YEAH. UH-HUH.

The Rapture, "W.A.Y.U.H." (leaked demo) (LINK REMOVED) - Those of you familiar with my track record on matters like this will of course be immediately forgiven for expecting me to turn the looming Rapture album into yet another hyper-indulgent celebration of its producer - hell, to be perfectly candid, up until this track leaked, that's pretty much all the respect I was prepared to give it. I mean, I genuinely like the Rapture (to the point of paying an obscene amount of money to see them AND ONLY THEM when the heroically unsuitable Curiosa festival rolled into town a few years back), but getting excited for anything they put out after "House of Jealous Lovers" is inevitably going to feel more than a little like getting excited for anything Machine put out post-"There But For The Grace Of God" - the most dangerous thing a band can do, after all, is tell the whole world exactly which motions it can go through. Fortunately, about a month ago "W.A.Y.U.H." dropped to earth with the apparent intention of correcting my profound stupidity; it may not be "House of Jealous Lovers", but it's sure as fuck got some lessons to impart. Let's roll 'em off:

1. The Rapture are a really fucking awesome band. I kinda have this bad habit where, when a band makes a record with a superproducer (as the Rapture most certainly did with Cough Hack Ahem, doubly so back in 2002/3), I tend to ascribe all of the record's virtues to the producers unless it's really obvious that they belong to the band. Needless to say, I spent my fair share of time ghettoizing the Rapture as masters of yelping and cowbellatry and very little else - not that I was calling them a shitty band otherwise (well, once I got over my irrational hipsterphobia, anyway), but it's a fair bit easier to talk about Echoes as a great example of the DFA training you (or me, anyway) to like stuff that I ordinarily wouldn't than it is to talk about it as the Rapture doin' their thang in a way deserving of unhinged Putzfuckery (I mean I still own Echoes but even Luke Jenner was probably going WHAT THE FUCK [presumably with Matty Safer wailing away on the cowbell in the background]).

And, shockingly, I was right about this one - if the leaked demo of "W.A.Y.U.H." is any indication, the Rapture really are a band born to work with producers, and I mean that in the best possible sense. I mean, compared to "House of Jealous Lovers" or "Heaven" or even "Sister Savior", "W.A.Y.U.H." might as well be a Destiny's Child song - not that you can't still inhale its sumptuous Williamsburg Vapours, of course, but fuck, there's a background girl chorus up in this bitch; even in its incomplete state, it's uncharacteristically slick. And to their immense credit, nobody in the band seems even the least bit shy about playing along - Matty Safer in particular clips his vocals like he's been waiting to jab someone with that "I said this ain't no laboratory/you're the cunt" line since his first trip to MisShapes, but you could really single out any of the boys for nutting up and having as much fun taking dead aim at the radio as they could possibly manage. This, in case you're wondering, is both why I'll be buying their new album on its release date and why I'll probably never own a copy of Franz Ferdinand's second album. ANYWAY.

2. It's really easy for me to get gloriously lost in production. Again, not exactly breaking new ground for this site, but every time I listen to "W.A.Y.U.H." - and it's currently sitting at #2 on my iPod playcount chart right behind "Trains to Brazil" for Christ's sakes - the main thing I come away wondering is what it's going to sound like in the end. Obviously, it's not going to sound that different; between the Azzadio Di Bass samples and the air-popped percussion and the aforementioned girl chorus and and and, there's already a ton of stuff going on here, and expecting anything more than the ends being refined is probably just being greedy. But honestly, the greed it inspires in me is part of the charm at this point, mostly because until it's finished, I can only guess at who's responsible for what in the song - those arrangements, for instance, sound straight off the last Gorillaz album (especially that big world-wrecking whomp towards the end of the song), but then again it's not like Epworth hasn't thrown us curveballs* before. And while I'm sure that that ambiguity is specifically responsible for a fair number of "W.A.Y.U.H."'s plays, let me ask you this - is the impressive thing about "The Lady or the Tiger" the choice at the end, or the way the story keeps you following?

3. DangerMouse is one of my very favorite producers in the world in small doses. I mean, say whatever you want about DM's style - and as someone with access to the internet during the massively overblown Grey Album fooferaw, there's definitely stuff I could say - but the dude does a better job of selling "irreverent" to the masses since Jarvis Cocker, and there's obviously something to be said for that. Irreverence, however, works a lot better in small doses than in large ones, which is why I tend to come away from DangerMouse's projects with one or two songs and maybe a concept to call my own and without any hangups whatsoever about junking the rest. Lucky for me, then, that I seem to have put my myopia to work for me, because even if I can't pin down DM's precise role on "W.A.Y.U.H.", I have to admit that his approach to Making Stuff Sound Like Stuff does nothing but make the song even more of a success. I mean, the "Doom's Night" synths? The woodblock standing in for the cowbell? "Ready girls? BASS!"? Deleriously stupid little touches one and all, the kind of thing that either hook you into a song you didn't know you'd like or which give you entirely new ways to enjoy stuff you knew you'd love - yeah, that's DangerMouse in a nutshell, and I absolutely mean that as a compliment. I mean, Trevor Horn didn't exactly bat a thousand as far as my ears are concerned - sure didn't hurt him in my estimation.

4. I like it better when Paul Epworth borrows other people's music than when DJ Shadow borrows other people's music. Again with the assumptions about who's responsible for what, but seriously - here's a song at least partially produced by the man who's made an incredibly fruitful career out of reminding the world to the pleasures of Martins Hannett and Rushent; convincing me that someone else is responsible for this song's nakedly faithful appropriation of the Talking Heads' "The Great Curve" (or at the dirt worst, "Shack Up" on speed) is going to be something of a long row to hoe. I mean, clearly I like reading his productions like long-lost Borges stories, but I try not to discount the possibility that he's not making some grand theoretical point with the way his music sounds, that he might be quoting Gang of Four less for their value as an indie-rock signifier of brainy revolt than for the the way hi-hats sound when they're hotter than the sun (or whatever). Just because he's (presumably) quoting Brian Eno here, after all, doesn't make him Brian Eno - after all, Remain In Light is hardly unmined territory, the same of which can't be said for the Eno polyrhythms that make it such tantalizing source material. But I'll say this much - what the sound of "W.A.Y.U.H." lacks as far as the Explaining The Awesomeness To Your Friends factor goes, it more than makes up for in terms of unadulterated fun. It may not be a revelation like "The Great Curve", but it's fun to listen to in the same slippery, deleriously hip way, and when you're talking about "The Great Curve", those are categories where it's pretty remarkable just to come up in the same discussion. I mean, just because "Positive Tension" wasn't a bolt from the clear blue sky like "To Hell With Poverty", does that make it less of a song? How about less of an accomplishment?

5. Bands need to come up with song titles that aren't such royal pains in the ass for MP3 bloggers to type out. I mean, you might have noticed that this blog has been thoroughly devoid of any Trail of Dead-related content, or as I like to call them, AYWKUBTABWEFONSIUGIACD. (well, okay, there's really another reason why Trail of Dead haven't shown up here, but THE POINT STILL STANDS DAMMIT.)

Anyway. Great-great-great song, can't wait for the album, blah blah blah. If I were you I would grab this before TEH SOOTZ make me take it down (although it's not like the whole world hasn't known about it for eleven billion years anyway).

*incidentally, I'm reupping this as today's second MP3, so FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND SONNY JESUS, grab it if you missed it the first time around.