Odds & Ends

See above

Petar Dundov, "Oasis" (Gavin Russom remix)
Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom, "#5"

The picture, to answer your first question, was basically my reaction to Gavin Russom's abrupt uncloistering last winter; dude had basically spent the last three years keeping a lower online profile than me. I presume few if any of you give a shit; Days of Mars has been out for almost half a decade and despite my undiminished, unyielding advocacy for its era-defining excellence I've been able to get one of my friends to check it out. One. (aside: this person does approve of it mightily.) Still, this is my site, my eight dollhairs a month, get yr laws off my body etc.

ANYWAY. Russom resurfaced last winter by posting four songs to his MySpace: a track from his acid-house side project Black Meteoric Star, two other I can't remember (and since Flash refuses to play nice with my computer I'm unable to check), and his remix of Petar Dundov's "Oasis". The latter was far and away my favorite of the batch; luckily it's also the only one yet to surface as a non-rip, so now you can all join me in basking in its gleeful, don't-give-a-fuck incrementalism (not that any of you will, but hey it's not my job to update your firmware to include good taste). I also thought I'd go ahead and post Delia & Gavin's "#5", erm...thing from the 2005 DFA Holiday Mix; it's one of my very favorite things they've done, but it's also pretty much the biggest outlier in Russom's entire catalogue to date and that ain't no small potaters. Anyway, have them both and either join me in breathlessly anticipating the long-promised BMS debut release (where have I heard that before?) or take yr shots about me disappearing up my own musical ass and go back to yr Dave Matthews Band record.

(Click here to buy "Sparkling Stars" from Juno.co.uk; it's a limited-edition disc with some grin-triggeringly cool packaging, so I would suggest that you jump. Click here to buy a used copy of the DFA's Holiday Mix from Amazon.co.uk - wait, it's like two-fifty these days? MY NEST EGG NOOOOOOOOOOOOO)

Downtown Party Network, "Days Like These" (vocal mix) - This happened to be playing on the embedded player on Eskimo's site when I stopped by in search of info on Lindstrom & Prins Thomas' forthcoming album (set to release, incidentally, on May 18th on CD and motherfuckin' QUAD LP; also "Tirsdagjam", the song currently streaming on L&PT's MySpace, will be released as a teaser single on April 13th), and it ended up being more or less the best thing I've heard all week. Mostly, it's just the way it builds; even blasting out of my shitty laptop speakers, the progression's just so inviting and assured that I kept getting more excited by the second. Strong reccomendation for fans of stuff like House of House's "Rushing to Paradise" and Aeroplane's Low Motion Disco remix, although of course this is like three month old now so it's not like I'm bringing the news to anyone here. (Click here to buy the "Days Like These" single from a GEMM merchant; click here to visit DPN's MySpace)

Doves, "City of Rust" (Prins Thomas remix) - Seriously, fuck Doves; that shit is weak, and I say that as someone who once bought a Keane album. The original is, admittedly, probably my favorite song of theirs to date, but Prins Thomas just gets motherfucking stupid all over it, smoothing out the original's awkward urgency into a loping eight-minute tour-de-force; let's just say you won't have trouble recognizing the point at which he decides to bring the original mix back in (more or less). In a perfect world, this would be the all over the radio, possibly even bumping up against Superpitcher's take on that Gotye song from a while back. (The Prins Thomas mix is still currently promo-only, but you can buy one from GEMM if you want.)

Frankie Valli, "The Night" (Pilooski re-edit) - I'm sure Pilooski must be hell of over the whole Frankie Valli thing by now, but dammit how the hell else am I supposed to react when literally every single one of his edits for the dude own so fucking hard? I mean, "The Night" isn't all that different from his thrilling dissections of "Beggin'" and "Who Loves You" in either approach or effect - basically it's Yet Another Vocal-Driven Pilooski Rave-Up - leaving me at something of a loss; it's a little hard to avoid repeating yourself when you're describe songs with fundamentally identical virtues. What can I say? I'm just a sucker for the gimmick - and "The Night" is as flawless an example as I've ever found. At least this is the last time I have to do it (by which of course I actually mean FUCK, THIS IS THE LAST TIME I GET TO DO IT /wrists). (Click here to buy Beggin': The Ultimate Collection from a GEMM merchant)

Real-Time Record Review: Lindstrom & Prins Thomas II

Subquestion: HOW MUCH DOES THE COVER ART OWN?!??!??!?

Lindstrom, "Grand Ideas" (Radio Edit by Prins Thomas) - Once or twice upon a time many moons ago, I hit upon the (completely original) idea to write a running diary for albums as I listened to them for the first time. It worked out pretty well for a while; I really thought the buzz was about to hit critical mass when the Foo Fighters booked me to open for their show at the Gibson Ampitheater, but like so many E! True Hollywood Stories the rock and/or roll lifestyle only ended up driving me to the needle. Consider this, then, to be my coffee-house open-mic-night comeback; I'm just gonna sit here with my acoustic guitar and caterwaul a bunch of couplets rhyming "smack" with "jack" and engaging in heart-stoppingly uncomfortable banter between songs and WAIT COME BACK I PROMISE TO START MAKING SENSE.

Anyway; this album came down a series of tubes a couple of days ago, and since for some inexcusable reason I haven't found the time to to listen to it yet (I choose to blame Waves at Night for coming through with all the goods at once. like, alllllll the goods), here we are. (The "Grand Ideas" remix, of course, has nothing to do with II; maybe this week's theme can be "Awesome-Yet-Tangential-At-Best Hype Machine Bait" [but this edit really is both awesome and a minor pain in the ass to track down, so git].)

1. Cisco

00:00: Since this is obviously going to to take a minute to ramp up, I'd like to start off by apologizing to my vast Scandinavian audience for my mangling of your fine language with these song titles;

00:45ish: WELL, I was wrong; all of a sudden this turned into some lost Fleetwood Mac dub track. It's not a surprising look for them or anything, of course; I'm just impressed by how much quicker they can flip that switch than, like, anyone. Let's all start a rumor that L&PT are producing Lindsay Buckingham's next album and hope it comes true.

03:01: Yeah, not that there should have been any doubt in your minds but I'm sold as shit on this already. I had just turned up my speakers to catch some of the background noodling when in come the big quicksilvery synths. Apparently they made this record to satisfy people whose brains function exactly like mine. I had no idea broke-ass recovering professional scumbags were such an alluring demographic.

05:15: Big weird psychedelic fading-in-and-out going on all over the place. Motherfucking love this so far.

07:00: Wow, that last big gated swell was a tease?!??! They could have gotten like another three minutes out of this motherfucker easily. Not that it sucks in any way as-is or anything, just damn, MOAR PLZ.

2. Rothaus

02:21: Case in point: it took me so long to try and cope w/ the fact that the opener had wrapped up that here we are two and a half minutes into the next song w/o anything needing to be said. To be fair, it's pretty noodly stuff so far; also let's pause to recognize the fact that I'm admitting to the whole internet that it took me three minutes to come up with a MOAR PLZ joke. But where's my parade?

02:44: OH WAIT HERE IT GOES. Okay, this just hit Must Check Out status for anyone who liked the DFA remix of "Rise".

04:20: WOO SMOKE HERB EVERYDAY YEAH WHAT. No, but seriously, this is where the drum fills start to get really tremendous, no mean feat for this song so far. Somewhere in the world, some enterprising young chap or she-chap is blending out of this and into "Get Innocuous" right now. And lo, it was good.

05:58: And there it goes building again. Let's just say that this is clearly one of those records that sounds like it came from a place where the fact that it's colder than a witch's tit for nine months out of the year gives people extra incentive to stay in and get their album just right.

07:29: Love that warm synth pad that just showed up. I believe the term I'm looking for is "Stevie-esque".

08:45: And after all that it just kinda peters out. Then again, after nine solid minutes, where the hell else was there for it to go?

3. For Ett Slikk Og Ingenting

00:30: THEEEEEEEEEE LOOOOOOOOOOVE BOOOOOOOAAAATTTTTTTT...

00:51: The psychedelic overtones of this record are painfully awesome. I absolutely cannot wait to listen to it on headphones.

03:23: There's some odd clicking around here which kind of throws the song off a little; I can't tell whether that's an actual fuckup on their part (unlikely) or due to the arduous en-steal-ulating process this album went through (promo copies apparently went out with the songs divided into 99 fragmentary tracks [so that folks could listen to the CD but have a hard time ripping it, you see]). Guess I'll have to wait until I get the vinyl to find out for sure.

05:47: Okay, congas getting all up in this piece are saving this track's ass from being kinda wanky. Definitely the most jam-oriented of the songs so far, and yet I still want to hear someone throw some Lou Rawls acapellas (god, please let these exist) on top.

08:45: Credit where it's due: the rebellious 80s arcade-game outro is kinda rad in its own right.

4. Rett Pa

00:35: OKAY THIS RULES ALREADY. Lindstrom and Prins Thomas may be better than anyone in the universe at coming up with kick drum sounds; they're just all-consuming and metronomic enough to get even the whitest of honkies up and going. You're just like, "How in the world did they - oh, right. Norway."

02:00: By the way, have I ever mentioned that I missed out on my only chance to see Prins Thomas in LA? Yeah, guess what I'm stewing over right now. (I also missed out on Lindstrom up in San Francisco a few weeks ago; that's of course a pretty formidable commute but LINDSTROM.)

03:39: Yeah, this is building into something motherfucking tremendous. Big-ass drum fills, an utterly beguiling tambourine, and crazy whooshing-ass sound effects all over the place.

05:14: No disrespect to Norway earlier, by the way; I can only dream of living in a place where stuff like this gets played in huge twelve-hour (no joke) blocks. JOAX BRUV.

5. Skal Vi Prove Naa

00:06: And here come the new-age synths. WHOOOO CANNNN SAYYYYYY...

01:00: Uh damn, this just sort of picks right up.

02:24: I'm not going to lie: I'm finding it kind of daunting dealing w/ the lyriclessness of the

05:45: Sorry, I had to set up a job interview for tomorrow. Anyone laying odds of me meeting 2 midgets at 2 interviews within a 1-week span?

06:57: Oh, and this track is kind of pretty good in an utterly-unremarkable-in-the-context-of-this-album kind of way; the most involving aspect of it is just trying to place which massive R&B melody line the book to this song bites (edit: apparently I'm not the only one w/ this problem). "Rothaus" FTW ATM. Y R U MVNG?

08:57: On the other hand, at least this song seems to be wrapping up in a familiar manner; it's pretty great hearing every stem of the song wrapping down one-by-one.

6. Gudene Vet and Snutt

02:35: God, this would be a summertime bar-be-cue anthem if dudes who grilled meat outside could only be convinced to listen to super-hipster disco noodling. I should make a tape of this with a label "Zep Instrumental Takes" and leave it lying around before my neighbors' next cookout.

05:39: Wow, it's going to be pretty interesting to see where this goes; in contrast to "Cisco" this feels pretty thoroughly worked-out by this point.

06:39: Whoa, was that a voice? After like 45 minutes of wordless silence, just the sound of a human voice is almost startling.

07:17: And so it goes all... kind of... acid-y Motown? I'm Ron Burgandy?

07:35: Nope, false alarm; the "Why Can't We Live Together" drums just came in. I suppose that's the "Snutt" part.

7. Note I Love You + 100

00:11: And in contrast to the opener's Fleetwood Mackitude, this one's all Carly Simon'ed up like you wouldn't believe. I ordinarily despise Carly Simon apart from "You're So Vain" but they're actually getting some mileage out of it here.

01:22: Seriously, is there some huge catalogue of vocal or acapella tracks from the seventies floating around somewhere? There's work to be done for enterprising young bootleggers here.

02:55: Uh okay, that part just happened.

03:51: Really liking that heavily-opiated guitar.

06:19: Wow, this song's really going to go all over the place. I mean it's eleven minutes long and everything (and it certainly hasn't gone anywhere bad yet), but it just kinda switches gears on you.

07:33: Oh shit, is this going to be the track on this album that just blows itself up in a blaze of glory? That'd sure be one hell of a trick; this song's been exploring the studio space for so long that I can barely remember how it started. I'm not even sure it's going to come together in some huge ecstatic tida wave or anything; this record's pleasures are very detail-oriented so far. But hey, we've got like four minutes left to find out.

09:25: And there's your answer: YEP.

10:10: Oh man, this is some hardcore chin-stroking wanky nonsense right here. It's also really really really good chin-strokoh I'm done with this joke. Basically this song is good.

11:15: Okay, unless this next track's a biblical Revelation I'm pretty sure we're good here. Holy hell, I cannot WAIT to hear it on headphones.

8. Flue Paa Veggen

01:05: Thirteen minutes? God, why didn't I make myself a sandwich before doing this?

01:54: I went through an abortive Miami soul/disco phase a couple of months back - let's just say that aside from George McCrae and a handful of singles it's more or less been evaluated correctly by history - so it's impossible for me not to hear "Why Can't We Live Together" with every occurrence of this album's synth-drum sound. Still, in the case of this song it's going hella crazy places so far.

03:35: How many producers are there in the world (well, the world of mainstream hipster dance music, anyway) whose longer songs always end up being their best ones? I mean, Lindstrom, Prins Thomas, Todd Terje, the DFA kids, Joakim, Pilooski... anyone? (Villalobos doesn't count; every time I hear "Enfants" I kind of keep waiting for him to pull the needle out of the groove and scream GOTCHA SUCKERS like Eddie Murphy at the end of Bowfinger. Uh, spoiler alert.)

06:03: Crazy panning organ like whoa. I can haz acid tabz?

07:16 Okay, this is definitely THE wanky jam of the album - again, it's saved by the dynamic duo's supernatural faculties with musical texture, but let's call a spade a spade here. It's sort of like if someone took the ideas behind George Harrison's post-Maharishi Beatles songs and turned them into a gentle, meandering thirteen-minute nu-disco epic.

09:50: OKAY THE CHOIR JUST COMPLETELY WON ME OVER. Time to start mixing this with the Flying Picketts' RIGHT NOW.

11:20: Wow, you could actually probably just overlay the entire song here. Oh man this is gonna sound like such ass when I spend like four minutes doing it haphazardly in MixMeister.

12:05: And thankfully it looks like they're letting the choir provide the period at the end of the sentence; we've reached the minute where it's all fading out. Great great great way to wrap it all up.

CONCLUSION
This is what we in the record-listening-to-and-then-verbally-evaluating-on-the-internet biz like to call a damn good little album. Both Where You Go I Go Too and Exodus make it look like a bag of hacky quick-cash-in crap, of course, but let's be reasonable; this is clearly an album which deseres to be picked apart like a loose thread, and I'm probably not doing it justice snarking all over it. I don't want to make it sound like my album of the year or anything (so far, that would either be Junior or Merriweather Post Pavillion - why yes, I am the most predictable man on the planet!); it simply strikes me as a thoroughly decent musical accompaniment to any hour you might be looking to soundtrack. Ask me again in six months once I've listened to it again over headphones a billion times; for an album I like a fair bit already, there's nowhere for it to go but up.

(II is due out on Eskimo Recordings on May 26th; if somebody wants to hook a brother up w/ a preorder link I'll throw it in here. In the meantime, click here to buy Where You Go I Go Too from Amazon.com if you don't have it already. Also, there's an allegedly dynamite extra track from the II sessions on Eskimo's MySpace right now; I haven't heard it because Flash 9 is being a butthead and refuses to load the player no matter how many times I reinstall it, but you should probably check it out if you're so inclined.)

And Now For Something Completely Different

not that this picture has anything to do with the following post either, but COME ON

Michael Jackson, "Don't Stop" (T&T remix) - I'm not even going to pretend like this song has anything to do with the story I'm about to tell; it's a great, subtle, great, respectful, greatgreatgreat update of an obviously classic song which you should be listening to RIGHT NOW (not that anyone with one iota of sense would have expected anything less from Tim Goldsworthy & Tim Sweeney), but I can't even claim to have been listening to it on the way to and from... the story into which I'm about to get. My apologies to the gullible Hype Machinists lured into my web of lies; consider this your penance for not reading the eminently essential Disco Delicious like you should.

ANYWAY. Like many of you, I too am currently frantically scrambling to find employment during this funky buttloving economy. A while back, I thought I'd actually managed to somehow find the last job in Los Angeles working (from home, even!) for these fine folks doing data entry, which would be just about perfect; all I want in this world is a job I can do mindlessly while listening to records without being bothered (preferably from home, too). Unfortunately, they apparently ran ass-out of money the minute I walked out the door, because it's been like three weeks and they're still not putting me on the schedule; I've spent the last few weeks chasing down damn near every data-entry position Craigslist had to offer.

So at some point last week I happen to come across this golden opportunity. And yes, the job market's bad enough in Los Angeles right now that I even gave such a transparently shady an ad the time of day in the first place; after all, even I have enough sense to take qualifications like "must bring your own computer" and "some adult content required" as a big ol' THIS PROBABLY ISN'T ON THE UP-AND-UP signal. But hey, nobody ever got anywhere in life without taking chances, right? I mean, sure that logic's usually best left reserved for buying lotto tickets and asking girls out, but I figured I had an ace up my sleeve: a good feeling about this.

Well, that good feeling led me directly to a suite in a non-descript office building on Wilshire housing the world headquarters of Priapus Investment Fund. (Priapus, of course, was an ancient Roman god of boners; hopefully they at least discussed going with "Priapus Holding Company" instead.) When I ring the bell, the door is opened by the single porn-star-looking-est woman I've ever seen in my decade in Los Angeles; her rack probably made it through the door a good four seconds before the rest of her. She ushers me into a conference room in the back of the office with the other two candidates for the position currently present, a non-descript dude and a yappy young actress, the type who apparently can't let four consecutive seconds pass without saying something self-congratulatory or else this bus will blow up; apparently she's used to "making dollars, not cents (GET IT)" with her acting gig and is currently considering going back to school to learn "directing" because she feels marginalized on set.

After we'd managed to log onto the office's wireless network, Chesty LaRoux shows back up with a few more folks going after the job; we're up to like six or seven in the room by now. At this point, Chesty sets about actually explaining the job: apparently we're competing against each other to see who gets to go to this website (NSFW UNLESS YOUR BOSS LIKES PROSTITUTES), surf to an assigned city, and start copying the vital stats for as many of the... ladies of the evening in that particular city into an Excel sheet as you could manage in an hour. Oh, and apparently there'd only be one position available, not "multiple" as the ad mentioned. Oh, and apparently the pay maxes out at twelve bucks an hour, not "twenty" as per the ad.

And as if all that weren't enough, guess which city I got assigned? That's right - BALTIMORE, the city whose drug problem happens to be so all-consumingly nihilistic that they made a show about it. Believe me, any jokes you might have been dreaming up about me getting paid to lookit them thar nekkid lay-deez will utterly collapse once you start checking out the beauty queens I was dealing with, especially when you take into account that I was attempting to set the world landspeed record for most ho-data aggregated in an hour. Hell, the pictures arguably weren't even the most depressing part - that dubious honor either goes to the chick who's "temporarily dropping her prices due to the economy" (even pussy futures are falling these days!) or the three girls sharing one hotmail address (dig the links out of the Baltimore ho-dex yourself if you want proof; otherwise, take my word) which I presume belongs to their pimp. It all added up to a pretty sobering scene; one middle-aged lady actually had to excuse herself from consideration after about 30 minutes. It was, all in all, most certainly neither my beautiful house nor my beautiful wife.

And then the midget walks in.

That's right: as of March 27th, 2009, I can no longer say I've never competed against a midget for a job. In walks this stubby little Asian dude looking for all the world like Tattoo from Fantasy Island (n.b. that my comparative library of Asian midgets is not huge; this is merely an approximation of his Asian midgitude), and the room goes absolutely silent - no mean feat when we're competing against each other to see who could input the most data. Ms. LaRoux, to her credit, explains the job to him in exactly the same measured, professional tones as she'd done with the rest of us - well, up until the point when the lil' guy not only whips out a mini-laptop, but plugs a mini USB mouse right on in. The lily having clearly been gilded, Chesty beat a hasty retreat from the increasingly Lynchian scene; as he was leaving she couldn't help cooing over how cute all his "little computer things" were, which would be probably be a real ego-boost if you happened to be into girls who give off a big-ass hepatitis vibe.

Anyway, that was pretty much it. I doubt I'll ever hear from these people again, considering that the whole interview process struck me as a really cheap way to get most of their data entry entered for free (there ended up being like 10-12 people at my interview; multiply that by the total number of interviews they mentioned hosting in the Craigslist ad and you're looking at a lot of data being accumulated during the interview process. A ho lot. I... I'm sorry), but whatever; it might well be the craziest interview I've ever been on, and a few years ago I went on a job interview that ended with me being deemed unfit for Scientology. LA, you know? (Click here to buy "Don't Stop" from Phonica; they turn in a great mix of "Superstition" on the flip, too.)

LET US HAVE ANOTHER MIX

oonce oonce oonce oonce

What the hell. I finished this up a couple of days ago and it's good enough to meet myyyyyy high quality-control standards and so, to reiterate, what the hell.

http://www.divshare.com/download/6888740-c6d

(n.b. that you can stream this through DivShare if you don't want to download a 150mb file)

1. Laughing Light of Plenty, "The Rose"

I was a little taken aback to hear a bunch of people delicately asking me if I'd reverbed this track up in the mix when I posted it to the ILX mix competition thread; to my ears, "The Rose" is one of the least-obstreporous nu-disco songs I've ever encountered from start to finish, like an exsquisitely-balanced alchemy of the Steve Miller Band's "Rock 'n Me" and the Talking Heads' "I Zimbra" (well, sorta, anyway). Some day I'll invent that time machine I'm always talking about and take a copy of this record back to 1978. Then you'll all see. (Actual copies of "The Rose" are pretty hard to come by these days; your best bet is either GEMM or the Discogs marketplace.)

2. Chaz Jankel, "Glad to Know You" (Todd Terje re-edit)

Still never heard the original of this (for whatever reasons, Ian Dury & the Blockheads never really took root w/ me), but Todd Terje's gauzy, dreamlike re-interpretation kinda makes me wary of digging any deeper and ruining my currently-immaculate preconceptions about this song. I mean, it's going to be next to impossible for me to not flip out over anything with a piano like that, isn't it? (Your best shot at this song is, again, probably the Discogs marketplace - prices aren't too painful, though.)

3. Sebastian Tellier, "Kilometer" (Aeroplane Italo '84 remix)

Despite the kerfluffle it caused when it leaked (and then subsequently got taken down) a few months back, I'm pretty this is actually my least-favorite Aeroplane remix, mostly because Tellier's original really isn't anything worth speaking about in the first place; I've come to realize that I can pretty comfortably ignore his music completely aside from "La Ritournelle" and Danger's remix of "Divine" and his allegedly-discomforting live shows. Of course, since "the worst Aeroplane remix" is still roughly eleventy billion times better than most everything else out there, it took me about .0000002 seconds to decide on including it, especially when I realized how well it led out of "Glad To Know You", but especially when I realized how well it transitioned into... (The "Kilometer" single is forthcoming on Lucky Number; in the meantime, you can buy digital copies from Nuloop.)

4. Mr. Flagio, "Take A Chance" (extended 12" mix)

I'm pretty sure that either this or Pineapples' "Come On Closer" is my favorite old-school Italo song outright; there's just something about the interplay between chintzy Italo arrangements and bombastically vapid lyrics, I guess. Of course, "Take A Chance" has the added advantage of those disarmingly icy autotuned verses, which are probably my favorite part of the song (especially when the shrieking chorus comes in on the bridge to play counterpoint); I also love how the guitar line just pops up every so often almost as a sop to crusty rock fuxxx who got dragged to the club by their girlfriends. Of course, to focus on that would be to miss the entire point of the song's existence, but hey, that's what crusty rock fuxxx are for, right? ("Take A Chance" came out in 1983 and italo-hoarders have snapped up most of the outlying copies by now so obviously this isn't the easiest record to get ahold of these days; try eBay or GEMM for the least-ridiculous prices.)

5. Grace Jones, "Williams Blood" (Aeroplane Rejected mix)

Have I mentioned that I kinda like Aeroplane yet? With the possible exception of Black Leotard Front's vaporware full-length (le sigh), there's not a record on earth which I'm anticipating more than their debut LP (which is being co-produced by motherfuckin' SOULWAX! EXCLAMATION POINTS, PPLS), mostly because their catalogue of remixes points towards Steven Fasano and Vito de Luca having the most alarmingly complete control over their breakdowns of anyone working in music today. I mean, just get a load of the way they get "Williams Blood" to first pick itself apart and then reconstitute itself as some Jacques-Lu-Cont-in-2004-or-2005 disco monolith - sheeeeit, even the breakdown has a breakdown. Just masterful stuff all around. (Blah blah blah GEMM and Discogs marketplace. Seriously, this came out pretty recently, so if there's a legitimate link to buy this out there somewhere, plz do let yr boy know.)

AND NOW LET'S SHIFT GEARS A LITTLE

6. Who Made Who, "The Plot" (Discodeine remix)

I've posted about Who Made Who in the past, but I don't think I've ever loved them as much as I do on this remix. Discodeine get completely out-of-pocket here, ripping the original track to shreds and then expertly using the violin as thread to stitch it back together into a gloriously messy-sounding sinuous disco burner. It sounds lush and broken at the same time, and that's one hell of a balance to strike. (Click here to buy "The Plot Pt. 2" from a Gomma-sponsored link)

7. Holy Ghost!, "Hold On" (Blackjoy Mazego Groove)

I heard the original version of "Hold On" for the first time in one of Tim Sweeney's Beats in Space podcasts a couple of years ago; I then heard it for the last time once I got my hands on the 12" and discovered that Blackjoy's ecstatically goofy handbellstravaganza on the flip rendered the (quite good) original more or less moot. I mean, the violin stabs and that super-warm Stevie-Wonder-sounding bassline certainly have their charms, but as far as my ears are concerned this track is alllllllllll about the syncopation of the percussion; one's almost half-tempted to mix straight into a David Shire song just to keep it going. (Click here to buy the "Hold On" single direct from the DFA)

8. Empire of the Sun, "Walking on a Dream" (Treasure Fingers remix)

I normally find both Empire of the Sun and Treasure Fingers tiring to the extreme, but this remix right chear pretty much leaves me without anything else to speak about on that subject. I mean, my main complaint about the original of "Walking on a Dream" is that it just sorta seems to meander along until it's done, so here come Treasure Fingers to add in a whole bunch of swooping breakdowns and neat little touches (the bit with the second bridge to the chorus may be my favorite section of this entire mix, no lie); meanwhile, EotS' indomitable pop chops help stave off the usual YES YES YES YOU HAVE MADE A TRACK OF THE HOUSE-MUSIC VARIETY response Treasure Fingers' remixes typically inspire in yr boy. Of course, it's a completely unofficial remix and you'll probably never be able to pay money for it, but oh well. (Click here to buy Empire of the Sun's debut album Walking on a Dream from Amazon)

9. The Supermen Lovers, "Starlight" (Luca Agnelli sax remix)

I yield to nobody when it comes to the subject of gloriously faggy, turn-of-the-millennium vocal-house crossover attempts - seriously, don't even get me started on the virtues of Modjo's "Lady" unless you've got a couple of hours to spare. As such, I'm immensely satisfied with Luca Agnelli's approach to updating it, by which I mean his decision to basically let the track play unmolested and rock the fuck out on his saxomaphone over the top. I've listened to it about a thousand times by now and I'm still not sure how to put into words what it adds to the track; all I can really do is reiterate that I've listened to it about a thousand times by now, and as soon as I finish typing this sentence I'm about to make it a thousand and one. (Click here to buy MP3s of "Starlight" from Amazon MP3)

10. Golden Silvers, "True No. 9 Blues (True Romance)"

During my blog sabbatical (sabblogical?), I stumbled across a copy of the Golden Silvers' "Arrows of Eros" and enjoyed it thoroughly; several months later I stumbled across their second single and figured well that's the end of that. Well, as it turns out, I'm a ridiculous jackass; their full-length album's leaked and holy shit is it ever a winner, like a more-jangly late-period Blur record or words to that effect. "True No. 9 Blues" is currently getting pushed as the LP's lead single, probably because it is AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME; I genuinely loved "Arrows of Eros" (and really ought to get around to uploading the vastly-superior original 7" version one of these days), but this song's light-years more accessible in every way that counts. I also ought to cop to loving the everliving bejesus out of the synth tones on this record, both the gargantuan Remain in Light-era one punctuating the chorus and the tropically warm bassline underpinning the track. Top-shelf stuff, and I'll have a lot more to say about these dudes as soon as I find out which songs from the full-length I'll be able to share. (Click here to preorder "True Romance" from Amazon.co.uk)

11. The Juan Maclean, "Happy House"

Speaking of invitingly warm tones, here's "Happy House", because I presume you're like me and haven't even come close to growing tired of this song yet. And yes, I'm making you sit through the acid-y part at the end too, both because it's awesome and because it leads so well into... (Click here to buy "Happy House" direct from the DFA)

12. Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, "Who Loves You" (Pilooski re-edit)

I've spoken before about how much I love Frankie Valli, but I love him roughly a sesquillion times more whenever Pilooski rips into one of his songs. I mean, I love his take on "Beggin'" as much as anyone else with ears or a soul, but from an objective standpoint surely this is just as good; somehow he manages to both respect the song's original simmering, skittering tension eventually just go "fuck it" and cut loose with something to which the kids might hurl themselves about thither and yon. And plus, the original in this case is GREAT, a claim I'm not necessarily willing to make about "Beggin'". (The best place to find this track is on this compilation, but it's a little difficult to find - try eBay or GEMM)

Sitting Around Collecting Dust

I am fucking clever

Spymob, "2040"

Spymob, "It Gets Me Going"

While we can all agree that time hasn't been too polite to midwestern Generation X power-pop acts (poor, poor Fastball), I'd like to single Spymob out for particular distinction, both because of their off-the-charts coulda-shoulda-woulda factor and because their collective their efforts resulted in at least one very good album (more on this in a minute). They could have easily broken big in the late 90s, back when labels were eagerly hoovering up all the local talent Minnesota had to offer; the only effective difference between Spymob and Semisonic (a band for whom I still unashamedly ride) is that the latter allowed overly-informed dorks to go YUO KNOW THEY USED TO BE TRIP SHAKEASPEAR RIGHT. They really should have broken big after Pharrell Williams somehow heard these guys and hired them to play the "live" instrumentation on the US release of In Search Of... after coming to feel dissatisfied with the UK version's canned, Neptunes-sounding version (and seriously, I'd love to hear the backstory here if only because of the timing - I mean, Pharrell was working on In Search Of... in, what, 2001? 2002? So all that time he's sitting around working on "Grindin" and "Bouncin' Back" and like a thousand other era-definers, he's spending his free time bulldozing through butt-rock demo tapes from the heartland? Did he shed a single tear during The Blueshammer Scene? Was he keeping himself in check while plowing anonymous contemporary groupies by trying to remember the name of every band who'd sent him a shitty cover of "Game of Pricks"? I... I'm sorry.) And they really should have broken big in 2003 back when Pharrell was scrambling to attempt to make a home for Spymob's full-length debut on Star Trak (and the band turned in a lackluster track for the label's compilation Clones, better known today as "Frontin'" And Like A Shit-Ton Of B-Sides). Unfortunately, they never did - label woes kept Sitting Around keeping Score in limbo for almost a year before eventually surfacing on Ruthless Records (...); meanwhile all of their burgeoning momentum was inexplicably sapped by the then-ascendent High Speed Scene, and I think we all remember how well that turned out.

The loss, of course, was entirely ours. If you can ever remember enjoying Spoon's Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga for its studied polish or Fountains of Wayne's debut album for its ecstatic conventionality or - hell - even Maroon fuckin' Five for their 70mm pop chops, you need to do yourself a favor and seek out a copy of Sitting Around Keeping Score as soon as you hit the period that I'm putting right here. "2040" and "It Gets Me Going" are the album's two most immediately engaging songs (and, accordingly, tracks one and two respectively - "It Gets Me Going" was also slated to be the album's big single, for reasons which should become glaringly obvious when you listen to it), but there's rewarding stuff to be found no matter how deep you look - every song is a model of efficient arrangement and deleriously refined pop musicianship (q.v. those backing vocals on "2040"). I mean, even the ballads don't drag. I know, I know - I'm as surprised to hear myself saying it as anyone, but it's true.

Anyway, I had a whole bit about how Sitting Around Keeping Score had become, if not a rare CD, at least a royal pain in the sack to track down; unfortunately for me, I decided to actually do my research this time and discovered that it's actually available on iTunes and I probably didn't have to spend all that time and energy sorting through shiesty eBay resellers and GEMM listings and it would have probably been cheaper once you factor in the shipping costs BUT WHATEVER; Sitting Around Keeping Score is an outrageously gratifying album and I'm as thrilled as an abstract simile for exuberance to have it on my shelves. (also you can probably get it directly from them via their MySpace; I'm not sure since my Flash has decided to act like a shitlord w/ Myspace for the last few months no matter how many times I reinstall it, but it's a fair guess. also hard copies aren't too much used from Amazon resellers.) Just throwing that out there. You'll probably be curious.

Aeroplane, "Whispers"

Aeroplane, "Whispers" (feat. Kathy Diamond) - As a man who owns up to his own prejudices, I will freely admit that my contempt for the Red Hot Chili Peppers' song of the same name kept me from ever investigating Aeroplane before now. (Sadly, this is by no means the stupidest snap judgement to affect even my recent life; it has taken me until the middle of May 2008 to get past my internal talking point that There's A Riot Goin' On sounds "too washed out and hazy", no joke.) To be fair, given the vast preponderance of tedious nu-Balearica to spring up in the wake of Studio and Prins Thomas busting a nut all over last year, I was also looking for a reason to be prejudiced against Aeroplane in the first place; good as the best representatives of that genre may be, the bad stuff doesn't just gaze at its navel, it damn near falls in, and I am of course far far far too busy to ever be bothered with sorting out what's what. Besides, this way gives me yet another opportunity to hate on the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and it is always good and proper to do the Lord's work.

Thankfully, however, Aeroplane have taken it upon themselves to come up with a song so intransigently awesome that not even my ridiculous ass can resist its charms; having discovered "Whispers" during a shuffle-assisted stroll through everything I've culled from other blogs recently, I see absolutely nothing wrong with putting it on the same level as "Happy House" or "No Matter What" or "Young Love" or "Drive My Car", which is a long way of saying that this song is one of the very best things I've heard this whole year. It hits literally exactly the same retro-disco vein Escort's been shirking ever since "A Bright New Life", riddled with sly little drum fills, glistening little synth flourishes, and one BIG MOTHERFUCKING ASS star turn for Kathy Diamond who does a better job of making me like her on this one track than anything from Miss Diamond To You ever managed. She plays so coy and sultry against the relentless gliterball assault of the track itself that I can't imagine anyone but the stuffiest of disco purists ever wanting a dub; the breathy archness of her voice just lends too much to Aeroplane's hired-gun session-musician precision (note: this is in no way a condemnation). In any event, Aeroplane certainly has my full attention now. The Red Hot Chili Peppers can, of course, continue to suck it. (Click here to buy the "Whispers" single from Juno)

But I Was There: The Long Blondes @ the Echo, 6/5/08

<3

The Long Blondes, "The Couples" - By all rights, this should have been the most soul-crushingly depressing show in history. Despite my years of unyieldingly vehement advocacy, the Long Blondes have yet to secure the kind of Stateside profile necessary to warrant a headlining gig at the Troubadour; Indie 103 couldn't even be bothered to show up and park their damn van outside, meaning the Long Blondes have less pull in Los Angeles than the motherfucking Ting Tings. Consequently, the Troubadour was dismally empty - I mean, %60-capacity empty, nobody-in-the-VIP-section empty, easily-find-a-new-spot-if-you-hate-your-neighbors empty. There might have even been more people present for show-opening douchebag-ensemble Castledoor, which is a real shame on account of fuck those guys.

The only thing keeping the show from being an outright disaster, as it turned out, was Kate Jackson's absolute and unchecked delight at playing the Troubadour, and it turned out to be way more than enough, too. It could have been an act, of course; Jackson's blindsiding sexiness (whoever had "158 words in" in the pool, go pick up your check) had the crowd making asses of themselves trying to get her attention from more or less the instant she took the stage, and for once in my bitter, hateful little life even I can't bring myself to make fun of them. (well, except for the guy who yelled out "SHEFFIELD!" - seriously, why do people do this? should Kate Jackson come to your place of employment and start blurting out "THOUSAND OAKS!"? actually, that would be pretty awesome. SHEFFIELD!) Never in my life have I seen a performer do such an effective job of making every girlfriend in the room get hell of uncomfortable simultaneously; I saw like five girls grabbing their guys for dear life within the first three songs, the unspoken message being I am going to cut your nuts off if you call me Kate tonight.

But to be honest, I'm inclined to give Jackson the benefit of the doubt, if only because of how often she kept breaking her own character as the most circuit-fryingly hot indie girl in the universe to completely and totally geek out over her surroundings. In addition to a half-dozen references to the venue during the show, when the band were dragged back out onstage for an encore (presumably the delay was due to Dorian Cox giving the sound guy several dozen strategically-placed cuts - the sound was all over the place during the show, particularly during "Century" where the climactic synth freakout was barely even audible), she shyly told the audience about how she'd been dreaming of playing the Troubadour since she was thirteen, which was awesome. It would certainly explain the stupefying effort she put into singing the everliving hell out of her band's songs, too. You can always tell when someone's really enjoying singing what they're singing - no flubbed notes, no overextensions, inability to keep still while doing it, etc. Well, Jackson was all that and more for an hour straight last night; her only miscue was accidentally going back into the chorus of "Guilt Has Nothing To Do With It" once too many times (a mistake for which she immediately apologized to every member in the band one-by-one - AWWWWWW), and you'll have to forgive me if I have a hard time seeing her fervor to keep singing as anything other than supportive of her enthusiasm.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that her performance of the songs off the new album were remarkable enough to insist upon another shot for the Long Blondes' second album, a record to which I've been despairingly indifferent until hearing Jackson sing some of its songs last night. I have no idea how my favorite band + the coolest producer on the planet + a track record of adjective-defyingly awesome b-sides =/= awesomeness, but that's just how the cookie crumbles sometimes; hell, I'm not crazy about Wilson Pickett In Philadelphia either. Besides, after last night's show I've got no problem placing the blame squarely on Erol Alkan's shoulders; the band absolutely demolished any complaints about the songs not sounding lively or rocking enough for my liking without the benefit of any complex double- or triple-tracking arrangements or manicured synth polish. Instead, what you got was Kate Jackson absolutely belting out everything, and even having seen them last year I still wasn't ready for just how completely Jackson throws herself into the new stuff. My favorite was, as you may have guessed, "The Couples", which sounds awesome live - it's just as wiry and slinky and upbeat as their old stuff, with plenty of opportunities for Jackson to sultrify things as she sees fit - but could have just as easily gone to their set-opening "Here Comes The Serious Bit" or big? single? "Guilt", all of which she just absolutely inhabited like she was afraid of the Sandman Hook.

I realize, of course, that I've fallen into the same trap as every other heterosexual music-show-review-writing-dude on the planet and blathered on about Jackson at the expense of everyone else in the band; I'd even avow that that's an even greater shame than usual given the show that they each put on - Cox snapping at the sound techs one moment and sullenly shaking a banana-shaped maraca on "Too Clever By Half" the next, Emma Chaplin trying to keep him from running up into the booth and choking a bitch, the comedic stylings of Screech Louder (ugh), Reenie Hollis playing the bass with Entwhistlian stoicism... these are all good things, the kind of things that make a good show great, and certainly not the kind of things which any critic worth his salt would bury under an avalanche of starstruck gushing for their more-famous bandmate. I have no defense apart from Jackson's singular ebullience. She was the one who couldn't shut up about the Troubadour, home of the $8.50 seven-and-sevens. She was the one who insisted on engaging the crowd at every turn, even going so far as to invite the audience to stick around for a drink. She was the one telling stories about wanting to sing at the Troubadour since the days when she wanted to fuck Duff McKagan. I mean, there's absolutely such a thing as fawning adulation in this world, but sometimes, fair's just fair. (Click here to buy "Couples" from Amazon.com)

(And an extra-special thanks to whoever's decision it was to play Evie Sands' "A Woman's Work Is Never Done" between the two bands' sets - you blew my fucking MIIIIIIIIIIIND.)

ELSEWHERE
- So in an effort to keep me posting more regularly, I've decided to abandon the old several-mp3s-in-one-post trope; this way (in theory) I don't have to sit around waiting for enough content to justify a post and can just throw shit up as it appears to me. Will this strategy prove successful? WHO KNOWS~

LET'S GET SOME INDIE-ROCK UP IN THIS BITCH

A great band to get drunk to

Air Traffic, "Charlotte" - So I suppose I should disclose this right up front: I accidentally got kinda drunk at the show. You know how sometimes you roll up to the club reasonably late and without any cash, and so you head to the bar and order something, and the bartender makes it right there in front of you and hands it to you and says "six bucks" and so you hand him your credit card and he says "Uh, we have a twenty-dollar minimum for cards here"? And so you think to yourself well fuck it, I can handle four drinks and start plugging away at your chosen task with an eye towards closing out your tab right before Air Traffic go on, and so you start making your way towards the bar when you see a bunch of ostensibly roadie-esque persons taking the stage, figuring that you've missed the opening act and that these people are setting up for the main event? Except then, right as the same goddamned bartender brings you your credit card slip, they introduce themselves as some other traitorous band entirely, and so you look up at the setlist posted over by where they keep the fancy beers and get that sinking feeling when you realize that it's going to be like an hour and fifteen minutes until the headliners go on? And so you think to yourself No! I'm going to be responsible this time and just nurse this last drink until the ice melts, except then the band in question turns out to be one of the most elegantly prototypical example of navel-gazing Silverlakery, the likes of which inspire the kind of howling banshees of ennui in yr boy which can only be effectively drowned by a monsoon of Seagram's 7, and so you're standing there, and you're standing there, and you're standing there, and you're standing there, and you're standing there, and you finished that last drink, and you look at your cell phone, and oh fucking hell there's still like an hour left how have they only played two songs OH FUCK IT.? Yeah, I got that drunk last Saturday night. Hoo boy. I don't even want to think about how much I must have tipped the cab driver; that's going to be a fun little present when my bank statement rolls in.

BUT! All was sort of not lost, because (and I swear this is true) it actually somehow occurred to me to take "notes"! I use quote-marks, of course, because to call the preposterous scribblings I somehow managed to drunkenly eke into a notebook "informative" would be a remarkable feat of liberal interpretation; apparently my shorthand trails off even more precipitously than my speech when I'm annihilated. Funnily enough, however, damn near all of those nigh-unto-illegible scrawlings confirmed my most fervent hopes about the show...sorta; apparently their drums were "relentles" and "banging the shit out of", two eminently reliable indicators that no matter how air-tight and Keane-y a band may threaten to sound on record, their live show proves conclusively that they fucking rock. Better yet, it appears that "lead singer sings REAL good!!!!!!", a fact I can actually remember well enough to corroborate; hearing someone absolutely belt out songs like "Never Even Told Me Her Name" exactly as well as you'd hoped tends to be the kind of thing that sticks in your memory. Besides, thinking back on it now, Chris Wall was more or less born with a voice made for Spaceland; the soundsystem is just deafeningly loud in there, the kind of setup that captures every little ounce of effort you throw into your performance - and make no doubt about it, Wall threw down on stage.

And in that same spirit, I remember "Charlotte", a word pregnant with so much importance that it demanded no less than four attempts to underline it. Can you blame me? The simple fact that "Charlotte" isn't married to a prohibitively-difficult-to-transport musical instrument almost guarantees that it's going to be a more potent weapon in their set, but YIKES was I ever not prepared for it; these kids know how to milk that song for all it's worth, and given the fact that "Charlotte" may be the hookiest confection since Blink 182 got tricked into thinking they meant something, the kids in attendance knew just how to eat it up. Needless to say I've had a hard time keeping "Charlotte" off my iPod lately. "Chasing the dragon", as the kids call it.

I should point out that, as a guest of the band enjoined into reviewing the show, it was probably pretty irresponsible of me to get as truly and completely obliterated as I did; hopefully everyone involved realizes that nobody in their right mind goes to a site called "Green Pea-Ness dot org" expecting anything even approaching responsible journalism (and if that doesn't work, seriously). And it wasn't a total loss; I did come away from the whole sordid affair with conclusive proof that there are at least two ways to enjoy Air Traffic's music: on record (feel free to scale the doses to your tolerance for piano-driven power-pop) and completely and utterly trashed at their concerts. And I unequivocally do not mean that as a pull-quote. (Click here to pre-order Fractured Life from Amazon)

Eagle*Seagull, "Photograph" - While I may have been completely and utterly incapacitated with drink by the time Air Traffic went on, I was most emphatically still among us for openers Eagle*Seagull - and thank God for that, because they ended up impressing the everliving hell out of me. Granted, it was touch and go for a minute there - as long as Conor Oberst continues to draw breath, I pledge to hold every band from Nebraska in the utmost of suspicion - but once they started playing it was over; their set was forty-five minutes of tense, nervy post-Clap Your Hands Say Yeah indie-pop of the finest caliber. Unfortunately, I doubt that it's going to come across too well in this studio recording of "Photograph" from their debut album (at the show, they were selling a new EP [cleverly titled We Hate EPs {BAW HAW HAW HAW GEDDIT}] but since I was cashless at the time and they're only selling it on DRM'd-assed iTunes, I have no way of comparing the two), but hopefully you can at least hear the elements that made their set such a rousing success. At the very least, take notice of that violin - live, the band wisely pushes it right to the front of the mix, putting it to work like New Wave bands used synthesizers. It is AWESOME; it makes the songs practically fling themselves out of the speakers and into your ears, and it really is a shame that the studio doesn't do them any favors - or at least hasn't done them any so far. Check back with in a few years and I doubt I'll be saying the same thing. (Click here to buy I Hate EPs from iTunes - personally, I'm waiting for it to show up on Amazon MP3, but if you can stomach DRM, they're worth checking out nowish.)

White Lies, "Death" (demo) - For a band who only released two singles in their all-too-short lifetime, Fear of Flying certainly managed to inspire a hell of a lot of loyalty in me; when I heard they split up it was all I could do to keep myself from getting a tribute mural spraypainted on the hood of my car (which should indicate just how long ago they apparently split up). Then along comes Derek with a demo of White Lies, the band that rose from Fear of Flying's ashes, and oh my god. This song is absolutely magical; it's like someone toned down every single characteristic of Bloc Party's "I Still Remember" (a song I am only begrudgingly willing to admit to liking, and even then only with the help of the amazing remixes it wrenched out of people) and the result is a modern indie-pop song comprised of seemingly every two-word virtue ever stuffed into an email blast - sweepingly cinematic, compulsively danceable, elegantly structured, all that stuff rolled into one wickedly tense little package. I keep having to remind myself that it's only a demo since all the ideas are so flawlessly realized; I'm honestly a little scared that they're going to fuck it up in the process of perfecting it in the studio. Needless to say, I'll keep you posted on that. (Click here to visit White Lies' MySpace, where you can sign up with the band's mailing list and receive another MP3)

Fyfe Dangerfield, "Well, Love Does Furnish A Life" - You probably don't need to be told that Fyfe Dangerfield's solo works tend to be rather hit-or-miss - I mean, I love the Guillemots more than I'll probably love any of my own children (a fact of which I plan to make my children painfully aware) but even I haven't been able to go all-in on them since the release of Through The Windowpane. Fortunately, Dangerfield's latest project includes this shimmering little slice of heaven, a cover of Larrikin Love's "Well, Love Does Furnish A Life". In the hands of the original band, the song is shall we say somewhat less than a moral imperative, but Dangerfield turns it into one of those records that's so slight and airy that you struggle to distinguish between intentional atmosphere and surface noise. And, like all of Dangerfield's best songs, it is spectacularly pretty, especially on a compositional level (I'm thinking of the melody to all those little flute flutters in particular). God only knows why Dangerfield's been celestially tapped to act as a conduit for overpoweringly beautiful music so frequently, but you sure can't argue with the results - I mean, this song's so pretty that I can't even make fun of how Grey's Anatomy-y it is, and that's not a strawman I pass by idly. (Click here to buy the A Day In The Life EP from Amazon)

ELSEWHERE
- Site feed's finally fixed