The Lord Works Through My Postman

Can't I do one simple GIS for "postman" without being bombarded with mail-on-mail action?

All things considered, I had a pretty good week last week. My boss gave me a raise out of the blue; it won't be enough to keep me working at that soul-killing death factory one second longer than I have to, but hey, free money. datA and the bafflingly-named MY!GAY!HUSBAND rocked shit at IHEARTCOMIX Saturday night, despite datA being hampered by some truly disheartening tech diffs (bass cutting out right when he's dropping into his remix of "Minuit Jacuzzi"? BOOOOOOOO). Above all else, however, the mailman handed me a package full of singles from Rough Trade that I'd been waiting on for months. This particular order was notable for being unusually chock-full of twelve-inches; I usually stay away from them since I have to save SOME money SOMEtime I guess, but over the last few months a few just proved too tempting to pass up. And thank god for that, because lord almighty did I turn up some gold. Let's recap.

Findo Gask, "Va-Va-Va" - There are few things on this world or off it which I treasure quite so much as a pop song which makes me say - out loud, in my empty apartment - "what in the FUCK?!", and it's been an awfully long time since a song's made me say it quite so loud as this one. I mean, it took me three test runs before I felt confident that I was playing it at the right speed, and even then it wasn't until the second track before I completely stopped worrying. Can you blame me? Songs don't usually come galloping out like this, throwing apparently tangential hooks around like that cat lady on the Simpsons; it could have been a 78 for all I knew.

And then KABLOW comes the chorus, and when I say KABLOW I say it after having spent five minutes carefully choosing the bluntest, most juvenile way to represent the rapturous stupidity this chorus is going to evoke in you. This is a heart-stopper, folks - when the backing melodies erupt and all those inexplicable little through-lines come together, the effect is flat-out transportative; you only wish all songs had a part like that. It's like Johnny Boy's "You Are The Generation" only turned on its head - same sense of the climactic moment, same supernatural ability to deliver, only instead of trafficking in the inarguably unobjectionable signifiers of Phil Spector, Findo Gask choose to go upside your head with searing little No Wave flourishes and jerky rhythms before plugging directly into your vein. The best part, I might add, is that in the process of getting through the meat in order to get to the pudding, you start to develop a real jones for the meat itself; there's some real intricate work being done here which takes some time to reveal itself, even after y0u've come to terms with the fact that a song with parts like that can actually come together like that and be that good. I mean, I guess; I've had this record for about three days and I'm still having trouble coping with the fact that it actually exists. (Click here to buy the "Va-Va-Va" 12" from Rough Trade. It should be noted that the other two songs really aren't anything like "Va-Va-Va" - they're good, but the A2 is some weird little lo-fi experimental thing while the B-side is an extremely pretty little song which stretches to like seven minutes thanks to a four-minute M83-ish outro. They're both good songs which recommend the band quite highly, but do be prepared to feel like you've bought "Trains To Brazil" all over again. Also, note that there's a really kickass "disco mix" available on the label's website - and that the label in question is an Optimo side project. God DAMN this turned out to be a long parenthetical.)

Filthy Dukes, "This Rhythm" - I'm honestly not sure quite where to shelve the Filthy Dukes in my mind; their body of work is both relatively small and all over the map in terms of methodology. Don't get me wrong - it's all pretty solid (particularly their mixes for Trabant and the Maccabees), but it's like trying to find a general classification for Soulwax' remixes before BOSH BOSH BOSH took over (note: in no way is this a dis on BOSH BOSH BOSH).

Sadly, "This Rhythm" does little to make things any clearer; it is simply so good as to force the issue, because if they're going to be turning out songs this amazing we need to know which pile to put them on top of (SORRY). "This Rhythm" is totally unlike anything they've ever done before - it wrecks your shit gracefully, elegantly, like a beefed-up Pet Shop Boys song, as effective an 80s 12-inch extended-dance-mix pastiche as we've seen since the rise of Richard X. I'd even go so far as to say that I like the vocoder on here alone more than I like any evocation of any stupid 80s touchstone on Sebastian Tellier's Sexuality - to my ears, it sounds like it completely and justifiably works even in a non "LOL, VOCODER" sense. (Also, let's give it up for the little run Samuel Dust's currently enjoying - in addition to providing vocals here, he's also better known as LA Priest and lead vocalist for Late Of The Pier. God, to think - I actually picked the Video Nasties to be the big band out of that scene. Why does anyone listen to me ever?) (Click here to buy the "This Rhythm" single from Rough Trade)

Martin Solveig, "C'est La Vie" (The Bloody Beetroots remix) - Technically this is a Beatport exclusive download-only EP rather than an actual 12", so you'll just have to allow me a little thematic leeway to discuss my new favorite thing from the Bloody Beetroots ever GOD PEOPLE WHY DON'T YOU GET OFF MY ASSSSSS. The Beetroots have been on my radar since that remix of "Miscommunication" last year, but I've never heard them release a song like this before; there's just something about the way that bassline seethes back and forth that almost seems to overcrowd the track - almost. And god, does it make the track move; it practically seesaws back and forth uncontrollably until, almost out of nowhere, these perfect little melodic footholds appear out of nowhere to allow you to regain your footing. The cool thing is how it all seems to work in negative space; it sounds like the Beetroots are pulling the sounds out of a vacuum, and that the track we get is just a recording of their struggles against the void. Compelling shit, just utterly and all-consumingly compelling; I cannot WAIT until they make it to LA next month. (Click here to buy the "C'est La Vie" EP - which has plenty of other kickass remixes, including a MURDERER from Goose - from Beatport)

The Real Ones, "Outlaw" (Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve Re-Animation) - The Real Ones' original version of "Outlaw" is yet another one of my favorite songs of the year, and I was inordinately disappointed to discover that I'd have to keep hitting up their MySpace to hear it since it didn't make it onto the 12" - that is, of course, until the Beyond the Wizard's Sleeve version rendered it all but inconsequential. My favorite BtWS remixes are the ones where they simply pick up where the original artists left off - the prime example up to now being their epic take on Midlake's "Roscoe" where they fabricate three more minutes in which to soak up that song's overwhelming prettiness out of whole cloth - so, as you can imagine, I was TOTALLY STOKED BRAH to hear them doing exactly that to "Outlaw": giving all the Indian instrumentation free reign to run around justifying itself, adding layers of synth distortion just to momentarily throw the listener (although I say this as someone who counts "Platitudes" among his favorite Long Blondes songs), and above all else, teasing that piano with the same devastating efficacy as every girl I've ever dated. I mean wow do they bring that shit in well; now when I listen to the original I catch myself wishing they'd do it with Messrs. Alkan and Norris's seemingly reflexive grace. As far as I'm concerned, this is the official version of the song. (Click here to buy the "Outlaw" 12" - which also contains one of the most relentlessly hypnotic Prins Thomas mixes I've ever heard - from Rough Trade)

ELSEWHERE
- THIS

YEP

And there was much rejoicing

It's difficult to know where to start with the events which led up to what can only be defined as the single most explosively joyous musical event I can remember in a good long while. I doubt, for instance, if I would have enjoyed it as much if I'd gone to Coachella as I'd planned, or if I hadn't found myself peeking out at the daylight from the other side of my first involvement with the law, or if my 2007 hadn't been tinted with interminable girl drama in roughly the same way that 12 Black Paintings are tinted with the color black, or or or. It's also possible, of course, that Monday night was simply an example of the truth to power inherent in Occam's Razor, and Justice simply really are that awesome.

Monday night was just one of those nights when the man upstairs decides to let you taste what it's like to get what you want. I'd been praying all week that the aforementioned character in the aforementioned flyer meant I'd finally get a chance to see Justice after like six months of people screaming and yelling about how the exasperating thoroughness with which they (or, rather, Xavier) rock a motherfucking party; turns out not only Ed Banger come complete and correct, but they brought their buddy Jesse from MSTRKRFT to boot; it also turned out that Guns 'N Bombs and Blake Miller and like everyone else who did so much as draw a breath on stage are just retardedly fun DJs, the likes of which you just don't get to see around LA all that much. Needless to say, the night would have been an unqualified success even if Justice decided to take the night off after (I hear) rocking the bejeezus out of Coachella; instead they decided to raze the dancefloor to the ground and salt the earth to make sure nobody else could lay claim to the crowd in attendance again for a motherfucking minute.

By now, of course, if you've ever read anyone write anything about Justice DJing anywhere ever, you know precisely what to expect from a description of their act: Gaspard making murderously sly asides to the crowd, Xavier's unassuming ninja-assassin nature behind the decks, indelibly cheeky song choices (guess what? French folx know how to use "Da Funk" to even greater effect than non-French folx!), "We Are Your Friends" catapulting literally every person on the dancefloor several feet off the ground (although segueing into the synth line from "Call Me Al" was a particularly inspired touch if I do say so myself), etc. Of course, I walked into the Ex_Plx (ugh, PICK ONE BETTER NAME FOR ONE CLUB, LOS ANGELES) feeling eminantly well-schooled on the subject and still got flattened by the steamroller they were driving; part of me wants to reach through the internet and grab you by the ears and be all OH MY GOD THERE'S THIS SONG ABOUT NEVER BEING ALONE AGAIN even though you all probably copped it off of Matthew Perpetua three years ago just like me. They are absolutely as good as advertised, if not better, which is pretty insane considering the hype.

But taking a step back, their awesomeness was almost incidental to the night - well, okay, that's not even close to true, but there is a bigger picture which probably ought to engender that creeping, venomous jealousy everyone with a blog hopes to inspire in their readers, namely that it wasn't just Justice onstage - it was damn near everybody involved with Ed Banger, tagging on and off the decks whenever they felt like spelling themselves, jumping on the mic to howl along with the hooks, feeding off each others' energy - to say nothing of the crowd's, which could have powererd a small- to mid-sized metropolis by night's endd - like you wouldn't believe. I've spent this space before talking about how when you get down to brass tacks, I really just want to hear music that sounds like whoever put it together had a fuckload of fun doing it; well, by that criteria the Ed Banger crew put on literally the ideal show for me to see, even if it only involved them standing around on stage watching Xavier ignore the no-smoking rules and beat the crowd half to death (HAVE I MENTIONED THAT HE'S PRETTY GOOD AT DJING). By the time I left, there were probably close to thirty people onstage; everyone who'd gone on first just kept wandering up either to marvel at the sight of a completely unhinged Ed Banger happening in the middle of actually happening or to look out from their vantage point at that rarest of sights: a crowd full of Los Angeles hipsters coming absolutely, resolutely, irreparably unglued. Which reason got them onstage didn't even matter; they just kept staying and getting more and more into it, to the point where Steve Aoki - Steve Aoki - was leaping around like an insane person, throwing shirts into the crowd and pumping his fist and generally acting in a manner most unbefitting a DJ responsible for literally hundreds of peoples' appearances on Blue States Lose.

The Ex_Plx (again, ugh) has a couple of columns dividing the front part of the room in front of the stage from the back part with the big bar and the seats and the etc; maneuvering through them on my way out the door, I noticed that the back part, comprising nearly two-thirds of the space in the club, was relatively sparsely populated and disarmingly blase. Had I not just born witness to inarguably the single most inspiring musical performance since Daft Punk at Coachella the year before - and keep in mind that this includes at the very least one hell of a show by the Knife - I would have undoubtedly be in jail right now for murdering every single person too cool for the front of that room; sometimes you see people wasting opportunities and you just want to start stab them until the voices in your head tell you to stop. By now, of course, I'm far more sanguine about things; I realize that these poor deluded retarded idiots were only cheating themselves, because an opportunity to take part in a shared paroxysm of unbridled exuberance like that doesn't come around more than a couple of times per life. Forget all the stuff about seeing them in a tiny little club or completely free from pressures surrounding their appearance or whatever: those ridiculous assfaces cheated themselves right out of a chance to watch the coolest cool-kids on the planet kick back and take pleasure in their ability to do things their way, even six thousand miles away from their home turf. Hopefully the world affords them a chance to correct their error; even if they're too cool to take advantage, I most emphatically and certainly am not.

So yeah, that was pretty fun.

The Moths, "Games" - I will completely admit to being a mark of the most shameful caliber for whoever writes the ad copy for Rough Trade; they seem to have hired the most expert safecracker on the planet when it comes to convincing me to spend money on a few specific varieties of modern British indie rock. I really don't know why I give them so much power - lord knows I've got my share of unbelievably shitty records collecting dust on my shelves right now which wouldn't be there but for Rough Trade's enthusiastic endorsement - but man, if we're going to be speaking on the subject of Things Paying Off in general this post, they're practically the alpha and omega. The Moths, for instance, saw some enterprisingly exploitative shop clerk tag their debut single "Moths" see fit simply to describe their particular brand of, quote, "electro-punk", endquote, as being appreciably possessing of, quote, "corking tunes", by which point the record was already in my cart and the matter had become a non-issue. Luckily for me, whoever that dude (or vagina-having-dude) was, they sure got it right; "Games" is a motherfucking monster of a debut single, the kind of song which almost makes one thankful for the Killers' existance if only due to the bright light their continued success shines on the viability of synthpop mixed with loudness. That's not to say the Killers sound anything like the Moths or vice versa; the Moths seem to be making absolutely no effort to earn the right to their rock-and-or-roll signifiers, instead choosing to brashly assume that they've got the right to use disarmingly simple, obliviatingly unoriginal (seriously, does anyone on earth still consider a chorus like "ALLJUSTAGAMEINMYHEAD!" to be untrodden ground?) musical strategies like weapons, which works out pretty well in the end since the song they made out of 'em fucking ROCKS. This is urgently reccomended stuff for anyone who enjoyed the Video Nasties or the Klaxons; one can never have too much Loud or Fun in one's life. (Click here to buy the "Games" EP from Rough Trade)

Deaf Stereo, "Youth In Movement" - While I'm speaking of "well-trod ground", here's this. Sometimes I get kinda antsy about describing music as being old hat, mostly because the music I'm describing as such simply has the misfortune of falling under one of the squillion musical idia over which I obsessed; I wholeheartedly support the right of the member of any band described thusly to get as butthurt over the effects of my experience as a consumer, and ask merely that they remember that they're most assuredly getting laid off their music more than I am from saying "Eh" at it. Besides, sometimes it's the familiar path which etc etc temple of knowledge etc etc downward-facing dog etc etc and then the baby looked at me; Deaf Stereo's "Youth In Movement", for instance, is steeped in familiar and not-entirely-welcome signifiers (Interpol, the Automatic, Kaiser Chiefs, basically everything mentioned even in passing in 24 Hour Party People) , and yet I keep catching myself playing it every few days if just to bask in their enthusiasm for the formula. It's one thing, after all, when a band goes through rote gestures of successful songwriting like the ones on display in "Youth In Movement" just because they don't want to wear a tie to work, but it's something else entirely when there's such a tangible level of commitment to the song itself as you get on a track like this - as catchy as the chorus is - and on the surface alone, we're already at catastrophic levels of catchiness - the thing that makes it stick in my head is the way every single guy in the band seems to be howling along in the background at the top of their lungs, like they're all trying to prove that they really would in fact appreciate seeing the youth in movement. I can only hope that when the time comes for them to make something more professional-sounding, they don't give the studio wizards a free hand to make something else out of their energy other than what's already there; one would be tempted to describe it as "more than enough" if such a category for describing musical energy existed. (Click here to buy the "Youth In Movement" single from Rough Trade)

Universal Robot Band, "Dance And Shake Your Tamborine" (JD Twitch Blame It On Vic Funk edit) - A bit of a left turn from the joyously aggro tone of everything else mentioned in this post, yes, but given the sheer amount of playtime I've found myself devoting to this magnificent remix courtesy of JD Twitch (i.e. That Dude Who Refuses To Come To Los Angeles, Presumably Due To Lingering Beef With Suge Knight). Anyone who's read this blog for more than a minute knows full well that a song only needs to posess so much inherent warmth before I can't keep myself from running off to the internet and stealing it for everyone; please believe me when I say that this is VERY VERY VERY VERY MUCH one of those songs, to the point where even the obvious zeal behind whichever member of the Universal Robot Band was responsible for that zig-zagging synth which intermittantly goes gently slashing through the track kinda stands out for sounding hands-off by comparison, which is fucking nuts. My favorite Optimo-related track is/was/forever will be Twitch's remix of Richie Havens' "Going Back To My Roots", but this isn't far off, and it's not of a particularly dissimilar character; those of you with a weakness for euphorically luxuriant disco music are urged to click the download link immediately and start clearing room in your schedules. Do it now before the song does it for you. (I cannot for the life of me find anyone selling this record, but please visit the Optimo website and start clicking on shit if you want more music like this.)

Elsewhere:

- THREE NEW GEO METROS!