Click on the picture for more information

Pop stars including Coldplay singer Chris Martin, Boy George and Soul 11 Soul star Jazzie B have lent their support to a new campaign alerting young people to the dangers of listening to too much loud music, alongside Gary Numan and Judge Jules.

Though Jules said he’s had no problems personally with either hearing loss or tinnitus he said many friends and fellow DJs are sufferers and recommended ‘be wise and wear earplugs when going to clubs or when exposed to loud music’.

80s electro legend Gary Numan agreed though revealed he’d been less fortunate with his own hearing.

“I didn’t look after my ears and I’m in trouble,” the Tubeway Army star confessed.

“It’s getting serious to the point that I can’t mix my music properly anymore, so it’s majorly impacted on my career. If I’d just looked after them when I was younger then this would never have happened, so I very much regret it.

“I would often be at gigs, standing at the front next to the speakers, not wearing earplugs, thinking I’m cool and being manly, but that’s just rubbish, it’s stupid. So look after your hearing and wear earplugs,” he urged.

Soft rock superstar Chris Martin also revealed he’s been suffering from tinnitus for ten years and emphasised the same message.

“Now we always use moulded filter plugs, or in-ear monitors (on stage), to try and protect our ears,” said Chris, “You CAN use industrial headphones, but that looks strange at a party,” he added.

The dangers of wearing highly visible headphones was also emphasised by New York cops this week, who warned that vicious street thugs are behind a crime wave in the City in which scores of people wearing Dr Dre headphones in particular have been brutally beaten and robbed.

Singling out hipster headquarters Williamsburg as a prime crime hot spot, cops said ‘dozens’ of people have been assaulted there in the last four months, with many more unreported thefts also believed to have taken place.

“If you are wearing those headphones, you might as well wear a sign that says, ‘Come and rob me,’ ’ one investigator told the New York Post. (http://nyp.st/KXx4QF )

http://www.actiononhearingloss.org.uk/

Jonty Skrufff: http://listn.to/JontySkrufff

Click on the picture to listen to and/ or buy Chris' new album

“If I wanted to be a big star I would maybe bleach my hair blond or shave it and wear sunglasses, make totally different music and start selling my face. So yeah, good question, why make an album . . . But honestly. .  Why even make a single?”

Chatting to Skrufff this week to promote his new instrumental electronic album Electric Horizon (http://bit.ly/IB7e4i (click to listen/ buy on I tunes), German producer Kris Menace admits he’s less than enthusiastic about the technological advances restructuring and/ or ravaging traditional music business models.

“We’re living in an era where people are used to downloading music for free; in a time when music has lost all its value through technology and innovation and where anybody can produce a track in a few hours . . . Nowadays, there are programs and tools that make it easier for the normal consumer whereas in the past you needed a huge studio: nowadays you need just a laptop and some cracked software,” he points out.

“And nowadays people are overdosed by blogs, Youtube, Soundcloud, Facebook, Twitter and hobby DJs . . . it’s all about clicks, charts, promotion . . . and that’s very wrong,” he complains.

“It’s not about content and music anymore, it’s about hype, glimmer, glitter lifestyle. The concept and idea of the ‘artist’ has been lost, and the level of people’s open-mindedness is also totally fucked up too.”

“People are used to getting music everywhere for free,” he repeats, “so I really can’t give you a simple answer to why I still make albums. And you’re right, the dance scene always was about singles anyway and good albums have become ever rarer. Maybe because labels can’t effort to release albums anymore, and if they do try, they don’t manage to recoup (cover) their costs.

“So why am I doing a record like Electric Horizon, an instrumental album, in times when people even put a @krismenace in their twitter messages with a link to an illegal download link?’ “I just wanted to do it,” he explains. “On my own terms, my way.”

Though a cursory glance through his Discogs page  includes numerous high profile crossover club hits he’s currently operating solo, adopting a DIY approach for virtually all his activities.

“An album like Electric Horizon is so special that no commercial label would have spent a penny on it,” he continues, “And an independent label wouldn’t have had the money to release it the way I wanted.

“To me such things as artwork, the look of the actual CD itself and the music have a high value in themselves and it would break my heart to see my music being released by a 3rd party label without putting the effort into it, I personally think it deserves.”

“I will definitely lose money on it for sure, and it’s clear that an album like Electric Horizon is not about making profit, as it’s too special.

I do believe in something and I do believe in my music and I do believe in the moment where I created it. I might be stupid, but who the fuck cares anyway?”

That he does care- passionately- is immediately apparent, however, as he continues to outline his music making philosophy.

“An album nowadays is rare and a thought through concept as well,” he muses.

“Most people release and release and release one single after the other, but where is the value in that? I thought to go another road and to release an album to create something special, something outstanding.

Of course you need to promote an album with singles and music videos to make it at least a little different all the other millions of tracks being released commercially or independently or even given away for free. I’m very happy with the positive feedback I’ve received so far but I also know that I will never recoup what I invested. It’s a very sad development in the music business but I’m proud that, in such hard times, I’ve been able to release what I like.”

Skrufff (Jonty Skrufff): I know you make tracks usually in a day and have hundreds: how did you decide which ones went on the album; what criteria did you us to select them?

Kris Menace: “I always wanted to create a kind of Space Odyssey album, I love the cosmic energy from 70s psychedelic music but I also like techno, house, melodies, nu-disco and disco. A few years ago I started making more experimental music, which I never released and the idea for Electric Horizon came from that period.

The tracks were created in between others I was working on for another vocal album I’m releasing soon. I was just recording what I liked without any thought of releasing them- the idea for that came when I was in hospital and was listening to all the work I’ve done in the past year. I really felt the songs and thought that this could make a great instrumental album. So Electric Horizon really means a lot to me as it reflects a very hard time of my life and as it really comes deep from my heart.

Skrufff: How good a judge are you on when your tracks are special, or not so special?

Kris Menace: “I have no idea. I just do what I like without thinking too much of what is hype, cool, special or not. Every track I create is something special to me and I mostly try to make something different from what I’ve done before.

If it’s a team-up with Spooky or if it’s a techno-ish track like Steamroller, I always try to go one step further for myself and to develop what I’m doing. I’m fighting myself alone out there without a crew behind me, without a management and even without a booker at the moment.

How stupid do you need to be to release an album investing a lot of money and not to even to have a booker when the only way you can expect to recoup any money is through gigs? Well anyway, I mostly feel instinctively when a track has something magical about it and I hope people feel the same. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t.

Skrufff: I read a review of Electric Horizon on TheArtsdesk which went into great detail about ‘trance’ (http://www.theartsdesk.com/new-music/cd-kris-menace-electric-horizon. : how do you feel about the word ‘trance’ being used to describe it? How do you feel about the word in general?

Kris Menace: “Just because a song is melodic doesn’t mean it’s automatically trance and trance has anyway become a very bad word for the normal consumer. How stupid and limited can somebody be to automatically put something in genres? Of course someone might feel a record or not, but don’t tell somebody else bad things about it. If you don’t like it, well, just shut the fuck up and don’t destroy what it means for somebody else.”

“I would personally never go so far to say that there is anything bad out there. Everything done is made because somebody somehow believed in it. Of course there are overtly commercial tracks but I’m not talking about those or the major label driven industry. But again for them, they want to make money since to them it’s a ‘business’, one in which people have to make a living and shareholders expect some reward for their investment.  So there is nothing wrong or uncool, whatever, in how they operate. If there is a market and people are happy then what is wrong with that?”

“I’m so fed up of this hype thinking bullshit limitation shit and ‘this is cool, that’s uncool’ fuck ups. What is that all about? I just do what I like and I personally don’t have a problem. If somebody calls my music trance, trance is and was everywhere and I’m a sucker for melodies. Whether that’s so called “cool” things like Lindstrom’s ‘I Feel Space’ to certain Daft Punk tracks, trance elements are everywhere. It’s time that people wake up, open their minds and start thinking for themselves again. For me, my album of course has trance elements like most of my tracks do. But that’s mainly because I love melodies and sometimes I need a pad or a string to make the melodies sound the way I feel and want then to sound.

Skrufff: How would you describe your music?

Kris Menace: “I couldn’t say what genre it is, for Electric Horizon I decided to used the term ‘cosmic disco’ when by distributor didn’t know how to release it. And its quite interesting that most of the reviewers also don’t even know what they are reviewing but they still feel what I wanted to express. I’m very happy about that, because this shows me that I have created something new and therefore something special, and that’s all I can wish for.”

Skrufff: How much affinity- if any- do you feel with the likes of Paul Van Dyk and Tiesto?

Kris Menace: “I don’t know them personally and never saw them DJing, so I can’t say anything about them. I know they fly around the world for a lot of money and I’m sure they have and had a lot of work getting where they are… and this is something that I do respect that a lot.”

Kris standing in the shower . . . .

Skrufff: How much of a temptation is it to dilute your music so you can target Vegas/ US style pop-dance success?

Kris Menace: “I don’t give a shit (don’t care at all) about all that glammed up dance scene nor the European hype that’s following it either. If I wanted to target Vegas and/ or America I would make totally different music and would sell myself a bit differently too.

I never appear in my videos, I do promo pictures without properly showing my face and only concentrate on spreading my music, without having any ulterior motives in my mind about achieving crossover success or putting my profile in the spotlight.

“If I wanted to be a ‘big’ producer I would start by producing more commercial music but I don’t feel to do that right now. I’ve been offered many opportunities to become a producer for pop artists in the past but if you follow that road you work completely differently and I love to create my music the way i like it.

“I wouldn’t have a problem to go more commercial in the future, if I would feel it! But when I listen to most of the stuff out there at the moment I just have to say, that I don’t think there is a soul in this kind of music anymore. It’s rare that I feel love or soul in any kind of major released music and even in electronic music nowadays.

And also if you go on such a road, it involves allowing a lot of people to talk about your work who have the power to force you to change things if they say so. If I ever do that, I might really just do it for the money, at the moment I can’t see it happening but you never know.

But I do totally understand the people who do that. They work hard and they had a dream or whatever and they went there and they are there because of a reason. I hate that mentality thing where everybody envies somebody else’s success. If you don’t like what someone does creatively, just shut the fuck up: and always think twice before you post shit (abuse) on the artist’s Youtube channel. He or she might read it and you hurt their soul with a throw-away malicious comment. Amen!”

http://bit.ly/Jnbtzm  (Kris Menace- LIVE with Hexstatic / Electric Horizon Album Release)

Jonty Skrufff: http://listn.to/JontySkrufff

Tonight (Friday April 13), you can watch me and Steve Aoki spinning one hour DJ sets from Tape TV’s new studio in Pankow (the Berlin area made infamous by all the Downfall parodies)

Aoki spins from 21.00-22.00 CET (WARNING Not safe for anyone who doesn’t love US style EDM!!!!!!!!), I’m on from 22.00-23.00 playing a mixed up selection of techno, stripped Berlin style house and the odd bit of classic hip-hop.

This is the 6th edition of ‘The Night Starts Here’: all five earlier shows are available to watch from the site for free and include sets from DJ Edjotronic, Autodidakt, Tiefschwarz, Prins Tomas, Lee Jones, Tyree Cooper and Jerome Sydenham.  Bomb Boutique hosts.

Click on the picture to watch: Aoki at 21.00/ me @ 22.00 (Berlin- CET- time)

Click on the picture to buy

Click HERE to buy my new remix of Yariv Bernstein’s Bardo: out on Beatport right now.

I spoke to Yariv last week about his interest in birds and he  said it was connected with his formative years growing up listening to classical music.

“I use to listen repeatedly to as a child to Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf” and “The 4 seasons” by Vivaldi,” said Yariv.

In the first, different animals are represented by different musical instruments that caricaturize them. In the second, every season and its unique elements and vibe, are also transformed throughout music.”

Kidnap Kid; click to listen (via soundcloud)

• 1: Kidnap Kid – Vehl / Black Butter Recordings TUNE OF THE WEEK
• 2: Kate Wax – Dust Collision (Solvent Remix) / Border Community
• 3: Bagagee Viphex13- Lost9 (Citizen Kain Remix) /
• 4:GgDeX – Disco Wombat / Kling Klong
• 5: The Hacker – Shockwave (Mark Archer / Altern 8 remix)

Kidnap Kid- Vehl: Click to listen

Fantastic 70s platform shoes: click for more

Scroll down for videos from Sweet (clearly THE inspiration for Guns N Roses), Slade (Oasis) and Bay City Rollers (David Guetta)

Gin Lane (click for more)

A new study by American scientists has discovered that lonely fruit flies who fail to find romance drown their sorrows in alcohol.

Though study chief Troy Zars of the University of Missouri said the findings weren’t yet totally conclusive the BBC said reported that the ‘sex-starved’ flies’ actions matched the behaviour of similarly frustrated ‘hard-drinking mice’ (http://bbc.in/xSuHiY ). The Guardian was more empathetic.

“Male fruit flies, when rejected by females, turn to alcohol. They are far more likely to booze than their happy, consummated peers,” said the paper (in a feature headlined ‘in praise of fruit flies.’

“How poignant to discover that humans and Drosophila melanogastershare . . . react to disappointment in love in the same sad, time-honoured way,” the paper added. (http://bit.ly/GG2xZC )

Details of the fruit flies’ tragic lives were revealed weeks after scientists published research on honeybees which suggested that scout bees are more adventurous than stay at home hive bees, sharing genetic traits with humans who are thrill-seekers.

Entomologist Gene Robinson of the University of Illinois said they discovered ‘massive differences’ in gene structures between bees and compared them to the ‘same molecular pathways implicated in novelty-seeking in humans’.

“In people, for example, dopamine has been linked to the reward system,” Science News reported, “reinforcing the pleasure of doing certain activities.” http://bit.ly/xv358j

The journal said evidence suggests squids also have highly developed personalities like honeybees, having uncovered individual members of each species who consistently seek new experiences more than their risk-averse kin.

“In animals, scientists call that “novelty-seeking,” Science News noted, “While people who exhibit similar traits get labels like “extrovert.”

http://bit.ly/xv358j

Jonty Skrufff: http://listn.to/JontySkrufff

Click for more

We’re happy to announce that we’re teaming up with global TV dance station Dancetrippin. More details HERE or by clicking on either picture.

Kidnap Kid; Vehl; click to listen

“It all started with the vocal. I was watching Alphaville on the train one day, as soon as I heard Anna Karina’s monologue I knew I wanted to use it.”

Like Nathan Fake’s ‘The Sky Was Pink’, Kidnap Kid’s ‘Vehl’ is one of those rare tracks to combine startling originality with an instantly addictive melody and like Fake’s 2004 breakthrough hit, looks like catapulting its creator to similar worldwide (underground) fame.

Click on the picture to listen

The man in question- Sheffield producer Kidnap Kid (who by day goes by the name Matt Relton)- downplays its creation, however.

“Apart from that vocal idea (which translate from French as ‘’Your voice/ Your eyes/Your hands/Your lips/The look/The words/And the fact that I love you’) I didn’t have much of a vision,” he shrugs, “I rarely do when starting to write music actually, or at least not a vision that is accurate to the finished track.”

‘But I was very excited about the track when I was making it,” he admits, “Mostly because I had written something I didn’t expect to.”

And while Nathan Fake wrote “The Sky Was Pink” as a college exercise, Kidnap Kid is instead currently finishing a degree in Crime & Politics at college, and wrote “Vehl” at home.

“I remember starting it at 7am on a Tuesday morning, and finishing it around 9pm on Thursday. I think I only left my desk to eat and sleep between those times,” he recalls.

“I write everything on my knackered laptop, and my ‘studio’ is just in one half of my bedroom. No engineers or anything like that are involved,” he laughs, “The tracks are finished by the time they leave my house. It’s a very home-grown operation.”

Kidnap Kid (click for soundcloud)

As well as standing out for its killer vocal riffs (as well as Anna Karina’s aforementioned sultry French snippets there’s a helium filtered UK garage style vocal sample to die for) it’s the post-dubstep style beats that set it apart, which though recorded at 130bpm also lack a distinctive dominant bass-line.

Chatting about his song-writing technique in a recent interview he said ‘a lot of tracks with big basslines work well in clubs but are boring within a month, so I’m trying to avoid that basically’ though today clarifies his position.

“I wasn’t saying that big bass-lines are a bad thing, they’re pretty essential in dance music, I guess,” he points out.

“What I meant was, for me, a lot of dance music only works in clubs and on big systems. In other words it gets boring after three plays when you’re listening to it at home, without lots of sub (bass) and/ or alcohol. So basically I like writing music that works in all environments. Whether club/ ipod/ bedroom or on the radio.” (click here to listen to a clip: http://bit.ly/wdfnq3 )

Skrufff (Jonty Skrufff): Writing on Facebook several weeks ago you said ‘big thanks to everyone who has been waiting six months for Vehl!’: why the delay?

Kidnap Kid: “I’ve been waiting to get everything perfect really. I wanted to release a full EP with a broad range of music that I’m happy with, as well as a quality label/video/artwork etc. It has been a while in the making but I’d rather do it this way than put out something that could be improved.”

Skrufff: And how much of a problem has it been with people downloading it/ file sharing it before release?

Kidnap Kid: “I’m sure there has been a bit of file sharing, I don’t have a massive problem with it though. The way I see it, anyone who is going to download a low quality version was never going to buy it anyway. I think it all boils down to; would you rather have these people listening to and sharing you music or not? They only download it out of love for the music, so I don’t see it as a negative thing.”

Skrufff: As far as I’m aware there are no remixes: why not? Any plans to commission any?

Kidnap Kid: “There’s a remix package for the EP coming in a few month’s time. A number of people are involved and I’m very excited about it. Can’t reveal any names though I’m afraid.”

Skrufff: I understand Kidnap Kid is your first electronic music project (after playing in bands for 10 years): what inspired you to leave bands behind and go electronic?

Kidnap Kid: “It was a very natural progression. When I was old enough to start going to clubs my focus shifted and I fell in love with dance music, I just started writing it. I did both for a number of years but became less and less interested in the other music.”

Skrufff: How have your old band mates reacted?

Kidnap Kid: “It wasn’t like I left the band . . . we all went our separate ways, moved to different cities etc. Everyone else is still playing music so that is good.”

Skrufff: What’s your take on all these David Guetta/ Afrojack/ Tiesto/ Skrillex types; do they mean anything to you?

Kidnap Kid: “I don’t have much of a problem with them. I don’t like their music, but I don’t like a lot of music (laughing). Their huge success- deserved or not- is opening up club music, so that can only be a positive thing. Sometimes I do hear it on the radio though and it just sounds like noise. Maybe I’m getting old.”

Skrufff: How much is the plan to release an artist album?

Kidnap Kid: “100%. Though it is a looooong way off I should add.”

Skrufff: Anything else to add?

Skrufff: Thanks for getting in touch! And please don’t vote for David Cameron.”

Kidnap kid- Alphaville Ep is out now on Black Butter Records.

http://soundcloud.com/kidnap_kid

http://twitter.com/kidnapkid

http://www.black-butter.co.uk

Jonty Skrufff: http://listn.to/JontySkrufff

Click to watch...

click to watch an absolutely stunning Tron inspired dance routine. The video starts of slowly but stick with it……