Probably one of this year's most exciting musical trends (for me personally at least), coming almost entirely out of leftfield, is the wave of artists channelling 70s and 80s ambient synth music and krautrock through their own personal musical filters, creating music that goes beyond the established norms of the music that inspired it. Artists like Emeralds, Walls, ARP and Oneohtrix Point Never have proved that, far from being the domain of new age spiritualists and fans of obscure German kosmische, ambient synth music is becoming just as popular with bloggers and more esteemed music publications. Of this wave of [...]
It's been a while since I posted a mix (or indeed anything at all), but I do have quite valid reasons for this, which relate to something quite exciting, which I will get to at the end; before I elaborate on that however, I am going to make another announcement. I have decided not to post MP3s of individual tracks anymore. Rather, the only music I post will be as longform mixes, and rather than monthly, only as and when I am able to (doing them monthly was getting to be a bit difficult). This is something I have been [...]

The final Urlaubshits podcast of the year, featuring my favourite tracks from the past 12 months, thrown together with more haste than I would have liked. Thanks to everyone who has featured on this mix, and all the others this year for making great music. A happy new year to you all, and see you in 2010. Download:> Urlaubshits Radio - Best of 2009 (80.1MB, 128kb, 01:27:07) 1) Spectral Empire - Black Shark // Thisisnotanexit 2) Hot Toddy - I Need Love // Eskimo Recordings 3) Praveen & [...]

Thought I'd offer a counterpart to last month's full on dance mix with a slow one, nothing over 110BPM this month. Still some fairly heavy cosmic action on offer though. And remember, you can subscribe to the monthly podcast by clicking on the link on the right hand side. Makes things a lot easier than downloading it manually every month. Download:> Urlaubshits Radio - August '09 (1:03:07, 58MB) 1) Al Usher - Lullaby For Robert (Bogdan Irkük Remix) // Internasjonal Internasjonal have just [...]

I thought it was about time I joined the 21st century and added the option of subscribing to the monthly mix as a podcast, something I've been meaning to do for a while. So, if you want, click here and you can have it sent to you automatically via whatever you prefer to use for that kind of thing (in most cases, iTunes). If you'd rather download it the old fashioned way, you can do that too. In line with this new paradigm, I have formally renamed the monthly mix to Urlaubshits Radio, though you probably shouldn't expect [...]

This month's mixtape is a particularly cosmic one, featuring the likes of Strangelets and Brain Machine reworking Sebastien Tellier and Black Devil Disco Club respectively, and some fantastic Italo from The Beat Broker and Sally Shapiro. It also features the current track of the moment, TBD's "What Is This?", a house music jam between Lee Douglas and Lee Van Der Volgen that verges on the absurd with its massive white noise breakdown. I'll have a piece up on that release soon, but for now, listen to it here. Download:> Urlaubshits - June '09 (53.5 MB, [...]

Summer is here in a big way, so this month's mix is full of music to enjoy the sunshine to, including the new Walter Jones and DJ Kaos releases on DFA, a cut from the exceptional new Tensnake 123 on Running Back, classic disco sounds from Tirk and dubby spaced out grooves from the new Milky Disco compilation on Lo Recordings. Download:> Urlaubshits - May '09 (58.4MB, 1:03:32) 1) Walter Jones - Living Without Your Love // DFA 2) Tensnake - Holding Back (My Love) // Running Back 3) [...]

Here's the monthly mix for March. It's got a few less tracks than usual, but no shorter than it would normally be, thanks to a couple of really long and dark numbers. Maybe I've been feeling the gloom as our planet slips further into the abyss of global cashpocalypse, but this mix seems to be comprised of harsh buzzing bass and abstract percussive jams rather than the smooth disco I'm more used to. And I'm pretty sure that's a sample of the computer voice from Star Trek: The Next Generation on the Colombia #1 track at the end... [...]
Here it is, the first Urlaubshits mix of the year. It's got some stuff from the last few months, some upcoming releases, one really old track, and one bonfide exclusive, special thanks for which go to Moscow for kindly letting me include his unreleased track "Throwup" on this month's mix. It's an awesome piece of work, and hopefully it will be winging its way to a record shop near you soon. MP3:> Urlaubshits - January '09 (60:14, 55.5MB) 1) NDV - Touchy Philly (Lo Recordings) 2) Moscow - Throwup (Unreleased) [...]
I didn't get around to a November mix - for this you have my utmost apologies, but in my defence I was busy with other things . As a way of making up for the lack of a mix last month I present an extra long mix including tracks from all of my top 10 123 singles from 2008, the order of which will be revealed on Monday 22nd December. As well as these the mix includes a few of my absolute favourite remixes from the year gone by, and one album track from my Top 10 albums [...]

...but the beginning of a new one. Its been 17 months of blogging, but I only got myself on the Hype Machine two and a half months ago. Now I have what I can call a regular readership, its time to say thanks for all the comments and messages of support I get, they don't go unnoticed. I started the blog primarily because I wanted to do something that was well written, and if at least a handful of people coming here think the written content is worth their time, then I feel like I've succeeded. I would [...]

I have to admit that I was a little disappointed with Simian Mobile Disco's album Attack Decay Sustain Release from last year. The standard never really seemed to live up to that set by some of their incredible remixes and DJ performances. Certain tracks on the album that had previously been released as singles or promos ended up in neutered form, although their sound is undoubtedly one of true electronic music geeks. Rising to prominence at the height of "blog house", it is perhaps unsurprising to hear that they have a remix album (entitled [...]
So today marks the first anniversary of Urlaubshits. I made the decision about a month ago to update this blog more regularly than I had been, and give it a bit of a redesign, mainly thanks to some kind words from someone in Australia who had happened across my blog through my Last.fm profile page . Thanks whoever you are, you were the one who made me realise that it was all worth it somehow, even when you're not listed on the Hype Machine , which I'm not. The Hype Machine is both the mp3 blogger's blessing and [...]