cat days of winter, where the cold is damp and the rain gets stuck in the air, giving up its quest for the ground. For those of us who are riding out the end of the winter, a melody has resonated. The delicate voice of Michigan’s own Sufjan Stevens delivers a heartbroken message across his signature strums and hums. “No Shade In The Shadow Of The Cross" is his grief pure, a window into the place where the love for his lost mother is hiding in a corner, knee-deep in tears. He lays is bare and clear:   

”Fuck me I’m falling apart" 

Thanks to dominique lutier for grabbing this for us! 

Feb 20, 20151 note
#music #sufjan stevens #no shade in the shadow of the cross #dominique lutier #track of the weekend #popular music #hot tracks #whyd #community
Presenting the Eclectic Sounds of ZEN@

A brand new artist, one who used Whyd as a tool to help start her career, presents herself after releasing her very first EP, say hello to ZEN@. 

Introduce yourself! 

I grew up in Shanghai, and went to the States for high school and college. I love wandering around, outdoors, tech and the cosmos. The most interesting thing to me at the moment is “time.” I like to think it as an object and pretending that some things in the scale of time are fixed. 

When did you start writing songs? Can you walk us through your songwriting process?

I started last fall when I was in Shanghai and traveling around Europe. I just write whenever I got an idea, and I picked four to make this album. They were all written in different ways. Both “SoundCloud" and "One Of A Million" had the chorus first, then I finished the whole songs weeks after. "Kairos" was written over an instrumental track that the producer Bravin, gave me. When I first heard this track, I had the melody of the song right away, so I just asked the producer if I can write a song over it. "Treasure Island" was fast. I wrote both the lyrics and melody in one morning. It’s not really or only about Pirates, but it’s based on an Oscar-winning documentary film.

I actually used Whyd to communicate ideas and inspirations with my producers. The playlist is the best feature for that!

Which artists have the strongest influence on your music?

Really a lot. I listen to a variety of very international music, from all over the world.

The strongest influence would be Sia. And even everything evolving around her music is so artistic.

Each of the 4 songs of your EP sound very different, what are some of the common themes that link them together?

Yes, they are! I wanted this album to have songs of very different styles initially, so it ended up like that. I worked with producers from three different countries to make them all sound different. I have many international friends and I love traveling. I guess it’s important for me to make music that has very diverse elements and feels like traveling. These four songs are still not enough to be diverse. It’s an experiment. It could be good or bad. A lot of the artists have their very distinctive music style, but I never want to have a specific style. I like changing, as long as the biggest goal is the true emotion with a good melody and lyrics.

One common theme is that they are all adventurous or about adventures.

Tell us about your song “SoundCloud.” What’s it about exactly?

It’s about graduation from college. I met many cool people in college. They have crazy hair, crazy outfit, crazy attitude, crazy dreams, and crazy cool everything. But when it’s their fourth year, everything changes. They cut their hair, start to wear black suits, delete all their social network accounts and hide in dorms to prepare for the next job interviews, mostly in finance or consulting. They said they want to work in those industries for two or three years. And afterwards, they would do whatever they are really passionate about. This is just blowing my mind.

Then I read two really good essays by Marina Keegan that talk about such phenomenon and graduation from college - “Even Artichokes Have Doubts” and “The Opposite Of Loneliness”. There are some references in “SoundCloud” from her essays. She was going to be a writer for The New Yorker, but died in a car accident just five days after her graduation from Yale in 2012. It’s really sad. She’s so talented and so inspirational.

What are your plans to develop and promote yourself in 2015?

I don’t know if I will have time to promote haha

The priority is to write more good music.

I definitely hope more people will hear my music. I am also designing and building some stuff. It is primarily about music, but it will also be some other things about creativity. I will probably share some of my crazy inventions there, too. I have more songs to be released very soon.

Thanks ZEN@!  

Feb 19, 20152 notes
#interview #new artist #zena #marina keegan #songwriting #music production #whyd
Detroit 2000s Hip Hop: Playlist of Reference

We have the pleasure of continuing our awesome series featuring the stories behind some of the best playlists representing genres and subgenres of music on Whyd. Today, something that hits close to home for our Community Manager. Literally. 

Detroit is known around the world for the automobile industry. But there is something that Detroit has been producing this whole time as well, an equally international export: music. From the funky days of Motown, to the garage punk epoch, through the rise of electronic and most recently - the advent of Hip Hop, Detroit is in a constant state of creative evolution. Capturing an era that many can point to as its revival, The Backpackerz have put together their latest “Heavy Rotation” playlist around Hip Hop from the 2000s, “Detroit Hustles Harder.”  

Can you introduce yourselves? What is the idea behind The BackPackerz and when did you get started?

We are Antoine and Hugo, the two co-founders of The BackPackerz. We met at Toulouse Business School around 2012 and quickly discovered our common passion for Hip-Hop. Longtime rap addicts, we decided to create The BackPackerz while studying in Barcelona in 2013. In fact, we couldn’t find the type of content about Hip-Hop we’d like to read among the existing websites, especially in French, so we decided to create it ourselves!

The BackPackerz is a web-magazine dedicated to celebrating and educating its readers to Hip-Hop culture. Through in-depth analysis on cultural landmarks, interviews and reviews, the 12 members of our team are creating the freshest online resource for anybody interested in Hip-Hop culture. We also curate the best Hip-Hop events (concerts, festivals, exhibits) in France because HIP-HOP LIVES!

Where does your passion of Hip Hop come from?

Antoine: I was introduced to rap music very early, around my second year of middle school, by a friend’s brother who had me listening to NTM, IAM and the whole Hostile posse. At the beginning, I was on French rap mostly because I liked the rebel attitude that came along with it. Then I started to dig into the American rap from the 90s after I got struck by Cut Killer’s mixtape “Party Jam - 1989 1996, The Golden Age.” I was in high school when I first heard Nas’s “Illmatic,” A Tribe Called Quest’s “Midnight Marauders” and Wu-Tang Clan - “Enter the 36 Chambers” which are still my all-time favorite albums. At that time, I was spending hours translating lyrics and searching Urban Dictionary (a time before Rap Genius) to get a better understanding of what those cats were saying.

Later with Olivier Cachin’s books and films like “Wild Style,” I discovered Hip-Hop was not only a music genre but also a fascinating culture with other elements like graffiti and dance and tremendous impacts on our modern society. Since then, I kept reading and gathering artifacts (records, films and books) of this sublime culture. A few years ago, I realized this archiving work had to be shared so I decided to launch The BackPackerz with Hugo.

Hugo: My passion for Hip-Hop came later than Antoine’s. In High School, I began to listen to mainstream stuff such as 50 Cent or Eminem and I immediately fell in love with this music because it combined rhythms that made my head bang hard and dope lyrics spit with amazing technicality. Soon I would dig into the history of this genre and couldn’t stop, because every day I would discovered how deep and wide this culture was. At first, I was really into the producers (Preemo, Dilla, Pete Rock, Q-Tip…) and how they chopped samples etc..They were my entry door to real Hip-Hop, more than the MCs.

Tell us about the concept of your Heavy Rotation playlists?

The concept of the Heavy Rotation playlists is to bring to our readers 10 dope tracks every Monday, in order to soften the pain of this particularly hated day of the week. Most of the time you will find a selection of 10 hottest rap songs of the last couple of weeks but sometimes we build playlists around a specific subject: a genre (e.g beatmaking edition) a specific technique (e.g brass edition) or for a special occasion like this “Detroit Hustles Harder” edition for J Dilla month. There is no rule, it just depends on our mood! Now our readers are really looking forward for them to come out, because you know “Fuck it’s Monday…but at least I’m gonna hear dope music!”

What’s special about this Post 2000 Detroit Hip Hop playlist?

Originally, the idea of the post 2000 Detroit rap playlist came up while we were preparing our interview with Detroit superstars Phat Kat, Elzhi and Guilty Simpson (that we will drop in a couple of weeks). As we were deep-digging into our hard drives, we were amazed to see how prolific and brilliant the Detroit scene was in the 2K decade. From Slum Village, to Elzhi, Black Milk or the great Apollo Brown; it seems that Detroit has never stop shining since we changed millennium.

On top of that, releasing a fine selection of the dopest tracks from Detroit rappers was exactly what The BackPackerz is meant for: curate history to educate and entertain. The purpose of this playlist - along our article Detroit State Of Mind - is for our readers and followers to discover / remember the greatness of this scene over the past 20 years.

Curating the playlist, we realized this excellence would not have been the same without a man: James Dewitt Yancey a.k.a J Dilla or Jay Dee, one of the greatest producer of all time. If you look at the playlist, you’ll find Jay Dee’s legacy in almost every single track: as a producer, an influencer or in the lyrics. We decided to release this special Heavy Rotation in February since it is known among his fans as “J Dilla month” (as he was born and died during the month of February).

Feb 18, 2015
#music #playlist of reference #detroit #hip hop #detroit hustles harder #j dilla #the backpackerz #rap
The Art of the Rework - The Avener Answers Your Questions [LONG FORM INTERVIEW]

A heavily bearded technical team sets up instruments on a packed stage while multicolored lights reflect brightly from the walls of the popular French TV Show “C A Vous.” The kitchen of the hidden studio in the 11ème has elegant-looking appliances. Everything gleans in stark contrast to the rainy grey courtyard outside. 

The hubbub is all for their latest episode, featuring a true Whyd favorite: The Avener, whose track “Fade Out Lines" has been sitting in the top 10 of the Hot Tracks for months on end. It’s in a small office stocked with Mars bars to the side of the studio that we finally meet Tristan from Nice, the French artist who has just released his album "The Wanderings of The Avener,” and who is about to perform for the French public at large for the very first time. 

If he was nervous, it was transmuted into warm friendliness. He sits down, cigarette in hand, ready to answer the Whyd community’s questions. We have 10 minutes. The mic clicks on. 

This interview is translated from French. Tony Hymes for Whyd in bold. All photos, (except the selfie!) courtesy The Avener’s Facebook page.   

In your new album there are a lot of reworks. When you create a remix do you try to break something down, or do you try to build something on top of what exists? 

Tristan: That depends on the song that I use to do my rework. Sometimes I have to do a lot more, to change a lot of the arrangements, and sometimes just adding a bit of salt and pepper is all it takes to season the plate! So it depends, for example sometimes I’ll use a dozen or so tracks, and there are other times where I will use more than 50 tracks! 

Let’s use your new remix of Rodriguez as an example. 

Tristan: Rodriguez’s (“Hate Street Dialogue”) was a song that was rather easy to create because the heart was already there. All I wanted to do was amplify the rock aspect and make it more appropriate for the club. For that one I used about a dozen tracks to modify it. 

How do you choose the songs that you remix?

Tristan: It’s really just music I like from my years as a DJ. With my DJ background I’ve played a lot of music, from funk to soul to house, and there are tracks that I can’t really play sometimes, because if I did it would empty the dance floor! So I tried to modify the tracks that I wanted to play, but wasn’t able to, and that’s how this album was born. 

You have a classic music formation, notably the piano, but it’s not something that we take from your latest album. So does that serve something for you?

Tristan: Classical music helps me with music in general, with the notes, understanding, and writing sheet music. For this album it helped from a technical standpoint, and didn’t really serve as a source of inspiration. Having a classical background is a big advantage to make music, but orchestrally speaking it’s difficult to bring that into this type of music. 

What do the artists that you remixed think of your remixes? Phoebe Killdeer (“Fade Out Lines”) for example? 

Tristan: She was the first test. Phoebe Killdeer loved the track, but at the beginning she didn’t want to have her name attached to it, because it wasn’t in her overall artistic direction. She was, however, really happy with it. For the other artists, some of whom were collaborators, like Rodriguez, they love it, so it’s a huge joy for me. 

Who are your influences? Who do you look up to? 

Tristan: My music comes from different places. I listen to a lot of music, I’m very eclectic, at home or when I’m DJing. There are a lot of artists that influence me. It’s true that I spent 10 years in classical music so I have a lasting adoration for Beethoven, and Bach, they are THE composers, and no one from today will arrive at their level, they have so much unique musicality. They are still my favorites to this day. 

Are there artists that you don’t like? Maybe not artists, that might burn some bridges, but are there styles of music that you don’t like? 

Tristan: There are some genres that I appreciate a little bit less. But I am still a student of music, so when there is a style that I don’t like, I try to figure out what the artist was trying to do. I never say “that doesn’t sound good.” There are always good songs in every style of music, you just have to find them. 

You’re labelled as being deep house, but on the new album there is a lot more. Are there other styles that you are moving closer towards? A bit of folk maybe? 

Tristan: Yes! This album is sort of a voyage between different epochs and different styles. And finally I can re-vindicate my eclecticism because it’s not easy for an artist to be so diverse with their music to say “I make all music.” It’s complicated to say that. This album is about sharing, it’s surrounded by my influences, so it’s a journey among lot of different points.

Would you classify your music as being French? 

Tristan: I would like that! I definitely like the “French Touch” period, which had a big influence on me. But now do I bring anything new to this “French Touch” compared to other artists? I hope to have that energy. 

Now I have fans that come from all over the world, not just in France, like Germany, Switzerland, Australia, South Korea, there are lots of people that loved the first single, and that makes me happy! 

When you are aren’t making music, what do you do for fun?

Tristan: When I don’t make music I play music! :) 

I have a second passion, aviation, so I’m in the process of getting my private pilot’s license. 

Awesome! At least you’ll have a great soundtrack to fly to! 

Tristan: Voilà! 

Feb 16, 2015
#interview #the avener #fade out lines #rodriguez #remix #french touch #tristan #nice #france #c a vous #studio #deep house #folk
Track of the Weekend #122: Kendrick Lamar - "The Blacker The Berry"

We’re only at the middle of February, on the historically superstitious day of Friday the 13th, and already one of the year’s biggest releases has reverberated around the globe propelling the single to the top of the Hot Tracks here in Paris. Kendrick Lamar just scooped up a GRAMMY for best rap performance for “i” (for which he also claimed the much more prestigious Whyd Track of the Weekend), and his newest effort “The Blacker The Berry" encapsulates the perilous state of race, spitting his signature verses with anger across reggae calls all summed up with the proud statement: "The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice." 

A big thanks to Encee x Kalab’s for getting it to Whyd first! 

Feb 13, 20155 notes
#music #track of the weekend #kendrick lamar #the blacker the berry #encee #kalab #whyd #rap #new release #hot music
Music Creation, Heartbreak + Intercontinental Collaboration: DYLLAN Interview

Hello DYLLAN! How’s it going? Can you take us through a quick recap of your musical life? You’ve been at this since you were quite young! 

Hello! It’s going well, thank you! Yes, I’ve been writing songs since I was twelve and started playing shows in my hometown (Los Angeles) at fifteen. In high school I recorded my first EP and I recorded my second, “Anything But Scared,” my first year of college. 

I studied music there but I also studied film and literature. I lived in Paris for a year where I studied le cinéma français and le dessin. I played some shows there and connected with some great musicians. After college I moved to Brooklyn where I’m now living, producing music out of my apartment. 

Why did you start writing music? Were you inspired by themes in your life? Or were you inspired by other musicians? 

My first influence (and constant idol) is Joni Mitchell. And Jeff Buckley. There is so much depth to their work - their lyrics are poetry. I had always wanted to sing but I was too shy, so I picked up a guitar first. Eventually I sang along, and then started writing my own stuff. To this day I am constantly writing songs, and yes, they are usually about heartbreak. 

Songwriting is therapeutic for me. It’s a necessity. I am not a diligent worker, though, so going out and seeing shows is what inspires me to sit down and write. Or to go out and play!

How did you start working with THYLACINE? How did you end up coming to Paris in the first place? 

As I said, I moved to Paris for my junior year abroad in college. Ironically, it wasn’t until after I had left that I discovered THYLACINE’s music and decided to contact him. I thought he might be interested in working with me and he was. This was how we did our first collaboration, “Distance.” I had written a song called “NYLAPARIS" and sent it to him. He took my vocals and composed original music around it. I think the result was quite beautiful and unique. 

Our second collaboration, “Closing" was yet another virtual collaboration but with the opposite arrangement - he sent me an instrumental track he had produced and I wrote, recorded and arranged the vocals at home in Brooklyn. I’m also very pleased with the result and amazed that he and I have still never met in person! I look forward to him making a trip to New York soon so we can fix that. 

What can we look forward to from you in 2015?

I have quite a few projects to release this year! Notably, the single and music video for my new song “Moments Like These” will release in March. We funded the whole thing through Indiegogo so I am really excited to share it. Following that, I’ll release my next new single “Try” in April. Stay tuned and thanks so much! 

Feb 12, 2015
#interview #dyllan #dylan nichols #closing #thylacine #moments like these #try #distance #LA #brooklyn #paris #collaboration #songwriting #heartbreak #music creation
Playlist of Reference: Jazz

Onward. The next installment of our awesome Playlist of Reference series moves to the eccentric world of Jazz, curated by one of the Whyd team members, the one that wears bowties with ducks on them. Let’s get the story behind the playlist:

When did you start listening to Jazz? 

I went to a jazz club once on a high school trip to New York City. There was something so alluring about the environment. I felt like we were there to listen to the musicians, not just there to listen to a repertoire of music performed by a band I liked. No two performances can be the same. 

Did you ever have a moment when you felt like Jazz started speaking to you? 

Seeing Jazz live was always special, but I admit I didn’t listen to it much outside of those occasions. It wasn’t until I was working on art projects when I lived in New York City that I would put on Jazz radio as my soundtrack to creation. 

Recently here in Paris, the advent of Electro Swing and Electro Jazz, combined with the awesome Whyd community, have given me more reasons to listen to it! 

What are some example situations when you would listen to this playlist yourself? 

Jazz is Sunday afternoons. Painting, working on art projects, writing, reading. Jazz is unique in the sense that it can be the soundtrack to anything you want. For me, it fades into my thoughts, giving them a hop they wouldn’t normally have. 

If you had to choose just one track from this playlist, which one would be your favorite? 

God I hate this question! (And I wrote it!) but I just think that Duke Ellington hits the notes that I would hit if I were a legendary musician. Particularly “Jeep’s Blues.” It’s got a vibrancy in its sadness, and it’s catchy as hell. 

Feb 11, 2015
#music #playlist of reference #tony hymes #jazz #electro swing #electro jazz #jazz club #new york city #paris #community manager #whyd
The Dreamy Electro Folk of Isaac Delusion [LONG FORM INTERVIEW]

Rain patters quietly on the windows of La Fée Verte, a cozy café on the normally raucous Rue de la Roquette a few Eiffel Towers from Bastille. It’s late afternoon, some Parisians tap away their last work emails. The beer taps open for a couple of new arrivals. 

In through the door come two new visitors to the café, Loic and Jules, a.k.a. Isaac Delusion. Their friendliness is immediate. I explain to them that we had sourced questions from their fans on Whyd. They are excited to answer, at ease with anecdotes and information, outgoing and happy. 

The following is translated from French. Tony Hymes for Whyd in bold. All photos courtesy Isaac Delusion’s Facebook Page.    

Tell us about the origin of the group, was this originally something that kind of came together, or was it something that you were really trying to make work?

Jules: We have known each other since middle school in Vincennes, and we each made music in our own ways, we decided to do something together. 

And when you say “made music,” you played the violin? 

Jules: No, neither of us has a formal musical training, but Loic played the guitar, composed music, sang. He had a folk group. And I made electronic music, at home on my computer, making little tracks.

So it was really the desire to do something musical, not really something that came from the structure of formal musical training expectation. 

Jules: In fact we never thought about releasing an album, or how we would perform on stage. The music was between us, we saw each other on Sundays, went to the cinema, and afterwards made music together. 

So what was the first moment working together?

Loic: Jules had traveled a lot, and he had just come back from Australia, and I had advanced with my music group, and I started singing, because before then I didn’t sing, I just played the guitar. I started singing in a way that was heavily influenced by the jazz greats like Chet Baker, and Jules told me, “That sounds good! I like when you sing like that, let’s try to do something with it.” At the start it was just for fun. I went to his place, we played around for a few hours, singing “yogurt” and in doing that we succeeded in creating a song! 

What did you think about this first track? Did you think, “shit, we can share this with people?” 

Jules: I still love that first song, it has very few elements, it’s very simple, but it’s something that works. It’s really a chill track. Voice, guitar, a little beat. 

The style of your music is really the music of dreams, like a pillow on a Sunday morning, pleasant. Is that because you love to sleep? Or is it the style that you like the most? Or is it just because you’re really good at producing it? 

Jules: What I like in the music is a mix of grooves, sexy rhythms, and dreaminess, the mix of these emotions is something that I like to create. 

Loic: I think it’s also just the mix that we make, Jules has ideas that develop around the things that are more groovy, hip hop, soul. And I am a bit more indie, electro, listening to a lot of Postal Service. The more we listen to this type of music the more we get towards the groovier side, or listening to Thom Yorke, things where there is rhythm but it’s still floating. 

Yeah, it’s not music that’s really well-defined, crystalline, it’s more nebulous. 

Loic: Yes, that’s it!

In about a month, you are going to play at the Olympia. You’ve already played at some awesome venues in Paris but the Olympia is still a rather mythical place. How do you feel about that concert? 

Loic: Create magic, that’s the most important.

Jules: We are going to try to deserve it. Do something that aligns with our styles: dreamy, mystique, nebulous. Something that comes out of the water. 

Is there pressure?

Jules: Yes there is a bit of pressure, but we don’t really feel it that way. 

Loic:  There is also the thing that because it’s the Olympia, we have to make sure that we are perfect, we have to come well-dressed, but the best way to succeed at a concert is to not stress, but to think about it as only happiness. For you, and for the people that are going to come and listen to you. If you think about things like “The Beatles played here…” no, you have to be cool. The music is cool, the music is relaxed, we have to be the same. 

Jules: That’s true, and in talking about the big venues, Trianon, etc. They were concerts where there was a pressure, it’s your head on the flyer, it’s a big room, and when we feel that stress we have the impression that it doesn’t go as well. We aren’t in the pleasure of the moment. As soon as there is a bit of stress there are emotions that become parasites, and we can’t let that block us when we plan for the concert at Olympia. 

You have to remain faithful to the music, it’s already made, so stick to it. Share the happiness. 

Loic: Voilà

We have a couple of questions from your fans about your cover of Lou Reed’s “Take A Walk on the Wild Side.” Which was a Whyd track of the weekend. How did you approach this cover? Where did the idea come from?

Loic: It was a track that I always listened to, it’s a monument. It’s true that I just started to pick up my guitar and I found the chords by ear. I started singing along and my girlfriend was behind me and she said “I really like how that sounds, that’s really cool. It’s great how you sing it.” So I thought OK! And I recorded the piece in one take that evening with my son singing along in his baby talk. 

In fact that’s the second question from your fans, because people didn’t recognize your voice. 

Loic: That was because my son, who has started to speak little words, was going “bah, bah, bah” and at the beginning I wanted to remove it. But I shared it with Jules and a few other friends and they said no! Keep it! 

Jules: It’s going to be difficult for the royalty payments…:)

After how well that cover worked out, do you plan on doing more of them? Maybe in the same style?

Loic: You know, with the Lou Reed cover, I thought it was a little presumptuous to take on a huge track like that. So I think the best way to approach a cover is to make it simple. Try to build something that works on top of the song that’s already been created, respecting it. 

Is that the same idea with remixes? Because you remixed La Fille aux Cheveux de Soie by Fránçois and the Atlas Mountains. Or is that something different?

Jules: To make a remix is to do something different, to leave the realm of the song for something different. It’s not the same as a cover. 

And do you continue to make remixes? There are demands now from fans to release new music. Do you feel like you have to release things?

Jules: No, not really. We’re going to release a new single very soon, that’s just a little track so that we continue to write and release music. We still do a few remixes, not a ton, but yes a few. We’ve got a new one coming out soon. You can’t disappear for too long. 

Loic: I think that the evolution of music is a path. It’s starting to become like a free-for-all, as soon as artists have ideas they communicate all the time, they release EPs, albums, there aren’t rules anymore. I think for us we try to stay in the cycle of creativity, always with new ideas but not necessarily thinking about the marketing behind it. 

Jules: And as soon as we do a track we can always find things wrong with it so we have to push it out otherwise it will never be released! 

Loic: I’m a huge fan of Sufjan Stevens, in terms of productivity the guy is incredible, he’s always releasing stuff and I appreciate his generosity. 

Last question. When you’re not making music, what do you do for fun? 

Jules: We love the cinema. 

Loick: Yesterday we went to see Whiplash, it was incredible. 

Feb 9, 2015
#interview #isaac delusion #jules #loic #la fee verte #lou reed #cover #track of the weekend #walk on the wild side #cinema #olympia #francois and the atlas mountains #folk #electronica #dream
Track of the Weekend #121: L'Impératrice - "Vanilla Fraise"

The cold is instilled in our bones here in Paris. Our breaths smoke like dragons. Les chauffages are bien allumés. Luckily for us, there is sound, and when that sound is beautiful, with a little boogie, it’s enough to shake the chill from our souls. 

This week that funk is “Vanilla Fraise" (Strawberry Vanilla) by L’Impératice, a light-hearted romp that is reminiscent of the glory days of Rinôçérôse or Air, French electronica at its most delicious. It’s easy to see why it was the most popular track on Whyd this week. 

Thanks to Cédric L. for sharing it with us!  

Feb 6, 2015
#music #track of the weekend #l'impératrice #vanilla fraise #rinocerose #air #french electronica #cold #paris #whyd #community #cedric l
EP Review: THYLACINE - "Exil"

The French artist THYLACINE, originally from Angers, just received the honor of the track of the weekend with “Closing” feat. Dyllan. It’s the third track on his new EP “Exil” which came out last week. So how does the EP stack up?

Released: January 26, 2015

Genres: Electronic, minimal, trip hop

Tracks: 4

Who would like this EP? 

Fans of Wood Kid’s orchestral harmonies, and people who like Kavinsky’s beats. 

Our thoughts: 

Though there are certainly some unique elements at play, mashing harmonies on top of the hollowness of something deep, this EP is a product of a lot that came before it. The highlight track, “Closing,” features the pleasantly subdued and haunting voice of Dyllan, an element that could’ve taken the other tracks on “Exil" much further. Instead the three other tracks swerve between strings, minimal beats, and trip, making for a pleasant listen but one that remains more shallow than complex.  

Listen to Exil by THYLACINE 

Feb 5, 2015
#music #ep review #thylacine #exil #closing #dyllan #whyd #critic
Playlist of Reference: Rock!

The next in our incredible series of Playlists of Reference we tackle a beast: the world of rock music. This week’s playlist is curated by Tom P. who has dedicated a significant amount of time into this monster of a playlist with 871 tracks for your listening pleasure. It has earned the exclamation point. But first, let’s get the story behind the playlist. 

When did you start listening to rock music?

In the late 60’s, a vibrant time with some great music. 

Did you ever have a moment when you felt like rock started speaking to you?

Yes, many of these songs spoke for a generation of your people then and left us with many good memories. For me, early favorites included Iron Butterfly - “In A Gadda Da Vida,” Uriah Heep - “Salisbury,” and later classics like Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” and “Black Dog.”

I really enjoyed classics from the Doobie Brothers and Kansas (especially “Dust in the Wind” and “Incomudro.”) Also can’t forget great jazz-fusion-rock from Santana and Jethro Tull, as well as hard-driving blues-rock from the Allman Brothers and Little Feat. Where do I stop? There’s also BTO, Bad Company, Lynyrd Skynyrd - “Free Bird,” Fleetwood Mac - “Hypnotized,” Van Halen & Sammy Hagar - “I Can’t Drive 55” and on and on. 

What are some example situations when you would listen to this playlist yourself? 

I enjoy many diverse musical styles now, including jazz, blues, gospel, world, and classical. But classic & fusion rock are still great for pumping up the adrenaline. Can’t think of a bad time to listen to good rock, except perhaps when it’s time to chill. Listening to many kinds of music now, occasionally I’ll “cleanse the palette” with some good rock. 

If you had to choose just one track from this playlist, which one would be your favorite?

Hard to choose, but I’ll go with “Salisbury” by Uriah Heep, for great musicality and an early mix of styles. 

Feb 4, 20151 note
#music #playlist of reference #tom puterbaugh #rock #jethro tull #allman brothers #uriah heep #salisbury #kansas #doobie brothers #led zeppelin #stairway to heaven #black dog #iron butterfly
WiseSound - Playlist Series, Live Reviews + Albums of the Month [INTERVIEW]

Hello! When did you start WiseSound? How did you get the idea?

Hello Whyd! Before I was in the habit of sending a bunch of MP3s of new discoveries in electro-pop, rock, or techno-house in monthly emails to about 50 of my friends, along with a list of concerts coming up that month with the question: “who’s coming with me?” Basically it was to share my new favorites and have some company when I went to see their shows… The lists got longer and longer and a few people recommended that I put it online. WiseSound has existed since January 2014. It’s our first birthday! 

You do a lot of live reviews on WiseSound. What are the fundamental parts of a good live review? Do you ever give bad live reviews?

To give a great show, you need emotion. Whether it’s the crazy jumps of Birth of Joy or the crystal voice of Goldfrapp with a classical orchestra, the performance must be felt like a trance that connects the group to their audience. I try not to be objective, that’s not the goal, but to be faithful to what I’m witnessing in that moment. I even admit sometimes to shedding a tear, completely transported. 

I also write when I am disappointed about shows, when I was bored with the nonchalance of The Drums or the last sloppy performance of WhoMadeWho who seemed like they preferred to have fun rather than playing their tracks properly. I describe the scene but also the audience, and in doing that there are also a couple of fun bits that come out of it all. 

For festivals, I would like to do more video reports like for the Plages Electroniques but I don’t have a good camera yet! Check this out! 

How do you pick which album of the month to review? 

Now that is purely subjective. The album of the month is supposed to be the album where I appreciate every track without skipping any of them. For example I didn’t find an album like this between the new Black Strobe in October and the Ghost Culture album in January, so I didn’t do the feature. 

Sometimes, I feature an album that’s not very recent, like PVT's album from 2013 for example, where I just absolutely had to talk about it, so much had I listened to it enthusiastically on repeat. Taking a step back, I realize that these are usually very rich albums presenting sonic research or unexpected rhythms, and an explosive mix of multiple genres. The group must not close itself into producing the same pop track from 1 to 12, that's boring as hell. So that's why I love groups like Bot’Ox, those who touch everything and with verve! Everything that stays in my electro-pop, rock, and techno-house head, of course. 

How do you select tracks for your playlist series WiseList? Who should listen to these playlists? 

Everyday, I listen to the latest releases and the small lines in festival line ups to find new tracks, I also keep up to date with magazine, blogs, and other publications. And as soon as one resonates with me, hop! I add it to Whyd. Then I go through those tracks every two weeks cutting out everything except for 20 straight up bombs. 

Who should listen to WiseLists? Well everyone in the world, of course! The alternative rock barflies, just like the dancers at electro parties, or people let down by what’s on FM wavelengths. Maybe even people with a penchant for underground or those who are sick of commercial dance and R&B.

From the synth-pop to the house-techno passing by rock, the specter is rather large to please everyone. Dare to discover something else: very talented artists who need you to hear them or simply to continue to create!

Do you have any plans for 2015 and beyond?  

For the moment the project is still small and new but ideas are coming together. Maybe starting to build a voluntary team, constructing partnerships around events, finding a webmaster to improve the site and propose different interactions between visitors, bring in video formats for interviews. I’ve received a few propositions, need to consider them… In any case, I will continue to promote people that deserve it and I will try to bring more and more people with me to concerts using contests with free places to win! 

Feb 3, 2015
#interview #wisesound #french music blog #birth of joy #goldfrapp #bot'ox #concert reviews #wiselist #playlist series #whyd #plages electroniques #video
Milky Chance Interview: Passion, Spontaneity, and Creating "Sadnecessary"

You know their song “Stolen Dance,” you know how well it rhymes with their name, but what else do you know about Milky Chance? The German duo answers your questions in this Whyd interview:  

Your humble beginnings are well-documented. When you were in your home-made studio cutting “Sadnecessary" what were your realistic expectations?

We did not have any expectations. We just enjoyed the time making music and producing. There was nothing special we wanted to achieve. Music was just always our passion! 

How long had you been writing the songs on “Sadnecessary?” The depth of the lyrics implies that they are polished, or were those songs more spontaneous?

Stolen Dance took two and half years to write! We had some parts very early but the rest came to us very late. But there were other songs who came into existence in the studio within 15 minutes. In whole the album took us about two years… in any case, sometimes there are these strong feelings that make you write a song in a very short time. 

You probably get asked this all the time, but where does the name Milky Chance come from?

There is no story behind the name but there are often days when we ask ourselves how we came up with this stupid name :)

It was just that we had always several bands where we played, and we had written down some potential names and there came the day we had to choose one - we decided spontaneously! 

What was the best concert you have ever attend?

One of the best we’ve been to was the concert of James Blake, last December. 

What was it like to perform at the Bowery Ballroom in NYC?

It was our first gig in the USA, so a very big step for us! 

Feb 2, 20152 notes
#interview #milky chance #stolen dance #bowery ballroom #concert #sadnecessary #whyd #community #fans

January 2015

16 posts

Track of the Weekend #120: THYLACINE - "Closing" feat. Dyllan

Heavy wet snowflakes are falling here in Paris, and winter feels real. There is an indoor feeling, something cozy and warm, calling for a musical cocoon to envelop us. A perfect track for that cocoon is this week’s Track of the Weekend. “Closing" by THYLACINE feat. Dyllan is steady like the ocean waves, elevated on the wings of a soft, angelic voice until it drives through the build and attaches itself firmly into your memory.

The emerging French artist THYLACINE (which was the largest marsupial carvinore, also known as a Tazmanian Tiger, but is sadly now extinct) released his EP “Exil” this week, something to definitely get your hands on. 

Thanks (comme d’hab!) to Le Coup du Lapin for slipping it into our streams this week!

Jan 30, 2015
#music #thylacine #Track of the Weekend #hot tracks #popular music #dyllan #closing #exil #ep #le coup du lapin #whyd #community
Collective Soul: Playlist of Reference

Another week, another installment in our new series delivering you trendy subgenre Playlist of References curated with love and attention from our community of music lovers. But it’s not enough just to accept the music, we also want the story behind the curation. This week it’s Collective Soul curated by the creator of Underground Playlist, Sal Cannata.  

When did you start listening to Collective Soul?

Collective Soul is a recent addition to my playlist catalogue on Whyd. Soul music has always been one of my favorite genres and I have seen a big change in how it has been implemented in music the past several years. Generally when one thinks of Soul they tie it in with R&B but with all the cross-genre experimenting going on, a lot of Soul-based music has translated into a unique style of Indie music that touches the boundaries of other genres. Despite the different genre influences of these particular songs they all sound so right when placed next to each other. I thought it would be great to put together a sample of this kind of music that we feature on Underground Playlist and showcase a new wave of Soul music to the Whyd community.

Did you ever have a moment when you felt like Collective Soul started speaking to you?

Totally. I live for this kind of music. Soul singers bring a lot of passion to each lyric. The artists in these songs have a great way of conveying emotion and I connect with that a lot. It seems like whether these particular songs contain certain elements of Pop, Rock, R&B, or Electronic, the aspect of Soul brings everything together and connects with me in a big way.

What are some example situations when you would listen to this playlist yourself?

I find that the overall tone of this playlist centers around relaxation. That could be useful in pretty much any situation except for maybe the dance club. For me, I’ve found this playlist to be a great listen towards the end of the day as things wind down. Everyone listens to music differently so this playlist can be used for all sorts of things like during work, cooking dinner, lounging with your friends, the list goes on!

If you had to choose just one track from this playlist, which one would be your favorite?

It’s hard to choose just one track out of the 80+ in the playlist. From a Whyd experience the Robin Schulz remix of “Waves” is one of my favorite finds on Whyd. I remember just browsing around and clicking on the song to see what it was about and instantly became a fan. I love how a bootleg can turn into a mainstream hit a year or so later. It’s rare and awesome that I was able to witness that journey early in the game. When I would hear the song on the radio in front of my friends I’d make sure to let them know how long ago I first heard this song and where I found it. Thanks for the bragging rights Whyd! :)

From a more musical standpoint, Ben Howard’s cover of Keisza’s song “Hideaway” blows me away every time. I love how an artist can flip a song and give it a brand new feel. A few others that never get old to me are Jordan Bratton - “The Grey,” Harper - “Animal,” Shy Girls - “Renegade,” Ari Lennox - “Bound,” The Prince Fox remix of Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me,” and the newly added Kevin Garrett - “Coloring.” There are so many that I love but those are some standouts in this playlist. Stay tuned as I plan to update Collective Soul with new additions as time goes on!   

Thanks Underground Playlist! Check out the personal account of the creator of Underground Playlist, Sal Cannata for more Indie Soul and extra tracks! 

Jan 28, 2015
#music #playlist of reference #underground playlist #collective soul #feature #interview #whyd #community #curation
Presenting: Vinyl It! Print Your Own Customized Vinyl (And get 2 EURO off your order!)

Where did you get the idea for Vinyl It?

After having launched our own record label One One Six (which is not one anymore) with some friends and produced the dub producer DLSM we wanted to press some vinyl records of his Abyssum EP. But the problem was that we would have been forced to press 300 copies for about 1,200 euro, and we knew that between our family, friends, and fans, we would’ve sold only 50 copies: the loss of money and 250 copies in the flat was not the goal of the release…

Then we understood that a lot of small indie record labels had the same problem, actually, even bigger record labels can’t afford to press their entire catalogue on vinyl. It’s too risky and too expensive. We understood that nearly 90% of indie music was not available on vinyl, but diggers want to have access to those tracks. So we decided to create the Vinyl It platform, a place where diggers can create their own unique vinyl record from a catalogue of unpressed, indie tracks. 

How does it work?

Once a record label decides to come to the platform (via a license contract we sign together) their catalogue becomes available on vinylit.co. If you are a Jarring Effects fan, for instance, you come on vinylit.co, you select your favorite tracks in their catalogue (28 minutes maximum, 14 on each side), then you create your own sticker (if it’s a gift you can put a picture of your friend) and select the sleeve you want. Your record, which is unique because you made the tracklist from tracks that have never been pressed before, will be delivered in 8 days (for French customers). 

On our side, we launch the production of your record, and because we have the masters delivered directly by the record labels and because Valentin has been cutting vinyls for more than 10 years now, you will be happy with the finished product! 

When did you launch and what are your plans for 2015?

We launched on December 9th, 2014, with more than 1000 tracks and 20 record labels. Our plan for 2015 is to get your more choice of tracks on the platform, we think we can reach 100,000 tracks by the end of the year. Another thing is to improve the navigation and user experience for the diggers, as it’s not perfect today. In two months, a good music player and recommendation system will be implemented and your experience to dig another way will become a real pleasure. 

The English version should also arrive, soon!

What kind of music lovers will enjoy it? 

It’s really a platform for indie music lovers, who listen to vinyl records :)

I think the Whyd community will love this: we only have indie record labels that produce obscure tracks in their own niche. 

And we created our playlist “Killer Unpressed Tracks,” 4 out of 5 tracks were already added in playlists by Whyd members. Does it mean that we have the same good taste as the Whyd members? I don’t know but one thing is for sure, go to vinylit.co and you will be able to create one of the best records you have ever had in your collection. 

Follow us on Whyd, and create a Vinyl It account, you will be able to add tracks to your wish list.

Feel free to send us questions at: pierre at vinylit.com

Thanks for the opportunity, and from today until February 1st, Whyd members have a 2 euro reduction on their record by entering “WHYDIGGER” voucher on vinylit.co!

Jan 26, 2015
Track of the Weekend #119: Ibeyi - "Ghosts"

There were snowflakes in the air this morning as dawn broke over the city of light. For a moment, it looked like everything was frozen calm. Civilization at peace. But the heartbeat of life pulsed anew. For a city cannot have two identities. 

That double moment is best captured by this week’s Track of the Weekend by the Franco-Cuban twins know as Ibeyi. “Ghosts" is as delicate as a snowflake, and as unique too. The twin voices combine in jerking refrains that pull you in and out of time, not sure who is who, what is what. Their debut album is due out mid-February, so expect a lot more to come from these talented women. 

Thanks to RDCC for getting it to Whyd! 

Jan 23, 20151 note
#music #track of the weekend #ibeyi #ghosts #franco cuban #identity #paris #snow #whyd #RDCC #community #popular music #trending
Selecterz: Playlists by Artists You Love

Hey Pierre! How’s it going? Can you tell us about the main goal of Selecterz?

Hello Whyd! Everything is really good. The year started strong with the launch of the new version of Selecterz. The idea is simple: artists that I like make selections to share so I can discover new music. The site also proposes playlists, music videos, a focus on record labels, music channels, magazines. The goal: offer the best of what’s being made today, without being limited to style, and to guide music lovers through the vast desert that is the internet. 

How do you choose the artists that make playlists for you?

It’s just the artists that I like. There is no logical choice. The feeling that leads to it cannot be described. It comes from everyone. It’s also the feeling that makes me want to share. Know who listens to what. Smile when listening to certain tracks. Realize that an artist will be able to add tracks to their playlist that are completely separated from their universe. I tend to say that we are what we listen to, and I want to share these “stolen” moments, where we can get into the artist’s head for a few seconds. These playlist are also the best way to discover new tracks. 

Tell us about the new design for the site!

The new version is more user-friendly. You can finally search for the artists and playlists by style, shuffling from one style to another, learn about an artist, listen to their tracks on Soundcloud, YouTube, Deezer, and Spotify, and share them on Whyd! I wanted to make the site more visual, more attractive, and offer fast access to music without having to search. 

What are your objectives for 2015?

Keep evolving the site, developing new functionalities, welcoming new collaborators, and continued to make people discover new music from the ears of the artists. 

Follow Selecterz on Whyd and Like Selecterz on Facebook. 

Jan 22, 2015
#interview #selecterz #artist playlist #curation #whyd #partner #social network #sharing
Electro Swing: Playlist of Reference

Continuing with our latest initiative of delivering high quality playlists meticulously curated by our top music lovers, today we bring you a subgenre that combines old and new, and is rapidly pushing its way into the mainstream. It’s Electro Swing curated by Louis de Sentenac. Let’s get the story behind the playlist with this quick interview: 

When did you start listening to Electro Swing?

When one of my friends told me about Parov Stelar, who was releasing their album “That Swing” in 2009 with tracks like “Wanna Get” or “Kiss Kiss” that are big references in Electro Swing for me. You’ll see a lot of Parov Stelar in this playlist!

Did you ever have a moment when you felt like Electro Swing talked to you? 

I immediately attached myself to Electro Swing, I loved the vintage jazz and swing influences mixed with contemporary electronic that made it very danceable and excellent to listen to. 

What are some examples of situations when you listen to Electro Swing?

Most often it’s during aperos with friends, before heading out or to a concert, listening to Electro Swing gets me ready to go! 

If you had to choose just one track on this playlist, which one would be your favorite?

Man that’s not easy. Being a big fan of jazz I would lean towards a jazzier track: Dimaa - “Andrew” 

Thanks Louis! Here’s his Electro Swing Playlist in all of its glory. Please share with your friends who are in to Electro Swing! 

Jan 21, 20152 notes
#music #playlist of reference #electro swing #big band #electronic #louis de sentenac #whyd #curation #community
After Being Separated From His Homeland By War, Batida Finds His Link Back To Angolan Afrobeat [LONG FORM INTERVIEW]

In a small restaurant tucked behind République, the Melotron radio is stationed. There are tables, small and square, and the typical chairs that stud brasseries across this country. Colorful macaroons wait atop the bar. The kitchen is still cleaning the remnants from the lunch hour. Team Melotron is setting up the gopro to stream the upcoming set. Featured today: Batida, an Angolan-Portuguese musician whose energy is as apparent in his music as it is in his manner. 

Few interviews flow so naturally. He starts talking, a running stream of autobiographical information, Angolan history, and of course, music: both the music he makes and the music he loves. We start at the very beginning.

Tony Hymes for Whyd in bold, all photos property of Whyd.  

I grew up in Lisbon, but I’m from Angola. Because of the war my family went to Portugal or Brazil. The war was supposed to last a few years, but it started before I was born, and it ended 30 years after. That marks my growth. It’s reflected in how I deal with everything. You are in a different place, but the people around you all came from Angola. You keep listening to all of these stories, the music, the food, it’s all different at home vs. everywhere else. So it’s kind of growing into different realities. When you get to a teenage age you want to be involved in the place you are, you don’t connect with your parents stories anymore, now your friends are from here. Why should you keep listening to their old music when people are listening to new music?

When the war ended I had the chance to go back to Angola, almost in the same year and then I could understand a lot of things that I had in me that I was trying to avoid, or overlook, but it was impossible, certain sounds of guitars melodies, still today if I’m not aware it makes me creep. 

It’s like your mother’s music, something you dont want to listen to it, but after all this time I’m happy to listen to this music. 

Did you recognize a lot of it when you went back? 

Yeah, certain songs are historical, when you are a kid you don’t get the lyrics. A pop record from the 70s I listened to a lot as a kid, the lyrics were about going back, tomorrow we will go back. This is one of the most listened to songs at my house, I thought it was fun, Brazilian style from Angola, and one of the artists was a friend of the family. But now when I listen to the track I can understand what it’s takling about, going back to specific situations that people relate to. It’s very human, talks about very specific things. It has to do with the warmth of people, the look in the eye, the fact that people touch a lot, the hugs, social dancing. 

Does that warmth get into your latest album?

Definitely I try to get close to the people I work with, I try not to work with people that I don’t know only if I’m as close in other terms like with Fránçois and the Atlas Mountains. I didn’t know them but I got so involved with the record that when I finished the song I felt it was something special, and I met them afterwards, and played with them, and it made sense since they are so sweet, especially Fránçois. 

For the first track I found this old afro beat from Angola. When people think of afro beat they dont think of Angola. They think of Nigeria and I heard this vinyl from the 70s, an afro beat without drums, but it is afro beat. And I felt so happy because its something I’ve been tracing back to the 70s in Luanda, when it was a modern, cosmopolitan city, aiming for social and culture revolution, you can find a lot of modern things that I feel proud of there. 

The image that most people have of African cities is mostly crime, messy, or they aim for the ethnic or exotic look, it’s not something that’s very well promoted: sophistication. A city is a city, new things happen, a new synthesis happens, and in Angola specifically there is a new energy, the fact that the city was more modern, more modern even than Lisbon, makes me inspired. Like pretending to go back before the war started, how would you do it differently? Let’s go back and do it the right way, one people one nation, but there were lots of things that were missed, especially in music.

Instead of embracing the influences, the ruling parties nominated Simba as the national music, and lots of people were killed. I like to go back and find that moment, so I found that record, I played around with some beats, and I got to know the author of the sample. I am very happy when I am able to hug the sample, to play that song for a person, and to see their reaction, if it’s something he can feel passionate about too. 

Mataditi heard the first seconds and he said I thought there is a technical problem, and I said it was like that, and he made a strange face, and the music starts and he starts dancing, and he calls his wife and she comes and starts dancing, and they start laughing with each other, happy that something new was created with his music. 

When I was a kid and my family would get together, I would get all the kids and put on shows with choreography and I’ve done that for 20 years, it was something passionate about that. When I see a small child I pay a lot of attention because I think that most of our personality and character are already there, your ambition, the most important things are there. Then sometimes life pulls you in different ways. It happened like that for me, I was not growing up in my context, I was a bit mixed. But I’m happy it happened that way because I can relate to people in Lisbon, in Luanda, in Paris. So it’s great. Sometimes I feel like I have the ability to translate everyone to everyone. That’s what I try to do naturally. 

I think your music appeals more widely than music that’s more focused on a specific genre. You have this big world sound, to take the “batida,” which is Brazilian Portuguse for the drink meaning “shake,” it’s a big world sound, does that come from the name batida?

The name has to do with this imaginary growing up, hearing about adults talking about something else, that you don’t connect to, you can’t know what they are talking about so you imagine. It’s like when it’s winter and rains, but in a place where when it rains it’s fantastic, and people don’t know what that means. There is a dark side of that too before the independence. 

The planet is not on the same level around the world, but you have a lot of apartheids still going, and people just over look it. It’s related to those memories, but it’s also that batida is the name that everyone gives to a compilation. People’s favorite mixes that are sold on the street. You would put your own track on the batidas to get to the masses. Musicians going to curators and saying, “put me on the next pirate tape!” 

I said if I did something it would be to showcase others, and also if no label appears I will do it anyway. That was the main inspiration for the beginning of the project. It started as a radio show, let’s make a track, let’s promote artists. But then it evolved to music. I used the same software, Ableton Live, to make the radio show and I make music with it. 

I used to make radio shows since I was 16 and that was what has occupied my life. My stepfather was a jazz musician. I listened to music everyday, people playing bass in the living room. But since my relationship wtih him was not positive I stayed away from music, but eventually I couldn’t stay away. 

I started experimenting mixing things, sounds, then mixing tracks, and eventually there was a track Bazooka that came out of those experiments and the feedback was so great that maybe the way would be showcasing music of others or provoking producers with my other attempts to do things in a different way. 

I relate a lot to that more organic approach. Organic is a very strange word, but people said organic is like, an egg. When I say organic it’s more about looking for the life inside of that record or person. I could trace that in some productions but the majority was going after the world to conquer it, something that will never happen. 

Has the reception been notably different in Angola than Europe? How do Angolans view you? As a native son or foreign? 

I was worried about that actually, I show these tracks to friends and the biggest compliments I have were from the people where this music was produced and they didn’t believe me that I made the track, and I had to show them, and in the end they say “wow this guy actually did it!” And I feel organically related with everyone, to the place I was born, it’s not an album I made, this is something that only an Angolan could have made. Angolans pick out these little moments and it’s a bit sad because it sounds nationalistic but I like that I can push some of their buttons and relate personally to them. I like to do that in Angola, but I like to do that in Paris too, it’s about bringing people together, not separating people. 

What are your expectations from your latest album? Is this a step in the process of making more albums? 

I have a couple of other things I’m working on. I never thought to make just one album. I thought about doing two albums then do radio or documentaries, but the way that I’m able to do everything, docs, dances, radio, producing videos, I’m not just making records I’m doing everything.

I’m not subtracting but I’m adding forms of expression, so for me that’s fine, if I could keep doing everything that’s fine. For me everything is related, communicated, and in terms of music its about the rhythm and bringing people together to dance. 

And developing as a person, I’m not focused on commercial success, but the focus is to keep it going naturally, and in a way that’s possible, real, heartfelt. 

Do you have other hobbies? 

Helping other artists, helping on video shoots, photo shoots, to be involved but not on a professional level.

And the sea, I need to be near the sea.  

Buy Batida’s latest album on iTunes!

Jan 20, 20153 notes
#interview #batida #angola #afro beat #mix tape #Luanda #biography #francois and the atlas mountains #melotron #le beaurepaire #brazil #lisbon #portugal
Track of the Weekend #118: The Prodigy - "Nasty"

This week’s Track of the Weekend could not be any more different than last week’s. After the calming sounds of Isaac Delusion’s cover of Lou Reed, it’s time to go hardcore, and that means England’s favorite big beat group: The Prodigy. They’ve sold over 25 million records in their long careers, and their new album “The Day Is My Enemy” is due out at the end of March, sure to add heavily to that total. 

“Nasty" is like a street brawl between hooligans and the army, or a brick crashing through your living room window. It’ll thump brains at a rave but it also contains a level of melodic cohesion which reinforces why The Prodigy are who they are: it’s pure energy in the form of music. 

Thanks to MoiMateo and Mr. Rien for adding and sharing this across Whyd! 

Jan 16, 20151 note
#music #track of the weekend #the prodigy #nasty #the day is our enemy #moi mateo #mr rien #whyd #hot tracks #popular music #new release #social network
Indie Dance Playlist of Reference

Continuing in our series of Playlists of References comes an epic banger from Switzerland: Indie Dance. Time to get out your flower crowns, clip on your suspenders, and prepare to Instagram. But first, let’s get the story behind this 400+ track playlist from its curator, Rainer Etzweiler of RCKSTR Mag. 

When did you start listening to Indie Dance? 

Around 2007/08 when I started DJing and producing music. 

Did you ever have a moment when you felt like Indie Dance started speaking to you? 

A lot, if you count the remixes of pop or indie songs. Almost none if you don’t, there are not too many disco songs with heart-touching/deeply moving lyrics. Disco music is mostly about the simple things and that’s a good thing. 

What are some example situations when you would listen to this playlist yourself? 

Usually when I’m out for a run or when I have friends over at my flat. Also before I do a new mixtape, it helps me to pick the right tracks. 

If you had to choose just one track from this playlist, which one would be your favorite? 

Uhhhhh, that’s not easy. Especially since there are so many. I would go with one of my latest favorites: RAC - “Cheap Sunglasses” feat. Matthew Koma - Viceroy Remix. 

And now, cut loose: 

Jan 14, 2015
#music #playlist #playlist of reference #indie dance #nu disco #rainer etzweiler #RAC #remix #disco #interview #curation #story #whyd #subgenre
New Design, New Functionality, New Whyd

We’ve been quietly working on improvements for Whyd which hit the light of day yesterday. We are very proud to show off the new web version of Whyd, which brings the design in line with our iOS app and blog. You probably saw the changes! 

There are some big differences and some subtle changes. The overall design is cleaner, brighter, and largely more modern, eliminating the boxy feel the old version for a flatter design. We brightened the experience from the darker days of black and gray. 

Most importantly, we incorporated the ADD button into the search box, so now you can search for a track directly instead of clicking the button to add a track, then searching for it. Don’t worry, it’s the central feature of Whyd, we wanted to make it better and more intuitive! 

The new version also includes better navigation, with a drop down menu to access your playlists and the hot tracks from any page. We also opened the landing page so that people can see the tracks trending in our community without creating an account. 

In the next few weeks we will also release a new version of the bookmarklet which will let you import multiple tracks/entire playlists from different sources, so you can add everything you want to Whyd! 

We’d love to hear what you think, so tell us how you feel about the new version here: [tony at whyd dot com]

Never stop jamming! 

Jan 13, 20151 note
#update #whyd #announcement #new design #functionality #version #loick muller #adrien joly #damien romito
Your Weekly High Five: 5 Quality Tracks Per Week [Donnemencinq Interview]

Bonjour! When did you create Donnemencinq (Give me five)? Where did the concept come from? Do you give a lot of high fives? 

Hello! Donnemencinq was born in October of last year. I had wanted to launch a cultural project for a long time and instead of launching something too complicated, I prefered to start off with a simple and attractive start: each Monday one playlist with quality musical discoveries. 

The idea comes from two big motivations: my desire to share and my love for music and new sounds. 

Have you ever noticed that you always feel better after a high five? For me, every Monday I give myself a big high five and that guarantees me a successful week! 

You suggest playlist with five tracks each week. Where do you find these tracks? Why only five? 

I follow a lot of artists and labels on Soundcloud and on other social networks. Since I started to use Whyd I also discover more and more tracks thanks to other users’ playlists. 

Only five tracks for a question of quality. If we succeed in publishing five tracks that really make an impression on our visitors then we are already really happy. At the beginning it was a question of selecting one track per work day (from Monday to Friday) and finally we said that it would be even nicer to have a full list from the first day of work. 

Who should listen to your playlists? Tell us about your style of music, is it the same overall or does it change from week to week? 

Our playlists are made for the widest audience possible. Our goal is to make people discover tracks that haven’t been listened to a lot but deserve to be. We also like to bring back a few classics that have been forgotten. It’s important to remain accessible, it has to be a moment of pleasure! 

On the style side, even if we like electro, we pay attention to bringing diversity in our selections. We can go from one style to another very rapidly but we try to keep a certain progression to the flow of the playlist. 

We can we look forward to you in 2015? Do you have plans for world domination?

The project is still very young but we already have a lot of ideas. The next steps are: 

- Go to meet artists that have impressed us and interview them

- Create artwork for each playlist from talented photographers and graphic designers

- Present the latest news from artists that we really appreciate

With that, we might not dominate the world, but I’m sure that the simplicity and quality of our site will have a nice place in it! 

So Whyd, give me five! 

Follow Georges from Donnemencinq on Whyd, Like them on Facebook, and check back weekly for their latest playlists!

Jan 12, 20151 note
#interview #donnemencinq #give me five #high 5 #curation #playlist #blog #blogger #whyd #community #music for work #quality #selection #playlisting
Track of the Weekend #117: Isaac Delusion - "Take A Walk On The Wild Side" (Lou Reed Cover)

This week will never be forgetten. As we come to terms the startling and tragic events here in Paris, the violent murders of the editorial team and cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo, as well as the police officers who were killed, we have all become Charlie; stuck in a hazy dream mixed between disbelief, sadness, and of defiance, togetherness, and ultimately, comfort. A comfort knowing that extremism and terrorism will not change who we are, will not change what civilization has come to represent, will never, ever threaten the very ideals that stand larger than any single individual. 

The most popular track this tragic week on Whyd comes from the Paris band Isaac Delusion, who describe themselves as “almost like an accident, a dream scrawled blindly in a bedside journal in the early morning hours, so you won’t forget what happened to you while you were asleep.” It’s a cover of Lou Reed’s classic “Take A Walk On The Wild Side,” and it provides the perfect context for Isaac Delusion’s passion for soft, folk vocals. 

The editorial team at Charlie Hebdo certainly walked on the wild side, in fact it’s the only side they ever knew. And they paid the highest price for their defiance. We dedicate this Track of the Weekend to their souls, the brave police officers who tried to protect them, and their mourning families and friends. 

Jan 9, 20151 note
#music #track of the weekend #lou reed #cover #isaac delusion #take a walk on the wild side #whyd #charlie hebdo #tribute #folk #vocal
Deep House: Playlist of Reference

We’re continuing our mission of providing you with incredible music to listen to, and we have tapped our top music lovers who are experts in certain subgenres of music to feature their playlists in our Playlist of Reference series. To fully appreciate the selection, here is the story behind the playlist, as told by the curator. 

Today we’re featuring the Deep playlist curated by Tis.

When did you start listening to Deep?

Most of my playlists are genre-related and I created Deep in April 2013, mostly to share deep house/deep techno tracks at the beginning by then it evolved to sharing also ambient, peaceful, and mental tracks without “musical genre barriers.”

Did you ever have a moment when you felt like Deep started speaking to you?

I guess that when you want to have a musical background that’s peaceful for the mind, it’s noticeable that after a few tracks you begin to really pay attention to the music and appreciate it.

What are some example situations when you would listen to this playlist yourself?

I mostly listen to this playlist at work, most of the songs don’t have lyrics and are relaxing, so it’s easier to focus.

If you had to choose just one track from this playlist, which one would be your favorite?

One song is hard to choose… let me give you 3!

FCL - “It’s you” (San Soda’s Panorama Bar Acca Version): a great cover of the classic Chicago house track from ESP (1989) and a big souvenir from Berlin afterclubbing.

Visonia - “Lunar Garden” an oniric techno track that I discovered this year, deeply mental. A great voyage for the mind.

Brian Eno: “An Ending (ascent)” because, Brian Eno.  

Jan 7, 20151 note
#music #playlist #playlist of reference #deep #deep house #deep techno #fcl #visionia #brian eno #mathieu pommaret #tis #whyd #community #interview #subgenre #expert
La Fine Équipe Answers Your Questions: Music as Food, The Process of Collaboration, and Being Connectors of Sound [LONG FORM INTERVIEW]

It’s a cold December evening near Père Lachaise as the door to The Bunker buzzes open. Up a concrete staircase that evokes thoughts of nuclear destruction, voices can be heard. Camera shutters are snapping. Moving up a level it’s clear that the bunker is alive. 

We’re at the studio of La Fine Équipe, winners of the 112th Whyd Track of the Weekend and a group that has started to lift off in the French music scene. Comprised of 4 producers, their styles are varied like gummies in a bag of Haribo. But put together, there is a sugary goodness that is undeniably addictive. And the world is starting to take note. 

Cameras are repacked, hands are shaken, and finally it’s time for the last interview of the day, with Whyd, before the guys can get back to their families and lives. In my hand are fresh questions that we crowd-sourced from the community, from the huge pool of fans that have added, liked and re-added the delicious tracks from “La Boulangerie 3” which came out at the beginning of December, boasting the likes of Fakear, 20syl, Souleance, and more.

Three out of the four of La Fine Équipe sit down in chairs in the studio, backed by monitors and keyboards, known on the stage as oOgo, Mr. Gib, and Chomskey. The fourth, Blanka, is not in town. Considering their busy schedules, it’s already a win to get three of them. They are casually dressed, more comfortable than hipster. The mic clicks on.

The following interview is translated from French, and their stage names dissolve into their real names: Hugo, Vincent, and Mathieu. All photos property of Whyd. Interviewer in BOLD

Your music is shared quite often by the Whyd community. I sent an email to the music lovers who have shared your tracks, asking them if they have questions for you. They got back to me with a few questions that I’m happy to ask you, so here we go! 

Your individual styles are rather different, who are your major influences? What about inspiration? Could be artists, moments, genres?   

Hugo: I’ve listened to a little bit of everything, and I was very quickly drawn towards soul and jazz, but what really gave me the desire to create music was hip hop, around 1996. The first track that I heard that really got me, as an adolescent on a high school trip, was by Cypress Hill. A friend had it on a cassette on the bus. 

Mathieu: It’s the same for me, hip hop, and DJ Crush and DJ Shadow. That was huge for me, incredible. I didn’t know all of the samples that they used, so it was really hip hop and then the sources of hip hop, I would go searching for vinyls, in antique markets, record shops, online, looking for the hard to find discs. We had a scratch group at the very beginning and afterwards we evolved into making our own music. 

Vincent: My family was very into music. We were always listening to it, I started playing music with my brother and after that I met people who were playing hip hop and I loved it, so we started to make music together. I love cinematic music, soundtracks, the composers, there is a link to that and hip hop too: you can find everything in the libraries of film soundtracks. 

Yeah, I think that the theme to Jurassic Park is one of the best songs ever! 

Hugo: We play that when we play at festivals! 

Mathieu

If you had to choose a favorite contemporary artist, who would it be? 

Hugo: Every time we are asked this question it’s impossible to find one. It’s like restaurants. You know a ton of great places to eat, but when someone asks you, you can’t think of one! 

Maybe it doesn’t have to be from this moment. I just discovered Mel Tormé, who is nothing new, but he’s new to me and that’s what I’m listening to right now. 

Vincent: Serge Gainsbourg, he’s French and he truly knew how to make good songs. He was varied in his styles, and was so interesting for being able to recover classic melodies. 

Have you ever tried to remix him?

Vincent: Yes, of course, just for fun. He had a great sense of rhythm, a way of capturing music, he was really focused on the sound, not just making a song to say something quickly. 

Mathieu: Danger Mouse, just awesome. When he got together with Jack White and Norah Jones it was just super. I believe that when he does a project it’s really well done, even if artistically there might be others who can be stronger, he is extremely consistent.  

Have you ever tried to remix him?

Mathieu: No, but “Danger Doom” was absolutely something I put into my DJ sets. Scratching with it, but for pleasure, and fun. 

Hugo: I can’t really answer, there are so many artists in my head, but one that comes to mind without really thinking about it is Flying Lotus, very complete, an artist that pushes the envelope very far. You will always discover something new, he’s big right now. 

Hugo

For the creation of La Boulangerie 3, I noticed that each track was made by a different beatmaker. Do you work together or separately? 

Hugo: There are no rules, we compare it to making food. We invite a chef, a “cuisinier,” and we ask them to give us a recipe. Since we had already made La Boulangerie 1 and 2, they had an idea of what we were asking for. There were examples where someone takes the track from beginning to end almost completely by themselves. It’s the same with the artists, some of them gave us “ready to eat” plates, while others gave us just the ingredients. 

So you guys are really the connectors of sound, are there not rules about who adds what?

Vincent: We have habits about how we work, but we are all producers. 

Mathieu: We go back and forth a lot, we make everyone listen. 

Is there someone who gets their way more than the others in the La Fine Équipe? I mean, you have very different styles! Does anyone have the final word? 

Vincent: There has to be a “chef d’orchestre,” otherwise we couldn’t get things done, because we are also a label so there is marketing, etc. 

Hugo: We’ve been working together for a while rather easily, our decisions are generally taken together. We try to make good tracks, and since there are different styles, each person knows how to help in their regard. Sometimes there are tracks that are more electronic, or hip hop, so they fall under different members. There are so many tracks in this project because we want to include all aspects of everyone.  

So you focus on making a good track first, and then you rework it.

Hugo: Yeah exactly, we work on the train, during commutes, everywhere.

Vincent

You guys do interviews all the time now, you’ve been working together for a while, and you’ve gotten to this level now where you’re working with big acts. Do you think this style of production is sustainable? Is it an advantage? Meaning to make a track and try to classify it later? 

Hugo: Well, in any case it’s how we work. Do this, do that, we tried all those things, but we are not really careerists, we are in this for the music, we are lucky that it works, and we have the ability to be free. Our character is anti-rules.

Vincent: We are more from the Myspace generation. Today on Soundcloud there is so much music from new young producers, that people really want to wait until they have a great track to publish. 

Hugo: Yeah but there are people who post songs everyday too on Soundcloud. 

But it’s true, in the Myspace days, there was no Garageband, not everyone had Ableton. But now it’s a different thing. 

Vincent: Because there are so many songs, there isn’t a lot of quality, so instead of posting they hold off. It has to be perfect because they know that there is so much stuff. 

Mathieu: Since we are a bit older we also knew the idea of the album, to tell a story, like a filmmaker.  

There might be a contradiction there. Since you say that you work on a track, trying just to make good tracks, but then you say that the album format is important, a story, like a film. But how can you make a film with 12 tracks created for their own individual sake? 

Mathieu: It’s not contradictory in the sense that you make tracks. It’s you who makes them, and over a period of time you are going to have consistency. Sure, you can have fun making little tracks, but the idea is that I want to make music, and today I’m trying to express this emotion, so I have a style that runs between. If you release 40 tracks in a year, I’m sure that you will have at least 20 that are actually telling the same story. And it’s in that form that you make an album. 

I understand, it’s the artist that comes out, even if we want to do 5 different things, we just end up doing the same thing 5 different ways. 

Mathieu: A painter who does pointillism, he is still going to want to do other things, but you are going to find coherent elements in his style. The “file conducteur.”

How did you have the idea of La Boulangerie? I’m sure it’s a question that you get often, but who chooses the names for the songs? Is it you or the artists?  

The first Boulangerie was an homage to J Dilla, the beatmaker from Detroit who released an album called “Donuts” shortly before he died. We would’ve called our album “Croissant” but Boulangerie was larger, it opens up more possibilities, from naming the tracks to graphics, etc. It was much more exciting. 

It’s true that it’s a warm image, going on Sunday morning to get your baguette, it’s welcoming. 

Hugo: We also think about consuming music like we consume food, and this concept was full of different morsels: sweets, salty, the pleasure of eating. 

Plus for French people you will find a lot of fans of the Boulangerie… Second to last question, when will you go to Tours? 

When you invite us! Plus we have some great friends there, Chill Bump for example, our friends that we go on tour with so yeah, with pleasure! 

When you aren’t making music, what do you do for fun? 

Vincent: We work on the label.

Hugo: Go out, go to clubs, go to restaurants, eat, drink. 

Mathieu: I’m a sound engineer so I work on that, I’ve got my geek side. Plus my family. 

Hugo: Plus there is Blanka, who has a studio and spends a lot of time there, and he has a project called Jukebox Champions. They do hip hop instrumentals. 

Thanks guys! And a big thanks to every one from the Whyd community that sent in their questions for La Fine Équipe! Never stop jamming! 

Jan 5, 2015
#interview #la fine equipe #la boulangerie 3 #oogo #mr gib #french #electronic #music #collaboration #album #the bunker #studio #whyd #community sourced #questions #chomskey #j dilla #homage #hip hop #scratch #cinema #score #soundtrack #production #technique
Track of the Weekend #116: Mark Ronson - "Uptown Funk" feat. Bruno Mars

The first track of the weekend of 2015, and it’s a marker of how we’ve come. When Whyd first began, we feared the day that Bruno Mars - known for his incredibly commercialized mainstream pop songs that included “Grenade,” a low point for the human race; “Marry Me” the song which says very clearly and repeatedly “We’re looking for something dumb to do, hey baby, I think I wanna marry you.” (people actually use this song to propose to their significant others…); followed by “Lighters” which furthered lowered the bar so low that it had no choice but to start coming back up again - would trend on Whyd. For that to happen, it would mean that the mainstream was beginning to adopt Whyd in large numbers. As you can probably imagine by this point, that’s where we are today. Let’s just call this moment bittersweet. 

Mark Ronson has been working with Bruno Mars for a long time, and if you look at his production credits, he’s worked with basically everyone else too. “Uptown Funk" is exactly what you would expect: energetic, some funky dance moves, all taking place above Central Park. The man deserves our respect, and this track will definitely add an extra step to your weekend festivities. 

Thanks to Vietman for getting it to us! 

Jan 2, 2015
#music #mark ronson streaming #uptown funk #bruno mars #track of the weekend #vietman #community #hot tracks #popular music
May 2015 Be Your Best Year Yet

Never Stop Jamming

Jan 2, 2015

December 2014

14 posts

Your New Year's Eve Party Playlist

How important is a good New Year’s Eve playlist? Well, NYE is not like other parties. Everyone is obliged to party. Everyone has expectations. It’s not your birthday, where your loved ones surround you to celebrate you. It’s something completely different, and everyone wants, no, NEEDS, to have a great time. 

You need up-beat music that can drive people, you need some classic tracks that people recognize, mixed in with some recent hits, but they can’t lag and they can’t let up. You want people to feel like the new year is all about hope and potential. You want people to forget about themselves, let the champagne roll down their throats and just, fucking, dance. 

Here’s our last gift to you in 2014, enjoy, and never stop jamming! 

Dec 31, 20141 note
#New Year's Eve #Happy New Year #2015 #whyd #playlist #dance #nu disco #indie dance #music
Interview with Dear Joy: French Lifestyle Blogger

Hello Joy! When did you start to be a lifestyle blogger with DearJoy? Were you a writer before? 

Hello! I started to blog on DearJoy December 5th, 2012, today my blog is over two years old and I’m really proud of that! It’s true that I’ve always loved to write, one could say that I had a lot of imagination when I was doing my homework at school. I think that I prefer to read, so we could say that those two things come together perfectly. This blog lets me write, to share, and to follow other blogs that I really like to read. 

Who are your current readers? Who else should read your blog? 

My readers are everyone :) Basically my blog is aimed at a younger and more dynamic readership, creative and having the same centers of interest as I. But I think that everyone, regardless of age (in a moment of boredom) can stop by the blog that read what I wrote or at least look at the photos and videos. My blog should be read by those who want to read it, the door is always open. 

How do you integrate music into your blog? What are the genres of music that you like? Favorite artists? 

I integrate music into my blog thanks to Whyd, you guys know it? ;)

I don’t have predefined genres, and when it comes to music, I just follow what I like. When I like a song I don’t care about knowing the style, genre, etc. Just the fact that I like it is all that counts! So it’s really difficult to answer this questions when I like tons of artists, but I would say: OneRepublic, 2ne1, Tokio Hotel, Stromae, Kendji, Maroon 5, Major Lazer, Miley Cyrus, Macklemore, Gypsy Kings, Sia, Mika…

Do you have plans for 2015 and beyond? Ambitions for the development of DearJoy? 

For the moment no, I don’t have plans for 2015 or after, it’s day to day with my blog. Propositions can come today like in two weeks, it’s completely winging it. For the evolution, I am looking to go from the Blogger platform to Wordpress, which from everything I’ve heard would be better and more complete. 

Thanks Joy! Make sure to subscribe to Joy on Whyd, follow Joy on Twitter and like her Facebook page to keep up with her latest trends! 

Dec 30, 20141 note
#interview #dearjoy #joy #french #lifestyle #blogger #selection #playlist #writing #reading #whyd #community #music lover
The Whyd Team's Coups de Coeur of 2014

What a year! We’ve welcomed masses of new music lovers to our community, and there is an energy that pulses every day across the network. To sum up 2014, we dropped our Playlist of the Year last week, and we also crowned 20syl the Artist of the Year. 

So now, it’s our turn! We asked the diverse group of music lovers, the Whyd team, what our favorite albums from 2014 are. What do you think?

Shaka Ponk - “The White Pixel Ape”

The French experimental rock band is back with their latest effort, an energetic mix of popular and world music. 

Breton - “War Room Stories”

The Berlin-based group originally from London released this gem under Believe Recordings, strong and unexpected, like mixing whisky and espresso. 

Damien Rice - “My Favourite Faded Fantasy”

Ireland’s darling son croons his way through his latest release, laying earnest poetry atop beautiful melodies with veritable authenticity. 

Father Figure - “Heavy Meddlers”

This album brilliantly reconciles three genres: math-rock, jazz, and progressive rock. The result is pure intellectual and sensorial pleasure, from the first notes to the last. 

SBTRKT - “Wonder Where We Land”

The hidden person behind London’s SBTRKT prefers to have the music speak for itself. This album speaks loud and clear, with his signature blend of hip hop, pop, and electronic styles. 

FKA Twigs - “LP1”

Tahliah Barnett released this, her first full album, this year to immediate success thanks to its complicated R&B mash up of original vocals and familiar pop backing. 

Beyoncé - “Beyoncé”

You know who she is. You can probably sing more than a few of her songs off the top of your head. But damn, she made one hell of an album this year, and gave it a very appropriate name. 

Nick Warren Presents: The Soundgarden

This compilation by the English house DJ of purely instrumental electronic music will give you 3+ hours of mental focus. Use it when you need to tackle a huge obstacle. 

Dec 29, 20142 notes
#music #whyd #albums of the year #fka twigs #beyonce #breton #nick warren #the soundgarden #sbtrkt #father figure #damien rice #shaka ponk #the white pixel ape #war room stories #my favourite faded fantasy #heavy meddlers #wonder where we land
The Hottest Tracks of 2014

Every week we monitor which tracks are racing to the top of the Whyd hot tracks. Every week we listen to an array of awesome songs that rise and fall from the top. Every week the community speaks, and listens, and a winner is crowned. 

The Track of the Weekend has been honoring music for 2 and a half years. 2014 proved even more diverse, as our global community continues to cast a wider net. It’s also starting to get a bit more mainstream, as popular tracks from hot artists get launched on a journey around the world. 

So here they are, all of the Tracks of the Weekend from this year, the definitive playlist of the absolute best music of 2014, as determined by our fabulous community of music lovers:

Never stop jamming!

Dec 23, 20142 notes
#music #whyd #year end playlist #hot music #popular songs #hottest music on whyd #tracks of the weekend #community #top 50 #2014
Quick Interview: Sekuoia's Other-Worldy Sounds

Sekuoia is an emerging, electronic artist from Copenhagen, being shared like crazy across Whyd, so we went and asked him a few quick questions! 

Hey Sekuoia! How’s it going? When did you start making music and did you ever have a defining moment when you thought: hey, “I can do this!”

All good here in Copenhagen! Yeah, I guess it was when I played Roskilde Festival in 2013. That was a turning point.

Your music often sounds like it comes from another world. How do you start working on a new track? Are you trying to achieve a certain sound or do you experiment and keep what you like?

I guess I have various approaches to making a track. I think it important not to get stuck in routines, as I find this somehow limits ones sound. I guess I just want to achieve a sound that is somehow reflective of who I am, and a sound that is organic in one way or another.

How has your music evolved over the course of your career, and who are your biggest influences?

I think my music has become more band-like and more dynamic, I try not to think to much about it, and instead just develop naturally. Biggest influences would be Flying Lotus, James Blake, Four Tet etc.

What can we look forward to from you in 2015 and beyond?

A new EP, and perhaps also some side projects.

Thanks Sekuoia! 

Dec 22, 20141 note
#interview #electronic #sekuoia #whyd #social network #ep #copenhagen #denmark #emerging artist #experimental
Track of the Weekend #115: Hayden James - "Something About You"

Hanukkah is in full swing - Happy Hanukkah everyone! 

Christmas is just around the corner - Merry Christmas everyone!

And the New Year is coming fast - too soon to wish you a Happy New Year :) 

All of that means that it’s party time, to get together with friends and family and celebrate. And no celebration can exist without music. This week a new track from the Australian Hayden James called “Something About You" dropped, and it ignited the hot tracks like an outback brushfire. Why? Because it’s the perfect song to fit into your celebration soundtrack: pleasant like a baby koala, hoppy like a kangaroo, and not clichéd, unlike all of our terrible Australian references! 

Thanks to Lucile Araud for sending it up first! 

Dec 19, 2014
#music #hayden james #future classic #something about you #lucile araud #hot tracks #whyd #community #new track #track of the weekend #hanukkah #christmas #holidays #celebration
20syl: Whyd's Artist of the Year 2014

Since the very beginning of Whyd we’ve been attracted to unique sounds. The first tracks shared across the platform were from obscure artists experimenting with original beats and unheard melodies. Now as we’ve grown into a buzzing community of music curators, we have been fortunate enough to follow the careers of these artists, some of whom have fallen into obscurity, and others who have blossomed into one-of-a-kind masters of their trade. 

Throughout 2013 there was the brother duo of Disclosure that kept on claiming the honor of the Whyd Track of the Weekend. Week after week new remixes and versions of their tracks popped up and shot to the top of the hot tracks. Their dominance was such that we had to come up with a new title for them: Artist of the Year. 

It was a tradition we wanted to continue this year, so we kept our eye on which artist was being shared the most across the entire global platform. 

No one on Whyd is a stranger to C2C, the DJ group whose album “Tetra” set fire to electronic music around the world last year. Many of our hip hop lovers also know Hocus Pocus. One of the members of these groups kept releasing remixes throughout 2014, and those remixes frequently ended up as the Track of the Weekend. That artist is 20syl. 

20syl, or Sylvain Richard, comes from Nantes, France. He is an acclaimed turntablist and rapper from On and On Records. We are proud to present this honor to such a gifted artist and music visionary.

Félicitations 20syl! 

Dec 16, 20142 notes
#20syl #C2C #on and on records #Tetra #hocus pocus #disclosure #artist of the year #whyd #hot tracks #tracks of the weekend #remix
Track of the Weekend #114: The Dø - "Miracles" Parrod Remix

As we’re plowing towards the end of the year we are looking forward to everything that 2015 has in store. But first, we have to celebrate the end of this incredible year. Our team is slowly reuniting in Paris, and there are christmas parties on the horizon. Next week we will be announcing the hottest tracks of 2014, along with our favorite albums and the Artist of the Year on Whyd. 

But first, to get you in the mood for the weekend, Parrad's epic remix of The Dø's “Miracle" will rock you to your foundation, turn it up for an epic weekend. 

Thanks to Louis de Sentenac for getting it to us first! 

Dec 12, 2014
#music #parrod #track of the weekend #whyd #hot tracks #louis de sentenac #the do #miracles #remix
Chinese Man: The Whyd Interview [in English & French]

This interview was originally in French and translated into English. Pour la version originale en français, scrollez en bas! All photos courtesy of Chinese Man. 

Hello! You are three people in the group Chinese Man: Zé Mateo, SLY, and High Ku. About 10 years ago you started making music together, how? Was there ever a moment when you realized, “shit, we can really do this!”?

We started to make music together around 2003/04 but all three of us already had experience in the domains of Hip Hop and Electronic music. Our first project was the “Pandi Groove EP” (Buy it here) which came out on 500 copies mainly directed towards DJs and people in our entourage.

Then we composed the track “I’ve got that tune” that worked really well and let us launch the group Chinese Man and the label Chinese Man Records.

It was that moment when we said: “shit, we can really do this! We can live off of our music!”

Your track “I’ve Got That Tune” came out seven years ago, and we get the impression that a lot of artists are trying to imitate it right now. How did you create such a unique sound back then? 

The magic of creation. When we produced that track, we were trying to redo the paint at our studio in Ardèche. Sly unfortunately caused the ladder to fall, which hit the turntable that was playing the original of “I’ve Got That Tune.” The record went to 45 speed and we had the revelation. Incredible. We couldn’t get enough of it! 

It’s the same with your original verses, rapped in English! For a group from France, why English? Did Molière already use all of the good rhymes? 

It’s true that Molière wrote some great punchlines in French! But the reasons are much more simple: our primary musical influence is anglo-saxon music and mostly 90’s Hip Hop from the US so it seemed logical to us to collaborate with MCs that expressed themselves in English. And that language sticks better to our music, quite simply! 

You are on the third volume of the “Groove Sessions,” a series that began in 2007. How have the sessions evolved since the beginning? How do you approach these records?

The Groove Sessions project is a series of compilations from the artists on Chinese Man Records, the goal is to present the label’s work from one or more years. So it’s a series that lets out different groups on Chinese Man Records to experiment and express themselves differently from other albums. 

The main evolution of Groove Sessions comes from the number of artists present since 2007, adding Deluxe, Taiwan MC, LeYan or Skoob le Roi to the label. 

What can we look forward to from Chinese Man in 2015? 

Right now we are working on a new EP that should come out in spring featuring new compositions and remixes from other French artists (High Tone, Al’Tarba…). 

We will be touring in France and abroad with our latest show too. There will also be a lot of news from the label in 2015 with the new record of the group Deluxe, Taiwan MC’s project, and a lot of other surprises! 

Thanks guys! 

Bonjour! Vous êtes 3 dans le groupe Chinese Man, Zé Mateo, SLY et High Ku. Il y a 10 ans, comment est-ce que vous avez commencé de créer la musique ensemble? Est-ce que il y avait un moment ou vous avez rendu compte que “putain, on peut vraiment faire ça!!”? 

On a commencé à faire de la musique ensemble vers 2003-2004 mais si on avait tout les 3 de l’experience dans le domaine du Hip Hop et de la musique électronique. Notre premier projet a été le “Pandi Groove EP" sortit à 500 copies et principalement destinés au DJs et aux amis de notre entourage.

Puis on a composé le morceau “I’ve got that tune” qui a bien marché et qui nous a permis de lance le groupe Chinese Man et le label Chinese Man records. C’est à ce moment là qu’on s’est dit: “putain, on peut vraiment faire ça, on peut vivre de notre musique!”

Votre track “I’ve Got That Tune” a sorti il y a 7 ans maintenant, et on a l’impression que beaucoup des artistes essaient de lui imiter en ce moment. Comment est-ce que vous avez créé ce son atypique à l’époque? 

La magie de la création. Au moment de produire ce titre, nous étions en train de refaire les peintures de notre studio en Ardèche. Sly a malheureusement fait tomber l’échelle, un coup sur la platine qui était en train de jouer l’original de I’ve got that tune. Le disque est passé en 45 tours et nous avons eu la révélation. Incroyable. Nous avons tous repris des lasagnes ce soir là… 

C’est pareil avec les verses rappé en anglais! Pour une groupe avec ses origins en France, pourquoi l’anglais? Molière avait-il pris déjà toutes les bonnes rimes? ;) 

C’est vrai que Molière a écrit quelques bonne punchlines en français! Mais les raisons sont plus simple: notre influence musicale principale est la musique anglo-saxonne et plus principalement le Hip Hop US des 90’s donc il nous semble logique de collaborer avec des MC qui s’expriment en anglais. Et puis cette langue colle mieux à notre musique, tout simplement!

Vous êtes sur número 3 des “The Groove Sessions,” une series qui a commencé en 2007. Comment les sessions ont évolué depuis son début? Comment vous approchez ces disques? 

Le projet des Groove Sessions est série de compilations des artistes du label Chinese Man records, le but est de presenter le travail du label sur une ou plusieurs années. C’est donc une série qui permet aux différents groupes de Chinese Man records d’expérimenter et de s’exprimer différemment d’un album.

La principale evolution des Groove Sessions se situe au nombre d’artistes présent puisque depuis 2007, Deluxe, Taiwan MC, LeYan ou Skoob le Roi on rejoint le label.

Qu’est qu’on peut attendre de Chinese Man dans 2015? 

Nous travaillons en ce moment sur un nouvel EP qui devrait sortir au printemps avec de nouvelles compositions et des remixes réalisés par d’autres artistes français (High Tone, Al’Tarba…). On sera également en tournée en France et à l’étranger avec notre dernier show.

L’actualité du label va aussi être assez riche en 2015 avec le nouveau disque du groupe Deluxe, le nouveau projet de Taiwan MC et plein d’autres surprises!

Dec 8, 2014
#chinese man #chinese man records #hip hop #france #90s #panda groove #Ive got that tune #interview #artist #whyd
Track of the Weekend #113: Panthère - "Storm"

The northern hemisphere darkens as December begins. Night falls before our afternoon coffees. It’s a time of transition, towards the bitterness of winter. If there was one song that could contain this feeling, and relate to the inner turbulence in us all, it’s “Storm" by Panthère, the most popular track on Whyd this week. 

You will recognize the voice of Nili Hadida, the singer from Lilly Wood and the Prick, and the beats come from some of the dudes at Club Cheval. It’s a challenging sound, accompanied by a steamy video, indulging the forbidden parts of our mind and desires while ultimately rewarding our self exploration with muted satisfaction. 

Thanks to Maxime M. from Coloring My Clouds for sharing it with us!

Dec 5, 20141 note
#lilly wood and the prick #nili hadida #club cheval #panthere #storm #track of the weekend #music #whyd #maxime m #coloring my clouds #hot music
West Coast Hip Hop: Playlist of Reference

Our new initiative at Whyd is to provide excellent playlist of reference that revolve around a specific subgenre or theme of music. But we don’t want to just give you music, we want to give you the story of its creation, and curation.

Music is awesome, music with context is what we should all strive for. 

Today we’re featuring the West Coast Hip Hop playlist curated by Slimane. 

Can you introduce yourself Slimane? Where are you from and what do you do in life? 

My name is Slimane, I’m 23, and I come from Caen, Normandy, although I now live in Paris. I started to work for a start up in the field of social media 6 months ago. 

When did you start listening to West Coast Hip Hop?

I guess my first experience with West Coast Hip Hop was Snoop (“Doggy” at the time!) Dogg’s “What’s my name.” I got hooked by the G-Funk sound, the crazy synthesizers and the laid back yet technical flow.

What are some example situations when you would listen to this playlist yourself?

Anytime! What’s good about West Coast Hip Hop is that it’s both chilled and intense. Best suited for cruising under the sun I guess, but it works fine at parties or whenever you want to get pumped up.

If you had to choose just one track from this playlist, which one would be your favorite?

It would be Eazy-E’s “Real Muthaphukkin Gs.” There’s everything a good west coast song needs: a whining synth, a crazy bassline, and to me it’s the definite beef-song, Eazy-E and his friends thrashing Dr. Dre and Snoop Doog. It’s a classic!

Dec 4, 2014
#playlist #music #playlist of reference #whyd #hip hop #west coast #snoop dogg #dr. dre #slimane #zliman #community #g funk #synth #bassline #caen #normandy #paris #eazy e
The Blog Sound of 2015: PLAYLIST

It’s getting towards the end of the year, with little under a month to go until 2015. True, for most of us, by the time 2015 came around we thought we would have flying cars and cities in the sky, but at least we have Facebook…

What we do have is an extraordinary music landscape, with more and more new, talented artists emerging every single day. So, what will be the trending sounds of 2015? 62 UK bloggers came together to make a 15 track longlist of what they feel will be the breakthrough musical acts of the coming year.

One of our top Whyd music lovers, Music Like Dirt, participated in the nominations, and was kind enough to put together a playlist of the winners (with his personal selections sprinkled in for good measure). It’s one hell of a crowdsourced playlist, and puts Hypemachine to shame!

What do you think? Who will be the breakthrough acts of 2015 in your (always humble) opinion? Tell us on Twitter!

On est presque à la fin de l’année, avec juste un petit mois avant 2015. Oui, c’est vrai, quand on a visionné 2015, on aura pensé d’avoir des voitures qui volent ou les villes dans le ciel, mais au moins on a Facebook…

Mais il y a quelque chose qu’on a c’est une paysage des artistes musicaux avec plus et plus des nouvelles groupes talentueux qui sortent tous les jours. Donc, quel va être le son qui marque 2015? 62 bloggeurs dans l’UK se sont réunis ensemble pour créer une liste definitive des leurs coups de coeur pour l’année prochaine.

Un des nos top music lovers, Music Like Dirt, a participé avec les nominations, et il était si sympa de construire une playlist avec les gagneurs (avec ses selections ajoutés là dedans aussi). C’est une playlist incroyable, encore mieux que Hypemachine!

Qu’est-ce que vous en pensez? Qui va être la grosse groupe de 2015 en votre avi? Dîtes-nous sur Twitter!   

Dec 3, 2014
#blog sound of 2015 #future music #music like dirt #blogs #hypemachine #french #english #twitter #curation #crowdsourcing
New Blog Design!

Look around you, notice anything different? As we modernize all of the Whyd properties, we are bringing everything in line with our style guide: large, beautiful images; a cleaner, brighter feel; and a simpler layout.

All of these elements are designed to put the content forward: to let our music lovers shine and to help our community more easily access the wealth of media that we have and continue to produce. Special thanks to Loïck for his vision and to Damien for putting it in place!  

Since the beginning of this blog back in 2012, we’ve featured hundreds of artists, playlists, and tracks of the weekend. We have made announcements and explained updates. We’ve pointed out funny things that happen too. And most importantly, we’ve laid out and reaffirmed our vision.

There are many exciting things coming to Whyd is 2015, and we can’t tell you enough how happy we are to have you with us.

Never stop jamming!

PS: Like the new design? Hate it? Tell us what you think [tony at whyd dot com]  

Dec 2, 20141 note
#update #new blog #design #whyd #style guide
Big News: Send us your questions for La Fine Équipe!

After a celebratory weekend where we formally gave thanks for everything that we are fortunate enough to have, we can celebrate another cool opportunity that we are fortunate enough to have: on Friday, the Fine Équipe x Fakear combination “Cheese Naan" was crowned the Track of the Weekend. This week, we will have the honor of interviewing La Fine Équipe at their studio here in Paris! While we can think of about 1,000 questions, we want you to tell us what you would like to ask La Fine Équipe! 

So send us your questions (tony at whyd dot com) and we will ask them for you, publishing the answers in our Whyd interview. 

Bonjour! Après un weekend ou on a vraiment fêté Thanksgiving, on dit merci pour tout ce qu’on a, et maintenant on peut fêter encore une autre opportunité très cool. La semaine dernière comme vous avez vu, la combinaison de La Fine Équipe et Fakear ”Cheese Naan" a gagné l’honneur de Track of the Weekend. Et cette semaine on va interviewer La Fine Équipe dans leur studio ici à Paris.

On voudrait vous donner l’opportunité de poser vos questions pour La Fine Équipe! Donc envoyez-nous vos questions (tony at whyd dot com) et on va publier les réponses dans leur interview pour Whyd! Pas mal non?

Dec 1, 2014
#la fine equipe #fakear #interview #send questions #crowdsourcing #whyd #editorial #music blog

November 2014

12 posts

Track of the Weekend #112: La Fine Équipe - "Cheese Naan" feat. Fakear (La Boulangerie 3)

Yesterday we told you what we were thankful for, along with an Ellen Degeneres-calibre selfie of our very handsome team. One of the things that we mentioned was how we were thankful for amazing music. If there was one track that sums up what that means - music laden with creativity, a punch of fun, collaborations between artists who are arcing up towards their prime - “Cheese Naan" would be it. 

La Fine Équipe x Fakear makes “Cheese Naan” not just an Indian appetizer, but a joyous electronic romp, one that inspires hope, that succeeds in telling a story and captivating. It rises above into the optimistic stratosphere, to give us the buoyancy to float lazily through the entire weekend. 

Big thanks to Louis de Sentenac for nailing this one! 

Nov 28, 20142 notes
#music #cheese naan #la boulangerie 3 #combination #electronic #whyd #community #popular music #hot tracks #la fine equipe #fakear #louis de sentenac #track of the weekend
We Need These Playlists of Reference:

You might have seen our post from last week asking for your playlists of reference representing a sub genre of music. We got a lot of responses from people who were excited to share their playlists with us! Thank you infinitely for that. 

But we still need more! Specifically we need people who are strong in the following genres, so if you know anyone who is an expert, please send this to them, or start a playlist yourself! 

Keep reading

Nov 26, 2014
#playlists #reference #help #whyd #community #electric blues #gangsta rap #spoken word #big band #smooth jazz #swing #jam band #call to action
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