Right on the cusp of festival season, Colorado native DJ and producer Paper Diamond released his new album Wavesight. In it, Paper Diamond shows off the range and awesomeness he has locked away in his arsenal of beats. If you need more motivation to buy Lollapolooza tickets, I suggest giving this EP a listen.

Alex B. has been producing music under the name Paper Diamond for a few years now, he initially was signed on the Pretty Lights Music label but has since joined the Mad Decent label founded by dance floor guru Diplo. Paper Diamond pushes the limits of what dubstep is. It’s not just a kick ass bassline with some wobbles here and there, as Paper Diamond proves it can be so much more!

The new EP features three songs, each a reflection of the different styles this man can produce. I was disappointed that only three songs were released on the EP, however as the MadDecent website states, “‘Wavesight’ is merely a taste of what PD has in store. You can expect a slew of new music releases, collaborations,  videos, and tour dates.” Regardless the three songs are awesome. “Can we go up” starts off light and funky but quickly gets downright dirty. It’s hard to call “Turn the Lights off Feat. Nasimiyi” anything but a banger, it just explodes with energy. AirLift, my favorite of the three, is just unpredictable. You have no idea where the song is going but you’re busy loving every minute.

Paper Diamond is one of the few artists I’ve had the pleasure to follow all around the country. First at Outside-lands Music  Festival in San Francisco, then at NorthCoast music festival in Chicago, and most recently at the Blue Bird in Bloomington Indiana. The man never disappoints! If you’re going to Lollapolooza get pumped, it’s going to be an awesome show.

You can download the EP off the Paper Diamond website here. 

Wiz Khalifa sampled Empire of the Sun’s “Walking on a Dream” right about the time he played at the Sigma Nu house at Purdue last year. I was pumped because it meant I could play this song while I was Djing without angry sorostitutes threatening to bite my head off. Treasure Fingers is one of my favorite producers out there, he is just so good at the Nu Disco sound. It’s hard to hate an intro with bongos, I love the filter work on the synth riffs, and it just drops in at the perfect part of the original song.

p.s I don’t know what this video is, GameGanja? wtf

First things first; these things are fluffy, I feel like I have a pillow encased in soft vinyl on my head. While this is actually quite nice on the ears, I could see these being pretty warm to wear after awhile, and they are aethetically very large. The padding also doesn’t allow for much sound transfer above lows from what I’ve heard (but you’ll get that with anything pleather). As a result, it’s mostly bass with dampened highs – playing with the equalizer a bit, the flat response levels are pretty decent, but still missing any crisp highs that some songs will bring – throw in some treble booster and they’ll more than get the job done.

Simply said, $50 is getting you a pair of Sonys. The company knows how to produce a pretty decent sound at a fairly low cost – they’re sturdily built, rest easy on the head for a pair of Circumaurals, and do EXACTLY what they’re advertised to do, Boost Bass – and the sound cancelation isn’t too shabby (as in they get loud enough you can’t hear other stuff).

•  Y Cord
•  4 – 24kHz response
• Circumaural
• bass boosting
• 40mm drivers

5 seconds in you’ll know this tune, you’ll recognize it from Duck Sauce’s banger last summer “Barbara Streisand”. What you may not realize is that Duck Sauce sampled this song in their song. In the late 1970′s, Boney M was a West German vocal group comprised of four members were from Aruba ( insert Beach Boys reference here).

This song tends to pop in my head while i’m running, or walking home from the bars.

Daft Punk is a classic on any dance floor. Digital Love (ALGERONICS Remix) is one of my favorite tracks to drop while i’m Djing. I love that it keeps the original opening and the build up utilizes the energy from the original track to build up before a wicked breakdown followed some cheeky wobble business.

Download

Purdue University should end its moratorium on concerts and give student organizations on campus the same freedoms the student concert committee has to work with the music industry.

Purdue’s current policies do not allow student organizations to work with third party promoters, however the student concert committee ,which is a branch of Purdue Convocations, has that right.  Thus, we end up in events such Avicii’s concert Wednesday night, which barely managed to sell around 2500 seats.

Monday’s editorial in the Purdue Exponent discussed how the price for the event was deterring students from purchasing tickets.  If a student organization had brought Avicii to campus they could have asked for grant money, distributed by the Student Organization Grant Allocation board, to either create a cheaper ticket for students (rather than the $3 discount Purdue Convocations offered), or even used the money to build a stage outside. SOGA grants could cover up to $6,500.

All the University’s current policy does is limit and waste students time and money. By not allowing student organizations to work with third party promoters, students are stuck attending expensive events and denied the opportunity to learn about the music industry by throwing their own events. Some may argue that the student soncert committee has an advisor who oversees its budget and contracts it signs, but all student organizations have advisors who oversee finances. If a student organization wants to take on the risks of throwing and event and its advisors accept those risks, then the University should not have a problem with it.

The Office of the Dean of Students has not said anything about any work it has done toward lifting the ban on concerts. The January 12th editorial in the Purdue Exponent said the purpose of the moratorium is so the office can better develop policies to prevent poorly run events.  Anyone who witnessed the 3LAU event on Slater Hill during Grand Prix can attest that poorly run events are still happening. Part of the problem with that event was the student organization had to jump through hoops to get the Dean of Students to OK the event by calling it a ”DJ event,” rather than a concert. However, the student organization still was not able to work with any production or sound company, and the sound system looked like something that was just laying around the Alpha Kappa Lambda house.

The University’s moratorium isn’t helping anyone and it should get rid of the moratorium and give student organizations more rights to throw concerts.

Shaan  Yadav-Ranjan is a senior in Economics at Purdue University and the former Opinions Editor of the Purdue Exponent. He can be reached at syadavra@purdue.edu 

If you like the Beatles, you’ll like this song. Granted i’m biased because Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is my favorite Beatles cd.  It’s like Dj’s Loydeho Funk and Vicious Vic stripped the raw essence of the classic song and conjoined it to the perfect house beat. I’ve heard other remixes of this song, it seems like when a producer remixes a classic song they have two options: keep the song intact and build a song around it, or break the song up and use it to make a song. I love the fact they chose to keep this song intact.

Beware: the break down before the chorus is FUNKY.

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First up, The Shins. Oh, Inverted World is undoubtedly one of the best albums ever released, and if you’ve been following us the last couple weeks you saw JustJoshin’s post about their latest album ‘Port of Morrow. Since we’ve already written about this band a couple times, I won’t go into depth, but they should def. hit your list of bands to see.

Oh Justice, electronic goodness, confuse them with Daft Punk and I know a guy who will BEAT you. But I digress, their first album ‘Cross’ was released back 2007, and man was happy. Then last year they followed up with ‘Audio, Video, Disco’, and man was all “meh”. They’re catchy though and pretty solid dance music, after all they are from France, and as we know, europeans know their way around a mixer like none other.

Ohhhh Passion Pit. As Credible put it, “…upbeat synthpop reminiscent of MGMT; odd, often sad lyrics juxtaposed with the high-pitched, fast-paced vocals and synth, which is in turn laid over a quick, driving drum beat.”

Closing out this round we have Kaskade, named best American DJ of 2011 – all my DJ friends have always said he’s kinda frat-ty and mainstream. But that pretty much sums up DJs AMIRIGHT? Jokes aside, he’s pretty good and comparable to Deadmau5 and Tiesto. Via recommendation from an old friend a track from the Tron: Legacy soundtrack – and something that you might actually hear from him at Lolla

till next time.

In summary, this entire song is about ignoring an ex that actually wants to be friends. Kinda made me feel like a jerk listening to the ‘pain’ behind his words, we’ve all been there.

Give it a listen though, the xylophone is an instrument that rarely gets an invite to indie rock songs, and who knows, maybe this 8x Platinum single will make you feel emotions too!

http://www.youtube.com/coachella