We’ve teamed up with Kmag, SoundCloud, Loopmasters, Finyl Tweek & Surus to give you the opportunity to remix ‘All or Nothing’ from our album ‘Love is the Devil’.

Blu Mar Ten – All or Nothing by Blu Mar Ten

The winning remix will be professionally mastered at Finyl Tweek and released as a digital exclusive as part of the Love is the Devil remix project, alongside reworkings from dBridge, Marcus Intalex, BCee, Joe Syntax, Unquote and Blu Mar Ten.
The winner will also win a SoundCloud pro account, 2GB of free Loopmasters sample packs and £100 to spend in the Surus music store.

One runner-up and the group choice winner (the entry in the group that is favourited the most) will win a SoundCloud Lite account, a free Loopmasters sample pack and £50 to spend in the Surus music store.

Go to Kmag to download the parts for ‘All or Nothing’ and read the full competition rules.

Competition partners

Soundcloud
Create, record and share the sounds you create anywhere to friends, family and the world.

Loopmasters
Pro Sample Cds, Sample Boutique, Downloadable Samples, Royalty Free Sample Libraries, Rex Files, Reason Refills and Dance Samples for music production.

Surus
Powering direct-to-fan stores for the best electronic music record labels.

Finyl Tweek
London’s finest Post Production house offering a one-stop shop for mixdowns, mastering, duplication, watermarking & manufacture.

We have some ‘Love is the Devil‘ remixes from some rather special names coming out soon and we’re thinking of running a remix competition like we did for Natural History back in 2010 to find some new talent to go with them.

The first step in this is figuring out which track people would most like to have a go at remixing, so let us know your preference(s) below, and watch this space for more details.

If you need a reminder of the album then go here for audio.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

NB – yes, we know, not all the albums tracks are available to remix.
Afraid you’ll have to live with that.

We’d like to wish you all a very happy Christmas season and a fantastic 2012.
Thanks very much for your support over 2011 and we hope to meet even more of you in the coming year.

If you’d like to keep up with us in what’s shaping up to be a busy 2012 you can subscribe to our newsletter, or follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

If you’re feeling extra seasonably charitable please donate to the two charities we’ve been supporting this year. In both cases you can download free tracks from us in return.

Cancer Research
(free track – BMT vs Erykah Badu ‘You Got Me’)

The Mayhew Animal Home
(free track – ‘Pilgrim Soul’)

Thanks again and have a great holiday, wherever you are and whatever you’re getting up to.

BMT
x x

Bit of end-of-week fun.

Go here and tell me why Love is the Devil.

Best explanation gets our album on CD and a bunch of stickers.
I’ll pick a winner Friday night (25/11). Go…

I just noticed there have been about 200 visits to this site in the last week from people searching for ‘blu mar ten kirsty hawkshaw whisper lyrics’, so I’m guessing some of you would like them.

Here’s the track and the lyrics below…

Blu Mar Ten – Whisper (feat. Kirsty Hawkshaw)

I think I should go now
I must leave before my red eyes match the sunrise
No more coffee will put off today
I’ve stood too long
In the shadow of a doubt
I need some sun
It seems that time returns to me once more

When the brightest star
Smiled as it squared shoulders with the night
You lit the glowing embers of my own light
Your words could drag the moon down from the sky
Seduce my frozen heart with your war cry

But this world
Will be shaken by a whisper
But this world
Will be shaken by a whisper

And when I feel my world falling down
I think of you
I think of you

And when i feel I can breathe no more
You speak to me
You speak to me
You speak to me

A massive massive thanks to everyone who bought our new album this week.

We’re happy to report it went straight into the top ten in the iTunes UK dance chart, and into the top twenty in the US chart, which is pretty amazing for a small independent act like us.
The limited edition vinyl / CD / MP3 packs available from our shop are selling out fast and will probably disappear in the next week or so.

So thanks again to everyone who’s still buying music in this day & age.
We have no label behind us, no mysterious benefactors and no secret stash of cash – everything you see from BMT is made and paid for by us and us alone. The money you spend on our music goes straight back into the studio to make more music. So thanks very much. You’re making the next album possible.

Here are three simple things we think about when we make tunes.

You may or may not find them useful to think about when you make tunes.

1) Call & Response

We almost always think about sounds as if they’re in conversation with each other, so when one sound ‘calls’ another ‘responds’ to it. This can happen tonally, rhythmically or texturally. A melody started on one instrument can be resolved or commented upon by another, or maybe the same melody repeated with additional layers to give the feel of many answering one, (also known as an antiphon).

This is a useful habit to get into as a call & response routine is a very human thing to do whereas mindless repetition is not and will appear thoughtless or robotic. If something appears to be more human then humans respond much better to it.

2) Leitmotifs

Rather than play the same sound over and over, we often repeat the character of a sound in different ways throughout a tune, again either tonally, rhythmically or texturally. For example, a melody played on a piano may be repeated on another instrument later in the tune. Or, rather than repeating the same melody throughout the tune, we may vary it in different ways or even reverse the notes. At other points we may echo the pattern of the bassline with kick drums or percussion. Doing this allows you to establish the theme of a track without boring the listener.

From time to time we make deliberately overt use of sounds or melodies that we have used before in other tracks, so the leitmotifs stretch over several pieces of work. On very rare occasions we will deliberately use a well known sample that is designed to be recognised for its source rather than its inherent characteristic. This would be an example of a cultural leitmotif rather than the internal ones described above. The geekier among you may also know cultural leitmotifs by their other name, ‘memes’.

3) Narrative Flow

Narrative can work on both macro and micro levels. At a macro level most of our tunes work in the same way, with a set-up, conflict / passion and resolution. At a micro level we always think about what a section of music is saying about the section that directly follows it. Rather than just cutting and pasting sections over and over they almost always change to introduce the next set of events with a view to also serving the macro narrative.

This gives you a narrative that develops over time with a tune often ending up in a slightly different place from where it started. The advantage of this is that the listener will always hear something new the longer they listen to the tune. This disadvantage of this is that most people need to understand a tune in the first 30 seconds or so and rarely believe that it will develop much beyond that.

We feel a tune is successful when, after listening to it all the way through, you feel slightly drained and exhausted and the place you’ve reached seems to be a very long way from where you started.

To celebrate the eternally crap British summertime, and also the imminent release of our next single with InsideInfo, ‘Five Summers’ / ‘Still the One’ (out July 4th), we’ve got a testpress of the vinyl, a one-off ‘Five Summers’ Tshirt and prints of the vinyl artwork by ithinkitsnice to give away.

All you need to do is click here and leave whatever comment you like.

On Friday July 1st we’ll randomly pick a winner and send you the package.

If you’d rather get the full artwork 12″ you can pick it up from www.blumarten.com/shop. All vinyl orders will get the mp3s free of charge and the first 20 vinyl orders will also get prints of the artwork.

So go on, click here to leave your comment.

A few weeks ago I met up with Seba and Ulrich Schnauss, (yeah I know, like an old folks home right?), and, triggered by a comment from Seba about filesharing, we ended up speaking long into the night about the ‘state of music’ and what the future might hold for people like us.
I’ve been wanting to write something about this for ages but it’s been hard to articulate my thoughts without inviting inevitable poison from people on both sides of the filesharing / music industry debate.

For the record, despite being on the sharp end of all the things happening to people who make music, I’m still undecided about almost all of it. Filesharing bothers me much less than the fallacious leaps of logic made by people who have never made a track, never released a record, never run a label, never played a gig, who’s sole experience of music is listening to it and yet feel they they’re qualified to pronounce to those of us who do all that on what we’re supposed to do to ‘make things work’.

Are they sometimes right? Yes, sometimes they have really good ideas.
Are they sometimes wrong? Yes, loads, but the problem is that they’re often so good at making apparently sound arguments that their speculation becomes ingrained and exists as received wisdom, when the reality is so much more complex and different from their simplistic point of view.

Anyway, I wouldn’t normally quote other people’s writing wholesale but this article went up a couple of days ago and does a really good job of expressing many of the things I’ve thought about and, from my own experience, know to be true. It also covers many of the things I spoke about with Seba and Ulrich. Feel free to post your own thoughts in the comments section below.

I’ve quoted a few of the more relevant paragraphs but you can read the full article here:

How The Music Industry Is Killing Music And Blaming The Fans

…while fans have been warned that without traditional income streams investment in new acts will be harder, musicians have at the same time been told by the wider industry that there are still plenty of opportunities for them to make a living if they reverse long held principles: touring is now where the money is and records, cheap or even free, should be used to promote live performance. In addition, licensing music to TV, film and advertising, the prevailing opinions insist, is no longer a dirty business and can provide significant opportunities to claw back income while social networking allows direct to fan marketing that cuts out the middle men who previously took their cut…

…if the industry wants to talk money, let’s talk money, albeit the ways that developing musicians are encouraged to make up the loss of sales income in order to ply their trade. Someone’s got to bring this up, because it’s not a pretty picture. Consider, first, direct-to-fan marketing and social networking, said to involve fans so that they’re more inclined to attend shows, invest in ‘product’, and help market it. In practise this is a time-consuming affair that reaps rewards for only the few. Even the simple act of posting updates on Facebook, tweeting and whatever else is hip this week requires time, effort and imagination, and while any sales margins subsequently provoked might initially seem higher, the ratio of exertion to remuneration remains low for most. It’s also an illusion that such sales cut out the middlemen, thereby increasing income, except at the very lowest rung of the ladder: the moment that sales start to pick up, middlemen start to encroach upon the artist’s territory, if in new disguises. People are needed to provide the structure through which such activities can function, and few will work for free – and nor should they – even though musicians are now expected to….

…efficient websites need to be paid for and marketed, and the companies designed to provide exactly this service usually take their cut. Bandwidth also needs to be paid for if up- and downloading become significantly active, product needs to be manufactured and sent out on time, and that’s only after it’s been created, meaning music first needs to be recorded and merchandise designed. If new artists can’t find the readies for all this, then they need to find investors. So with music itself often available for free, the musician is reduced to little more than a merchandise broker. Records become just an advert and, consequently, either take longer to be written and recorded, or are otherwise made available without the attention and care that was once devoted to the process….

…if an act can find time to do these things, or has the necessary capital to allow others to take care of them on their behalf, then they can hit the road. Touring’s where the money is, the mantra goes, and that’s the best way to sell merchandise too. But this is a similarly hollow promise. For starters, the sheer volume of artists now touring has saturated the market. Ticket prices have gone through the roof for established acts, while those starting out are competing for shows, splitting audiences spoilt for choice, driving down fees paid by promoters nervous about attendance figures. There’s also a finite amount of money that can be spent by most music fans, so if they’re coughing up huge wads of cash for stadium acts then that’s less money available to spend on developing artists. And for every extra show that a reputable artist takes on in order to make up his losses, that’s one show less that a new name might have won.
Touring is also expensive. That’s why record labels offered new artists financial backing, albeit in the form of a glorified loan known as ‘tour support’. Transport needs to be paid for, as do fuel, accommodation, food, equipment, tour managers and sound engineers. These costs can mount up very fast, and if each night you’re being paid a small guarantee, or in fact only a cut of the door, then losses incurred can be vast, rarely compensated for by merchandising sales. Again, financial backing of some sort is vital, but these days labels are struggling to provide it. In the past, income from record sales could be offset against these debts, but with that increasingly impossible, new artists will soon find it very hard to tour. Everyone’s a loser, baby….

Furthermore, touring, especially in the early stages of a career, is exhausting. It might be fun, but as anyone who’s been on the road will admit, it can be a far from glamorous grind that leaves musicians drained, incapacitated and far from creative. It also seems off kilter that those gifted at writing and working in the studio should be sent out on the road rather than rewarded for just that, especially since records, in whatever format, are the ties that help bind fans to artists. There are also those for whom it’s not viable, or at the very least a challenge: those suffering from stage fright; those – mothers, for example – whose family situation requires them to remain at home; those skilled at writing songs but not so adept at performing them. (It’s notable that the likes of Jimmy Webb, who once made a comfortable living writing songs for others to perform, are now touring in a way that they never used to, largely out of financial necessity.)
Of course touring has always been a next to obligatory part of the job for most musicians. Some are even inspired by the experience, while many improve their craft by playing in front of audiences. But the daily rigmarole of playing the same songs over and over again can also render the process joyless for both musician and fan, and increased touring again means reduced time spent working on new material, conjuring up bewitching sounds, expressing the inarticulate speech of the heart. The romantic vision of the musician in their bus writing new songs is rose-tinted, to say the least. Most are simply too worn out from the tedium to do anything other than talk shit, watch films, listen to music and sleep. Insisting that artists earn their keep by performing the role of wandering minstrel keeps them from exercising the talent that brought them attention in the first place, rendering music valuable only when it’s performed live….

…there’s another well-publicised method of working around lost sales income. It’s called synchronisation, and that’s the licensing of music to TV, film and commercials. It was once a badge of honour to find one’s music selected for a soundtrack, but these days everyone’s at it so the benefits are fewer. It’s interesting to watch films like Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation or Nic Roeg’s Don’t Look Now from the early 1970s and compare their relative silence – interrupted effectively but only occasionally by bursts of music used to heighten tension or enhance a mood – with the extended music videos that pass for Hollywood movies nowadays. The same could be said for TV, where shows like Skins are so song-saturated that numerous websites exist listing each track included in an episode (though notably these are not listed in credits). Apart from anything else, so much music often dilutes the drama by distracting from it, but more importantly it makes it harder for an impressive song to stand out, especially a new one dwarfed by others more recognisable, while those that do rise above the noise are often forever associated with a particular scene, rendering their own emotional substance next to mute in comparison.

More worrying too is the manner in which old school values with regards to the licensing of music to advertising have been eroded. To be tainted by association with a product, to ‘sell out’ one’s art to benefit a corporation, was once seen as an evil undertaken only by the desperate, the immoral or – on the off chance that the brand was ethically sound – those fortunate enough to claim that they remained very selective. Yet in record company and music publishing meetings around the world there are now hip young things declaring that, instead of a single, they can’t hear a ‘synch’. Many have whole departments devoted to the placement of music wherever possible, and acts are expected to accept the offers. Often they’re in such a financial hole that they simply can’t say no. This has led not only to a complicit integration of music with product marketing, but also to lower and lower fees: agencies have realised that acts remain convinced that the exposure gained is in itself almost adequate compensation for the use of their music, and there’s always someone else willing to accept a lower payment if the first choice demands too much. But whatever the financial reward, the price paid is always the same: permanent association with a product. How tragic is it that the man behind ‘Anarchy In The UK’ will now be forever tied in the collective imagination with Country Life Butter, even though he used the cash to help fund the reformation of PiL? The argument that he has taken money from a corporation doesn’t wash: the situation should never have arisen….

And if that’s not compromise enough, what about the songs reduced to half minute edits, the songs that are used instrumentally, or the songs that are provided by soundalikes, thus debasing the art of those who first imagined the originals? What about the acts tailoring their music for use in these ways rather than focussing on their original intent, that of expressing something memorable? Is this good for our music? Is this how the magic should be rewarded?
It’s debatable, too, how easy it is to secure such breaks, given that everyone and their sister is now after their small slice of the action. The growth of music supervision as a profession has meant that many brands turn to those who represent established acts and, if they fail to secure their music, take recommendations from these same people about others they represent in order to save time. It’s an almost closed shop, and for a new act it’s next to impossible to get a foot in the door. Moreover, those who are successful, but for whom it’s their first public exposure, rarely make it beyond, tainted as they are by the connection. Simultaneously, the question arises once more as to whether acts should be devoting time to the pursuit of synchs at the expense of refining their craft, and whether they should only be receiving payment for the public use of their music as opposed to the private use….

The first people to give up will be those with the least money. This, some argue, will sort the wheat out from the chaff: serious musicians don’t give up that easily. But this is clearly nonsense. Serious musicians might not give up, and some may thrive – if the cliché is true – because they have suffered. But if they can’t afford to tour, record, build a website and pay those required to supervise their business, let alone pay their rent, then they won’t make music their priority and potential stars will be lost to us. Their guitars will gather dust, picked up to fill quiet time or, perhaps, to be strummed for friends in small bars. Maybe they’ll win fans, but most won’t be able to do anything with that fact. A developing act can’t tour anywhere unless it can afford to get there, and its products won’t be bought unless it can tour, because these days that’s one of the few ways to gain attention amidst the shrill shriek of marketing. The first hurdle any musician must now leap is financial: can they afford to pursue the dream?
The majority that succeed will be those well connected enough to receive funding, or those from financially comfortable backgrounds. This might explain the number of upper middle class artists that have made their mark recently, something which Quietus contributor Simon Price pointed to in an article for The Word in late 2010 about the ‘Toff Takeover’, where he highlighted the rise of artists like Eliza Dolittle, Florence Welch and Mumford & Sons who have all benefited from exclusive educations. Price suggested that those who ”didn’t go to a private school are no longer getting a fair shot at success”, and went on to state that, “it’s bad for pop. If music – along with sport, the traditional ‘escape route’ for the poor – is shut off, where is the next Johnny Rotten or Jarvis Cocker going to come from?”
It’s a point well made, if provoked a little by inverse snobbery, and there’s one further concern: those whose voices most need to be heard are often the ones least powerful, and musicians have frequently done far more than provide us with music. They’ve articulated thoughts that need to be heard. They’ve drawn our attention to injustices in the world just as they’ve highlighted the beauty of life. They have helped bring together communities and given them a common voice. They have spoken out and stood up for their principles, demanded change and sometimes achieved it. Our failure to find a satisfactory method in which their privileged situation – as commentators – can be protected could be very damaging. Though it inevitably sounds like a conspiracy theory, it may be more than coincidence that governments have taken so long to address the problems that the music business is facing. Music has provided a voice of dissent, and governments don’t like that. By failing to ensure that musicians have the same right to be paid for their work as anyone else, they’re helping to ensure that only the least controversial acts survive: those of independent wealth, often tied to the establishment; the ones that are happy to prop up the capitalist system with their advertising music; the ones who are happy to pander to the masses; the ones for whom business is their main drive and music simply a means to make their fortune. Failure to compensate those whose work is more specialist, more confrontational, more subtle, more challenging, is an act of complicity in the silencing of social and political debate. Though democracy won’t allow for musicians to be gagged, it can still price them out of the market….

If a world can be created where most musicians simply can’t afford to exist from their work, then that’ll leave the ones who do exactly what they’re told thanks to the promise of fame and fortune. It’s already happening on TV (especially talent shows), in movies, even in bookstores: the slow, pernicious silencing of alternative perspectives buried beneath a storm of loud, obnoxious yelling about nothing. When Bill Hicks berated the anaesthetising effects of cultural deterioration in the USA twenty years ago, the only thing he failed to warn us was that this would spread across the globe. “Go back to bed, America, your government is in control. Watch this, shut up, go back to bed, America. Here is American Gladiators, here’s 56 channels of it! Watch these pituitary retards bang their fucking skulls together and congratulate yourself on living in the land of freedom. Here you go, America – you are free to do what we tell you!” Except next up, it’s The Black Eyed Peas, Rebecca Black and – oh, let us briefly titillate you – Lady Fucking Gaga.
“When you’re in Hollywood and you’re a comedian,” another tragically deceased stand-up, Mitch Hedberg, joked, perhaps bitterly, “everybody wants you to do things besides comedy. They say, ‘OK, you’re a stand-up comedian. Can you act? Can you write? Write us a script?’ It’s as though if I were a cook and I worked my ass off to become a good cook, they said, ‘All right, you’re a cook. Can you farm?’” This is the position in which our musicians now find themselves. They’re expected to multitask in order to succeed. Their time is now demanded in so many different realms that music is no longer their business. What we can increasingly expect is a conveyor belt of smug accountants living a pop star’s dream, performing aggressively marketed, lowest common denominator, unchallenging dross….

The problem is, it’s not really the industry that is being cheated. It’s the artists and their fans. People get what they pay for, but – whatever the industry claims – most fans know that. They just don’t want to hear the businessmen fiddle while the musicians are being burnt. Revenues are unlikely ever again to reach the levels of the business’ formerly lucrative glory days, but in its stubborn refusal to recognise that both the playing field and the rules themselves have been irreversibly redefined without their permission, the industry is holding out for something that is no longer viable. Lower income is better than no income, and the industry has surely watched the money dwindling for long enough. Musicians, meanwhile, are being asked to make more and more compromises as they’re forced to put money ahead of their art on a previously unprecedented scale.

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Along the bottom of the screen you can hear the questions other people have left.

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Purely by coincidence, while I was driving to the studio I got a call from Blame saying he was in the area and coming to pay a visit, so once he arrived I got him to sign the two 12″s and we did as well.

If you you want one of these two signed records just post any comment you want under this Facebook photo and on Monday (28/3/2011) I’ll randomly pick two of you to send a copy to.

Once again, go here to leave your comment -> CLICK ME

Storyteller (2002) by Blu Mar Ten

Storyteller (Blame remix) (2002) by Blu Mar Ten

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So seeing as it’s a slow Wednesday, and in the interests of sharing great music, below are my top-ten musical moments in film.

It’s not an exhaustive list, obviously, and it’s in no particular order so if you have a favourite of your own feel free to post a link in the comments at the end of this article.

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1 – Betty Blue (1986)

A French film released in 1986 under the original title ‘37°2 le Matin‘ starring a young Béatrice Dalle as the firestorm siren ‘Betty’, described by her lover Zorg as “like a flower with translucent antennae and a mauve plastic heart. Few girls could dress as casually as she did.”

The film charts Betty’s descent into madness and was beautifully, succinctly and accurately summed up by Mark from Peep Show as “a great sex-and-suicide flick that turned a whole generation of men onto girls with mental illness”.

The film was scored by Gabriel Yared and is haunting and eccentric in equal measure. I must have bought it at least five times over the years and still love it to this day.

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2 – Billy Liar (1968)

Based on a novel by Keith Waterhouse Billy Liar is the story of a young man in a fictional Northern town who harbours dreams of scriptwriting for a famous comedian. Often lost in a fantasy world, Billy constantly constructs fictions and lies which, almost without exception, get him into trouble. Ostensibly a comedy, the film contains a strong streak of tragedy encapsulated in Billy’s relationship with Liz (Julie Christie).

The film’s music is a mix of melancholy Northern brass, Rock & Roll and jaunty jazz.
The scene where we first see Liz is one of my favourites in cinema, especially the moment where the thundering, distorted jazz drums mimic the building demolition.

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3 – Alien (1979)

Easily the best film in the franchise, Alien features a Jerry Goldsmith score that ranks amongst some of the creepiest music ever written.

Keening high violas mixed with what sounds like a thousand pizzicato violins and cellos brilliantly summon up the primal horror of the scuttling facehuggers

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4 – The Godfather (1972)

The king of mafia flicks features a score from Nino Rota and Carmine Coppola. The central motifs of the music, even when upbeat, are mournful and full of regret, reflecting Michael Corleone’s reluctant ascent to the head of his family and his corresponding moral decline over the course of the Godfather Trilogy.

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5 – Solaris (2002)

A remake of Tarkovsky’s 1972 classic, Solaris stars George Clooney in space, but is not really a sci-fi, (at least I never thought so). It’s a thoughtful piece on love, loss and reality and is both sad and euphoric at the same time.
When I first saw Solaris I thought it was terrible but was struck at how good the soundtrack was. I listened to it endlessly and then went back to the film some years later to find that I now liked it quite a lot.

The music is by Cliff Martinez and revolves around two or three main motifs, looping and evolving in deeply attractive ways. At points the score is reminiscent of Steve Reich’s Drumming.

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6 – American Beauty (1999)

Yes, possibly a massive cliche including this but the legion of inferior imitators spawned by Thomas Newman’s profoundly beautiful score still can’t detract from it’s delicate brilliance. Deceptively simple, the soundtrack revolves around naively basic note switches played across a range of instruments that give an impression of complexity.

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7 – House of Flying Daggers (2004)

One of the wave of hyper-romantic martial art films from around ten years ago (see also Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon & Hero), House of Flying Daggers worked much less successfully than some of its contemporaries, beset by schmaltz and cliche as it was. However, aside from some stunning cinematography and colour-work, the sound design and scoring was second to none.
Created by Shigeru Umebayashi, who also scored Wong Kar-wai’s outstanding ‘In the Mood For Love‘ and ’2046′, the House of Flying Daggers soundtrack wobbles between amazingly 3-dimensional percussion and ‘lovers themes’ played across a range of Chinese instruments and a Hans Zimmer-esque traditional orchestra.

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8 – Fire Walk With Me (1992)

I went to see this three times when it was released in cinemas and must have bought the VHS & DVDs at least five times. David Lynch’s oppressively psychotic prequel to the Twin Peaks TV series was soundtracked by Angelo Badalamenti who, (although I don’t think is always brilliant), really nailed it with this one. His mix of drones, faux-classical and drugged out rock works perfectly along with ever-mutating versions of the leitmotifs to savagely amplify the dislocation created by Lynch’s visuals.

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9 – Taxi Driver (1976)

Taxi Driver is a firm favourite in our studio, with whole chunks of dialogue being repeated from memory on a regular basis. Bernard Hermann’s sleazy score lurches between sweet romanticism and looming darkness, and does a great job of mirroring Travis Bickle’s volatile and swiftly changing moods.

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10 – Paris Texas (1984)

Wim Wender’s vision of the desert is brilliantly supported by Ry Cooder’s ultra-minimal music, which has now become virtually synonymous with that type of landscape. The whole soundtrack is punctuated with vast tracts of silence and is a great lesson in the craft of artistic restraint.

You can read it here…

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It’s a stark choice facing those of us who still like to play vinyl. Do we turn up and grit our teeth, try and turn in the best technical performance we can even though the set-up may be leagued against us? It may mean substandard mixing, and may often mean that we can’t play the tunes we have cut, (as plates are more sensitive to jumping than vinyl, especially as they get a bit older)…all of which is, at best, unsatisfying and at worst, embarrassing. Not to mention unfair to the people who have paid money to come and hear you play.

Personally, I don’t give a damn what people choose to mix their music. I’m only a purist insofar as my own preferences go. CD, laptop, vinyl, memory sticks; whatever…It’s all fine by me, but I don’t like the feeling that I’m being forced out of the thing that I enjoy playing and into another medium.

I was hoping that the rise of Serato would encourage clubs to start maintaining their decks a little better, but I still see laptop DJs struggling as much as vinyl DJs which is a real shame.

The reason for making this follow-up post is that I was just chatting to Utah Jazz, another staunch vinyl player, and these were some of his comments…

Am going through a bit of a change at the moment and thinking about ditching vinyl to do CD only sets.
I did nearly 70 gigs last year and the quality of the Technics decks at most places is getting really bad. Have non stop problems trying to use them!

Playing plates which just skip the whole time (seems like the decks are never checked properly by the clubs). So means I need to start getting all the Old Skool that I want to play in mp3!
I hate it cos I love vinyl and always have done but even the big clubs these days can’t seem to get the decks right.

It’s so annoying. And I’ve really seen the difference in the last 6 months… To the extent that I can’t seem to do a set on vinyl anywhere without the decks or the needles fucking up.
I probably only saw 2 or 3 other ‘big’ DJs playing any vinyl at all last year so the decks just get left to gather dust

It’s just been a shift over the last 2 years and now I’ve had enough. Playing Paris and Berlin this week and might just travel with CDs!

I still cut plates of my own stuff but more and more have just been combining them with either classics on vinyl or newer unreleased stuff played from CD…
It’s been a passionate affair for the last 17 years but sometimes you’ve just gotta let things go!

So, promoter & club owners, over to you…

We wanted to raise £2,000 for the charity and we’re happy to report that, from fans, friends and some of the biggest producers and DJs in the world, the d&b community turned out in force and at the time of writing have donated £2,655.57 with donations still coming in!

Massive thanks to everyone who donated. The charity contacted us expressing their thanks and said how impressed they were with the speed you all responded, so good on you.

We’ll leave the donation page up for the future and if you’d like to chip in then visit www.justgiving.com/blumarten and feel free.

If you see people around the internet linking the track without information about the charity then please point them at www.blumarten.com/cancerresearch.

Thanks again for your generosity. It’s all gone to a very good cause.

More than ten years ago we remixed ‘You Got Me‘ by Erykah Badu & The Roots and 1000 one-sided 12″s of the track were released. They disappeared instantly and ever since then copies of it have changed hands for silly money.

Nice as that is for our egos we’ve been thinking about this a lot and decided to use the high demand for a good cause.

So what we’d like you to do is donate whatever you can to Cancer Research UK in exchange for a download of the track.

Almost all of us will be directly or indirectly affected by cancer over the course of our lives. The work carried out by Cancer Research saves millions of people all over the world by discovering new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat the disease.

You can click on the ‘Donate’ button below (or visit justgiving.com/blumarten) and give whatever you can.

(JustGiving is an award-winning company used by hundreds of charities to help people easily raise donations. Your money goes directly to Cancer Research UK and does not come to us. You will be emailed a receipt from JustGiving and Cancer Research UK. You can read more about JustGiving here).

We usually get around a couple of thousand downloads when we give away a free track so we’d like to raise at least £2000 for the charity if we can. Please let people know about this fundraising by linking them to www.blumarten.com/cancerresearch on your Facebook, Twitter, blog or other site. The more the word is spread the more money the charity will get.

You can download the track without giving anything, but you know, given that you’ve got the luxury of internet access and you’re on the hunt for music we’d be surprised if you couldn’t spare anything at all. Make it your good deed for the week too.

Download the track here.

We’ve got loads lined up for this year including new singles, a new album, new remixes, some collaborations, free tunes, more mixes and a stack of other stuff…so I thought I’d remind you of the places where you can keep an eye on us and get things when they first appear.

Our Newsletter

If you don’t already subscribe to this you can stick your email address in the box below and you’ll get an email when we put something new on this site, which is where pretty much everything appears first.

Soundcloud

We usually put clips of new tracks, mixes and other interesting bits of audio on our Soundcloud page. You can add us on Soundcloud here.

Facebook

We often run competitions and giveaways on our Facebook page, as well as posting up things that we think you might be interested in like other people’s music that we like. You can find us on Facebook here.

Twitter

Like many other people we use our Twitter as a notebook for ideas, discussions and things that catch our interest. This includes alerts about tunes, music we like, pictures of cats, politics and monthly abuse of Sarah Palin. We sometimes run giveaways as well. Find us on Twitter here.

Youtube

We often upload videos of work in the studio to our Youtube as well as old tunes we find down the back of the sofa and of course full uploads of our released tracks. Find us you Youtube here.

LastFM

Our LastFM page records most of the music we’re listening to, in case you’re feeling in need of new sounds to hear. You can find us on LastFM here.

Myspace

Can piss off, frankly. But if you really insist – www.myspace.com/blumarten. Don’t expect to get a reply if you message us on there though.

The reason I mention this is to try and give you some idea of why the recording below might have been such a huge event to two young men barely out of their teens.

In this world of Twitter, Facebook, AIM etc… it’s easy to forget that, back then, it was impossible to contact your musical heroes unless you physically went to clubs and plucked up the courage to talk to them. The process of getting your music heard involved week after week of taking demo cassettes to clubs, (yes, cassettes – there were no CD writers), trying to get 30 seconds of a busy DJ’s time, putting your demo with your phone number on it into their hands, hope they wouldn’t lose it, hope that they’d listen to it, hope that they’d like it, hope that they wouldn’t lose your number, hope that they’d call you back and you wouldn’t miss the call, (no mobile, remember?)… and so on…

A very far cry from today, when all you have to do is flick on the internet and shoot an mp3 of your latest track to DJs in every corner of the globe in the space of a couple of minutes without even having to leave your house.

With all that in mind, imagine how we felt when we received this voicemail from one of our heroes, (some time in mid 1996 I think). It was such a monumental event for us that we recorded it to a DAT tape where it’s lain buried until this weekend when we found dozens of old tapes and stumbled across it again.

This 20 second voicemail quite literally changed the course of our lives forever.

A voicemail that changed our lives forever by Blu Mar Ten

As you can see from our DJ mixes we’ve always been very keen on supporting new and unheard talent so when we first had the idea to create this new version of the album we thought it would be a good to run a remix competition and invite entries from anyone and everyone, with the winner featured on the release.

We received 265 entries and it proved impossible to pick just one winner, so we decided to pick one each and put the three winning remixes on the album.

We also had a shortlist of 13 other remixes that we loved, so in order that you can find out more about this new batch of talent, here, (in their own words), is some more info about them.

What we liked most about all the remixes on this page is that the producers took our original, stamped their personality on it and made it their own, rather than giving us what they thought we wanted to hear.

If you like what you hear we’d love you to help us support these new artists by passing on the word through your Facebook or Twitter. They all deserve it and we look forward to hearing more from them in the future.

Click below to hear / read more…

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The Three Winning Remixes

Nomad – buy on iTunes

Blu Mar Ten – ‘Believe Me’ (Nomad remix) by Blu Mar Ten

Nomad is a collective of musicians, dj’s, producers, vocalists, and MC’s with an emphasis on live performance.
Nomad was started by Glenn Hays, aka dj Big Head, in 2008 while living in Amsterdam with fellow Bassground crew members Flanagan and MC Pat. After moving back to Los Angeles, Big Head (upright bass & guitars) added Frayed Knot (turntables), Metaphase (drums, percussion, keys), Devoe (sax), Carmen Silva (vocals, piano, cello), and MC’s Bypass & Kemst.
http://soundcloud.com/nomad_livednb

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5-Foot Nothing & Anarchy Rise – buy on iTunes

Blu Mar Ten – ‘Believe Me’ (5-Foot Nothing & Anarchy Rise remix) by Blu Mar Ten

5-Foot Nothing (Lex Toumbourou) is 23-year-old producer from Melbourne, Australia. He spends his days in an office and his nights in a studio. He forgets to sleep. He’s influenced by Ennio Morricone soundtracks, lonely bars and B movies. He’s got a tune coming out on Zardonic Recordings, Rare Grooves Vol. 3 and an EP coming out on LU10 Records early next year with Dense One, leaning toward the heavier side of dubstep.
http://www.facebook.com/5footnothingmusic

Melbourne based producer Fotis (Anarchy Rise) is a newcomer in the dubstep and drum & bass scene.
After spending the last few years establishing himself as a heavily-supported trance artist under the name Sonic Element, Fotis decided to start a little side-project. His trance originals and remixes have gained regular support from the biggest names in the industry including Armin van Buuren, Paul van Dyk, Sean Tyas and Above & Beyond! Further Anarchy Rise tunes are on the way, taking a more unique approach to dubstep and drum & bass.
http://anarchyrise.com

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Hot Mess – buy on iTunes

Blu Mar Ten – ‘Believe Me’ (Hot Mess remix) by Blu Mar Ten

The combined efforts of Keith Swet and Vacate have been hard to miss over the past year. From featured releases on Beatport to demolishing floors up and down the coast. They have shared the stage with many of dubstep’s heavyweights and have had their work rinsed by many of the same. Hot Mess was listed as a “Must Hear” and “Feature Artist” in Dubstep on Beatport with several chart toppers. Their remix of Blu Mar Ten’s “Believe Me” has been released on their ‘Natural History: Revision’ album, and incorporates the influence and feel of a decade of drum and bass love, that courses through the veins of much of their work.
Poised to unleash a slew of new tracks to end 2010, and kicking off 2011 in style with 2 forthcoming EPs and a handful of heavyweight collabs.
http://www.soundcloud.com/weareahotmess

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Runner-Up Remixes

- Free downloads. Click the symbol if you want to download a track.

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Airwalker

Blu Mar Ten – ‘Believe Me’ (Airwalker remix) by Blu Mar Ten

Rising from relative obscurity in drum and bass to signing Big Sky to Hospital Records earlier this summer, Airwalker has shown the world his unique euphoric style in producing drum and bass music. New tracks such as Sunrise and Ultraviolet shine a light on a new direction in drum and bass music, bringing together elements of trance and liquid drum and bass into an epic mix. Watch this space in the new year, with new material in the works and a new EP on Plush Recordings (Mind Vortex, Magnetic Forces), Airwalker is set to be a name to learn.
http://www.youtube.com/airwalkerdnb

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ConRank

Blu Mar Ten – ‘Believe Me’ (ConRank remix) by Blu Mar Ten

ConRank is a pioneering drumstep producer with a fresh sound. He has has taken his musical influences from the past years and created his own take on the emerging genre that is drumstep . Live he pulls those influences into a mashup of Hip-Hop , DnB , Dubstep and Jungle – looped up with his own beats , basslines and tracks to create something energetic and eclectic. Conrank recently rocked over 2000 people at UK festival “Secret Garden Party”. In the studio ConRank has released 2 singles and an E.P “State Of Play” on his own label Rankadank, with singles also set to drop this year on High Rankin’s label “Suicide Dub” and several remixes on various labels, his productions are starting to make noise with DJs and clubbers alike. Not content with producing and DJing, he’s also currently working with world no.1 beatboxer Killa Kela on the aptly named project “Kela & ConRank”. Conrank is coming, step to the drum.
www.itsconrank.com

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David Bartholomeusz

Blu Mar Ten – ‘Believe Me’ (David Bartholomeusz remix) by Blu Mar Ten

David Bartholomeusz is a dance music producer from Melbourne, Australia, now based in London, UK. A classical pianist and accomplished jazz organist, sound engineer and sound editor, David’s interests in Ambient Trance, Dance and Electronica, Classical, Jazz and Pop are all evident in his music.
David continues to write electronic dance that spans many genres, with its roots in a cinematic, ambient, trance style reminiscent of Paul van Dyke and DJ Tiesto. Whether writing brand new compositions or developing remixes, David brings to every piece of music a sense of freedom, expression and enjoyment, making his music immediately likable, carrying the listener onto the dance floor and into another world.
David’s other projects currently include a collaboration with Red Cherry Records and producer Gene Shill on a new release due early next year. A project spanning Electronic Dance, Jazz, Soul and Trance, a task capable of this well rounded producer and accomplished musician.
www.myspace.com/davidbartholomeuszmusic
www.reverbnation.com/davidbartholomeusz
www.soundcloud.com/davidbartholomeusz
www.facebook.com/davidjbart

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Double A

Blu Mar Ten – ‘Believe Me’ (Double A remix) by Blu Mar Ten

Based near London, Adriaan van Marle aka Double A started making music in 1997, experimenting with a variety of different musical styles. Citing LTJ Bukem’s Good Looking Records as a major source of inspiration, Adriaan has also been influenced by a broad spectrum of genres from jazz and funk through to hip-hop and house music. As a result, he has developed a drum & bass sound which is deep and soulful, intended as much for listening as for dancing.?
http://www.facebook.com/UKdoubleA

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INtrepid

Blu Mar Ten – ‘Believe Me’ (INtrepid remix) by Blu Mar Ten

North London based producer and musician INtrepid attempts to bring more melody and harmony into drum and bass with his eclectic blend of orchestral instruments, cheesy synths and catchy melodies. In his tracks he regularly uses his own real acoustic instruments and his voice to create a unique sound that can be easily recognised. After recently graduating with honours at the University of Hertfordshire in BSc Music Commercial Composition and Technology he is now currently continuing his studies towards a Masters in Music and Sound Technology.
http://www.myspace.com/intrepidmusicUK
http://soundcloud.com/INtrepid
http://twitter.com/INtrepidUK

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Inward Phase

Blu Mar Ten – ‘Believe Me’ (Inward Phase remix) by Blu Mar Ten

Inward Phase aka Dániel Nyári was born in 1991, Hungary, Cegléd. He got a synthesizer at six years old, since then he is possessed of music. He graduate in music elementary school and played in several instruments like piano, guitar and drum. He begun his career in numetal/hardcore band, but it ended soon. He has been interested in drumandbass since 2005, and he begun to compose music in 2008. He was motivated by Noisia, Phace, etc. His first release -Neverland, a corporate track with Exorcist- was released on Ammunition Recordings, then another corporate track-Enigma (Black Seeds) and a solo track – Removing Device (DNA).
Nowadays more and more publishers are interested in his music, like Mindtech, Close 2 Death or the Overtech. Now he represents the massive neurofunk style and you can hear about him a lot in the future.
http://soundcloud.com/inwardphase

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King Moot

Blu Mar Ten – ‘Believe Me’ (King Moot remix) by Blu Mar Ten

Little is known of King Moot. This short biography surfaced a few weeks ago, inscribed upon a wax tablet…
Many years ago, King Moot fashioned a rudimentary recording studio out an old cassette deck, and a few pulleys & levers, and thus set about emitting a variety of curious noises, merely for his own enjoyment. He can often be found, at night, alone, amongst the shrubs & thickets, searching for inspiration, and hooting at the moon…
Armed only with a nose for melody and unfeasibly long fingers, Moot composes music which is designed specifically for dancing to, alone, in the privacy of one’s own quarters, and ideally, in the dark.
http://www.kingmoot.com
http://www.myspace.com/iamkingmoot

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Logarithmia

Blu Mar Ten – ‘Believe Me’ (Logarithmia remix) by Blu Mar Ten

Logarithmia is the production name of drum n bass duo – Bogdan Kalinski and Marcin Ciszczon, formed in 2008.
They met in Dublin’s Sound Training Centre, where Marcin used to teach music production techniques.
Since their first meeting they realised that both of them share similar music tastes but each of them has very own unique skills which can be used in music creation. Marcin is jazz pianist, working musician and sound engineer, while Bogdan takes care of their creative direction.
From their first-ever written track they have received strong support from names like Blu Mar Ten, Electrosoul System, ASC, Paradox, PFM, Method One, Stunna etc..
www.soundcloud.com/logarithmia
www.myspace.com/logarithmia

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Miguel K

Blu Mar Ten – ‘Believe Me’ (Miguel K remix) by Blu Mar Ten

Miguel K
Miguel Jesus also known as Miguel K is a Portuguese Dj and Producer. His taste for electronic music started around 1999, with influences like rui da silva, dj vibe, luca ricci, …
Since 2003 he started to play with some dj software and making electronic music productions.
These days his influences are Deep House, Tech House and Minimal Techno.
http://djmiguelk.com
http://www.facebook.com/pages/dj-Miguel-K/127500197291481

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Paradigm X

Blu Mar Ten – ‘Believe Me’ (Paradigm X remix) by Blu Mar Ten

Paradigm X is probably the best known producer you’ve never heard of. Based in the north-west of England, he started in production 15 years ago. Concentrating on jungle and drum’n’bass at first, he has recently dipped his toe in Dubstep productions (see his release on UKTrends). More recently, he has returned to his acid house roots. Has played a number of live PAs in Manchester, London, France, Germany, Chicago and, erm, Chester. More information and music at
http://www.paradigmx.com
http://soundcloud.com/paradigm-x

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Savvas

Blu Mar Ten – ‘Believe Me’ (Savvas remix) by Blu Mar Ten

Savvas Karabinos started his musical journey as DJ in the early ‘90’s in Greece, evolving in the breakbeat and techno music scene till he finally became a big fan of atmospheric drum and bass music. In 2000 he started his journey in producing music with Vasilis Giouvris aka Yosebu. They produced their first album under the name of Acropod. Their album released in the year 2005 with the name “Tales beyond the unknown”
After many music productions for radio/ tv spots, websites, theatrical plays, movie soundtracks and a few Acropod releases in many labels you can find now Savvas on a solo project under the name “The Falling sun” which is a project with ambient, cinematic music and as “Savvas” you can hear some house and dowtempo music productions released in labels around the globe.
www.myspace.com/thefallingsun
www.myspace.com/savvask

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Silence Groove

Blu Mar Ten – ‘Believe Me’ (Silence Groove remix) by Blu Mar Ten

Silence Groove is 18 years old and lives in Poland. He has been making music since 2007 and focuses mainly on trance / progressive.
Silence Groove appreciates unique music and hates it when artists produce similar tracks.
http://soundcloud.com/silencegroove

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Thinnen

Blu Mar Ten – ‘Believe Me’ (Thinnen remix) by Blu Mar Ten

Thinnen is from the North West of the UK and started producing around 5 years ago, going down the standard route of making generic dance music. A combination of having access to the internet and discovering new producers, a failing hard drive and an interest in music as a whole made him branch out into different styles and tempos, allowing him to be a lot more creative.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qad5tm9CFY4

We’ll send a Blu Mar Ten Tshirt (or girl’s vest) anywhere in the world to the person who gives us the best reason why they should have one.

Just visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/blumarten and reply to the status update about this with your reason and we’ll pick the best one on Friday (12th Nov 2010)

Ok, off you go…