Long Time Coming - Merry Christmas!!!

Sup?

MERRY CHRISTMAS!! And I wanna wish you all a very Happy New Year too from us at STT.

It's been a while since my last and a lot has happened since then. I had what seemed like an endless month of academic torture during which I barely kept track of the music scene. And after that I've just not gotten back into a routine.

I do however have a lot of good stuff to put up and a lot of people have been on my back to do a post so I decided to get on it and give you guys a Christmas and year ending gift.

I'm sure all of you'll have noticed the new look to the blog and I quite frankly do not really dig it. Its the new template and shit. Still working our way around it so be patient. We'll be rolling out the new much needed look soon enough.

Here goes with the music. I'm not saying much bout each track. You'll have to just trust me with them -

Open Your Eyes (Original Mix) - Alex Metric & Steve Agnello

Alive - Dirty South & Thomas Gold ft Kate Elsworth

To The Starz (Break The Noize & The Autobots Remix) - Modestep

I love this track Be There 4 You by Kyau & Albert. Above & Beyond took it one step ahead by mashing it with Daft Punk's One More Time. Check it out.

Tokyo - Gareth Emery

Formula Rossa - Above & Beyond

Megashira (Original Mix) - Marc Marberg, Kyau & Albert

You Got To Go (Kyau & Albert Remix) - Above & Beyond ft Zoe Johnston

Are You Fine (Arty Remix) - Kyau & Albert

Spirit Of Life - Blackmill

Your Song (Blackmill Dubstep Remix) - Ellie Goulding

Mozart - Arty & Mat Zo

Loop (The Essential Unreleased Mix) - Mat Zo

Darko - Gofman & Tsukerman

Tomahawk - BT & Adam K

Mansion -  Gareth Emery & Ashley Walbridge

Leaving Earth - Stoneface & Terminal

Happy Violence (Original Mix) and (Vocal Mix) - Dada Life

Shave It (Original Mix) - Zedd

The Atmosphere (Klauss Goulart's & Mark Sixma Remix) - Kid Alien

Set Fire To The Rain (Thomas Gold Remix) - Adele

Paradise (Fedde Le Grand Remix) - Coldplay

Every Teardrop is a Waterfall (Swedish House Mafia Remix) - Coldplay

Sea Lo Que Sea Sera - Above & Beyond ft Miguel Bose (Spanish)
Every Little Beat Of Your Heart - Above & Beyond ft Richard Bedford (English)

Levels - Avicii
You have to know this one. Its a no brainer.

Don't Give Up On Us - Avicii ft Yolanda Selini

Scary Monsters And Nice Sprites (Dualist Bootleg Remix) - Dualist Inquiry

This pretty much covers the electronic scene. On to the rnb and the rest.

Good Feelin' - Flo Rida
For those of you who dont like too much electro, this is Flo Ridas version of Levels. He pretty much just added his vocals to it.

The Fighter ft Ryan Tedder, Life Goes On ft Oh Land, Ass Back Home ft Neon Hitch - Gym Class Heroes

Take Care ft Rihanna, Make Me Proud ft Nicki Minaj - Drake
Actually just get Drakes album. Pretty good.

The Dewarists is a show started on Star World in India. Follows musicians collaborating. Every episode in the first season had a song they made. Some of my favourite are -
Minds Without Fear - Vishal Dadlani & Imogen Heap
I Believe - Agnee, Parikrama & Shilpa Rao
No I.D. Required - Midival Punditz, Humble The Poet & Monica Dogra aka Shaa'ir

Finally Moving - Pretty Lights

Focused - Wale ft Kid CuDi

She Doesn't Mind - Sean Paul
I love this one.

Shooting Stars - Bag Raiders

There She Goes - Taio Cruz ft Pitbull

Strange Clouds - B.O.B ft Lil Wayne

Murder To Excellence, Niggas In Paris - Jay Z and Kanye West

Iron - Woodkid

Work Out - J.Cole

And of course I had to post some Nigerian stuff too. :)

Jingle Bell - Iceprince, Tunde Ednut, Lynxxx, Davido, JJC
This is toooooo funny. My Christmas carol. :P

Ghetto - Shank

Girl - Bracket ft Wizkid

Adamma - Flavour

Shake Body (Remix) ft. eLDee, Jesse Jagz  & The Grip Boyz - DJ Caise

And of course theres the one that went VIRAL in India and spawned many versions -

Why This Kolaveri Di - Dhanush
Something bout this is so catchy.

That's all for now from me.

So we have quite an eventful week ahead. For those of you keeping track, you'll will know why. That's right - SUNBURN!!!

We're heading down on Monday and have an epic (hopefully) 3 days ahead. Our predictions sadly did not come true. Still I'm super excited to see Above and Beyond live!!

We will definitely be writing about our experiences over the three days. For those of you who are on Twitter you can follow us and we might just be tweeting as its going on (I'm not promising.).
Arshad - @ArcaneArshad
Michelle - @islesofelle
Me - @psyk7
If you're at Sunburn and wanna meet, holla at us on Twitter.

I'm also super kicked that we've crossed 15k views. You guys should subscribe too.

Again, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!! And all the best for the New Year. Have a mad time this holiday season. Party it up!!

Keep it real.
One Love.
Peace

Sunburn 2010

*Note : This post was due long back. I finally got down to publishing it!

I won’t say that I have been okay. I haven’t. But, writing is something I can never stay away from. The beginning of December really sucked. It got better though. Way better. I finally stopped being a closet photographer and displayed some of my work. It was a really nice experience. It felt so good to see my pictures blown up and framed; the sucky beginning started fading away.

The 27th, 28th and 29th of December were one of the best trips I have taken so far. Those three days were jam packed with experiences I never thought could happen in such a short period of time. There were numerous first timers and sweeter second timers :).

Last year, when A went for Sunburn 2009, he had just entered into the vast realm that is trance music. He observed everything that he could. A different genre, different people all at one venue just with one thing on their mind – to have an epic three days. It changed the way he felt about music. He took an oath then, that no matter what, the following year, he’d make sure we both made it to Sunburn 2010. A year later, we did. I never really had any expectations. I felt exactly the way he did a year back when he went. I had just immersed one leg into the pool of trance and there was no turning back. I would drown myself in that pool! Music has always elevated me to highs beyond imagination. It isn't earthly, this feeling. Trance, however, I could feel reverberating in my soul. As dramatic as it may sound, the sounds I heard, felt like they were coming from within.

A, P and I have always been quite the scientists when it comes to music. We experiment, and we experiment. We search every nook and cranny of awesomeness to find what we do. We still feel like we only end up reaching to a very small circle. A circle that continues to orbit around us and possesses the same kind of hunger that we do when it comes to music. To those that have become a very close part of this blog and continue to help us share our music - Salut. We appreciate you for sharing the same kind of passion that we do. We know you're the kind of person that absolutely has to resort to some sort of bodily movement when a good song plays. We'd love to meet you.

A & I had a fabulous first day with Ajit Pai, Riktam & Bansi (GMS), Richard Durand, Ned Shepard, Sultan and Nadia Ali. Ajit Pai is one hell of a talented DJ. There weren't too many people when he was playing, but that just made me glad cause it gave me a lot more space to dance! His energy level was phenomenal in spite the 4.30 pm sun burning down on him. It was the second time I was hearing him play live and I was a huge fan already. Riktam & Bansi blew my mind. Nothing short of pure genius. We danced so much to their set that the soles of our feet were screaming bloody murder. Which brings me to one of my most important tips for Sunburn 2011 - Soak your feet in a huge bucket of hot water for an hour before you leave for the venue. Believe you me, you will thank me. Richard Durand's remix of "Emergency" by BT had A and me singing it out loud to each other as everything around us seemed to blur into one big giant ball of lights, sounds and joules of energy.

Gasp all you want, but I am not a very big Sultan/Ned Shepard or Nadia Ali fan. Something P has always clucked his tongue at. I decided to watch them live to give him a word by word feedback. They played THREE of P's all time favourite songs (The Island by Pendulum, A Million Stars by BT and Fire In Your New Shoes by Kaskade). He's probably face-palming himself right now as he reads this.

Day 2 was probably the most epic of them all. A and I went earlier still to reserve the perfect spot for Aly & Fila. Apart from a bunch of highly entertaining Egyptians, Aly & Fila did absolutely nothing to us. We kept waiting for the buildup to coil around us and devour every sense, but that moment never came. Superb props for their visuals though. Protoculture followed suit. Dream On, one of A's favourites, had him jumping up and down till we realized who was going to play next.

Two words.

Ma Faiza.

Before her set, we found ourselves a tiny little towel laid out on the sand with an umbrella over it (I wish I could remember the sponsor's name right now cause we were thanking them profusely for providing an inconspicuous little towel that barely covered both our asses. But oh, well.) and rested our sore pairs of feet that had been through a whole lot that day. (Tip : Even an hour of soaking your feet in hot water before you hit the venue is not enough! Your feet will still feel like they're falling off. It feels AWESOME.) We watched all kinds of people pass us by. A guy that was dancing by himself, grabbing fistfuls of sand and dramatically letting go of it, a couple that derived a better high screaming at each other than listening to the music, a group of friends laughing as they clicked pictures of themselves adorned in ridiculously large headgear, shutter shades and glow sticks. The different kind of people kept us amused for a really long time.

Then the music stopped.

She was up.

She entered with her top hat and slayed the crowed with the very first track. Time didn't exist then.Her set was just an experience I won't ever forget. I connected with every track she played. Even though there was a weird guy in front of us doing some major tantric moves.

Sunburn, the whole experience I had at Sunburn rather changed me in so many ways. Many of which I'm still unraveling. It's like you become a part of this collective consciousness when you go there. You're all there for the same reason - to feel free, to express yourself and to have fun. You can feel the freedom reeking in there and it makes you feel like you're in another world for those 3 days. A world where music defines a way of life. A world where you can connect with people you don't even know. A world where you can just be.

I love A for making sure I experienced what I did last year. And for those of you that often think that Sunburn isn't really your "scene", I'm telling you right now. It is. You might not love that particular genre of music, but you most definitely will love the experience.

I hope to see you all this year. It's going to be 10 times better. I can feel it. Drop us your contact details if you're definitely going this year and want to hang out with us. We'll make it epic. Soundthrutime style.

P.S - P, if you don't come this year. You're going to get "accidentally" whacked on your head, put in a bag and you'll wake up in Goa.

:)