A month or two ago, I got a very polite email from a dancer from the National Slovak Theater regarding my song, “The Hustle” (DOWNLOAD). He was organizing a workshop in which he and his fellow dancers would each present a choreographed routine, and he wanted to use my song for his segment.
I of course obliged, but only under the condition that he videotape it and put it up on youtube so I could see it!
It arrived in my inbox this weekend, and I was blown away. This was one of those rare and incredible moments in my musical life that I could never have imagined or predicted, one in which the power of art, music and the internet overwhelmed me completely. To think that my song somehow wound up in the ears of a dancer and turned into a show, here:
I had the distinct pleasure of seeing Phantogram the other night at Bowery Ballroom, and got to chat with Josh and Sarah for a brief but enjoyable hot minute. Man, they brought it HARD and tore the house down. They had so much energy, great stage presence, both their voices were on point, and they had great backround visuals. Though my mobile-phone-photography is less than award-winning, here’s a shot from the sold out show.
And while I’m on the subject, we had a HUGE week for my remix. After debuting on Entertainment Weekly, we got written up in NME as among the 10 best free MP3 downloads of the week – they called it “a brilliant remix!”
Boom boom boooooom. Lemme hear you say way-o [way-oooooooo].
Extraordinarily pleased to announce my latest “official” remix, this time of the lovely Phantogram’s “Mouthful of Diamonds.” They released their debut album, “Eyelid Movies,” on Barsuk Records on 2/9/2010, and Barsuk (quite flatteringly) called my remix a “joyous new-wave inflected delight.” The remix also first premiered on Entertainment Weekly, which was AMAZING!
Phantogram is a duo, comprised of Sara Barthel and Josh Carter. They first caught my ear a few months ago when they were making the rounds on the blogosphere. Their production is really minimal and generally pretty dark – reminds me of an updated Massive Attack or Portishead, but a little more guitar and synth-driven. And I just LOVE the singer, Sara’s voice; she has this smoky, whispery beautiful thing going on… And on “Mouthful of Diamonds,” it really shines through and sits perfectly right in the middle of it, creating this dark and dreamy little world.
So, in my usual fashion, I turned the song completely on its head and produced it in the absolute opposite way – the only thing I kept from the original version is Sara’s vocals. I took it from minimal trip-hop to ultra-layered bubblegum pop, from dark to ultraviolet-bright. I loaded it up with synths and a dance beat, and recorded a whole bunch of guitars, percussion, squishes and squelches…
I highly encourage you to give the original a listen on the band’s myspace before checking out my version, as they’re SUPER different but somehow magically work great together… musical yin and yang!
You can listen to it and download below, and by all accounts please share it with any and everyone you know! Tweet the link, throw it on your facebook, send it to your grandma – everything’s fair game!
Two pieces of news to share today. The first of which is my song, “Milk and Cookies,” soundtracked the trailer to 48-Hour Magazine’s launch, pictured above. The concept for the project is pretty incredible, and I was stoked to be a part of it. Here’s their mission-statement:
“A raucous experiment in using new tools to erase media’s old limits. As the name suggests, we’re going to write, photograph, illustrate, design, edit, and ship a magazine in two days.”
You can learn more about the project at their website, 48hrmag.com. The trailer was created by the lovely and talented Ms. Kasia Cieplak Von Baldegg, and you can check out more of her work at www.kasiacieplak.com/.
The second piece of news for the day is another of my songs, “Snuggle Up to Nail Down,” was played during the most recent episode of “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me.” I got an excited voicemail from a friend saying, “99.9% sure I heard you on the radio!” How cool is that? Granted, they only included the first 8 seconds of the song, but still feeling pretty cool, right now. You can check out the podcast on iTunes by clicking HERE. The song comes on around minute 39 or so, if you REALLY wanna go the distance…
New remix to come later this week, so stay tuned for that. Happy trails, til then!
Got a truly wonderful response to my White Hinterland remix – I’m thrilled everyone came along for the ride!
A few things to report before I recap:
1) As many of you know, I’ve been co-producing the latest record for Project Jenny, Project Jan. We are so close to wrapping it up, I can taste it! Final mixes are complete, now in the middle of the mastering process. I seriously can’t wait!
2) Pleased to announce I’m working on MY next record – going to be a collaborative effort, working with a host of awesome special guests. Been sketching out ideas pretty regularly, very pumped to be working on my own stuff again. Lord knows where it’ll all end up, but it’s going to be awesome, I can tell you that…
3) Also been working a lot these days with my new friends, The Kickdrums. Doing some Postal-Service style email exchanges, trading ideas back and forth. Really fun stuff.
4) And lastly, my song “The Hustle” randomly wound up in yet ANOTHER extreme sports video. This time for some sort of Mountain Dew snowboarding event… Check it:
Moving right along, the White Hinterland remix picked up all sorts of steam over the past few weeks! Made it into Elbo.ws Hot Tracks after a nice thumbs up from WH’s record label, Dead Oceans.
Here’s the blog breakdown – thanks a bazillion to everyone that was kind enough to listen and write:
Welcome to Wilcassettes, the home of everything Alan Wilkis. Alan is a Brooklyn-based music producer and remixer. His latest project is called "PRINTS" and can be found here: http://www.prints.fm
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