Sorry, this site requires the Adobe Flash Player. Get Flash If you'd like the HTML version of the blog, clicky HERE Raw site copy Homepage Hello. We are Tonic. We find the right music for the right moment. We love to deliver fresh creativity to clients, in deadline and hassle-free. Who We Are Hello.We are Tonic. We find the right music for the right moment. We love to deliver fresh creativity to clients, in deadline and hassle-free. We’re a network of dedicated music supervisors, inspired composers, obsessive culture lovers, talented producers, tireless djs, experienced marketers, cracking negotiators, and passionate music nerds. We offer full-service music curation and supervision for film, advertising, gaming, retail, events, digital, TV and other media. If you need music, please get in touch. What We Do, SpecificallyMusic consulting, music & score supervision, brand music curation, music searches, composer sourcing and original score management, licensing, research and strategy, contract negotiation, rights ownership, project management, playlist compilation, talent & event coordination. Showreel Examples of our recent work... Contact Tonic Music Ltd Noland House, 5th Floor 12-13 Poland Street London W1F 8QB, UK t: +44 (0) 20 7287 1077 f: +44 (0) 20 7692 4673 e: hello@tonic.fm twitter: tonicmusic Registered in England and Wales, No. 06517733 Registered office: 48 Poland Street, London W1F 7ND, UK. View Larger Map Client Area Welcome to the Tonic Music Client Login Page. If you have any problems please call +44 (0) 20 7287 1077 Clients and Brands AMV Anonymous Content Audi Aviva Axe BBH BMW Bridgestone CHI & Partners Comet Coty Fragrances DDB Chicago Footlocker Front Room Grey GSD&M Karmarama Kate Moss KFC Kohler lastminute.com Lexus LG Look Magazine Lynx MCBD McDonalds Mercedes Met Police Nike Nitro Group Nokia O2 Persil Saatchi & Saatchi SEGA Sizzer Sunday Times Tango The Richards Group Toshiba VCCP Visa Vodafone Wieden + Kennedy Tonic Blog Social Whirl Part II: Mflow Following on from the last post - MFlow have also become more sociable recently... MFLOW: Where Spotify have integrated their social features with the social giant that is facebook, Mflow look to be focusing on sociability within their own application, with an update released yesterday. Cool features: - The all new 'People' tab has a 'people like me' section which points out other users who are flowing similar music to you so you can decide whether to follow them or not. - SImilarly useful, if you search for a band, you'll now also see their top recommenders - The new 'Channels' and 'Music' tabs make it easier to find genre-specific flows and keep an eye on new releases and charts. - You can also flow tracks to specific users (a previous update) by ticking the checkbox and selecting who you're flowing to. Is the key difference in the social space…people you know versus people you don't? - Spotify pulls in your facebook friends (although you can search for people, assuming you know their username). - Mflow shows you people who are active and/or have similar tastes that you may or may not already know (although you can invite your friends). Clearly these aren't the last changes either service is ever going to make. Mflow has only been around 2-3 months compared to Spotify's just over 18 months since beta-launch and both seem to constantly be evolving - where to next? For Spotify…it's The Netherlands. Social Whirl Part I: Spotify There seem to have been some interesting developments over the past few weeks. We wrote about new social music discovery service mflow when it was in beta-testing phase in back in March, and the human element it incorporates into digital music discovery to challenge the "if you like this, you might like…" suggestions of last.fm, amazon and even iTunes Genius. In the time since then, Spotify and Mflow have both released updates introducing new features enhancing the social elements of their services - so here are some quick highlights (Spotify here, Mflow in a second post): SPOTIFY: An update was released at the end of April with details on their blog, effectively integrating the service with facebook so you can pull in the profiles and send/receive music recommendations to/of your facebook friends who enable the connection. Cool features: - Your facebook friends can see your playlists and 'subscribe' to them within the spotify desktop app, each playlist shows a subscriber count and you can see who has subscribed - You don't have to share EVERY playlist. If you don't want people to see your Best of Britney Spears compilation, you can hide it. - If you know someone's Spotify username, you can add them by typing it into the search field once you've published your own profile - You can recommend tracks to your friends by dragging them to their name in the new People sidebar, and any tracks sent to you appear in the nifty new 'inbox' folder. - Collaborative playlists now show who added a track and when. On top of the social features, Spotify seem to be positioning themselves as a social-media-integrated-digital-music-management-music-discovery-platform - you can now integrate your own music library with the Spotify library and build combined playlists, filling in gaps, which play through Spotify. If you've been on the lookout for invites but to no avail - since yesterday, there are now a couple of alternative options. Mflow has taken a bit of a different but similar route...details coming up. LoKation-based music... Been having a bit of a play with a new iPhone app released in March built around the premise of location-based media sharing. It's called LoKast (hence the attempted pun). The idea is that when you have the app open, any media actively shared by other LoKast users within a 300-ft radius is available on your iPhone. Media, at the moment, includes music from their iPhone library, photos, videos, and contacts. As well as media shared by other users, selected providers can make items available over wi-fi in specific locations, for LoKasters who want it. The great things are: - LoKast uses its own NearVerse network optimisation incorporating Bluetooth as well as 3G or Wi-fi, so it works underground and in areas where there's no mobile phone service. - There's no 'spying' as people can only see media if you intentionally make it available. - For music, especially, if you like something you hear, there's an option to buy the full song from iTunes within the LoKast app, or add a 30s clip to your own LoKast media for other users to discover. At the moment, it only works if you have LoKast open, so you can't do anything else at the same time and chances are you'll miss things unless you know they're there or happen across them by accident. This could change, however, if the expected iPhone 'multi-tasking' functionality is incorporated and the app takes off. We have some ideas... but are waiting to see how the user-base develops as at the moment, all we've been able to find is music from The Ruse, and some profile shots of three random people who've uploaded photos... Any tweeples sample the musical twelights at #LDNTwestival last night? I never in a million years thought I would be using Twitter lingo. We're big proponents of the service itself here @TonicMusic - fantastic for common-interest knowledge exchange, news, music discovery, gig-flashes and, of course, procrastination (a favourite recent trend is #calmmovielines) - but I was certain I'd never ever be using terms like tweeple, twitterati, twollows, tweetups etc, etc... [Sarah: You don't really use all those words, do you? Nisha: No...] Sometimes, though, it's necessary. And appreciated. And even helpful. Thursday 25 March, 2010 saw thousands of twitter users (and a few non-) in cities around the world come together in real world physical locations to raise money for Concern Worldwide, a global charity aiming to bring education to the world's poorest children. Nearly 7,000 people across 25 countries took part in events combining music and Twitter to raise in excess of £200,000 for the cause under the Twestival umbrella, with London's own Twestival attracting 545 attendees. It wasn't a bunch of people tapping away at their phones, eyes down, in silence - but a buzzing social event with things like Karaoke, mask-making, a raffle, drinks and bar chat (much like a non-Twitter charity event), free cupcakes, smoothies and food from Chilango's running alongside a sonos-driven crowd-sourced playlist and some live music. Aside from the compere in the spurs shirt (only the spurs shirt was a problem, not the compering), it was a fun event and a great example of how social media-sourced folks can support worthy causes other than Raging against Simon Cowell (which was still worthy, just in a different way). The usual ticket sales, raffle, drinks purchases, donation buckets were complemented by Twestival.fm, a music site set up in conjunction with audio platform, Soundcloud. The site is powered entirely by artists and bands active on Twitter, including Metric, Moby, We Are Scientists, who donated tracks for streaming or download. No charge - just a request for a small donation and a tweet from users who find music they like. It hasn't raised much money so far...but it's still up there if you'd like to donate. I left the office talking about twerds (twitter-nerds) and tweeks (twitter-geeks), went to a Twestival (twitter-festival) where I chatted to tweeples (twitter-people) and then came in this morning to a #followfriday about twirlies (twitter-girlies). When in Twome... Send your mates music that rocks (mflow)... Recently launched social music discovery engine Mflow is a "revolutionary download company" (Clash Music newsletter, 16 March 2010) that, to paraphrase their words, is a way for mates to send each other music that they think rocks. But not just mates. Radio One DJ Zane Lowe, recording artist Lauren Pritchard, whoever mans the user accounts at Clash and NME Magazines and I'm sure many more music celebs/entities as the service grows. It's currently in invite-only beta but invited users receive 5 of their own invites to send their friends on registration. The idea is that users "follow" their friends, or other users whose taste hits the spot more often than not, and receive streamable tracks and albums "flowed" by those users straight to their mflow-platform inbox. Users can also flow tracks that are available through mflow on to their own followers. Many of the tracks on the system (but not all) can be purchased for download directly through the platform. The twists? One. You can only stream a track in full if it's been flowed to your inbox by a user you're following or you've purchased it on mflow. Two. If you flow a track and one of your followers purchases it, you receive an mflow credit of 20% of the price they paid to offset against the cost of your own purchases on mflow. Things we like? - They've incorporated the human element into digital music discovery without bespoke, individual, personality profile, read-your-mind interaction - The service aims to tackle piracy by promoting legal discounted downloads - Effectively, they're paying their users to spread the word about the music they love with more discounted downloads. Versus automated recommendations: - Broadens horizons through trusted tastemakers you follow who may kick you out of your comfort zone unexpectedly every now and then. - Less effort than full-customisation for every user, but more user-directed than automation as you can choose who to follow. - Directly encourages people to legally share music they love, and potentially induces actual purchases directly through the desktop app. There are some obvious enhancements like expanding content, integration with existing social media platforms, mobile apps, playlists, which their blog says are on the way and will make the overall user experience more complete. Hope there aren't too many self-proclaimed tastemakers out there recommending tracks furiously to no avail in pursuit of credits but refusing to fork out their own cash... We're on it. Search TonicMusic on mflow or tweet @TonicMusic for one of our invites. Swing It Like That A couple of months ago in a previous blog I discussed my love and passion for the emergence of London-based 1920's/30'S/40's parties (Prohibition & The Blitz) -most of which are warehouse based. It was at these parties that I came across the likes of Top Shelf Jazz http://www.myspace.com/topshelfjazz and The Correspondents http://www.myspace.com/thecorrespondentsmusic Since writing that blog, I was kindly sent what can only be described as an album that has lit up my life and encouraged my little feet to move... a lot. I love it and everyone that i have played it to concurs. The album is entitled 'White Mink, Black Cotton' and is the brainchild of DJ and Producer Nick Hollywood. It features an array of great electro artists sampling retro dance tunes bringing them to contemporary audiences through the mix. Electro swing nights are also steadily on the up throughout the UK, two london based parties well worth donning your pearls or trilby and braces to are Raison De Etre and Polkannany. They project B&W films on the walls, everyone dressed for the occasion and the atmosphere is a lively, care-free and often silly affair. DJ's currently embracing this new trend in music include; Jesse Rose (check out 'Touch My Horn' on White mink, Black Cotton) Carl Cox, Norman Jay & Roger Sanchez. Hail to the resurgence of a sound that I love and that emerged out of difficult political and financial periods in history. Perhaps a connection there? The Heat Is On I really can't think clearly this afternoon - nothing wrong with me, not a frequent occurrence...no reflection on Tonic ;) Reason is, it's frickin' hot in our office. We're in that in-between, unpredictable phase of weather when it's not consistently warm enough to turn the heating off in the building in case a freak snow-storm materialises and we all get hypothermia, but we get enough sunny days for the 2/3 height glass windows all around to create our own personal greenhouse effect. My answer is layers, Matt's gone with the ceiling fan, Sarah's wearing a cardigan (her natural body temperature seems to be far below the requisite 37 degrees) and Susan has not shown any sign of being affected. So...what better way to take (two of) our minds off the fluctuating temperature than with some be-yoo-tiful music? 1. Foreigner - Cold As Ice (Last.fm) I'm going classic rock on this one, with a subliminal messaging angle. If something external is telling my brain I'm cold, maybe it'll be tricked into conveying the message to my nervous system. It also very much does not make me want to dance. Which would make me hotter. 2. Hudson Mohawke - Are You Feeling Hot? (Youtube) Sounds like Matt's going for the instilling self-doubt tactic. By questioning the validity of his central nervous system's initial reaction, it might be enticed to change its own mind, removing the need for further action. 3. Gloria Cycles - Sauna This doesn't quite fit with my description of Sarah's reaction, and there's no publicly available mp3, so I'm using journalistic (...ahem!) license to change it to Against the Grain - Akon, because the title fits and it says "Never knew a girl could be so cold" right at the beginning. 4. Volcano Choir – Island, IS (HypeM) Last minute switch-out due to innocent lyrical misinterpretation by me – Susan’s got a private, perfect-climated little oasis on the other side of the office. E-mail us for the original song-choice… And if those aren't up your street.... hurrrr's one for the weekend. Squeak squeak In the Tonic HQ, we have a wall that is a giant blackboard. On this blackboard we have lists (everyone at Tonic loves a list) Next to the lists we have an Icon section that is updated each month. This month the choice for Icon was thrown over to me. I chose Danger Mouse aka (rarely) Brian Joseph Burton. For days now, I have had Broken Bells, his most recent collaboration with James Mercer - swirling around in my head. Danger Mouse produced the duo's self-titled album and plays drums, organ, piano, synth, and bass. It has a dream-like quality with beautifully crafted arrangements and is a collection of songs that display what I love so much about Danger Mouse - his ability to layer and craft music that absorbs the listener into a unique and wonderous soundscape. I am yet to listen to an album touched by Danger Mouse that fails to sweep me away from the here and the now. Danger Mouse is one of those rare producers whose collaborations continually surprise his audience. His next move can never be predicted. He keeps his approach to music ever-changing, his arrangements ever-challenging, yet retains his heavily embossed signature on all of his works. Here's a selection of my personal highlights: The Grey Album Crazy - Gnarls Barkley Danger Doom remix of Somersault by Zero 7 Dare - Gorillaz Strange Times - The Black Keys Youthless - Beck No Social - The Shortwave Set Jelly Belly - Joker's Daughter The High Road - Broken Bells Danger Mouse & Sparklehorse Present: Dark Night Of The Soul DangerMouse Free is the magic number... Until the start of last year, I used to be a bit of an enforced big-gig goer. When I say "enforced", it wasn't that I didn't want to go to them, it was more that I couldn't find anyone to come with me more than once every couple of months (and even then, a very trusting friend) to the smaller, bit more random gigs. When I say "big-gig" I mean relatively well known bands/artists in venues from about the size of the HMV Forum, Kentish Town upwards. Even "goer" needs a bit of clarification - I would say 2-3 every couple of months. But...my live music life has changed since discovering meetup.com last year and I've found a really fun, lively bunch of people who have no problem going to see unknowns, unsigneds, indies, little bit biggers in pubs, bars, clubs, record stores as well as the Imogen Heaps, Jay-Zs and Hot Chips of the world. It's led to the discovery of some of London's tucked away treasures in terms of venues that run free nights alongside their regular paying events, and even venues that pride themselves in being prolific providers of free live music, no exceptions. Aside from the not-so-hidden Rough Trade East : Pure Groove Records host free gigs pretty much every night of the week (or some sort of music-related event) and some lunch times - some of my favourites have been She Keeps Bees, Marina & the Diamonds and a DJ set from Hot Chip's Joe Goddard. Free Fridays at 93 feet east have been the showcase for Smoke Feathers and Fenech Soler (sequins and gold lamé jackets, anyone...?) The "free-entry-every-night" Flowerpot have seen artists like Bombay Bicycle Club, Golden Silvers & The Drums grace their stage - and they also have a fair few surprise last-minute announcements for bigger acts (so they don't get too rammed). Other favourites: The Old Queen's Head (also a great pub), Notting Hill Arts Club and the Saturday Daylight Music Sessions at one of the most beautiful gig venues London has to offer - Union Chapel. Catch 'em, before they were famous... Neo-Nostalgia Had an interesting (albeit brief) conversation with our intern this week, prompted by a listen-through of the new Sade album, Soldier of Love, about Nostalgia. There's been a bit of a neo-soul revival lately. Maxwell, Erykah Badu, and I understand D'Angelo have recently joined or will soon join the movement. I was really excited when I heard - these artists occupy a significant chunk of my teenage listening history and even an intro-snippet of iconic tracks like "Something, Something", "On And On" and "Cruisin'" evoke a welcome chill and warm, nostalgia-laced smile. I'm sure when artists that hold such a special place in the hearts of so many release "new" material, many of us hope it sounds pretty much the same as the recognisable "back in the day"... as opposed to a more updated sound? As an artist, creative development must be as necessary a food for the soul as a transition from liquids to solids, or... from a listening perspective, from grunge to nu-metal ;) If we pick up an album released after a period of hibernation that doesn't quite meet the nostalgia requirement, or hit the memory-button to spark images of warehouse gigs we weren't technically old enough to be at...it's difficult to not be a bit disappointed, however great the music. My hope? They mix it up a bit.
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Following on from the last post - MFlow have also become more sociable recently... MFLOW: Where Spotify have integrated their social features with the social giant that is facebook, Mflow look to be focusing on sociability within their own application, with an update released yesterday. Cool features: - The all new 'People' tab has a 'people like me' section which points out other users who are flowing similar music to you so you can decide whether to follow them or not. - SImilarly useful, if you search for a band, you'll now also see their top recommenders - The new 'Channels' and 'Music' tabs make it easier to find genre-specific flows and keep an eye on new releases and charts. - You can also flow tracks to specific users (a previous update) by ticking the checkbox and selecting who you're flowing to. Is the key difference in the social space…people you know versus people you don't? - Spotify pulls in your facebook friends (although you can search for people, assuming you know their username). - Mflow shows you people who are active and/or have similar tastes that you may or may not already know (although you can invite your friends). Clearly these aren't the last changes either service is ever going to make. Mflow has only been around 2-3 months compared to Spotify's just over 18 months since beta-launch and both seem to constantly be evolving - where to next? For Spotify…it's The Netherlands.
There seem to have been some interesting developments over the past few weeks. We wrote about new social music discovery service mflow when it was in beta-testing phase in back in March, and the human element it incorporates into digital music discovery to challenge the "if you like this, you might like…" suggestions of last.fm, amazon and even iTunes Genius. In the time since then, Spotify and Mflow have both released updates introducing new features enhancing the social elements of their services - so here are some quick highlights (Spotify here, Mflow in a second post): SPOTIFY: An update was released at the end of April with details on their blog, effectively integrating the service with facebook so you can pull in the profiles and send/receive music recommendations to/of your facebook friends who enable the connection. Cool features: - Your facebook friends can see your playlists and 'subscribe' to them within the spotify desktop app, each playlist shows a subscriber count and you can see who has subscribed - You don't have to share EVERY playlist. If you don't want people to see your Best of Britney Spears compilation, you can hide it. - If you know someone's Spotify username, you can add them by typing it into the search field once you've published your own profile - You can recommend tracks to your friends by dragging them to their name in the new People sidebar, and any tracks sent to you appear in the nifty new 'inbox' folder. - Collaborative playlists now show who added a track and when. On top of the social features, Spotify seem to be positioning themselves as a social-media-integrated-digital-music-management-music-discovery-platform - you can now integrate your own music library with the Spotify library and build combined playlists, filling in gaps, which play through Spotify. If you've been on the lookout for invites but to no avail - since yesterday, there are now a couple of alternative options. Mflow has taken a bit of a different but similar route...details coming up.
Been having a bit of a play with a new iPhone app released in March built around the premise of location-based media sharing. It's called LoKast (hence the attempted pun). The idea is that when you have the app open, any media actively shared by other LoKast users within a 300-ft radius is available on your iPhone. Media, at the moment, includes music from their iPhone library, photos, videos, and contacts. As well as media shared by other users, selected providers can make items available over wi-fi in specific locations, for LoKasters who want it. The great things are: - LoKast uses its own NearVerse network optimisation incorporating Bluetooth as well as 3G or Wi-fi, so it works underground and in areas where there's no mobile phone service. - There's no 'spying' as people can only see media if you intentionally make it available. - For music, especially, if you like something you hear, there's an option to buy the full song from iTunes within the LoKast app, or add a 30s clip to your own LoKast media for other users to discover. At the moment, it only works if you have LoKast open, so you can't do anything else at the same time and chances are you'll miss things unless you know they're there or happen across them by accident. This could change, however, if the expected iPhone 'multi-tasking' functionality is incorporated and the app takes off. We have some ideas... but are waiting to see how the user-base develops as at the moment, all we've been able to find is music from The Ruse, and some profile shots of three random people who've uploaded photos...
I never in a million years thought I would be using Twitter lingo. We're big proponents of the service itself here @TonicMusic - fantastic for common-interest knowledge exchange, news, music discovery, gig-flashes and, of course, procrastination (a favourite recent trend is #calmmovielines) - but I was certain I'd never ever be using terms like tweeple, twitterati, twollows, tweetups etc, etc... [Sarah: You don't really use all those words, do you? Nisha: No...] Sometimes, though, it's necessary. And appreciated. And even helpful. Thursday 25 March, 2010 saw thousands of twitter users (and a few non-) in cities around the world come together in real world physical locations to raise money for Concern Worldwide, a global charity aiming to bring education to the world's poorest children. Nearly 7,000 people across 25 countries took part in events combining music and Twitter to raise in excess of £200,000 for the cause under the Twestival umbrella, with London's own Twestival attracting 545 attendees. It wasn't a bunch of people tapping away at their phones, eyes down, in silence - but a buzzing social event with things like Karaoke, mask-making, a raffle, drinks and bar chat (much like a non-Twitter charity event), free cupcakes, smoothies and food from Chilango's running alongside a sonos-driven crowd-sourced playlist and some live music. Aside from the compere in the spurs shirt (only the spurs shirt was a problem, not the compering), it was a fun event and a great example of how social media-sourced folks can support worthy causes other than Raging against Simon Cowell (which was still worthy, just in a different way). The usual ticket sales, raffle, drinks purchases, donation buckets were complemented by Twestival.fm, a music site set up in conjunction with audio platform, Soundcloud. The site is powered entirely by artists and bands active on Twitter, including Metric, Moby, We Are Scientists, who donated tracks for streaming or download. No charge - just a request for a small donation and a tweet from users who find music they like. It hasn't raised much money so far...but it's still up there if you'd like to donate. I left the office talking about twerds (twitter-nerds) and tweeks (twitter-geeks), went to a Twestival (twitter-festival) where I chatted to tweeples (twitter-people) and then came in this morning to a #followfriday about twirlies (twitter-girlies). When in Twome...
Recently launched social music discovery engine Mflow is a "revolutionary download company" (Clash Music newsletter, 16 March 2010) that, to paraphrase their words, is a way for mates to send each other music that they think rocks. But not just mates. Radio One DJ Zane Lowe, recording artist Lauren Pritchard, whoever mans the user accounts at Clash and NME Magazines and I'm sure many more music celebs/entities as the service grows. It's currently in invite-only beta but invited users receive 5 of their own invites to send their friends on registration. The idea is that users "follow" their friends, or other users whose taste hits the spot more often than not, and receive streamable tracks and albums "flowed" by those users straight to their mflow-platform inbox. Users can also flow tracks that are available through mflow on to their own followers. Many of the tracks on the system (but not all) can be purchased for download directly through the platform. The twists? One. You can only stream a track in full if it's been flowed to your inbox by a user you're following or you've purchased it on mflow. Two. If you flow a track and one of your followers purchases it, you receive an mflow credit of 20% of the price they paid to offset against the cost of your own purchases on mflow. Things we like? - They've incorporated the human element into digital music discovery without bespoke, individual, personality profile, read-your-mind interaction - The service aims to tackle piracy by promoting legal discounted downloads - Effectively, they're paying their users to spread the word about the music they love with more discounted downloads. Versus automated recommendations: - Broadens horizons through trusted tastemakers you follow who may kick you out of your comfort zone unexpectedly every now and then. - Less effort than full-customisation for every user, but more user-directed than automation as you can choose who to follow. - Directly encourages people to legally share music they love, and potentially induces actual purchases directly through the desktop app. There are some obvious enhancements like expanding content, integration with existing social media platforms, mobile apps, playlists, which their blog says are on the way and will make the overall user experience more complete. Hope there aren't too many self-proclaimed tastemakers out there recommending tracks furiously to no avail in pursuit of credits but refusing to fork out their own cash... We're on it. Search TonicMusic on mflow or tweet @TonicMusic for one of our invites.
A couple of months ago in a previous blog I discussed my love and passion for the emergence of London-based 1920's/30'S/40's parties (Prohibition & The Blitz) -most of which are warehouse based. It was at these parties that I came across the likes of Top Shelf Jazz http://www.myspace.com/topshelfjazz and The Correspondents http://www.myspace.com/thecorrespondentsmusic Since writing that blog, I was kindly sent what can only be described as an album that has lit up my life and encouraged my little feet to move... a lot. I love it and everyone that i have played it to concurs. The album is entitled 'White Mink, Black Cotton' and is the brainchild of DJ and Producer Nick Hollywood. It features an array of great electro artists sampling retro dance tunes bringing them to contemporary audiences through the mix. Electro swing nights are also steadily on the up throughout the UK, two london based parties well worth donning your pearls or trilby and braces to are Raison De Etre and Polkannany. They project B&W films on the walls, everyone dressed for the occasion and the atmosphere is a lively, care-free and often silly affair. DJ's currently embracing this new trend in music include; Jesse Rose (check out 'Touch My Horn' on White mink, Black Cotton) Carl Cox, Norman Jay & Roger Sanchez. Hail to the resurgence of a sound that I love and that emerged out of difficult political and financial periods in history. Perhaps a connection there?
I really can't think clearly this afternoon - nothing wrong with me, not a frequent occurrence...no reflection on Tonic ;) Reason is, it's frickin' hot in our office. We're in that in-between, unpredictable phase of weather when it's not consistently warm enough to turn the heating off in the building in case a freak snow-storm materialises and we all get hypothermia, but we get enough sunny days for the 2/3 height glass windows all around to create our own personal greenhouse effect. My answer is layers, Matt's gone with the ceiling fan, Sarah's wearing a cardigan (her natural body temperature seems to be far below the requisite 37 degrees) and Susan has not shown any sign of being affected. So...what better way to take (two of) our minds off the fluctuating temperature than with some be-yoo-tiful music? 1. Foreigner - Cold As Ice (Last.fm) I'm going classic rock on this one, with a subliminal messaging angle. If something external is telling my brain I'm cold, maybe it'll be tricked into conveying the message to my nervous system. It also very much does not make me want to dance. Which would make me hotter. 2. Hudson Mohawke - Are You Feeling Hot? (Youtube) Sounds like Matt's going for the instilling self-doubt tactic. By questioning the validity of his central nervous system's initial reaction, it might be enticed to change its own mind, removing the need for further action. 3. Gloria Cycles - Sauna This doesn't quite fit with my description of Sarah's reaction, and there's no publicly available mp3, so I'm using journalistic (...ahem!) license to change it to Against the Grain - Akon, because the title fits and it says "Never knew a girl could be so cold" right at the beginning. 4. Volcano Choir – Island, IS (HypeM) Last minute switch-out due to innocent lyrical misinterpretation by me – Susan’s got a private, perfect-climated little oasis on the other side of the office. E-mail us for the original song-choice… And if those aren't up your street.... hurrrr's one for the weekend.
In the Tonic HQ, we have a wall that is a giant blackboard. On this blackboard we have lists (everyone at Tonic loves a list) Next to the lists we have an Icon section that is updated each month. This month the choice for Icon was thrown over to me. I chose Danger Mouse aka (rarely) Brian Joseph Burton. For days now, I have had Broken Bells, his most recent collaboration with James Mercer - swirling around in my head. Danger Mouse produced the duo's self-titled album and plays drums, organ, piano, synth, and bass. It has a dream-like quality with beautifully crafted arrangements and is a collection of songs that display what I love so much about Danger Mouse - his ability to layer and craft music that absorbs the listener into a unique and wonderous soundscape. I am yet to listen to an album touched by Danger Mouse that fails to sweep me away from the here and the now. Danger Mouse is one of those rare producers whose collaborations continually surprise his audience. His next move can never be predicted. He keeps his approach to music ever-changing, his arrangements ever-challenging, yet retains his heavily embossed signature on all of his works. Here's a selection of my personal highlights: The Grey Album Crazy - Gnarls Barkley Danger Doom remix of Somersault by Zero 7 Dare - Gorillaz Strange Times - The Black Keys Youthless - Beck No Social - The Shortwave Set Jelly Belly - Joker's Daughter The High Road - Broken Bells Danger Mouse & Sparklehorse Present: Dark Night Of The Soul DangerMouse
Until the start of last year, I used to be a bit of an enforced big-gig goer. When I say "enforced", it wasn't that I didn't want to go to them, it was more that I couldn't find anyone to come with me more than once every couple of months (and even then, a very trusting friend) to the smaller, bit more random gigs. When I say "big-gig" I mean relatively well known bands/artists in venues from about the size of the HMV Forum, Kentish Town upwards. Even "goer" needs a bit of clarification - I would say 2-3 every couple of months. But...my live music life has changed since discovering meetup.com last year and I've found a really fun, lively bunch of people who have no problem going to see unknowns, unsigneds, indies, little bit biggers in pubs, bars, clubs, record stores as well as the Imogen Heaps, Jay-Zs and Hot Chips of the world. It's led to the discovery of some of London's tucked away treasures in terms of venues that run free nights alongside their regular paying events, and even venues that pride themselves in being prolific providers of free live music, no exceptions. Aside from the not-so-hidden Rough Trade East : Pure Groove Records host free gigs pretty much every night of the week (or some sort of music-related event) and some lunch times - some of my favourites have been She Keeps Bees, Marina & the Diamonds and a DJ set from Hot Chip's Joe Goddard. Free Fridays at 93 feet east have been the showcase for Smoke Feathers and Fenech Soler (sequins and gold lamé jackets, anyone...?) The "free-entry-every-night" Flowerpot have seen artists like Bombay Bicycle Club, Golden Silvers & The Drums grace their stage - and they also have a fair few surprise last-minute announcements for bigger acts (so they don't get too rammed). Other favourites: The Old Queen's Head (also a great pub), Notting Hill Arts Club and the Saturday Daylight Music Sessions at one of the most beautiful gig venues London has to offer - Union Chapel. Catch 'em, before they were famous...
Had an interesting (albeit brief) conversation with our intern this week, prompted by a listen-through of the new Sade album, Soldier of Love, about Nostalgia. There's been a bit of a neo-soul revival lately. Maxwell, Erykah Badu, and I understand D'Angelo have recently joined or will soon join the movement. I was really excited when I heard - these artists occupy a significant chunk of my teenage listening history and even an intro-snippet of iconic tracks like "Something, Something", "On And On" and "Cruisin'" evoke a welcome chill and warm, nostalgia-laced smile. I'm sure when artists that hold such a special place in the hearts of so many release "new" material, many of us hope it sounds pretty much the same as the recognisable "back in the day"... as opposed to a more updated sound? As an artist, creative development must be as necessary a food for the soul as a transition from liquids to solids, or... from a listening perspective, from grunge to nu-metal ;) If we pick up an album released after a period of hibernation that doesn't quite meet the nostalgia requirement, or hit the memory-button to spark images of warehouse gigs we weren't technically old enough to be at...it's difficult to not be a bit disappointed, however great the music. My hope? They mix it up a bit.