Segue » Guise

Segue hit the Juno Records Best Seller charts

segbot — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 21:05:54 +0000

Without taking it all too seriously, we were pleased to see Segue and Vitreous riding up into the Best Seller charts on Juno Records this week just gone. One of the great things about charting so strongly is that the release has been pushed purely by word of mouth and has escaped the “local” orbit that we happily released it into. Following that, it was with a bit of luck that Juno charted my Segue remix of Guise in their Disco Recommends chart. Put in front of people like that, the remix had a run up the charts and the EP moved with it. I daresay by this time next week we won’t be found anywhere near the charts, but for now, here’s the highlights over the week as we have seen them:

#13 Guise – Segue Remix – Juno Records Disco Chart
#56 Guise – Segue Remix – Juno Records Best Selling (Tracks)
#20 Guise EP – Juno Records Disco Chart (Releases)
#63 Guise EP – Juno Records Best Selling (Singles)
#63 Guise EP – Juno Records Best Selling (Releases)

A big thank you to everyone buying this tune, and of course for all the support of those playing it out. We would love to hear any feedback, so drop us a line. If you haven’t grabbed the tune yet, grab it now on Juno Records.

Juno puts Segue in Disco Recommendations chart

segbot — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:23:10 +0000

I was just surprised by a message from Nate B, of Fromage Disco fame, that Juno Records has listed the Segue remix of Guise at #11 in the Disco category of the Juno Recommends list for August 2009. Needless to say I was surprised, and not in the least because some of our friends are still amused to see the name “Segue” anywhere near the word “Disco”. It puts a smile on my face tonight, as I was already happy about the new setlist falling together and was going to post about how well the gear, concepts and tracks are coming together for the new live set. That and I’m sitting here running Moog riffs through an SSL Alpha Channel. It’s a good night all round. Thank you Nate for letting me know, and thanks to everyone for the various real-world and digital comments since! I’ve just been listening to the other tunes in that list while typing and adding a few gems to my download crate. A great way to start the week!

Check it out: Juno Disco Recommendations August 2009

A new studio assembles like Voltron

segbot — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 05:24:46 +0000

Other people were out frolicking. A somewhat old term that, but more than appropriate no doubt. Roller coasters, taming lions, computer games and possibly even disco dancing. Crazy kids. Me, I was moving the studio once again. Some readers of Create Digital Music might remember that it was just over a year ago that I wrote an article called “Moving Music: 10 Ways For A Geek To Move House”. I loved the space I had moved into when I wrote that article, with the studio gear dominating the lounge room in close proximity to the kitchen. The fun I had throwing fresh vegetables and spices around in a wok only metres away from Kris hard at work on Begin Again. On the flipside, picking up the refrigerator when trying to record acoustic guitars while reviewing microphones for Time Off. Mostly a great space, but a chance came up on a unique property only a short walk from the current one, and a few months ago it was all about cardboard boxes, carrying things up flights of stairs and trying not to drop things on my feet. With a modicum of success at best.

With a great German friend visiting for a short while, I set the studio up in the lounge room once again, this time temporarily, and even took the opportunity to sample her and some other friends shouting on my remix of the Vitreous track, Guise. While they were, of course, in the kitchen. While I am going to miss the reoccurring kitchen and lounge room theme, and recording Germans shouting things like “discotheque!!!”, I am celebrating the chance to finally set up the new space and get all the old gear out. I’ll post some more pics once I’ve had the chance to tidy it up and work out some of the sound treatment. I don’t think you really need an amazing room to make music, and there are countless examples of this (I wrote more than a few tracks in the old Segue live set in headphones and hotels while travelling for work), but I do have a wonderful feeling about this space and the hours I will enjoy creating here. Check the full studio picture on FlickR for a rough tagged run-through of what’s what.

Guise EP goes worldwide!

segbot — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:52:21 +0000

After a few weeks as a Beatport exclusive release, the Guise EP has gone worldwide. You can now grab it from your favourite flavour of online music store, such as Juno, 7Digital, Beatsdigital, and even iTunes. It is, of course, still up on Beatport and getting some great responses, so check out it and let us know what you think!

Segue remix of Vitreous “Guise” on Beatport

segbot — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:41:06 +0000

Climbing around some glaciers today, I remembered that it’s the Beatport launch date for the Guise EP! I did an impromptu handstand to celebrate, tore another hole in my gloves, and recorded a quick message for all of you back in the civilized world.

So bust a handstand, kick your rollersaktes off and check the tunes. After that, please pause for a moment of silence for my poor, torn gloves. I did it all for disco.

Segue get disco with Vitreous remix

segbot — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:45:28 +0000

Here is one that I completely forgot about. Despite working on a bunch of tracks with Vitreous, who is based in Amsterdam but formerly of the excellent act My Ninja Lover here in Australia, I had totally skipped the memory of telling Dektek Records that I was up for a remix of his latest release. Even more embarrassingly, I had been cheering on Kris-Ko as he worked through his own very awesome remix of the same track. With a couple days before deadline, the label asked how I was going on the mix. With a “good! Yeah! Absolutely!”, I took it as a chance to break my usual slow habits and use it as an excuse to try out some new gear. Here’s the result, as a preview on Soundcloud. The actual release date is 23rd of June 2009 for Beatport, and everywhere else two weeks later.

The “Segue Does Disco” Dub:

Vitreous – Guise (Segue Does Disco Dub) by segwist

The Original Mix:

Guise by Vitreous

The new gear I mentioned testing out was basically a Jazzmutant Lemur and a pair of Beyerdynamic DT770 headphones. The Lemur I talk enough about elsewhere, and the headphones replace an infamous set of Pioneer HDJ1000’s that I posted about earlier. This remix was quite fun, as I simply grabbed all the source files, threw them in Ableton and flagged the bits I thought sounded usable. Those bits I threw in a number of Ableton Drum Racks, which I have mapped out on the Lemur in a custom template I’ve built to act a little like an MPC. Think “modular sampler”. The fun part of using Drum Racks like a sampler is taking a melody, such as the original record of Chris playing his bass, and dropping it into a few slots. From there I just use the Start and End points to isolate unique notes, which I can then jam on the Lemur in real-time.

This let me flip the bass and melody grooves by replaying single notes, and the rest fell into place. Other fun stuff included some cameo vocals from guests around the studio that was as complex as pointing an SM58 at them, and digging through some old disco records for some cheesy fills. As I had a day to do it, I found myself second guessing the new headphones and the “sound” of my new studio space, being the first mixdown I’ve done here, so I went for a drive at midnight around the inner city Brisbane suburb I live in. Which is often patrolled by Police. Leading to me imagining them pulling me over and asking “excuse me son, why are you doing laps of these streets at midnight?”.

“Checkin’ the mix man. Just checking the mix”. I hope you check the remixes and original of Guise out when it drops in a few weeks!