I’ve been trying to find the right way to share this, and I think I found the right way.
Because They are Hard featured a lot of old tracks that were updated with some more “pep”, but the most drastic transformation was for “The Exchange”. This is one of my favorite old tracks, and I really enjoyed giving it some new life with this remix.
This track was the only true “new” content from the compilation, unlike most of the other recent compilations that have gone on to become EPs, this didn’t really have enough new stuff to pass that bar (even though this might be my favorite from the Mix Series). So, I want to make this available to you in the simplest way possible.
Please enjoy a high-quality free download through Soundcloud:
Just a little over 6 years ago, I released life.remixed. Similar to what I was able to do for Existential Funk, I wanted to somehow update the release for it’s 5th anniversary. I’ve been working on this for almost 2 years now, and I missed the release date by a year and a half, but today I am ready to release this “special edition” of life.remixed: life.refactored.
life.refactoredstarted as a DJ mix of the entire life.remixed album. However, it quickly came to my attention that the album was too diverse for a straight DJ mix, so it was necessary to “remix life.remixed”. Rather than remixing the tracks on an individual basis, this is a remix of the entire album – the tracks are split up at an atomic level and mixed together to form something totally different. In the making of this mix I constrained myself to only using samples from the original album, with small exception (a breakbeat and a cymbal).
Interestingly and only by coincidence, life.refactored is 10 tracks, just like the original.
The quintessential life.refactored experience is to listen to the continuous mix (linked below), and although it would be best to have some familiarity with the original life.remixed, it is not required. You can also click through the link below to download the entire life.refactored album, including the individual tracks.
Anything or anyone who falls through the event horizon will soon reach the region of infinite density and the end of time.
Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
As a young child, I read a children’s book which covered a number of natural and scientific topics. There is a part which particularly interested me which talked about the death of our Sun, to occur in 5 billion years. I would read this again and again until I was overcome with dread. Looking back this is probably a bit ghastly of a topic for 5-year old readers. As an adult, I have maintained a fascination with space, and find myself with a similar fixation on black holes.
The first part of this mix is an exciting and fast-paced breakbeat set with a lot of new material, my favorite being the remix of “Abyss“. In the second half, a dark, spacy drum and bass mix with a few old favorites and a couple new ones. A new track “Titan” is being debuted here, and is one of the most dramatic of the entire mix (for that matter, recent memory).
This is presented as a concept mix in two parts, with a vision of travelling a great distance from Earth to a black hole. Starting from the excitement of beginning a journey, this moves to feelings of dread and timelessness near the end. This is Into the Void.
Part I – Liftoff: Explosive Breaks to Begin the Journey
0:00 Karl D – Get Wrecked
0:56 Karl D – Tube Transit
02:36 Karl D – Solar Flare
05:30 Karl D – Award Winning
10:04 Karl D – Lorentz Factor
12:12 Karl D – Abyss (Remix)
15:17 Karl D – Evening
18:36 Karl D – Dodge This
Part II – Event Horizon: D&B as Dark as the Depths of Space
21:02 Karl D – Apex Predator
22:44 Karl D – Dirt
24:37 Karl D – R
26:41 1_13 (from random beats, vol 1)
28:00 Karl D – Things You’ll Need to Know
32:39 Karl D – Titan
35:31 Jules AI Outro
Thanks for checking this mix out! You can now get the exclusive tracks from this mix anywhere you buy music, in the “Into the Void EP”. Bandcamp buyers can get a bonus track not available elsewhere.
In certain circles, “hard house” has been overshadowed by the more commercial “EDM”, but to me this is the difference of a craft-made beer vs. Pabst Blue Ribbon. One could argue each has their place, but something is missing for me with EDM (and PBR for that matter).
The quote from Lady Waks (she may have been talking breaks, but she’s spot on), as well as the one from Kennedy sum it up. At this point, there’s no money in this, one has to really want to participate, both in creating and listening. The hardness no longer refers to the just the music itself, it is a struggle to keep the community alive. For an artist, the work has to be its own reward.
The mix is pretty diverse, spanning over 15 years of my own hard house production, mashed up in hard dance appropriate style with a few other tracks. This has been in the works for a long time – perfection was the goal but doing the work is more important.
This is hard on purpose. We do these things not because they are easy, but Because They are Hard.
(0:00) Karl D – Mashup intro
(0:51) Karl D – Pure NRG (Remix)
(1:52) Karl D – Rock the House
(2:33) Karl D – 4_11 (Remix)
(4:54) Karl D – Climbing to the Top vs. Brothers in Rhythm – Such a Good Feeling
(7:34) Karl D – 3_01
(10:08) Karl D – Unrefined Emotion (Remix)
(13:32) Vengaboys – We Like to Party (Karl D Remix)
(15:53) Karl D – At the Base of the Mountain (Remix) vs. Britney Spears – Til the World Ends
(18:20) Heaven’s Cry – Til Tears Do us Part
(21:07) Karl D – The Exchange (2018 Hard House Mix)
The Way does not belong to knowing or not knowing. To know is to have a concept; to not know is to be ignorant.
-Mumon, The Gateless Gate, Case 19
…there’s a difference between knowing the path, and walking the path.
-Morpheus, The Matrix
The namesake of this mix is an interesting, challenging read. Although brief, you could spend a long time trying to understand. What I suppose I get out of it, in short, is non-judgement. This is a hard endeavor for a human and an even harder one for an artist, in particular because an endeavor itself is a form of judgement.
Choosing one thing means rejecting another. I do what I can, however, to “experience” rather than “decide”.
Some listening notes: Psytrance was the main inspiration for this mix, although it goes into euro-trance territory in places. It’s also worth noting that “Third Time” is the third version of an older favorite, and “Start to Finish” is an adaptation, rather than a remix or cover of, Bear McCreary’s excellent score from the Walking Dead episode of the same name (S6E8).
You need no permission from the gatekeeper – the only barrier is yourself. This is The Gateless Gate.
(0:00) Karl D – Melt
(05:22) 2_12(remix)(Original from random beats, vol 2.)
(07:20) Karl D – Third Time (Just Like the First Time, 2017 remix)
(11:29) Karl D – Neural Net
(17:06) Karl D – Start to Finish
(21:30) Karl D – Mind Wipe
Thanks for checking this mix out! You can now get the exclusive tracks from this mix anywhere you buy music, in “The Gateless Gate EP”. Bandcamp buyers can get two bonus tracks not available elsewhere.
Deep, moody dubstep. This is a dramatic piece which goes a lot of different directions, but was ultimately driven (as is the whole track) by the heavy bassline.
The electric piano was the last addition to the track, but has become the glue putting the whole thing together.
edit 03/14/19: Download Abyss from Bandcamp below, along with its previously mix-series-exclusive remix, in the new digital single.
A brief follow up to the last post: the Rock the Bells EP has been updated to include a pair of VIP mixes for a couple of my favorite cuts on the album, “Prism” and “Apex Predator”.
“Prism” gained some BPM to become a groovy slice of electro-house.
“Apex Predator” stayed mostly the same, although the bassline became a little meaner and the production loses the big hip-hop style to become more…terrifying.
I’ve never made a “deliberate” variation in production, and both of these were somewhat organic in that both could have been the “canonical” versions of each track, and a fairly equivalent amount of time was spent producing each version before deciding which way to go. However, at this point I do think these versions are secondary to the originals, if only by a hair.
These tracks are included below for your listening pleasure, and can be downloaded individually or as part of the entire EP.
The final track in the Rock the Bells EP has been released; it’s entitled “Prism”. This is a dense, foggy piece of dream pop with some 1980s synthesizer vibes.
This does mean that the EP is complete, and the only way to hear the new track is to find it on the album’s page on Bandcamp.
Check the links to Bandcamp below to stream or download the whole album! I had a lot of fun making this album and it’s one of the best ones (even though it’s one of the shortest).
