Head on over to btmusic.com, official home of BT and you’ll notice some significant changes. Gone are the subtle stars of a binary universe, the sidebar navigation and static impression. Newly-arrived is a lush palette with a heavy dose of gloss, prominently featuring two widgets: One to BT’s Twitter feed, another hosting videos—currently a performance reel and the Rose of Jericho music video. Navigation includes convenient links to the official board, BT’s Beatport artist page and contact information. Clean, simple, and just enough tasteful use of flash to avoid a cliché. From one designer to another, job well done. Easily surpasses the otherwise abysmal gamut of official portals for other electronic musicians.

Amongst the many recent developments in BT land, is the approval and launch of iPhone-based live remix application Sonifi. You can check the details on the App Store page here, along with the press release and feature rundown. The first set of reviews reveal a steady diet of kool-aid drinking, though the app itself appears to have decent potential. I’ll be snapping it up and toying with it this weekend. Expect a thorough rundown sometime next week (hopefully), including a tear-down of the app.

So after what was (at best) a subpar outing for Sultan & Shepard on The Rose of Jericho, we have our first glimpse of their remix for A Million Stars. It’s proggy too, but damn, does this kick some serious ass. The vocals, the progression, the package, it’s delicious. MORE MORE MOOOOOOOOORE.

Hat tip to Raven for tracking this down.

Update: Rumors abound on who the vocalist in this track is. The usual suspects, Kirsty and Jan have been suggested, but I think Fuzz’s speculation of Charlotte Martin nails it. We’ll soon find out.

Piping hot in MP3, AAC and WAV:

Home > Labels > Nettwerk > Rose Of Jericho Part 1

$7.47 for the release of three tracks @ $2.49, plus $1.00 each if you want them in WAV.

Update:

Called it. Let’s review briefly, shall we?

Original Mix: 7 minutes and 43 seconds of badassness instead of 4 minutes and 53 seconds. This will steamroll the Beatport daily chart trash fodder, spin it like a top, twist it like a pretzel, eat it’s lunch AND steal the girl… all at the same time. This will chart #1. Guaranteed. The only over/under is how long before it leaps to the head of the pack.

Sultan & Ned Shephard Remix - I said:

there’s a reasonable chance we’ll get something decent. I just doubt it’ll crack Diggers’ monthly chart unless he’s desperate for material.

What you’re getting: A progressive house stomper

And that’s exactly what you’re getting. Decent material that doesn’t insult the original, nor does it crack up to it. I reviewed this kind of stuff for Progressive Sounds for two years… I’ve chewed on so much of this plunging, generic house, I had enough of it then to last a lifetime. I have no more patience for it. For Christ’s sake, someone buy these guys a bassline.

Robbie Rivera Remix - I said:

Here’s your pretentious tech house trainwreck, complete with monotonous thuds, non-sensical synth blips, rogue arps and virtually no point considering the original source material (which is really as far as it needed to go). [...] I have nothing against Robbie Rivera personally, I just think his music is bland and uninspired like the vast majority of the genre he dwells in. [...]

What you’re getting: More blippy bleep bloops in an already bleepy song.

NAILED HIM. Back to the drawing board, Robbie. Hope your afterhours mix saves you in two weeks.

Big whooping meh. As per usual, topping Brian is a nearly futile exercise, since he goes out of his way to make his tracks as tough as possible to remix. Zero dead space in the stems. Thank you for playing, gentlemen… shall we take our next caller?

TRANCE PIONEER BT MAKES HIS LONG-AWAITED RETURN WITH THE RELEASE OF HIS BRAND NEW SINGLE “ROSE OF JERICHO”

THREE REMIXES TO BE RELEASED VIA BEATPORT ON JUNE 9; ANOTHER THREE REMIXES TO FOLLOW ON JUNE 23

BT TEASES FANS WITH NEWS OF AN INNOVATIVE NEW IPHONE APPLICATION

Three full years since the release of his critically acclaimed experimental album This Binary Universe, BT makes his highly anticipated return to dancefloors everywhere June 9. On Tuesday, BT unveils his brand new single, “The Rose Of Jericho,” from his forthcoming full-length album due in fall. The composer, technologist and widely renowned pioneer of trance music will be rolling out three remixes of Jericho, exclusively on Beatport. Mixes include: BT’s Dues ex Machina Album Mix, Sultan and Ned Shepard Remix and Robbie Rivera New Juicy Music Mix.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve written music that I could feature in one of my Laptop Symphony sets. Not only is this track a floor-filling monster, it really features my current electronic music inspirations - minimal beats with big strong melodic and harmonic content. This track rips the A** off a dance floor. I’ve played it from Korea to Brazil, and it’s the biggest track I’ve had to play out for years.”

In other bleeding edge news, BT and his software company, Sonik Architects, are preparing to launch an innovative new iPhone application that is unlike anything else on the market. More news on this application to follow soon.

BT, born Brian Transeau, is much more than a DJ. By consistently balancing creative and memorable songwriting, sonic innovation and the latest technology for a cutting-edge yet organic sound, BT has become one of the most revolutionary artists and sought after producers on the scene. His multifaceted career ranges from scoring Pixar films, composing intricate scores with eighty-piece orchestras for films like The Fast and the Furious, remixing classics for Madonna, Sarah McLachlan, Tori Amos and Seal, and crafting perfect pop hooks for *NSYNC.

Fans can expect to hear more remixes of “The Rose of Jericho” on Beatport June 23 when BT releases three more remixes: Adam K and Soha, Virtual Vault and Robbie Rivera Juicy Miami After Hours Remixes. All six remixes can be found on iTunes and everywhere on June 30.

June 9th release:
1. Rose of Jericho (BT’s Deus ex Machina Album Mix)
2. Rose of Jericho (Sultan & Ned Shepard Remix)
3. Rose of Jericho (Robbie Rivera New Juicy Music Mix)

June 23rd release:
1. Rose of Jericho (Adam K & Soha Remix)
2. Rose of Jericho (Virtual Vault Remix)
3. Rose of Jericho (Robbie Rivera Juicy Miami After Hours Remix)

More music from BT’s new album to come!!

Hurrah. Who’s pulling an all-nighter on Beatport’s behalf?

Hurry on over to YouTube, where you can experience Scott Pagano’s visual wizardry in all it’s widescreen glory:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sLRMAkc2aM

Remember him? He did half the videos on This Binary Universe and served up visuals for the live tour. I’ve met the guy. He kicks enormous amounts of ass. Apple Pro did a profile on him here.

No, this probably isn’t a mistaken jumping of the gun, so put your YouTube FLV rippers away. It’s posted under the official account of Black Hole Recordings, Tiesto’s label responsible for the release of Emotional Technology in the UK (under the Special Collector’s Edition). Blippy, bleepy goodness, albeit in sub-5 minute edited glory. Blame MTV for not playing 9 minute videos unless they’re claymations by Tool or baseball bats to cars by Michael Jackson. For many people this is their first experience hearing Rose of Jericho from a pure, stereo source, and it rewards accordingly. I personally dig the shit out of it, and would use it in my sets without a second thought. It slots in nicely with the Lost Language brand of progressive trance, home to Tilt, Leama, Andy Moor and Quivver’s Space Manoeuvres project.

Note: The release of this video makes a pretty solid case for the single itself appearing tomorrow, June 9 on schedule, as opposed to the listed June 23 date from the leaked tracklistings.

Buckle up folks, the slippery slope of frenzy has begun.

Update:

The YouTube entry specifies that the upcoming album will be released on Black Hole Recordings. I think it’s fair to assume at this point that Black Hole will be handling UK distribution of the album, while Nettwerk will provide the US edition. It’s probably also fair to assume the tracklistings will have slight variances, just as we’ve seen in the past with ESCM (here and here), Movement In Still Life (here and here), and Emotional Technology (here and here).

Further rumored is the appearance of Rose of Jericho on Beatport, sometime late tonight or tomorrow morning. No word on other avenues of distribution such as iTunes or Amazon MP3, but the price for Beatport releases typically lands at $2.49 per track, plus $1.00 for WAV handling.

The big news over the last couple days has been BT’s recent announcement of iPhone/iPod touch application Sonifi, a tricked out app engine with pre-loaded samples allowing you to remix his tracks on the fly. From BT’s post:

It is with a deep sense of pride, tonight, a week before the release of the first single from my new album….That my software company Sonik Architects, and I…have completed and are submitting as we speak
The worlds first portable remix application for a mobile device, Sonifi™ will be shipped this month. It contains ALL the remix parts of The Rose of Jericho and a special bonus acoustic mix of the track for you to remix your A** off with

And quite simply is the coolest F***ing thing you’ve EVER seen on an iPhone. **BT Drops the mic, kicks over the stereo, throws up the horns and makes out with someones GF before leaving the building!  **
Sonifi™ + The Rose of Jericho mid June…..and 12 seconds next week

For anyone wanting to know why there isn’t a solid release date, the wait is actually indeterminable due to the unpredictability of the App Store review process by Apple. Submitted apps with no issues can be fast-tracked within 48 hours, while others with lingering issues (See: SlingPlayer Mobile) can be delayed for weeks. Due to the likely nature of Sonifi, we should see it available for purchase by this weekend, right before Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) hits.

There’s quite a bit of turf to cover here, because Sonifi is simultaneously hitting the beaten path and blazing new ground. How much it takes off depends largely on the app’s interface and usability, and how well catchy content is able to change iPhone user behavior. I have been covering, following and participating in the iPhone application development process since long before the official SDK, back when Lucas Newman created Lights Off as a native app on his jailbroken iPhone with no documentation or frameworks to guide him. It’s a brazen, ever-changing market, and not just because Apple decides to revise their App Store policies every week.

There’s a few apps already in the portable digital audio workstation (DAW) market, to varying degrees of usefulness and success:

Touch Mix - Deadmau5 - A virtual set of decks with a plethora of mixing effects and exclusive Deadmau5 content for toying with. Don’t be fooled by the “Create your own remixes” language used by the description—no actual remixing is going on here. A few friends of mine (artists) beta tested this four months ago and weren’t particularly impressed.

iDrum: Depeche Mode Sounds of the Universe -  Make no mistake, if there was ever an app Sonifi was inspired by, it’s this. A mobile version of the renowned iDrum desktop app by plugin development maestros iZotope, this client comes with a slate of sounds from Depeche Mode’s latest album Sounds of the Universe completely at your disposal to remix on the fly.

BeatMaker - Despite the hefty price tag of $19.99 (4 to 6 times the price of similar-purpose iPhone apps), BeatMaker is an astounding proof of concept that semi-professional audio production can be done on the iPhone platform, even despite the severely-limited hardware of the iPhone and iPhone 3G. The comprehensiveness, however, is also the achilles heel. More on that in a bit.

Here’s a few fundamental (and well-documented) issues with iPhone applications and it’s users, and how an app like Sonifi fits in:

1. iPhone users are fickle, with extremely short attention spans and a disposable mindset.

iPhone users, by and large, view apps as forms of distraction from brief spells of monotony throughout the course of a day. Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, NYTimes, SMS, and YouTube are slapped dozens of times a day and noodled around with, perhaps every 60 seconds if the user also suffers OCD. The top-selling apps at one point were iFart and iBeer, and the average price of a paid iPhone app hovers right above the base price of 99 cents. Most games and news portals aim to give you a satisfactory, complete experience within a five minute window, and for good reason: Users on the go are very rarely idle for longer than that. An audio remix application on the iPhone needs to be a quick, efficient sketchpad for ideas that can later be fleshed out in the presence of a fully-capable DAW. In the case of BeatMaker, the complexity of the user interface is counterintuitive to creative spontaneity, which should be the only purpose of a mobile platform in the first place. Nobody is going to pick up their phone for some serious production work with a desktop anywhere within reason.

Sonifi in context: It needs to be an app with a very accessible, simple UI that quickly engages the user, let’s them pause from distraction, and pick up where they left off.

2. The resourcefulness and replay value of an app must exceed the price tag.

This one is not as obvious as it should be, and it’s also the crux of the iPhone experience. Recent studies have shown users are more likely to reuse an application they pay for, but that falsely implies that people guilt-trip themselves into using something they’ve paid money for. More likely the case is people are willing to pay for quality apps with initially high potential that turn into solid bets over time. A classic case in point is Zenonia, a Zelda-inspired 16-bit style 2D scroller RPG with dozens of hours of depth and play, and leading the push for iPhone to become a major portable gaming platform worthy of contention with Nintendo and Sony. You’ll have a wide range of expected value from Sudoku ($0.99), Frenzic ($2.99), Zenonia ($5.99) and Sims 3 ($9.99). Apps like Netter’s Anatomy can command a $39.99 price tag due to it’s resourcefulness and practical use for medical students on the go.

Sonifi in context: With a reported price tag of $4.99 for the program and $1.49 for future remix packs, Sonifi goes beyond “mildly amusing gimmick” territory ($2.99 and under) and into “must have legitimate use for prolonged periods of time” turf. That’s a tall order, particularly when apps in the same price range are offering a unique content experience in excess of 30 hours. (For the record, I maintain iZotope’s mobile iDrum series is overpriced.)

3. Advanced mobile platforms with little ability to coordinate and sync with their desktop counterparts risk abandonment.

There are many exceptional apps on the iPhone that operate completely within the confines of their own existence, and no need to ever expand beyond that. But if the user’s goal is productivity of any kind, they need a viable option export, transfer or otherwise pass along the information in tangible form to be plied upon later. There are apps that utterly fail in this regard (Apple’s own Notes app), leverage existing avenues to roughly pass data along (GasCubby allows you to import and export spreadsheets via email attachments), or in perhaps the finest, slickest example of fluidity, Cultured Code’s GTD app Things syncs directly with their desktop client via Wi-Fi. The ability to transfer your work directly correlates with how much time and effort you put into an app. That’s the fundamental weakness of the entire iDrum series: Users will not consistently put extensive time and effort into composing and remixing with no way to output their results.

Sonifi in context: Without an AIFF export option or at least plans to include it in a near-future revision, consider the app without purpose and subsequently dead in the water after five minutes of use.

To clarify, this is all personal speculation based on reasonable assumptions and features of audio-based iPhone applications. Nobody will know for sure whether Sonifi is the real deal until it hits, but I for one look forward to trying it out and have reasonably high confidence that BT’s efforts have yielded a successful product.

With all the recent attention towards BT’s new (and yet untitled) album #6 and the associated acts doing remixes and collaborations, it’s very easy to overlook a number of contributors deeply involved in helping produce a record of the highest caliber. Today we’ll take a look at the most important person not actually featured on the album: The Mastering Engineer.

Mastering is a lost art form of sorts. It entails a broad spectrum of everything from finalizing the tracklisting, normalizing the audio to keep the levels consistent throughout the record, to preparing the material for a glass master pressing at the CD distributor. Most importantly, however, the mastering engineer is responsible for pouring through every inch of the audio with a fine tooth comb to detect and clean up inconsistencies, hollow sounds, unwanted echos from recording sources, and imperfect balances or muddiness throughout the frequency spectrum. They may also apply additional filters for a variety of subtle enhancements. Some artists opt for a bright, sweet sound, others want a “live performance” feel. There’s also the issue of dynamic range: Higher compression creates a louder and punchier sound (See: The Offspring), at the severe expense of losing the depth and dimension of the record. The trick is to find the happy medium—a sound that is forceful yet preserves all the peaks and dips of a sonic waveform. We could very easily punch out a doctrinal thesis on expert methods of mastering, but the bottom line is that it takes someone with exceptional talent and judgement to assess all these factors and implement a solution that compliments the vision of the source material. Mastering is not for everyone.

Meet Emily Lazar. As founder, owner and chief engineer of world-renowned studio The Lodge, mastering is definitely for her. In addition to mastering duties on BT’s previous works This Binary Universe and Emotional Technology, Emily has put her touch on a number of hit records including Playing the Angel by Depeche Mode, Elements of Life by Tiesto, a half dozen albums by Garbage, All Or Nothing by The Subways, (my personal favorite) Sonic Youth’s remaster of Dirty (what an honor that had to be), and even my Seattle-based home church Mars Hill’s compilation of worship bands. Having worked with a wide palette of sounds and styles for thousands of records, Emily has very few imitators, even fewer peers and nothing to prove to anybody. Plus she’s ridiculously hot. She’s the best of the best, and right now she’s working on BT’s latest offering.

Here’s a brief snippet of her biography—you can check out The Lodge here, their MySpace page here, and view the PDF with the bio and Emily’s complete discography here. She was also previously covered by Mix Magazine two years ago.

At the forefront of a new generation of mastering engineers, Emily Lazar, founder of The Lodge, recognizes the integral role mastering plays in the creative musical process. Combining a decisive old-school style and sensibility with an intuitive and youthful knowledge of music and technology, Emily and her team capture the magic that can only be created in the right studio by the right people.

Founded in 1997, The Lodge is located in the heart of New York City’s Greenwich Village. Equipped with state-of-the art mastering, DVD authoring, surround sound, and specialized recording studios, The Lodge utilizes cutting-edge technologies and has attracted both the industry’s most renowned artists and prominent newcomers. From its unique collection of outboard equipment to its sophisticated high density digital audio workstations, The Lodge is furnished with specially handpicked pieces that lure both analog aficionados and digital audiophiles alike. Moreover, The Lodge is the only studio in the New York Metropolitan area with an in-house Ampex ATR-102 one-inch two-track tape machine for master playback, transfer and archival purposes.

As Chief Mastering Engineer, Emily’s passion for integrating music with technology has been the driving force behind her success, enabling her to create some of the most distinctive sounding albums released in recent years. Her particular attention to detail and demand for artistic integrity is evident through her extensive body of work that spans genres and musical styles, and has made her a trailblazer in an industry notably lacking female representation.

Recently, Emily helped to launch the flagship Apple store in New York City with her presentation on the relationship between mastering and Apple Computers. Some of the esteemed artists she has worked with include: Depeche Mode, David Bowie, Lou Reed, Morrissey, Jeff Buckley, Sonic Youth, Third Eye Blind, Natalie Merchant, The Shins, Donald Fagen, Beyonce, Sinead O’Connor, Destiny’s Child, Simple Plan, Wu Tang Clan, Nada Surf, The Walkmen, Vanessa Carlton, Tiësto and The Prodigy to name a few. In addition, she has mastered original soundtracks for the following feature films: Training Day, Pokemon: The 1st Movie, Boys Dont Cry, Six Feet Under, Heroes and The Punisher among many others.

But even the most successful studios cannot just rest on their laurels. Seeing the potential for expansion, The Lodge recently added to the core competency of their business by opening new audio production facilities to serve different areas in the music/audio market, making The Lodge one of the most comprehensive audio service facilities on the planet.

Current articles on Emily Lazar include features in Artist Pro (cover story), Bust Magazine, Electronic Musician (cover story), Home Recording Magazine, Mix Magazine, Billboard, Pro Sound News, Medialine, Future Music, Remix Magazine and TapeOp. Lazar is also a highly publicized product endorsee for Avalon Design (audio equipment) and Apple Computers.

Up next is a refined and updated version of BT’s primary logo, for use on all future albums, press materials, posters, and miscellaneous collateral materials. This is not part of a font family—like the previous logo for which BT has become so renowned, this one is a custom job as well. Squashed, flatter, more angular and a bit more modernist with mathematically precise curves, this is a suitable (if somewhat unnecessary) identity redesign.

Available for your personal, non-commercial use is the logo in vector Photoshop PSD and standard PNG graphic formats. Have fun and enjoy!

Right click to download:

Photoshop [PSD]
Portable Network Graphics [PNG]

As so often happens in the world of Apple leading up to product announcements, all it takes is one overzealous underling doing just a little too much prep work to spill the beans. Thanks to a (likely soon-to-be-unemployed) employee of Nettwerk I present to you, the tracklistings for three variations of BT’s upcoming single “The Rose of Jericho,” complete with album art. The listed date of release is June 23, 2009… but take that with a grain of salt.

Rose of Jericho
1. Rose of Jericho (BT’s Deus ex Machina Album Mix)
2. Rose of Jericho (Sultan & Ned Shepard Remix)
3. Rose of Jericho (Adam K & Soha Remix)
4. Rose of Jericho (Robbie Rivera New Juicy Music Mix)
5. Rose of Jericho (Robbie Rivera Juicy Miami After Hours Remix)
6. Rose of Jericho (Virtual Vault Remix)

Rose of Jericho (Part 1)
1. Rose of Jericho (BT’s Deus ex Machina Album Mix)
2. Rose of Jericho (Sultan & Ned Shepard Remix)
3. Rose of Jericho (Robbie Rivera New Juicy Music Mix)

Rose of Jericho (Part 2)
1. Rose of Jericho (Adam K & Soha Remix)
2. Rose of Jericho (Virtual Vault Remix)
3. Rose of Jericho (Robbie Rivera Juicy Miami After Hours Remix)

The first appears to be the United States release, while Part 1 and 2 are very likely UK singles, as the division of tracks keeps the total running time under 40 minutes and allows them to chart properly. So, who are these people?

Sultan & Ned Shepard - These guys are the cream of the crop. Sultan became well-known initially though his progressive house work on Shinichi in 2003 and subsequent collaborations with Tone Depth, Ned Shepard is one half of former chillout progressive breaks duo Digital Witchcraft. Sultan and Shepard have teamed up quite a bit in the last few years (most notably under the Digital Witchcraft-esque side project Jiva), migrating more towards an edgier, housey sound. I can’t say I’m a fan of their recent work, which is a shame… because from 2003 to 2005 both Sultan and Ned had the golden touch. I can’t say they would’ve been my first choice for this target of genre (I would’ve gone to the Greeks: Dousk, Chris Nemmo, Kosmas Epsilon, Jose Zamora, G-Pal, Stel, et. al.), but there’s a reasonable chance we’ll get something decent. I just doubt it’ll crack Diggers’ monthly chart unless he’s desperate for material.

What you’re getting: A progressive house stomper
Choice of remixer: C

Adam K & Soha - You’re still in progressive house territory, albeit the electrohouse variant. Most of their attention comes from their remixes of Chicane (Bruised Water with Natasha Bedingfield), Deadmau5 (Hey Baby) and Kaskade (the utterly delicious 4 AM). It’s decent stuff, but painfully trendy. These are the guys you call when Deadmau5 is on tour, Glenn Morrison isn’t available, and you don’t want to deal with Pryda. Not to say this doesn’t have incredible potential—I anticipate something that will compliment a middle set nicely. I may even spin it myself.

What you’re getting: Faxing Berlin with a BT melody.
Choice of remixer: B+

Robbie Rivera - Here’s your pretentious tech house trainwreck, complete with monotonous thuds, non-sensical synth blips, rogue arps and virtually no point considering the original source material (which is really as far as it needed to go). I’d normally recommend Gui Boratto or James Holden in cases like this, except it doesn’t change the issue. I have nothing against Robbie Rivera personally, I just think his music is bland and uninspired like the vast majority of the genre he dwells in. The Afterhours mix may have some potential, since a title like that usually implies a chill pill of some kind.

What you’re getting: More blippy bleep bloops in an already bleepy song.
Choice of remixer: C-

Virtual Vault - These guys are fairly new, and bring absolutely nothing unique to the table. What we have here is another trance act, completely indistinguishable from everyone else producing the same things using the same software, patches and sounds. Paraphrasing Chris Rock’s Academy Awards crack: If you want Ferry Corsten and all you can get is Virtual Vault… WAIT! Will it chart? Yep. Will every trance DJ and their cousins play it? Of course. But it’s still fodder. Airwave, Armin Van Buuren or Maor Levi would have been more effective (and more talented) alternatives.

What you’re getting: The bastard child of Robert Miles and Above & Beyond, toddler-aged.
Choice of remixer: D

Also of note is a slight adjustment in the typeface of BT’s logo—whether it’s custom or a font family remains to be seen.

More news and views nobody asked for, as more info becomes available. Hat tip to the brother who called this in.