WHOMP

Defender, "Defender" - It's always cause for celebration any time Alan Braxe surfaces with yet another one of his trademark pristine filter-house beatdowns, but "Defender", or at the absolute dirt-worst the first minute of "Defender", kinda feels like it's a cut above. I'm always secretly thrilled to discover a piece of music that frees me from listening to other stuff, even when it's really "freeing" from listening to stuff I actually like - it's just always nice to feel some forward progress, and I'll gladly sell off Duran Duran albums for a copy of White Rose Movement's Kick for a fix. I do realize that not everyone's like this, that there are people out there still getting something from Human After All and OK Cowboy (I mean fuck, even I'm not done "My Friend Dario" and the old singles yet); to these people, all I can do is simply suggest that you abort your download now and save the bandwidth for someone interested in hearing both those albums - indeed, arguably everything Daft Punk and Vitalic have made since Discovery and "La Rock 01", respectively - get utterly served in the space of one minute. The thing about Braxe is that all of his best songs have this fantastically physical presence; I listen to a lot of house music which, if I may break out the music-critic air-quotes, "does more stuff" - hell, arguably "does more fun stuff" - but a lot of it ends up consigned to the ash-can of history once I find another song that sets me off bopping around. Braxe's songs have a different dynamic; they may sound less sophisticated than, say, any random Deep Dish cut, but what they lack in subtle dynamics, they make back in wild, crazy freak-out space - it's damn near impossible for me to imagine people who want to dance being able to ignore a Braxe bassline erupting from a speaker, as anyone who's ever heard Stardust's "Music Sounds Better" in a club can attest. It's kind of endearingly democratic, if you think about it - seeing as how dance music can be just as rigidly dogmatic as heavy metal when it comes to how it expects to be consumed and appreciated, it's nice to know that there's a Van Halen out there to counteract all those bassrush Slayers.

All of this, I'm sure, can be applied to "Defender" as a whole; it really is quite a good little house banger with a hilariously fun squirrelly guitar thrown in to keep things moving, although I doubt I'd be able to mount a defense against someone arguing that this song might as well have come from the Wipeout XL soundtrack. It's just that, again, the first minute is really where all the fireworks be at - it's one of the first times I can remember Braxe (and, to give credit where it's due, Fred Falke and Savage, his erstwhile collaborators and co-producers of the Defender single) use actual space, as in "no sound", instead of the kind of "space" that comes between the punches of his murderous bass kicks and synth slashes. And as you may be able to infer from the general tone of this post, it works pretty well - I seriously don't think a track's done less to make me freak out more since "Harder Better Faster Stronger". Of course, since it's Braxe, even this "minimal" intro is impeccably textured; the guitars all snarl, the drum hits all rattle, and there's this great little whooshing noise drifting through the background like the dust that's just about to get blasted off your speaker cabinets. It's just a hell of a good time - in a perfect world, the actual record would project the words "TIME TO START JUMPING AROUND NOW" onto the ceiling in huge neon lights. Not, mind you, that many people would need the hint. (Click here to buy the Defender/Bliss single from Juno)

Union of Knives, "Evil Has Never" (feat. Jenny Reeve) - There are, of course, a thousand perfectly reasonable excuses to hate Ben Gibbard and/or Jimmy Tamborello, but undoubtedly the most cogent ones all involve really shitty bands inspired by that goddamned Postal Service album - I mean, yeah, I like it too, but by this point the only album that's suffered more from the love of the dumb is probably Funeral, and the gap only gets narrower every time Honda needs to sell you a new car. That being said, any scene is bound to have some gems, and at least as far as my ears go, Union of Knives seem to have come up with one; it's as slight and hands-off as "Defender" is massive and tangible. The frustrating thing about most of the music like this, especially when you're as savagely uncaring with regards to lyrics as I am, is that since it's all so right-there-on-the-surface, it can be difficult to pick out what makes one song more effective than another; I mean, I could point out that looping, telegraphed guitar or the aneimic pulse of the beat and go into great histrionic detail about how much I like it, but I'd be completely incapable of doing the same thing for any of a thousand songs that sound just like it (Fast Computers, I'm looking in your direction). Maybe it's just the back-and-forth boy-girl dynamic that's doing it - after all, the Human League all suckers for that gimmick two decades ago. Who knows - I suppose it's entirely possible that I just happen to like this song a fair bit. It's happened before. At any rate, don't let that stop you from checking out this very fine little indie pop song. (Click here to buy the Union of Knives EP from Rough Trade)