A1. Long Way ft. Nicholas Ryan Grant (Tanner Ross Remix)

B1. I’m Free ft. Paul Randolph (Carl Craig Remix)

Artist: Catz N Dogz, Tanner Ross, Carl Craig
Title: Catz N Dogz - Escape From Zoo Remixes
Cat-N°: MSHIP037
Release date: July, 2011 for Vinyl
Early September for Digital

It took a while but we finally got this great remix Ep together from Catz n’ Dogz Escape from Zoo album. Tanner Ross flexes his e-funk biceps and shows us that just a little bit goes a long way with huge bass and sparse vox. This remix goes against the grain the right way, showing restraint and power at the same time.

The main man of Detroit, Carl Craig also delivers a sparse and beautiful mix, 1st giving us a lesson in how to properly tweak the space echo and then bringing it back with classic strings and subs.

Both mixes are getting major support from all across the globe from Sebo K to Troy Pierce to Ewan Pearson to Martyn to L-vis 1990 to James Zabiela - overall probably the best feedback we had in a while on a record to be honest..

All great for our kids at the Detroit Youth Foundation where the mothership label donates 100% of profits! Also, special thanks to Matt Colton at Air Studios, London for donating a mastering session for free to cut this record and support our school.

Love,
VonStroke

Today we announce the dates for the first European leg of Claude VonStroke’s 2011 “Large Bottom Tour”, bringing the focus back to fun parties and music that shakes the floorboards. Unlike previous years which have seen European visits every other weekend, 2011 has VonStroke locked in the studio working on some amazing new releases and collaborations. With a choice, but limited selection of high profile festival dates and low down dirty club nights scheduled across the UK, Europe and Ibiza, its even more essential that you don’t miss him!

Artist: Various
Title: Phase Two
Cat-N°: MSHIP036
Release date: February, 2011

“Phase Two” is a compilation celebrating the best music from mothership so far. The package features ten tracks handpicked by the label boss himself, Claude VonStroke. Enjoy!

1. AMyn  - Moonbird

2. Maetrik - Simplemen

3. Tanner Ross and Sergio Santos - Sedara

4. Catz n Dogz - Relaxation Is A Skill (Club Mix)

5. Will Monotone - Provalone

6. Voodeux - Dead End Motel - (Ryan Crosson Shuffle Remix)

7. James Braun, Dan M. - Lessons Part 2

8. Olibusta - That’s Whats up

9. Italoboyz L’anagramme  - M.in remix

10. Monty Luke  - Panik Attack

The Dirtybird man talks West Coast rave history.

There are parties, and then there are parties. Moontribe was one of the latter, and it’s where Dirtybird’s Christian Martin cut his clubbing teeth, leading to a lifetime interest in soundsystem culture. Partying in the desert of California, he caught the dance music bug and has never looked back. Martin has grown to become a respected DJ and producer over the years, but it’s the party that drives him. And it’s the Dirtybird Soundsystem parties alongside brother Justin Martin, Worthy and Claude VonStroke in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park that are dearest to his heart. It is his own soundsystem that the crew uses after all. In this Exchange, RA’s Todd L. Burns quizzes Martin about how Moontribe changed his life.

download the mix here!

The Polish duo raids their record collections for a wide-ranging mix.

Poland has one of the fastest growing dance scenes in Europe, and there are arguably no artists aiding this ascent more than Catz N’ Dogz. Grzegorz Demianczuk and Wojciech Taranczuk (Greg and Voitek) are both from the town of Szczecin near to the German border, but actually met through the internet and a shared interest. 3 Channels was the pseudonym under which they first gained traction on the dance scene, releasing a string of minimally-inclined club tracks for Trapez, Trenton and Crosstown Rebels, before switching to the name Catz N’ Dogz full-time back in 2008. The new moniker brought with it new relationships—most notably with Claude VonStroke who has put out almost ten singles and two albums through Dirtybird and its sub-label Mothership. It was the latter label who released the duo’s Escape from Zoo album towards the end of last year, a record that saw Catz N’ Dogz let their hair down and explore all manner of house, techno and dubstep textures.

On their mix for us the duo reach right to the back of their record shelves in order to present the length of breadth of their house music interests.

What have you been up to recently?

The main thing is that we are in the middle of an album tour, playing DJ sets, playing live all over the world. We are kinda workaholics so we do everything at the same time. Right now we have couple of residences in Polish clubs and one at Berlin’s Farbferhnseher, where from time to time we invite friends to play.

We’re working on our label, Pets Recordings, (signing new artists, remixes and the new website is online now). We also want to do some videos. After the album we are already focusing on some new stuff that will come out and, of course, a lot of edits. Oh, and there will be album remixes coming out as well. (Carl Craig, Sect, Julio Bashmore.)

How and where was the mix recorded?

The mix was recorded in Ableton during our travels but we first ripped a lot of our old vinyl. Actually the biggest amount of time that we spend doing this mix was the track selection.

Can you tell us a bit more about the mix?

We wanted to do a mix that includes the whole spectrum of music that we play at parties. We play big room parties but small private venues in Berlin and in Poland as well. For us the biggest fun is to play various stuff.

How healthy would you say the electronic music scene is in Poland currently?

It’s a very difficult question… There are a lot of cool parties in various locations. If you want to party you should visit Warsaw, Poznan, Krakow and Wroclaw. Clubs have better soundsystems than a few years back and line-ups are cool. The best are festivals in the summertime: Audioriver, Opener, Boogie Brain, Tauron, Unsound and many more. We’re very happy that there are more and more new producers and the quality is OK. Some people still produce only for their friends and they don’t want to release it because they are too shy. This is one of the reasons why we started Pets.

Your recent album featured a dubstep track in “Only for The Moment”: is this a genre you will look to explore more thoroughly in the future?

We are working right now on a new project but we can’t say anything more because we don’t know exactly what it is until it’s finished. [laughs]

What are you up to next?

Increasing workoholizm.

download the mix here!

Claude VonStroke goes on a 2 week tour of Australia starting on Friday December 31st!! Here are the dates and locations below…click for more details!

• Friday, 31 Dec - Brisbane - Bar Soma
• Saturday, 01 Jan - Adelaide - Summadayze
• Saturday, 01 Jan - Melbourne - Summadayze
• Saturday, 01 Jan - Melbourne - Summa After Party
• Sunday, 02 Jan - Gold Coast - Summafieldayze
• Sunday, 02 Jan - Sydney - Nevermind
• Thursday, 06 Jan - Melbourne - Seven Nightclub
• Saturday, 08 Jan - Perth - Summadayze
• Saturday, 08 Jan - Perth - Summa After Party
• Sunday, 09 Jan - Newcastle - Customs House

A new chapter in the Catz ‘n Dogz story begins this month, as the Polish duo releases Escape from Zoo, the followup to 2008’s Stars of Zoo. Once again they’re with Claude Von Stroke’s mothership, a sublabel of dirtybird, and this time, as the title suggests, they’ve thrown the boundaries wide open. Sure, there’s plenty of deep, punchy, percussive tech house, but they also take forays into deep, disco-oriented house, shimmering electronica, and even dubstep.

Every sound is fair game, from crunk samples to scraps of vintage Polish jazz; that kind of range is just par for the course for the duo, whose Pets Gone Wild party in their native Szczecin serves as a platform for unbridled musical mayhem.

Catz ‘n Dogz, of course, were a no-brainer for our Focus on Poland series; we asked the duo’s Grzegorz Demiañczuk to fill us in on the ins and outs of Polish club culture. Read on to find out about the duo’s new label, Pets Recordings and for tips on a host of rising national talent, and get Catz ‘n Dogz’ latest top 10 chart—plus some mouthwatering culinary suggestions!

What’s your own history with electronic music—how did you discover it, and how did you come to start making it?

My first contact with electronic music was in the early ‘90s when I was watching the German broadcast and they were showing a new style called techno. Then I took my father to the shop and he bought me a bootleg tape compilation (because in Poland there were no copyrights then) called Techno Vol. 2.

Voitek was traveling a lot with the choir when he was 12 years old, and when he was in the U.S. he discovered GrooveRadio, with an amazing selection of house music. In the ‘90s it was very hard to buy non-commercial electronic music here, but we were lucky because our hometown is Szczecin (Stettin), the closest big city to the German border. So we were able, for example, to listen to the Berlin radio shows where there were DJs were playing good, underground music. The electronic-music influence from Berlin was very strong and a lot of good DJs were playing here. Of course we were also going to the parties and going to Berlin to buy records. Then we started to make our own parties, we met a lot of people and we started to produce music.

What styles of electronic dance music are most popular in Poland, and who are the key Polish venues, labels, DJs and producers we should know about?

Right now in Poland the most popular is house music; I think it’s like that everywhere now. Some time ago it was minimal and, earlier, big techno parties.

One key Polish venue is the SQ Club in Poznan, with an amazing lineup, not only house or techno. We have our night there called Pets Gone Wild. There’s a lot of good clubs in Warsaw (1500m2, 55), a lot of small bars with a good disco or deep house selection (Plan B, Powiekszenie) and famous afterparty place called Luztro (Mirror) where the security guy is selling sausage or microwave soup. Some other cities are Gdansk/Sopot, Krakow, Wroclaw, Szczecin, Katowice; you’ll also find good clubs there.

Festivals are also fantastic. There’s the Audioriver festival in Plock (close to Warsaw) with a great location on the beach and many good acts; Boogie Brain festival in Szczecin (located in the old harbor), Unsound in Krakow, Off in Katowice, and much more.

There are not that many labels but I see now it’s going much better. A key name is Recognition made by Jacek Sienkiewicz, and then a lot of smaller vinyl and digital labels. We had our label called Channels records, and right now after we changed the name to Catz ‘n Dogz, we opened a new one called Pets Recordings where we’re promoting Polish producers.

A few years ago you could count producers from Poland on one hand, but right now the situation is much better and there’s a lot of new talents! Jacek Sienkiewicz (Recogintion, Cocoon), SLG (Trapez), Pol On (Freerange), Marcin Czubala (Mobilee), Jackname Trouble, Supra1, Kuba Sojka, Envee, Martin Nowakowski, Kesho, Max Skiba, Karol XVII & MB Valence…

There are also well-known producers with Polish roots: Magda, Margaret Dygas, Dave DK, Robert Babicz, Adam Port, Daniel Dreier, Highfish…

Is there much in the way of underground parties in Poland—warehouses, unlicensed open-airs, etc.—or is most activity combined to nightclubs?

There were a lot of illegal parties few years ago. Right now most of the parties are legal and clubs are pro with good soundsystems, lights and crew. Same with the festivals. To be honest, we miss a bit this illegal feeling, when you were entering the secret place and you never knew what would happen.

Poland is celebrated for its progressive-thinking jazz and rock scenes in previous decades; did they have any impact on the shape of Polish electronic music today?

Yes the jazz scene was huge and it was amazing, the same with the rock music. It was very important for Polish people to have a bit of musical insulation from the grayness which was around them in Communist times. The government controlled everything, and music from outside (I mean, the west) was mostly illegal. That’s why people were jamming together, making music and trying to have some fun. Some people were experimenting with electronic music, but it was very hard to get the keyboards or any other equipment to make music. So it didn’t develop very fast, and it was very underground.

One key name for sure is Czeslaw Niemen.

After Communism, everything was legal, all the stuff from the west was here the next day, so we had a huge mess and some people freaked out…! There was a lot of crap, but because everything was fresh, it took some time for people to see what’s good and what’s bad (Polish disco called disco polo, for example).

Enough about music: what food should visitors to Poland seek out?

We have great soups: zurek, barszcz, flaki (you can eat it in the train from Berlin to Warsaw). Polish food fits great with vodka, so there are a lot of jellys with fishes or meat, teak soups, potatoes, sour cucumber, and of course pierogi or galabki; also try bigos. The thing to not try is pizza with kebap!

If you want to see how it was in 25 years ago here you definitly need to visit Przekaski Zakaski in Warsaw, where you can order a shot of vodka and with herring for just a couple of euros!

see the full article here @ beatportal

Focus on Poland: Catz ‘n Dogz
16 November, 2010
Written by: Beatportal

There’s a new mothership store Check it out here!

05 Nov _ Club Bonsoir @ Bern, SWITZERLAND
06 Nov _ Petcast - Farbferhnseher @ Berlin, DE
12 Nov _ Lodz Kaliska @ Krakow, PL
13 Nov _ INQ @ Katowice, PL
19 Nov _ Oiom @ Lodz, PL
20 Nov _ SQ Club @ Poznan, PL
26 Nov _ Corsica studios @ London, UK
27 Nov _ Berns club @ Stockholm, SE
03 Dec _ Dirtybird Night @ Watergate Berlin, DE
04 Dec _ Dirtybird Night @ Fabric, UK
05 Dec _ Dirtybird Night @ GOA, ES
18 Dec _ Dunkel @ Copenhagen, DK

“This isn’t better than their first LP, this is next level CnD. 9/10″ - I-DJ magazine

“Big on fun - big on risks, these guys deserve some love. 8/10″ - Tillate

“Catz ‘n Dogz really tear out of the constricting confines of tech house’s strait jacket, tackling deep house, electric soul and even dubstep with equal aplomb.” - DJ Magazine

“the pair go out on a limb and reinvent them self as a modern funk juggernaut. Escape From Zoo covers a wide range of dance music in search of the perfect beat and introduces Catz N Dogz as underground music’s new heavy hitters.” - Ibiza Voice

Beatport - Album Of The Week

“remarkable achievement!” - Clubbing Spain

“some of the most playful (and animal) producers around” - Dazed Digital

“Seriously one of the year’s best listens.” - data transmission

WhatPeoplePlay - “Essential!”

Heidi - I LOVE it.
Vito (Aeroplane) - That’s a cool record, really funky vibe. 
Deetron - Stunning album, really beautiful.
Sebo-K - Great versatile album guys!
Joris Voorn - Great album guys!!
Soul Clap - they’re basically rabid and crazy and also mangy.
Paul Woolford - Good album. I absolutely LOVE the track with Paul Randolph Thank you. 
Laurent Garnier - Super fan of Catz and Dogz, BRILLIANT WORK!!
Paul Hamill (BBC Radio Ulster) - This sounds amazing, they’ve made a really great record here.
Dixon - I like it. I like and will be supporting…
Kiki - One word…. KILLER!!