Not familiar with Dawn Golden and Rosy Cross? You will be after hearing his remix of “Original Don,” the latest single from Major Lazer. The original was nothing to spit at, but given how complex the track is, it was begging to be remixed.

The Mad Decent labelmate responsible for this gem is Dexter Tortoriello, a producer out of Chicago. His take on the track highlights the synth, ups the bass, and peaks with an epic guitar solo. It’s somehow darker, and yet it feels perfectly suited to the club.

A digital EP, featuring this remix and other versions of “Original Don,” will be released November 1. Until then, you can stream the remix HERE.

It’s Friday Night and we arrive at Public Assembly shortly after midnight.  Breezing past the bouncer out of the cold, windswept waste of N6th and into the musty, cavernous warmth of PA, it felt like a good time to be showing up to a party—especially a Flashing Lights throw-down featuring Mad Decent beat-smith and pan-global party-starter Douster.  Straight to the back room, past the gate and through the door and…where the fuck are all the people?  Residents Dj Ayres and Nick Catchdubs were at the decks pumping out a mish-mash mix of big name house, hip-hop, a little dubstep—anything and everything to get people warmed up and moving.  The only problem being that the room was far from full.  Outside of two raver girls pulling cartwheels and break-dance moves straight out of Electric Boogaloo, the dance floor was sedate.  Maybe people were home making seven-layer dip for their Oscar parties.  Whatever.  We were there to party, and the dudes on the tables delivered.

Around 1:30, with the room slightly more full, Douster took the stage and kicked out a mind-blowing, continent-hopping Afro-cumbia set.  Hailing from Lyon by way of Buenos Aires, the man’s sound casts a big net.  He layered trance synth buildups underneath propulsive Latin and West African percussion.   The bass bounced and croaked, and the ravey synths swept in and out and gave way to 8bit bleeps while feverish drums, handclaps and whistles beat time. He pulled tracks from all over the place—new cumbia, kuduro, dancehall.  Remixes included a bubbling, two-step workout of Major Lazer’s “Hold the Line”.  This is new world order music that would sound just as natural blasting out of tinny speakers in the favela, the massive sound system of an Ibiza mega-club, or here in a dank back-room in Brooklyn.  Douster took us on a non-stop journey, pausing with each track to add a new layer—a new flavor to the mix.  His transitions were so smooth that they felt nonexistent. The music just flowed from one place to another, hopping borders, styles—hop, bounce, skip, jump, step, and stomp.

The only drawback on the night was the crowd, or lack thereof. Douster’s multi-culti dance party should be shaking rumps and kicking up dust wall-to-wall, country to country, so the spare crowd was a bit of a buzz-kill and also cause for surprise.  Step your game up NYC. Flashing Lights is bringing the beats and you need to bring the bodies.

If you want to be in know regarding all things Douster, take a look at his artist page over at Mad Decent and, for a taste of this mad scientist’s mixology, check out this tape he put together for Fader HERE.

This Friday February 25, Flashing Lights returns to Public Assembly with another edition of their infamous party! This time around, Douster joins the usual crew DJ Ayres, Nick Catchdubs, and Jubilee, for a night that’s sure to be filled with awesome beats and good times, not to mention more than enough rave juice.

Youthful French producer and ZZK Records compatriot Douster has been making a splash with his clubby European take on the various tropical rhythms (and riddims) emerging from around the globe. Whether it be dancehall or kuduro, cumbia or UK funky, Douster can be counted on to deliver an uptempo, chopped-and-sliced dancefloor filler.

Check out this brand new tour mix that he just did for The Fader to get you pumped!

Shortly before Midnight on Saturday, Dillon Francis stepped up to the decks in Public Assembly’s back room and kicked off a lesson in mixing with a slew of moombahton tracks.  The house-tinged tunes got the crowd moving in time to a marching, reggaeton beat.  The dancing was hesitant until Francis cut the sound to announce the end of the moombahton experiment and the beginning of his dub set.  Laying new productions and exclusives side by side with British dubstep anthems like Rusko’s “Cockney Thug”, Francis put together a set long on originality and song-craft.  His drops were precise, and the bass powerful.  Francis puts together real songs, rather than tweaking out to rapid-fire bass blasts.  His dubstep has melody and his mixes are more than a string of build-ups and bass drops.

With one final bass-rattling banger, Francis yielded the stage to Flufftronix and Dirty South Joe.  The opening set established the tone, and left the Luvstep duo to finish teaching the lesson Francis had begun.  Their set was beyond tight.  They dropped bomb after bomb without ever losing the thread of the mix.  The set was cohesive.  Everything flowed.  Emalkay, Caspa, Magnetic Man—the Luvsteppers piled up the hits, but made each track their own.  If dubstep has a canon, then these two have it down.  They also have an ear for hooks, and their music weds gorgeous vocal samples with deep-space echoing bass rips.  “Luvstep” is rich, full music that belies the spare, glitchy beats that spawned the genre.  If “Luvstep 2”—the new mix dropping on Valentine’s Day—holds up to Flufftronix and Dirty South Joe’s live set, they could end up creating a dubstep mix with as much crossover appeal as recent British records such as Skream’s Outside the Box and Magnetic Man’s self-titled.  Luvstep held the crow in its deep, bass-fueled sway for a full two hours.  The bass brought some kids to such heights of ecstasy that they were literally humping the speakers. At least one room full of people will be anxiously awaiting the new tape.  In the words of one reveler, arms spread wide and head thrown back in genuflection before the altar of Luvstep, “these boys are the truth!”

Anticipating the St. Valentine’s Day drop of “Luvstep 2”, the follow-up to last year’s most excellent Luvstep mixtape, Flufftronix and Dirty South Joe are taking their melodic bass rumblings on tour.  This Saturday they’ll be making a stop at Public Assembly’s back room for a night of deep vocal dubstep.  If you haven’t heard the first Luvstep mix from these Mad Decent approved dub maestros then check it out HERE or download it from iTunes as episode #57 of Mad Decent’s Worldwide Radio podcast.  You can also get reduced admission for Saturday’s party if you RSVP with promoters Meanred HERE, and while you’re there peep the Garden State-cribbing teaser vid for the new tape.  With lush fills, sweet vocal samples and bubbling, echo-chamber bass, these boys are making dubstep with massive pop appeal.  Catch them on the come-up.

This Wednesday, December 29, Powerline, The Good Thing, GBH and Bowery Presents have all come together to bring you a bone-rattling bass-culture bill at Music Hall of Williamsburg.  Headlined by Israel’s Borgore and his pioneering brand of dubstep—“Gorestep”—the night will also feature sets from Hellfire Machina and Bronx-based young gun J Rabbit, who just dropped a new mix-tape for Mad Decent last week (CLICK HERE for a free download).  Advance tickets are available HERE.

In a surprising union, Major Lazer (Diplo + Switch) has teamed up with La Roux to create Lazerproof, a mixtape that combines Major Lazer’s electro-dancehall bangers with tracks from La Roux’s eponymous debut album. No stranger to the realm of mixtapes, Diplo has collaborated with M.I.A. on Piracy Funds Terrorism and Santigold on Top Ranking, creating mixtapes that fuse the respective artists’ debut albums with a selection of hip hop, dubstep and reggae beats. La Roux’s songs have seen their share of dubstep remixes, making her collaboration with Major Lazer a little less surprising (bonus: check out tradehooks compilation of the best La Roux remixes HERE).

Lazerproof balances the familiar with the unfamiliar, while delivering surprise after surprise. Some songs are close derrivatives of their respective archetypes  - the Costra Nostra Edit of “Cover My Eyes” adds a ska beat while keeping the melody and vocals intact. “In For The Kill” gets reworked twice, first in “Independent Kill”, where Candi Redd raps over the original melody, then again in ”In 4 The Kill Pon de Skream”, which takes Skream’s pervasive remix  and laces it with a stripped-down beat from “Pon de Floor” for a curiously subtle result.

“Magic (Falling Soldiers Dub)”, a less obvious interpretation of “As If By Magic”, takes the vocals from its poppy predecessor and lays it over a reggae dub. Stripped of its synth undertones, the song takes on a completely different mood. The two closing tracks – “I Said It (Major Lazer Dubplate)” featuring Opal and “Hold Yuh (Double Dubplate)” featuring Gyptian – left us mystified. Although there are two La Roux songs that didn’t get the mixtape treatment (“Saviour” and “Reflections Are Protection”), neither resembles the tracks in question.

CLICK HERE to download Lazerproof from the Mad Decent blog, a free download if you get it today (Wednesday, May 26). Last we checked, the server was having some issues, so if you need it right this second (as we did), head over to the Stockholm Beat Connection for an alternate download link.

We leave you with two samples from Lazerproof: “In 4 The Kill Pon de Skream” and the mysterious “Hold Yuh (Double Dubplate)”. If you can figure out its origins, by all means, enlighten us in the comments section below.

Major Lazer & La Roux – “In 4 The Kill Pon de Skream”

Major Lazer & La Roux featuring Gyptian – “Hold Yuh (Double Dubplate)”

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This weekend, the Pepsi DJ Collective is kicking things off a little early with a party at Roxy’s Playhouse (a.k.a. BK Space, N8, The Space on 8th, etc.) on Thursday. Diplo, Roxy Cottontail, DJ Drama and Eli Escobar will take turns manning the decks, with a special live performance by Mad Decent’s own Maluca.

In support of his latest album, The Boy Who Knew Too Much, Mika will perform at the United Palace Theater on Friday night. We saw Mika on his last tour, and the boy definitely knows how to put on a show. Also on Friday, Chromeo will be doing double duty, with a live performance at Irvinig Plaza, followed by a DJ set at Webster Hall for the official after party.

Saturday night brings two legends of house music to town: Erick Morillo is back from Ibiza and will be spinning at Pacha, while Jeff Mills and his signature Detroit techno will be at The Sullivan Room.

Be sure to check out photos from Dave 1′s DJ set at Webster Hall last June and Diplo’s appearances at Hard NYC and Flashing Lights last Saturday.

Don’t forget, CMJ’s annual Music Marathon is taking over NYC next week. Click here to customize your own CMJ schedule, or check in with us on Monday for our top picks.

Featuring Toddla T, Nick Catchdubs, DJ Ayres, Jubilee

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FULL ALBUM

I’ve attended a few parties in dodgy locations before, but finding a bit of revelry in a Chinatown mall was a first. Enter Flashing Lights: your no-nonsense solution to realizing a sublime NYC evening. Spearheaded by DJs Ayres (The Rub), Jubilee (Nightshifters), and Nick Catchdubs (Fool’s Gold), these tastemakers bring a genuine dance party to life without the pretentious attitude found in clubs across the apple.

The NYC debut of Toadally Krossed Out begged a comparison to Dim Mak’s Bloody Beetroots as the two DJs donned green toad masks while rocking the dim sum restaurant. What stood out for me was the attendance from label heads, Diplo and A-Trak, who both came out to support their artists and partake in the action. In return, the DJs played their respective remixes of tracks by Switch, A-Trak, and Major Lazer. Their presence exemplifies a certain kinship that exists amongst labels like Fool’s Gold and Mad Decent and the artists they represent. All this juicy party goodness is wrapped together with big help from MeanRed Productions and Good Peoples.

We look forward to what artists and collaborations Flashing Lights will be offering in the future. In the mean time check out the site www.flashinglightslightslights.com and be sure to catch their next party at Glasslands September 4th! Also check out some photos from the evening debauchery as well as the M.R.I. Lightpainting blog.

Major Lazer – Hold The Line (Toadally Krossed Out Remix)