In the second of my short series of articles on aspects of music, I look at combining old with new music in Electro Swing. In my first article in the series, I looked at the deep messages underlying the music of Hozier. However, the aim of Electro Swing is to have fun, aimed firmly at the dance floor.

Combining Old With New

As an artist I enjoy seeing work by other artists. Some of my artist colleagues work with old public domain photographs, colorizing them to give them a fresh perspective. Others take public domain photographs and rework them into something new.

In a similar way, Electro Swing utilizes utlizes 1920s and 30s music tracks or film dialogue extracts and translates them into modern dance tracks.

What Is Electro Swing?

Electro Swing is a musical genre that gets your foot tapping! It is a wonderful combination of vintage swing or jazz music with house, hip hop and electronic dance music. Dance floor focused (or just bopping around the kitchen while cooking), electro swing retains the excitement of older live recordings.

Artists tend to bring a combination of skills to their music, including music mixing DJ-style. There are several popular artists in this category of music including Caravan Palace and Dime Cat. I am using Parov Stelar as my example in this article because his music is my personal favorite of the genre.

Combining Old And New In Electro Swing

Booty Swing

There are many examples of Parov Stelar’s work I could pick, but one particular favorite is ‘Booty Swing’. Here, Parov takes a piano sample from Fats Waller and other samples from Lil’ Hardin Armstrong’s Orchestra. Listen and I bet you can’t keep still (audio track only).

Now you start to get the idea? Stimulating and foot tapping.

If you like the sound of this music genre YouTube is your friend in discovering more. Start with Parov Stelar and Caravan Palace and enjoy!