After a recent New Beat-heavy DJ set at the inaugural IN TRAINING event, I’ve taken an even deeper dive into one of my favorite subgenres of dance music. So much that in the last week or so, the notion of putting out a compilation of modern takes on Belgium’s chief export from 1987-1989 crept into my head.
Yesterday, on social media, I broached the topic, with requisite plausible deniability:
“Anyone want to submit tracks for a faux New Beat compilation? Asking for a friend.”
The response was better than expected. Folks wanted to do it. It’s on.
Here are the rules/specifics:
1) It should sound like Belgian New Beat. Consult this video or this mixtape if you’re not sure what I’m talking about.
2) Deadline? It would be amazing to have this as an online/maybe-limited-CDR companion piece to my impending 12″(more on that soon), but that might be cutting things close- tracks would have to be to me by November 1st. We’ll start with that and go from there if it slips. Maybe there will be a Volume II if submissions keep coming in. Also, the deadline is almost three weeks away- Morton Sherman and Bellucci would have made a dozen tracks in that much time- I think folks can manage one…
UPDATE: Deadline extended to November 8th.
3) Like any good New Beat release, pseudonyms outside of your usual moniker are highly suggested, but not required.
4) Technical details: submissions should be a link to something hosted elsewhere (dropbox, google drive, whatever), and should be in WAV format(44kHz/16 bit is fine, better is better). Aim for a -3 dB peak, so I can do some minor mastering stuff to keep all the tracks consistent. Send submissions to glacialcommunications@gmail.com.
5) Legalese: You retain all IP rights to your track submissions, and I’m not really intending to make any money from this- it’ll probably be free on Bandcamp and a nominal charge if I do a small run of CDRs.
As you can see, the Fantasy Commandos are already working on their track: