Kensaye, a French producer in London

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I get a lot of music submissions for this blog and often I know from the way the mail is written that I am not going to be interested. This case was different. The mail was personal and concise and by the producer himself. His name is Kensaye and he writes: “My name is Kensaye, I am a French producer based in London, UK. I focus on soul/hip-hop/electro/chill music and I release material from time to time. I’m unsigned and independent.”

I had no idea what to expect but this super relaxed, soulful and diverse remixes really caught my ear and heart. Listen to Nicolay & Kay, the Roots, Ellie Goulding, Aaliyah and Notorious BIG stuff remixed. Sometimes it’s very minimalistic and reduced, distorted and distracted, but always hypnotic and room filling. I like the stuff and recommend to follow Kensaye on Soundcloud.

Here is a little video from London with the rapper Innocent who got a beat for his birthday. A bit long in the beginning but a good vibe of cruising around in the end;

Photo credit: Kamran Rhezekani

Great video, great DJ premier sound

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You know it’s a DJ Premier song after two bars. Here is another great track he produced for Joey Bada$$ and it just sounds as oldschooly and warm as we love it. Bada$$ has a great, laid back, hypnotic way to rap like Nas in his good times. Now add some superb video artists to make an outstanding visual representation and a new classic is born. Enjoy “Unorthodox”:

Joey Bada$$ – “Unorthodox” (Produced by DJ Premier) from GreenLabelSound on Vimeo.

Testing Traktor for iPad

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Finally, Native Instruments released an app for the ipad called “Traktor DJ“. Since Traktor is the widest used DJ software and the ipad has so much to offer to manipulate music with its interface the expectations were extremely high. And they didn’t fail. The price of 18 EUR is ok for what you get and after reading the first reviews and I instantly had to download and try it.

I spent a nice long ride on the train with figuring out the thing and produce a little mix. The app runs smoothly and is very intuitive, it comes with effects like looping, delays, flangers and filters or freezes. The freeze function is certainly the most innovative. While in a loop, you can touch certain parts of the loop and play it, like single drums or sounds. While playing, mixing or skipping, it never gets out of synch, and combined with a soundcard you can send different sound signals to master and prelistening. So this is actually a serious alternative for a gig in a bar, maybe not in a club.

So here it is, enjoy 30 minutes of bass music with Benga, Kryptic Minds, Redrum and Fused Forces.

The mixes can be recorded directly within the app. I was a bit annoyed at first because I could not find a way to export it. But with a little help from the NI support I found the way. This is how you export and save a recording from the Traktor app for iPad:

“In order to export your recorded mix you need to sync (connect) your iPad to a desktop computer, then open iTunes and click on the iPad tab. Select the “APPS” tab and then scroll down to the section “File Sharing”. You will see TraktorDJ in the file sharing apps list. click on it, it will show you the recorded files which you can save now with the “SAVE TO” button to a location on your harddrive.”

Here is the official promotion video with Richie Hawtin preparing a set in the taxi: