You’re probably thinking those 2 acronyms just plain don’t belong together and for the most part you’re right. However, it has been kind of a running gag among the HOB crew and I thought I’d share what fuels our after hours adventures….

After Hours Adventures

I am working on adding an AutoCAD like command line into Navisworks; we do love consoles! Andy is currently working on using Microsoft Access as an SQL gateway into our SharePoint system for bidirectional data sharing and linkage with our models; very cool! Skylar is currently refining his latest Autodesk App Store offering. It has been a lot longer process than I would think it should be, but at least I can confirm that Autodesk is doing everything they should be to protect their customers.

The Music Queue

It is important to note that we do listen to all kinds of stuff, but we do spend a lot of hours muscling our way through new ideas and we’ve found that some good electronic influenced music booming from a high end computer speaker system does seem to keep us going. Well, that and occasionally way more Celsius than it is probably healthy to consume. So, if you find yourself working (or playing) for a lot of hours and need some motivation, I am sure some (or all) of these will help you along and if you really want to do it the HOB style; just add some Celsius! Note that I’ll probably come back and update this list periodically.

• Blue Stahli: This guy is an absolute genius. I don’t know what to consider his music, but it isn’t actually EDM that much I know. Highly recommend all 5 of his AntiSleep albums and I did put the instrumental versions of his other albums in the rotation too because without the vocals just about every song is an energy infused masterpiece on its own.
• Boom Kitty: Might sound like a dumb name, but I recently stumbled on this and I can tell you there’s a lot of quality engineered into all of his tracks.
• Dex Arson: It admittedly took a while for Dex to truly grow on me and he crosses what I call the chaos boundary more frequently than I would like. However, this guy makes a ton of really subtle brilliant decisions on his tracks. I think if he toned down some of the almost chaotic portions of his tracks you would wind up with something comparable (but uniquely Dex) to Knife Party quality. The talent and cool tones are definitely there! I’d say Dex is one to watch.
• Excision: I am specifically referencing the Codename X album on this one. Yes, they have a lot more than that, but this is the latest offering and I think with it they finally evolved to a level worth putting in your rotation.
• Hadouken!: I really wish these people kept going. Their first album was okay if I am being polite, their second one (For the Masses) was pretty amazing and their 3^rd one (Every Weekend) was just plain epic. Unfortunately this band is no longer together, but those last 2 albums have at least half of the tracks on them in our rotation.
• Knife Party: Go buy absolutely everything these guys produce, buy it now! By far the most consistently awesome high quality EDM you will find. With such a plethora of half-baked garbage in the electronic category, I can say Knife Party thankfully decided to do it exactly right instead of regurgitating some trivial excessively repetitive crap like most EDM seems to do. We thank them for setting the bar and we are starving for their next offering!
• Tokoyo Machine: This guy hasn’t been at it very long and there isn’t a lot of tracks, but every single one of them are masterfully crafted. This guy is doing 8 bit game influenced EDM style music on a level far superior to what I used to think Knife Party had perfected. The main difference, ALL Tokoyo Machine music (so far) has that classic game influence and KP just kind of dips their toes in the pond by comparison. Safe to say this is my 2^nd favorite, but there isn’t a lot of tracks yet.
• Tribe Called Red: I don’t think it is possible to describe this group and it is safe to say that it took a while to truly grow on me. However, I can tell you for sure that this is a genre all its own and the more I listen to it the more impressed I become with its diverse complexity. The bad part is nobody else is doing music like this and probably never will. So, all we can do is wait and hope that ATCR will release more stuff to feed our cravings.
• Tomas Vent: This guy is from Poland and he does western influenced bluesy glitch hop. I couldn’t make this up if I tried! I’ve listened to probably everything he’s put on iTunes hundreds of times and it hasn’t got old yet. I have my favorites for sure, but generally I’ve liked every single track he’s produced and that puts him in the top 40% of this list; which is crazy since he isn’t very well known at the moment. Vent is just very unique artist, produces very high quality, well crafted tracks! He currently has a GoFundMe setup to produce his first video and he deserves success, so if you have the means to help then please Click Here

Request:

We have a lot more 1-off’s in the rotation too, but these are some stand outs. We are always looking for more truly high quality electronic energy infused tunes. So, if you think you’ve got an impressive artist to add to this list, let us know. For context, I can’t stand shrillix though. A lot of it is okay and I appreciate what he has done to popularize the genre, but those random nonsensical runs are reminiscent of musical Tourette’s to me…. Quality thought requires some degree of fluidity and those odd bridge areas are like taking a nail gun to my brain.