I went to see Hot Chip at the Electric Ballroom in Camden last week, where they were due to preview a loada new stuff from their forthcoming album 'Made in the Dark'.
To be honest, first impressions weren't quite as dazzling as hearing tracks from 'The Warning' for the first time. I'd heard a few new tracks the last couple of times I saw them, which sounded like the foundations to an astounding album... unfortunately except for a great tune about wresting, which had Joe reeling off a list of moves and Alexis singing 'Let's Wrestle, Let's Wrestle', I didn't hear too much that I could imagine being fixed to the stereo for long.
I'm not abandoning hope.... the new songs might need some listening..... but my excitement has waned a little.
Despite my misgivings about the album, the first 200 into the gig were given a nifty free 7" single, and both tracks are brilliant. Woo! As one of the lucky few I can give you a blast of some new Hot Chip tunes!
I have no idea whether these will be on the album or not, but they're both pretty fine. 'So Deep' is some deep (well of course!) squelchy funk, while 'With Each New Day' has Alexis coming on strong with a cut that could have graced, er, Coming on Strong.
Word on the streets is that the new Mystery Jets album is pretty good, produced as it is by Erol Alkan. The first taster from it is this track, 'Flakes'. I'm hoping it will be accompanied by a video of the band eating chocolate suggestively. THE MYSTERY JETS - FLAKES
Here's a nice video teaser as well.
They're playing live at the Bloomsbury Ballroom on Saturday. Looks a cracking lineup....
A message in my inbox from the D*I*R*T*Y Soundsystem always makes me dance a little jig, and invariably sends me straight to the blog to upload another MP3. Discodeine is Pilooski and Benjamin Morando. This is the b-side, and although the groove is a little more druggy than usual, it contains just that little bit of magic that elevates it way above the tedious shite I hear more often than not when I go out. The first mindbending sound is the single note that lodges in the back of your brain, before the track turns into something like what a rave in a souk would sound like. DISCODEINE - RING MODULATION
IF you can find the Dirty Edits Vol. 1 CD anywhere, don't hesitate in snapping it up. It's the business. Ah look, they still just about have it at Rough Trade. You won't be disappointed, trust.
Some more quality disco for you... firstly from the amazing new record on I Get Rvng. Following Betty Botox and Mock & Toof come 4 special edits by the curators of the Lovefingers blog (a new discovery for me, and definitely one for the favourites..).
Now I was just about to post up the best track, Zoysia, only to find that the nu-look brothers from another planet at xxjfg have stuck it up already... their postman must be faster than mine.
But not to worry as there is plenty more hottness on the twelve. Dropping the bpms on Side 2 is Bermuda, which chugs along nicely cruise ship fashion, until a wave breaks & we're suddenly in a 70's speedboat chase. Wide trousers, tight shirts, lovingly manicured face furniture... and Daft Punk standing on the shore playing slap bass. Hawaii 9-0-9.
As usual this is a very limited 12", and comes with a fresh screenprinted sleeve.
There are a few familiar tracks on here, but I don't think this one's been released apart from their myspace page. Especially on headphones it's been blowing me away. Epic analog synths build, taking Ida No's amazing vocal away to another place entirely. Really, it's hard to believe they are from this world.
Buy the CD from Troubleman Unlimited. No really, DO.
One from the past that i've been loving recently is this slice of classic Moroder. I've had this on vinyl for a while without realising it... and also without realising that last year's brilliant Justus Kohncke mix of Lo-Fi Fnk was basically lifted from this. It seems that the world is only now catching up with Giorgio's genius. Basically.... he succeeds.
It might seem it's all disco round here, but other stuff is reaching my ears! Actually I meant to post this ages ago, but it's only since popping up on itunes after Lovefinger that I remembered!
It's probably a bit late for me to give it any useful props, since it came out way back in August. However it's a cracking little tune, and definitely deserves a mention!
The Loyal Trooper is Andy Walker from Sheffield... here bemoaning his mates leaving for the bright lights of London & turning into twats. It's mainly brilliant because it has loads of spoken word stuff in it, and in 95% of cases having a bit of a chat on the record makes it reet good.
I saw some of The Teenagers' set at the Vice party last night, and was once again struck by how disappointing they are live. I'd really come round to them after 'Homecoming' has spent the last 6 months growing ever larger on me... but i've not been impressed by them live at all the 2 times i've seen 'em.
Fortunately they manage to sound really good on record though, and their new single 'Starlett Johanssen' is no doubt causing hysteria in the heads of overly stylish people everywhere.
There are remixes of course, of which i'm particularly keen on this one by Blamma! Blamma! - who you may remember from their ace Maximo Park mix I posted here. Fortunately they've moved away from the kind of blog house sound trap that they were in danger of falling into... and have come up with something really interesting. The sounds are familiar, but it never seems like a gratuitously 'banging' track.
I have a pair of tickets to give away to the Modular party at Turnmills next weekend. Plus a couple of goodie bags for runners up. Just email me at the usual address (to your right) and let me know the names of three muscles. Not being a muscular sort myself I'm looking forward to being educated. Make them up if you're not sure... I won't know any better.
I've been particularly slack at updating the site recently, and thought i'd both explain why & get a little plug in!
I left my job a while back and after spending a short time looking for something else, I decided to take the bull by the horns & get involved in what (apart from music) i've been really passionate about for the last few years - street art.
I've accumulated a pretty huge collection of prints & originals, and the first stage is sadly to sell some of this. My website is up & running now, on which you'll find quite a lot of work by the likes of Banksy, Faile, Bast, Antony Micallef, Space Invader & Insect.
Some of it's pretty expensive unfortunately, but there's quite a bit of cheaper stuff as well, and i'm also doing 15% off for the first week (or more if you ask nicely!).
Anyway, dealing in secondary market art isn't really what I want to do, but I need to get some money in to finance what the site is set up for - selling affordable art by some fantastic new artists.
I've already produced my first run of prints, and the second will be ready very soon... i'm just waiting for the web gurus to work their magic before I can actually start selling them.
Here's a sneak preview of both though (with just a snippet of the full image):
There are a lot of sites selling this kind of art at the moment, but most don't seem to be able to see any further than Shoreditch! I've been pretty much scouring the globe, and the first two artists are from Italy & New York - with more to come (if all goes well) from France & Slovakia.
Anyway, the prints are going to be both affordable, awesome and very limited... so sign up to my mailing list & i'll be able to keep you informed about when they're going on sale.
Sorry for the sales pitch, and i'll be back very soon with some new music!
Rocking Headphonesex Towers this week has been the simply amazing new Burial album, 'Untrue'.
Although firmly rooted in the shuddering bassbins of dubstep, the album seems more built towards replicating the sounds of a London sunrise - the awakening of nature, distant music drifting past, the crackling of electricity as the city wakes up.... wandering around feeling slightly disconnected from it all whether you're on your way home from the night before, or setting off for your morning paper. There's also emotional washes of electronic chords the match of any classic of electronic or ambient music.
And there are songs. Vocals. But of a ghostly quality. There is no way that someone could perform these without being shrouded in darkness. 'Performing' these tracks just wouldn't seem right. They belong to the breeze.
Burial seems to transcent 'ordinary' music to such an extent that it's hard to pick tracks to post with it... but we shall try.
Bochum Welt has been releasing beautiful music on Aphex's Rephlex label for many years, and it seems a double CD retrospective is due.
Heralding this has been a limited 10" backed with a mix by one of the legends of electronic music - Heinrich Mueller.
Heinrich has been released music under a multitude of aliases over the years, but should be best known for being one half of the incredible Drexciya (along with the sadly deceased James Stinson); and also for being Dopplereffekt - a group that basically mastered the stripped down & sleazy electro sound. The Gesamtkunstwerk compilation is essential listening.
In this mix, Heinrich seems to have fused some elements of both Dopplereffekt and Drexciya into a spacious but precise electro jam. Not a lot happens, but God the sounds are nice.
I was in Rough Trade the other day for a book signing, and had my eye caught by a 7" box set called 'Hordes of Canada' - featuring as it does a Crystal Castles track (though not a new one). Much as I love a good 7", a five 7" box set is a bit of an unwieldy format, and frankly i'm not surprised it's not taken off!
It does look very cool indeed though.
So after 10 trips between my chair & the record player, I can report that "The Bleeding Edge of the Canadian Art Rock Scene" is borderline haemophiliac.
OK, well maybe you won't end up with blood all over your face, but there's some damn good tracks on it. Particularly these two.
Montreal's We Are Wolves create a heavy maelstrom of moog & bass, before unleashing all with some life-affirming lupine roars. Punk rock.
Even more brilliant are Duchess Says... who have basically recreated Primal Scream's (incredible) 'Swastika Eyes', but with handclaps, whoop whooping & girls screaming. Hot as magma, but better for your ears.
Finally it appears, as correctly pointed by 'Tom' in the comments, that the Chemical Brothers vs Primal Scream bootleg 12" I posted was indeed a bad bootleg version. Of the bootleg. However now I have the correct and original version, as produced by The Chemical Brothers themselves. It's much better, not only due to the production quality, but also due to Denise Johnson once more getting high till the day she dies. I am now having the correct flashbacks!
So for once I can say not to buy the record, but to get jiggy with this MP3 instead. This is probably some kind of world exclusive or something.
Were one to gather together 2007's best remixers for a single, you couldn't do much worse than selecting South Central, Ashley Beedle and Emperor Machine. Well these three Dons in fact come together on a new single by Lalula... the joy of which has been slightly tempered for me after just discovering through google that this is being released on the back of a Bacardi advert.
Anyway, without the knowledge that i'll soon have to listen to this while staring at Vinnie Jones crushing limes, it's a pretty crazy track. Like a funked up Whitey fronted by a chanting Japanese girl.
All the mixes are very good, but i'm enjoying Ashley Beedle's the most... following up his brilliantly nimble reworking of The Black Ghosts a few months ago. Anyway, this comes on like an old-style Basement Jaxx carnival tune. Something like a housed up 'Knights of the Jaguar'. I'm not saying it's as good as that (what is?!), but it should make you shake your tailfeathers. LALULA - SUPA BAJO (ASHLEY BEEDLE REMIX)
I've had this next one a while, but was a little put off by the frankly awful sleeve. Which doesn't help as a deciding factor for a song that is a little bit difficult to decide whether it's genius or annoying.
So at the risk of doing a Mika and embarassing myself enormously i'm plumping on the side of genius for now. It's inventive and interesting... and very reminiscent of Guillemots playing the theme tune to some black & white chritmas film (the strings sound very familiar). In fact I was surprised to discover that they're from New York, since this sounds pretty English to my ears. They're now signed to XL & being played on Radio 1, so perhaps this will make the charts... VAMPIRE WEEKEND - MANSARD ROOF
This next one reminds me a little of Vampire Weekend, and not just because it comes in a terrible sleeve. It's some interesting indie music, with a real theatrical flourish. A great tune that never sticks to the expected path.... and never uses a guitar when a fisher price accordian will do
Though sounding like a cacophonous rabble, FrYars is in fact just one man. Though he hangs around with the likes of Cajun Dance Party and Clor, and seems to have absorbed some of their ways with a chorus. This one is very memorable. FRYARS - THE IDES
On Thursday i'll probably pop along to 'East London is a Vampire', which is this month being headlined by Cut Off Your Hands. Following Flight of the Conchords & Crowded House straight outta Auckland, they seem to come from a long line of Buzzcocks inspired power pop bands. Whether they have the tunes to make them stand out remains to be seen, but this is quite enjoyable
First up the return of Serge Santiago's Arcobaleno label.... the unlikely star of a double page feature in last weekend's Observer Woman magazine!
So the A-side of this is a new track by Kenny Hawkes and David Parr... which is no 2 minute punk song itself. But on the flip Serge Santiago stretches it out into one of his trademark disco odysseys. It has something of the Carl Craig about it, with complex drum patterns, rumblings of bass threatening on the horizon, and finally some killer chords are briefly relased into the mix.
Did I mention Carl Craig? Look, i'll stop writing about him when he stops being such a genius. His latest killer remix is of Tony Allen's afrobeat jam 'Kilode'.
It's quite reminiscent of Cesaria Evora (Angola)... half the track featuring some funky drumming & African chanting, before unleashing a phat bassline halfway through. The bassline has the effortless simplicity of some classic early house music and should get them dancing in the aisles.
So I hope i'm not a slave to fashions, but as you can probably tell I really am loving the dark disco right now. Exhibit B is from a new single on Prestel Records by the Cobra Dukes. The single contains an Optimo mix, which is what drew my attention, but my groove is being got on by this pretty simple sounding 'Aeroplane Dub' mix.
Finally if you're drifting into disco dreamland, here's something a bit noisier - a remix of The Whip's 'Trash' by Cassette Jam...resident Djs at Ibiza Rocks
You'll find this on Southern Fried records sometime in 2008. It's appealingly filthy sounding. If you like that kinda thing.
