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)

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)

So Some Music Happened

more like MADE OF AWESOME

Kate Nash, "We Get On" - It figures; I go and write up a big, relatively-personally-authoritative explication of my favorite stuff from the world o' music this year, and then I go and trip ass backwards over a record which may or may not obliterate the whole thing before it's even off the front page. That's not to say that Kate Nash's Made of Bricks is a sure-fire lock-the-doors end-of-year up-fucker, of course; it is, however, the first album to which the enthusiasm of my response can be characterized as anything other than "clinical" since Sound of Silver suddenly appeared in my iTunes like a bolt out of the blue, and that counts for something. Mind, it does count for less than my overly-excitable prose stylings might lead you to believe; the reason this post is coming like a week late is largely due to half of my brain screaming at the other half to shut up and that we weren't going to be posting about anything until we had relaxed into a calmer, more meditative state and that if we didn't settle down now Dad would turn the car around and then there would be no Six Flags for anyone and it would be ALL MY FAULT. But it certainly counts for enough to have me attacking my lists with a machete; this album is awfully fucking good, and if it's OK by you I do believe I'd like to start talking about it now.

Shockingly (or at least to long-time readers), the ardor I maintain for this album is only marginally motivated by Paul Epworth's production job. That's not to say that Epworth spends Made of Bricks' running time mentally spending his paycheck; Made of Bricks simply isn't his show, arguably in a way which might prove somewhat galling to Epworth loyalists accustomed to the idea of the famed boardsman setting the tone for the record. Here, however, his role seems to be almost one hundred percent functional in nature - it's his job to get the most out of Nash's sonic textures, to smooth out the rough edges around her songs, to basically strip as much of the imposing indie-ness of the Chirpy British Female Singer/Songwriter idiom in which Made of Bricks exists as he possibly can. And it should likewise be pointed out that he does an admirable job in this capacity - Made of Bricks is nothing if not uniformly palatable, way moreso than Pieces of the People We Love (the closest album-length example in which Epworth effectively subsumed his agenda-setting tendencies to keep from distracting from the band's, y'know, music).

Of course, this simply makes Epworth the Peter Asher to Nash's Linda Ronstadt; clearly, this album is made or broken on the audience's ability to process Nash's virtues as a singer/songwriter, and luckily she spends more or less the whole of Made of Bricks making it as simple as possible to do so. I know I lean on this crutch like crazy, but it really is Nash's gift for arrangements in particular which shines through in the grandest fashion; "Foundations", the big #2 smash hit from Made of Bricks about a couple fighting, is relatively straightforward instrumentally and compositionally (not to mention subject-matter-wise), but the sheer effectiveness of Nash's subtle choices to do things like double up on her piano part when things get heated during the second verse or only allowing any flourishes to creep into her playing when her narrator gains some distance from the heat of the moment is more or less a matter of fact - I mean, in terms of a song working, "Foundations" practically cries out to have its distinction fingered.

One could also praise Made of Bricks in an equally fulsome manner simply by restricting one's attention to the lyrics - and for essentially the same reasons, no less. Again, it's not that they're depicting anything revolutionary per se; Made of Bricks is, after all, an album about boyfriends and modern life and basically all the stuff which isn't any more interesting on its own merits when it's showing up on a Lily Allen album. But it's the micro-adornments which give the songs on Made of Bricks their emotive textures - the little details Nash recalls, or the irrepressible character of her wry sense of humor (one ballad rather pointedly punctures its inherent poignancy through self-conscious repetition of the phrase, and I quote, "What ya bein' a dickhead for?"), or even the subtlety of her diction. I'd imagine that word choice was more of a consideration for Nash than the effortless pop constructs which pepper her album might indicate; keep in mind that she's competing against a whole host of Pipettes and Lily Allens and other girls who drop their haitches and say "yeeeeah" in a condescending tone of voice and such. Lord knows it's a suspicion Nash goes out of her way to cultivate; on first listen, Made of Bricks might sound as brassy and cheeky as Alright Still, but closer inspection of the lyrics reveal Nash's nigh-masochistic drive to catalogue - of her own caustic (not underscore NOT charming) behavior, of its motivations, and of its consequences.

But if any element of Made of Bricks can be said to define it, it's probably as simple as the overall performance, as best summed up by "We Get On", a song which combines Nash's musical quaintness with her innate knack for lyrical propriety and then absolutely renders each of them all but inconsequential in the face of the way she delivers them. There are moments of more artful subtlety on Made of Bricks than the one in "We Get On" where the piano crumbles as the narrator sees her object of dreamy abandon making out with some random tramp, just like how there are probably just as many examples of lyrical dexterity as revealing as the one coming when Nash's friends console her with reasons why she shouldn't be so broken up about the sad turn of events. But placing two events with such potential for sturm und drang in such close proximity to each other carries with it a commitment to a pretty dizzying performance, and that's exactly where Nash grabs a hammer and outright nails it; in the space of like thirty seconds, the emotional climate in which Nash's narrator exists goes from one of violent loss to one of spitting hostility to, at last, an honest one of shell-shocked misery. The best part is that you can get every speck of that simply by listening to Nash's delivery - it would of course be more respectful of the artist to sit there and pore through her rather amazing choices in revelatory details (seriously, that narrator's nameless friends are exsquisitely sketched in both their pettiness and their ineffectiveness), but the sheer valence of her tone of voice really ought to be enough to clue you into the fact that the girl at the center of this story just got hurt - bad. And the really crazy thing is that that little passage represents - at most - like, a fifth of all of the raw emotional data Nash offers up for her listeners to parse; I could have just as easily written this whole paragraph about the offhanded way in which she describes how and why she doesn't sit around imagining little romantic scenarios , or that bit where she finds herself momentarily racked with self-loathing after a plan to bump into her adored goes horribly (and literally) wrong. Or or or or or. Made of Bricks certainly spoils you with choices.

But is that enough to earn it the status of best album of the year? The copout answer is, of course, that I don't know; we've still got four months in which Delia & Gavin might show up out of nowhere with a copy of the mythical Black Leotard Front album in hand, and I am known for nothing if not my proclivity against gesturing emptily. I do admit that everything I love about Made of Bricks is wildly personal in nature, and that the instant Nash's music relinquishes its death-grip on my auditory perceptive organs my ardor may decrease substantially, and that the other instant when I come to terms with the vapidity of all the talking points about this album which I haven't brought up yet (what, didja think I wouldn't be interested in hearing how Paul Epworth goes about defining his second pop idiom inside of four years?) said ardor is likely to vanish completely. I accept all of these things and more. All that matters right now is that (a) Made of Bricks is awesome and (b) I can't stop listening to it, and, as mentioned way up top, that really does count for more than you might think. (Click here to buy Made of Bricks from Amazon.co.uk)

The Shocking Pinks, "I Want U Back" - One of these days, I do in fact aim to write a record review which doesn't hinge on like five or six major factual fallacies; if I'm lucky, it might even appear in print, so I can point to one example of my non-dumbassitude which even faulty server upkeep can't take away from me. I can tell you that the review I wrote of the Shocking Pinks' self-titled compilation of early works forthcoming on DFA sure hinged on a big one, namely that the Pinks actually re-recorded the tracks with their new disco overloards when, in actuality, the DFA's role in crafting the Pinks' sound extended no further than simple mastering duties (although their end product is like twice as loud as the originals, so clearly they did SOMEthing). Luckily, the DFA's participation was in no way the thrust of my argument for why people should check Shocking Pinks out; the closest I came was in asserting that people with an interest in the evolving DFA aesthetic really do owe it to themselves to check this record out, because it's quite a stylistic depature for the label seemingly as a whole, and that's a fact that remains true no matter how much of a hand Those Crazy Kids had in the actual sonic architecture on display throughout the album. I mean, parts of Shocking Pinks sounds downright radio-ready, and not simply due to contrast; its best songs are holistic pleasures, effortless in form and function - not more-or-less effective distillations of the grandeur easily attainable in other songs on the record (yes, I am That Guy for whom "Daft Punk Is Playing At My House" did very little in the long-run). But don't be fooled: Shocking Pinks is every bit as exploratory a work as the DFA have ever put out - it's just that the musical aspect it explores most effectively (the three-minute balls-out guitar-driven radio single) runs so counterintuitive to the DFA's seemingly-immutable gravitation towards expanse rather than economy that it kinda leaves you scratching your head at first. Granted, it's somewhat less clear on "I Want U Back" than on other singles on Shocking Pinks (especially "Emily", a veritable orgy of New Order-y pleasures - apparently, it's set to be the Pinks' next single, and with GOOD MEASURE), but "I Want U Back" is the one cleared by the label for distribution, so it's what you get. Besides, all the efforts devoted to structuring still shine through despite all the layers of noise; this is, after all, quite possibly the first song in DFA history to feature the "Be My Baby" beat (or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof). And anyway, I'd say there's a greater chance of the best stuff on Shocking Pinks making its way to your ears without my guidance than on any other DFA-released record to date. I mean, with some of these songs, it's really just a matter of time. (Click here to pre-order Shocking Pinks from Amazon)

Pacific!, "Break Your Social System" - And just to bring things full circle, my introduction to the Moshi Moshi Singles Club came courtesy of (Chekhov's gun alert! Chekhov's gun alert!) Kate Nash's "Caroline's A Victim", a song so thoroughly devoid of gratification on the part of the listener as to have even remained more or less untouched during the ongoing Kate Nash renaissance; needless to say, my inclination to inspect Pacific! further had little if anything to do with allegiance to the label. Luckily for me, my lack of commercial radicalism ended up paying off once again; "Break Your Social System" is an outstanding summer single, burnished to the same taut pop shine most commonly encountered in the works of Phoenix (albeit with more of a mannered, gestural rigidity to it - one cannot under any circumstances shortchange the influence of Krautrock on Pacific!'s style). And as it turns out, the rest of their catalogue is more or less just as good - I chose "Break Your Social System" due to the incandescent ease of the chorus and the way the different vocal parts just sorta idly lap up against each other, but really, these guys haven't put out a bad track yet, and those are strong words considering that a full two-fifths of their released recorded material consists of instrumentals. I can see an album's worth of songs as good as "Social System" holding me utterly in its thrall for a good long while - although I guess the trick is to come up with an album's worth of songs which are all that good. I sure hope Pacific! manages to pull it off; after this single, their future efforts can certainly count on my attention. (Click here to buy the "Break Your Social System" 7" from Rough Trade, or visit the band's MySpace for iTunes links)