New Year's Eve Guide 2014-2015

/

Here are all of the upcoming events posted for New Year's Eve 2014-2015 across Canada. Let this guide help you make the best NYE decisions for this festive season! 

(Click on the event link for full ticket information)

Toronto

Featured

DJ lineup: Bassjackers, Borgeous, RL Grime, Cyril Hahn, Goundislava, Ghost, Keys N' Krates, MAKJ, Nadus, Snakehips, Shaun Frank.

Why you should go: Countdown NYE offers the most diverse lineup of any Canadian New Year's Eve event. So if you like to sample a few genres, then attending this event is a no brainer. If you like big room, then Bassjackers, Borgeous, MAKJ, and more have your number. If you're into the bass scene, then red hot RL Grime, local heroes Keys N' Krates are excellent bookings. Up for a more chill vibe? Head on over to check out Cyril Hahn. If you like variety, then Countdown NYE is your party. 

Key tracks:

DJ lineup: The Chainsmokers, Oliver Heldens, Cazzette

Why you should go: One of the biggest reasons to check out Static NYE is to see Oliver Heldens, whose sound is so in demand right now it's off the charts. The Chainsmokers have had quite the run with "Selfie", and Cazzette has turned into a veteran duo that have been getting dancefloor's going for the past few years. 

Key track:

DJ Lineup: Simon Patterson and John Askew

Why you should go: The Toronto trance family really has only one viable option for their New Year's Eve dollars and it's the OPEN UP party over at Red Nightclub. Ozmozis knows talent and there really isn't anyone as respected and loved at this minute than Simon Patterson. With friend John Askew joining in the fun, get ready for some hardcore 138-140 BPM trance, psy-trance, uplifting, and maybe some techno. 

Key track:

Calgary

Featured

DJ lineup: Dada Life, Krewella + Excision, Dirtyphonics, Topher Jones, Heroes X Villains, Slim Pickins, Titus 1

Why you should go: This is THE New Year's Eve event to attend in Calgary. Big venue, big artists, and it's going to be a good time. Big room lovers will flock to Glitter & Gold with a marquee name like Dada Life, while Excision, Dirtyphonics and more should bring the bass faithful. 

Key tracks:

Montreal

Featured

DJ lineup: John Hopkins, Purity Ring (DJ Set), Com Truise, POMO, TR/ST + More

Why you should go: I Love Neon is a renowned promotions group that has brought diverse and interesting bookings to Montreal for the past several years. This year's OMISOKA NYE event is no exception as they have booked Jon Hopkins as a main headliner. Overall the lineup looks a little more on the chill side, so if you want to go to this party and just listen to some great music, this is the event for you. 

Key tracks

DJ lineup: Project 46 + more to be announced. 

Why you should go: I have made no secret of my belief that New City Gas is one of the very best venues in Canada for electronic dance music. Every year the Luminous NYE event practically sells out and judging on years past, you can expect some solid big room bookings in the main room while the lounge downstairs might get either a deep house or bass booking. 

Vancouver

Featured

DJs: Tiesto, Steve Aoki, Andrew Rayel, Moti, Goshfather & Jinco

Why you should go: If you're looking for the biggest New Year's Eve party in Vancouver, then Solid NYE at PNE Coliseum is the one for you. This year's massive features some new names like Dim Mak boss Steve Aoki, rising Musical Freedom star MOTi, and Armin Van Buuren's potential successor Andrew Rayel. And of course there's Tiesto, who will be returning to Vancouver for yet another huge NYE party. Any major single stage event that also invites a trance act always gets my respect. 

Key tracks:

Ottawa

Featured

Why you should go: With a capacity of only 219 people, ALEA is bringing Montreal's own Domeno to ring in the new year over at Casino Lac Leamy. For their first NYE celebration, they are selling general admission tickets for $99 that includes VIP bar treatment until midnight and a champagne toast. If you've never been to ALEA, maybe checking it out on New Year's Eve is your time to satisfy your curiosity. To read my full profile on ALEA, click here.

Key tracks

Edmonton

Featured

DJ lineup: Tiesto, Dzeko & Torres, Tuneboy, Seelo Mondo, Theo Hansen, Mike Constable. 

Why you should go: Tiesto comes back to Edmonton for yet another New Year's Eve celebration. Fresh from releasing his album, Tiesto is still one of the godfathers of electronic dance music and it's always a party when he takes the stage. He will be joined by Toronto's own Dzeko & Torres, who have just finished a long tour with Carnage. Considering this is Edmonton, a massive isn't complete without at least one hardstyle booking and Tuneboy fits that bill perfectly. 

Key tracks

Interview with My Digital Enemy

/

My Digital Interview by EDM Canada. Photo taken from official FB Page.

My Digital Enemy, a group composed of Kieron and Serg from Brighton U.K, was formed in 2003 and since then they have increasingly become a bright light in the house music scene. With several house tracks making it into the top ten Beatport house charts in 2013 including their remix of Crazibiza's "My Lips", and their collaboration with Jason Chance titled "Feel It In The Air" which went to #3 and #2 in the charts respectively. They are also exceptionally busy behind the scenes as they run their own labels named Zulu Records and Vudu Records. With their upcoming New Year's Eve gig at Set Nightclub in Edmonton, a few fresh tracks ready for release in 2014, and a closer alliance with Toolroom Records in the works, there has never been a better time to talk to these guys. Read on as I interview Kieron from My Digital Enemy as he explained a little history of the duo, where he thinks the popular sound is headed in 2014, the future of Ministry of Sound, and much more. Enjoy:

Give us a bit of history of My Digital Enemy

Kieron: My Digital Enemy is me and Sergey and we've been working for about 10 years writing tracks and doing different things. In the last 3 years it has sort of come together with the sound that we've got now. We've started Zulu and Vudu Records and that has become our main focus at the moment and has helped shape our sound to what we're doing right now.

What happened in the last 3 years that has brought it all together?

Kieron: We've been doing different styles over a long time and in the last 2 years we've really concentrated on house music. This year we've gone into deep house as the house stuff has become really big in England. That really helped because we were doing that sort of style. House music is being played on the radio now and we've sort of grown along with it.

Describe the My Digital Enemy style.

Kieron: I'd say piano-y groovy house music but with some deep basslines.

What has led to the explosion of deep house in the UK?

Kieron: The Swedish House Mafia, progressive, noisy sounding sort of stuff has been big for quite a long time and I think people have become quite bored with the same sort of sound. They're going for the more organic stuff now like with organs and pianos. We're seeing people getting into deeper and groovier stuff now. I've noticed this change happen here, in Russia, and quite a few European countries. But I think in America it is still very much the progressive sound but it feels like it is slowly changing.

I'm starting to see a lot of these big room guys start to incorporate groovier house music in their podcasts and radio shows – are you also seeing some of the big name guys adopt the groovier vibes of house music?

Kieron: I'd say that, definitely. Steve Angello started up “X Recordings”...

...With Junior Sanchez?

Kieron: Yeah. And that's obviously doing the house stuff. You got to remember that these guys started off writing that sort of music anyway, and I think they've always liked it but they've gone commercial because that's how things always progress and they made loads of money off of it. The underground is always a constant so you'll have like house and techno music, and then we'll see styles fall in and out of fashion like electro, progressive house, and deep house pop out. But the constant will always be the underground, and all of the big DJs are aware of that and they will always feed back to the line of the underground.

Who does the piano work between the two of you?

Kieron: I do. Serg does some of the piano stuff sometimes but generally I do a lot of the keys while Serg does more of the editing and engineering side of it. We both do bits but I generally favour the piano parts.

How do you select these dramatic vocals in your tracks?

Kieron: Sometimes we'll have a big bank of sample Cds with lots of different vocals on them and then listen in for that tiny hook to use for one of our tracks. We'll take that hook, sample it, slice it up, put it onto a sampler and try to make a groovy riff out of it. We don't generally do a “first chorus” type of thing as we have a hook and then the second half of the vocal will be sliced up into the groove.

2014 is right around the corner, do you have any predictions of where house music is headed in the new year?

Kieron: I personally think that the really big deep house stuff at the moment is going to get a little bit faster. It's working in the clubs but with music things generally just gets faster and eventually when it does get faster it will hit the house stage because of the tempo difference. You could be playing a track at 120 bpm which could be a house track if it was at 125 bpm. House will be the new progressive house.

Oh wow, so house will become the new progressive house? That's a bold statement.

Kieron: Yeah because even when you look now where MK did a remix of “Storm Queen” and that has gotten to #1 in England in the actual U.K charts. That's house with a sort of deep house influence. I really think that's the next thing to be honest.

I've noticed that your releases on Toolroom Records have picked up significantly in 2013, how did your relationship with Toolroom, Mark Knight, and yourselves evolve?

Kieron: It's really good actually. We've got a good working relationship with him. There's a couple of things in the cards that we might be releasing a lot more with them next year. We're currently talking contracts and stuff, so I can't really say much more than that. (laughs)

My Digital Enemy interview. Photo taken from MDE's FB page.

You're going to play in Edmonton for the first time on New Year's Eve, what can fans expect when they come to see you at Set Nightclub?

Kieron: We have a lot of energy and we'll play to the crowd. We're not the sort of DJ's that will turn up and say “this is what we play, and you're going to have to listen to it”. So we'll turn up, feel the vibe of the crowd and we'll take it from there basically. We'll obviously be playing bits of our tracks, but we'll see what the crowd wants and give it to them with MDE flavour. (laughs)

This NYE party is linked with the Ministry of Sound, and you have played at the Gallery a lot?

Kieron: Yeah, we've played there quite a lot and we're going to be playing there again in February. We've got quite a good working relationship with Ministry as well as we've known the guys working there for quite a long time.

I've been hearing a lot of news that Ministry of Sound might close down. Is the threat of MoS closing down actually real?

Kieron: Developers want to knock it down and build flats because flats there would just be ridiculously priced so there's so much money to be made from knocking it down. So the government and the big wigs are always pushing for it to close down. Ministry is always fighting back with petitions not to close. It's difficult. I don't know if it will close down but the amount of money is to be made by turning it into flats isn't good basically. It doesn't look good for Ministry.

What's the state of clubbing in the U.K with the recent news of Sankeys closing down?

Kieron: I think it's moved to small clubs. Before you'd play in clubs that hold 800-1000 people, but now there are smaller venues that will pop up that hold 150-250 people. It's down-scaled slightly, it's good in some respects but it's bad that some of the bigger clubs are closing down.

What's in the works for My Digital Enemy in 2014?

Kieron: We're pushing our new label called Vudu which is the deeper and techier side of the stuff that we do. So we'll probably be releasing more on Vudu than we have been on Zulu. We will be working closely with Toolroom next year and so you might be seeing us at some Toolroom events. We'll also be gigging a hell of a lot more. It's all looking good really. (laughs)

Do you have any productions ready for 2014 that you'd like to talk about?

Kieron: We've got a couple of bits bubbling within the pipeline and got a few collaborations with some singers that we're sort of working on. We've got a track called “Shaman” and it's coming out on Vudu in mid-January. It's had amazing response so far and Danny Howard played it on BBC Radio 1 a few weeks before. So that's a really good one to look out for.

My thanks to Kieron from My Digital Enemy for answering my questions.

You can catch My Digital Enemy in Edmonton for New Year's Eve at the Set Nightclub. Click here for more ticket details.

My Digital Enemy NYE in Edmonton

If you want to follow My Digital Enemy on Facebook, you can do so by clicking here.