Let's break out the booze

Seeing as my record bag is getting increasingly filled with disco nuggets, here's some new shit i've been getting down to....

I hadn't heard of the Bear Funk label until I ended up on their email promo list... but it seems they've been doing the Scandinavian disco thing since 2003, with a little help from the likes of Lindstrom, Prins Thomas, Todd Terje & the Idjut Boys. Latest single is from The Diaphanoids, and sounds like the theme to Tomorrow's World 2012.



THE DIAPHANOIDS - WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT WITH US EARTHLINGS

If you like what you hear, check out the forthcoming double mix CD 'Rools for Rules'. The sleeve is a little shonky, but the music is delicious.




Another Scandinavian label i've recently discovered is Prins Thomas' 'Full Pupp'... itself some kind of offshoot of Bear Funk / Bear Entertainment. I'm loving the new single by Blackbelt Andersen, a chugging number with a deep acid line running through it. Kind of reminiscent of Laurent Garnier's 'Acid Eiffel'. Synths, bongos, 303's. What more does man need? A Prins Thomas remix?

BLACKBELT ANDERSEN - SIRUP


On a slightly harder note, the new album by Zombie Zombie has got people talking. The album opener gives a taste of what to expect.. disco-tinged krautrock rhythms with horror soundtrack sound effects & reverberating strings creating an overriding feeling of suspense.



ZOMBIE ZOMBIE - DRIVING THIS ROAD UNTIL DEATH SETS YOU FREE


Without knowing anything about the fella, this CD was probably the least promising that arrived through the door last week...



I just had a vague sensation that Kid Creole & the Coconuts dressed funny & weren't very good. But flipping it over I noticed it was on the Strut label (now home to the Disco not Disco series amongst other great compilations), and thought i'd give it a blast. Well the first few tracks left me rather uninspired, but suddenly on track 4 my ears pricked up with a deranged polka (?) beat and the line 'I remember when I was a little girl, my mother set the house on fire. She was like that'. The rest of the track is compelling stuff... something you can imagine Edith Piaf producing while stumbling home from Studio 54.

CRISTINA - IS THAT ALL THERE IS?

I was then delighted to hear a couple of tracks later the original version of something that i've been frequently playing from the Betty Botox 'G4 Faggot' LP.

The original suffers slightly after becoming familiar with Optimo's magnificent re-edit, but is still undeniably brilliant nonsense. Just give it a listen......

DON ARMANDO'S SECOND AVENUE RHUMBA BAND - I'M AN INDIAN TOO

There's plenty more to enjoy on the album as well.... and it's a nice accompaniment to the 'Compass Point' compilation that Strut have also just released. Perhaps i'll post some tracks from that next time....?

My Density Has Brought Me To You

Being a huge Super Furry Animals fan, i'm always interested in what Gryff Rhys is up to.... and a new concept album about John DeLorean was always going to be right up my street!



It's a collaboration with Boom Bip under the name Neon Neon, and also features the talents of Spank Rock among others.

Such an icon of the 80s was always going to inspire some synth pop, and top track 'I Lust You' is the result. It sounds rather like Erasure might had they smoked a lot of skunk rather than sniffed a lot of Amyl.

NEON NEON - I LUST YOU

Neon Neon are playing live as part of a rather impressive line-up at Fabric on Thursday...




Unsurprisingly (given the name), Isosceles pursue a rather angular sound. I nearly overlooked this, their second single, as I found the A-Side 'Kitch Bitch' a little terrible. The b-side 'Watertight' is far more interesting though... a disco bassline, cowbells, strange noises and a catchy chorus. Job done!



ISOSCELES - WATERTIGHT


Moshi Moshi's latest singles club release shows their eye for talent is still strong. Dels is a rapper from London whose beats are provided by Joe from Hot Chip. There's definitely a bit of a Roots Manuva influence there, though the excellent b-side 'Myself Malfunction' seems to have been inspired by Hadouken! One to watch I think..



DELS - LAZY


You'll also find this on the new Moshi Moshi Singles Club album - a compilation of the first 14 7" record. There's some great stuff here including classic singles by Friendly Fires & Late of the Pier, as well as Kate Nash's debut (if that rocks your boat).



One treat i'd missed is this single by Lykke Li, a beautifully wonky pop song from Sweden.

LYKKE LI - LITTLE BIT

Like everything on Moshi Moshi, the album is well worth picking up. It also seems that an accompanying b-sides album is available on the cover of this month's Artrocker magazine. Anyone know where I can get a copy?


Oh, nearly forgot, i'm Djing in Brixton on Saturday night. Should be a good night I reckon... come & say hello!

No Bjorn & No Benny

I DJj'd at a wedding last night, so i spent most of the week listening to Dolly Parton, The Prodigy & Black Sabbath in preparation! I did manage to check out some new stuff as well though, so it won't be a third tuneless post of the week!

First up is this excellent remix of Joanna Newsom by Pocketknife... now I must admit I don't know the original, so I don't know if he's done anything other than slap a beat behind it, but all I do know is that is sounds fine, and the backbeat seems to enhance rather than smother the wonderful vocal.

JOANNA NEWSOM - THE BOOK OF RIGHT ON (POCKETKNIFE'S SCOWLING OWL REMIX)

Another presumably illigitimate remix is this version of Jackson & His Computer Band's 'Arpeggio' by Luck on Strike which adds nitro, fuel injection & twin turbo burning rubber to the original. I can still handle some noisy electro so long as it's as crazy as this.....!



LUCK ON STRIKE vs JACKSON & HIS COMPUTER BAND - ARPEGGIO

Speaking of which, here's the new Justice video - showing off even more of So Me's design skills...



More Frenchies rocking this electro thing are The Shoes, whose debut boxing obsessed single 'Knockout' is out now. Improving the original are 80Kidz, who shape the '1,2,3,4,5' chorus into something that Justice themselves would be rather pleased with.



THE SHOES - KNOCKOUT (80Kidz REMIX)

I talked about Holy Fuck's amazing self titled album a while back, and now a single, 'Lovely Allen' has appeared laden with remixes. Well, by 'laden' I mean three. Pick of the bunch is Minotaur Shock's version, which enhances the childlike psychedelia of the original and spins it off into new & unexpected directions before ending up locked into a brilliant cosmic disco groove.

HOLY FUCK - LOVELY ALLEN (MINOTAUR SHOCK REMIX)


Lastly for today I hugely enjoyed the freaky dancing going on in this Buraka Som Sistema clip. It's a banging track that features MIA & lots of painful looking dance moves! The chair drop is a particular favourite of mine. Try it out at your next Barbeque.

Tonight

If you're in town, come on down...

A Week of my Life has Vanished

Hmm, well i'm back from holiday now, but on my return Outlook crashed while downloading the 1000 emails I had waiting for me. And now they're all gone for good.

So if you've emailed me since last Sunday it would be great if you could resend it.

This does not apply to emails informing me of what's going on at SXSW, messages telling me that some whiny indie band is doing an American tour, and certainly not the mountains of muso-spam that constantly assault my inbox.

A Shoddy Post With Some Good Tunes

I've been trying all week to post here, but now the week's over, i'm going snowboarding in the morning, and no new post has appeared. Gah! So i can't leave you with nothing new, which means it's time to just stick some tracks up in a short sharp fashion. I have to get up in 6 hours & I haven't exactly finished packing yet.

I think this is probably my first taste of what's known as bassline house. I don't know that for a fact, and in fact I thought that was a Northern thing & he's from New York. But anyway, I do know that I like it. The bass is fat and the house is strong. More information on DJ Dstar can be found here.

KEYSHIA COLE - SHOULDA LET YOU GO (DJ DSTAR'S BASSLINE MIX)

Also amazing is the new Zongamin remix of Munk on Gomma. Zongamin, Munk, Gomma? Well you're not gonna go far wrong there are you. Zongamin, that Japanese genius, attaches his future/past sounds to Munk's electro tinged hip-hop. The results are successful.

MUNK - MEIN SCHATZI (ZONGAMIN'S BONUS BEATS)

I like We Smoke Fags. They make a proper tuneful racket. I posted 'Eastenders' a long time ago. It's great. This is new. It's also great. Smokin' in fact.

WE SMOKE FAGS - LUST PUPPET

I don't know much about Get Cape! Wear Cape! Fly!, but I believe he's quite successful. I don't know anything at all about The Shoes, but he / she / they have remixed GCWCF and it sound good. It's a gently danceable little number, with some sounds that 6 months ago in the summer of noise would have been overdriven to fuck, but which now seem a little more subtly crafted.

GET CAPE WEAR CAPE FLY - WAITING FOR THE MONSTER TO DROWN (THE SHOES REMIX)


Right that's it. I'm off




Hopefully when i'm back i'll FINALLY tart the blog up a bit & start getting some more interesting stuff up. Thanks for sticking with me in the meanwhile! Until then...