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Almost exactly one year ago, Delta Heavy surprised the bass movement with a fresh remix of Nero’s Must Be the Feeling. Since then, they’ve signed to the top drum & bass label in the world, RAM Records (Sub Focus, Andy C, Chase and Status, etc.). While staying consistent with releases, Delta Heavy has found their niche and are nestled comfortably to say the least. Today they release Empire for free download! Uplifting synths lead up to seizure inducing drops make this track a sure-fire way to make your neighbors hate you…Yes, that was a warning.

Going to shows has become a therapeutic get away. In a world under constant pressures of turning your past into the future, a concert becomes a very beautiful thing. A time to drop everything else and just focus on the “here” and “now.” What differentiates the following performances from the rest is not solely song selection, nor venue, nor crowd, but all of these combined. It isn’t enough for an artist to play a perfect set if there isn’t a crowd there to appreciate it. All of the following shows not only illustrated near flawless musicianship and delivery, but the crowd made them unforgettable. The artists vibe off the energy of the crowd and they combine to give you the best experience possible. With that, I give you the best performances of 2012:

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NYE has long been a tradition of turning things around. A fresh start. New beginnings. Whatever. Sometimes I think about how it sucks that people need a certain calendar day to start moving their lives in a positive direction. One thing I don’t question is the need to ring in a new year by means of celebration! Where and how one chooses to celebrate seems to set the tone of the year. House parties. Vegas. Family affairs. Work. It could go so many ways, but we decided to post up in surprisingly sunny San Francisco for Eye Heart SF‘s Wintersalt and Streets of SF NYE spectaculars!

This relatively new production company has been making waves that took nearly three years to reach Southern California. With consistently awesome events, it’s bound to happen at some point. This year they added two nights of a broad range of artists and producers to get the weekenders ready for the Big Bang that was Streets of SF. Artists such as Diplo, Zedd, Dillon Francis, Paper Diamond, Travis Barker and many more took part in these parties. I was very happy to finally see Travis Barker in the flesh, slamming on his drums which seemed to be on the verge of destruction! I missed him play with DJAM (RIP) at Coachella in 2009, but luckily have this recording (that you can download for free here) of that set to feel somewhat a part of it. Plus it was cool to see him pay tribute to a lot of the tracks off that recording as well! Another shoutout I have to give is to Paper Diamond off Pretty Lights Music. It was a nice change of pace to see Chicago’s own drop some bouncy dub and glitch hop jams for us all to jump to.

As far as Streets of SF goes, you’ll have to bear with me because it was an open bar. I have this thing with open bars that involves double fisting. I told myself to keep it easy, one drink at a time, but NOOOOOO! I had to bring 2013 right. By blacking out…I’m being sarcastic of course. In my defense, when they’re serving all-you-can-drink Kettle One and Crown Royal, I’d have been an idiot to not test my limits! My limits tested til 12:30. Got to see A-Trak AND the countdown, so all was not lost. Overall, a very different event on a dock over the waters of San Francisco. Beautiful people everywhere. The only thing that really bugged me was the sound. Maybe it was the walls? Who knows. I was in line getting more drinks anyway. Cheers to 2013!

It’s starting to look like 2013 will be a year of the rise of bands who have been in hibernation or claim to have been in the studio. It could even be that these bands are deep in soul searching to keep up with the fast moving music times of today. Of these bands, Toronto rock outfit Born Ruffians are starting to show evidence of a long awaited comeback! “With Her Shadow” is a step in a seemingly new direction much like their sophomore album Say It compared to Red, Yellow, And Blue. It just feels good to hear Luke’s voice come together with his fellow ruffians.

Though the band as a whole has been relatively quiet, their frontman Luke Lalonde has been working on his solo gig that you can check out here. I’ve also included a video of when I saw them play to an awesome crowd at the Troubadour in LA a couple years ago. You can see that after the jump! They are fantastic live.

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Paper Diamond – AirLift
[audio:https://controlaltdelight.com/Music/YOLO98/AirLift.mp3]

Eye Heart SF will see their 4th anniversary of the coveted Streets of SF festival this Monday! This year they decided to take it to a new level with two additional nights of dancing and festivities to lead up to the big show. Thus came the birth of Wintersalt. Not sure what’s so salty about the whole thing. All I see is two nights PACKED with a broad scope of heavy hitting artists and producers that you can see pictured above. So if you’re looking to keep your sodium levels low during this turn of years, better off staying away from this one.

St. Lucia – All Eyes On You
[audio:https://controlaltdelight.com/Music/03%20All%20Eyes%20On%20You.mp3]

I’m most excited to bask in the Northern California air with people who I’m sure know how to have a good time. San Francisco is debatably one of the best cities in the world! The thought of partying up there gives me goosebumps. We’re making the trek up from sunny southern California for this, so holler at us if you want to kick it. Check the set times and preview video after the jump!

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Orlando Higginbottom (haha yeah I know) AKA Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs is leading a stampeded of bass driven dance music through the U.S. and Australia. The dino beat whiz kid finds himself in Hollywood tonight! Orlando has been making tsunami sized wave through the electronic music scene that has yet to lay out the minds and souls of the masses. BBC voted his album Trouble (our review) as the 5th best of the year and iTunes gave him New Electronic Artist of the year! The guy couldn’t be more deserving of these awards and the future looks even brighter.

His live shows are unparalleled as far as what you want and what you get. He sings. He’s dressed up. He’s got dino dancer cuties. And tonight he’s bringing his full live production to make it that much more visually appealing. We last caught him at the Echoplex, one of LA’s smaller venues, and the place was a sweaty mess of dancing friends that became family. If you want a guaranteed good time, come out and hang tonight. You will NOT regret it. Check the songs and videos after the jump.

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Bondax

They say “The third time’s the charm,” and though I don’t know how much emphasis we can legitimately put on that saying, it happened to be the case on Thursday night. I had been to The Roxy twice before; both times my night was cut short due to the place selling out. Once with Super Mash Bros and the other for DJAM (RIP). DJAM was the toughest. Waited in line 3 hours and the show sold out 3 people before me! Sometimes you gotta lose. Well, Thursday, I finally got to see The Roxy from within the walls and it all made sense. The place is tiny! The fact it’s got as much history as it does, with shows of the caliber they’ve hosted made it that much more epic. Probably one of the most intimate venues in Hollywood, next to the Echo and Troubadour. These are my favorite types of places to see artists. Very special vibes within the crowd.

This night in particular was probably one of the Roxy’s slower nights. It was to be expected since Bondax are just beginning their trek to bigger, better, and more deserved things. That didn’t keep some of dance music’s big shots and LA natives to show up. Them Jeans and Felix Cartal were both in attendance and Felix even told me that he wasn’t surprise the place wasn’t at capacity. When the “2 teenage producers” took the stage, it might as well have been a sold out crowd. Everyone was packed to the front. Yelling in excitement as the UK kids’ made their debut in LA. The cheers picked up as they dropped their most recent release “Gold” and Justin Martin’s “Don’t Go.” One of the highlights for me was when the surprised us with Ludacris’ “What’s Your Fantasy.” Haha shit had me on the floor. It was a dancing frenzy! I love when the crowd is packed with people passionate about the headliner. The more underground the artist, the more united the crowd becomes. Definitely a special night and I’m glad I finally got to see one of LA’s most historic venues.