As the snow keeps me holed up in my lovely apartment, gripping the last remnants of my waining sanity, I’ve found a couple great upbeat and downbeat mash-ups and remixes for us all to enjoy.

The first couple mash-ups are from the mysterious Radio Vampiro, a Mexican DJ collective (I couldn’t find much else out). The first, in the long line of Ratatat remixes, is Ratatat and Cypress Hill coming together to make a great, yet simple, mash. The second mash from Vampiro is admittedly a little worse, but nonetheless worth mentioning: a Kanye West/Amy Winehouse track entitled, “You Know Diamonds are Forever.” I couldn’t find much information about this group, so who knows if they will keep releasing tracks. Really who cares though? No-matter what, the Ratatat mash is pretty sweet, if a little overdone.

Next we have another The White Panda track, a sweet combo of The Beastie Boys’ “Intergalactic” and an Alphabet song from their recently released Verses. I’m not a huge fan of some of their mash-ups, the Ke-money-ha and Owl City tracks are sub-par at best. But the Beastie/Alphabet mash is pretty superb. People would be surprised how hard it is to mash “Intergalactic,” and Panda does it seamlessly. You can check out the rest of the CD here, and make your own conclusions.

Finally, some mellow tracks from rising stars The Kleptones. This DJ/mash-up collective out of Brighton has been around for some time, releasing their first internet-only album in 2003. Since then, DJ Eric Kleptone, a member of the collective, has been producing on a pretty regular schedule, and sticking it to the man the only way mash-DJs know how: mashing. A lot of his mashes won’t be for everybody, as they incorporate movie quotes from time to time. Regardless, a lot of them are good for chilling with friends, most notably “Stay.” This song incorporates a slowed version of The Yeah Yeah Yeah’s “Maps” which would be good for a “Sleepy Time” iTunes playlist. His whole Uptime/Downtime CD can be downloaded here.

That’s it for this week. Enjoy the snow!

This year, while eating copious amounts of stuffing, turkey, and mashed potatoes, I gave thanks for my family, friends, and good remixes. In order to fully give thanks I’m happy to post a couple great tracks this week from The White Panda and Erol Alkan.

I’ve heard a couple of The White Panda’s mashes in the past, the TI/Passion Pit mash and more recently a Eminem/the Who mash, but I was never too impressed; none of them really made me shake my baby maker, if you catch my drift.

The Panda’s newest mash, a deadly combo of Wiz Khalifa, Umek and Beltek, and User absolutely blew me away. Somehow the Slovenian house beatz of Umek blend perfectly into the raps of both Wiz and Usher. Perfect for any rave party people may be hosting in the near future, Army of Yeah is definitely a new member to my top ten list.

The second track is a remake by the ever elusive Gonzales of a Erol Alkan and Boys Noize song, “Waves.” Gonzales takes the electrified, spacey style of Boys Noize and Erol Alkan and softens it down to a mellow, wonderful, in a word melodious track.

By no means is this a party song, or even a chilling-with-friends-song; rather it’s a sitting-alone-doing-homework or just-woke-up song. The piano progression, in my mind, is what a freight train would sound like if it could play the piano, an ever growing intensity with the rhythm of train tracks continues throughout the song, with breaks here and there at various stations along the route.

I hope everyone enjoys these tracks, as always, and I hope food comas haven’t taken claim to many lives this Thanksgiving. School starts back up in two days, don’t get too excited.