DARREN: What was your inspiration behind the design for Tanner Walle’s SHELF LIFE album?

REBECCA: Tanner and I had talked a lot about what he wanted the album cover to look like before I began the design process. He also sent me about 10 existing album covers that he thought were close to something he was looking for. Then it really was his music that I drew inspiration from. I absorbed myself in the tracks and listened to them on repeat for hours while I designed.

DARREN: Did you have complete creative freedom in designing the art of did Tanner have something specific in mind? 

REBECCA: Tanner did have some ideas of a general direction and some inspirational images to guide me, but he was also very open to wherever creativity took me. He encouraged me to push boundaries and see what came of the exploratory process.

DARREN: What did you enjoy the most about designing this album cover AND album covers in general?

REBECCA: Next to art, music is my passion. I actually studied music in college as well as design and it is a source of so much inspiration in my life. I feel very fortunate whenever i have the opportunity to work on a project thats combines my two passions.

DARREN: How many ideas did you come up with before the final design was picked?

REBECCA: I designed 6 different cover options in my first presentation to Tanner. He then asked to see a few variations on a couple versions before deciding on what became the cover. He actually liked another option so much that we made it the disk label art.

DARREN: If you could design for one artist, who would it be?

REBECCA: Hands down it would be Beck. I have always loved how creative his music is and how innovative all of his album covers have been throughout the years. I especially appreciated the art for The Information where the cd came with a set of stickers that allowed the consumer to design their own cover!

Check out SHELF LIFE at http://tannerwalle.bandcamp.com/. The album is released on February 7th!

- Darren Melchiorre

Tanner Walle is a bright new star to the indie pop-rock scene. Walle has one of those American Idol voices you find very rarely (even in the indie rock scene). Walle’s first single “Shelf Life” is a mid-tempo guitar driven indie-rock song with a bit of a rock-a-billy feel. It sounds a bit like a collaboration between the Eagles and Elliot Yamin. For a relatively new star, it’s a great start and we look forward to hearing what comes next.

Check out “Shelf Life”

The newly evolved Liquid Diet band has cleansed themselves of their previous moniker, Whore’s Mascara. However, they still are whore’s and they still wear mascara! They’ve just released a fantastically hypersexual video about the safest sexpossible (take a guess). “Hand Dance” urges you to “believe it, achieve it, it’s all in your own hands”, and the video which accompanies has a crafty & clever way of displaying the obvious without being..well..obvious. “Hand Dance” is set to make it’s premier on MTV.com so check it out above!

The very generous band has this to say: “In honor of daddies everywhere (baby daddies, sugar daddies, and the daddies lurking in your local public park’s bathroom stall), AudioFuzz.com readers check out this free download of our club-ready new remake of George Michael’s FATHER FIGURE: http://soundcloud.com/liquiddiet

-Chris Ryan

Not only is this an amazing song, but there is finally an anthem that encourages people to fight and stand up for what they believe in. A quote I always hold dear to me is from John Maynard Keynes saying, “The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from the old ones.” That, I think, is at the core of this fight for marriage equality. But in life you have to have a voice and you have to make it heard.

As an artist or with anything you do, don’t be afraid to make some noise. It’s the ones who aren’t afraid to make a statement that always make the biggest difference. Don’t be afraid of “sales” or appealing to the “masses”. If your art is true, that will always hit home and people will listen. Thank you Gavin Creel for being an example of someone who walks the walk! Support BROADWAY IMPACT! Check out Gavin’s inspiring video below or at www.gavincreel.com.

-Darren Melchiorre

EMERGE MUSIC PROMOTIONS’

EMERGE: How did you come up with MASS EFFECT?
MASS EFFECT: I actually thought for a really long time about the artist name I wanted to be known by. It always seems really obvious to me when an artist has chosen a name that has some history or depth to it rather than stringing some words together that sound “cool”. I wanted my name to mean something. I wanted a name that would describe the experience I bring without ever having heard my music. I landed on a name that describes my shows more than it describes just me. The medical definition of “mass effect” is when something starts to grown inside the skull and creates an increasing amount of pressure. I thought this was the perfect image for what I wanted to do with my shows – create an energy that really gets inside the heads of everyone there – an energy that builds up an internal excitement that eventually has to break out. And that’s when the dance floor explodes.

EMERGE: What was your first musical inspiration? The first time you said…”oh I get it”
MASS EFFECT:  This was definitely the first time I saw Armin van Buuren perform live at his A State of Trance 450 tour in NYC. Having grown up in the suburbs of the Midwest and only having been in New York a little over a year, this was the first time I realized there was a difference between a “DJ” and an artist. His set was so artfully constructed and he delivered such a wave of incredible energy to the crowd. This changed my definition of a DJ and the way I have experienced nightclubs and dance music ever since.

EMERGE: How did special effects become part of your DJ style?
MASS EFFECT: I think I really got interested in this after I attended the Electric Daisy Carnival in 2010. I had experienced some great shows in clubs with lighting, lasers, Co2, the whole deal. But it was when I first saw some of these same DJs on a massive outdoor stage with the vertical space to launch pyrotechnics and other special effects that I realized there was a whole other level out there. Standing in the middle of the Coliseum with 80,000 people while 20ft pillars of sparks fired in front of me and pillars of fire spiked from the top of the stadium on all sides – it was incredible. A truly immersive experience.

EMERGE: If you were stuck on a tropical island and could only have three CD’s with you, which ones would you choose and why?
MASS EFFECT: This is a really tough one – I think the last time I actually bought a full album was this time last year! And even then, it was a compilation set so I don’t know if that counts. With so much amazing talent across the globe pumping out killer track after killer track, you really have to be selective about what you buy or you’ll find yourself broke sitting atop a stack of albums. But if I had to choose, I’d take the 2010 A State of Trance compilation and Anjunabeats Volume 8. These compilations had some truly incredible tracks, mostly originals that went off to be fantastically remixed into some of my favorites of the year. For the third CD, I’d mix my own. Is that allowed?

EMERGE: How important is image to your career?
MASS EFFECT: I guess it depends how you interpret image. It’s important to me to be seen in a unique way and that’s where the LED outfits and the occasional mask come in. Like I mentioned about my name, I want it to be a whole experience – hear it and see it. But I don’t try to pretend I’m not a real person. The me you’ll meet in line at Starbucks is pretty much the same me you’ll meet behind the decks – we just might talk about some different things. And I may be jumping around less in line at Starbucks. Maybe.

EMERGE: Where do you see “DJ’ing” being in the next 10 years?
MASS EFFECT: I’m really excited to see some crossover between what a lot of places consider “DJ”ing now and what the touring DJs are bringing to the scene. Let’s face it – the bar is pretty low in a lot of places and I think a small dose of the touring culture can help change that. I see a scene where everyone has more fun when you’re deciding where to go because of who’s going to be playing for the night, not just because it’s a Friday. In turn this turns out a generation of DJs who will work to become better performers and grow a following.

EMERGE:  What mark do you want to make on the industry?
MASS EFFECT: I want to do something unique with this concept of a multi-sensory show. The more senses you can engage, the stronger the memories everyone there will make. And I think that’s really what most of this is about – making memories that you can always look back on fondly. The kind that make you smile 5, 10 years later at just the thought. I’ve tossed around some ideas on crossing over a few different disciplines to put a show together, but for now that’s mostly top secret.

EMERGE: What would you want to be known for?
MASS EFFECT: I want to be an artist that makes everyone feel good. Art, especially music, is a really amazing way to remove yourself from the every day. For the few hours you hit the dance floor you can forget about debts, deadlines, arguments, wars, term papers and remember that there are a million and one things to enjoy in this life. Tiesto said it in a beautifully bittersweet way, “if you close your eyes it’s a beautiful world”. Stepping out onto the dance floor is a way of closing your eyes. I really admire Above & Beyond’s gift at creating this kind of transcendant experience for tens of thousands of people. I can only imagine the satisfaction it brings them to see that sea of smiling faces born of the music they make.

EMERGE: If you could collaborate with any artist/group, who would it be?
MASS EFFECT: I think I have to keep my fan boy roots and say Armin for two reasons. First because, like I said, he changed my entire view of this thing we call dance music and taught me a whole new way to experience it. Beyond that, his style has always resounded with my own on many of his tracks, particularly from the Mirage album. My musical background has roots in classical and orchestral music, so when I hear a track like Mirage or Brute that boast a really beautiful blend of electronic instruments and classical, almost theory-based melodies, it sounds perfect to me.

EMERGE:  If you could give advice to any beginner DJs, what would it be?
MASS EFFECT: Always be listening to music. Always. Listen to tracks and sets by artists you really admire. And when you listen, actually listen. How did they create the energy in the transition between two tracks? What kind of synths do they lay in the background to give the track a driving feeling? And play music always – if only for yourself. Not to be a cliche, but practice is key. Your controllers, no matter what hardware you choose to play, are your instrument. You will learn to connect with them and flow more naturally the more you play. I recommend starting a small podcast, even if you only share it with your friends. It will keep you playing regularly and maybe even get some opinions from your fans.

EMERGE: If your opinion, what does the future of music hold?
MASS EFFECT: I’m hoping to see a continuing growth in collaboration, especially across disciplines. Some of the coolest shows I’ve ever seen have blended some really distant art forms. One of my favorite shows of late was the Video Game Music tour. It was such a cool and unique concept. It had live stage performances and dancing, videos from the games, lasers and effects, and of course an entire orchestra playing scores from some of the most popular games of all time. Something like this is so unique and I don’t think dance music is by any means excluding from the realm of possibility there.

Like Mass Effect on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/djmasseffect?ref=ts