Tropical House (steel drum synths, sax, "syncopated" beats and old school acapellas?)

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disappointed rev isn't into this stuff

mods = chickenshit idiots (D-40), Saturday, 29 August 2015 03:21 (eight years ago) link

There's a direct line of descent from Aeroplane, and the epicenter of this over the past four years surely must be Los Angeles (with satellites in Australia, Spain and Paris). I agitated for this for a while on the sounds like Aeroplane thread, but no one bit.

Still think no-one has outdone Perseus's Jeremy Glenn remix, from 2011. Most consistent purveyor has been Moon Boots.

somewhere between islamic call to prayer and an orgasm (Sanpaku), Saturday, 29 August 2015 05:09 (eight years ago) link

garbage

the late great, Saturday, 29 August 2015 05:55 (eight years ago) link

I think this shit is too "balearic" for me, I've never really been about beach vibes in any sense. I find them actively offputting, really.

Of the tracks Moka posted, I really like "Russian Girlfriends", and the Pancho Warwick is cool, deeply h8 the Goldroom tho.

Most of that list isn't pop in the US, except for OMI and (kind of) Robin Shulz. "Waves" is a jam on the low, but I find "Cheerleader" just on the wrong side of hokey.

best beloved george benson (The Reverend), Saturday, 29 August 2015 08:19 (eight years ago) link

I'm going to love all this shit aren't I?

Matt DC, Saturday, 29 August 2015 11:26 (eight years ago) link

Beach vibes is played but this does it the right way, it's like if classixx's shwayze remix had actually been super influential

mods = chickenshit idiots (D-40), Saturday, 29 August 2015 15:27 (eight years ago) link

Also the bieber record would sound dope ~in the mix~

mods = chickenshit idiots (D-40), Saturday, 29 August 2015 15:28 (eight years ago) link

i don't see how this is particularly distinct from the domestic casual-type deep house that was(/is still?) popular in the past couple years. spread mostly by youtubes w/ background images of white skinny women in bikinis, appropriated vocals from 'collective memory'-type r&b records (filtered so that they sound not sung but almost whispered by the breeze), 'chill' vibes. like yeah i guess there wasn't as much sax in those (w/ some exceptions, like klangkarussell's "sonnentanz", which i actually like a lot) but otherwise like what is the difference? same lineage if not cut of the exact same cloth maybe?

dyl, Saturday, 29 August 2015 15:47 (eight years ago) link

Rap music is good and wallpaper house is bad (except when it is also good )

mods = chickenshit idiots (D-40), Saturday, 29 August 2015 15:49 (eight years ago) link

You gotta understand that this wedding of two of my favorite forms of music is basically an extension of personal aesthetic interests...I made these mixes about 5-6 years ago that was like, let's mix DOC out of crydamour, I'm glad the world is coming around

mods = chickenshit idiots (D-40), Saturday, 29 August 2015 15:51 (eight years ago) link

All of this stuff is post-Aeroplane, yeah, and I think I even heard that Jeremy Glenn remix in Seminyak, but the actual vibe on the beach typically was much much more distinct: lots of Matoma, Boehm remix of "Dear Mama", that remix of Mr Probz's "Waves", Major Lazer and DJ Snake's "Lean On".

Like yeah it's important to see the historical continuities but it's also important not to ignore the shifts - e.g. these tunes do not have vocals "filtered so that they sound not sung but almost whispered by the breeze" (which is a great description of what other, related stuff was doing a few years back, mind), it's much more literally "oh hey we all know this song let's sing along or at least wave our beers in time".

And Matt DC I think you would!

Tim F, Saturday, 29 August 2015 22:10 (eight years ago) link

idk dyl, I like the british pop-deep house stuff, if that's what you're talking about

best beloved george benson (The Reverend), Saturday, 29 August 2015 23:06 (eight years ago) link

side note: usually when I see youtubes w/ background images of white skinny women in bikinis, I assume it's not for me

best beloved george benson (The Reverend), Saturday, 29 August 2015 23:07 (eight years ago) link

it's funny how small the gradations can be, cause I totally rock with shit (not necessarily proud of such, mind you):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5wppgR1HH4

best beloved george benson (The Reverend), Saturday, 29 August 2015 23:24 (eight years ago) link

Oh yeah don't blame you for that at all, and I often suspect north euros of being the worst virulent racists. None the less and give or take a hamfisted record or three I feel as if playing some of these songs to diverse audiences would work p well given the right conditions

mods = chickenshit idiots (D-40), Sunday, 30 August 2015 01:19 (eight years ago) link

Just heard Kygo's "Stole The Show" on the radio B-)

Tim F, Sunday, 30 August 2015 01:40 (eight years ago) link

Two songs later it was Felix Jaehn's cover of "Ain't Nobody".

Tim F, Sunday, 30 August 2015 01:50 (eight years ago) link

they're pushing this stuff in the states too, kygo's marvin gaye remix is getting spins out here

also i suspect justin timberlake's single moving this direction is indicative of where the market is moving generally

mods = chickenshit idiots (D-40), Sunday, 30 August 2015 02:47 (eight years ago) link

*farts*

WD-40 (mattresslessness), Sunday, 30 August 2015 05:30 (eight years ago) link

i def like (much of) the british pop/deep house stuff too rev! i am just confused about what the relationship between that stuff and the topic of this thread is, if there is one -- like is one a subset of the other or no? did they evolve in parallel or one after the other?

they seem to be super similar other than what vocals are used -- is that the main difference? idgi

dyl, Sunday, 30 August 2015 06:34 (eight years ago) link

*farts*

― WD-40 (mattresslessness), Sunday, August 30, 2015 12:30 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

cool opinion shithead

mods = chickenshit idiots (D-40), Sunday, 30 August 2015 17:15 (eight years ago) link

huh this is what I've been hearing; "Stole the Show" is currently #2 on the French charts and "Ain't Nobody" #4 and "Lean On" #7. It's been a hot summer.

droit au butt (Euler), Sunday, 30 August 2015 17:59 (eight years ago) link

Selena Gomez One Last Time is also totally this stuff, it already has infiltrated everything.

Siegbran, Sunday, 30 August 2015 19:14 (eight years ago) link

Beach vibes is played

Lol I was starting to get all eyerolly at this but thinking about it, the ~balearic~ spirit has been migrating inland for the past few years and now it's all tropical rainforests instead of sun and sand... i'm probably totally not otm here but whatever

brimstead, Sunday, 30 August 2015 20:26 (eight years ago) link

like i know ronnie & renzo were hot 5 years ago but that vibe seems to have permeated and lingered... anyway offtopic

brimstead, Sunday, 30 August 2015 20:28 (eight years ago) link

The tracks Moka posted are cool but they don't fit my idea of tropical house - too housey, not tropically enough. To me it seems genre is defined by slight "carribean-style" syncopation and synth-effects and the melancholy beach vibe Tim F mentioned.

niels, Monday, 31 August 2015 16:29 (eight years ago) link

Is the mix that Siegbran posted representative?

Matt DC, Monday, 31 August 2015 19:35 (eight years ago) link

eh not really. The borders of this are of course very porous so you see a lot of mixes with slight tropical house vibes interspersed within a more amorphous "chill house" / "deep house" setting.

Still think Matoma (who's something of a tropical house purist) is the best starting point.

This 17 minute mix of his own tunes he did is kinda hilarious, albeit jarring;

https://soundcloud.com/matoma-official/one-year-one-love

Thomas Jack also has a 'Tropical House' DJ mix series featuring a lot of the key players but, again, most of the practitioners are a bit too subtle to play like an entire hour of tropical in a row (which is a shame almost, the thing that really struck me in Bali is how the more of the same style that's playing the more involving it is).

Tim F, Monday, 31 August 2015 20:11 (eight years ago) link

One way to think about this style is if Afrojack circa 2010 had "gone balearic". Anything that's actually balearic/deep is perhaps a bit too nuanced/tasteful to capture it.

Tim F, Monday, 31 August 2015 20:12 (eight years ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-QR5_58xPk

1995 ball boy (Karl Malone), Monday, 31 August 2015 20:22 (eight years ago) link

this music gives me bad feelings

lil urbane (Jordan), Monday, 31 August 2015 20:56 (eight years ago) link

it will make you renounce everything you believed in

1995 ball boy (Karl Malone), Monday, 31 August 2015 20:59 (eight years ago) link

ha well i didn't mean Iasos.

lil urbane (Jordan), Monday, 31 August 2015 21:00 (eight years ago) link

stay away from Iasos, i repeat, stay away from Iasos!

1995 ball boy (Karl Malone), Monday, 31 August 2015 21:02 (eight years ago) link

this stuff is so hit or miss!! help me find more hits

mods = chickenshit idiots (D-40), Monday, 14 September 2015 01:53 (eight years ago) link

also i suspect justin timberlake's single moving this direction is indicative of where the market is moving generally

― mods = chickenshit idiots (D-40), Saturday, August 29, 2015 9:47 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i meant bieber, lol

mods = chickenshit idiots (D-40), Monday, 14 September 2015 01:55 (eight years ago) link

this is my favorite of the (non rap) examples bc it violates all rules of tastefulness & is still a banger imho

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RCx712GKqU

mods = chickenshit idiots (D-40), Monday, 14 September 2015 01:58 (eight years ago) link

haha, "John Mayer - Free Fallin' (Matoma & Nelsaan Tropical Mojito Remix)" - truly you can't make this stuff up...

cool song!

niels, Monday, 14 September 2015 08:23 (eight years ago) link

I feel like this stuff was engineered and optimized just for Spotify playlists - Ultimate Chill Out Beach Party, Summer Vibes Relax.

MikoMcha, Monday, 14 September 2015 09:41 (eight years ago) link

Matoma is just some kind of sunset vibe mining algorithm, right?

MikoMcha, Monday, 14 September 2015 09:42 (eight years ago) link

So pleased you're on board with Matoma, Miko!

Tim F, Monday, 14 September 2015 10:02 (eight years ago) link

Tim F & i were talking about exactly that re spotify lifestyle playlists

mods = chickenshit idiots (D-40), Monday, 14 September 2015 17:15 (eight years ago) link

lol played a lot of this stuff around pool parties where people were smoking a lot of w33d. they seemed to think it was OTM

(•̪●) (carne asada), Monday, 14 September 2015 18:03 (eight years ago) link

its crazy how bad the main purveyors of this sound are at djing it... i tried the kygo and felix jaehn mixes w/ thomas jack on soundcloud and i had to turn them off w/in two songs

total wet blanket house

mods = chickenshit idiots (D-40), Monday, 14 September 2015 18:04 (eight years ago) link

the next step of course is 8 min long instrumental versions of afropop records obv

mods = chickenshit idiots (D-40), Monday, 14 September 2015 18:05 (eight years ago) link

ooh gimme that

insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Monday, 14 September 2015 18:08 (eight years ago) link

I wasn't really feeling that Matoma mix although it had its moments. This thread title piqued my interest because it got close to my long-held non-existent fantasy genre that melds the syncopated, socafied end of post-UK funky dance music with the bouncier end of nu-Balearic, but then there's quite a bit of afropop tilting in that direction right now as it is.

Matt DC, Monday, 14 September 2015 18:51 (eight years ago) link

i like that this stuff is sort of tasteless but i also don't

none of the matoma remixes touch classixx/shwayze edit to me

J0rdan S., Monday, 14 September 2015 18:53 (eight years ago) link

I wasn't really feeling that Matoma mix although it had its moments. This thread title piqued my interest because it got close to my long-held non-existent fantasy genre that melds the syncopated, socafied end of post-UK funky dance music with the bouncier end of nu-Balearic, but then there's quite a bit of afropop tilting in that direction right now as it is.

― Matt DC, Monday, September 14, 2015 1:51 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

its def just a strain of the broader technical genre of 'tropical house' that's worth listening to & fantasy genre is totally a part of its appeal...tim's right that matoma as a central figure makes better sense than anyone else, but even w/ him there's a few records which just don't work (any eminem remixes for example)...you def have to dig through crap to find the worthwhile shit but as DJ tools the best stuff is great as a kind of genre nexus imo

mods = chickenshit idiots (D-40), Monday, 14 September 2015 19:07 (eight years ago) link

the matoma mix is just a bunch of his own remixes lined up right? that's obv not the idea way to experience this stuff ... I'm more seeing these as DJ tools where individual songs work & some don't but they're not afraid of incorporating rap which has been an issue w/ balearic zone of fruitless disintegration since the mid 00s revival

mods = chickenshit idiots (D-40), Monday, 14 September 2015 19:10 (eight years ago) link

i liked mazde - pitch black a lot, it scratches a similar itch that goodbye by feder feat. lyse does, but it's not really trop house

so much of this stuff just sounds like slowed down euphoric trance - trance-bahton? - even down to the insistent chugging one-note basslines

illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 7 January 2016 12:29 (eight years ago) link

yeah try pitching terje's remix of balearic incarnation up, it's totally progressive trance

0 / 0 (lukas), Sunday, 10 January 2016 16:37 (eight years ago) link

cue Tim F for the obligatory reminder that 'the differences are more interesting than the similarities' which is probably true in this case too i guess? as far as the uses to which this music is put, if nothing else

illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Sunday, 10 January 2016 17:43 (eight years ago) link

but i am pretty far removed from the 'run into the beach butt naked' massive, so i don't know - and that does pain me

illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Sunday, 10 January 2016 17:45 (eight years ago) link

Love this genre. That John Mayer thing up top was ridiculous!

These guys do a good job of culling through a lot of this stuff (along with bits from other genres) each week: http://noonpacific.com

schwantz, Monday, 11 January 2016 16:33 (eight years ago) link

cue Tim F for the obligatory reminder that 'the differences are more interesting than the similarities' which is probably true in this case too i guess?

― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Sunday, 10 January 2016 17:43 Bookmark

yes

r|t|c, Monday, 11 January 2016 17:28 (eight years ago) link

haha first name i recognize when quickly scanning the page is kaytranada

Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Monday, 11 January 2016 18:11 (eight years ago) link

because that site is also wrong

r|t|c, Monday, 11 January 2016 20:16 (eight years ago) link

Which site?

schwantz, Monday, 11 January 2016 20:39 (eight years ago) link

ur one. idk i looked thru a bunch and to me they were tropical but not Tropical

r|t|c, Monday, 11 January 2016 20:53 (eight years ago) link

What's the difference? Not trying to be pushy, I'm genuinely interested. They definitely post a bunch of tracks that are not tropical (Tropical?) house, but I've discovered a bunch of good TH stuff through them...

schwantz, Monday, 11 January 2016 21:15 (eight years ago) link

yeah sorry i know i'm not being v illuminating, mainly bc i hate this stuff and generally try and examine that urge from a safe distance

the distinctions tim makes upthread seem sound to me and i think have been consistently overlooked. capital TH in a popular wave sense is an overripe inbred mutant cousin to the lighter chillout/deep/tropical subscenes that may or may not occasionally coalesce in their uninteresting ways. idk it's also probably already dead?

r|t|c, Monday, 11 January 2016 23:47 (eight years ago) link

(Kygo isn’t familiar with the term Balearic, the eclectic, slower D.J. style of late-1980s Ibiza that is tropical house’s clearest dance-music antecedent.)

:-)

from http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/20/arts/music/kygodelivers-dance-beats-with-a-side-order-of-pan-flute.html

J0rdan S., Wednesday, 20 January 2016 00:33 (eight years ago) link

Matos!

The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 20 January 2016 00:34 (eight years ago) link

The original balearic scene was much smaller en less known than the Ibiza chillout/downtempo scene of the 90s and 00s, which is what Kygo is the actual successor to.

Compilations like this:
http://www.fantazia.org.uk/Mailorder/images/HedKandi_BeachHouse2000_2CD.jpg

Siegbran, Wednesday, 20 January 2016 07:37 (eight years ago) link

into this even tho the title is a van halen false flag

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiJb6uypm5s

Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Wednesday, 27 January 2016 02:27 (eight years ago) link

tropical

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MwltueD5ak

The Reverend, Wednesday, 27 January 2016 02:43 (eight years ago) link

three months pass...

So has anyone actually listened to the kygo album yet?

human and working on getting beer (longneck), Monday, 16 May 2016 08:12 (seven years ago) link

5 tracks in sounds a lot like what you'd expect

niels, Tuesday, 17 May 2016 11:50 (seven years ago) link

So many steel drums

(•̪●) (carne asada), Tuesday, 17 May 2016 11:52 (seven years ago) link

three years pass...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTYOkcRH220

every now and again injecting a little life into the formula appears to involve exhuming a deceased icon huh

dyl, Sunday, 30 June 2019 15:57 (four years ago) link

one year passes...

Anyone heard the new I think album “Tropical House Cruises to Jamaica “ ?

Saw a mention on twitter

curmudgeon, Wednesday, 17 March 2021 17:21 (three years ago) link

Oops , I see that the 2020 collector’s edition of that 2017/2018 album is still getting attention in some circles

curmudgeon, Thursday, 18 March 2021 16:24 (three years ago) link


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