Karol G at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CAColombian singer Karol G has been an unstoppable force in Latin music. In February, she became the first female artist to reach #1 on Billboard Top 200 with a Spanish-language album with her fourth studio album Mañana Será Bonito. Karol G’s musical formula is easy to gravitate to, she is not afraid to experiment and mix genres of reggaetón, trap, regional Mexican, Brazilian sertanejo and pop. In April she announced her tour in support of the album, her Pasadena, CA stop at the Rose Bowl (capacity of 92,542 seats) was one of the first to sell out. A second stop date was added and also sold out very quickly, cementing her as one of the biggest acts in music. 

When I arrived to watch her performance on Aug. 18 at the Rose Bowl, everywhere I looked fans were dressed up in Y2K-inspired outfits and a sea of the color pink - an homage to Karol G’s current hair color. The show began with an animated film story narrated by one of the most recognizable voices in Hollywood, Morgan Freeman. The short clips would help divide the concert into different segments. Using the same cartoon characters found on the cover of Mañana Será Bonito, the story followed a mermaid named Carolina (Karol’s real name) who journeyed to rediscover her most bichota self after suffering from a frozen heart and losing her light. The word "Bichota" comes from the Puerto Rican slang "bichote," a drug dealer or someone in charge of criminal operations. Karol G gave the word a new meaning of empowerment and self-confidence. 

An inflated mermaid set the stage, as the Colombian superstar appeared sporting a diamond bodysuit, oversized shades and fuzzy white boots performing her biggest hit-to-date “TQG.” Karol G is all about girl power, she was joined by a full female band and a big (mostly women) dance squad. The entire show was filled with elaborate dances that helped fill out the enormous stage and runway. Karol G is a natural onstage with her fiercely strong raspy vocals. With the biggest smile on her face, she addressed the crowd in Spanish the entire night -- often making cheeky remarks, reading the signs her fans held and hyping the crowd up. She’s also a skilled dancer, keeping up effortlessly with her dancers to the reggaeton beats and sensual choreography. 

During each segment of her show, Karol G would disappear from the stage and re-appear with new stage sets and costumes. One of the most memorable moments was when she appeared riding on an enormous white cloud to perform the emotionally tearful ballad "Ocean."

Long setlists seem to be the new norm, as Karol G performed a total of 36 songs including fan favorites “AMARGURA” and “Tusa.” It’s been an eventful month for the songstress as she released a new mixtape Mañana Será Bonito (Bichota Season) on Aug. 11. It’s a companion piece to Mañana Será Bonito, which includes remixes, brand-new songs and features artists Peso Pluma, Kali Uchis, Tiësto and more. The mixtape was the main celebration of the night as she performed a lot of tracks from the album including OKI DOKI, “Mi Ex Tenía Razón” and “QLONA.” She also invited show opener Puerto Rican rapper Young Miko to the stage for a first-time performance of their duet “DISPO.”

Karol G kept fans on their feet with the song selection. She had a segment dedicated to her Mexican discography which earned the biggest cheers from the crowd. Backed by an accordion, guitar and tuba player, Karol G borrowed a cowboy hat from the crowd to get the mood going as she began with “GUCCI LOS PAÑOS.” As the crowd screamed with anticipation for more regional Mexican, she gave a toast and took a shot of tequila with the crowd before singing “200 Copas.”

The last segment of the night was filled with all the high-energy hype songs. Fireworks erupted as Karol G ended the night with the bombastic hits “Provenza” and “MAÑANA SERÁ BONITO REMIX.” As Morgan Freeman told us during the show “La bitchota was a force to be reckoned with.”

For more on Karol G, visit karolgmusic.com

Set List:

TQG

Besties

Mi Cama

EL BARCO

X SI VOLVEMOS

Tusa

AMARGURA

BICHOTAG

OKIDOKI

UNA NOCHE EN MEDELLÍN REMIX

 QLONA

Sejodioto

Punto G

BICHOTA

EL MAKINON

DISPO (with Young Miko)

CAROLINA

GATÚBELA

TA OK REMIX

Ocean

PERO TÚ

MERCURIO

A Ella

Creéme

MIENTRAS ME CURO DEL CORA

OJOS FERRARI

TUS GAFITAS

CAIRO

GUCCI LOS PAÑOS

200 COPAS

MI EX TENÍA RAZÓN

MAMIII (Becky G x KAROL G cover)

AMARGURA

PROVENZA

PROVENZA - REMIX Tiësto

MAÑANA SERÁ BONITO REMIX

So there’s an interesting link between Morrison Hotel Gallery and the team that built Concord…The Concord connection here is strong...
Source

Five of our favourite moments from Field Day 2023This year’s edition of Field Day festival is over. The dust has settled in London’s Victoria Park; the stages taken down. All we can do now is reminisce on what a brilliant day it was for dance music.

READ MORE: The Aphex Twin machine causes chaos at Field Day 2023

We saw none other than Aphex Twin deliver an expectedly mind-blowing headline show. TSHA performed with a full band for just the fifth time. SBTRKT continued his return to the fore, playing his new album. Fever Ray got real weird on the East Stage. Jon Hopkins elevated the West Stage with a live techno-tinged set. And what’s more – it was sunny! We’ve gathered some of our favourite memories from the day-long event.
Jayda G’s sparkling DJ set

Fresh off the back of her new album, Canadian-born, London-based Jayda G, embodied a sense of celebration during her DJ set on the East Stage. Playing in the mid-afternoon, she fired through her usual collection of feel-good house music, getting the huge crowd warmed up for the day’s antics.
It was when she played her track Both Of Us, though, that the crowd really sparked into life. Now a usual sight in Jayda’s sets, she came right out to the crowd, clapping with them as the track built up its piano-laden drop.

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A post shared by Jayda G (@jaydagmusic)

Check out Jayda G’s tour date via jaydag.com.
Arca’s fiery homecoming show

For Arca, her 7.25 pm slot on the East stage warming up for AFX was evidently important. The Venezuelan, real name Alejandra Ghersi Rodríguez, used to live in London, she told the crowd, so it meant a lot to feel such a warm reception. And she sounded so good. As she sang with pure sass through her mega mixture of IDM, reggaeton, avant-pop, and techno, performing tracks such El Alma Que Te Trajo and Rakata, she found her feet. We were also a huge fan of the leather outfit, topped off by a Batman-esque eye mask.
See when Arca is next performing near you at arca1000000.com.
Mount Kimbie’s Street View visuals
Mount Kimbie at Field Day
Mount Kimbie’s Kai Campos didn’t hold back with his modular synth-fueled techno set at the North Arena stage on Saturday. When both members of the band play live, it’s a calmer affair. When it’s just Kai, it seems, things get a bit harder. It was a fun introduction to the event at the early time of 4 pm and left many – who perhaps weren’t aware of Kai Campos’ modular techno sound – feeling pretty puzzled.
Mount Kimbie at Field Day
The funniest thing about the set though was the visuals. A massive LED screen behind Campos’ head displayed Google Maps Street View images, which at times felt strangely intrusive and at others were plain hilarious. It was incredibly strange to see various blurred faces appear on such a large scale to the eerie backdrop of Campos’ brilliant live set, saw a Doepfer synth at its centre.
Find out where you can catch Mount Kimbie live via mountkimbie.com.
Bonobo’s live band bonanza
Credit: Sarah Louise Bennett
While Aphex Twin’s mind-boggling set was the talk of the festival, for those looking for something a bit mellower in the build-up, Bonobo’s headline show hit the spot. As the sun set, he gently cruised through tracks from 2017’s Migration and 2022’s Fragments, making moments of musical magic. While Bonobo’s DJs sets are of course exciting, this was a live set with Bonobo’s full band, which was certainly a sight to behold..
See when Bonobo’s next playing live via bonobomusic.com.
Elkka’s dance workout
Andrew Whitton
Elkka, who showed off her home production setup to MusicTech in 2022, joined the Field Day lineup relatively last minute. Playing a DJ set on the BBC 6 Music stage, she joined the likes of Chloé Robinson, quest?onmarq and Anastasia Kristensen to add to the playfully energetic vibes provided all day long in the unique, domed stage.
She also played her own, forthcoming new hard-hitting track full of thumping drums and swirling synths, which sent the crowd into a frenzy.
Check out Elkka’s tour dates via elkka.com.
The post Five of our favourite moments from Field Day 2023 appeared first on MusicTech.

Arthelion Releases MOLOSS II FREE hybrid synth plugin for Windows.
Arthelion releases MOLOSS II, a free synth plugin for Windows. MOLOSS II is a reworking of the original MOLOSS I hybrid synth. Some of you might remember we covered MOLOSS I back in 2019, and many of you felt it had potential but wasn’t quite there yet. As a free and open-source plugin, we expected [...]
View post: Arthelion Releases MOLOSS II FREE hybrid synth plugin for Windows.

“Now you can do an orchestral piece on a computer with 200 tracks – but it’s good to impose your own restrictions”: Calvin Harris on the benefits of limitation in music productionThough he’s now one of the most successful and acclaimed DJs in the world – with millions of streams and millions of record sales to his name – Calvin Harris, like so many DJs and producers, came from humble beginnings.
In a new interview with BBC Sounds, the Scottish DJ recalls starting his music-making journey using an old Amiga 500 Plus desktop computer his older brother left at home when he went off to university.

READ MORE: “I’ve never used a MIDI instrument in my life”: Jack Antonoff on his love of analogue gear

“I made my first album on that, actually. I used it long after I should have stopped using it,” he admits.
“I used to play a lot of computer games on it, and then my brother got this very sort of primitive – it was called a tracker programme – so you’d have four channels running vertically, and you could input samples on those vertical channels. Then you’d hit the spacebar and it would start playing. And as the line crossed these little inputs, it would [make drum sounds].
Commodore Amiga 500. Credit: James Sheppard/Future via Getty Image
“So I loved it – it was like playing a computer game, but actually you were making something at the end of it, so it was kind of creative.”
Harris goes on to highlight the importance of restriction in music making, and how it can actually be more beneficial than having limitless access to more and more channels and possibilities.
“It taught me to be very selective about what I put in my own tunes, simply because I only have five channels. So everything that was there had to be there for a reason. Now it’s limitless, isn’t it – you can have thousands [of channels].
“But I think if you learn how to do something and you’re very restricted – there were some songs that I couldn’t put a crash symbol in and a chorus vocal at the same time, it would take up too much memory. So I had to decide, would I put in this riff, or would I put in this hi-hat, you know?
He continues: “You can do anything now. And all the programmes are so advanced. You can literally go from doing nothing to doing an orchestral piece with 200 tracks, but I think it’s a good idea to impose your own restrictions sometimes, and work to that.”
The post “Now you can do an orchestral piece on a computer with 200 tracks – but it’s good to impose your own restrictions”: Calvin Harris on the benefits of limitation in music production appeared first on MusicTech.

Orchestral Tools introduce Baroque Bundle Orchestral Tools are celebrating the release of the SINE version of Berlin Harpsichords by offering it as a bundle with their Miroire library.

The Chemical Brothers and Beck join forces for new single Skipping Like a StoneThe Chemical Brothers have teamed up with singer-songwriter Beck on new single, Skipping Like a Stone.

READ MORE: “I want to use chords I never used before”: Pharrell teases new N.E.R.D music

Speaking about the collaboration, Beck exclaims his love for the duo’s “great predilection for exploration.”
“They kind of sit in an unusual place between different eras of electronic music and DJ culture,” he adds. “It’s like they have one foot in multiple decades at the same time in a way that is utterly unique among their peers.”
The single is planned to appear on The Chemical Brother’s newest 11-track record For That Beautiful Feeling, set for release on 8 September 2023.
It will include a previously released single No Reason, as well as a new mix of The Darkness That You Fear and Live Again.
According to the band, a month after the album is released, they will also release a new book about their relationship and history with electronic music.
You can listen to the new track, Skipping Like a Stone, below:

In other news, the UK government is upgrading the church famously features on the album art of their 1998 compilation album Brothers Gonna Work It Out from a Grade II listed site to a Grade II* site.
Upgrades to the status of Our Lady of Fatima, which is situated in Essex, came after a recommendation from Historic England in a bid to protect its historical and architectural significance.
The post The Chemical Brothers and Beck join forces for new single Skipping Like a Stone appeared first on MusicTech.

James Blake and André 3000 are sitting on months worth of unreleased musicJames Blake has revealed he spent months working with rapper André 3000 on new music, but there’s a chance that none of it will be released.

READ MORE: The second single, Loading, from James Blake’s next album is here

Blake, revealing the news on the Broken Record podcast, tells host Leah Rose about working with the Outkast member, referring to the 48-year-old as a “living icon”.
Although the pair did release the collaborative track Where’s the Catch for Blake’s 2019 album, Assume Form, “they did months” in the studio, he says. However, André recently told the same podcast that he plans to release no new music in the future.

“It sounds like you have a lot of music that hasn’t been released yet.” Rose says. “Yeah,” Blake responds plainly. When asked if fans will be able to hear any of the music, he says, “I hope so.”
“My god, you’re dealing with a living icon.” Blake praises André. “It’s almost surprising to hear something new come from that person because you’re so used to the songs that exist, it seems impossible that they can be created. It feels like they were just divinely put somewhere and you found them like precious metals.
He goes on to say how lucky he feels to work with so many amazing musicians, but “in this case with André, he just had to pinch myself a bit.”

Also in the podcast episode, Blake, whose seventh album Playing Robots into Heaven, is set to be released in September, talks about working with Def Jam founder and revered producer, Rick Rubin.
Rubin taught Blake to “remember what it is that you have the most unique perspective on”, he says, and while many might criticise his hands-off approach, Rubin’s “big picture” perspective is invaluable.
On helping artists as a producer himself, he adds that “producers are supposed to change your life”.
“The most successful sessions with people I’ve ever had, I’ve enabled them to look at a song in a certain way or be confident in a way that they previously didn’t back because people were telling them ‘it’s not this, it’s not that’.”
“What I do in the studio is encourage them to be them. That’s something that people in the mainstream don’t often hear – there’s more reason to play it safe.”
Check out the latest single, Loading, from James Blake’s forthcoming album via YouTube. Find more episodes of the Broken Record podcast via pushkin.fm.
The post James Blake and André 3000 are sitting on months worth of unreleased music appeared first on MusicTech.

Volume launches Artist Accelerator, offers chance to play BeachLife Ranch FestivalMusic live streaming platform Volume.com has launched an Artist Accelerator Program alongside a new artist partnership with indie alt-rockers The Foxies.  The new Volume Artist Accelerator Program includes weekly streamer. Continue reading
The post Volume launches Artist Accelerator, offers chance to play BeachLife Ranch Festival appeared first on Hypebot.

How to use AI to generate band namesBobby Owsinski took 3 genres and used AI to find 60 possible band names that may just spark the inspiration you and your band have been needing… or maybe not.. Continue reading
The post How to use AI to generate band names appeared first on Hypebot.

patchpool VAST for Arturia Efx Fragments VAST for Efx Fragments the granular multi-effect processor by Arturia contains 112 presets (including six variations) spanning a vast range from atmospherical and ambient textures to complex,... Read More

AI Music Agreements need to address these 5 issues [Chris Castle]YouTube’s new deal with UMG to explore music and AI is among the countless initiates attempting to make sense of and monetize AI. Attorney Chris Castle cuts through the noise. Continue reading
The post AI Music Agreements need to address these 5 issues [Chris Castle] appeared first on Hypebot.

“I’ve never used a MIDI instrument in my life”: Jack Antonoff on his love of analogue gearProducer Jack Antonoff has spoken about his love for analogue gear and the way it “pushes you very hard” as a creator.

READ MORE: “They’re making bulls**t records with loops. Everything’s sampled”: Tony Visconti slams modern producers

In a recent chat with MusicRadar, Antonoff – known for his work with Pink, St. Vincent, Lana Del Rey and of course, Taylor Swift – describes his approach to gear as “completely out of the box”.
“I’ve never used a MIDI instrument in my life,” he says. “I’m always pushing myself by using different things, and what’s nice about analogue gear is everything is a completely new journey.”
The producer also says that while he likes modern stuff, “it takes a long time for something to develop a personality”.
“Very often the feeling of something after it’s been around for some amount of time has a different layer to it… I’ve noticed that the kind of music that I imagine in my head gravitates towards the mystery that comes out of things that are a bit more unwieldy.”
He explains, “When you have a new piece of gear – especially when it’s something that’s been around, and has a lot of life in it already, and is filled with ghosts – and you plug it in, you physically can’t make the sounds you’ve been making. You’re in the desert, you’re in a new frontier, and you just have to find your personality within it. I find that vintage gear pushes you very hard.”
“I think the most modern thing you can do is use things that have been around for a while in new ways,” says Antonoff, adding that the main thing about “older, analogue instruments”, is that “you truly can’t duplicate the sound.”
“Every time you turn it on, it’s on. The electricity, the fucking weather, all these things are changing the feeling of it. So it’s nice to know when you’re in the studio that you’re creating something that can only happen right there. Because at the end of the day, I don’t want to be able to duplicate things, I want to catch moments. I think vintage gear is very helpful for that.”
He adds that the sheer number of possibilities on a soft synth can sometimes cause musicians to “freeze up a little bit”, saying, “Sometimes, when it comes to soft synths, the ability to make so many sounds has an inertia within that.”
The post “I’ve never used a MIDI instrument in my life”: Jack Antonoff on his love of analogue gear appeared first on MusicTech.

Avicii’s Wake Me Up hits two billion Spotify streamsWake Me Up, one of the biggest hits by late EDM producer Avicii, has hit two billion streams on Spotify, joining an exclusive 40-strong club of songs in the two billion region.

READ MORE: Producer reveals how he made over $1,000,000 selling beats on YouTube

The track, which features Aloe Blacc and was released in 2013, joins the likes of 2018’s Someone You Loved by Lewis Capaldi, 2019’s Dance Monkey by Tones and I and Sunflower by Post Malone and Swae Lee. It becomes just the fourth dance track to do so.

The milestone was celebrated by Daniel Ek, CEO of Spotify, who took to X to write: “Some big news today. Wake Me Up by Avicii is the first song by a Swedish artist to break 2B streams on Spotify. It’s so amazing to see Avicii’s influence and remarkable work continuing to bring joy to so many around the world.”
Achieving two billion streams is huge, and was an unthinkable number not that long ago. But, if you’re now thinking about who has three billion streams, we have been too. This club is, as you can imagine, far more exclusive. Only two artists have achieved three billion Spotify streams so far – Ed Sheeran with Shape Of You and The Weeknd with Blinding Lights.
Wake Me Up is not just smashing the numbers on Spotify streams. In June, it earned RIAA Diamond Certification, which means 10 million certified units have been sold.
There’s no doubt that Avicii, who sadly died in 2018, is now revered as a modern great of dance music. It was revealed in May 2023 that a documentary about the EDM artist is in the works, which will “accurately and objectively” tell his story.
In other Spotify news, it was recently revealed that the streaming platform is missing out on an estimated $38 million after its algorithm has suggested less cost-effective white-noise podcasts designed for studying and meditation.
Listen to Avicii’s music via Spotify.
The post Avicii’s Wake Me Up hits two billion Spotify streams appeared first on MusicTech.

Sampleson SKYWAVES: Analog Cinematic Soundscapes Creator SkyWaves is a soundscape and ambient creator built upon faithful recreation of analog synth oscillators and analog effects. High quality analog sound sources + spacious and... Read More