Put this together for a proposed 90 minute version (going for the same breakneck speed as yer Girl Talks) of the original Ultramix 90 set (which is gonna be reworked a little too some time in the near future), using a couple of iPod adverts because sexy visuals with the music sells it better. These ads always get me (relatively) excited and I really like them. They even seem to make the songs featured in them sound better. So I downloaded a couple from YouTube, worked out how to import FLVs into Premiere (which meant forking out a few quid for a plug-in licence) and re-edited the vids to fit the audio which was a preview clip I did for the mix nearly FOUR years ago now (scary). Look out for the 90:90 edition coming soon.

Following up on that Ciara vs Sasse mash-up, here it is in VIDEO form. I managed to find the original ‘Get Up’ clip and then edit it a little in Premiere so that the lip sync matches the slower speed of the acapella in the audio. Unfortunately this always seems to get desynchronised a little when uploaded to YouTube but it just about works still.

Hopefully the clip will be allowed to stay up. I haven’t bothered with YT after they suspended my old account while I was on holiday back in the Summer - never knew if this was more because of the promo edits such as the one above or because of footage of England goals I’d added for people to enjoy (probably the latter because some of those may have been commercially available). All very annoying. But hopefully I’ll get the other music vid edits done so far (inc. the Madonna/Biosphere/Autechre one from Ultramix 94) back on YT - in the meantime you can watch most if not all of them in the Flowplayer on the right >.

Oh and you may have noticed the new graphics on this site - a big improvement I think. Unfortunately I stupidly flattened the Photoshop file ft. all the different elements on different layers so will have to redo from scratch for further alterations.

First two were done earlier this year but all old components anyway. In each case I guess they represent a yearning for the minimal production ethos of so much recent R&B to shift to a broader, busier and richer sonic scope - or to take these formulaic yet relatively charismatic performances and map them onto deeper, darker, “dancier” territories. Because they touch on something SO good. In chronological order:

Cassie (’Me And U’ acapella) vs Etienne De Crecy (’Relax’)
I tried numerous acapellas over this sublime De Crecy track from his 2000 LP ‘Tempovision’ but Cassie’s works best. The connection between the two tracks is a deep melancholy but the difference is that Cassie’s smoulders into the night while Etienne’s blinds like sunshine. IMO he should definitely work with American contemporary soul singers.

Sasse (’Loosing Touch’) vs Ciara ft. Chamillionaire (’Get Up’ acapella)
Extract from recently completed part 11 of Ultramix 06. The wonderfully macabre mood of Sasse’s Italo revival track combined with Ciara’s slinky smooth vocal works better than you might expect.

Shakedown (’At Night’ acapella) vs 808 State (’Empire’)
Made the other day. Prior to the recent re-mastered issue of the great ‘Ex:El’ LP I’d been thinking about how well ‘Empire’, at least in essence, fits as a backing track for a late 80s Janet Jackson-esque pop song. Listen and you’ll get the idea - the ‘At Night’ vocal seemed to fit better than anything else I could find