I, Richardhead

You can partially thank this man for this blog's existence

Chungking, "Slow It Down" - It's possible, I suppose, that Richard X's near-total absence from the world of music in 2006 was as much an act of commentary as anything else. After all, the man's music is all but predicated on exploiting the tension inherent in the classic artist's dilemma of wanting to make something timeless in a medium which makes itself obsolete; could you really even blame the man for not being particularly motivated to participate in a period dominated by works which wear their own expiration dates like a badge of honor? I love Silent Shout and Someone To Drive You Home and Hell Hath No Fury like they popped out of my 'giner, but I'll be pretty surprised if I end up dusting any of them off to illustrate the virtues of pop music to James Jr. (presuming that my theoretical wife won't allow her first child to be named Life-Wrecking Accident Cobo) twenty years down the line; they're all records to which as much of my appreciation is due to the fact that I heard them when I was twenty-five and in the mood to howl about slinging kilos of coke as I drove home from work as to their, y'know, actual musical virtues. That's not to say that I was happy to see Mr. X take the year off, of course; the man's Back To Mine compilation was/is practically the Rosetta Stone for my capacity to enjoy modern pop music, and there's not a doubt in my mind that there had to have been at least one sickeningly awesome pop concoction stored away somewhere in his brain which Pusha could have slaughtered or which could have served as a magnificent starting point for rendering "We Share Our Mother's Health" into something even more arch and gloriously foreboding. Last year, however, we would have all seen it coming, and Richard X is nothing if not smart enough to recognize the value of the element of surprise when you're talking about pop music.

So maybe it shouldn't be too surprising to see his big return to form come courtesy of an outfit as anonymous - well, before now, anyway - as Chungking; after all, there's no way to see something coming if you don't even know who's bringing it to you. Ironically, Stay Up Forever, the album in which he played at least some role in producing, may be the most stereotypical Richard X project yet; given the huge, shameless cues Chungking take from artists like Goldfrapp and Annie who owe huge aesthetic debts to Mr. X, his appearance behind the boards really ought to be a mere formality. So maybe it's the sheer professionalism of Stay Up Forever that 's kept me coming back to it ever since Derek was all AHEM HEY JAMES a week or so ago - after all, by now I'm so intimately familiar with The Richard X Steez as applied to other artists that I simply wasn't prepared for how good it could sound in its purest, most undiluted form, namely an album anybody theoretically could enjoy but which only ever ends up being given a chance by the cool kids.

Of course, reading Stay Up Forever as that kind of text does tend to obfuscate the not-insignificant point that a lot of the songs on it kick an awful lot of ass. To be perfectly honest, I have no idea about the extent to which RX participated in its production, but I'd be perfectly happy to continue blithely assigning him total credit if only because it's completely digestible as a Richard X text. Naturally, some tracks have the man's sonic fingerprints all over them; part of the reason I keep coming back to "Slow It Down" lies in that signature shimmering moment of dissolution during the breakdown, a RX trademark directly traceable at least as far back as his remix of New Order's "Jetstream". But it's the fetishization of the computer which really gives Stay Up Forever's best moments their unique-in-07 oomph - after all, anyone could theoretically raid the same sound bank as Our Richard, but most of those folks probably wouldn't have the patience or the meticulous nature to multi-track the vocals to such vibrant effect when, in actuality, it's the interaction of all those layers of shrill little "Slowwwwww"s which I'd be mainlining right now if I could just figure out how to shoot up my iPod. Stay Up Forever may not be a great album on the whole, but at its best moments it unquestionably demonstrates the kind of celebratory attitude towards the dehumaniztion of music rarely found outside of records not produced by Vince Clarke, and that's absolutely something to be celebrated. I can think of no higher compliment to pay it than to describe it as a Yaz record with modern technological horsepower behind it, and even if there's not an "Only You" to be found in its running order, it's still unquestionably an accomplishment to be celebrated. As it stands, this is absolutely the most fun album overtly made with an audience outside the congregation in mind to surface yet this year, and unless that Annie album actually ends up surfacing (COME ON JESUS/ALLAH/BUDDHA/YHWH), any album seeking to displace it is looking at a precipitous uphill climb. (At the moment, Stay Up Forever isn't dated for release, but the first single "Love Is Here To Stay" [which is also v. excellent] is slated to be released digitally on April 30th and physically on May 7th; in the meantime, click here to visit their MySpace page to check out more songs.)

The Tamborines, "Sally O'Gannon" - Although my favorite of all contemporary boutique singles labels is/was/shall forever be Young & Lost Club, I have to admit that they've been slipping a little bit lately - or at least enough to allow Sonic Cathedral to get their foot in a door which had originally been like blocked off with tumped-over bookcases and shit. As it turns out, that Sarabeth Tucek song I posted last week was just the tip of the iceberg; Sonic Cathedral really does have wads and wads of this ruthlessly insistent psyche-derived guitar-pop, most recently the Tamborines' gem of a debut. The big hook, of course, is the song's sheer volume; "Sally O'Gannon" simply fills a room with sonic texture the way water fills a cup with wetness, especially when that super high-pitched post-chorus synth snarl snakes around, and especially when the song drops all pretenses of delivering any other modern pleasures towards its end. I love Y&LC like family, but they haven't set off a fireworks display of that caliber this year; fortunately it's such a satisfying display that I don't even feel guilty about saying that. (Click here to visit Sonic Cathedral's website to buy the "Sally O'Gannon" 7" directly from their web shop)

George McCrae, "I Get Lifted" (Tangoterje edit) - When one first starts listening to dance music, the distinction between terms like edits and remixes and versions and dubs and so forth can easily lead one to throw one's hands up and make regrettable statements to the effect of WHAT IS THIS, MUSICAL POKEMON? I'M DANCIN' HERE and so on. Over time, of course, this resistance falls away, if only out of sheer necessity; when you want to talk about someone completely remaking a track, you're looking for the specific term "remix", or when you want to talk about a song's spatiality being explored more fully, you're misspeaking if you use a term other than "dub". By these terms, "edit" is pretty self-explanatory; generally speaking it covers all manner of sins by which the essence of the original is preserved, only presented in more plentiful portions. Lord knows it covers Todd Terje's edit of George McCrae's magnificent "I Get Lifted", which manages to pull off the devastatingly streamlined trick of simply providing more of the good stuff from the original song (i.e. all of it - I don't even mind that Terje went with K.C.'s vocals instead of McCrae's ) without screwing up its rhythmic dynamic. As you can imagine, it's something of a triumph; elements which previously went unexplored in the original play out to maximum effect here, especially when we're talkin' about those debilitatingly warm synth pads which just I mean good lord- Terje could have stripped his edit down to just those pads and I'd still be posting it here today. (Click here to buy the "I Get Lifted" 12" used from a GEMM merchant)