Featuring UK superstar trance DJs Above & Beyond and the Dutch phenom Fedde Le Grand, the Halloween bash at the Roseland Ballroom was one to…wait for it… die for. In celebration of the release of Above & Beyond’s latest compilation Anjunabeats Vol. 7 and Fedde Le Grand’s debut artist album Output, the event highlighted some world’s premier trance and progressive house, and if ever there were hollows amuck in closets or haunted houses needing much relief, Fedde Le Grande and Above & Beyond certainly know how to cure it.
Throw in a little bit of base, drums, lights, costumes and you’ve got a temporary haven in New York City to deck the halls of Halloween. If this weren’t a monster mash in the least, then it was certainly fit for a graveyard brought to life with music. With renditions of “Put Your Hands Up for Detroit” for New York, and Prodigy’s “Breathe” over Simian’s “We Are your friends,” there were enough beats for headless horsemen to go on murderous frenzy jousts in a cemetery – yes, peculiar and sick! With beats dropping like they’re lit coal – too hot to handle with bare hands, Fedde Le Grand picks them up and sets them ablaze. This is his technique to work up the crowd – lighting them up and then igniting with a flair of beats and sounds to a technical conundrum – good DJs do this. With ease, they have the ability to take a hold of the crowd’s fate and enjoyment and play with it – swinging them like a pendulum as they go along.
The New York bred singer will release his first solo album in the US on November 3rd. Known primarily as the front man of The Strokes, Julian Casablancas‘ Phrazes for the Young will surely take him on a new solo career path. What does this mean for The Strokes? Well, they’re already halfway through the making of a new album, their first since the release of First Impressions of Earth in 2006.
After creating a stir in NME magazine about performing solo, and releasing quite the teaser video, Julian put on a show in Tokyo this past August. Footage from the show leaked on the web and disappeared within a couple of days - so you know RCA wanted to keep this album under wraps. We managed to get our hands on an advance copy of Phrazes of the Young. We’ve had it for a solid month now…listening, diverging, going back to it, and letting it all sink in.
We’ve got our tickets and we are on board the Golden Filter train. Since catching the group at the Tribeca Grand, we could only marvel at their secrecy – any information we learned only led to more questions. Between touring and working on a new album, we caught up with Penelope (the lead singer) and Stephen (the simultaneous drummer and keys player) for a Q&A. Their first release “Solid Gold” made a splash on the web, garnering the group some worldwide attention. With “Thunderbird,” their long-awaited single, we can only wonder what they have in store for their upcoming album – set for release early 2010. Click through for the interview and teaser.
