Virgin

Extraball? What’s this? It sounds like it could be some sort of futuristic term for a space age game involving a sport where competitors fight to the death with a deadly object. Whilst this makes hardly any sense to me at least, there are plenty of other straight forward and exciting things about this release.

Multiple vocalist echo throughout the track that “the time is now”. I’m not entirely sure what it’s time for. Maybe for us all to give up on Twitter on Facebook, look outside and release there’s more to life then a computer screen. Or some global epidemic involving pigs and the flu.

The single Extraball is the lead release from French DJ and producer Yuksek from his forthcoming album Away From The Sea. Although we mock the French for chomping away on frogs and horse, we can’t fault their electronic music output. Lord of the dance Daft Punk and Justice are two duo’s who have made an impression around the world. Yuksek looks set to do the same with this tasty single.

If the single wasn’t enough to make clubbers reach for their glowsticks, there is a host of slamming remix action. The producers may not be household names, but the beats and synths have been tweaked to rival that of any established DJ.

The EP drops in to digital retailers on May 4th. If your old fashioned and like to buy physical CD’s, it will also be in all good record shops.

• For more on Yuksek visit his MySpace page.

What better way to celebrate the inauguration of President Obama that by getting your political groove thing down to Daft Punk vs. Adam Freeland’s Aer OBAMA? The video to this brilliant Adam Freeland remix of Daft Punk’s Aerodynamic is riding high on YouTube right now, amid a glut of Obama-inspired tunes and vids doing the rounds. What’s your favourite?

• myspace.com/adamfreelandmusic

MSTRKRFT (read as “Master-Kraft”) is an electronic group out of Toronto. This year at the Toronto Virgin Music Fest they replaced SebastiAn, when he missed his flight and they didn’t disappoint. The group came together in 2005 and consists of JFK (Jesse F. Keeler) and Al-P (Alex Puodziukas). The group has remixed over 30 songs of various genres including the latest remix of John Legend’s song “Green Light”.

On Friday I attended Fist Of God, which is the official name for the MSTRKRFT tour as well as their upcoming album, which is expected to drop in January of 2009. The stop I was at had Felix Cartal opening up, but there will be various openers throughout the tour such as DJ A-Trak, DJ Aoki, LA Riots, Congorock, DJ Assault and the aforementioned Felix Cartal. Blueprint Events, which is known as one of Vancouver’s best electronic promoters for a minute now, was hosting the event as well as the after party.

The event took place at Celebrities Night club and was fully packed, in fact this show could have easily taken place at Commodore Ballroom to accommodate more folks, but nonetheless the vibes were good as people were ready to dance their fuckin’ asses off. The duo came on at around 1am and they immediately had the crowd going crazy, as their sound is fairly distinct with that 4/4 beat and heavy heavy synths.

Like usual they played a range of stuff including their own remixes, from the Presets to Dem Franchise Boyz to Cupid to Daft Punk to Usher to Kylie Minogue and throwing in stuff from their first album as well. The set was filled with energy throughout and both MSTRKRFT and the crowd seemed to be feeding off of one another and it was non-stop. The set ended at about 2:30am, but an encore had JFK continue to rock the house til well past 3am. If you left this party not soaked from head to toe in sweat, then you my friend were not partying hard enough. Overall one word can describe this set. EPIC!

Thanks to Alvaro from Blueprint Events for hooking me up with the opportunity to attend the show. For more of their upcoming events check out www.blueprintevents.ca. For those out in New York on October 10th, MSTRKRFT will be playing at Webster Hall, but they’ll also be at the New Era Flagship store as they have a New Era collaboration that’s dropping.

If you like the review please vote for me.

David Thai
www.killahbeez.com

Here are the rest of their tour stops:

Fist of God tour dates:

09-26 Los Angeles, CA - Henry Fonda Theatre (with A-Trak, Felix Cartal, LA Riots, Congorock)
09-27 San Diego, CA - House of Blues (with Steve Aoki, Felix Cartal, LA Riots, Congorock)
09-28 Los Angeles, CA - El Rey Theatre (with Aoki, Felix Cartal, Congorock)
09-30 Pomona, CA - Glass House (with Felix Cartal, Congorock)
10-01 San Francisco, CA – Mezzanine (with Felix Cartal, Congorock)
10-02 Seattle, WA – Showbox (with Felix Cartal, Congorock)
10-03 Vancouver, British Columbia – Celebrities (with Felix Cartal)
10-04 Winnipeg, Manitoba - Exchange Event Center (with Felix Cartal)
10-06 Minneapolis, MN - First Avenue (with Felix Cartal, Congorock)
10-07 Chicago, IL - Metro (with Felix Cartal, Congorock)
10-08 Royal Oak, MI - Royal Oak Music Theatre (with Felix Cartal, Congorock)
10-09 Columbus, OH 0 Boma (with Felix Cartal, Congorock)
10-10 New York, NY - Webster Hall (with Felix Cartal, Congorock, DJ Assault
10-11 Poughkeepsie, NY - Vassar College (with Felix Cartal, Congorock)
10-12 Philadelphia, PA - Theatre of the Living Arts (with Felix Cartal, Congorock)
10-13 Boston, MA - The Estate (with Felix Cartal, LA Riots, Congorock)
10-15 Baltimore, MD - Redrock (with Felix Cartal, LA Riots)
10-16 Charlotte, NC - Forum (with Felix Cartal, LA Riots)
10-17 Nashville, TN - Mercy Lounge (with Felix Cartal, LA Riots)
10-18 Atlanta, GA - Masquerade Music Park (with Felix Cartal, LA Riots)
10-19 Memphis, TN - Hard Rock Café Memphis (with Felix Cartal, LA Riots)
10-22 Houston, TX - Warehouse Live (with Felix Cartal, LA Riots)
10-23 Austin, TX - La Zona Rosa (with Felix Cartal, LA Riots)
10-24 Dallas, TX - House of Blues (with Felix Cartal, LA Riots)
10-25 New Orleans, LA - Voodoo Music Experience: The Tenth Ritual
10-27 Lawrence, KS - Liberty Hall (with Felix Cartal, LA Riots)
10-28 Denver, CO - Ogden Theatre (with Felix Cartal, LA Riots)
10-31 Salt Lake City, UT - Salt Palace Convention Center (with Felix Cartal)
11-01 Las Vegas, NV - Fabulous Festival