The Groove Machine

[forrest_avery]

I have just finished my new House Mix, so I figured I should post it up on my site, and put up a link for the NWtekno peeps.

I've been working on this one for a while, and would be very happy to get feedback from the house heads on what they think. It's got a lot of new cuts on it with a few older ones that I feel fit the style of the mix. I even got 2 unreleased tracks(1 from Rithma, and 1 from RTHM) that the producers let me use. The tracks are super hot, so keep an eye out for them on their respective labels(listed below) soon.

As for style of house, I would say it's pretty Groovy/Funky/Glitchy. I threw a few funky breaks in for good measure, and bust out with a little turntablism here and there to catch your attention.

The play time is 80 mins, and the Track list is as follows:

1. Party People - The Sound Republic- Spatula City
2. Break Ya Neck - RTHM - Unreleased(coming soon on Spatula City)
3. Chicago jack(joey youngman mix) - Bryan Jones - Control
4. The Hurricane - Federated - Music Situation
5. Grammarweek(loopitygoofs) - Biboulakis - Chillin Music
6 Keep it goin(cosy creatures mix) - Pushin Boundries - Guesthouse
7. Don't Need It - Special Interest - Guesthouse
8. Stutter Funk - Digital Minds - Nightshift
9. The Grind(Chuck Love) - Sound Navigators - Chillin Music
10. Insomnia - Sound Republic - Control
11. Good Ol'(JH Good Ol Mix) - Track Yankers - Hush
12. Dot That Wholes Your I(Style Of Eye Dot You Mix) - Asad Rizvi(feat Mel Dymond) - Soco Audio
13. Regular Absorbancy - Jacob London - Classic Music
14. Sick Suprise - Toe Jam People - Bassment Sounds
15. This train is for cockfosters - Jacob London - Movim Recordings
16. Love is emotion(AE's 90's throwbackdub) - Andrew Emil- revolutionary music
17. No ones watching(jossmoogremix)- Scott Findley - robsoul
18. Jam Session - Troydon - Phonoshuffle
19. Watch ya mama gonna say - Sound Republic - Guesthouse
20. Dirty Down - Rhythm Renewal - Flatpack Traxx
21. In tha groove(bryan jones) - Sean Biddle - Bid Muzik
22. Just say it(Mj cole Mix) - Blood - Oyster Music
23. A brighter life - White Collar Criminals - Fetish
24. Buttered Up(late Night Society Mix) - Gavin Boyce - Chillin Music
25. Country cooking - The Quirk Burglars - Shak Digital
26. Plastic disco - Roger D'Lux - Casual Kickback
27. Ucansample(Jay West's Flavor Mix) - Manuel Sahagun - Flavor
28. Benign - Rithma - Unreleased(coming soon on Rithmica Music)
29. Flowers - Sound Diggers - Greenhouse

Click the pic below to bring up a page where you can listen to the mix:

http://www.serialsickness.com/images/groovefront.jpg (http://www.serialsickness.com/Fo/forrestavery_thegroovemachine.mp3)


I'm having 1000 of these replicated(same quality that you buy in store), and putting them in jewel cases with nice inserts and traycards. If anybody likes the mix and wants one, then be sure to hit me with an E-mail at:

forrest_avery@yahoo.com

I'm not asking anything for the CDs, so dont' be afraid to hit me up for one.

[Tronic]

Always love your tunes man! Will definitely download and check this out!

[Tertyl]

love it as always my friend. reminds me of some older funky house from like 01'-02' but you can tell it's progressed passed that.

looking forward to score a copy from you

[forrest_avery]

Originally posted by Tertyl
love it as always my friend. reminds me of some older funky house from like 01'-02' but you can tell it's progressed passed that.

looking forward to score a copy from you

Although the mix is definetly representative of what people are putting out for house these days, I agree that the feel and sound of a lot of the tracks also remind me of the same time frame you mentioned Tertyl.

It doesn't really suprise me that House is coming back around to using a lot of the sounds and rythms from before, but mixed up with the new skool style of making it glitchy and.... well just damn ill.

When I had Rithma up for the 420 show we were discussing the sound of house right now in general. What stands out to me was a comment he made about Joey Youngman. He said that when he asked Joey what he thought about his style of house appearing to be one of the main influences of what was coming out now in general. Joey shrugged and said that was cool, but that he was basicly copying Derrick Carter(obviously using updated sounds and equipment etc) from around the time frame mentioned above. There is one super dope Youngman track on the mix, and a lot of the other producers are definetly influenced by him, so that idea supports your observation even more in my opinion.

[brknbt]

Dope tracklisting Forrest! Can't wait to get my copy...actually to add to you comment about house music progression, it has definately moved to the Chicago sound as of late.

-Nate

[Tertyl]

Originally posted by brknbt
Dope tracklisting Forrest! Can't wait to get my copy...actually to add to you comment about house music progression, it has definately moved to the Chicago sound as of late.

-Nate

yeah that's what i was thinking too. reminds me of terry mullen and derrick carter stuff from like 6 or so years ago with that phased out vocals and washed out basslines. almost all the house i own is from then. now i can play house again and sound like i'm with the times!

[MO]

Originally posted by Tertyl
now i can play house again and sound like i'm with the times!

do it!

[forrest_avery]

Originally posted by Tertyl
now i can play house again and sound like i'm with the times!

That I wouldn't really agree with. Not that playing nothing but tracks from that time wouldn't be an acceptable style to represent, but I don't think you would end up sounding with the times in the end.

Although a lot of the sounds are similar, the overall production quality of the tracks has been taken to a whole new level. The producers are using a lot of the same sounds/effects, and even rhythms, but the patterns change a lot more, and everything is a lot less loopy in general.

This has a lot to do with the tools available to make the music now vs 6 years ago. It's just a lot easier to take a track and tear the shit out of the programming of your parts then it was in the past. I started to get into production around that time, and I can tell you from direct experience that it was a straight pain in the ass to make it sound the way you wanted it to compared to these days.

Coming from the perspective of also having that same house from 6 years ago in my crate, along with the new stuff from the past few years, I can honestly say it's hard to play a lot of older tracks next to newer stuff. Rocking in some old school cuts with the new stuff is definetly doable(gotta find the right cut because so many just don't compare anymore), but most of them I don't pull out anymore. Overall they just don't stand up compared to what producers are doing currently, even though the sound of the tracks is similar.

For a good example of this, listen to the percussion in the tracks. Beat, Hi-Hat, snare, etc patterns are all alot more broken up and glitchy then they used to be. The House beats used to be a lot more straightforward. I pull out my old House, and the percussion just sounds repetetive and simple compared to the new stuff. There's always going to be exceptions, so I don't want to get into the what about this track or that track thing. I'm speaking in a more general overall sense.

The same idea applies to the rest of the parts in the tracks in most cases, but the beats are something I've noticed are consistently different in this way on almost every track I buy now a days(If if it sounds like the old tracks I usually don't buy it :P )They just don't sound like they used to. In a good way in my opinion.

Beyond just what I notice in the sound, I personally have been getting more people into House in the past few years specifically with the new tracks vs the older tracks that sound similar. They always thought House was boring 6 years ago, but they hear the current style of stuff and start gettin down.

Great discussion btw,
Forrest Avery

[forrest_avery]

I handed out a ton of these at the Miles Maeda show on Friday.

The show went off like crazy, and everybody was super stoked.

If anyone doesn't have a hard copy of my CD, then be sure to hit me up.

I got a lot to give away so don't be shy.

Thanks again to everyone who came out to the show!

Forrest Avery

[forrest_avery]

The Serial Sickness site(www.serialsickness.com) is back up, and the link is now downloadable again. I had to link it to a site where it is a nondownloadable media player for a little while.

Although the thread here is not getting many replies, I can only hope people are listening to the mix. If you haven't, then you should consider taking the time actually check it out. I know I know.. I'm just a local... why do you need to listen to my mix.

Although to most people here I'm just a local Portland Dj, this mix is getting great reviews and recognition outside the local area.

On the site www.mixupload.com(the site I used for the link when serialsickness was down), it has been in the top 10 charts for 2 weeks running. It was ranked 7th for the first week(week #23 on the site) of release, and then moved up to 4th for the second week(week #24 that being last week). During the week #23 there were 259 mixes that received ratings/points, during week #24 there were 532 mixes that received points. Most mixes that are in the top 10 are from the current week, since so many new mixes come out every week that most people comment/score new mixes. Holding a top 10 spot for more then 1 week is something even the number 1 mixes usually don't do. There is also 2 pages of comments posted about the mix. Most other mixes(again even the top mix), don't have many people commenting on them.

I also submitted my mix to this site www.deeprepublic.com, and they posted it, actually offering to host the mix if I didn't have a downloadable link(had to send them the mixupload link since my site was still down). It's currently at the top of the page, and they also had some nice things to say about the mix. Check out the site:

www.deeprepublic.com

I plan on sending the mix to a few magazines, as well as some more sites this week to see about getting more reviews.

[skloot]

Downloading!
You're set at Acme the other friday was some serious fucking goodness (no, really) - I'm looking forward to hearing this.

[forrest_avery]

Originally posted by Kranman
Downloading!
You're set at Acme the other friday was some serious fucking goodness (no, really) - I'm looking forward to hearing this.

Thanks Kranman. I appreciate that. I had a lot of fun, and we had a great time overall throwing the party. I posted the info for the next PlayHaus on August 17th on the Calender.

Here's the link to the thread:

http://www.nwtekno.org/vb/showthread.php?threadid=114614

Be sure to hit me with a PM if you want a disk copy, and don't forget to create a login on Mixupload so you can vote for the mix.

I finished last week at #11, and that puts my mix in #5 spot overall for the month. If I can get some more points this week, then it will secure the mix gets a spot in the top 5 for the month!

[flipsta]

Nice work homie, and hey...wheres my copy??? ;)

[forrest_avery]

Got ranked #3 for the last week in June, and finished in the #2 spot for the month out of over 1000 mixes ranked.

Check it out:

Just click on "Mix Charts" and select Month #6 to see the results for June (http://www.mixupload.com/index.php?)

Thanks for everyones support who created accounts and voted for me. Most of the votes still came from the random people on the Mixupload site, but there was still a few homies who came out to represent for me.

Anyone who didn't vote can still do so. With the way the charts work(being mainly new mixes just posted), it's not likely the mix will remain in the top any longer, but any further votes still count towards the overall socre, and could result in being named #1 mix for the year.

Just to put that in perspective. My mix after being up for 1 month has 2900 points(you get 50 points if someone votes the max on your mix). Currently the #1 mix for the year has 4113 points, and was posted back on Feb 25. After one month of it being up it had 2012 points(it finished 3rd for the month of March so that's actually one extra week over a month since it was posted on feb 25th.) vs mine having 2900 after one month(2nd for month of June).

So... Listen to the mix, and vote for the damn thing people. It's a pretty small thing to do to show some support for one of your local artists that is getting recognition elsewhere. I'm getting plenty of support from others(mostly people from all over the world and not here in the Northwest) who are hearing what I'm doing, but not as much from the local scene, or my friends who I would think generally support me. That's not totally suprising considering the NW scene overall seems to have a serious issue with supporting their local Djs/musicians.

In the end, although it would be nice to have more of the local scene show support, it's hard to be bummed when you have people from Europe/UK, and over to Australia, Korea, etc(who are mostly Djs from around the world and not just the party crowd) all voting for you and saying how blown away they are by what your doing.

I guess what I'm trying to say is... Suck it NW :D

JK... I'm not the only local who get's a lack of support, but seriously... Get off the couch stoners. You would think I'm asking people to pull out a tooth or something. It takes 5 minutes to make an account, and then about 1.5 seconds to vote. That's if you have listened of course, and I'm not asking anyone who hasn't heard the mix to vote on it. If you havn't heard it then you can listen to it right there, using a button located directly next to the voting buttons :P

Just posted my breaks mix I made last year up there as well. Check it out if you haven't heard it all ready:

My Nervous Breakdown (http://www.mixupload.com/media-MyNervousBreakdown)

It's obviously not as good as The Groove Machine since it's over a year old at this point, but I wanted to put something up for people on the mixupload to listen to while I work on putting together another Funky House mix for them. I have been getting constant requests for more mixes from people on that site since The Groove Machine started to blow up like it did.

Forrest Avery