I just checked Traxsource and saw that our latest release, Inner City Peace by MikeZ, got itself a front page banner! I knew this release fit Traxsource's deep soulful vibe, so I'm glad they featured it on their homepage. It will be available exclusively on Traxsource until 2/9 after which you can find it on Beatport, Juno, Stompy, iTunes, Amazon, etc.

MikeZ Inner City Peace

Musical Missionary's first release of 2011 has deep ties to the label's debut release which dropped roughly one year ago. For it was that debut release by Darren DuVall, accompanied by the label's unique mission statement, that inspired MikeZ to donate his Inner City Peace EP to the label's cause.

MikeZ crafted Inner City Peace with a story in mind, a story of spiritual revival. Flutes provide the spiritual lift in both Revival Balance and Spiritual Revival, with the former setting a solid deep house groove and the latter ratcheting up the energy with some tribal house energía. MikeZ saved the best for last, as His Spirit was clearly made to hypnotize entire dance floors with its deep sultry groove and soul grabbing vocal.

Get your copy now!

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MM06 – Inner City Peace by MikeZ, Out Now!

I've been so busy the last few weeks that New Year's flew right by. I am just now finding the time to reflect on what 2010 meant for Musical Missionary and how to make the most of 2011.

I can truly say that 2010 was great!  We released four EPs and a full-length compilation which were well received by music fans from all over the world. The music and mission have spoken for themselves as we have recruited several new artists from around the globe who donated music that will be released in 2011. And we managed to raise $900 to help us seed our music education program.

That brings me to Musical Missionary's first major project of 2011, which will be live on Kickstarter by the end of this month (it's now live). It's called Recording Arts for Youth (or RAY for short) and it represents much of what inspired Musical Missionary in the first place and much of what Musical Missionary aspires to achieve in the future.

Another project I plan to prioritize in the early part of this year is profiling the artists who have so generously donated their music to Musical Missionary. I recently read a 2,000 year-old quote from Cicero, “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.” So Musical Missionary would like to show its gratitude to the artists who have made this early success possible, and those who will carry us into the future with some highlight pieces on their musical careers.

So stay tuned. We have some great things coming up soon, including our first release of 2011 which will drop on February 2nd!

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A Belated Happy New Year, 20!!

We did it!  Finally, our first full-length album broke out today (see what I did there). It has been a long time in the making, but it was worth it. I still get warm fuzzies thinking about how much talent is represented on this album and how every single track was donated, no strings attached, to our mission. I'd like to thank Chris Fortier, Darren DuVall, Miguel Colmenares, MikeZ, Oilpanic, Pointbender, Stunp & Symbio, and Swanken for generously offering their talent to this project. I also want to thank Joshua Martin for the awesome photography used for the cover art.

Please help us turn our artists' generosity into music education for underprivileged kids. 100% of the label's proceeds from sales of this album will go towards our music education program. You can buy the album here.

There's everything on here from lush deep house and expressive techno to psychedelic dub-step and exotic downtempo. And if you by the whole album, you get a mixed version blended by Brazilian Berliner, Pedro Isoni, aka DJ Iso* (www.isomuzik.com). Musical Missionary is lucky to have Pedro in the family. Check out his podcast, which has featured guest mixes from the likes of Phonique, Mike Monday, Soul Mekanik, Pointbender and Swanken to name a few.

Break Out track listing:

01 . Stunp & Symbio - Rukh
02 . Pointbender - Exodus Ted
03 . Swanken - Lose The Man
04 . Pointbender - Frosted Circut
05 . Chris Fortier - Take The Light
06 . Oilpanic - Vagabond
07 . Stunp & Symbio - Sick Sonar
08 . Miguel Colmenares - Mono Funk
09 . Mikez - His Spirit
10 . Swanken - Come Back With The Love (Darren Duvall Remix)
11 . Darren Duvall - A Drug In My Head
12 . Darren Duvall - Changes
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Our First Album – Break Out!

It's been 10 months since our first of four releases came out and we've decided to mark this not-quite-a-year-yet milestone by donating all of our proceeds to our partner education nonprofit in Miami, The Motivational Edge. So far we've managed to raise $450 which will be used to purchase two M-Audio beginner recording rigs for the kids.

The Motivational Edge is an established and rapidly growing education nonprofit in Miami that offers educational tutoring and musical mentoring programs for underprivileged youth. Their network of musical instructors and community relationships is the perfect foundation to support Musical Missionary's vision of introducing young creative minds to the transformative power of recording arts. And The Motivational Edge is also a candidate for Berklee School of Music's Pulse Music Program, which would make this marriage even more perfect.

Stay tuned as we put the pieces of this program together with the plan of captivating our first students in January 2011!

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State Of The Mission Address

Our buddies, Riotgear, run a successful radio show called Mocean District over on Digitally Imported.

Mocean District

They've really grown a solid following while featuring some great talent like DJ Chus, Quivver, Oliver Moldan and Uner just to name a few. So we were very excited when they approached us with a desire to help spread the word about Musical Missionary. We obliged with a killer set from Pointbender, the producer behind our second release, Left Brain EP, and a quick impromptu phone conversation about Musical Missionary.

The 2 hour podcast starts with a smooth set by Tom Budden of Alive Recordings and Proton Radio fame. I suggest you download it to your iPod and listen to the whole thing. But if you're pressed for time, go straight to the one hour mark and listen from there.

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Pointbender & Musical Missionary featured on Mocean District

Musical Missionary is honored to present the debut release for Miami's hottest new production duo, Swanken (Sean Levisman and Jonathan Schwab). Few things feel better than breaking out a new artist, especially when the artist is destined for greatness. Swanken could have easily gone with a bigger, more popular label. Their music is that good. But they humbly decided that supporting Musical Missionary's mission to bring music education to underprivileged youth was more important. Thank you guys!

Click the image below for a link to Traxsource.Swanken - Come Back With The Love

But don't just take our word for it, check out what these guys had to say about Swanken:

Gordon Murray (Billboard Dance Chart Manager) – “5/5. Sounds perfect for the club!”

Nick Warren (Hope Recordings/UK) – “5/5. Fantastic, great production for those late night vibes”

Alland Byallo (Kontrol, Nightlight/USA) – “4/5. Nice release!”

Lee Curtiss (Spectral, Get Physical/USA) – “4/5. Really nice deep cuts. ‘Come Back With The Love’ is a serious standout. Good stuff.”

Anthony Pappa (UK) – “4/5. The best track here for me is ‘Come Back With The Love’”

Brett Johnson (Cynosure, .Dotbleep, Classic/US) – “’Lose The Man’ is the standout for me.”

Miguel Colmenares (Subtropical, Pinksilver, Auralism/Spain) – “Diggin ‘Lose The Man’…awesomely deep pads and chords are just my taste.”

Halo (City Deep Music/USA) – “4/5. Nice deepness…”

Jay West (Candy Music/Argentina) – “’Lose The Man’ sounds cool!”

Joey Silvero (Distant People/UK) – “4/5. I like the atmosphere, very deep groove, fresh productions”

Ashley Beedle(Ministry of Sound, Darkstarr/UK) – “5/5 . ‘Come Back With The Love’ is the killer here. Pure dub house disco! Big support.”

DJ Phil T(DJ Times/USA) – “5/5 . A full-on club workout! Full support.”

Andrew Grant(Circoloco, Barraca Music) – “4/5 . Will play.”

MM04 will be exclusive to Traxsource until September 22nd when it will become available on Beatport, Juno, Stompy, iTunes, Amazon and elsewhere.

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MM04 – Swanken – Out Now on Traxsource!

Our latest release featuring Chris Fortier, Jay Tripwire, Just Jason and Darren DuVall is available now exclusively on Beatport. If you'd rather get it somewhere else, just wait until August 11th when it hits iTunes, Amazon, Traxsource, Juno, Stompy and other fine digital music outlets.

Beatport link

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MM03 Out Now on Beatport

The time has come for our third release to come out and play. Thanks to 8DPromo, MM03 promos have been circulating for a few weeks now and the feedback from the likes of DJ Three, Alland Byallo and Nikola Baytala has been great.

This third release is our most ambitious project yet, featuring an original track from house music heavyweight Chris Fortier and three quality remixes. Chris's original version of “Take The Light” is an earful, fusing hauntingly techy and dream-like elements into a playground of sound. It’s an overly cinematic and deep builder with the high production quality one can expect from Fortier’s repertoire. “Take The Light” is also surrounded by distinctive renditions from Jay Tripwire, Just Jason of Latenight Society, and Musical Missionary cornerstone, Darren DuVall. It's a distinctive and ear-grabbing package of tunes ready-made for DJ sets.

MM03 - Chris Fortier - Take The Light

Here's some of the feedback that's come in so far:

Anthony Pappa (UK) – “4/5 - All of the tracks are really good. My favourite is the Jay Tripwire Remix.”

Alland Byallo (Kontrol, Nightlight/USA) – “Jay’s remix is amazing!”

Nikola Baytala (Kontrol, Tweekin/USA) – “5/5 - Jay Tripwire mix all the way! Deep dark dubby and techy !!!”

Three (Hallucination Limited/USA) – “4/5 - Original and Tripwire mixes in the box.”

Android Cartel (iVav, Railyard/USA) – “5/5 – Digging the Original and Jay Tripwire rmx. Will play both.”

And here's an independent review > Deep South Audio.

MM03 will be released through Beatport on 7/28 and everywhere else on 8/11.

Take a listen for yourself...

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MM03 – Chris Fortier – Take The Light

Check out our label showcase on Miami Dance Party dot com. I had a lot of fun putting this together with Justin Ryan in the MDP studio. The showcase covers our two previous releases and a bunch of upcoming stuff. Here's a tracklisting:

  1. Darren DuVall - Between The Streets (MM01 out now)
  2. Darren DuVall - Slow (MM01 out now)
  3. Pointbender - Exodus Ted (MM02 out now)
  4. Pointbender - Frosted Circuit (MM02 out now)
  5. Pointbender - Left Brain (MM02 out now)
  6. Chris Fortier - Take The Light (Jay Tripwire Remix)
  7. Swanken - Come Back With The Love
  8. Chris Fortier - Take the Light (Latenight Mix by Just Jason)
  9. Stunp & Symbio - Sick Sonar
  10. Miguel Colmenares - Elastico
  11. Mike Z - His Spirit
  12. Darren DuVall - Changes

Tracks 6 through 12 are future releases which we're working to get out the door ASAP. Some will come out on our first full length compilation which is in the works.

It was tough picking which tracks to put on this showcase because we've been blessed to receive so much great music. We hope this wets your appetite and keeps you coming back for more because this is just the beginning. And if you haven't done so already, please buy our current releases to help us raise money for our mission. Thanks!

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Musical Missionary Showcase on Miami Dance Party

Musical Missionary and The Motivational Edge will be teaming up this summer to design and run innovative programs that bring the gift of music education to underprivileged kids in Miami. To get started on this mission, The Motivational Edge, Musical Missionary, and a number of other education nonprofits are teaming up to throw a fund raiser for our upcoming summer programs.

This cool event will take place Friday, May 21st, at MIA Restaurant and Lounge (20 Biscayne Blvd) across the street from American Airlines Arena.

Some of Miami's best live musicians will be taking the stage to make sure you get your money's worth. On top of that, there will be tasty catered delights, drink specials all night and a complimentary drink ticket. There will also be a silent auction that can land you on the world's largest cruise ship and a raffle that can put you behind the wheel of a Porsche Boxster.

Tickets are $35 and proceeds go towards providing music education to deserving kids who cannot afford it. Get your tickets soon because capacity is limited.

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Motivational Music Night For the Kids, 5/21