2005

[31-Dec-2005] NEW TRANCE RELEASE THIS WEEK
Brand new for 2006 is a treat for all DJ Rise fans... melodic trance anthem "Stratosphere" is now available to download for free! A JMD remix is also included for the release - both versions can be downloaded now from the current releases page.

[30-Dec-2005] TOUCAN FEATURE ON SKYDIVING DVD
Witbank Skydiving Club from South Africa have featured tracks from Toucan Music on their annual DVD for the second year running! Featured artists include PP and DJ Rise. Head on down to http://www.dropzone.co.za to find out more about the club and the DVD.

[29-Dec-2005] TOUCAN VOLUME 4 ANNOUNCED
The fourth compilation in our unmixed Toucan series will be shortly available! The album will feature 13 of the latest Toucan tunes, including some unreleased and exclusive material. The track listing is available here.

[21-Dec-2005] FULL LENGTH DJ MIX NOW ONLINE
The Toucan Music mixed review of the year is now online and available to download free of charge from our brand new mixes section. The download, which features our best tracks of the year, is in WMA format and just under 78 minutes long... ideal for burning to CD or downloading to your iPod. The file size is large, though, so a broadband connection is recommended!

[21-Dec-2005] NEW PROGRESSIVE HOUSE RELEASE
New for the Christmas week is Beat Doctor's "Kicks", a dark progressive house track with Marc Burt collaborating on the remix, turning the parts into an uplifting, acidic trance anthem. As always, download them now from the current releases page.

[17-Dec-2005] NEW ELECTRO BREAKBEAT RELEASE
New this week is The Toucan's "The Enemy Within", a banging slice of electro breakbeat that's guaranteed to get the dancefloor moving! Download the three mixes now from the current releases page.

[13-Dec-2005] NEW TRANCECORE RELEASE THIS WEEK
A treat for all hardcore fans this week with brand new mixes of Prism's "Voyage To Pluto" online, including an upfront contemporary hardcore mix from Dreamworld and a hard trance mix from JMD. Also available is the original mix from 1997, completely remastered and encoded for your enjoyment! Download the mixes from the hardcore releases page.

[04-Dec-2005] NEW BOUNCY HOUSE RELEASE
Brand new this week from Redmann is "Are You Feeling It?", a bouncy house track with a catchy tune. John Dalling's remix pumps things up a notch further, adding banging hard house elements and distorted synths. Download now from the current releases page.

[26-Nov-2005] BACK CATALOGUE COMPLETE!
This week we've got three remastered releases online which sees the completion of our back catalogue. The new releases are "Jumpin'" and "Porcupine" from JMD, "Time On Your Hands" from Redmann (including the JMD trance remix) and the previously unreleased "Calling Out Your Name", also from Redmann. Download them all from the back catalogue page.

[26-Nov-2005] PSYCHADELIK PEDESTRIAN FEATURED ON KAYAK DVD
Psychadelik Pedestrian's 2004 remix of "Eternal Truth" has been featured on the new "Learn To Kayak" DVD from Kayako Jacko. Thanks to Dave Kwant from 2AT productions for including the track. Visit the KayakoJacko website to find out more information about the DVD.

[18-Nov-2005] NEW HARD HOUSE THIS WEEK!
Remastered and back online this week are John Dalling's club mix of the Space Invaderz hard dance track "Out Of Your Face", and funky retro breaks "Filter Groove" from Psychadelik Pedestrian. Download them from the back catalogue page now!

[05-Nov-2005] NEW RELEASE - ONE FIVE EIGHT REMIXES!
Brand new online this week - brand new mixes of Psychadelik Pedestrian's "One Five Eight"! Mixes are available from Redmann, JMD, PP himself and a brand new face guesting for Toucan, Dave Seagrim from Canada. Download them now from the current releases page.

[29-Oct-2005] NEW MELODIC TRANCE RE-RELEASES THIS WEEK
Back online this week are two bouncy melodic trance tracks - "New Beginning", the debut tune from JMD (2003) which has a slightly happier, more commercial vibe that JMD's current stuff, and JMD's remix of Excelsior's "Why Not", a harder stompier trance track with soaring synth riffs and a catchy tune.

[15-Oct-2005] NEW CHILLOUT RE-RELEASE
Remastered and back online this week is another one from Psychadelik Pedestrian, "Travels In The North", an instrumental downtempo electronica track, with funky house remixes from Dave Kent. Download it now from the back catalogue page (tour43).

[08-Oct-2005] NEW CHILLOUT AND POP HOUSE RE-RELEASES THIS WEEK
Two new re-releases this week, including the remastered "Night Beach" by Psychadelik Pedestrian (tour36), the most successful Toucan chillout track to date. Also back online is "Music Is The Key" (tour41), bouncy dance from the Space Invaderz. Download them both from the back catalogue page.

[08-Oct-2005] DREAMWORLD FEATURED ON OURMEDIA FRONT PAGE
Dreamworld's "Voyage To Saturn" (thc001) has this week been featured on the front page of Ourmedia.org, the media hosting website. "Voyage To Saturn" is the first of our hardcore releases, and is available from the Toucan Hardcore page.

[01-Oct-2005] BRAND NEW TRACKS THIS WEEK
Three new premium releases are available this week. First up is Beat Doctor's dark, acidic progressive house remix of "Four Walls". Secondly, two mixes of the melodic progressive trance track "Magnetic Groove" by System K, a.k.a. DJ Karimnet, including an uplifting rework by Marc Burt. Finally, old skool piano riffs collide with stomping upfront nu-house beats on Beat Doctor's latest track "Jack The Party". As always, DJ friendly full length downloads are available - go to the premium releases page to get more details.
For those of you who prefer your music free of charge, not to worry. Another re-release this week brings "Syntax" from Space Invaderz from 2003, including an extended DJ friendly mix. Downloads are available from the back catalogue page.

[24-Sep-2005] NEW FUNKY MELODIC DANCE RELEASE
This week's re-release is another one from Redmann, funky melodic dance "Get Here" from 2003. Download it now from the back catalogue page.

[17-Sep-2005] NEW THIS WEEK
This week's re-release is Redmann's chilled instrumental tune "Embrace", now available on the back catalogue page.

[12-Sep-2005] NEW RELEASES THIS WEEK
New this week are two re-releases - the Psychadelik Pedestrian remix of Dave Kent's "Monkeys Ate My Fish Tank", and the original old skool style mix of PP's "One Five Eight" - both originally from 2002. Both are available to download on the back catalogue page.

[27-Aug-2005] NEW RELEASE THIS WEEK
New this week "Twist Turn Slide" from Psychadelik Pedestrian, which combines complex, intricate electro rhythms and synthesized breakbeats, deep throbbing bass and catchy synths. Download the edit and DJ friendly mix of the original or Beat Doctor's synth house remix from the current releases page.

[21-Aug-2005] NEW PROGRESSIVE TRANCE RELEASES THIS WEEK
New this week is the first release from DJ Karimnet, "Tribal Life" (tou206), featuring two progressive trance tunes. Download both tracks now from the current releases page. Also new online is the remastered version of Marc Burt's "Elements" - download it from the back catalogue page.

[13-Aug-2005] NEW RELEASES THIS WEEK
New this week is the remastered version of "Wonderland", a funky uplifting piano house track by Redmann from 2002. Download the original mix or John Dalling's harder trance remix, or click here to go to the complete back catalogue.

[08-Aug-2005] WELCOME TO DJ KARIMNET
A big welcome to a new artist at Toucan Music, DJ Karimnet a.k.a. System K. Karim comes from a musical family and has listened to music since he was a kid. Karim's inspiration comes from listening to classical music and oldies, and deciding they would sound good with a beat. The first DJ Karimnet tracks will be available shortly for free download, and Karim's also working on a remix of the classic Redmann track "Scorpion", which will be available soon with other new mixes from Marc Burt and JMD. Watch this space!

[06-Aug-2005] NEW RELEASES THIS WEEK
A re-release this week is "The Throwdown" from PP, a remastered version of the electro-breakbeat tune which was originally available in 2002.

[12-Jul-2005] NEW RELEASES THIS WEEK
The second release this week is a brand new one from The Toucan, "Audial Assault", which combines electro beats and old skool breaks with punky, distorted vocals in the cheeky trademark Toucan style. The Beat Doctor is on the remix, with a catchy synth house cut just made for those summer dancefloors. An added bonus for all you producers is the drum solo, a complete drum track using the "Audial Assault" breaks programmed by The Toucan. Feel free to use all or part of this free of charge in your tunes, but please give a credit back to Toucan Music! Download this release (tou205) from the current releases page.

[09-Jul-2005] NEW RELEASES THIS WEEK
This week's re-release is "Turn The Corner", a driving piano house track from Redmann from 2002. Four mixes are available, all of which have been completely remastered in 192kbps MP3 format, and one of which, the album edit, has never been online before. See our back catalogue for details (release number tour26).

[09-Jul-2005] NEW FORUM AND GUESTBOOK ONLINE
Toucan is proud to present our new forum and guestbook, now online. Both have been designed to integrate into the design of the site. Use them to express your views about our music or the site. Please note spamming the guestbook and forum will not be tolerated - and blatant spamming or offensive posts will be deleted!

[02-Jul-2005] STREAMING NOW LIVE
We've now introduced streaming to the site! All the previews on this page are now available to stream as lo-fi MP3 tracks. Unforunately we can't bring you previews of all our tracks due to bandwidth restrictions (our downloads are handled by the fantastic Internet Archive), but we hope to introduce more in the future.

[02-Jul-2005] NEW RELEASES THIS WEEK
This week's new releases include a brand new mix of "Against The Grain" by Beat Doctor and Dave Kent, available from the current releases page, and remastered versions of "Liquid Nitrogen" (2002 mix) and "Chilled Nitrogen" from PP, available from the back catalogue page (release number tour25).

[26-Jun-2005] NEW RELEASES THIS WEEK
New online this week are the remastered John Dalling remixes of "Friction" and "Dancefloor Virus". Go to the back catalogue page to download the tracks (release number tour24).

[23-Jun-2005] STACCATO PICK PSYCHADELIK PEDESTRIAN
Staccato, a creative commons music show site, has featured Psychadelik Pedestrian's "Outer Self" on their 18th episode. The show is available through podcast, or direct download on their site at http://staccatomusic.org/.

[19-Jun-2005] NEW RELEASES THIS WEEK
This week's new release is a re-release from Redmann, featuring three mixes of his vocoder house tune "Move Harder" including the original from 2001, and downtempo mixes from 2002. Go to the back catalogue page to download the mixes.

[17-Jun-2005] TOUCAN VOLUME 3 ANNOUNCED
The third compilation in our unmixed Toucan series will be shortly available! The album will feature 14 of the latest Toucan tunes, including some unreleased and exclusive material. The track listing is available here.

[12-Jun-2005] NEW RELEASES THIS WEEK
This week's new releases include one brand new track, "Memories" by PP (tou203) and two remastered re-releases "Friction" and "Orange Peel" (tour21 and tour22). Go to the current tracks page to download "Memories" or the back catalogue page to download "Friction" and "Orange Peel".

[05-Jun-2005] NEW SITE ONLINE
The Toucan site is online today! As well as the new navigation bar, changes include a revamped music section, with direct links to track downloads from the site! A new guestbook and forum will also be coming shortly, which are integrated into the site. Enjoy!

[08-May-2005] TOUCAN SITE CHANGES
The Toucan site will shortly be undergoing a change of layout, with an easier to use navigation bar at the top of the page. The site will also be moving from our current hosts to be hosted at our own address, so if you've bookmarked http://www.lammasstreetcentre.org.uk/jmd/toucan please change your bookmark to http://www.toucanmusic.com

[17-Apr-2005] NEW STYLE UK CHART REVEALED
Despite protests by independent labels about the fairness of the new combined singles and downloads UK chart, the first new chart countdown went ahead today. Tony Christie's Comic Relief single "(Is This The Way To) Amarillo", famous for it's video starring comic Peter Kay, stayed at number 1 - see story from BBC News.

[14-Apr-2005] LABELS TRY TO STOP DOWNLOADS IN CHART
The BBC News website has reported that the Association for Independent Music (AIM) has put in a complaint with the Office of Fair Trading because it is worried that independent labels will be poorly represented in the new singles chart. The new chart, to debut on Sunday, will be the first to include figures from download sales as well as singles sales. View the full story here.

[10-Apr-2005] DOWNLOADS TO COUNT TOWARDS UK SINGLES CHART
For the first time ever, Sunday 17th April's UK Top 40 will also include figures from online music downloads as well as singles sold in the shops. The change will reflect the huge rise in popularity of legal, purchased music downloads over the last year or so. Figures suggest that purchased music downloads have increased drastically in the course of a year in the UK.
With the majority of singles buyers being under 25 and predominantly female, and the majority of downloaders being male and of an older age group, this could dramatically change the styles of music dominating the UK singles chart. See BBC News story here.

[28-Mar-2005] NEW ARTICLES ADDED TO FEATURES SECTION
Some new articles have been added to the articles menu. Firstly, there's a guide to digital music (this will eventually be subdivided into two pages, with a history of digital music and a guide to file formats). Secondly, several music histories have been added, including trance and chillout.

[21-Mar-2005] TOUCAN ADDED TO ARCHIVE.ORG
Toucan now has a "netlabel" section on www.archive.org - the Internet Archive. The aim of the archive is to provide access to obsolete versions websites and digital material. Toucan Music's section is available at http://www.archive.org/audio/collection.php?collection=toucan, which features 192kb/s mp3 versions of some of our most popular tracks to date. The ultimate aim, providing the Internet Archive are prepared for us to use the space, is to get our entire back catalogue on this site, leaving only our most recent material on other sites with limited space but higher exposure (such as Download.com).

[13-Mar-2005] THANK YOU!
Thanks to everyone who downloaded from our artists on the Soundclick site over the past four days and (either intentionally, or unintentionally!) supported out Red Nose Day campaign! A total of £24 was reached, which John has rounded up to £25 and donated to Comic Relief.

[08-Mar-2005] TOUCAN MUSIC SUPPORTS COMIC RELIEF
Toucan Music is proud to support Comic Relief's Red Nose Day 2005. For every Toucan artist Soundclick* download between midnight Wednesday 9th March 2005 and midnight Sunday 13th March 2005, John (the man behind Toucan) promises to donate 10p to Comic Relief, registered charity 326568. Downloads from Soundclick are free, so it won't cost you anything!

[08-Mar-2005] PREVIEWS CHANGED TO WMA FORMAT
Our previews at the top of the page have changed to WMA (Windows Media Audio) format. This means that we are able to provide higher quality previews with a lower file size (and therefore a lower download time). Most PC based music players, such as Winamp, will play WMA files, so you should be able to take advantage of this change without having to download any new software. If your player does not support WMA files, download Winamp at www.winamp.com. Please note our free full length tracks will continue to be in MP3 format.

[06-Feb-2005] TOUCAN HOUSE TRACK LISTING REVEALED
The track listing for the final of the four Toucan Mix CDs, Toucan House, has been revealed, you can view it here. The CD is available to pre-order now, and will be despatched when complete - probably at the end of February.

[05-Feb-2005] TOUCAN TUNES ON SKYDIVING DVD
Witbank Skydiving Club, South Africa have featured tracks from JMD and Dreamworld on their latest DVD, reviewing their skydiving year from 2004. This is the second time our music has been used for an extreme sports film - in 2003, 2aT productions used PP tracks for their 'Fluid Dynamics' whitewater video.
Many thanks to Dirk Venter and the crew at Witbank Skydive for choosing Toucan Music for their soundtrack. You find out more about Witbank and their skydiving adventures at their site http://www.dropzone.co.za

[21-Jan-2005] LATEST TRACKS NOW ON MP3TOBURN.COM
The latest house and trance exclusives from Toucan Music are now available to preview and buy on www.mp3toburn.com - the UK's premier dance MP3 download site! The tracks on this site will be unavailable to download anywhere else (although they will be available on CD here at a later date)., and include exclusive new material from Phish Funk, the brand new JMD remix of 'By The Water', and tunes from new house artist The Beat Doctor.

[10-Jan-2005] TOUCAN ARTISTS NOW ON AUDIOSTREET
Toucan artists JMD, PP and The Toucan are now online at AudioStreet, another online music site. The site gives you the option to both stream and download music. As we're currently using the basic subscription option, we're limited to three tunes online per artist. If our music is successful on this site, more artists will be uploaded.

[03-Jan-2005] 2004 CHARTS ONLINE
The 2004 Toucan charts are now online, showing the most downloaded tracks, most played tracks and the highest percentage of downloads. During 2004, Toucan artists had exactly 100 different tracks available online, and we received over 52,000 downloads. The most downloaded track, Dreamworld's 'Voyage To Saturn', received over 7,200 downloads during 2004.
All the tracks in the percentage top ten chart this year received more downloads than previews - hence the figures over 100%. In fact, 18 tracks received more downloads than previews, which compares to just one in 2003 - this is probably due to the rise of broadband and faster download times. Note that the figures in the percentage chart are taken only from sites with both previews and downloads - such as Vitaminic and Soundclick - and not those with downloads only - such as Music.Download.Com.
Unfortunately our charts do not include figures from BeSonic, which closed on a temporary basis during late 2004 due to technical problems and has yet to relaunch.