A lot can happen in 15 years. Few things manage to thrive for a decade and a half, especially in music. But a scrappy, left of center, Bay Area house music label, Dirtybird, has managed to do just that. Claude VonStroke, Dirtybird’s founder, is marking this 15-year milestone the only way he knows how… working. This year, VonStroke will throw two dozen-plus parties, three festivals (including the famous Dirtybird Campout), host his traveling Dirtybird BBQ series in major cities across the US, publish a coffee table book, release a seasonal clothing line, stage art shows, produce a fly on the wall docu series...and kick it all off by releasing a new album, out February 21st. What began as a free party, turned basement record label, has morphed into a truly thriving community whose familial, fun and welcoming vibe has won over hearts and minds across the world. And while Dirtybird has grown and evolved, VonStroke’s core focus on music remains unwavering. The new album ‘Freaks & Beaks’ is a celebration of quirky innovation and a relentless pursuit of something new and fresh, while hearkening back to the freewheeling spirit that inspired the launch of his label. This is a project that draws upon the inspirations of family, old friends, new fans and proper dancefloors. Claude will let his flock wet their beaks while they wait in anticipation of the new album with two new singles demonstrating the breadth of the dance music landscape explored on the record. Youngblood touches on the deeper sides of Claude VonStroke, a throwback to the label’s early days, featuring local LA music house talent Wyatt Marshall, while All My People in the House is a dancefloor heater that is sure to unite new and old Dirtybird fans together.A1. Warming Up The Bass Machines II, A2. Freaks Don't Fail Me Now, B1. Flubblebuddy. B2. Frankie Goes To Bollywood, C1. Youngblood (Feat. Wyatt Marshall), D1. Waddaday (Feat. ZDS), D2. These Notes in This Order, E1. Session A, F1. All My People In The House F2. Alpine Arpline More

After a year filled with collaborations and remixes, Claude VonStroke drops his solo EP “Slink”, featuring the long-awaited track, “Please Oh Please Oh Please”, official music video and tied into a Dirtybird Campout activation. More

Stuck in the 9-5 grind, stifled by the impersonality of constant social media and mobile interaction, contemporary urban life can be suffocating. For a certain breed, release cannot be found in the vast, unpopulated great outdoors. Urban Animals congregate in heaving warehouses, seeking solace in the liberating beats of the kick drum. They are bound not by association, but through a shared experience of primal relief felt in those shadowy, dance floor corners swelling with the sounds of low end frequencies and brazenly sculpted grooves. This is the Urban Animal's jungle.
Claude VonStroke's third original album and the 100th release for dirtybird is indebted to this bold and bestial inner-city lifestyle, but it's also a product of its creator; a unique subspecies steeped in that San Franciscan sound, intersecting unknown terrain on instruction of the inimitable dirtybird label boss. Just as Urban Animal's artwork reconstructs photography of derelict city architecture from Detroit and the Midwest into three compelling animal portraits, so too has Claude VonStroke sampled unexpected sounds from his chaotic working environment to create the nine intriguing tracks that make up his full length composition. Think of VonStroke as a modern day, West Coast Frankenstein, his creature a rugged arrangement of the most discordant, unlikely parts whilst somehow brimming with beauty and human appeal. Spanning genre, space and mood, Claude VonStroke's Urban Animal is as unpredictable and bewildering as any living entity.
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Dood," the second single from Claude VonStroke's forthcoming album, Urban Animal. Dood is inherently dirtybird and the one you've been waiting for if you were expecting something nasty from the project. The heart-squeezing booty-bass-line smacks instantly, while the rumbling drawl of the stoned vocal perfectly encapsulates VonStroke’s witty spirit. The track is an homage to the time Claude spent in Los Angeles during the production of the album and really captures the fun, dark edge of that sprawaling so-cal metropolis. As we move one step closer to the celebrated DB-100, ‘Dood’ has already proved its worth as the peak time choice for its creator and the other dirtybird members like Justin Martin, Catz n Dogz and Eats Everything. And just to bring it all full circle, Richie Hawtin was a champion of Claude's very first single Deep Throat in 2005 and so it's only fitting that he closed his most recent set at Space Ibiza with this monster trip-out track. Similarly, ‘Lay It Down’ presents a sexy, hard-edged groove with foundations built on a series of infectious silences. VonStroke maintains control over classic DJ Nephets vocal and transports the footwork vibe to the world of banging house funk. Claude prides himself on not using any samples in his music but when the opportunity presented itself, licensing this vocal was just too tempting to pass up for the Urban Animal project.
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Catz ’N Dogz are some of our oldest extended Dirtybird Family, spanning multiple EPs, a couple albums, some remixes, and we even presented their very first release as ‘Catz N Dogz’ as they transitioned from their old 3 Channels alias in 2007. It's been over 4 years since they've been on the label, and we're ecstatic to have them back with "The Feelings Factory". "Fine Feelings" features the legendary vocalist Robert Owens, and sounds like a classic deep house track from the late 90's when no one called it deep house, they just danced to it all night in warehouses. "Factory Settings" includes additional production from London's Joseph Ashworth, and from the first note to the last its filled with driving intensity and an ascending cacophony of rhythms and voices.
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