Saturday Night Session 039: Armada’s Ben Malone unveils Armada Record Box, a community uniting all club-worthy releases under one platform alongside dance-worthy hour long mixEli And Fur

Saturday Night Session 039: Armada’s Ben Malone unveils Armada Record Box, a community uniting all club-worthy releases under one platform alongside dance-worthy hour long mix

Few moments are more sacred than the reprieve Saturday night provides from the daily grind of school and work. Its importance is meant to be emphasized, and thus, a feature dedicated to “doing the night right” was born. Saturday Night Sessions are set around energizing mixes meant to get the party started. New or old, each episode has one cornerstone thing in similarity: they serve as the perfect backdrop for the weekend pregame.

What does a genre-less dance music world look like? What if there was a tastemaker whose sole purpose was to transport the listener to the club and the type of music that achieved that was not the focus? The dance music community might just have the answer thanks to Armada Record Box, a recently launched platform by Armada Music.

Armada Music has long been the largest independent Dance music label in the world. While the label was born from legendary Trance turned Commercial powerhouse Armin van Buuren, Armada music spans a plethora of genres, and it has truly defined dance music from the underground to the mainstream. Armada itself houses a variety of sub labels including Armada Subjekt, Armada Deep, and Armada Electronic Elements. The label also features partnerships with the likes of Subliminal Records, KMS Records, Days Like Nights, Sondos Records, Ontourage, Subusa, Subliminal Soul, Africanism and DanceNRG to name a few.

As is showcased by the number of labels within the Armada family, there are endless places to go for good music within a genre, but for good club music spanning a variety of electronic genres, the options become more limited. Dance music thrives in a culture of sub-genres and sub-labels, but with all of the content and all of the options, Armada Record Box has been born to unite club-worthy content and releases under one house, regardless of the label a track was released on.

UK based Ben Malone is Armada’s UK Label Manager as well as the presenter and DJ on Armada Record Box Radio, which was launched on May 19 in order to showcase featured hits within the Armada Record Box community. Malone speaks to Dancing Astronaut about the platform, explaining their goal for Armada Record Box. He shares, “Record Box is a new community and platform launched by Armada Music that was born out of the desire to bring together music fans who share a love of club culture, forward thinking sounds, and the very best new releases. Our mission is to become the go-to home of club culture, showcasing the world’s greatest music to our dedicated fanbase.” He continues, “With an ever-increasing footprint in this world, we wanted to share more music and exclusive content with fans, so merging our former channels, Armada Subjekt, Armada Deep and Armada Electronic Elements under the Armada Record Box umbrella marked an exciting new chapter for us.”

Despite the fact that Armada Record Box seeks to provide a ‘one-stop shop’ for those looking to listen to club-music that has been released across the Armada portfolio, Malone confirms that the Armada’s labels and partner labels will continue to house the same dedication to their genres of focus.

He touches on this, stating, “Armada Record Box simply acknowledges that many of our fans like both House and Techno, or Tech House and Piano House, or Techno and Melodic Techno.  Musical genres are more fluid than ever before, with artists taking influence from a vast array of historic and modern sounds, but what hasn’t changed is our shared love of club culture, a thumping bass and music that makes us want to dance!”

Armada Record Box has launched social channels across Youtube, Instagram, Soundcloud, Twitter and more. The community will also host Armada Record Box Radio, which will have a new episode every three weeks. In addition to the Record Box Radio show, Record Box will also post a monthly mini-mix across the Armada Record Box channels.  The mix will feature clips of their forthcoming releases, up to a month before their release.

In honor of the launch of Armada Record Box, Malone put together an exclusive hour long mix to celebrate the club-centric music that is featured within the community already, as well as to give fans a sneak peak into what is to come. When asked what kind of a Saturday Night his Saturday Night Session would get fans ready for, Malone notes, “Armada Record Box is all about the club, so even though we can’t party like normal right now, we wanted this mix to take you, metaphorically, in to the club!  I’ve included some of the biggest releases from Armada Record Box labels so far this year, to take your minds off the current COVID-19 situation and transport you to the dancefloor!  So grab yourself a drink, and clear some dancing space… you’re gonna need it!”

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First thing is first. Can you tell us about yourself? What is your involvement with Armada Record Box, and how did you end up here working on this label?
Hi! I’m Ben Malone, and I’m the UK Label Manager for Armada Music as well as the presenter and DJ on Armada Record Box Radio! I’m based out of Armada’s London Office and have been working in Dance Music for about 8 years in various capacities.  I also co-present our flagship radio show, Armada Next, with Armada Music CEO, Maykel Piron, and have a Saturday night dance show on UK Radio station, KISS FM UK.

With the UK being a key tastemaker market for forward thinking and under the radar club music, I work closely with our London, Amsterdam and New York-based teams across all Armada Music releases that are tailored to, or signed from or with the UK market in mind.  As we build our presence in the UK, and with the launch of Armada Record Box, our footprint in cutting edge club music is expanding rapidly and it’s an incredibly exciting time for the label!  Recent releases from the likes of Charlotte de Witte, Eli Brown, ARTBAT, Shadow Child, Sonny Fodera, Low Steppa, Eli & Fur, Tensnake, Erick Morillo and Ben Hemsley have set a new precedent in terms of what fans can expect from us, and enabled us to strengthen our connection with lovers of House, Techno, Melodic and Progressive music!

Can you tell us about the inspirations for Armada Record Box and how this concept was born?
Armada Record Box is a community, a channel and a social media platform representing the music and artists released across our world-leading Armada Subjekt, Armada Deep and Armada Electronic Elements labels, as well as our partnerships with the likes of Subliminal Records, KMS Records, Days Like Nights, Sondos Records, Ontourage, Subusa, Subliminal Soul, Africanism and DanceNRG.  The platform was born out of our desire to bring together music fans who share a love of club culture, forward thinking sounds, and the very best new releases.  With an ever-increasing footprint in this world, we wanted to share more music and exclusive content with fans, so merging our former channels, Armada Subjekt, Armada Deep and Armada Electronic Elements under the Armada Record Box umbrella marked an exciting new chapter for us.

Under Armada Record Box, the labels our fans know and love remain unchanged, and will continue to pioneer their own distinct sounds – Armada Record Box simply acknowledges that many of our fans like both House and Techno, or Tech House and Piano House, or Techno and Melodic Techno.  Musical genres are more fluid than ever before, with artists taking influence from a vast array of historic and modern sounds, but what hasn’t changed is our shared love of club culture, a thumping bass and music that makes us want to dance!  Armada Record Box is about connecting likeminded people from all around the world, through a shared love of cutting edge club music.

What is the vision for Armada Record Box over the next few months? What kind of music, artists, or types of releases can we expect on the platform?  

As with any community, we want to grow! We’re already seeing steady growth in the number of members of our community, and increased engagement with our content which is great – but our mission is to become the go-to home of club culture, showcasing the world’s greatest music to our dedicated fanbase.  The labels represented by Armada Record Box have all got their own exciting release schedules coming together over the next few months and whilst I can’t give away too much, I can promise you we’ve got some incredible music in the pipeline, from our existing roster and a number of new artists joining the Armada Music family for the first time!

A few upcoming highlights include game-changing new remix from MEDUZA on Lifelike & Kris Menance’s certified classic, ‘Discopolis’; Eli Brown’s haunting follow up to ‘Desire’ which is set to be one of the underground records of the year; and Low Steppa’s ‘Boiling Point’ Album which features a raft of previously unheard music as well as some of his biggest hits to date. We also have exciting new releases coming from Floorplan, Mambo Bros, Ferreck Dawn, ATFC, Patrice Bäumel, Pablo Bravas and many more!

I know you kicked off a weekly radio show for Armada Record Box on May 19. Tell us more about this- where can we listen and what can we expect from the radio show?

So we launched Armada Record Box Radio on Tuesday 19th as a way for fans to hear a number of our favourite new releases, all in one place.  The 1 hour long mix-show showcases releases from our Armada Subjekt, Armada Deep and Armada Electronic Elements labels, as well as our partners, and the focus is entirely on the music! No flashy features, or bad jokes – this show is one for the music lovers, and we hope you’ll join us on this journey!  There will be a new episode every 3 weeks and you can find on the Armada Record Box YouTube, Facebook, Soundcloud and Mixcloud pages!  The show is designed to take you to the club, no matter where you are, so even in challenging times like these, we hope that you will find enjoyment and inspiration in listening to brand new music with us!


In addition to a host of brand new music, including some exclusive as yet unreleased titles, every week we’ll also bring you our ‘Club Alert’ – the hottest pick of the week and one that you NEED to hear!  The show’s been designed to be easy to listen to whether you’re traveling, at work, in the gym or relaxing at home – so make sure you hit subscribe to always hear the latest episode!

Check out episode 001 of the show here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VJZQphJQG

What else should we know about Armada Record Box?
In addition to the Record Box Radio show, we also post a monthly mini-mix across the Armada Record Box channels.  This mix is your opportunity to hear clips of our forthcoming releases, up to a month before their release! It’s usually around 8 minutes long, and we post the tracklist too so you can see which of your favourite artists have upcoming releases.  Once all the tracks in the mix are released, we then post the mix on Spotify and also put up a Beatport Chart so you can easily get your hands on all the latest tracks!  Also, in the coming months we have some exciting new short and long-form video content recorded with our artists that we can’t wait to share with you!

Outside of that, we are very much a community so if you’ve got an idea for something that you’d like to see from Armada Record Box, we’d love to hear from you!  Send us a message on Instagram or Facebook and we’ll see what we can do!

Can you tell us more about the music in the pipeline from Armada’s different labels and partner labels?
We’re really excited about the music we’ve released over the last few months – some highlights include Charlotte de Witte’s epic remix of Jerome Isma-Ae’s Hold That Sucker Down, Eli Brown’s Desire, Shadow Child’s debut release on Armada, Apollo 1, as well as releases from Low Steppa, Harry Romero, Eelke Kleijn, Sammy Porter and Jess Bays!

You can check out all the Armada Record Box releases on our social media accounts, @ArmadaRecordBox, or by checking out our ‘We Love House’, ‘House Top 1000’ and ‘Armada Electronic Elements’ playlists on Spotify!

What kind of a Saturday night is your Saturday Night Session getting us ready for?
Armada Record Box is all about the club, so even though we can’t party like normal right now, we wanted this mix to take you, metaphorically, in to the club!  I’ve included some of the biggest releases from Armada Record Box labels so far this year, to take your minds off the current COVID-19 situation and transport you to the dancefloor!  So grab yourself a drink, and clear some dancing space… you’re gonna need it!

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