Habitat Music will be providing the score for commercials from automotive powerhouse Dodge Cars.  Working with Dodge’s Forida-based advertising agency, Habitat will help them marry imagery of the iconic vehicles with music that sets the Dodge brand apart from competitors. For a brand that’s “Never Neutral”, Habitat’s making sure the music also defies neutrality.

It’s been a blast working on a spot (airing this fall) with a cat that refuses to go barefoot and has quite the appetite.  More details to come soon, but we can’t let the cat out of the bag yet…

The Songwriters Hall of Fame celebrates and honors great pop songwriters while developing new writing talent through workshops, showcases, scholarships and digital initiatives. Taylor Swift, Phil Collins, Earth Wind and Fire and Leonard Cohen were among this years award recipients at the 2010 Induction Ceremony on June 17th. In addition to an amazing evening of live performances, attendees look forward to taking home a goody bag with the The Songwriters Hall of Fame New Writers Showcase CD. Since its inception in 2003, Habitat Composer/Producer/Engineer Harold Stephan has been mastering the New Writers Showcase CD and was featured as a songwriter in 2006 with his band Amelia’s Dream for their song “Save Me“. Check out this years best new songwriters. Highlights of this years awards dinner included a breathtaking performance of Cohen’s “Hallelujah” by k.d. lang and a knockout, high energy closing number by E-W-F.

What do Katy Perry, Beyonce, Lady Gaga, The Black Eyed Peas, American Idol’s Big Mike & The IRS Have In Common?

Habitat Music.

We believe strength in today’s music industry requires multiple outlets for the creator. Here are some highlights of the past year: Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl” Ming remix for Victoria’s Secret; Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” Ming remix with Beyonce for Interscope; The Black Eyed Peas’ “Rock That Body” Ming remix for Interscope; Big Mike’s first full length album & 3 years of artist development preparing him for his big moment on American Idol; Commercial spots for IRS’ “E-File” & Bulova’s newest watch line, among others. Thanks for a great year.


“A while ago, SoundCloud stumbled upon a video on Emusician.com in which producer Aaron Albano talks about using SoundCloud to send and receive files during the production process of Toby Martin from Youth Group’s upcoming album. Remote collaboration, NYC-Sydney-style, united by the Cloud.

Wanting to know more, we reached out to Aaron with a couple of questions about how he uses SoundCloud.” Read More Here

'Big Mike' Lynche

Longtime Habitat Music and Hood Famous Music collaborator Michael Lynche made it to Hollywood on American Idol last night. Habitat composer/producer Aaron Albano (a.k.a. Ming) helped “Big Mike” craft his unique blend of high-energy music called the “Dirty Blues”–where gritty southern soul meets dirty south hip-hop. The sound can best be described as a cross between Gnarls Barkley, Outkast and R. Kelly. We’ll be anxiously watching Idol along with the rest of America as the competition unfolds!

Check out some of his past work with Habitat writer/producer, Ming. Track 4 “Pimp Beat” features a keyboard riff from yours truly.

Habitat Music is proud to be New York City’s first Carbon Neutral Music House!!  If you have a green initiative, or just care about the planet and our environment, then you can feel great knowing one of our goals is carbon neutrality and we are always looking to use renewable and shared resources.   At the end of the year, we calculate our footprint and solidify our green initiative by purchasing carbon credits or planting trees. 

If you’re interested in making your company carbon neutral, here are some quick tips:

1. Calculate Carbon Footprint
2. Reduce Carbon Emissions
3. Offset The Remaining Through Carbon Credits (via Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Reduction Projects)

1.  Carbon Footprint Calculators
http://www.carbonneutral.com/business-carbon-calculator/index.asp
http://www.carbonfund.org/business/calculator

To Calculate Your Carbon Footprint, You Need The Following Information
http://www.carbonneutral.com/business-carbon-calculator/sbchelp.asp

2.  Steps We Can Take To Reduce Our Carbon Emissions

Simple things like:

• Recycling waste (including ink cartridges)
• Using recycled paper/packaging materials
• Turning computer monitors off every time they’re not being used (screens savers don’t save energy – they save your screen from having an image imprinted on it)
• Turning all equipment off when it’s not being used
• Plugging all electronics into power strips (power strips better control the flow of electricity)
• Meeting clients via phone meetings and videoconferencing (i.e. Skype) rather than traveling to see them
• Reusing CDs/DVDs
• Using Ecocho (ee-coh-cho) search engine – (Ecocho grows (2) trees for every (1000) searches and has a version with a black background that doesn’t require as much energy from your computer)
• Replacing the incandescent bulbs in office with fluorescent bulbs
• Changing air filters on a regular basis (dirty filters cause strain on the HVAC units)
• Using laptops instead of desktops – laptops use up to 80% less energy
• Purchasing appliances from EnergyStar, which use 30-75% less energy http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=find_a_product.showProductCategory&pcw_code=OEF
• In New York City and most of Westchester County, Con Edison Solutions offers GreenPower, allowing you to choose 100% renewable power from the New York region.

3.  Ways To Offset The Remainder

Carbon Offset Purchases (projects involving wind farms, reforestation, hydroelectric dams) – that prevent new emissions of carbon
http://www.jpmorganclimatecare.com/projects/countries
http://www.carbonneutral.com/cnregistry/projectsearch.asp
http://carbonoffsets.org/projects_unitedstates.html
http://innovation.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=23994

Carbon Offset Providers In North America:
http://www.carboncatalog.org/providers/north-america/?currency=USD

Powerhouse UK-based house, breaks, pop, and everything-in-between record label Exceptional Records released Chad North’s remix of Waveplant & Ernesto “(I Need A) Bassline” on June 29.

The single, which features the original and the Chad North & Aaron Pope remix, will be the first single off Ernesto’s full length compilation “Ernesto Sings” due out later this year on Exceptional. You can hear the soul-drenched original version on Soundcloud here.

Chad also features the remix on his own Soundcloud page here. This third release of his with San Francisco based collaborator Aaron Pope features a more distinct dance-floor breakbeat with chopped vocals and glitch effects. Waveplant (aka Chicago-based composer Joel Corelitz) and Chad North have exchanged remix projects over the past several years.

You can purchase the single on iTunes – with a CD single version to be released in the coming weeks. (Yes they still release CD singles!)

ART BY CHANCE is the brand new “Ultra Short Film Festival” that will be aired in 14 countries and 64 cities, between May 22 – June 3, 2009.

The Art By Chance Launch Party in New York will give you a chance to see all the films in the inaugural festival as well as be part of a very unique experience. All Art By Chance Films where made with the intention of being seen on digital signage, so most of the films are silent.  To add to the “by chance”, we are bringing in Musicians to create impromptu scores/soundtracks of all the films live!

Angels & Kings 500 E. 11 St. just East of Ave A.
Doors Open @ 6:30pm
Film Screening & Music Performances start at 7:00pm

Improv Performances by:

Chad North
Anthology Strings

David Fischoff
Dalis Elvis

Tickets are $10.00 at the door and all proceeds will go to support the next Ultra Short Film Festival scheduled for Fall 2009.

MORE ABOUT ART BY CHANCE:

ART BY CHANCE is the brand new “Ultra Short Film Festival” that will be aired in 14 countries and 64 cities, between May 22 – June 3, 2009.

For this festival, you don’t need to buy a ticket or go to a movie theatre! Movies will just pop into your lives in subways, busses, airports, shopping malls, trains, sports centers, art galleries, museums, cafes and bars! ART BY CHANCE will present urban dwellers with stimulating content thus colouring the time slices that are usually considered dead.

Internationally selected and “journey” themed creative short films will catch you unexpectedly while traveling in the subway, waiting at the airport, shopping or just strolling around.

Digital screens scattered around the city will be your host for this festival.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON ART BY CHANCE FILM FESTIVAL go to http://www.anbean.org/

Art By Chance in NYC Produced with the help of Slightly Overexposed Productions

Habitat composer Chad North co-founded breakbeat and tech-funk blog/podcast Jungo Road (www.jungoroad.com) earlier this year to highlight the more eclectic sounds of underground dance music in NYC.

The concept, “West Coast beats to the East Coast”, is meant to spotlight promoters and DJ/producers in New York that are pushing dance music forward and not limiting themselves to “bottle-service club” trends – referring to the healthy breakbeat and tech-funk scene in West coast cities like San Francisco.

The site features weekly mixes from some of the best DJ/producers in the US and abroad – with a special focus on San Francisco and New York City based DJs. Recent guests have included Meat Katie, Lee Coombs, Barney Iller, Raydeus, and Aaron Pope. The site also features an event calendar, track reviews, and up-front track previews from labels like Lot49, U&A, and Muti Music.

The podcast is also available on iTunes under “Jungo Road”.

Habitat composer Chad North is currently recording for UK-based electro-house label Erase Records and has his debut single with the label set to drop June 1st.

This third collaboration with San Francisco-based DJ Aaron Pope will be available as an exclusive release on Beatport first – with a wider release to follow.

The track, entitled The Grind, is an electro-breaks hip-hop influenced banger that has already been storming clubs on the West coast. The package was mastered at Habitat Music by Ming and features vocals by Australian-based hip-hop artist Estae.

The Grind is packaged with the equally mighty You Got What as the b-side – very much in fashion with the current trend in fidget and electro-house. The remix package will follow later in the month with mixes by Scott Cooper (Potty Mouth Records), Wasabi (Erase Records), and Mike Hulme (Lot49, U&A).

Preview the tracks at www.soundcloud.com/chad-north.