SEAL OF APPROVAL (DC) – AFROJACK & NADASTROM – 9/2/10

  MOOMBAHTON by T&ARecords

Afrojack’s remix of DJ Chuckie and Silvio Eccomo’s “Moombah,” and Dave Nada’s “Moombahton”.

Anatomy of a movement, and the key development points for superstars!

Afrojack appears tonight at Lima for Panorama Productions. Check http://www.clubglow.com
Nadastrom are at U Street Music Hall for their residency.

Real talk, if Afrojack never would’ve remixed DJ Chuckie and Silvio Eccomo’s “Moombah,” this summer would’ve been nowhere near as entertaining. When the Dave Nada half of Nadastrom took that remix’s hypnotic, thumping bassline, and slowed it to 108 BPM, and meshed it with Sidney Samson’s “Riverside,” summer got screwed up, and became amazing. “Moombahton,” the Dutch House meets cumbia meets reggaeton development that has turned the underground on it’s ear also couldn’t have ever happened unless Nada started producing tracks with Matt Nordstrom. Nordstrom, a Grammy nominated house producer with a legacy that makes him a heavy hitter even without having ever playing with Dave. Nordstrom’s more measured simmer to a boil then back again method of production took Dave from the subtle build to massive explosion style he learned from being a punk rock kid who spun Bmore club to a brand new place as a producer, a place that has Nadastrom hot on the lips of everyone on the underground from U Street Music Hall to Eighteenth Street Lounge to all of the top names in the underground world, to yes, rappers like, amazingly enough, Lil B the Based God, and given they produced a track on the Jersey Shore Soundtrack, MTV buzzing about them too.

Just as Afrojack has leveled up and is now producing remixes with David Guetta (“Louder than Words”), Nada and Nordstrom leave at the end of September to Los Angeles to be closer to their Dubsided Records label chief David “Switch” Taylor, of Major Lazer and generally unique and dope productions fame. However, whereas a ton of people local to DC and Baltimore are acting like this is an enormous “farewell tour,” it really isn’t. If Nadastrom are going to continue to be dominant forces on the underground, then it would stand to reason that as their legend grows, selling out 9:30 Club, U Hall and Sonar will be as much a part of that legacy as pretty much anything else. And given that they’re from here, they’re going to have to bring it, and bring it massively. We’re not going to cry and moan about Nadastrom leaving town, in fact, we’re not even going to acknowledge it. We at TGRI are going to sit here and watch Twitter and wait for the first time Dave Nada calls some fool out in LA a “bama” on Twitter, or when a Nadastrom track is strongly influenced by a Bad Brains or Fugazi song, or something they learned from Scottie B or KW Griff, and we’ll know. You can take the boys out of DC, but you can’t take DC out of the boys. Well actually, they’re men now. Handling business like that too. And we’re proud. If you can, check both Nadastrom and Afrojack tonight. In VERY short order, they’ll be on the exact same level of eyes around the world. We know that amongst themselves, they already are on each other’s level, and that’s a victory in itself. Game recognize game, and we do too.

Top tier performers make tonight a top tier night.

THE DROP: Dave Nada’s "Moombahton" – Get Familiar With Dutch House

 
Predicting a big 2010 for Dave Nada and by extension, Nadastrom was as obvious a prediction as sunrise and nightfall. The DC duo is absolutely meeting expectations so far, and now exceeding them with the eagerly anticipated release of Dave Nada’s “Moombahton” edits (tracks available after jump) on the Tittsworth and DJ Ayres T & A imprint.

Nada’s subtle development from being a DJ all about face smashing and ear splitting raucous club tracks into having a more rounded and well developed sound is one of the more pleasant musical developments of recent memory. His inventiveness is at an all time high, and his blueprint should be a starting point for all young DJs in the game looking to add depth and scope to their sound.

Dutch house, with it’s pulsing basslines and magical synths has experienced a surge like never before in electronic dance music. One of the tracks most responsible for this development, Silvio Ecomo and DJ Chuckie’s “Moombah” is a tribal sounding banger whose bassline was likely the peak hour party starter, or amongst the favorites of most every DJ worldwide in 2009. The tribal intensity was only ratcheted up to 11 when fellow Dutchman Afrojack got his hands on the track and remixed it, but when Dave Nada apparently dropped it at a mid-afternoon soiree for truant youth (the story was available HERE until an obvious edit), he slowed the BPMs by about 30 to somewhere in the 110 range, and the most amazing thing happened. 2009’s most intense dance floor banger morphed into 2010’s burning reggaeton wonder, drums and bassline turning the track into a grinder, a hard, intense and sexy winner, the call to “turn up the bass” only making the track deeper, not harder, an amazing winner for sure.

Also notable is the “Moombahton” edit of Dutchman Sidney Samson’s gigantic smash “Riverside.” Riverside owes its success not just to an easily shouted hook of “Riverside Motherfucker!,” but to the synth line of “Moombah,” and Afrojack’s excellent remix, both which are magnificently exploited to great success by Nada here. Do enjoy, and be fully aware that in this author’s opinion, that the newest ascendants to being rightfully kings of the international underground right now at this very moment are indeed Nadastrom, and nobody else really comes close.