Album preview 6/11 – Orion & J.Shore – White Birds (Brotherhood album OUT NOW) by Orion & J.Shore

ALBUM PREVIEW 6/11

Orion & J.Shore – White Birds

J.Shore: Departed is one of those “epic tracks in E minor” on the album in addition to Brotherhood and White Birds. The drums and arrangement break apart the otherwise a bit too obvious soundtrackish soundscape. Before we started making this, we got some inspiration from the almighty (and slightly corny;) Braveheart soundtrack. Or how about this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcxfrL4UjQ4

Orion: Yes, I remember we listened to the Braveheart soundtrack and while making the arrangement I can recall having an image in my head of super slow-motion William Wallace running over the field. How corny is that?! Live recorded strings work really well here (thanks to our amazing players) and the title was inspired by a classic movie quote: “Heaven holds the faithful departed”. Remember the film?
(more…)

Album preview 5/11 – Orion & J.Shore – Departed (Brotherhood album OUT NOW) by Orion & J.Shore

ALBUM PREVIEW 5/11

Orion & J.Shore – Departed

J.Shore: Departed is one of those “epic tracks in E minor” on the album in addition to Brotherhood and White Birds. The drums and arrangement break apart the otherwise a bit too obvious soundtrackish soundscape. Before we started making this, we got some inspiration from the almighty (and slightly corny;) Braveheart soundtrack. Or how about this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcxfrL4UjQ4

Orion: Yes, I remember we listened to the Braveheart soundtrack and while making the arrangement I can recall having an image in my head of super slow-motion William Wallace running over the field. How corny is that?! Live recorded strings work really well here (thanks to our amazing players) and the title was inspired by a classic movie quote: “Heaven holds the faithful departed”. Remember the film?
(more…)

Album preview 4/11 – Orion & J.Shore – Nails (Brotherhood album OUT NOW) by Orion & J.Shore

ALBUM PREVIEW 4/11

Orion & J.Shore – Nails

J.Shore: For me it’s always been hard to understand the monotonic feel of electronic music – and especially hard to compose anything like it. Maybe my own taste of music has developed during this album making process because now Nails is definitely among my favorite tracks of the album. That kid laughing reminds me of the face of Richard D. James.

Orion: The voice says: “deru kugi wa utareru” which means “The nail that sticks up will be hammered down”. The first version sounded a bit lame, but after adding some japanese throat singing as a layer to the bottom we started to reach the ethnic touch we were hoping in the first place. But hey, doesn’t any proper chill-out track need an old throat-singer, kids laughing and some Japanese guy chanting weird stuff?
(more…)

Album preview 3/11 – Orion & J.Shore – Oasis (Brotherhood album OUT NOW) by Orion & J.Shore

ALBUM PREVIEW 3/11

Orion & J.Shore – Oasis

J.Shore: “The chord progression was born after watching too many episodes of “The Street”. Compare it to the main theme in the beginning of each episode and you’ll get why. The hard part was to find a good fitting melody which runs well together with the chords, but after a session or two we had it there. Looking forward to see this as the theme of “The Street” on the next season.”

Orion: “The idea was to create something nature-themed, peaceful and beautiful, but we ended up with a track which is probably the most haunting on the whole album. The arped bells which little by little mess up the main melody and the ever-growing, murmuring bass-pad give the feeling of uneasiness. Ending the track like that was actually an accident – we were already starting to build the second part, but after listening to the second breakdown we were like ‘why wouldn’t we just leave it here’?.”
(more…)

Album preview 2/11 – Orion & J.Shore – Architect’s Dream (Brotherhood album OUT NOW) by Orion & J.Shore

ALBUM PREVIEW 2/11

Orion & J.Shore – Architect’s Dream

J.Shore: “Architect’s Dream got started from an old draft which I kept on my computer. Building the track was a very architectural process for us – having just the melody and adding layers and layers on it. For the album version we added the piano theme after the breakdown, which also includes one of the most cliche jazz phrases. Cliche or not – it works here brilliantly.”

(Check the jazz phrase: listen to the clip of Architect’s Dream here: http://soundcloud.com/orion-jshore/orion-j-shore-architects-dream and compare it to the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krDxhnaKD7Q )

Orion: “Rich (Solarstone) was compiling his Electronic Architecture 2 compilation and asked if we would have any ambient/chill-out tune ready. Architect’s Dream was just a very nasty sounding draft at that time but Rich heard the potential and asked us to finish it. It became the closing track of Electronic Architecture 2 and got really nice reviews. The album version is slightly altered with a new piano theme, mixing and the intro vocal.”
(more…)

Album preview 1/11 – Orion & J.Shore – One Sunday (Brotherhood album OUT NOW) by Orion & J.Shore

ALBUM PREVIEW 1/11

Orion & J.Shore – One Sunday

J.Shore: “I still remember that Sunday morning in autumn 2008. We were partying the whole previous night and the session next morning didn’t look too good. Even though it was our first time making music together, the track was finished only in a couple of hours. Magical session.”

Orion: “One Sunday is our very first single. It was highly supported by DJ Orkidea who introduced us and our music to Solarstone while he was on a gig in Tampere. Solarstone signed the track to his label Solaris and Beetseekers, Cid Inc, Sami Saari, Syna and Ville Lope delivered superb and very Finnish sounding remixes. It was a clear choice to open our debut album.”
(more…)

Awesome weekend in Seinäjoki & Lahti. The audience was off the hook at both parties and it was a privilege to play after the main man Orkidea finishing his official tour set. It was great to see how well Orkidea’s new and old tracks went down – no matter if it’s about more hypnotic vibes such as “Sphere” or “Slowmotion” or ravey tunes like Flight 643 remix or brand new Solarstone’s remix of Unity, the crowd was enjoying it at its fullest.

Below is the exact tracklist of the event in Lahti. The tracks in Seinäjoki were more or less the same, in slightly different order. While Seinäjoki was a bit more on a full-on trancey tip (like Atlantis – Fiji (Alpha Duo remix) and Solid Globe – North Pole (Sean Bayer remix), which were played only there), Lahti went to more techno/rave direction (like Maas’ Jetstream and Misjah’s Access).

DJ Orion @ DJ Orkidea’s 20 years of DJing & album release tour – Senssi, Lahti 17.12.2011

02:00-03:30

01. Deadmau5 – Aural Psynapse & Eric Prydz – 2Night (DJ Orion’s Intro re-edit)
02. Lovetone & Turismo – 80
03. Ashley Wallbridge – Vision
04. Mat Zo & Arty – Mozart
05. Wolfgang Gartner – The Way It Was
06. Nitrous Oxide – iPeople
07. Gareth Emery, Ben Gold – Flash
08. Orion & J.Shore – White Birds (Tom Fall remix)
09. Trisco – Musak (Paul Thomas & Sonny Wharton Remix)
10. Timo Maas – Jetstream
11. Save The Robot – Party People
12. Stoneface & Terminal – Leaving Earth
13. Mike Koglin & Genix – Dyno
14. Ben Gold – Colossal
15. Aalto – 5
16. Tilt – I Dream (Nick Rowland Remix EA2 Edit)
17. Super8 & Tab – Helektra
18. DJ Misjah – Access
19. Blur – Song2 (Tom Middleton Edit)

Thank You all YleX XmiX artists 2011!

Wispy, 501, Flight, Polarsoul, Darude, Muffler, Something Good, Danny Howells, Paul Easy, LAOS, Jussi Soro, Bright Shades, Timo Juuti, Sander van Doorn, Nikiki, Chase&Status, Blank&Jones, Eliot Ness, Top Billin’, Proteus, Tony Profondo, Homegrove, Supertyyli, Netsky, Zwek&DNA, Sasha, Jangler, Joonas Hahmo, Super8&Tab, DJ Shadow, Flink, Ferry Corsten, London Elektricity, De Souza, Dennis Sheperd, Tom Fall, Nick Warren, Lenno, Mr.A, Oscar, Orkidea, RX, Jaytech, Heikki L, Joris Voorn, Lovetone.