Archive for the ‘Podcasts’ tag

Finding New House Music

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I’ve recently been asked on several occassions how I keep up-to-date on the house music scene.

To be honest, there is no easy way to do it.

As a big fan of house music, I tend to listen to a lot of music anyway, so I like to hear fresh new music on a regular basis. There are certain tracks that stick around, those that I enjoy and like to hear more of but, generally speaking, my playlist tends to change monthly.

With that said, there are a certain techniques I’ve adopted over the years which helps me keep up-to-date on the latest releases around the house music scene.

Online Music Stores

There are certain online music stores that I seem to frequent more than others. These mainly consist of:

Thankfully, most of these offer RSS feeds of their latest releases too so I subscribe to the feeds in my preferred aggregator Google Reader and group them together in folder called “New Music“.

Ideally, I’d check these feeds every few days but with a demanding full-time job and family as well, it’s more realistic on a fortnightly or monthly basis. Unfortunately, the folder usually builds up to around 1,200-1,500 new releases every month so be sure to give yourself a few evenings dedicated to listening to the new material.

For those online stores that offer email newsletters, I also subscribe to those as they tend to highlight the more popular or exclusive releases moreso than their RSS counterparts.

Similarly to the RSS feeds, I automatically archive and apply the label “New Music” to these emails using automatic filters in Gmail so I can check these out periodically without them taking over my inbox.

When listening to the online samples, it’s worth adding your favourites to the store basket or wishlist feature (if available) for later. For me, this is the preliminary part of the selection process.

When I have been through all the new releases, I shall return to the list of selected favourites, listen to them again to give them some thorough attention, discarding any tunes I change my mind about.

Once I’ve refined my selection to your absolute favourites, it’s a case of purchasing the new material, downloading and listening rigorously, either through your computer, MP3 player or even burning them to CD for playing elsewhere like in the car.

Podcasts

Another method of keeping abreast of new music is to subscribe to podcasts within your favourite genre.

There are quite a few other funky house podcasters apart from One Phat DJ, most of them who can be found in the iTunes Podcast Directory.

It’s amazing how many tunes that get released every month that can pass under your radar so it’s worth edging your bets by listening to your peers’ tune selection for those tracks you’ve missed.

The beauty of this technique is that it requires minimum effort. You can listen to a podcast while doing something else, whether it’s working, exercising or just relaxing. It’s unobtrusive.

Here are some of my personal favourite podcasts that you may enjoy:

Unfortunately, the official Hed Kandi podcast seems to have died a death in the last year but, fingers crossed, they may put some effort back into that some time soon.

Compilations

Over the years, I have become quite fond of certain labels within the industry, specifically Hed Kandi, Fierce Angels and Defected.

All three labels release regular compilations (some more than others), usually filled with new material from the scene. Buy the compilations and listen to each track thoroughly (don’t even hit the skip button on the first play).

You will probably find quite a few that overlap - these are normally the tracks that are quite popular at the time with big support from other DJs and labels. Some may just be commercial tripe - some, on the other hand, are just so good, everyone wants a piece.

Socialise

This is something that requires a lot of devotion and commitment but one of the most powerful ways of keeping up-to-date with new music is to keep tabs on what your favourite artists are doing by building contacts with them.

Befriend them on social networks like Facebook or MySpace (most artists who want exposure nowadays are on MySpace already), get talking, keep in contact.

Many artists keep blogs as well nowadays. Subscribe to their blogs to see what they’ve been up to, when they’ve been in the recording studio, any PR stunts they’re involved in to promote new material.

I’ve managed to build up some quite good contacts through the podcast, mostly with DJs and producers featured. By keeping in contact with them, I have been able to hear some very early exclusives, way before they make it to public availability - I’ve even influenced some of the material that has been released by sending them early feedback!

You should now have a good idea of the selection process I go through in an effort to find new music. As you can see (and I told you at the start), its a time-consuming process that requires a lot of effort. That said, you can’t beat that proud moment you have when you find that special track before your peers and throw it into a mix or suggest it to them first.

Written by Si

September 26th, 2008 at 11:55 am

Posted in DJ Talk

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