2008 is beginning to hit its stride with some big new albums starting to trickle out.
First up is Hot Chip's third album 'Made in the Dark', which sadly i'm struggling to get in to. After the lo-fi delights of 'Coming on Strong' and crowd pleasing anthems of 'The Warning', it doesn't seem to quite hold together as a cohesive album. There are too many meandering ballads, and too few killer choruses.
That's not to say the album's without merit. The opening three tracks are fantastic (though two of them, 'Shake a Fist' and 'Ready for the Floor') will be well familiar. Also, when he gets it right as on 'We're Looking for a lot of love', Alexis can sing a heartwrenching love song like no-one else. 'Hold On' is a great example of Hot Chip's twisted dancefloor pop. But overall, while not 'All Filler, no Killer' as an earlier compilation promised, there just aren't enough hooks to keep me enthralled the whole way through.
I've been much more enamoured by 'Beat Pyramid', the debut album by These New Puritans. In which the youthful Southenders display an obsessive fascination for numbers, colours, scratchy guitars and primal drum rhythms.
For further enlightenment, check the excellent Chris Cunningham-esque video for 'Elvis'.
Best single of the moment for me (apart from Hercules & Love Affair's 'Blind' of course...) is 'Fool for Love' by Das Pop... which I have frequently found myself humming in Sainsburys. They seem to be Belgian buddies of Soulwax, and the single comes backed with an amazing expensive set of remixes by SebastiAn, Aeroplane, Brodinski and Yuksek. But frankly who needs glitches & noise when you've got pop this good? I'm an original man.
Y'all probably know i'm a bit of a Banksy fan, so I was quite excited to see this old video emerge. It's got the man himself talking about his work, and a few pieces I hadn't seen before. The trackside chimp is excellent!
First up check this mindblowing new video by Zongamin. Both music & visuals are too good for words. Future funk.
Watching that video (again) reminded me to check out what those jazz funk kids are up to... and now I wish I hadn't because they've gone and posted this track before me. But what the hell, I guess I can stick it up too.
Apparently Ebony Bones used to 'star' in Channel 5's soap 'Family Affair', though I think you'd be hard pushed to find anyone to verify this claim. I don't think more than 10 people watched it. So this track is clearly influenced by ESG, with its punk funk stylings & cowbells... it's brought up to date though with a growling bassline & a sawing riff that sounds like it's nicked from 'House of Jealous Lovers'.
Her visual style is clearly influenced by MIA as well...her myspace page has completely murdered my prehistoric CPU, but if you go over there you can hear some more future classics such as 'don't fart on my heart'.
A couple of CD gems came through my post box the other day. Firstly an album called 'Discovered', which although ostensibly a collection of tracks sampled by Daft Punk, stands up excellently in its own right, since all the tracks are ace! Any album that includes 'Supernature' by Cerrone can't be all bad!
It's fairly well known, for example, that Edwin Birdsong's 'Cola Bottle Baby' was the source of the sample in 'Harder, Faster, Better, Stronger', but there is plenty contained here that will make you purr with recognition and shuffle with funk fueled satisfaction. Check the following for evidence. The Daft Punk track will be apparent within about 5 seconds, but stay tuned as the remaining 4 minutes 45 seconds are killer.
The same label, Rapster, also brings us an album of Prince cover versions - 'Controversy'. They've certainly assembled an eclectic line-up of artists - including D'Angelo, Peaches & Soulwax - and I know at least some of the tracks have been released before. It's an interesting compilation though, and though some of it is crap, there are some choice moments. I like Stina Nordenstam's haunting version of 'Purple Rain', and The Dynamics' reggae version of 'Girls & Boys'.
The highlight for me though is Kode 9 & Space Ape's heavy dubstep version of 'Sign of the Times'. A pulsing heartbeat and some dub effects are pretty much all that accompanies the familiar words.
I put 'Paris' by Friendly Fires in my christmas compilation the other day, but saw the video at a silly time in the morning at the weekend, and it made the track even better. I've seen them a couple of times recently & I'm starting to believe they're the real deal, and not just a band that struck lucky with one of the best cover versions of all time (Your Love).
You can see them for FREE if you check out the Vice Live Tour, where they're playing with Black Kids and Ipso Facto. You just need to sign up here for free tickets to Bristol, Glasgow, Manchester or The London.
More FREE gigs come in the form of a one-day tour of London by New Young Pony Club.. on 24th January they have the following schedule:
7pm – The Enterprise, 2 Haverstock Hill, NW3 2BL 9.30pm – St Aloysius Social Club, 20 Phoenix Road, NW1 1TA 11.30pm – Cousin Jill’s, 42 Albemarle Street, W1S 4JH
To get tickets send an email to miniclubmantour@gmail.com
For your listening pleasure, could i recommend the Allez Allez mix over at Rayna's Modyfier blog. One of the best mixes i've heard in a long while, and rather puts my effort over there to shame! This is what I should be out chugging to when I bemoaned the lack of disco nights in London.
Can I also recommend, courtesy of Hianta at Fluokids, the Lifelike mix of Cromeo's 'Needy Girl'. It's rather 'large' as the vernacular has it.
I've also been thrilling to the joys of 'Blind' by Hercules & Love Affair. It's yr DFA disco shizzle, but with Antony of Antony & The Johnsons singing even more camply than usual on top. Awesome. I won't put it up, as I got told off by DFA before so don't post their stuff. I'm sure the Hype Machine can help you though.
It's rather to my shame that I haven't as yet mentioned the Kruger Singles Club, for it's a concept that well deserves your support. Now in its 9th installment, each month a different band brings you a free single in MP3 format.
It's no rubbish that will end up clogging your hard drive either. The last 4 months have brought Evils, Klanguage, Holy Hail and Emmy The Great.
The Klanguage single must be the pick so far, with probably their two best tracks. I posted 'All This Time' about a year ago, so here's the other track. You probably know it already, but if not you should. It's the electro pop side project of Yuksek, and has a killer chorus.
The most recent contributors are Evils, a band who i'd not previously heard of, but who i'm certain I will do again. Electro Pop produced by an army of evil robots, who've absorbed the brains of Moroder, Aphex and Charles Manson... and dance round the decaying corpse of human civilisation.
Anyway, do I need to do more of a sales job on this? The tunes are great & it's free. So sign up.
After signing to XL, I expected the Various Productions album "The World is Gone" to make rather more of a splash than it did.... so it seems they've gone back to releasing stupidly limited singles on their own label, which invariably sell out through Boomkat in a matter of minutes.
Whoever Various Productions are (for they remain shrouded in mystery), the music is always both remarkable and surprising. I suppose it has a grounding in dubstep, but you're as likely to get a b-side of 1920's ballroom music, mash-ups or twisted folk as some firing bass heavy drum 'n' bass.
Their latest missive was a monstrous package containing t-shirts, screenprints & a USB stick (along with the obligatory 12"), and included this incredible backing of M.I.A.'s 'Bird Flu' with some heavy VP bass. Next level.
Here's another recent highlight from their catalogue... wherein the bass mechanics create another twisted pop gem. I've posted about Various several times here, but I still can't recommend enough that you immerse yourselves in their music for they're a bit special I reckon.
