New Music Discovery - Rushfell

Today's New Music Discovery comes from an artist known as Rushfell. Hailing from Seattle, he gives his full name as Mike Monroe. I have been focusing on EDM style artists lately, and that is what I found in Rushfell.

SplitSeven (Forgotten) - direct link




This is a really great song, right? I got a huge kick out of this one. I'd describe it as solidly in the IDM category. I think the best word here is DARK. The haunting, chanting vocals are well handled. They are just piercing enough to make you notice them, and there is a slight trance influence sneaking in there. At first it is all you can hear, but later they wash over you, blending with the rest of the track.

And the rest of the elements? A very deep, heavy, bass line. You almost never use those words to describe IDM, generally you are thinking dubstep or DNB. Here, though, they work. Forgoing a heavy drop and instead focusing on a heavy line, it plays a counter-balance to the vocals. The bass moves slow and even, and it never seems out of place. I also thought the drum line was well done.

The best IDM blends a lot of disparate elements in a way that you would never think makes sense, but sounds great. This track does all of that correct.

The biggest hurdle for this artist to overcome is stretching this one, tight, track into a full album of quality materials. If you like this one as well, check out his bandcamp page for some free downloads or support an up and coming artist with a pay what you can deal. Sadly, SplitSeven (Forgotten) is not available for download at this time.

Spotify "My Year in Music" Wrap Up

If you don't already know about this, go www.spotify-yearinmusic.com and sign in to get an interactive infographic summarizing what you listened to this year through their service. It is completely fascinating if you used Spotify for any amount of time during the preceding year.

Without further ado, let's get into mine.

Overall Breakdown

Mostly what I expected to see here. Shows that I mostly use Spotify to explore my personal tastes. I listen to some rock, some top 40 club, and some pop as well, but car radio tends to satisfy my needs for these. When I'm on Spotify I'm looking for something specific. I'm pretty sure the heavy Pop influence here is mostly Ellie Goulding. I did a personal "Burn" retrospective that bumps this one way up, looking through the suggested playlist I didn't see a lot that I really listened to heavily.

Otherwise we see my EDM tastes. I'm a little surprised that Ambient by itself didn't make an appearance, although Ambient IDM is truly my favorite genre.

Top Overall

Top Artist: Ellie Goulding - I'm not sure if she really was my top artist this year, although I have listened to a lot of her music. I actually came across her several years ago when I was big on last.fm. She was being heavily promoted in the electronic categories, and I liked her stuff, but never really pursued it. Then, this year, she really blew up in a big way in the mainstream top 40 stuff.

I'm a little conflicted. On one hand, she is basically a managed pretty face that goes for the lowest common denominator to sell albums to the masses. On the other hand, she manages to put out some catchy stuff and is exceptionally endearing at times.

The reason she is so high on my list is that I got really stuck on "Burn" this year, particularly the Remixes. For some reason they really helped me in a personal study of remixing, and some of them are great tracks.

I wouldn't say she is my favorite artist this year, but apparently she is the one I listened to the most.

Top Album:  Doppelganger by Dualist Inquiry - I stumbled upon this one following an STS9 thread. Dualist Inquiry is a little bit jam band and a little bit prog rock and a little bit shoegaze, and its all good. They don't have many lyrics, and the music is highly produced (as opposed to STS9's raw live experience) which will make a lot of EDM fans happy. 

This album is gold. One More Thing and Anathema were the two tracks I came back to the most often, but all of them are good. I really liked the way you could sit and listen to this one as an album, or you could just pick a song and play it like a single. In both cases, there was a lot of depth and always something new to discover.

Top Playlist: Chillstep - I don't really use playlists on Spotify, so I wouldn't take this one too seriously. However, I will note that Chillstep is a unique vibe that I like. Of course I took a spin through Dubstep, but I never really got that deep into it. What I listen to is actually probably the "Bro-step" of Skrillex and Avicii in 2013. I like the pace, and I like the complexity, but sometimes the excessive noise is overwhelming. Chillstep is (in theory, at least) a little slower, softer, and more melodic.

I don't know, I guess props to whomever put this playlist together.